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THE
WAYERLEY NOYELS,
BY
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
COMPLETE
IN TWELVE VOLUMES.
PRINTED'tam fte ltatnest obglil Htians,
EMBRACING
THE AUTHOR'S LAST CORRECTIONS, PREFACES, AND NOTES.
VOL. V.
THE MONASTERY-THE ABBOT.
PHILADELPHIA:
J B. BLIPPINCOTT & CO.
18 56.








THE MIONASTE  Y
(3)








THE M ONASTERY.
INTRODUCTION - (1830.)
IT would be difficult to assign any good reason why the author of Ivanhoe, after using, in that work, all the art he possessed to remove the personages, action, and manners of the tale, to a distance from his own country,
should choose for the scene of his next attempt the celebrated ruins of
Melrose, in the immediate neighbourhood of his own residence. But the
reason, or caprice, which dictated his change of system, has entirely escaped
his recollection, nor is it worth while to attempt recalling what must be a
matter of very little consequence.
The general plan of the story was, to conjoin two characters in that
bustling and contentious age, who, thrown into situations which gave them
different views on the subject of the Reformation, should, with the same
sincerity and purity of intention, dedicate themselves, the one to the support of the sinking fabric of the Catholic Church, the other to the establishnent of the Reformed doctrines. It was supposed that some interesting
subjects for narrative might be derived from opposing two such enthusiasts
to each other in the path of life, and contrasting the real worth of both
with their passions and prejudices. The localities of Melrose suited well
the scenery of the proposed story; the ruins themselves form a splendid
theatie for any tragic incident which might be brought forward; joined to
the vicinity of the fine river, with all its tributary streams, flowing through
a country which has been the scene of so much fierce fighting, and is rich
with so many recollections of former times, and lying almost under the
immediate eye of the author, by whom they were to be used in composition.
The situation possessed farther recommendations. On the opposite bank
of the Tweed might be seen the remains of ancient enclosures, surrounded
by sycamores and ash-trees of considerable size. These had once formed
the crofts or arable ground of a village, now reduced to a single hut, the
abode of a fisherman, who also manages a ferry. The cottages, even the
church which once existed there, have sunk into vestiges hardly to be traced
without visiting the spot, the inhabitants having gradually withdrawn to
the more prosperous town of Galashiels, which has risen into consideration,
within two miles of their neighbourhood. Superstitious eld, however, has
tenanted the deserted groves with aerial beings, to supply the want of the
mortal tenants who have deserted it. The ruined and abandoned churchyard of Boldside has been long believed to be haunted by the Fairies, and
the deep broad current of the Tweed, wheeling in moonlight round the
foot of the steep bank, with the number of trees originally planted for
shelter round the fields of the cottagers, but now presenting the effect of
scattered and detached groves, fill up the idea which one would form in
imagination for a scene that Oberon and Queen Mab might love to revel in.
A2                          (5)




6                     WAVERLEY NOVELS.
There are evenings when the spectator might believe, with Father Chaucer,
that the
Queen of Faerv,
With harp, and pipe, and symphony,
Were dwelling in the place.
Another, and even a more familiar refuge of the elfin race, (if tradition
is to be trusted,) is the glen of the river, or rather brook, named the Allen,
which falls into the Tweed from  the northward, about a quarter of a mile
above the present bridge.  As the streamlet finds its way behind Lord
Sommerville's hunting-seat, called the Pavilion, its valley has been popularly termed the Fairy Dean, or rather the Nameless Dean, because of the
supposed ill luck attached by the popular faith of ancient times, to any one
who might name or allude to the race, whom our fathers distinguished as
the Good Neighbours, and the Highlanders called Daoine Shie, or Men of
Peace; rather by way of compliment, than on account of any particular
idea of friendship or pacific relation which either Highlander or Borderer
entertained towards the irritable beings whom they thus distinguished, or
supposed them to bear to humanity.*
In evidence of the actual operations of the fairy people even at this time,
little pieces of calcareous matter are found in the glen after a flood, which'
either the labours of those tiny artists, or the eddies of the brook among
the stones, have formed into a fantastic resemblance of cups, saucers,
basins, and the like, in which children who gather them pretend to discern
fairy utensils.
Besides these circumstances of romantic locality, mea paupera regna (as
Captain Dalgetty denominates his territory of Drumthwacket) are bounded
by a small but deep lake, from which eyes that yet look on the light are
said to have seen the waterbull ascend, and shake the hills with his roar.
Indeed, the country around Melrose, if possessing less of romantic beauty
than some other scenes in Scotland, is connected with so many associations
of a fanciful nature, in which the imagination takes delight, as might well
induce one even less attached to the spot than the author, to accommodate,
after a general manner, the imaginary scenes he was framing to the localities to which he was partial. But it would be a misapprehension to suppose, that, because Melrose may in general pass for Kennaquhair, or because it agrees with scenes of the. Monastery in the circumstances of the
drawbridge, the milldam, and other points of resemblance, that therefore
an accurate or perfect local similitude is to be found in all the particulars
of the picture. It was not the purpose of the author to-present a landscape
copied from nature, but a piece of composition, in which a real scene, with
which he is familiar, had afforded him some leading outlines. Thus the
resemblance of the imaginary Glendearg with the real vale of the Allen, is
far from  being minute, nor did the author aim at identifying them.  This
must appear plain to all who know the actual character of the Glen of
Allen, and have taken the trouble to read the account of the imaginary
Glendearg.  The stream in the latter case is described as wandering down
a romantic little valley, shifting itself, after the fashion of such a brook,
from one side to the other, as it can most easily find its passage, and touching nothing in its progress that gives token of cultivation.  It rises near a
solitary tower, the abode of a supposed church vassal, and the scene of
several incidents in the Romance.
The real Allen, on the contrary, after traversing the romantic ravine
called the Nameless Dean, thrown off from side to side alternately, like a
billiard ball repelled by the sides of the table on which it has been played,
and in that part of its course resembling the stream which pours down
Glendearg, may be traced upwards into a more open country, where the
banks retreat farther from each other, and the vale exhibits a good deal of
* See Rob. Roy, Note, p. 202.




INTRODUCTION TO THE MONASTERr.    7
dry ground, which has not been neglected by the active cultivators of the
district. It arrives, too, at a sort of termination, striking in itself, but
totally irreconcilable with the narrative of the Romance. Instead of a single
peel-house, or border tower of defence, such as Dame Glendinning is supposed to have inhabited, the head of the Allen, about five miles above its
junction with the Tweed, shows three ruins of Border houses, belonging to
different proprietors, and each, from the desire of. mutual support so natural
to troublesome times, situated at the extremity of the property of which it
is the principal messuage. One of these is the ruinous mansion-house of
Hillslap, formerly the property of the Cairncrosses, and now of Mr. Innes
of Stow; a second the tower of Colmslie, an ancient inheritance of the
Borthwick family, as is testified by their crest, the Goat's Head, which exists
on the ruin;* a third, the house of Langshaw, also ruinous, but near which
the proprietor, Mr. Baillie of Jerviswood and Mellerstain, has built a small
shooting box.
All these ruins, so strangely huddled together in a very solitary spot, have
recollections and traditions of their own, but none of them bear the most
distant resemblance to the descriptions in the Romance of the Monastery;
and as the author could hardly have erred so grossly regarding a spot within
a morning's ride of his own house, the inference is, that no resemblance
was intended.  Hillslap is remembered by the humours of the last inhabitants, two or three elderly ladies, of the class of Miss Raynalds, in the Old
Manor House, though less important by birth and fortune.  Colrslie is
commemorated in song:Colmslie stands on Colmslie hill,
The water it flows round Colmslie mill;
The mill and the kiln gang bonnily,
And it's up with the whippers of Colmslie.
Langshaw, although larger than the other mansions assembled at the head
of the supposed Glendearg, has nothing about it more remarkable than the
inscription of the present proprietor over his shooting lodge —Utinam hanc
etiam viris impleam  anicis- a modest wish, which I know  no one more
capable of attaining upon an extended scale, than the gentleman who has
expressed it upon a limited one.
Having thus shown that I could say something of these desolated towers,
which the desire of social intercourse, or the facility of mutual defence,
had drawn together at the head of this Glen, I need not add any farther
reason to show, that there is no resemblance between them  and the solitary
habitation  of Dame Elspeth  Glendinning.  Beyond  these dwellings are
some remains of natural wood, and a considerable portion of morass and
bog; but I would not advise any who may be curious in localities, to spend
time in looking for the fountain and holly-tree of the White Lady.
While I am on the subject I may add, that Captain Clutterbuck, the imaginary editor of the Monastery, has no real prototype in the village of Melrose or neighbourhood, that ever I saw  or heard of.  To give some individuality to this personage, he is described as a character.which sometimes
occurs in actual society -a person who, having spent his life within the
necessary duties of a technical profession, from which he has been at length
emancipated, finds himself without any occupation whatever, and is apt to
become the prey of ennui, until he discerns some petty subject of investigation commensurate to his talents, the study of which gives him employment
* It appears that Sir Walter Scott's memory was not quite accurate on these points. John Borthwick, Esq.,
in a note to the publisher, (June 14, 1843,) savs that Colislie belonged to Mr. Innes of Stow, while Hillsilp
forms part of the estate of Crookston. He adds -"In proof that the tower of Hillslap, which I have taken
measures to preserve from injury, was chiefly in his head, as the tower of Glendearg, when writing the Monastery, I may mention that, on one of the occasions when I had the honour of being a visiter at Abbotsford,
the stables then being full, I sent a pony to be put up at our tenant's at Hillslap: -' Well,' said Sir Walter,'if you do that, you must trust for its not being lifted before to-morrow, to the protection of Halbert Glendinning against Christie of the Clintshill.' At page 58, vol. iii., the first edition, the'winding stair' which the
monk ascended is described. The winding stone stair is still to be seen in Hillslap, but not in either of the
other two towers." It is, however, probable, from the Goat's-Head crest on Colnislie, that that tower aso
lad- been of old a possession of the Borthwicks.




8                     WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
in solitude; while the conscious possession of information peculiar to himself, adds to his consequence in society. I have often observed, that the
lighter and trivial branches of antiquarian study are singularly useful in
relieving vacuity of such a kind, and have known them  serve many a Captain Clutterbuck to retreat upon; I was therefore a good deal surprised,
when I found the antiquarian Captain identified with a neighbour and friend
of my own, who could never have been confounded with him by any one
who had read the book, and seen the party alluded to. This erroneous
identification occurs in a work entitled, "Illustrations of the Author of
Waverley, being Notices and Anecdotes of real Characters, Scenes, and
Incidents, supposed to be described in his works, by Robert Chambers."
This work was, of course, liable to many errors, as any one of the kind
must be, whatever may be the ingenuity of the author, which takes the task
cf explaining what can be only known to another person.  Mistakes of
place or inanimate things referred to, are of very little moment; but the
ingenious author ought to have been more cautious of' attaching real names
to fictitious characters. I think it is in the Spectator we read of a rustic
wag, who, in a copy of " The Whole Duty of Man," wrote opposite to every
vice the name of some individual in the neighbourhood, and thus converted
that excellent work into a libel on a whole parish.
The scenery being thus ready at the author's hand, the reminiscences of
the country were equally favourable. In a land where the horses remained
almost constantly saddled, and the sword seldom quitted the warrior's side
-where war was the natural and constant state of the inhabitants, and
peace only existed in the shape of brief and feverish truces-there could be
no want of the means to complicate and extricate the incidents of his narrative at pleasure. There was a disadvantage, notwithstanding, in treading
this Border district, for it had been already ransacked by the author himself, as well as others; and unless presented under a new light, was likely
to afford ground to the objection of Crambe bis cocta.
To attain the indispensable quality of novelty, something, it was thought,
might be gained by contrasting the character of the vassals of the church
with those of the dependants of the lay barons, by whom they were sur
rounded. But much advantage could not be derived from  this. There
were, indeed, differences betwixt the two classes, but, like tribes in the
mineral and vegetable world, which, resembling each other to common eyes,
can be sufficiently well discriminated by naturalists, they were yet too similar, upon the whole, to be placed in marked contrast with each other.
Machinery remained - the introduction of the supernatural and marvellous; the resort of distressed authors since the days of Horace, but whose
privileges as a sanctuary have been disputed in the present age, and wellnigh exploded. The popular belief no longer allows the possibility of existence to the race of mysterious beings which hovered betwixt this world and
that which is invisible.  The fairies have abandoned their moonlight turf;
the witch no longer holds her black orgies in the hemlock dell; and
Even the last lingerinlg phantom of the brain,
The churchyard ghost, is now at rest again.
From the discredit attached to the vulgar and more common modes in
which the Scottish superstition displays itself, the author was induced to
have recourse to the beautiful, though almost forgotten, theory of astral
spirits, or creatures of the elements, surpassing human beings in knowledge
and power, but inferior to them, as being subject, after a certain space of
years, to a death which is to them annihilation, as they have no share in
the promise made to the sons of Adam. These spirits are supposed to be
of four distinct kinds, as the elements from which they have their origin,
and are known, to those who have studied the cabalistical philosophy, by
the names of Sylphs, Gnomes, Salamanders, and Naiads, as they belong to
the elements of Air, Earth, Fire, or Water. The general reader will find




INTRODUCTION TO TIHE MONASTERY.                               9
an entertaining account of these elementary spirits in the French book
entitled, " Entretiens de Compte du Gabalis."  The ingenious Compte de la
Motte Fouqu6 composed, in German, one of the most successful productions
of his fertile brain, where a beautiful and even afflicting effect is produced
by the introduction of a water-nyniph, who loses the privilege of immortality
by consenting to become accessible to human feelings, and uniting her lot
with that of a mortal, who treats her with ingratitude.
In imitation of an example so successful, the White Lady of Avenel was
introduced into the following sheets. She is represented as connected with
the family of Avenel by one of those mystic ties, which, in ancient times,
were supposed to exist, in certain circumstances, between the creatures of
the elements and the children of men. Such instances of mysterious union
are recognized in Ireland, in the real Milesian families, who are possessed
of a Banshie; and they are known among the traditions of the IHighlands,
which, in many cases, attached an immortal being or spirit to the service
of particular families or tribes. These demons, if they are to be called so,
announced good or evil fortune to the families connected with them; and
though some only condescended to meddle with matters of importance,
others, like the May Mollach, or Maid of the IIairy Arms, condescended
to mingle in ordinary sports, and even to direct the Chief how to play at
draughts.
There was, therefore, no great violence in supposing such a being as this
to have existed, while the elementary spirits were believed in; but it was
more difficult to describe or imagine its attributes and principles of action.
Shakspeare, the first of authorities in such a case, has painted Ariel, that
beautiful creature of his fancy, as only approaching so near to humanity as
to know the nature of that sympathy which the creatures of clay felt for
each other, as we learn from  the expression-" Mine would, if I were
human."   The inferences from  this are singular, but seem  capable of
regular deduction. A being, however superior to man in length of life-in
power over the elements-in certain perceptions respecting the present, the
past, and the future, yet still incapable of human passions, of sentiments
of moral good and evil, of meriting future rewards or punishments, belongs
rather to the class of animals, than of human creatures, and must therefore
be presumed to act more from temporary benevolence or caprice, than from
anything approaching to feeling or reasoning.  Such a being's superiority
in power can only be compared to that of the elephant or lion, who are
greater in strength than man, though inferior in the scale of creation. The
partialities which we suppose such spirits to entertain must be like those of
the dog; their sudden starts of passion, or the indulgence of a frolic, or
mischief, may be compared to those of the numerous varieties of the cat.
All these propensities are, however, controlled by the laws which render the
elementary race subordinate to the command of man-liable to be subjected
by his science, (so the sect of Gnostics believed, and on this turned the
losicrucian philosophy,) or to be overpowered by his superior courage and
daring, when it set their illusions at defiance.
It is with reference to this idea of the supposed spirits of the elements,
that the White Lady of Avenel is represented as acting a varying, capricious, and inconsistent part in the pages assigned to her in the narrative;
manifesting interest and attachment to the family with whom her destinies
are associated, but evincing whim, and even a species of malevolence, towards other mortals, as the Sacristan, and the Border robber, whose incorrect life subjected them to receive petty mortifications at her hand. The
White Lady is scarcely supposed, however, to have possessed either the
power or the inclination to do more than inflict terror or create embarrassment, and is also subjected by those mortals, who, by virtuous resolution,
and mental energy, could assert superiority over her. In these particulars
she seems to constitute a being of a middle class, between the es pit folle




10                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
who places its pleasure in misleading and tormenting mortals, and tho
benevolent Fairy of the East, who uniformly guides, aids, and supports
them.
Either, however, the author executed his purpose indifferently, or the
public did not approve of it; for the White Lady of Avenel was far from
being popular.  He does not now make the present statement, in the view
of arguing readers into a more favourable opinion on the subject, but
merely with the purpose of exculpating himseif from the charge of having
wantonly intruded into the narrative a being of inconsistent powers and
propensities.
In the delineation of another character, the author of the Monastery
failed, where he hoped for some success. As nothing is so successful a
subject for ridicule as the fashionable follies of the time, it occurred to him
that the' more serious scenes of his narrative might be relieved by the
humour of a cavaliero of the age of Queen Elizabeth.  In every period,
the attempt to gain and maintain the highest rank of Society, has depended
on the power of assuming and supporting a certain fashionable kind of
affectation, usually connected with some vivacity of talent and energy of
character, but distinguished at the same time by a transcendent flight,
beyond sound reason and common sense; both faculties too vulgar to be
admitted into the estimate of one who claims to be esteemed "a choice
spirit of the age." These, in their different phases, constitute the gallants
of the day, whose boast it is to drive the whims of fashion to extremity.
On all occasions, the manners of the sovereign, the court, and the time,
must give the tone to the peculiar description of qualities by which those
who would attain the height of fashion must seek to distinguish themselves.
The reign of Elizabeth, being that of a maiden queen, was distinguished
by the decorum  of the courtiers, and especially the affectation of the
deepest deference to the sovereign. After the acknowledgment of the
Queen's matchless perfections, the same devotion was extended to beauty as
it existed among the lesser stars in her court, who sparkled, as it was the
mode to say, by her reflected lustre. It is true, that gallant knights no
longer vowed to Heaven, the peacock, and the ladies, to perform some feat
of extravagant chivalry, in which they endangered the lives of others as
well as their own; but although their chivalrous displays of personal gallantry seldom went farther in Elizabeth's days than the tilt-yard, where
barricades, called barriers, prevented the shock of the horses, and limited
the display of the cavalier's skill to the comparatively safe encounter of
their lances, the language of the lovers to their ladies was still in the
exalted terms which Amadis would have addressed to Oriana, before encountering a dragon for her sake. This tone of romantic gallantry found
a clever but conceited author, to reduce it to a species of constitution and
form, and lay down the courtly manner of conversation, in a pedantic book,
called Euphues and his England. Of this, a brief account is given in the
text, to which it may now be proper to make some additions.
The extravagance of Euphuism, or a symbolical jargon of the same class,
predominates in the romances of Calprenade and Scuderi, which were read
foz the amusement of the fair sex of France during the long reign of Louis
XIV., and were supposed to contain the only legitimate language of love
and gallantry.  In this reign they encountered the satire of Moliere and
Boileau. A similar disorder, spreading into private society, formed the
ground of the affected dialogue of the Precieuses, as they were styled, who
formed the coterie of the Hotel de Rlambouillet, and afforded Moliere matter
for his admirable comedy, Les Precieuses Ridicules.  In England, the
humour does not seem to have long survived the accession of James I.
The author had the vanity to think that a character, whose peculiarities
should turn on extravagances which were once universally fashionable,
mig;ht be read in a fictitious story with a good chance of affording amuse



INTRODUCTION TO THE MONASTERY.    1i
nlent to the existing generation, who, fond as they are of looking back on
the actions and manners of their ancestors, might be also supposed to be
sensible of their absurdities. He must fairly acknowledge that he was disappointed, and that the Euphuist, far from being accounted a well drawn and
humorous character of the period, was condemned as unnatural and absurd.
It would be easy to account for this failure, by supposing the defect to
arise from the author's Want of skill, and, probably, many readers may not
be inclined to look farther. But as the author himself can scarcely be supposed willing to acquiesce in this final cause, if any other can be alleged,
he has been led to suspect, that, contrary to what he originally supposed,
his subject was injudiciously chosen, in which, and not in his mode of
treating it, lay the source of the want of success.
The manners of a rude people are always founded on nature, and therefore the feelings of a more polished generation immediately sympathize
with them. We need no numerous notes, no antiquarian dissertations, to
enable the most ignorant to recognize the sentiments and diction of the
characters of Homer; we have but, as Lear says, to strip off our lendings -
to set aside the factitious principles and adornments which we have received
from our comparatively artificial system of society, and our natural feelings
are in unison with those of the bard of Chios and the heroes who live in
his verses. It is the same with a great part of the narratives of my friend
Mr. Cooper. We sympathize with his Indian chiefs and back-woodsmen,
and acknowledge, in the characters which he presents to us, the same truth
of human nature by which we should feel ourselves influenced if placed in
the same condition.  So much is this the case, that, though it is difficult, or
alm6st impossible, to reclaim a savage, bred from his youth to war and the
chase, to the restraints and the duties of civilized life, nothing is more easy or
common than to find men who have been educated in all the habits and
comforts of improved society, willing to exchange them for the wild labours
of the hunter and the fisher. The very amusements most pursued and
relished by men of all ranks, whose constitutions permit active exercise, are
hunting, fishing, and, in some instances, war, the natural and necessary
business of the savage of Dryden, where his hero talks of being
-"As fiee as nature first made man,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran."
But although the occupations, and even the sentiments, of human beings
in a primitive state, find access and interest in the minds of the more civilized part of the species, it does not therefore follow, that the national tastes,
opinions, and follies of one civilized period, should afford either the same
interest or the same amusement to those of another. These generally, when
driven to extravagance, are founded, not upon any natural taste proper to
the species, but upon the growth of some peculiar cast of affectation, with
which mankind in general, and succeeding generations in particular, feel
no common interest or sympathy.  The extravagances of coxcombry in
manners and apparel are indeed the legitimate and often the successful
objects of satire, during the time when they exist. In evidence of this,
theatrical critics may observe how many dramatic jeux d' esprit are well
received every season, because the satirist levels at some well-known or
fashionable absurdity; or, in the dramatic phrase, "shoots folly as it flies."
But when the peculiar kind of folly keeps the wing no longer, it is reckoned
but waste of powder to pour a discharge of ridicule on what has ceaned to
exist; and the pieces in which such forgotten absurdities are made the subject of ridicule, fall quietly into oblivion with the follies which gave them
fashion, or only continue to exist on the scene, because they contain some
other more permanent interest than that which connects them with manners
and follies of a temporary character.
This, perhaps, affords a reason why the comedies of Ben Jonson, founded
upon system, or what the age termed humours, - by which was meant fao



12                   WAV E   LEY  NOVELS.
ititous and affected characters, superinduced on that which was common to
the rest of their race, - in spite of acute satire, deep scholarship, and strong
sense, do not now afford general pleasure, but are confined to the closet of
the antiquary, whose studies have assured him that the personages of the
dramatist were once, though they are now no longer, portraits of existing
nature.
Let us take another example of our hypothesis from Shakspeare himself,
who, of all authors, drew his portraits for all ages. With the whole sum
of the idolatry which affects us at his name, the mass of readers peruse,
without amusement, the characters formed on the extravagances of temporary fashion; and the Euphuist Don Armado, the pedant Holofernes, even
Nym and Pistol, are read with little pleasure by the mass of the public,
being portraits of which we cannot recognize the humour, because the
originals no longer exist. In like manner, while the distresses of Romeo
and Juliet continue to interest every bosom, Mercutio, drawn as an accurate
representation of the finished fine gentleman of the period, and as such
received by the unanimous approbation of contemporaries, has so little to
interest the present age, that, stripped of all his puns, and quirks of verbal
wit, he only retains his place in the scene, in virtue of his fine and fanciful
speech upon dreaming, which belongs to no particular age, and because he
is a personage whose presence is indispensable to the plot.
We have already prosecuted perhaps too far an argument, the tendency
of which is to prove, that the introduction of an humorist, acting like Sir
Piercie Shafton, upon some forgotten and obsolete model of folly, once
fashionable, is rather likely to awaken the disgust of the reader, as unnatu
ral, than find him food for laughter. Whether owing to this theory, or
whether to the more simple and probable cause of the author's failure in
the delineation of the subject he had proposed to himself, the formidable
objection of incredulus odi was applied to the Euphuist, as well as to the
White Lady of Avenel; and the one was denounced as unnatural, while the
other was rejected as impossible.
There was little in the story to atone for these failures in two principal
points. The incidents were inartificially huddled together. There was no
part of the intrigue to which deep interest was found to apply; and the
conclusion was brought about, not by incidents arising out of the story
itself, but in consequence of public transactions, with which the narrative
has little connexion, and which the reader had little opportunity to become
acquainted with.
This, if not a positive fault, was yet a great defect in the Romance. It is
true, that not only the practice of some great authors in this department,
but even the general course of human life itself, may be quoted in favour
of this more obvious and less artificial practice of arranging a narrative.
It is seldom that the same circle of personages who have surrounded an
individual at his first outset in life, continue to have an interest in his career
till his fate comes to a crisis. On the contrary, and more especially if the
events of his life be of a varied character, and worth communicating to
others, or to the world, the hero's later connexions are usually totally separated from those with whom he began the voyage, but whom the individual
has outsailed, or who have drifted astray, or foundered on the passage. This
hackneyed comparison holds good in another point. The numerous vessels
of so many different sorts, and destined for such different purposes, which
are launched in the same mighty ocean, although each endeavours to pursue
its own course, are in every case more influenced by the winds and tides,
which are common to the element which they all navigate, than by their
own separate exertions. And it is thus in the world, that, when human
prudence has done its best, some general, perhaps national, event, destroys
the schemes of the individual, as the casual touch of a more powerful being
sweeps, away the web of the spider.




INTRODUCTION TO THE MONASTERY.    13
Many excellent romances have been composed in this view of human life,
where the hero is conducted through a variety of detached scenes, in which
various agents appear and disappear, without, perhaps, having any permanent influence on the progress of the story. Such is the structure of Gil
Blas, Roderick Random, and the lives and adventures of many other heroes,
who are described as running through different stations of life, and encountering various adventures, which are only connected with each other by
having happened to be witnessed by the same individual, whose identity
unites them together, as the string of a necklace links the beads, which are
otherwise detached.
But though such an unconnected course of adventures is what most fre
quently occurs in nature, yet the province of the romance writer being arti
ficial, there is more required from him than a mere compliance with the
simplicity of reality,-just as we demand from the scientific gardener, that
he shall arrange, in curious knots and artificial parterres, the flowers which
" nature boon" distributes freely on hill and dale. Fielding, accordingly,
in most of his novels, but especially in Tom Jones, his chef-d'oeuvre, has set
the distinguished example of a story regularly built and consistent in all
its parts, in which nothing occurs, and scarce a personage is introduced,
that has not some share in tending to advance the catastrophe.
To demand equal correctness and felicity in those who may follow in the
track of that illustrious novelist, would be to fetter too much the power of
giving pleasure, by surrounding it with penal rules; since of this sort of
light literature it may be especially said-tout genre est permis, hors le genre
entnuyeux. Still, however, the more closely and happily the story is combined, and the more natural and felicitous the catastrophe, the nearer such
a composition will approach the perfection of the novelist's art; nor can
an author neglect this branch of his profession, without incurring proportional censure.
For such censure the Monastery gave but too much occasion. The intrigue of the Romance, neither very interesting in itself, nor very happily
detailed, is at length finally disentangled by the breaking out of national
hostilities between England and Scotland, and the as sudden renewal of the
truce.  Instances of this kind, it is true, cannot in reality have been uncommon, but the resorting to such, in order to accomplish the catastrophe,
as by a tour deforce, was objected to as inartificial, and not perfectly intelligible to the general reader.
Still the Monastery, though exposed to severe and just criticism, did not
fail, judging from the extent of its circulation, to have some interest for the
public. And this, too, was according to the ordinary-course of such matters;
for it very seldom happens that literary reputation is gained by a single
effort, and still more rarely is it lost by a solitary miscarriage.
The author, therefore, had his days of grace allowed him, and time, if
he pleased, to comfort himself with the burden of the old Scots song,
"If it isna weel bobbit
We'll bob it again."
ABBOTSFORD,
1st Nrovember, 1830.}
5




14                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
INTRCDUCTORY EPISTLE
FROM CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK, LATE OF HIS MAJESTY' S -    REGIMENT OF
INFANTRY, TO THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.
SIR,
ALTHOUGH I do not pretend to the pleasure of your personal acquaint
ance, like many whom I believe to be equally strangers to you, I am nevertheg
less interested in your publications, and desire their continuance;-ot that
I pretend to much taste in fictitious composition, or that I am apt to be interested in your grave scenes, or amused by those which are meant to be
lively. I will not disguise from you, that I have yawned over the last interview of MacIvor and his sister, and fell fairly asleep while the schoolmaster
was reading the humours of Dandie Dinmont. You see, sir, that I scorn
to solicit your favour in a way to which you are no stranger. If the papers
I enclose you are worth nothing, I will not endeavour to recommend them
by personal flattery, as a bad cook pours rancid butter upon stale fish. No,
sir! what I respect in you is the light you have occasionally thrown on
national antiquities, a study which I have commenced rather late in life, but
to which I am attached with the devotions of a first love, because it is the
only study I ever cared a farthing for.
You shall have my history, sir, (it will not reach to three volumes,) before
that of my manuscript; and as you usually throw out a few lines of verse
(by way of skirmishers, I suppose) at the head of each division of prose, I
have had the luck to light upon a stanza in the schoolmaster's copy of Burns
which describes me exactly. I love it the better, because it was originally
designed for Captain Grose, an excellent antiquary, though, like yourself,
somewhat too apt to treat with levity his own pursuits:'Tis said he was a soldier bred,
And ane wad rather fa'en than fled;
But now he's quit the spurtle blade,
And dog-skin wallet,
And ta'en the-antiquarian trade,
I think they call it.
I never could conceive what influenced me, when a boy, in the choice of
a profession. Military zeal and ardour it was not, which made me stand
out for a commission in the Scots Fusiliers, when my tutors and curators
wished to bind me apprentice to old David Stiles, Clerk to his Majesty's
Signet. I say, military zeal it was not; for I was no fighting boy in my
own person, and cared not a penny to read the history of the heroes who
turned the world upside down in former ages. As for courage, I had, as I
have since discovered, just as much of it as served my turn, and not one
grain of surplus.  I soon found out, indeed, that in action there was more
danger in running away than in standing fast; and besides, I could not
afford to lose my commission, which was my chief means of support. But,
as for that overboiling valour, which I have heard many of ours talk of,
though I seldom observed that it influenced them in the actual affair-that
exuberant zeal, which courts Danger as a bride,-truly my courage was of
a complexion much less ecstatical.
Again, the love of a red coat, which, in default of all other aptitudes to
the profession, has made many a bad soldier and some good ones, was an
utter stranger to my disposition. I cared not a "bodle" for the company
of the misses: Nay, though there was a boarding-school in the village, and
though we used to meet with its fair inmates at Simon Lightfoot's weekly
Practising, I cannot recollect any strong emotions being excited on these
occasions, excepting the infinite regret with which I went through the polite
ieremonial of presenting my partner with an orange, thrust into my pocket




INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE.                             15
by my aunt for this special purpose, but which, had I dared, I certainly
would have secreted for my own personal use. As for vanity, or love of
finery for itself, I was such a stranger to it, that the difficulty was great to
make me brush my coat, and appear in proper trim upon parade. I shall
never forget the rebuke of my old Colonel on a morning when the King
reviewed a brigade of which ours made part. "I am no friend to extravagance, Ensign Clutterbuck," said he; "but, on the day when we are to
pass before the Sovereign of the kingdom, in the name of God I would have
at least shown him an inch of clean linen."
Thus, a stranger to the ordinary motives which lead young men to make
the army their choice, and without the least desire to become either a hero
or a dandy, I really do not know what determined my thoughts that way,
unless it were the happy state of half-pay indolence enjoyed by Captain
Doolittle, who had set up his staff of rest in my native village. Every other
person had, or seemed to have, something to do, less or more. They did
not, indeed, precisely go to school and learn tasks, that last of evils in my
estimation; but it did not escape my boyish observation, that they were all
bothered with something or other like duty or labour -all but the happy
Captain Doolittle. The minister had his parish to visit, and his preaching
to prepare, though perhaps he made more fuss than he needed about both.
The laird had his farming and improving operations to superintend; and,
besides, he had to attend trustee meetings, and lieutenancy meetings, and
head-courts, and meetings of justices, and what not-was as early up, (that
I detested,) and as much in the open air, wet and dry, as his own grieve.
The shopkeeper (the village boasted but one of eminence) stood indeed
pretty much at his ease behind his counter, for his custom was by no means
overburdensome; but still he enjoyed his status, as the Bailie calls it, upon
condition of tumbling all the wares in his booth over and over, when any
one chose to want a yard of muslin, a mousetrap, an ounce of caraways, a
paper of pins, the Sermons of Mr. Peden, or the Life of Jack the GiantQueller, (not Killer, as usually erroneously written and pronounced. - See
my essay on the true history of this worthy, where real facts have in a peculiar degree been obscured by fable.) In short, all in the village were under
the necessity of doing something which they would rather have left undone,
excepting Captain Doolittle, who walked every morning in the open street,
which formed the high mall of our village, in a blue coat with a red neck,
and played at whist the whole evening, when he could make up a party.
This happy vacuity of all employment appeared to me so delicious, that it
became the primary hint, which, according to the system of Helvetius, as
the minister says, determined my infant talents towards,the profession I
was destined to illustrate.
But who, alas! can form a just estimate of their future prospects in this
deceitful world? I was not long engaged in my new profession, before I
discovered, that if the independent indolence of half-pay was a paradise, the
officer must pass through the purgatory of duty and service in order to gain
admission to it. Captain Doolittle might brush his blue coat with the red
neck, or leave it unbrushed, at his pleasure; but Ensign Clutterbuck had
no such option. Captain Doolittle might go to bed at ten o'clock, if he had
a mind; but the Ensign must make the rounds in his turn. What was
worse, the Captain might repose under the tester of his tent-bed until noon,
if he was so pleased; but the Ensign, God help him, had to appear upon
parade at peep of day. As for duty, I made that as easy as I could, had
the sergeant to whisper to me the words of command, and bustled through
as other folks did. Of service, I saw enough for an indolent man — was
buffeted up and down the world, and visited both the East and West Indies,
Egypt, and other distant places, which my youth had scarce dreamed of.
The French I saw, and felt too; witness two fingers on my right hand,
which one of their cursed hussars took off with his sabre as neatly as an




16                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
hospital surgeon. At length, the death of an old aunt, who left me some
fifteen hundred pounds, snugly vested in the three per cents, gave me the
long-wished-for opportunity of retiring, with the prospect of enjoying a clean
shirt and a guinea four times a-week at least.
For the purpose of commencing my new way of life, I selected for my
residence the village of Kennaquhair, in the south of Scotland, celebrated'
for the ruins of its magnificent Monastery, intending there to lead my future
life in the otium curn dignitate of half-pay and annuity. I was not long,
however, in making the grand discovery, that in order to enjoy leisure, it is
absolutely necessary it should be preceded by occupation. For some time,
it was delightful to wake at daybreak, dreaming of the reveille -then to
recollect my happy emancipation from the slavery that doomed me to start
at a piece of clattering parchment, turn on my other side, damn the parade,
and go to sleep again. But even this enjoyment had its termination; and
time, when-it became a stock entirely at my own disposal, began to hang
heavy on my hand.
I angled for two days, during which time I lost twenty hooks, and several
scores of yards of gut and line, and caught not even a minnow. Hunting
was out of the question, for the stomach of a horse by no means agrees with
the half-pay establishment.  When I shot, the shepherds, and ploughmen,
and my very dog, quizzed me every time that I missed, which was, generally speaking, every time I fired. Besides, the country gentlemen in this
quarter like their game, and began to talk of prosecutions and interdicts.
I did not give up fighting the French to commence a domestic war with the
" pleasant men of Teviotdale," as the song calls them; so I e'en spent three
days (very agreeably) in cleaning my gun, and disposing it upon two hooks
over my chimney-piece.
The success of this accidental experiment set me on trying my-skill in
the mechanical arts. Accordingly I took down and cleaned my landlady's
cuckoo-clock, and in so doing, silenced that companion of the spring for
ever and a day. I mounted a turning-lathe, and in attempting to use it, I
very nearly cribbed off, with an inch-and-half former, one of the fingers
which the hussar had left me.
Books I tried, both those of the little circulating library, and of the more
rational subscription collection maintained by this intellectual people. But
neither the light reading of the one, nor the heavy artillery of the other,
suited my purpose.  I always fell asleep at the fourth or fifth page of history or disquisition; and it took me a month's hard reading to wade through
a half-bound trashy novel, during which I was pestered with applications
to return the volumes, by every half-bred milliner's miss about the place.
In short, during the time when all the town besides had something to do, I
had nothing for it, but to walk in the church-yard, and whistle till it was
dinner-time.
During these promenades, the ruins necessarily forced themselves on my
attention, and, by degrees, I found myself engaged in studying the more
minute ornaments, and at length the general plan, of this noble structure.
The old sexton aided my labours, and gave me his portion of traditional
lore. Every day added something to my stock of knowledge respecting
the ancient state of the building; and at length I made discoveries concerning the purpose of several detached and very ruinous portions of it, the use
of which had hitherto been either unknown altogether or erroneously explained.
The knowledge which I thus acquired I had frequent opportunities of
retailing to those visiters whom the progress of a Scottish tour brought to
visit this celebrated spot. Without encroaching on the privilege of my
friend the sexton, I became gradually an assistant Cicerone in the task of
description and explanation, and often (seeing a fresh party of visiters
arrive) has he turned over to me those to whom he had told half his story,




INTRODUCTORY  EPISTLE.                                I7
with the flattering observation, "What needs I say ony mair about it?
There's the Captain kens mair anent it than I do, or any man in the town."
Then would I salute the- strangers courteously, and expatiate  to their
astonished minds upon crypts and chancels, and naves, arches, Gothic and
Saxon architraves, mullions and flying buttresses.  It not unfrequently
happened, that an acquaintance which commenced in the Abbey concluded
in the inn, which served to relieve the solitude as well as the monotony of
my landlady's shoulder of mutton, whether roast, cold, or hashed.
By degrees my mind became enlarged; I found a book or two which
enlightened me on the subject of Gothic architecture, and I read now with
pleasure, because I was interested in what I read about.  Even my character began to dilate and expand.  I spoke with more authority at the
club, and was listened to with deference, because on one subject, at least,
I possessed more information than any of its members.  Indeed, I found
that even my stories about Egypt, which, to say truth, were somewhat
threadbare, were now listened to with more respect than formerly.  " The
Captain," they said, "had something in him after a',-there were few folk
kend sae muckle about the Abbey."
With this general approbation waxed my own sense of self-importance,
and my feeling of general comfort.  I ate with more appetite, I digested
with more ease, I lay down at night with joy, and slept sound till morning,
when I arose with a sense of busy importance, and hied me to measure, to
examine, and to compare the various parts of this interesting structure. I
lost all sense and consciousness of certain unpleasant sensations of a nondescript nature, about my head and stomach, to which I had been in the
habit of attending, more for the benefit of the village apothecary than my
own, for the pure want of something else to think about.  I had found out
an occupation unwittingly, and was happy because I had something to do.
In a word, I had commenced local antiquary, and was not unworthy of the
name.
Whilst I was in this pleasing career of busy idleness, for so it might at
best be called, it happened that I was one night sitting in my little parlour,
adjacent to the closet which my landlady calls my bedroom, in the act of
preparing for an early retreat to the realms of Morpheus.  Dugdale's Monasticon, borrowed fiom the library at A, was lying on the table before
me, flanked by some excellent Cheshire cheese, (a present, by the way, from
an honest London citizen, to whom I had explained the difference between
a Gothic and a Saxon arch,) and a glass of Vanderhagen's best ale.  Thus
armed at all points against my old enemy Time, I was leisurely and deliciously preparing for bed-now reading a line of old Dugdale-now sipping
my ale, or munching my bread and cheese-now undoing the strings at my
breeches' knees, or a button or two of my waistcoat, until the village clock
should strike ten, before which time I make it a rule never to go to bed.
A  loud knocking, however, interrupted my ordinary process on this occasion, and the voice of my honest landlord of the George was heard vociferating,* "What the deevil, Mrs. Grimslees, the Captain is no in his bed?
and a gentleman at our house has ordered a fowl and minced collops, and a
bottle of sherry, and has sent to ask him  to supper, to tell him all about
the Abbey."
"Na," answered Luckie Grimslees, in the true sleepy tone of a Scottish
matron when ten o'clock is going to strike, "he's no in his bed, but I'se
warrant him  no gae out at this time o' night to keep folks sitting up
waiting for him-the Captain's a decent man."
* The George was, and is, the principal inn in the village of Kennaquhair, or Melrose. But the landlord
of the period was not the same civil and quiet person by whom the inn is now kept. David Kyle, a Melrose
proprietor of no little, importance, a first-rate person of consequence in whatever belonged to the business
of the town, was the original owner and landlord of the inn. Poor David, like many other busy men, took
so much care of public afifirs, as in some degree to neglect his own. There are persons still alive at Kenl
naquhair who can recognise him and his peculiarities in the following sketch of mine Host of the George.
VOL. V. -2                        B2




18                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
I plainly perceived this last compliment was made for my hearing, by
way both of indicating and of recommending the course of conduct which
Mrs. Grimslees desired I should pursue. But I had not been knocked
about the world for thirty years and odd, and lived a bluff bachelor all the
while, to come home and be put under petticoat government by my landlady. Accordingly I opened my chamber-door, and desired my old friend
David to walk up stairs.
"Captain," said he, as he entered, " I am as glad to find you up as if I
had hooked a twenty pound saumon. There's a gentleman up yonder that
will not sleep sound in his bed this blessed night unless he has the pleasure
to drink a glass of wine with you."
"You know, David," I replied, with becoming dignity, " that I cannot
with propriety go out to visit strangers at this time of night, or accept of
invitations from people of whom I know nothing."
David swore a round oath, and added, " Was ever the like heard of? He
has ordered a fowl and egg sauce, a pancake and minced collops and a
bottle of sherry-D'ye think I wad come and ask you to go to keep company with ony bit English rider that sups on toasted cheese, and a cheerer
of rum-toddy?  This is a gentleman every inch of him, and a virtuoso, a
clean virtuoso-a sad-coloured stand of claithes, and a wig like the curled
back of a mug-ewe. The very first question he speered was about the auld
drawbrig that has been at the bottom of the water these twal score yearsI have seen the fundations when we were sticking saumon -And how the
deevil suld he ken ony thing about the old drawbrig, unless he were a virtuoso?"'
David being a virtuoso in his own way, and moreover a landholder and
heritor, was a qualified judge of all who frequented his house, and therefore I could not avoid again tying the strings of my knees.
"'That's right, Captain," vociferated David; "you twa will be as thick
as three in a bed an ance ye forgather. I haena seen the like o' him my
very sell since I saw the great Doctor Samuel Johnson on his tower through
Scotland, whilk tower is lying in my back parlour for the amusement of
my guests, wi' the twa boards torn aff."
" Then the gentleman-is a scholar, David?"
"I'se uphaud him a scholar," answered David: "he has a black coat on,
or a brown ane, at ony rate."
"Is he a clergyman?"
" I am thinking no, for he looked after his horse's supper before he spoke
o' his ain," replied mine host.
" Has he a servant?" demanded I.
"Nae servant," answered David; "but a grand face o' his ain, that wad
gar ony body be willing to serve him that looks upon him."
" And what makes him think of disturbing me?  Ah, David, this has
been some of your chattering; you are perpetually bringing your guests
on my shoulders, as if it were my business to entertain every man who
comes to the George."
"What-the deil wad ye hae me do, Captain?" answered mine host; " a
gentleman lights down, and asks me in a most earnest manner, what man
of sense and learning there is about our town, that can tell him about the
antiquities of the place, and specially about the auld Abbey-ye wadna
hae me tell the gentleman a lee? and ye ken weel eneugh there is naebody
in the town can say a reasonable word about it, be it no yoursell, except
the bedral, and he is as fou as a piper by this time. So, says I, there's
Captain Clutterbuck, that's a very civil gentleman, and has little to do forby
telling a' the auld cracks about the Abbey, and dwells just hard by. Then
says the gentleman to me,'Sir,' says he, very civilly,'have the goodness to'There is more to be said about this old bridge hereafter. See Note, p. 57.




INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE.                                 19
step to Captain Clutterbuck with my compliments, and say I am a stranger,
who have been led to these parts chiefly by the fame of these Ruins, and
that I would call upon him, but the hour is late.' And mair he said that I
have forgotten, but I weel remember it ended, —' And, landlord, get a
bottle of your best sherry, and supper for two.'-Ye wadna have had me
refuse to do the gentleman's bidding, and me a publican?"
" Well, David," said I, " I wish your virtuoso had taken a fitter hour 
but as you say he is a gentleman  ~"
" I'se uphaud him that- the order speaks for itsell - a bottle of sherry
minched collops and a fowl-that's speaking like a gentleman, I trow?That's right, Captain, button weel up, the night's raw-but the water's
clearing for a' that; we'll be on't neist night wi' my Lord's boats, and we'll
hae ill luck if I dinna send you a kipper to relish your ale at e'en."*
In five minutes after this dialogue, I found myself in the parlour of the
George, and in the presence of the stranger.
IIe was a grave personage, about my own age, (which we shall call about
fifty,) and really had, as my friend David expressed it, something in his
face that inclined men to oblige and to serve him.  Yet this expression of
authority was not at all of the cast which I have seen in the countenance
of a general of brigade, neither was the stranger's dress at all martial.  It
consisted of a uniform  suit of iron-gray clothes, cut in rather an old-fashioned form. His legs were defended with strong leathern gambadoes, which,
according to an antiquarian contrivance, opened at the sides, and were
secured by steel clasps.  His countenance was worn as much by toil and
sorrow as by age, for it intimated that he had seen and endured much. IHis
address was singularly pleasing and gentlemanlike, and the apology which
he made for disturbing me at such an hour, and in such a manner, was so
well and handsomely expressed, that I could not reply otherwise than by
declaring my willingness to be of service to him.
" I have been a traveller to-day, sir," said he, " and I would willingly
defer the little I have to say till after supper, for which I feel rather more
appetized than usual."
We sate down to table, and notwithstanding the stranger's alleged appetite, as well as the gentle preparation of cheese and ale which I had already
laid aboard, I really believe that I of the two did the greater honour to my.friend David's fowl and minced collops.
When the cloth was removed, and we had each made a tumbler of negus,
of that liquor which hosts call Sherry, and guests call Lisbon, I perceived
that the stranger seemed pensive, silent, and somewhat embarrassed, as if
he had something to communicate which he knew not well how to introduce.
To pave the way for him, I spoke of the ancient ruins of the Monastery,
and of their history.  But, to my great surprise, I found I had met my
match with a witness.  The stranger not only knew all that I could tell
him, but a great deal more; and, what was still more mortifying, he was
ble, by reference to dates, charters, and other evidence of facts, that, as
Burns says, " downa be disputed," to correct many of the vague tales which
I had adopted on loose and vulgar tradition, as well as to confute more than
one of my favourite theories on the subject of the old monks and their
dwellings, which I had sported freely in all the presumption of superior
information. And here I cannot but remark, that much of the stranger's
arguments and inductions rested upon the authority of Mr. Deputy Register of Scotland,t and his lucubrations; a gentleman whose indefatigable
research into the national records is like to destroy my trade, and that of
* The nobleman whose boats are mentioned in the text, is the late kind and amiable Lord Sommerville, an
intimate friend of the author. David Kyle was a constant and privileged attendant when Lord Sommlerville
had a party for spearing salmon; on such occasions, eighty or a hundred fish were often killed between
Glealner and Leaderfoot.
t Thomas Thomson, Esq., whose well-deserved panegyric ought to be found on another page than one
written by an intimate friend of thirty years' standing.




20                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
all local antiquaries, by substituting truth instead of legend and romance.
Alas! I would the learned gentleman did but know how difficult it is for us
dealers in petty wares of antiquity toPluck from our memories a rooted " legend,"
Raze out the written records of our brain,
Or cleanse our bosoms of that perilous stuffand so forth. It would, I am sure, move his pity to think how many old
dogs he hath set to learn new tricks, how many venerable parrots he hath
taught to sing a new song, how many gray heads he hath addled by vain
attempts to exchange their old Mumpsimnus for his new Sumnpsimus. But
let it pass.  Humana perpessi sumus   All changes round us, past, present,
and to come; that which was history yesterday becomes fable to-day, and
the truth of to-day is hatched into a lie by to-morrow.
Finding myself like to be overpowered in the Monastery, which I had
hitherto regarded as my citadel, I began, like a skilful general, to evacuate
that place of defence, and fight my way through the adjacent country. I
had recourse to my acquaintance with the families and antiquities of the
neighbourhood, ground on which I thought I might skirmish at large without its being possible for the stranger to meet me with advantage. But I
was mistaken.
The man in the iron-gray suit showed a much more minute knowledge
of these particulars than I had the least pretension to. He could tell the
very year in which the family of De Haga first settled on their ancient
barony.*  Not a Thane within reach but he knew his family and connexions,
how many of his ancestors had fallen by the sword of the English, how
many in domestic brawl, and how many by the hand of the executioner for
march-treason. Their castles he was acquainted with from turret to foundation-stone; and as for the miscellaneous antiquities scattered about the
country, he knew every one of them, from a cromlech to a cairn, and could
give as good an account of each as if he had lived in the time of the Danes
or Druids.
I was now in the mortifying predicament of one who suddenly finds himself a scholar when he came to teach, and nothing was left for me but to
pick up as much of his conversation as I could, for the benefit of the next
company.  I told, indeed, Allan Ramsay's story of the Monk and Miller's
Wife, in order to retreat with some honour under cover of a parting volley.
I-ere, however, my flank was again turned by the eternal stranger.
" You are pleased to be facetious, sir," said he; " but you cannot be ignorant that the ludicrous incident you mentioned is the subject of a tale much
older than that of Allan Ramsay."
I nodded, unwilling to acknowledge my ignorance, though, in fact, I knew
no more what he meant than did one of my friend David's post-horses.
"I do not allude," continued my omniscient companion, "to the curious
poem  published by Pinkerton from  the Maitland Manuscript, called the
Fryars of Berwick, although it presents a very minute and amusing picture
of Scottish manners during the reign of James V.; but rather to the Italian
novelist, by whom, so far as f know, the story was first printed, although
unquestionably he first took his original from some ancient fabliau."t
" It is not to be doubted," answered I, not very well understanding, however, the proposition to which I gave such unqualified assent.
"Yet," continued'my companion, " I question much, had you known my
* The family of De Haga, modernized into Haig, of Bemerside, is of the highest antiquity, and is the subject
of one of the prophecies of Thomas the Rhymer: -
Betide, betide, whate'er betide.
Haig shall be Haig of Bemerside.
t It is curious to remark at how little expense of invention successive ages are content to receive amuseient. The same story which Ramsay and Dunbar have successively handled, forms also the subject of the
uodern farce, No Song, no Supper.




INTRODUCTORY  EPISTLE.                            21
tituation and profession, whether you would have pitched upon this precise
anecdote for my amusement."
This observation he made in a tone of perfect good-humour. I pricked
up my ears at the hint, and answered as politely as I could, that my ignorance of his condition and rank could be the only cause of my having
stumbled on anything disagreeable; and that I was most willing to apologize for my unintentional offence, so soon as I should know wherein it
consisted.
"Nay, no offence, sir," he replied; "offence can only exist where it is
taken. I have been too long accustomed to more severe and cruel misconstructions, to be offended at a popular jest, though directed at my profession."
"Am I to understand, then," I answered, " that I am speaking with a
Catholic clergyman?"
" An unworthy monk of the order of Saint Benedict," said the stranger,
"belonging to a community of your own countrymen, long established in
France, and scattered unhappily by the events of the Revolution."
" Then," said I, " you are a native Scotchman, and from this neighbourhood?"
" Not so," answered the monk; "I am a Scotchman by extraction only,
and never was in this neighbourhood during my whole life."
"Never in this neighbourhood, and yet so minutely acquainted with its
history, its traditions, and even its external scenery! You surprise me,
sir," I replied.
"It is not surprising," he said, "that I should have that sort of local
information, when it is considered, that my uncle, an excellent man, as well
as a good Scotchman, the head also of our religious community, employed
much of his leisure in making me acquainted with these particulars; and
that I myself, disgusted with what has been passing around me, have for
many years amused myself, by digesting and arranging the various scraps
of information which I derived from my worthy relative, and other aged
brethren of our order."
"I presume, sir," said I, "though I would by no means intrude the
question, that you are now returned to Scotland with a view to settle
amongst your countrymen, since the great political catastrophe of our time
has reduced your corps?"
"No, sir," replied the Benedictine, " such is not my intention. A
European potentate, who still cherishes the Catholic faith, has offered us a
retreat within his dominions, where a few of my scattered brethren are
already assembled, to pray to God for blessings on their protector, and
pardon to their enemies. No one, I believe, will be able to object to us
under our new establishment, that the extent of our revenues will be inconsistent with our vows of poverty and abstinence; but, let us strive to
be thankful to God, that the snare of temporal abundance is removed
from us."
" Many of your convents abroad, sir," said I, "enjoyed very handsome
incomes -and yet, allowing for times, I question if any were better provided for than the Monastery of this village. It is said to have possessed
nearly two thousand pounds in yearly money-rent, fourteen chalders and
nine bolls of wheat, fifty-six chalders five bolls barley, forty-four chalders
and ten bolls oats, capons and poultry, butter, salt, carriage and arriage,
peats and kain, wool and ale."
" Even too much of all these temporal goods, sir," said my companion,
"which, though well intended by the pious donors, served only to make
the establishment the envy and the prey of those by whom it was finally
devoured."
"In the meanwhile, however," I observed, "the monks ha d an easy life
of it, and, as the old song goes,




22                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
-made gide kale
On Fridays when they fasted."
" I understand you, sir," said the Benedictine; "it is difficult, saith the
proverb, to carry a full cup without spilling.  Unquestionably the wealth
of the community, as it endangered the safety of the establishment by
exciting the cupidity of others, was also in frequent instances a snare to
the brethren themselves. And yet we have seen the revenues of convents
expended, not only in acts of beneficence and hospitality to individuals,
but in works of general and permanent advantage to the world at large.
The noble folio collection of French historians, commenced in 1737, under
the inspection and at the expense of the community of Saint Maur, will
long show that the revenues of the Benedictines were not always spent in
self-indulgence, and that the members of that order did not uniformly
slumber in sloth and indolence, when they had discharged the fdrmal duties
of their rule."
As I knew nothing earthly at the time about the community of St. Maur,
and their learned labours, I could only return a mumbling assent to this
proposition. I have since seen this noble work in the library of a distinguished family, and I must own I am  ashamed to reflect, that, in so
wealthy a country as ours, a similar digest of our historians should not be
undertaken, under the patronage of the noble and the learned, in rivalry
of that which the Benedictines of Paris executed at the expense of their
own conventual funds.
"I perceive," said the ex-Benedictine, smiling, "that your heretical
prejudices are too strong to allow us poor brethren any merit, whether
literary or spiritual."
" Far from it, sir,".said I; "I assure you I have been much obliged to
monks in my time. When I was quartered in a Monastery in Flanders, in
the campaign of 1793, I never lived more comfortably in my life. They
were jolly fellows, the Flemish Canons, and right sorry was I to leave my
good quarters, and to know that my honest hosts were to be at the mercy
of the Sans-Culottes. Butfortune de la guerre!"
The poor Benedictine looked down and was silent. I had unwittingly
awakened a train of bitter reflections, or rather I had touched somewhat
rudely upon a chord which seldom ceased to vibrate of itself. But he wats
too much accustomed to this sorrowful train of ideas to suffer it to overcome him.  On my part, I hastened to atone for my blunder.  "If there
was any object of his journey to this country in which I could, with propriety, assist him, I begged to offer him  my best services."  I own I laid
some little emphasis on the words "with propriety," as I felt it would ill
become me, a sound Protestant, and a servant of government so far as my
half-pay was concerned, to implicate myself in any recruiting which my
companion might have undertaken in behalf of foreign seminaries, or in
any similar design for the advancement of Popery, which, whether the
Pope be actually the old lady of Babylon or no, it did not become me in
any manner to advance or countenance.
My new friend hastened to relieve my indecision.  " I was about to request your assistance, sir," he said, " in a matter which cannot but interest
you as an antiquary, and a person of research. But I assure you it relates
entirely to events and persons removed to the distance of two centuries and
a half. I have experienced too much evil from the violent unsettlement of
the country in which I was born, to be a rash labourer in the work of
innovation in that of my ancestors."
I again assured him  of my willingness to assist him in anything that
was not contrary to my allegiance or religion.
"My proposal," he replied, " affects neither. - May God bless the reigning family in Britain! They are not, indeed, of that dynasty to restorb
which my ancestors struggled and sufferod in vain; but the Providence




INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE.                             23
who has conducted his present Majesty to the throne, has given him the
virtues necessary to his time-firmness and intrepidity-a true love of his
country, and an enlightened view of the dangers by which she is surrounded. - For the religion of these realms, I am contented to hope that
the great Power, whose mysterious dispensation has rent them from the
bosom of the church, will, in his own good time and manner, restore them
to its holy pale. The efforts of an individual, obscure and humble as
myself, might well retard, but could never advance, a work so mighty."
"May I then inquire, sir," said I, "with what purpose you seek this
country?'
Ere my companion replied, he took from his pocket a clasped paper book,
about the size of a regimental orderly-book, full, as it seemed, of memoranda; and, drawing one of the candles close to him, (for David, as a strong
proof of his respect for the stranger, had indulged us with two,) he seemed
to peruse the contents very earnestly.
" There is among the ruins of the western end of the Abbey church,"
said he, looking up to me, yet keeping the memorandum-book half open, and
occasionally glancing at it, as if to refresh his memory, "a sort of recess
or chapel beneath a broken arch, and in the immediate vicinity of one of
those shattered Gothic columns which once supported the magnificent roof,
whose fall has now encumbered that part of the building with its ruins."
" I think," said I, "that I know whereabouts you are. Is there not in
the side wall of the chapel, or recess, which you mention, a large carved
stone, bearing a coat of arms, which no one hitherto has been able to
decipher?"
"You are right," answered the Benedictine; and again consulting his
memoranda, he added, "the arms on the dexter side are those of Glendinning, being a cross parted by a cross indented and countercharged of the
same; and on the sinister three spur-rowels for those of Avenel; they are
two ancient families, now almost extinct in this country - the arms part y
Ier pale."
" I think," said I, "there is no part of this ancient structure with which
you are not as well acquainted as was the mason who built it. But if your
information be correct, he who made out these bearings must have had
better eyes than mine."
" His eyes," said the Benedictine, " have long been closed in death; probably when he inspected the monument it was in a more perfect state, or he
may have derived his information from the tradition of the place."
" I assure you," said I, "that no such tradition now exists. I have made
several reconnoissances among the old people, in hopes to learn something
of the armorial bearings, but I never heard of such a circumstance. It
seems odd that you should have acquired it in a foreign land."
"These trifling particulars," he replied, "were formerly looked upon as
more important, and they were sanctified to the exiles who retained recollection of them, because they related to a place dear indeed to memory, but
which their eyes could never again behold. It is possible, in like manner,
that on the Potomac or Susquehannah, you may find traditions current concerning places in England, which are utterly forgotten in the neighbourhood
where they originated. But to my purpose. In this recess, marked by the
armorial bearings, lies buried a treasure, and it is in order to remove it that
I have undertaken my present journey.'
"A treasure 1" echoed I, in astonishment.
"Yes," replied the monk, "an inestimable treasure, for those who know
how to use it rightly."
I own my ears did tingle a little at the word treasure, and that a handsome tilbury, with a neat groom in blue and scarlet livery, having a smart
cockade on his glazed hat, seemed as it were to glide across the room before
my eyes, while a voice, as of a crier, pronounced in my ear, " Captain Clut.




24                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
terbu2k's tilbury -drive up."  But I resisted the devil, and he fled from
me.
"I believe," said I, "all hidden treasure belongs either to the king or
the lord of the soil; and as I have served his majesty, I cannot concern
myself in any adventure which may have an end in the Court of Exchequer."
"The treasure I seek," said the stranger, smiling, " will not be envied by
princes or nobles,- it is simply the heart of an upright man."
"Ah  I understand you," I answered; " some relic, forgotten in the confusion of the Reformation.  I know the value which men of your persuasion put upon the bodies and limbs of saints. I have seen the Three Kings
of Cologne."
" The relics which I seek, however," said the Benedictine, " are not precisely of that nature. The excellent relative whom I have already mentioned, amused his leisure hours with putting into form the traditions of
his family, particularly some remarkable circumstances which took place
about the first breaking out of the schism of the church in Scotland.  He
became so much interested in his own labours, that at length he resolved
that the heart of one individual, the hero of his tale, should rest no longer
in a land of heresy, now deserted by all his kindred. As he knew where
it was deposited, he formed the resolution to visit his native country for the
purpose of recovering this valued relic. But age, and at length disease, interfered with his resolution, and it was on his deathbed that he charged me
to undertake the task in his stead. The various important events which
have crowded upon each other, our ruin and our exile, have for many years
obliged me to postpone this delegated duty. Wthy, indeed, transfer the
relics of a holy and worthy man to a country, where religion and virtue are
become the mockery of the scorner?  I have now a home, which I trust
may be permanent, if any thing in this earth can be termed so. Thither
will I transport the heart of the good father, and beside the shrine which
it shall occupy, I will construct my own grave."
"He must, indeed, have been an excellent man," replied I, "whose
memory, at so distant a period, calls forth such strong marks of regard."
" He was, as you justly term him," said the ecclesiastic, "indeed excellent - excellent in his life and doctrine - excellent, above all, in his selfdenied and disinterested sacrifice of all that life holds dear to principle and
to friendship. But you shall read his history. I shall be happy at once to
gratify your curiosity, and to show my sense of your kindness, if you will
have the goodness to procure me the means of accomplishing my object."
I replied to the Benedictine, that, as the rubbish amongst which he proposed to search was no part of the ordinary burial-ground, and as I was on
the best terms with the sexton, I had little doubt that I could procure him
the means of executing his pious purpose.
With this promise we parted for the night; and on the ensuing morning
I made it my business to see the sexton, who, for a small gratuity, readily
granted permission of search, on condition, however, that he should be
present himself, to see that the stranger removed nothing of intrinsic value.
" To banes, and skulls, and hearts, if he can find ony, he shall be welcome," said this guardian of the ruined Monastery, "there's plenty a' about,
an he's curious of them; but if there be ony picts" (meaning perhaps pyx)
"or chalishes, or the like of such Popish veshells of gold and silver, deil
hae me an I conneve at their being removed."
The sexton also stipulated, that our researches should take place at night,
being unwilling to excite observation, or give rise to scandal.
My new acquaintance and I spent the day as became lovers of hoar antiquity. We visited every corner of these magnificent ruins again and again
during the forenoon; and, having made a comfortable dinner at David's,
we walked in the afternoon to such places. in the neighbourhood as ancient
tradition or modern conjecture had rendered markworthy. Night found us




INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE.                                   25
in the interior of the ruins, attended by the sexton, who carried a dark
lantern, and stumbling alternately over the graves of the dead, and the
fragments of that architecture, which they doubtless trusted would have
canopied their bones till doomsday."
I am  by no means particularly superstitious, and yet there was that in
the present service which I did not very much like.  There was something
awful in the resolution of disturbing, at such an hour, and in such a place,
the still and mute sanctity of the grave. My companions were free from
this impression-the stranger from his energetic desire to execute the purpose for which he came - and the sexton from  habitual indifference.  We
soon stood in the aisle, which, by the account of the Benedictine, contained
the bones of the family of Glendinning, and were busily employed in removing the rubbish from  a corner which the stranger pointed out. If a
half-pay Captain could have represented an ancient Border-knight, or an
ex-Benedictine of the nineteenth century a wizard monk of the sixteenth,
we might have aptly enough personified the search after Michael Scott's
lamp and book of magic power.  But the sexton would have been de trop
in the group.*
Ere the stranger, assisted by the sexton in his task, had been long at
work, they came to some hewn stones, which seemed to have made part of
a small shrine, though now displaced and destroyed.
" Let us remove these with caution, my friend," said the stranger, " lest
we injure that which I come to seek."
"They are prime stanes," said the sexton, "picked free every ane of
them;-warse than the best wad never serve the monks, I'se warrant."
A minute after he had made this observation, he exclaimed, "I hae fund
something now that stands again' the spade, as if it were neither earth nor
stane."
The stranger stooped eagerly to assist him.
" Na, na, haill o' my ain," said the sexton; "nae halves or quarters;"and he lifted from amongst the ruins a small leaden box.
"You will be disappointed, my friend," said the Benedictine, "if you
expect any thing there but the mouldering dust of a human heart, closed
in an inner case of porphyry."
I interposed as a neutral party, and taking the box from  the sexton, reminded him, that if there were treasure concealed in it, still it could not
become the property of the finder. I then proposed, that as the place was
too dark to examine the contents of the leaden casket, we should adjourn
to David's, where we might have the advantage of light and fire while carrying on our investigation. The stranger requested us to go before, assuring
us that he would follow in a few minutes.
I fancy that old Mattocks suspected these few minutes might be employed
in effecting farther discoveries amongst the tombs, for he glided back through
a side-aisle to watch the Benedictine's motions, but presently returned, and
told me in a whisper that " the gentleman was on his knees amang the cauld
stanes, praying like ony saunt."
I stole back, and beheld the old man actually employed as Mattocks had
informed me.  The language seemed to be Latin; and as the whispered,
yet solemn accent, glided away through the ruined aisles, I could not help
reflecting how long it was since they had heard the forms of that religion,
for the exercise of which they had been reared at such cost of time, taste.
labour, and expense.  " Come away, come away," said I; "let us leave him
to himself, Mattocks; this is no business of ours."
* This is one of those passages which must now read awkwardly, since every one knows that the Novelist
and the author of the Lay of the Minstrel, is the same person. But before the avowal was made, the author
was forced into this and similar offences against good taste, to meet an argument, often repeated, tha' there
was something very mysterious in the Author of Waverley's reserve concerning Sir Walter Scott, an author
sufficiently voluminous at least. I had a great mind to remove the passages from this edition, but the more;andid way is to explain how they came there.
C




26                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"My certes, no, Captain," said Mattocks; "ne'ertheless, it winna be
amiss to keep an ee on him. My father, rest his saul, was a horse-couper,
and used to say he never was cheated in a naig in his life, saving by a
west-country whig frae Kilmarnock, that said a grace ower a drain o'
whisky. But this gentleman will be a Roman, I'se warrant?"
"You are perfectly right in that, Saunders," said I.' Ay, I have seen twa or three of their priests that were chased ower
here some score o' years syne.  They just danced like mad when they
looked on the friars' heads, and the nuns' heads, in the cloister yonder;
they took to them like auld acquaintance like.-Od, he is not stirring yet,
mair than he were a through-stane!*  I never kend a Roman, to say kend
him, but ane-mair by token, he was the only ane in the town to ken —and
that was auld Jock of the Pend. It wad hae been lang ere ye fand Jock
praying in the Abbey in a thick night, wi' his knees on a cauld stane.
Jock likit a kirk wi' a chimley in't. Mony a merry ploy I hae had wi' him
down at the inn yonder; and when he died, decently I wad hae earded
him; but, or I gat his grave weel howkit, some of the quality, that were o'
his ain unhappy persuasion, had the corpse whirried away up the water,
and buried him after their ain pleasure, doubtless-they kend best. I wad
hae made nae great charge. I wadna hae excised Johnnie, dead or alive.Stay, see-the strange gentleman is coming."
"Hold the lantern to assist him, Mattocks," said I.-" This is rough
walking, sir."
" Yes," replied the Benedictine; " I may say with a poet, who is doubtless familiar to you-"
I should be surprised if he were, thought I internally.
The stranger continued:
"Saint Francis he my speed! how oft to-night
Have my old feet stumbled at graves!"
" We are now clear of the churchyard," said I, "and have but a short
walk to David's, where I hope we shall find a cheerful fire to enliven us
after our night's work."
We entered, accordingly, the little parlour, into which Mattocks was also
about to push himself with sufficient effrontery, when David, with a most
astounding oath, expelled him by head and shoulders, d-ning his curiosity,
that would not let gentlemen be private in their own inn.  Apparently
mine host considered his own presence. as no intrusion, for he crowded up
to the table on which I had laid down the leaden box. It was frail and
wasted, as might be guessed, from having lain so many years in the ground.
On opening it, we found deposited within, a case made of porphyry, as the
stranger had announced to us.
" I fancy," he said, " gentlemen, your curiosity will not be satisfied,perhaps I should say that your suspicions will not be removed,- unless I
undo this casket; yet it only contains the mouldering remains of a heart,
once the seat of the noblest thoughts."
He undid the box with great caution; but the shrivelled substance which
it contained bore now no resemblance to what it might once have been, the
means used having been apparently unequal to preserve its shape and
colour, although they were adequate to prevent its total decay.  We were
quite satisfied, notwithstanding, that it was, what the stranger asserted, the
remains of a human heart; and David readily promised his influence in
the village, which was almost co-ordinate with that of the bailie himself, to
silence all idle rumours.  He was, moreover, pleased to favour us with his
company to supper; and having taken the lion's share of two bottles of
sherry, he not only sanctioned with his plenary authority the stranger's
removal of the heart, but, I believe, would have authorized the removal of
X A tombstone.




INTRODU CT ORY  EPISTLE.                            27
the Abbey itself, were it not that it happens considerably to advantage the
worthy publican's own custom.
The object of the Benedictine's visit to theland of his forefathers being
now accomplished, he announced his intention of leaving us early in the
ensuing day, but requested my company to breakfast with him before his
departure. I came accordingly, and when we had finished our morning's
meal, the priest took me apart, and pulling from his pocket a large bundle
of papers, he put them into my hands.  " These," said he, " Captan Clutterbuck, are genuine Memoirs of the sixteenth century, and exhibit in a
singular, and, as I think, an interesting point of view, the manners of that
period. I am induced to believe that their publication will not be an unacceptable present to the British public; and willingly make over to you any
profit that may accrue from such a transaction."
I stared a little at this annunciation, and observed, that the hand seemed
too modern for the date he assigned to the manuscript.
" Do not mistake me, sir," said the Benedictine; " I did not mean to say
the Memoirs were written in the sixteenth century, but only, that they were
compiled from authentic materials of that period, but written in the taste
and language of the present day. My uncle commenced this book; and I,
partly to improve my habit of English composition, partly to divert melancholy thoughts, amused my leisure hours with continuing and concluding
it.  You will see the period of the story where my uncle leaves off his narrative, and I commence mine. In fact, they relate, in a great measure to
different persons, as well as to a different period."
Retaining the papers in my hand, I proceeded to state to him my doubts,
whether, as a good Protestant, I could undertake or superintend a publication written probably in the spirit of Popery.
"You will find," he said, " no matter of controversy in these sheets, nor
any sentiments stated, with which, I trust, the good in all persuasions will
not be willing to join. I remembered I was writing for a land unhappily
divided from the Catholic faith; and I have taken care to say nothing which,
justly interpreted, could give ground for accusing me of partiality.  But if,
upon collating my narrative with the proofs to which I refer you - for you
will find copies of many of the original papers in that parcel -you are of
opinion that I have been partial to my own faith, I freely give you leave to
correct my errors in that respect. I own, however, I am not conscious of
this defect, and have rather to fear that the Catholics may be of opinion,
that I have mentioned circumstances respecting the decay of discipline
which preceded, and partly occasioned, the great schism, called by you the
Reformation, over which I ought to have drawn a veil. And indeed, this is
one reason why I choose the papers should appear in a foreign land, and
pass to the press through the hands of a stranger."
To this-I had nothing to reply, unless to object my own incompetency to the
task the good father was desirous to impose upon me. On this subject he
was pleased-to say more, I fear, than his knowledge of me fully warranted
-more, at any rate, than my modesty will permit me to record. At length
he ended, with advising me, if I continued to feel the diffidence which I
stated, to apply to some veteran of literature, whose experience might supply
my deficiencies. Upon these terms we parted, with mutual expressions of
regard, and I have never since heard of him.
After several attempts to peruse the quires of paper thus singularly conferred on me, in which I was interrupted by the most inexplicable fits of
yawning, I at length, in a sort of despair, communicated them to our village
club, from whom they found a more favourable reception than the unlucky
conformation of my nerves had been able to afford them. They unanimously pronounced the work to be exceedingly good, and assured me I
would be guilty of the greatest possible injury to our flourishing village, if




28                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
I should suppress what threw such an interesting and radiant light upon
the history of the ancient Monastery of Saint Mary.
At length, by dint of listening to their opinion, I became dubious of my
own; and, indeed, when I heard passages read forth by the sonorous voice
of our worthy pastor, I was scarce more tired than I have felt myself at
some of his own sermons.  Such, and so great is the difference betwixt
reading a thing one's self, making toilsome way through all the difficulties
of manuscript, and, as the man says in the play, " having the same read to
you;"-it is positively like being wafted over a creek in a boat, or wading
through it on your feet, with the mud up toyour knees.  Still, however,
there remained the great difficulty of finding some one who could act as
editor, corrector at once of the press and of the language, which, according
to the schoolmaster, was absolutely necessary.
Since the trees walked forth to choose themselves a king, never was an
honour so bandied about.  The parson would not leave the quiet of his chimney-corner-the bailie pleaded the dignity of his situation, and the approach
of the great annual fair, as reasons against going to Edinburgh to make
arrangements for printing the Benedictine's manuscript.  The schoolmaster
alone seemed of malleable stuff; and, desirous perhaps of emulating the
fame of Jedediah Cleishbotham, evinced a wish to undertake this momentous commission. But a remonstrance from three opulent farmers, whose
sons he had at bed, board, and schooling, for twenty pounds per annum
a-head, came like a frost over the blossoms of his literary ambition, and he
was, compelled to decline the service.
In these circumstances, sir, I apply to you, by the advice of our little
council of war, nothing doubting you will not be disinclined to take the duty
upon you, as it is much connected with that in which you have distinguished
yourself. What I request is, that you will review, or rather revise and correct, the enclosed packet, and prepare it for the press, by such alterations,
additions, and curtailments, as you think necessary. Forgive my hinting
to you, that the deepest well may be exhausted, - the best corps of grenadiers, as our old general of brigade expressed himself, may be used iup. A
few hints can do you no harm; and, for the prize-money, let the battle be
first won, and it shall be parted at the drum-head. I hope you will take
nothing amiss that I have said. I am a plain soldier, and little accustomed
to compliments. I may add, that I should be well contented to march in
the front with you - that is, to put my name with yours on the title-page,
I have the honour to be,                     SIR,
Your unknown humble Servant,
CUTHBERT CLUTTERBUCKVILLAGE OF KENNAQUHAIR,
-    of April, 18For the Author of " Waverley," &c.
care of Mr. John Ballantyne,
lHanover Street, Edinburgh. j




ANSWER TO THE INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. 29
ANSWER BY "THE AUTIOR OF WAVERLEY,"
TO THE FOREGOING LETTER FROM CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.
DEAR CAPTAIN,
Do not admire, that, notwithstanding the distance and ceremony of your
address, I return an answer in the terms of familiarity. The truth is, your
origin and native country are better known to me than even to yourself.
You derive your respectable parentage, if I am not greatly mistaken, from
a land which has afforded much pleasure, as well as profit, to those who
have traded to it successfully,-I mean that part of the terra incognita
which is called the province of Utopia. Its productions, though censured
by many (and some who use tea and tobacco without scruple) as idle and
unsubstantial luxuries, have nevertheless, like many other luxuries, a general
acceptation, and are secretly enjoyed even by those who express the greatest
scorn and dislike of them in public. The dram-drinker is often the first to
be shocked at the smell of spirits- it is not unusual to hear old maiden
ladies declaim  against scandal-the private book-cases of some graveseeming men would not brook decent eyes- and many, I say not of the
wise and learned, but of those most anxious to seem such, when the springlock of their library is drawn, their velvet cap pulled over their ears, their
feet insinuated into their turkey slippers, are to be found, were their retreats
suddenly intruded upon, busily engaged with the last new novel.
I have said, the truly wise and learned disdain these shifts, and will open
the said novel as avowedly as they would the lid of their snuff-box. I will
only quote one instance, though I know a hundred. Did you know the
celebrated Watt of Birmingham, Captain Clutterbuck? I believe not,
though, from what I am about to state, he would not have failed to have
sought an acquaintance with you. It was only once my fortune to meet
him, whether in body or in spirit it matters not.  There were assembled
about half a score of our Northern Lights, who had amongst them, Heaven
knows how, a well-known character of your country, Jedediah Cleishbotham.
This worthy person, having come to Edinburgh during the Christmas vacation, had become a sort of lion in the place, and was lead in leash from
house to house along with the guisards, the stone-eater, and other amusenents of the season, which " exhibited their unparalleled feats to private
family-parties, if required."  Amidst this company stood Mr. Watt, the man
whose genius discovered the means of multiplying our national resources to
a degree perhaps even beyond his own stupendous powers of calculation
and combination; bringing the treasures of the abyss to the summit of the
earth - giving the feeble arm of man the momentum of an Afrite- commanding manufactures to arise, as the rod of the prophet produced water in
the desert- affording the means of dispensing with that time and tide which
wait for no man, and of sailing without that wind which defied the commands and threats of Xerxes himself.*  This potent commander of the
elements -this abridger of time and space- this magician, whose cloudy
machinery has produced a change on the world, the effects of which, extraordinary as they are, are perhaps only now beginning to be felt — was not
only the most profound man of science, the most successful combiner of
powers and calculator of numbers as adapted to practical purposes, -was
* Probably the ingenious author alludes to the national adage:
The king said sail,
But the wind said no.
Our schoolmaster (who is also a land surveyor) thinks this whole passage refers to Mr. Watt's improvements
on the steam engine.-Note by Caplain Clutterbuck.
c2




80                    WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
not only one of the most generally well-informed,- but one of the best and
kindest of human beings.
There he stood, surrounded by the little band I have mentioned of Northern literati, men not less tenacious, generally speaking, of their own fame
and their own opinions, than the national regiments are supposed to be
jealous of the high character which they have won upon service. Methinks
I yet see and hear what I shall never see or hear again. In his eighty-fifth
year, the alert, kind, benevolent old man, had his attention alive to every
one's question, his information at every one's command.
His talents and fancy overflowed on every subject. One gentleman was
a deep philologist —he talked with him on the origin of the alphabet as if
he had been coeval with Cadmus; another a celebrated critic,- you would
have said the old man had studied political economy and belles-lettres all
his life,-of science it is unnecessary to speak, it was his own distinguished
walk. And yet, Captain Clutterbuck, when he spoke with your countryman
Jedediah Cleishbotham, you would have sworn he had been coeval with
Claver'se and Burley, with the persecutors and persecuted, and could number every shot the dragoons had fired at the fugitive Covenanters. In fact,
we discovered that no novel of the least celebrity escaped his perusal, and
that the gifted man of science was as much addicted to the productions of
your native country, (the land of Utopia aforesaid,) in other words, as
shameless and obstinate a peruser of novels, as if he had been a very milliner's apprentice of eighteen. I know little apology for troubling you with
these things, excepting the desire to commemorate a delightful evening, and
a wish to encourage you to shake off that modest diffidence which makes
you afraid of being supposed connected with the fairy-land of delusive
fiction. I will requite your tag of verse, from Horace himself, with a paraphrase for your own use, my dear Captain, and for that of your country
club, excepting in reverence the clergyman and schoolmaster: —
Ne sit ancille tibi amor ptdori, 4c.
Take thou no scorn
Of fiction born,
Fair fiction's muse to woo;
Old Homer's theme
Was hut a dream,
Himself a fiction too.
Having told you your country, I must next, my dear Captain Clutterbuck, make fiee to mention your own immediate descent. You are not
to suppose your land of prodigies so little known to us as the careful
concealment of your origin would seem  to imply.  But you have it in
common with many of your country, studiously and anxiously to hide any
connexion with it. There is this difference, indeed, betwixt your countrymen and those of our more material world, that many of the most
estimable of them, such as an. old Highland gentleman called Ossian, a
monk of Bristol called Rowley, and others, are inclined to pass themselves
off as denizens of the land of reality, whereas most of our fellow-citizens
who deny their country are such as that country would be very willing to
disclaim. The especial circumstances you mention relating to your life and
services, impose not upon us. We know the versatility of the unsubstantial
species to which you belong permits them to assume all manner of disguises;
we have seen them  apparelled in the caftan of a Persian, and the silken
robe of a Chinese,* and are prepared to susp6ct'their real character under
every disguise.  But how can we be ignorant of your country and manners,
or deceived by the evasion of its inhabitants, when the voyages of discovery
which have been made to it rival in number those recorded by Purchas or
by Hackluyt?t  Aid to show the skill and perseverance of your navigators
and travellers, we have only to name Sindbad, Aboulfouaris, and Robinson
Crusoe. These were the men for discoveries.  Could we have sent Cantain
e See the Persian Letters, and the Citizen of the World.  t See Les Voyages Imaginaires.




ANSWER TO THE INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. 31
Greenland to look out for the north-west passage, or Peter Wilkins to
examine Baffin's Bay, what discoveries might we not have expected? But
there are feats, and these both numerous and extraordinary, performed by
the inhabitants of your country, which we read without once attempting to
emulate.
I wander from my purpose, which was to assure you, that I know you as
well as the mother who did not bear you, for MacDuff's peculiarity sticks
to your whole race. You are not born of woman, unless, indeed, in that
figurative sense, in which the celebrated Maria Edgeworth may, in her
state of single blessedness, be termed mother of the finest family in England. You belong, sir, to the Editors of the land of Utopia, a sort of
persons for whom I have the highest esteem. How is it possible it should
be otherwise, when you reckon among your corporation the sage Cid Hamet
Benengeli, the short-faced president of the Spectator's Club, poor Ben
Silton, and many others, who have acted as gentlemen-ushers to works
which have cheered our heaviest, and added wings to our lightest hours?
What I have remarked as peculiar to Editors of the class in which I
venture to enrol you, is the happy combination of fortuitous'circumstances
which usually put you in possession of the works which you have the
goodness to bring into public notice: One walks on the sea-shore, and a
wave casts on land a small cylindrical trunk or casket, containing a manuscript much damaged with sea-water, which is with difficulty deciphered,
and so forth.*  Another steps into a chandler's shop, to purchase a pound
of butter, and, behold! the waste-paper on which it is laid is the manuscript of a cabalist.f  A third is so fortunate as to obtain from a woman
who lets lodgings, the curious contents of an antique bureau, the property
of a deceased lodger.4 All these are certainly possible occurrences; but,
I know not how, they seldom occur to any Editors save those of your country.  At least I can answer for myself, that in my solitary walks by the
sea, I never saw it cast ashore any thing but dulse and tangle, and now and
then a deceased star-fish; my landlady never presented me with any manuscript save her cursed bill; and the most interesting of my discoveries in
the way of waste-paper, was finding a favourite passage of one of my own
novels wrapt round an ounce of snuff. No, Captain, the funds from which
I have drawn my power of amusing the public, have been bought otherwise than by fortuitous adventure. I have buried myself in libraries to
extract from  the nonsense of ancient days new nonsense of my own. I
have turned over volumes, which, from the pot-hooks I was obliged to
decipher, might have been the cabalistic manuscripts of Cornelius Agrippa,
although I never saw "the door open and the devil come in."' But all
the domestic inhabitants of the libraries were disturbed by the vehemence
of my studies:From my research the boldest spider fled,
And rotihs, retreating, trembled as I read.
From  this learned sepulchre I emerged like the Magician in the Persian
Tales, from his twelve-month's residence in the mountain, not like him to
soar over the heads of the multitude, but to mingle in the crowd, and to
elbow amongst the throng, making my way from the highest society to the
lowest, undergoing the scorn, or, what is harder to brook, the patronizing
condescension of the one, and enduring the vulgar familiarity of the other,
-and all, you will say, for what?- to collect materials for one of those
manuscripts with which mere chance so often accommodates your countrymen; in other words, to write a successful novel. —"0 Athenians, how
hard we labour to deserve your praise!"
I might stop here, my dear Clutterbuck; it would have -a touching effect,
and the air of proper deference to our dear Public. But I will not be false
* See the nistory of Autornathes.  t Adventures of a Guinea.  $ Adventures of an Atom.
~ See Sou;hey's Ballad on the Young Man who read in a Conjuror's Books.




32                      WAVERLEY NOVELS.
with you,-(though falsehood is-excuse the observation-the current coin
of your country,) the truth is, I have studied and lived for the purpose of
gratifying my own curiosity, and passing my own time; and though the
result has been, that, in one shape or other, I have been frequently before
the Public, perhaps more frequently than prudence warranted, yet I cannot
claim from them the favour due to those who have dedicated their ease and
leisure to the improvement and entertainment of others.
Having communicated thus freely with you, my dear Captain, it follows,
of course, that I will gratefully accept of your communication, which, as
your Benedictine observed, divides itself both by subject, manner, and age,
into two parts. But I am sorry I cannot gratify your literary ambition, by
suffering your name to appear upon the title-page; and I will candidly tell
you the reason.
The Editors of your country are of such a soft and passive disposition,
that they have frequently done themselves great disgrace by giving up the
coadjutors who first brought them into public notice and public favour, and
suffering their names to be used by those quacks and impostors who live
upon the ideas of others. Thus I shame to tell how the sage Cid Hamet
Benengeli was induced by one Juan Avellaneda to play the Turk with the
ingenious Miguel Cervantes, and to publish a Second Part of the adventures
of his hero the renowned Don Quixote, without the knowledge or co-operation of his principal aforesaid. It is true, the Arabian sage returned to
his allegiance, and thereafter composed a genuine continuation of the
Knight of La Mancha, in which the said Avellaneda of Tordesillas is
severely chastised. For in this you pseudo-editors resemble the juggler's
disciplined ape, to which a sly old Scotsman likened James I., "if you
have Jackoo in your hand, you can make him bite me; if I have Jackoo in
my hand, I can make him  bite you."  Yet, notwithstanding the amende
honorable thus made by Cid Hamet Benengeli, his temporary defection did
not the less occasion the decease of the ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote, if
he can be said to die, whose memory is immortal.  Cervantes put him to
death, lest he should again fall into bad hands. Awful, yet just consequence of Cid Hamet's defection!
To quote a more modern and much less important instance.  I am sorry
to observe my old acquaintance Jedediah Cleishbotham  has misbehaved
himself so far as to desert his original patron, and set up for himself.  I
am afraid the poor pedagogue will make little by his new allies, unless the
pleasure of entertaining the public, and, for aught I know, the gentlemen
of the long robe, with disputes about his identity.*  Observe, therefore,
Captain Clutterbuck, that, wise by these great examples, I receive you as a
partner, but a sleeping partner only.  As I give you no title to employ or
use the firm of the copartnery we are about to form, I will announce my
property in my title-page, and put my own mark on my own chattels, which
the attorney tells me it will be a crime to counterfeit, as much as it would
to imitate the autograph of any other empiric   a crime amounting, as
advertisements upon little vials assure to us, to nothing short of felony.
If, therefore, my dear friend, your name should hereafter appear in any
title-page without mine, readers will know what to think of you.  I scorn
to use either arguments or threats; but you cannot but be sensible, that, as
you owe your literary existence to me on the one hand, so, on the other,
your very all is at my disposal.  I can at pleasure cut off your annuity,
I am since more correctly informed, that Mr. Cleishbotham died some months since at Ganderclench,
and that the person assuming his name is an impostor. The real Jedediah made a most Christian and
edifying end; and, as I am credibly informed, having sent for a Cameronian clergyman when he was in extremnis, was so fortunate as to convince the good man, that, after all, he had no wish to bring down on the
scattered remnant of Mountain folls, " the bonnets of Bonny Dundee." Hard that the speculators in print
and paper will not allow a good man to rest quiet in his grave.
This note, and the passages in the text, were occasioned by a London bookseller having printed, as a
speculation, an additional collection of Tales of My Landlord, which was not so fortunate as to succeed in
passing on the world as genuine.




ANSWER TO THE INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. 83
strike your name from  the half-pay establishment, nay, actually put you
to death, without being answerable to any one.  These are plain words tc
a gentleman who has served during the whole war; but, I am aware, you
will take nothing amiss at my hands.
And now, my good sir, let us address ourselves to our task, and arrange,
as we best can, the manuscript of your Benedictine, so as to suit the taste
of this critical age.  You will find I have made very liberal use of his permission, to alter whatever seemed too favourable to the Church of Rome,
which I abominate, were it but for her fasts and penances.
Our reader is doubtless impatient, and we must own, with John Bunyan,
We have too long detain'd him in the porch,
And kept him from the sunshine with a torch.
Adieu, therefore, my dear Captain-remember me respectfully to the
parson, the schoolmaster, and the bailie, and all friends of the happy club
in the village of Kennaquhair.  I have never seen, and never shall see, one
of their faces; and notwithstanding, I believe that as yet I am  better ncquainted with them than any other man who lives. -I shall soon introduce
you to my jocund friend, Mr. John Ballantyne of Trinity Grove, whom you
will find warm  from  his match at single-stick with a brother Publisher.*
Peace to their differences! It is a wrathful trade, and the irritabile genus
comprehends the bookselling as well as the book-writing species.    Once
more adieu!
TIE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.
* In consequence of the pseudo Tales of My Landlord printed in London, as already mentioned, the ]ato
Mr. John Bnll:lnttve, the author's publisher, had a controversy with the interloping bibliopolist. each insistimg
that his Jedediah Cleishbotham was the real Simon Pure.
VOL. YV 




THE MONASTER Y.
ipqtrt t il first.
O ay! the Monks, the Monks they did the misehief 
Theirs all the grossness, all the superstition
Of a most gross and superstitious age -
May I-e be praised that sent the healthful tempest
And scatter'd all these pestilential vapours!
But that we owed them all to yonder Harlot
Throned on the seven hills with her cup of gold,
I will as soon believe, with kind Sir Roger,
That old Moll White took wing with cat and broomstick,
And raised the last night's thunder.
OLD PLAY.
THE village described in the Benedictine's manuscript by the name of
Kennaquhair, bears the same Celtic termination which occurs in Traquhair, Caquhair, and other compounds.  The learned Chalmers derives
this word Quhair, from the winding course of a stream; a definition which
coincides, in a remarkable degree, with the serpentine turns of the river
Tweed near the village of which we speak.  It has been long famous for
the splendid Monastery of Saint Mary, founded by David the First of Scotland, in whose reign were formed, in the same county, the no less splendid
establishments of Melrose, Jedburgh, and Kelso.  The donations of land
with which the King endowed these wealthy fraternities procured him from
the Monkish historians the epithet of Saint, and from one of his impoverished descendants the splenetic censure, "that he had been a sore saint for
the Crown."
It seems probable, notwithstanding, that David, who was a wise as wll
as a pious monarch, was not moved solely by religious motives to those great
acts of munificence to the church, but annexed political views to his pious
generosity. His possessions in Northumberland and Cumberland became
precarious after the loss of the Battle of the Standard; and since the comparatively fertile valley of Teviot-dale was likely to become the frontier of
his kingdom, it is probable he wished to secure at least a part of these
valuable possessions by placing them  in the hands of the monks, whose
property was for a long time respected, even amidst the rage of a frontier
war.  In this manner alone had the King some chance of ensuring protection and security to the cultivators of the soil; and, in fact, for several ages
the possessions of these Abbeys were each a sort of Goshen, enjoying the
calm light. of peace and immunity, while the rest of the country, occupied
by wild clans and marauding barons, was one dark scene of confusion,
blood, and unremitted outrage.
But these immunities did not continue down to the union of the crowns.
Long before that period the wars betwixt England and Scotland had lost
their original character of international hostilities, and had become on the
(34)




TIHE  MONASTERY.                                35
part of the English a struggle for subjugation, on that of the Scots a desperate and infuriated defence of their liberties.  This introduced on both
sides a degree of fury and animosity unknown to the earlier period of their
history; and as religious scruples soon gave way to national hatred spurred
by a love of plunder, the patrimony of the Church was no longer sacred
from incursions on either side. Still, however, the tenants and vassals of
the great Abbeys had many advantages over those of the lay barons, who
were harassed by constant military duty, until they became desperate, and
lost all relish for the arts of peace.  The vassals of the church, on the other
hand, were only liable to be called to arms on general occasions, and at
other times were permitted in comparative quiet to possess their farms and
feus.* They of course exhibited superior skill in every thing that related
to the cultivation of the soil, and were therefore both wealthier and better
informed than the military retainers of the restless chiefs and nobles in
their neighbourhood.
The residence of these church vassals was usually in a small village or
hamlet, where, for the sake of mutual aid and protection, some thirty or
forty families dwelt, together.  This was called the Town, and the land
belonging to the various families by whom  the Town was inhabited, was
called the Township.  They usually possessed the land'in common, though
in various proportions, according to their several grants. The part of the
Township properly arable, and kept as such continually under the plough,
was called in-field.  Here the use of quantities of manure supplied in some
degree the exhaustion of the soil, and the feuars raised tolerable oats and
bear,t usually sowed on alternate ridges, on which the labour of the whole
community was bestowed without distinction, the produce being divided
after harvest, agreeably to their respective interests.
There was, besides,. out-field land, from which it was thought possible to
extract a crop now and then, after which it was abandoned to the " skiey
influences," until the exhausted powers of vegetation were restored. These
out-field spots were selected by any feuar at his own choice, amongst the
sheep-walks and hills which were always annexed to the Township, to serve
as pasturage to the community.  The trouble of cultivating these patches
of out-field, and the precarious chance that the crop would pay the labour,
were considered as giving a right to any feuar, who chose to undertake the
adventure, to the produce which might result from it.
There remained the pasturage of extensive moors, where the valleys often
afforded good grass, and upon which the whole cattle belonging to the community fed indiscriminately during the summer, under the charge of the
Trown-herd, who regularly drove them  out to pasture in the morning, and
brought them  back at night, without which precaution they would have
fallen a speedy prey to some of the Snatchers in the neighbourhood.  These
are things to make modern agriculturists hold up their hands and stare; but
the same mode of cultivation is not yet entirely in desuetude in some distant
parts of North Britain, and may be witnessed in full force and exercise in
the Zetland Archipelago.
The habitations of the church-feuars were not less primitive than their
agriculture. In each village or town were several small towers, having
battlements projecting over the side walls, and usually an advanced angle
or two with shot-holes for flanking the door-way, which was always defended
by a strong door of oak, studded with nails, and often by an exterior grated
door of iron.  These small peel-houses were ordinarily inhabited by the
principal feuars and their families; but, upon the alarm of approaching
danger, the whole inhabitants thronged from their own miserable cottages,
Small possessions conferred upon vassals and their heirs, held for a small quit-rent, or a moderate proportion of the produce. This was a favourite manner, by which the churchmen peopled the patrimony of
their convents; and many descendants of such feuars, as they are called, are still to be found in possession
of their family inheritances in the neighbourhood of the great Monasteries of Scotland.
t Or bigg, a kind of coarse barley.




86                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
which were situated around, to garrison these points of defence. It was
then no easy matter for a hostile party to penetrate into the village, for the
men were habituated to the use of, bows and fire-arms, and the towers being
generally so placed, that the discharge from one crossed that of another, it
was impossible to assault any of them individually.
The interior of these houses was usually sufficiently wretched, for it would
have been folly to have furnished them in a manner which could excite the
avarice of their lawless neighbours. Yet the families themselves exhibited
in their appearance a degree of comfort, information, and independence,
which could hardly have been expected. Their in-field supplied them with
bread and home-brewed ale, their herds and flocks with beef and mutton
(the extravagance of killing lambs or calves was never thought of). Each
family killed a mart, or fat bullock, in November, which was salted up for
winter use, to which the good wife could, upon great occasions, add a dish
of pigeons or a fat capon,-the ill-cultivated garden afforded " lang-cale,"and the river gave salmon to serve as a relish during the season of Lent.
Of fuel they had plenty, for the bogs afforded turf; and the remains of
the abused woods continued to give them logs for burning, as well as timber
for the usual domestic purposes. In addition to these comforts, the goodman would now and then sally forth to the greenwood, and mark down a
buck of season with his gun or his cross-bow; and the Father Confessor
seldom refused him absolution for the trespass, if duly invited to take his
share of the smoking haunch.  Some, still bolder, made, either with their
own domestics, or by associating themselves with the moss-troopers, in the
language of shepherds, "a start and overloup;" and the golden ornaments
and silken' head-gear worn by the females of one or two families of note,
were invidiously traced by their neighbours to such successful excursions.
This, however, was a more inexplicable crime in the eyes of the Abbot and
Community of Saint Mary's, than the borrowing one of the "gude king's
deer;" and they failed not to discountenance and punish, by every means in
their power, offences which were sure to lead to severe retaliation upon the
property of the church, and which tended to alter the character of their
peaceful vassalage.
As for the information possessed by those dependents of the Abbacies,
they might have been truly said to be better fed than taught, even though
their fare had been worse than it was. Still, however, they enjoyed opportunities of knowledge from which others were excluded. The monks were
in general well acquainted with their vassals and tenants, and familiar in
the families of the better class among them, where they were sure to be
received with the respect due to their twofold character of spiritual father
and secular landlord. Thus it often happened, when a boy displayed talents
and inclination for study, one of the brethren, with a view to his being bred
to the church, or out of good-nature, in order to pass away his own idle
time, if he had no better motive, initiated him into the mysteries of reading
and writing, and imparted to him  such other knowledge as he himself
possessed. And the heads of these allied families, having more time for
reflection, and more skill, as well as stronger motives for improving their
small properties, bore amongst their neighbours the character of shrewd,
intelligent men, who claimed respect on account of their comparative wealth,
even while they were despised for a less warlike and enterprising turn than
the other Borderers. They lived as much as they well could amongst themselves, avoiding the company of others, and dreading nothing more than to
be involved in the deadly feuds and ceaseless contentions of the secular
landholders.
Such is a general picture of these communities. During the fatal wars
in the commencement of Queen Mary's reign, they had suffered dreadfully
by the hostile invasions. For the English, now a Protestant people, were
so far from sparing the church-lands, that they forayed them with more




THE MONASTERY.                                   37
unrelenting severity than even the possessions of the laity. But the peace
of 1550 had restored some degree of tranquillity to those distracted and
harassed regions, and matters began again gradually to settle upon the
former footing.  The monks repaired their ravaged shrines-the feuar
again roofed his small fortalice which the enemy had ruined-the poor
labourer rebuilt his cottage — an easy task, where a few sods, stones, and
some pieces of wood from the next copse, furnished all the materials necessary. The cattle, lastly, were driven out of the wastes and thickets in which
the remnant of them had been secreted; and the mighty bull moved at the
head of his seraglio and their followers, to take possession of their wonted
pastures.  There ensued peace and quiet, the state of the age and nation
considered, to the Monastery of Saint Mary, and its dependencies, for several
tranquil years.
(iuhtr tat attune
is von lone vale his early youth was bred,
Not solitary then-the bugle-horn
Of fell Alecto often waked its windings,
From where the brook joins the majestic river,
To the wild northern bog, the curlew's haunt,
Where oozes forth its first and feeble streamlet.
OLD PLAY.
CWE have said, that most of the feuars dwelt in the village belonging to
th3ir townships.  This was not, however, universally the case.'A lonely
tower, to which the reader must now be introduced, was at least one exception to the general rule.
It was of small dimensions, yet larger than those which occurred in the
village, as intimating that, in case of assault, the proprietor would have to
rely upon his own unassisted strength. Two or three miserable huts, at the
foot of the fortalice, held the bondsmen and tenants of the feuar.  The-site
was a beautiful green knoll, which started up suddenly in the very throat of a
wild and narrow glen, and which, being surrounded, except on one side, by
the winding of a small stream, afforded a position of considerable strength.
But the great security of Glendearg, for so the place was called, lay in
its secluded, and almost hidden situation.  To reach the tower, it was
necessary to travel three miles up the glen, crossing about twenty times
the little stream, which, winding through the narrow valley, encountered
at every hundred yards the opposition of a rock or precipitous bank on
the one side, which altered its course, and caused it to shoot off in an oblique direction to the other. The hills which ascend on each side of this
glen are very steep, and rise boldly over the stream, which is thus imprisoned within their barriers.  The sides of the glen are impracticable for
horse, and are only to be traversed by means of the sheep-paths which lie
along their sides. It would not be readily supposed that a road so hopeless
and so difficult could lead to any habitation more important than the
summer shealing of a shepherd.
Yet the glen, though lonely, nearly inaccessible, and sterile, was not then
absolutely void of beauty.  The turf which covered the small portion of
level ground on the sides of the stream, was as close and verdant as if it
had occupied the scythes of a hundred gardeners once a-fortnight; and it
was garnished with an embroidery of daisies and wild flowers, which the
scythes would certainly have destroyed.  The little brook, now confined
D




88                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
betwixt closer limits, now left at large to choose its course through the
narrow valley, danced carelessly on from stream to pool, light and unturbid,
as that better class of spirits who pass their way through life, yielding to
insurmountable obstacles, but as far from being subdued by them as the
sailor who meets by chance with an unfavourable wind, and shapes his
course so as to be driven back as little as possible.
The mountains, as they would have been called in England, Scottice the
steep braes, rose abruptly aver the little glen, here presenting the gray face
of a rock, from which the turf had been peeled by the torrents, and there
displaying patches of wood and copse, which had escaped the waste of the
cattle and the sheep of the feuars, and which, feathering naturally up the
beds of empty torrents, or occupying the concave recesses of the bank, gave
at once beauty and variety to the landscape. Above these scattered woods
rose the hill, in barren, but purple majesty; the dark rich hue, particularly
in autumn, contrasting beautifully with the thickets of oak and birch, the
mountain ashes and thorns, the alders and quivering aspens, which checquered and varied the descent, and not less with the dark-green and velvet
turf, which composed the level part of the narrow glen.
Yet, though thus embellished, the scene could neither be strictly termed
sublime nor beautiful, and scarcely even picturesque or striking. But its
extreme solitude pressed on the heart; the traveller felt that uncertainty
whither he was going, or in what so wild a path was to terminate, which,
at times, strikes more on the imagination than the grand features of a
show-scene, when you know the exact distance of the inn where your dinner
is bespoke, and at the moment preparing.  These are ideas, however, of a
far later age; for at the time we treat of, the picturesque, the beautiful, the
sublime, and all their intermediate shades, were ideas absolutely unknown
to the inhabitants and occasional visiters of Glendearg.
These had, however, attached to the scene feelings fitting the time. Its
name, signifying the Red Valley, seems to have been derived, not only from
the purple colour of the heath, with which the upper part of the rising
banks was profusely clothed, but also from the dark red colour of the rocks,
and of the precipitous earthen banks, which in that country are called
scaums.  Another glen, about the head of Ettrick, has acquired the same
name from  similar circumstances; and there are probably more in Scotland to which it has been given.
As our Glendearg did not abound in mortal visitants, superstition, that
it might not be absolutely destitute of inhabitants, had peopled its recesses
with beings belonging to another world.  The savage and capricious Brown
Man of the Moors, a being which seems the genuine descendant of the
northern dwarfs, was supposed to be seen there frequently, especially after
the autumnal equinox, when the fogs were thick, and objects not easily distinguished.  The Scottish fairies, too, a whimsical, irritable, and mischievous tribe, who, though at times capriciously benevolent, were more frequently adverse to mortals, were also supposed to have formed a residence
in a particularly wild recess of the glen, of which the real name was, in
allusion to that circumstance, Corrie nan Shian, which, in corrupted Celtic,
signifies the Hollow of the Fairies.  But the nMighbours were more cautious
in speaking about this place, and avoided giving it a name, from an idea
common then throughout all the British and Celtic provinces of Scotland,
and still retained in many places, that to speak either good or ill of this
capricious race of imaginary beings, is to provoke their resentment, and
that secrecy and silence is what they chiefly desire from those who may
intrude upon their revels, or discover their haunts.
A mysterious terror was thus attached to the dale, which afforded access
from the broad valley of the Tweed, up the little glen we have described, to
the fortalice called the Tower of Glendearg.  Beyond the knoll, where, as
we have said, the tower was situated, the hills grew more steep, and nar



THE  MONASTERY.                               39
rowed on the slender brook, so as scarce to leave a footpath; and there the
glen terminated in a wild waterfall, where a slender thread of water dashed
in a precipitous line of foam over two or three precipices. Yet farther in
the same direction, and above these successive cataracts, lay a wild and extensive morass, frequented only by waterfowl, wide, waste, apparently
almost interminable, and serving in a great measure to separate the inhabitants of the glen from those who lived to the northward.
T-o restless and indefatigable moss-troopers, indeed, these morasses were
well known, and sometimes afforded a retreat.  They often rode down the
glen-called at this tower-asked and received hospitality-but still with a
sort of reserve on the part of its more peaceful inhabitants, who entertained
them as a party of North-American Indians might be received by a new
European settler, as much out of fear as hospitality, while the uppermost
wish of the landlord is the speedy departure of the savage guests.
This had not always been the current of feeling in the little valley and
its tower. Simon Glendinning, its former inhabitant, boasted his connexion
by blood to that ancient family of Glendonwyne, on the western border.
He used to narrate, at his fireside, in the autumn evenings, the feats of the
family to which he belonged, one of whom fell by the side of the brave
Earl of Douglas at Otterbourne. On these occasions Simon usually held
upon his knee an ancient broadsword, which had belonged to his ancestors
before any of the family had consented to accept a fief under the peaceful
dominion of the monks of St. Mary's. In modern days, Simon might have
lived at ease on his own estate, and quietly murmured against the fate that
had doomed him to dwell there, and cut off his access to martial renown.
But so many opportunities, nay so many calls there were for him, who in
those days spoke big, to make good his words by his actions, that Simon
Glendinning was soon under the necessity of marching with the men of the
I[alidome, as it was called, of St. Mary's, in that disastrous campaign
which was concluded by the battle of Pinkie.
The Catholic clergy were deeply interested in that national quarrel, the
principal object of which was, to prevent the union of the infant Queen
Mary, with the son of the heretical Henry VIII.  The Monks had called
out their vassals, under an experienced leader. Many of themselves had
taken arms, and marched to the field, under a banner representing a female;
supposed to personify the Scottish Church, kneeling in the attitude of
prayer, with the legend, Afflictce Sponsce ne obliviscaris.*
The Scots, however, in all their wars, had more occasion for good and
cautious generals, than for excitation, whether political or enthusiastic.
Their headlong and impatient courage uniformly, induced them to rush into
action without duly weighing either their own situation, or that of their
enemies, and the inevitable consequence was frequent defeat. With the
dolorous slaughter of Pinkie we have nothing to do, excepting that, among
ten thousand men of low and high degree, Simon Glendinning, of the Tower
of Glendearg, bit the dust, no way disparaging in his death that ancient
race from which he claimed his descent.
When the doleful news, which spread terror and mourning through the
whole of Scotland, reached the Tower of Glendearg, the widow of Simon,
Elspeth Brydone by her family name, was alone in that desolate habitation,
excepting a hind or two, alike past martial and agricultural labour, and the
helpless widows and families of those who had fallen with their master.
The feeling of desolation was universal;-but what availed it?  The monks,
their patrons and protectors, were driven from their Abbey by the English
forces, who now overran the country, and enforced at least an appearance
of submission on the part of the inhabitants. The Protector, Somerset,
formed a strong camp among the ruins of the ancient Castle of Roxburgh,
Forget not the afflicted spouse.




40                        WAVERLEY NOVELS.
and compelled the neighbouring country to come in, pay tribute, and take
assuirance from him, as the phrase then went. Indeed, there was no power
of resistance remaining; and the few barons, whose high spirit disdained
even the appearance of surrender, could only retreat into the wildest fastnesses of the country, leaving their houses and property to the wrath of the
English, who detached parties everywhere to distress, by military exaction, those whose chiefs had not made their submission.  The Abbot and
his community having retreated beyond the Forth, their lands were severely
forayed, as their sentiments were held peculiarly inimical to the alliance
with England.
Amongst the troops detached on this service was a small party, commanded by Stawarth Bolton, a captain in the English army, and full of the
blunt and unpretending gallantry and generosity which has so often distinguished that nation.  Resistance was in vain.  Elspeth Brydone, when she
descried a dozen of horsemen threading their way up the glen, with a man
at their head, whose scarlet cloak, bright armour, and dancing plume, proclaimed him  a leader, saw no better protection for herself than to issue from
the iron grate, covered with a long mourning veil, and holding one of her
two sons in each hand, to meet the Englishman - state her deserted condition-place the little tower at his command-and beg for his mercy.  She
stated, in a few brief words, her intention, and added, "I submit, because I
have nae means of resistance."
"And  I do not ask your submission, mistress, for the same reason,"
replied the Englishman. " To be satisfied of your peaceful intentions is all
I ask; and, from what you tell me, there is no reason to doubt them."
" At least, sir," said Elspeth Brydone, " take share of what our spence and
our garners afford.  Your horses are tired-your folk want refieshment."
" Not a whit-  not a whit," answered the honest Englishman;  "it shall
never be said we disturbed by carousal the widow of a brave soldier, while
she was mourning for her husband.-Comrades, face about.-Yet stay," ho
added, checking his war-horse, " my parties are out in every direction; they
must have some token that your family are under my assurance of safety.
-Here, my little fellow," said he, speaking to the eldest boy, who might be
about nine or ten years old, "lend me thy bonnet."
The child reddened, looked sulky, and hesitated, while the mother, with
many a fye and nay pshaw, and such sarsenet chidings as tender mothers
give to spoiled children, at length succeeded in snatching the bonnet from
him, and handing it to the English leader.
Stawarth Bolton took his embroidered red cross from  his barret-cap, and
putting it into the loop of the boy's bonnet, said to the mistress, (for the
title of lady was not given to dames of her degree,) "By this token, which
all my people will respect, you will be freed from  any importunity on the
part of our forayers."*   He placed it on the boy's head; but it was no
sooner there, than the little fellow, his veins swelling, and his eyes shooting
fire through tears, snatched the bonnet from  his head, and, ere his mother
could interfere, skimmed it into the brook.  The other boy ran instantly to
fish it out again, threw it back to his brother, first taking out the cross,
which, with  great veneration, he kissed and put into his bosom.  The
Englishman was half diverted, half surprised, with the scene.
As gallantry of all times and nations has the same mode of thinking and acting, so it often expresses
itself by the salme symbols. In the civil war 1745-6, a party of Highlanders, under a Chieftain of rank,carne
to Rose Castle, the seat of the Bishop of Carlisle, but then occupied by the family of Squire Dacre of Cumberland. They demanded quarters, which of course were not to be refused to armed men of a strange attire
and unknown language. But the domestic represented to the captain of the mountaineers, that the lady of
the mansion had been just delivered of a daughter, and expressed her hope, that, under these circumstances,
his party would give as little trouble as possible. " God forbid," said the gallant chief, "that I or mine should
be the means of adding to a lady's inconvenience at such a time. May 1 request to see the infant?" The
child was brought, and the Highlander, taking his cockade out of his bonnet, and pinningt it on the child's
breast, " That will be a token," he said, " to any of our people who may come hither, that Donald M'Donald of
Kiriloch-Moidart, has taken the family of Rose Castle under his protection." The lady who received in infancy this gage of Highland protectioln, is now Mary, Lady Clerk of Pennycuik; and onthe 10th of Julle still
wears thie cockade which was pinned on her breast, wilh a white rose as a kindred decoration.




THE MONASTERY.                               41
"What mean ye by throwing away Saint George's red cross?"'said he to
the elder boy, in a tone betwixt jest and earnest.
" Because Saint George is a southern saint," said the child, sulkily.
"Good" —said Stawarth Bolton.-" And what did you mean by taking it
out of the brook again, my little fellow?" he demanded of the younger.
"Because the priest says it is the common sign of salvation to all good
Christians."
" Why, good again!" said the honest soldier. "I protest unto you, mistress, I envy you these boys. Are they both yours?"
Stawarth Bolton had reason to put the question, for Ilalbert Glendinning,
the elder of the two, had hair as dark as the raven's plumage, black eyes,
large, bold, and sparkling, that glittered under eyebrows of the same complexion; a skin deep embrowned, though it could not be termed swarthy,
and an air of activity, frankness, and determination, far beyond his age.
On the other hand, Edward, the younger brother, was light-haired, blueeyed, and of fairer complexion, in countenance rather pale, and not exhibiting that rosy hue which colours the sanguine cheek of robust health. Yet
the boy had nothing sickly or ill-conditioned in his look, but was, on the
contrary, a fair and handsome child, with a smiling face, and mild, yet
cheerful eye.
The mother glanced a proud motherly glance, first at the one, and then
at the other, ere she answered the Englishman, " Surely, sir, they are both
my children."
" And by the same father, mistress?" said Stawarth; but, seeing a blush
of displeasure arise on her brow, he instantly added, "Nay, I mean no
offence; I would have asked the same question at any of my gossips in
merry Lincoln.-Well, dame, you have two fair boys; I would I could borrow
one, for Dame Bolton and I live childless in our old hall. - Come, little
fellows, which of you will go with me?"
The trembling mother, half-fearing as he spoke, drew the children towards
her, one with either hand, while they both answered the stranger. " I will
not go with you," said Halbert, boldly, "for you are a false-hearted Southern; and the Southerns killed my father; and I will war on you to the
death, when I can draw my father's sword."
"God-a-mercy, my little levin-bolt," said Stawarth, " the goodly custom
of deadly feud will never go down in thy day, I presume.- And you, my
fine white-head, will you not go with me, to ride a cock-horse?"
" No," said Edward, demurely, " for you are a heretic."
" Why, God-a-mercy still!" said Stawarth Bolton. " Well, dame, I see I
shall find no recruits for my troop from you; and yet I do envy you these
two little chubby knaves."  He sighed a moment, as was visible, in spite
of gorget and corslet, and then added, "And yet, my dame and I would
but quarrel which of the knaves we should like best; for I should wish for
the black-eyed rogue-and she, I warrant me, for that blue-eyed, fair-haired
darling. Natheless, we must brook our solitary wedlock, and wish joy to
those that are more fortunate. Sergeant Brittson, do thou remain here till
recalled-protect this family, as under assurance-do them no wrong, and
suffer no wrong to be done to them, as thou wilt answer it.-Dame, Brittson
is a married man, old and steady; feed him on what you will, but give him
not over much liquor."
Dame Glendinning again offered refreshments, but with a faltering voice,
and an obvious desire her invitation should not be accepted. The fact was,
that, supposing her boys as precious in the eyes of the Englishman as in
her own, (the most ordinary of parental errors,) she was half afraid, that
the admiration he expressed of them in his blunt manner might end in his
actually carrying off one or other of the little darlings whom he appeared
to covet so much. She kept hold of their hands, therefore, as if her feeble
strength could have been of service, had any violence been intended, and
D2




42                    WAVERILEY  NOVELS.
saw with joy she could not disguise, the little party of horse countermarch,
in order to descend the glen. Her feelings did not escape Bolton: " I forgive you, dame," he said, " for being suspicious that an English falcon was
hovering over your Scottish moor-brood.  But fear not -those who have
fewest children have fewest cares; nor does a wise man covet those of
another household. Adieu, dame; when the black-eyed rogue is able to
drive a foray from England, teach him to spare women and children, for
the sake of Stawarth Bolton."
" God be with you, gallant Southern i" said Elspeth Glendinning, but not
till he was out of hearing, spurring on his good horse to regain the head of
his party, whose plumage and armour were now glancing and gradually
disappearing in the distance, as they winded down the glen.
"Mother," said the elder boy, "I will not say amen to a prayer for a
Southern."
"Mother," said the younger, more reverentially, "is it right to pray for
a heretic?"
" The God to whom I pray only knows," answered poor Elspeth; " but
these two words, Southern and heretic, have already cost Scotland ten
thousand of her best and bravest, and me a husband, and you a father; and,
whether blessing or banning, I never wish to hear them more.-Follow me
to the Place, sir," she said to Brittson, "and such as we have to offer you
shall be at your disposal."
They lighted own on Tweed water
They lighted down on Tweed water
And blew their coals sae het,
And fired the March and Teviotdale,
All in an evening late.
AULD MAITLAND.
THE report soon spread through the patrimony of Saint Mary's and its
vicinity, that the Mistress of Glendearg had received assurance from the
English Captain, and that her cattle were not to be driven off, or her corn
burned. Among others who heard this report, it reached the ears of a lady,
who, once nuch higher in rank than Elspeth Glendinning, was now by the
same calamity reduced to even greater misfortune.
She was the widow of a brave soldier, Walter Avenel, descended of a
very ancient Border family, who once possessed immense estates in Eskdale.
These had long since passed from them into other hands, but they still
enjoyed an ancient Barony of considerable extent, not very far from  the
patrimony of Saint Mary's, and lying upon the same side of the river with
the narrow vale of Glendlearg, at the head of which was the little tower of
the Glendinnings. Here they had lived, bearing a respectable rank amongst
the gentry of their province, though neither wealthy nor powerful.  This
general regard had been much augmented by the skill, courage, and enterprise which had been displayed by-Walter Avenel, the last Baron.
When Scotland began to recover from  the dreadful shock she had sustained after the battle of Pinkie-Cleuch, Avenel was one of the first who,
assembling a small force, set an example in those bloody and unsparing
skirmishes, which showed that a nation, though conquered and overrun by
invaders, may yet wage against them such a war of detail as shall in the
end become fatal to the foreigners. In one of these, however, Walter
Avenel fell, and the news which came to the house of his fathers was fol




THE MONASTERY.                               43
lowed by the distracting intelligence, that a party of Englishmen were
coming to plunder the mansion and lands of his widow, in order, by this
act of terror, to prevent others from following the example of the deceased.
The unfortunate lady had no better refuge than the miserable cottage of
a shepherd among the hills, to which she was hastily removed, scarce conscions where or for what purpose her terrified attendants were removing her
and her infant daughter from. her own house. Here she was tended with all
the duteous service of ancient times by the shepherd's wife, Tibb Tacket,
who in better days had been her own bowerwoman. For a time the lady
was unconscious of her misery; but when the first stunning effect of grief
was so far passed away that she could form an estimate of her own situation, the widow of Avenel had cause to envy the lot of her husband in his
dark and silent abode. The domestics who had guided her to her place of
refuge, were presently obliged to disperse for their own safety, or to seek for
necessary subsistence; and the shepherd and his wife, whose poor cottage
she shared, were soon after deprived of the means of affording their late
mistress even that coarse sustenance which they had gladly shared with her.
Some of the English forayers had discovered and driven off the few sheep
which had escaped the first researches of their avarice. Two cows shared
the fate of the remnant of their stock; they had afforded the family almost
their sole support, and now famine appeared to stare them in the face.
"We are broken and beggared now, out and out," said old Martin the
shepherd -and he wrung his hands in the bitterness of agony, " the thieves,
the harrying thieves! not a cloot left of the haill hirsel!"
"And to see poor Grizzie and Crumbie," said his wife, "turning back
their necks to the byre, and routing while the stony-hearted villains were
brogging them on wi' their lances i"
" There were but four of them," said Martin, " and I have seen the day
forty wad not have ventured this length. But our strength and manhood is
gane with our puir maister."
"For the sake of the holy rood, whisht, man," said the goodwife," our
leddy is half gane already, as ye may see by that fleightering of the ee-lid 
a word mair and she's dead outright."
"I could almost wish," said Martin, "we were a' gane, for what to do
passes my puir wit. I care little for mysell, or you, Tibb, —we can make a
fend- work or want - we can do baith, but she can do neither."
They canvassed their situation thus openly before the lady, convinced by
the paleness of her look, her quivering lip, and dead-set eye, that she neither
heard nor understood what they were saying.
" There is a way," said the shepherd, "but I kenna if she could bring
her heart to it, -there's Simon Glendinning's widow of the glen yonder, has
had assurance from the Southern loons, and nae soldier to steer them for
one cause or other. Now, if the leddy could bow her mind to take quarters
with Elspeth Glendinning till better days cast up, nae doubt it wad be doing
an honour to the like of her, but-"
"An honour," answered Tibb, " ay, by my word, sic an honour as wad
be pride to her kin mony a lang year after her banes were in the mould.
Oh! gudeman, to hear ye even the Lady of Avenel to seeking quarters wi' a
Kirk-vassal's widow!"
"Loath should I be to wish her to it," said Martin; " but what may we
do? - to stay here is mere starvation; and where to go, I'm sure I ken nae
mair than ony tup I ever herded."
"Speak no more of it," said the widow of Avenel, suddenly joining in the
conversation, "I will go to the tower. - Dame Elspeth is of good folk, a
widow, and the mother of orphans, -she will give us house-room until
something be thought upon. These evil showers make the low bush better
than no bield."




44                            WAVERLEY NOVELS.
" See there, see there," said Martin, " you  see the leddy has twice  our
sense."
"And natural it is," said Tibb, " seeing that she is convent-bred, and can
lay silk broidery, forby white-seam  and shell-work."
"Do you not think," said  the  lady to Martin, still clasping  her child to
her bosom and making it clear from what motives she desired the refuge,
"that Dame Glendinning will make us welcome?"
"Blithely  welcome,  blithely  welcome, my  leddy,"  answered   Martin,
cheerily, "and we shall deserve a welcome at her hand. Men are scarce
now, my  leddy, with  these  wars; and  gie me a thought of time  to  it, I
can do as good a day's darg as ever I did in my life, and Tibb can sort cows
with  ony living woman."
"And muckle mair could I do," said  Tibb, "were it ony feasible house;
but there will be neither pearlins to mend, nor pinners to busk up, in Elspeth
Glendinning's."
" Whisht wi' your pride, woman," said  the shepherd; " eneugh you can
do, baith outside and inside, an ye set your mind to it; and hard it is if we
twa  canna work  for three  folk's meat, forby  my  dainty  wee leddy there.
Come awa, come  awa, nae use in  staying  here langer; we have five Scots
miles over moss and muir, and that is nae easy walk for a leddy born and
bred."
Household stuff there was little or none to remove or care for; an old
pony which had escaped the plunderers, owing partly to its pitiful appearance, partly from  the reluctance which it showed to be caught by strangers,
was employed  to carry the few  blankets  and  other trifles which  they possessed.  When  Shagram   came to his master's well-known whistle, he was
surprised to find the poor thing had been wounded, though slightly, by an
arrow, which one of the forayers had shot off in anger after he had long
chased it in vain.
" Ay, Shagram," said the old man, as he applied something to the wound,
"must you rue the lang-bow  as weel as all of us?"
" What corner in Scotland rues it not!" said the Lady of Avenel.
"Ay, ay, madam," said Martin, "God keep the kindly Scot from the
cloth-yard shaft, and he will keep himself from  the handy stroke.  But let
us go our way; the trash that is left I can come back for.  There is nae ane
to stir it but the good neighbours, and they                  "
" For the love of God, goodman," said his wife, in  a remonstrating tone,
"haud your peace!  Think what ye're saying, and we hae sae muckle wild
land to go over before we win to the girth gate."
The husband nodded acquiescence; for it was deemed  highly imprudent
to speak of the fairies, either by  their title  of good  neighbours or by  any
other, especially when about to pass the places which they were supposed to
haunt.*
* This superstition continues to prevail. though one would suppose it must now be antiquated. It is only
a year or two since an itinerant puppet show-man, who, disdaining to acknowledge the profession of Gines de
Passamonte, called himself an artist fromn Vauxhall. brought a complaint of a singular nature before the
author, as Sheriff of Selkirlshire. The singular dexterity with which the show-man had exhibited the nachinery of his little stage. had, upon a Selkirk fair-day, excited the eager curiosity of some mechanics ofGalashiels. These men, from no worse motive that could be discovered than a thirst after knowledge beyond
their sphere, cornmitted a burglary upon the barn in which the puppets had been consigned to repose, and
carried them off in the nook of their plaids, when returning from Selkirk to their own village.
"But with the morning cool reflection came."
The party found, however, they could not make Punch dance, and that the whole troop were equally intractable; they had also, perhaps, some apprehensions of the Rhadamanth of the district: and, willing to be quit
of their booty, they left the puppets seated in a grove by the side of the Ettrick, where they were sure to be
touched'by the first beams of the rising sun. Here a shepherd, who was on foot with sunrise to pen his master's sheep on a field of turnips, to his utter astonishment, saw this train, profusely gay, sitting il the little
grotto. His exanination proceeded thus:Sherff. You saw these gay-looking things? what did you think they were?
Shepherd. Ou, I am no that free to say what I might thilnk they were.
Sheri. Come, lad, I must have a direct answer-who did you think they were?
Shepherd. Ou, sir, troth I am no that free to say that I mind wha I might think they were.
Sheriff. Come, come sir! I ask you distinctly, did you think they were the fairies you saw?
Shepherd. Indeed, sir, and I winna say but I might think it was the Good Neighbours.'hus unwillingly was he brought to allude to the irritable and captious inhabitants of fairy land.




THE  MONASTERY.                               45
They set forward on their pilgrimage on the last day of October.  " This
is thy birthday, my sweet Mary," said the mother, as a sting of bitter recollection crossed her mind.  " Oh, who could have believed that the head,
which, a few years since, was cradled amongst so many rejoicing friends,
may perhaps this night seek a cover in vain!"
The exiled family then set forward,-Mary Avenel, a lovely girl between
five andssix years old, riding gipsy fashion upon Shagrain, betwixt two
bundles of bedding; the Lady of Avenel walking by the animal's side;
Tibb leading the bridle, and old Martin walking a little before, looking
anxiously around him to explore the way.
Martin's task as guide, after two or three miles' walking, became more
difficult than he himself had expected, or than he was willing to avow. If
happened that the extensive range of pasturage, with which he was conversant, lay to the west, and to get into the little valley of Glendearg he
had to proceed easterly.  In the wilder districts of Scotland, the passage
from one vale to another, otherwise than by descending that which you
leave, and reascending the other, is often very difficult. - Heights and hollows, mosses and rocks intervene, and all those local impediments which
throw a traveller out of his course. So that Martin, however sure of his
general direction, became conscious, and at length was forced reluctantly
to admit, that he had missed the direct road to Glendearg, though he insisted they must be very near it.  "If we can but win across this wide
bog," he said, "I shall warrant ye are on the top of the tower."
But to get across the bog was a point of no small difficulty. The farther
they ventured into it, though proceeding with all the caution which Martin's
experience recommended, the more unsound the ground became, until, after
they had passed some places of great peril, their best argument for going
forward came to be, that they had to encounter equal danger in returning.
The Lady of Avenel had been tenderly nurtured, but what will not a
woman endure when her child is in danger?  Complaining less of the
dangers of the road than her attendants, who had been inured to such from
their infancy, she kept herself close by the side of the pony, watching its
every footstep, and ready, if it should flounder in the morass, to snatch her
little Mary from its back.  At length they came to a place where the guide
greatly hesitated, for all around him was broken lumps of heath, divided
from each other by deep sloughs of black tenacious mire. After great consideration, Martin, selecting what he thought the safest path, began himself to lead forward Shagram, in order to afford greater security to the
child. But Shagram snorted, laid his ears back, stretched his two feet
forward, and drew his hind feet under him, so as to adopt the best possible
posture for obstinate resistance, and refused to move one yard in the direction indicated. Old Martin, much puzzled, now hesitated whether to exert
his absolute authority, or to defer to the contumacious obstinacy of Shagram, and was not greatly comforted by his wife's observation, who, seeing
Shagram stare with his eyes, distend his nostrils, and tremble with terror,
hinted that " he surely saw more than they could see."
In this dilemma, the child suddenly exclaimed - "Bonny leddy signs to
us to come yon gate."  They all looked in the direction where the child
pointed, but saw nothing, save a wreath of rising mist, which fancy might
form into a human figure; but which afforded to Martin only the sorrowful
conviction, that the danger of their situation was about to be increased by
a heavy fog. He once more essayed to lead forward Shagram; but the
animal was inflexible in its determination not to move in the direction
Martin recommended.  "Take your awn way for it, then," said Martin,
"and let us see what you can do for us."
Shagram, abandoned to the discretion of his own free-will, set off boldly
in the direction the child had pointed.  There was nothing wonderful in
this, nor in its bringing them safe to the other side of the dangerous




46                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
morass; for the instinct of these animals in traversing bogs is one of the
most curious parts of their nature, and is a fact generally established.
But it was remarkable, that the child more than once mentioned the beautiful lady and her signals, and that Shagram  seemed to be in the secret,
always moving in the same direction which she indicated.  The Lady of
Avenel took little notice at the time, her mind being probably occupied by
the instant danger; but her attendants changed expressive looks with each
other more than once.
" All-Hallow Eve!" said Tibb, in a whisper to Martin.
" For the mercy of Our Lady, not a word of that now!" said Martin in
reply.  "Tell your beads, woman, if you cannot be silent."
When they got once more on firm  ground, Martin recognized certain
land-marks, or cairns, on the tops of the neighbouring hills, by which he
was enabled to guide his course, and ere long they arrived at the Tower of
Glendearg.
It was at the sight of this little fortalice that the misery of her lot
pressed hard on the poor Lady of Avenel.  When by any accident they
had, met at church, market, or other place of public resort, she remembered
the distant and respectful air with which the wife of the warlike baron
was addressed by the spouse of the humble feuar. And now, so much was
her pride humbled, that she was to ask to share the precarious safety of the
same feuar's widow, and her pittance of food, which might perhaps be yet
more precarious. Martin probably guessed what was passing in her mind,
for he looked at her with a wistful glance, as if to deprecate any change of
resolution; and answering to his looks, rather than his words, she said,
while the sparkle of subdued pride once more glanced from her eye, " If it
were for myself alone, I could but die-but for this infant-the last pledge
of Avenel    "
"True, my lady," said Martin, hastily; and, as if to prevent the possibility of her retracting, he added, "I will step on and see Dame Elspeth.
-I kend her husband weel, and have bought and sold with him, for as
great a man as he was."
Martin's tale was soon told, and met all acceptance from her companion
in misfortune.  The Lady of Avenel had been meek and courteous in her
prosperity; in adversity, therefore, she met with the greatest sympathy.
Besides, there was a point of pride in sheltering and supporting a woman
of such superior birth and rank; and, not to do Elspeth Glendinning injustice, she felt sympathy for one whose fate resembled her own in so many
points, yet was so much more severe.  Every species of hospitality was
gladly and respectfully extended to the distressed travellers, and they were
kindly requested to stay as long at Glendearg as their circumstances rendered
necessary, or their inclination prompted.
ciphfer FtlIV 1utrt^
Ne'er be I found by thee unawed,
On that thrice hallow'd eve abroad,
When goblins haunt from flood and fen,
The steps of men.
COLLINS'S Ode to Fear.
As the country became more settled, the Lady of Avenel would have willingly returned to her husband's mansion.  But that was no longer in her
power. It was a reign of minority, when the strongest had the best right,




THIE MONASTERY.                               47
and when  a cts of usurpation were frequent amongst those who had much
power and little conscience.
Julian Avenel, the younger brother of the deceased Walter, was a person
of this description. He hesitated not to seize upon his brother's house and
lands, so soon as the retreat of the English permitted him. At first, he
occupied the property in the name of his niece; but when the lady proposed to return with her child to the mansion of its fathers, he gave her to
understand, that Avenel, being a male fief, descended to the brother, instead
of the daughter, of the last possessor. The ancient philosopher declined a
dispute with the emperor who commanded twenty legions, and the widow
of Walter Avenel was in no condition to maintain a contest with the leader
of twenty moss-troopers. Julian was also a man of service, who could back
a friend in case of need, and was sure, therefore, to find protectors among
the ruling powers. In short, however clear the little Mary's right to the
possessions of her father, her mother saw the necessity of giving way, at
least for the time, to the usurpation of her uncle.
Her patience and forbearance were so far attended with advantage, that
Julian, for very shame's sake, could no longer suffer her to be absolutely
dependant on the charity of Elspeth Glendinning. A drove of cattle and a
bull (which were probably missed by some English farmer) were driven to
the pastures of Glendearg; presents of raiment and household stuff were
sent liberally, and some little money, though with a more sparing hand:
for those in the situation of Julian Avenel could come more easily by the
goods, than the representing medium of value, and made their payments
chiefly in kind.
In the meantime, the widows of Walter Avenel and Simon Glendinning
had becbme habituated to each other's society, and were unwilling to part.
The lady could hope no more secret and secure residence than in the Tower
of Glendearg, and she was now in a condition to support her share of the
mutual housekeeping.  Elspeth, on the other hand, felt pride, as well as
pleasure, in the society of a guest of such distinction, and was at all times
willing to pay much greater deference than the Lady of Walter Avenel
could be prevailed on to accept.
Martin and his wife diligently served the united family in their several
vocations, and yielded obedience to both mistresses, though always considering themselves as the especial servants of the Lady of Avenel. This distinction sometimes occasioned a slight degree of difference between Dame
Elspeth and Tibb; the former being jealous of her own consequence, and
the latter apt to lay too much stress upon the rank and family of her mistress. But both were alike desirous to conceal such petty squabbles from
the lady, her hostess scarce yielding to her old domestic in respect for her
person. Neither did the difference exist in such a degree as to interrupt
the general harmony of the family, for the one wisely gave way as she saw
the other become warm; and Tibb, though she often gave the first provocation, had generally the sense to be the first in relinquishing the argument.
The world which lay beyond was gradually forgotten by the inhabitants
of this sequestered glen, and unless when she attended mass at the Monastery Church upon some high holiday, Alice of Avenel almost forgot that she
once held an equal rank with the proud wives of the neighbouring barons
and nobles who on such occasions crowded to the solemnity. The recollection gave her little pain.  She loved her husband for himself, and in his
inestimable loss all lesser subjects of regret had ceased to interest her. At
times, indeed, she thought of claiming the protection of the Queen Regent
(Mary of Guise) for her little orphan, but the fear of Julian Avenel always
came between. She was sensible that he would have neither scruple nor
difficulty in spiriting away the child, (if he did not proceed farther,) should
he once consider its existence as formidable to his interest. Besides, he led
a wild and unsettled life, mingling in all feuds and forays, wherever there




48                   *WAVERLEY NOVELS.
was a spear to be broken; he evinced no purpose of marrying, and the fate
which he continually was braving might at length remove him from his
usurped inheritance. Alice of Avenel, therefore, judged it wise to check
all ambitious thoughts for the present, and remain quiet in the rude, but
peaceable retreat, to which Providence had conducted her.
It was upon an All-Hallow's eve, when the family had resided together
for the space of three years, that the domestic circle was assembled round
the blazing turf-fire, in the old narrow hall of the Tower of Glendearg. The
idea of the master or mistress of the mansion feeding or living apart from
their domestics, was at this period never entertained.. The highest end of
the board, the most commodious settle by the fire, - these were the only
marks of distinction; and the servants mingled, with deference indeed, but
unreproved and with freedom, in whatever conversation was going forward.
But the two or three domestics, kept merely for agricultural purposes, had
retired to their own cottages without, and with them  a couple of wenches,
usually employed within doors, the daughters of one of the hinds.
After their departure, Martin locked, first, the iron grate; and, secondly,
the inner door of the tower, when the domestic circle was thus arranged.
Dame Elspeth sate pulling the thread from her distaff; Tibb watched the
progress of scalding the whey, which hung in a large pot upon the crook, a
chain terminated by a hook, which was suspended in the chimney to serve
the purpose of the modern crane. Martin, while busied in repairing some
of the household articles, (for every man in those days was his own carpenter and smith, as well as his own tailor and shoemaker,) kept from time
to time a watchful eye upbn the three children.
They were allowed, however, to exercise their juvenile restlessness by
running up, and down the hall, behind the seats of the elder members of the
family, with the privilege of occasionally making excursions into one or
two small apartments which opened from it, and gave excellent opportunity
to play at hide-and-seek.  This night, however, the children seemed not disposed to avail themselves of their privilege of visiting these dark regions,
but preferred carrying on their gambols in the vicinity of the light.
In the meanwhile, Alice of Avenel, sitting close to an iron candlestick,
which supported a misshapen torch of domestic manufacture, read small
detached passages from a thick clasped volume, which she preserved with
the greatest care. The art of reading the lady had acquired by her residence
in a nunnery during her youth, but she seldom, of late years, put it to any
other use than perusing this little volume, which formed her whole library.
The family listened to the portions which she selected, as to some good thing
which there was a merit in hearing with respect, whether it was fully understood or no. To her daughter, Alice of Avenel had determined to impart
their mystery more fully, but the knowledge was at that period attended
with personal danger, and was not rashly to be trusted to a child.
The noise of the romping children interrupted, from time to time, the
voice of the lady, and drew on the noisy culprits the rebuke of Elspeth.
" Could they not go farther a-field, if they behoved to make such a din,
and disturb the lady's good words?"  And this command was backed with
the threat of sending the whole party to bed if it was not attended to punctually.  Acting under the injunction, the children first played at a greater
distance from the party, and more quietly, and then began to stray into the
adjacent apartments, as they became impatient of the restraint to which
they were subjected.  But, all at once, the two boys came open-mouthed
into the hall, to tell that there was an armed man in the spence.
"It must be Christie of Clint-hill," said -Martin, rising; " what can have
brought him here at this time?"
"Or how came he in?" said Elspeth.
"Alas! what can he seek?" said the Lady of Avenel, to whom this man,
a retainer of her husband's brother, and who sometimes executed his con



THE  MONASTERY.                             49
missions at Glendearg, was an object of secret apprehension and suspicion.
"Gracious heavens!" she added, rising up, "where is my child?"  All
rushed to the spence, Halbert Glendinning first arming himself with a rusty
sword, and the younger seizing upon the lady's book. They hastened to
the spence, and were relieved of a part of their anxiety by meeting Mary
at the door of the apartment. She did not seem in the slightest degree
alarmed, or disturbed. They rushed into the' spence, (a sort of interior
apartment in which the family ate their victuals in the summer season,)
but there was no one there.
"Where is Christie of Clint-hill?" said Martin.
"I do not know," said little Mary; " I never saw him."
"And what made you, ye misleard loons," said Dame Elspeth to her two
boys, " come yon gate into the ha', roaring like bullsegs, to frighten the
leddy, and her far frae strong?" The boys looked at each other in silence
and confusion, and their mother proceeded with her lecture. " Could ye find
nae night for daffin but Hallowe'en, and nae time but when the leddy was
reading to us about the holy Saints? May ne'er be in my fingers, if I dinna
sort ye baith for it!" The eldest boy bent his eyes on the ground, the
younger began to weep, but neither spoke; and the mother would have proceeded to extremities, but for the interposition of the little maiden.
" Dame Elspeth, it was my fault-I did say to them, that I saw a man in
the spence."
"And what made you do so, child," said her mother, "to startle us all
thus?"
" Because," said Mary, lowering her voice, " I could not help it."
" Not help it, Mary! -you occasioned all this idle noise, and you could
not help it? How mean you by that, minion?"
"There really was an armed man in this spence," said Mary; "and
because I was surprised to see him, I cried out to Halbert and Edward    "
" She has told it herself," said Halbert Glendinning, "or it had never
been told by me."
" Nor by me neither," said Edward, emulously.
" Mistress Mary," said Elspeth, "you never told us anything before that
was not true; tell us if this was a Hallowe'en cantrip, and make an end of
it."  The Lady of Avenel looked as if she would have interfered, but knew
not how; and Elspeth, who was too eagerly curious to regard any distant
hint, persevered in her inquiries.  "Was it Christie of the Clint-hill? - I
would not for a mark that he were about the house, and a body no ken
whare."
" It was not Christie," said Mary; "it was-it was a gentleman-a gentleman with a bright breastplate, like what I hae seen langsyne, when we
dwelt at Avenel    "
" What like was he?" continued Tibb, who now took share in the investigation.
"Black-haired, black-eyed, with a peaked black beard," said the child;
"and many a fold of pearling round his neck, and hanging down his breast
ower his breastplate; and he had a beautiful hawk, with silver bells, standing on his left hand, with a crimson silk hood upon its head    "
"Ask her no more questions, for the love of God," said the anxious
menial to Elspeth, "but look to my leddy! "  But the Lady of Avenel,
taking Mary in her hand, turned hastily away, and, walking into the hall,
gave them no opportunity of remarking in what manner she received the
child's communication, which she thus cut short. What Tibb thought
of it appeared from  her crossing  herself repeatedly, and whispering
into Elspeth's ear, "Saint Mary preserve us!-the lassie has seen her
father!"
When they reached the hall, they found the lady holding her daughter
on her knee,.and kissing her repeatedly. When they entered, she again
TOL. V. -4 




50                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
arose, as if to shun observation, and retired to the little apartment where
her child and she occupied the same bed.
The boys were also sent to their cabin, and no one remained by the hall
fire save the faithful Tibb and dame Elspeth, excellent persons both, and as
thorough gossips as ever wagged a tongue.
It was but natural that they should instantly resume the subject of the
supernatural appearance, for such they deemed it, which had this night
alarmed the family.
"I could hae wished it had been the deil himself-be good to and preserve us! - rather than Christie o' the Clint-hill," said the matron of the
mansion, " for the word runs rife in the country, that he is ane of the maist
masterfu' thieves ever lap on horse."
" Hout-tout, Dame Elspeth," said Tibb, "fear ye naething frae Christie;
tods keep their ain holes clean. You kirk-folk make sic a fasherie about
men shifting a wee bit for their living! Our Border-lairds would ride with
few men at their back, if a' the light-handed lads were out o' gate."
"Better they rade wi' nane than distress the country-side the gate they
do," said Dame Elspeth.
" But wha is to hand back the Southron, then," said Tibb, " if ye take
away the lances and broadswords? I trow we auld wives couldna do that
wi' rock and wheel, and as little the monks wi' bell and book."
"And sae weel as the lances and broadswords hae kept them back, I
trow!-I was mair beholden to ae Solthron, and that was Stawarth Bolton,
than to a' the border-riders ever wore Saint Andrew's cross-I reckon their
skelping back and forward, and lifting honest men's gear, has been a main
cause of a' the breach between us and England, and I am sure that cost
me a kind goodman. They spoke about the wedding of the Prince and our
Queen, but it's as like to be the driving of the Cumberland folk's stocking
that brought them down on us like dragons." Tibb would not have failed
in other circumstances to answer what she thought reflections disparaging
to her country folk; but she recollected that Dame Elspeth was mistress of
the family, curbed her own zealous patriotism, and hastened to change the
subject.
"And is it not strange," she said, "that the heiress of Avenel should
have seen her father this blessed night?"
" And ye think it was her father, then?" said Elspeth Glendinning.
" What else can I think?" said Tibb.
"It may hae been something waur, in his likeness," said Dame Glendinning.
" I ken naething about that," said Tibb, - "but his likeness it was, that
I will be sworn to, just as he used to ride out a-hawking; for having enemies in the country, he seldom laid off the breast-plate; and for my part,"
added Tibb, " I dinna think a man looks like a man unless he has steel on
his breast, and by his side too."
"I have no skill of your harness on breast or side either," said Dame
Glendinning; "but I ken there is little luck in IIallowe'en sights, for I
have had ane mysell."
"Indeed, Dame Elspeth?" said old Tibb, edging her stool closer to the
huge elbow-chair occupied by her friend, "I should like to hear about
that."
" Ye maun ken, then, Tibb," said Dame Glendinning, " that when I was
a hempie of nineteen or twenty, it wasna my fault if I wasna at a' the
merry-makings time about."
"That was very natural," said Tibb; "but ye hae sobered since that, or
ye wadna haud our braw gallants sae lightly."
" I have had that wad sober me or ony ane," said the matron. "Aweel,
Tibb, a lass like me wasna to lack wooers, for I wasna sae ill-favoured that
the tikes wad bark after me."




THE MONASTERY.                              51
" How should that be,' said Tibb, " and you sic a weel-favoured woman
to this day?"
"Pie, fie, cummer," said the matron of Glendearg, hitching her seat of
honour, in her turn, a little nearer to the cuttie-stool on which Tibb was
seated; " weel-favoured is past my time of day; but I might pass then, for
I wasna sae tocherless but what I had a bit land at my breast-lace. My
father was portioner of Little-dearg."
"Ye hae tell'd me that before," said Tibb; "but anent the Hallowe'en?"
"Aweel, aweel, I had mair joes than ane, but I favoured nane o' them;
and sae, at Hallowe'en, Father Nicolas the cellarer-he was cellarer before
this father, Father Clement, that now is-was cracking his nuts and drinking his brown beer with us, and as blithe as might be, andthey would have
me try a cantrip to ken wha suld wed me: and the monk said there was
nae ill in it, and if there was, he would assoil me for it. And wha but I
into the barn to winnow my three weights o' naething-sair, sair my mind
misgave me for fear of wrang-doing and wrang-suffering baith; but I had
aye a bauld spirit. I had not winnowed the last weight clean out, and the
moon was shining bright upon the floor, when in stalked the presence of
my dear Simon Glendinning, that is now happy. I never saw him plainer
in my life than I did that moment; he held.up an arrow as he passed me,
and I swarf'd awa wi' fright. Muckle wark there was to bring me to
mysell again, and sair they tried to make ie believe it was a trick of Father
Nicolas and Simon between them, and thtlt the arrow was to signify Cupid's
shaft, as. the Father called it; and mony a time Simon wad threep it to me
after I was married - gude man, he liked not it should be said that he was
seen out o' the body I —But mark the end o' it, Tibb; we were married,
and the gray-goose wing was the death o' him after a'!"
" As it has been of ower mony brave men," said Tibb; "I wish there
wasna sic a bird as a goose in the wide warld, forby the decking that we
hae at the burn-side."
" But tell me, Tibb," said Dame Glendinning, " what does your leddy
aye do reading out o' that thick black book wi' the silver clasps? - there
are ower mony gude words in it to come frae ony body but a priest-An it
were about Robin Hood, or some o' David Lindsay's ballants, ane wad ken
better what to say to it.  I am no misdoubting your mistress nae way,
but I wad like ill to hae a decent house haunted wi' ghaists and gyrecarlines."
"Ye hae nae reason to doubt my leddy, or ony thing she says or does,
Dame Glendinning," said the faithful Tibb, something offended; "and
touching the bairn, it's weel kend she was born on Hallowe'en, was nine
years gane, and they that are born on Hallowe'en whiles see mair than
ither folk."
" And that wad be the cause, then, that the bairn didna mak muckle din
about what it saw?-if it had been my Halbert himself, forby Edward,
who is of softer nature, he wad hae yammered the haill night of a constancy. But it's like Mistress Mary hae sic sights mair natural to her."
" That may weel be," said Tibb; " for on Hallowe'en she was born, as I
tell ye, and our auld parish priest wad fain hae had the night ower, and
All-Hallow day begun. But for a' that, the sweet bairn is just like ither
bairns, as ye may see yourself; and except this blessed night, and ance
before when we were in that weary bog on the road here, I kenna that it
saw mair than ither folk."
"But what saw she in the bog, then," said Dame Glendinning, "forby
moor-cocks and heather-blutters?"
" The wean saw something like a white leddy that weised us the gate,"
said Tibb; "when we were like to hae perished in the moss-hags - certain it was that Shagram reisted, and I ken Martin thinks he saw something."




52                    WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
"And what might the white leddy be?" said Elspeth; "have ye ony
guess o' that?"
"It's weel kend that, Dame Elspeth," said Tibb; "if ye had lived under
grit folk, as I hae dune, ye wadna be to seek in that matter."
" I hae aye keepit my ain ha' house abune my head," said Elspeth, not
without emphasis, "and if I havena lived wi' grit folk, grit folk have lived
wi' me."
"Weel, weel, dame," said Tibb, "your pardon's prayed, there was nae
offence meant. But ye maun ken the great ancient families canna be just
served wi' the-ordinary saunts, (praise to them!) like Saunt Anthony, Saunt
Cuthbert, and the like, that come and gang at every sinner's bidding, but
they hae a sort of saunts or angels, or what not, to themsells; and as for
the White Maiden of Avenel, she is kend ower the haill country. And she
is aye seen to yammer and wail before ony o' that family dies, as was weel
kend by twenty folk before the death of Walter Avenel, haly be his
cast!"
" If she can do nae mair than that," said Elspeth, somewhat scornfully,
"they needna make mony vows to her, I trow.  Can she make nae better
fend for them than that, and has naething better to do than wait on
them?"
" Mony braw services can the White Maiden do for them to the boot of
that, and has dune in the auld histories," said Tibb, " but I mind o' naething
in my day, except it was her that the bairn saw in the bog."
"Aweel, aweel, Tibb," said Dame Glendinning, rising and lighting the
iron lamp, " these are great privileges of your grand folk. But our Lady
and Saunt Paul are good eneugh saunts for me, and I'se warrant them never
leave me in a bog that they can help me out o'. seeing I send four waxen
candles to their chapels every Candlemas; and if they are not seen to weep
at my death, I'se warrant them smile at my joyful rising again, whilk
Heaven send to all of us, Amen."
"Amen," answered Tibb, devoutly; "and now it's time I should hap up
the wee bit gathering turf, as the fire is ower low."
Busily she set herself to perform this duty. The relict of Simon Glendinning did but pause a moment to cast a heedful and cautious glance all
around the hall, to see that nothing was out of its proper place; then, wishing Tibb good-night, she retired to repose.
"The deil's in the carline," said Tibb to herself, "because she was the
wife of a cock-laird, she thinks herself grander, I trow, than the bowerwoman of a lady of that ilk!" Having given vent to her suppressed spleen
in this little ejaculation, Tibb also betook herself to slumber.
Cliaptu  lt^  ffiU^
A priest, ye cry, a priest! lame shepherds they,
How shall they gather in the straggling flock?
Dumb dogs which bark not-how shall they compel
The loitering vagrants to the Master's fold?
Fitter to bask before the blazing fire,
And snuff the mess neat-handed Phillis dresses,
Than on the snow-wreath battle with the wolf.
REFORMATION.
THE health of the Lady of Avenel had been gradually decaying ever
since her disaster. It seemed as if the few years which followed her husband's death had done on her the work of half a century.  She lost the




TH1E  MONASTERY,                             53
fresh elasticity of form, the colour and the mien of health, and became
wasted, wan, and feeble. She appeared to have no formed complaint; yet
it was evident to those who looked on her, that her strength wan-ei --
Her lips at length became blenched and her eye dim; yet she spoke not of
any desire tosee a priest, until Elspeth Glendinning in her zeal could not
refrain from touching upon a point which she deemed essential to salvation.
Alice of Avenel received her hint kindly, and thanked her for it.
"If any good priest would take the trouble of such a journey," she said,
" he should be welcome; for the prayers and lessons of the good must be at
all times advantageous."
This quiet acquiescence was not quite what Elspeth Gleridinning wished
or expected. She made up, however, by her own enthusiasm, for the lady's
want of eagerness to avail herself of ghostly counsel, and Martin was
despatched with such haste as Shagram would make, to pray one of the
religious men of Saint Mary's to come up to administer the last consolations to the widow of Walter Avenel.
When the Sacristan had announced to the Lord Abbot, that the Lady of
the umquhile Walter de Avenel was in very weak health in the Tower of
Glendearg, and desired the assistance of a father confessor, the lordly monk
paused on the request.
" We do remember Walter de Avenel," he said; " a good knight and a
valiant; he was dispossessed of his lands, and slain by the Southron-May
not the lady come hither to the sacrament of confession? the road is distant
and painful to travel."
" The lady is unwell, holy father," answered the Sacristan, " and unable
to bear the journey."
"True-ay, -yes-then must one of our brethren go to her-Knowest
thou if she hath aught of a jointure from this Walter de Avenel?"
"Very little, holyvfather," said the Sacristan; "she hath resided at
Glendearg since her husband's death, well-nigh on the charity of a poor
widow, called Elspeth Glendinning."
"Why, thou knowest all the widows in the country-side!" said the
Abbot. " Ho! ho:! ho 1" and he shook his portly sides at his own jest.
" Ho! ho! ho 1" echoed the Sacristan, in the tone and tune in which an
inferior applauds the jest of his superior.-Then added, with a hypocritical
shuffle, and a sly twinkle of his eye, " It is our duty, most holy father, to
comfort the widow-He! he! he!"
This last laugh was more moderate, until the Abbot should put his sanction on the jest.
" Ho! ho!" said the Abbot; "then, to leave jesting, Father Philip, take
thou thy riding gear, and go to confess this Dame Avenel."
"But," said the Sacristan"Give me no Buts; neither But nor If pass between monk and Abbot,
Father Philip; the bands of discipline must not be relaxed-heresy gathers
force like a snow-ball -the multitude expect confessions and preachings
from the Benedictine, as they would from so many beggarly friars-and we
may not desert the vineyard, though the toil be grievous unto us?'
"And with so little advantage to the holy monastery," said the Sacristan.
"True, Father Philip; but wot you not that what preventeth harm doth
good?  This Julian de Avenel lives a light and evil life, and should we
neglect the widow of his brother, he might foray our lands, and we never
able to show who hurt us - moreover it is our duty to an ancient family,
who, in their day, have been benefactors to the Abbey. Away with thee
instanly, brother; ride night and day, an it be necessary, and let men see
how diligent Abbot Boniface and his faithful children are in the execution
of their spiritual duty —toil not deterring them, for the glen is five miles in
length-fear not withholding them, for it is said to be haunted of spectres
-nothing moving them from pursuit of their spiritual calling; to the conB2




54                   WAV  R LEY NOVELS.
fusion.of calumnious heretics, and the comfort and edification of all true
and faithful sons of the Catholic Church. I wonder what our brother Eustati' w;ri! A:y to this?"
Breathless with his own picture of the dangers and toil which he was to
encounter, and the fame which he was to acquire, (both by proxy,) the
Abbot moved slowly to finish his luncheon in the refectory, and the
Sacristan, with no very good will, accompanied old Martin in his return to.Glendearg; the greatest impediment in the journey being the trouble of
restraining his pampered mule, that she might tread in something like an
equal pace with poor jaded Shagram.
After remaining an hour in private with his penitent, the monk returned
moody and full of thought. Dame Elspeth, who had placed for the honoured
guest some refreshment in the hall, was struck with the embarrassment
which appeared in his countenance. Elspeth watched him with great anxiety. She observed there was that on his brow which rather resembled a
person come from hearing the confession of some enormous crime, than the
look of a confessor who resigns a reconciled penitent, not to earth, but to
heaven. After long hesitating, she could not at length refrain from hazarding a question. She was sure, she said, the leddy had made an easy shrift.
Five years had they resided together, and she could safely say, no woman
lived better.
" Woman," said the Sacristan, sternly, "thou speakest thou knowest not
what-What avails clearing the outside of the platter, if the inside be foul
with heresy?"
" Our dishes and trenchers are not so clean as they could be wished, holy
father," said Elspeth, but half understanding what he said, and beginning
with her apron to wipe the dust from the plates, of which she supposed himn
to complain.
" Forbear, Dame Elspeth," said the monk;'"youlrplates are as clean as
wooden trenchers and pewter flagons can well be; the foulness of which I
speak is of that pestilential heresy which is daily becoming ingrained in
this our Holy Church of Scotland, and as a canker-worm in the rose-garland
of the Spouse."
" Holy Mother of Heaven!' said Dame Elspeth, crossing herself, "have
I kept house with a heretic?"
"No, Elspeth, no," replied the monk; "it were too strong a speech for
me to make of this unhappy lady, but I would I could say she is free from
heretical opinions. Alas! they fly about like the pestilence by noon-day,
and infect even the first and fairest of the flock! For it is easy to see of
this dame, that she hath been high in judgment as in rank."
"And she can write and read, I had almost said, as weel as your reverence," said Elspeth.
" Whom doth she write to, and what doth she read?" said the monk,
eagerly.
"Nay," replied Elspeth, " I cannot say I ever saw her write at all, but
her maiden that was —she now serves the family-says she can write-And
for reading, she has often read to us good things out of a thick black
volume with silver clasps."
"Let me see it," said the monk, hastily, "on your allegiance as a true
vassal- on your faith as a Catholic Christian  instantly-instantly let me
see it."
The good woman hesitated, alarmed at the tone in which the confessor
took up her information,; and being moreover of opinion, that what so good
a woman as the Lady of Avenel studied so devoutly, could not be of a tendency actually evil. But borne down by the clamour, exclamations, and
something like threats used by Father Philip, she at length brought him
the fatal volume. It was easy to do this without suspicion on the part of
the owner, as she lay on her bed exhausted with the fatigue of a long con



THE MONASTERY.                              55
flrenee with her confessor, and as the small round, or turret closet, in which
was the book and her other trifling property, was accessible by another
door.  Of all her effects the book was the last she would have thought
of securing, for of what use or interest could it be in a family who neither
read themselves, nor were in the habit of seeing any who did? so that Dame
Elspeth had no difficulty in possessing herself of the volume, although her
heart all the while accused her of an ungenerous and an inhospitable part
towards her friend and inmate. The double power of a landlord and a
feudal superior was before her eyes; and to say truth, the boldness, with
which she might otherwise have resisted this double authority, was, I grieve
to say it, much qualified by the curiosity she entertained, as a daughter of
Eve, to have some explanation respecting the mysterious volume which the
lady cherished with so much care, yet whose contents she imparted with
such caution. For never had Alice of Avenel read them any passage from
the book in question until the iron door of the tower was locked, and all
possibility of intrusion prevented. Even then she had shown, by the selection of particular passages, that she was more anxious to impress on their
minds the principles which the volume contained, than to introduce them to
it as a new rule of faith.
When Elspeth, half curious, half remorseful, had placed the book in the
monk's hands, he exclaimed, after turning over the leaves, "Now, by mine
order, it is as I suspected!-My mule, my mule!-I will abide no longer
here-well hast thou done, dame, in placing in my hands this perilous
volume."
"Is it then witchcraft or devil's work?" said Dame Elspeth, in great
agitation.
"Nay, God forbid!" said the monk, signing himself with the cross, "it is
the Holy Scripture. But it is rendered into the vulgar tongue, and therefore, by the order of the Holy Catholic Church- unfit to be in the hands of
any lay person."
" And yet is the Holy Scripture communicated for our common salvation,"
said Elspeth. " Good Father, you must instruct mine ignorance better; but
lack of wit cannot be a deadly sin, and truly, to my poor thinking, I should
be glad to read the Holy Scripture."
"I dare say thou wouldst," said the monk; "and even thus did our
mother Eve seek to have knowledge of good and evil, and thus Sin came
into the world, and Death by Sin."
" I am sure, and it is true," said Elspeth. " Oh, if she had dealt by the
counsel of Saint Peter and Saint Paul!"
" If she had reverenced the command of Heaven," saidthe monk, " which,
as it gave her birth, life, and happiness, fixed upon the grant such conditions
as best corresponded with its holy pleasure. I tell thee, Elspeth, the Wiord
slayeth —that is, the text alone, read with unskilled eye and unhallowed
lips, is like those strong medicines which sick men take by the advice of the
learned. Such patients recover and thrive; while those dealing in them at
their own hand, shall perish by their own deed."
"Nae doubt, nae doubt," said the poor woman, "your reverence knows
best."
"Not I," said Father Philip, in a tone as deferential as he thought could
possibly become the Sacristan of Saint Mary's,-"Not I, but the Holy
ather of Christendom, and our own holy father, the Lord Abbot, know
best. I, the poor Sacristan of Saint Mary's, can but repeat what I hearfrom others my superiors. Yet of this, good woman, be assured, -the
Word, the mere Word, slayeth. But the church hath her ministers to gloze
and to expound the same unto her faithful congregation; and this I say,
not so much, my beloved brethren - I mean my beloved sister," (for the
Sacristan had got into the end of one of his old sermons,)-" This I speak
not so much of the rectors, curates, and secular clergy, so called because




56                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
they live after the fashion of the seculum or age, unbound by those ties
which sequestrate us fron{ the world; neither do I speak this of the mendicant friars, whether black or gray, whether crossed or uncrossed; but of the
monks, and especially of the monks Benedictine, reformed on the rule of
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, thence called Cistercian, of which monks,
Christian brethren- sister, I would say - great is the happiness and glory
of the country in possessing the holy ministers of Saint Mary's, whereof I,
though an unworthy brother, may say it hath produced more saints, more
bishops, more popes - may our patrons make us thankful! -than any holy
foundation in Scotland. Wherefore    But I see Martin hath my mule in
readiness, end I will but salute you with the kiss of sisterhood, which maketh
not ashanidi. and so betake me to my toilsome return, forthe glen is of bad
reputation l',r the evil spirits which haunt it. Moreover, I may arrive too
late at the blilge, whereby I may be obliged to take to the river, which 1
observed to Le somewhat waxen."
Accordingly, he took his leave of Dame Elspeth, who was confounded
by the rapidity of his utterance, and the doctrine he gave forth, and by no
means easy on the subject of the book, which her conscience told her she
should not hav., communicated to any one, without the knowledge of its
owner.
Notwithstand'ng the haste which the monk as well as the mule made to
return to better quarters than they had left at the head of Glendearg; notwithstanding th   eager desire Father Philip had to be the very first who
should acquaint the Abbot that a copy of the book they most dreaded had
been found within the Halidome, or patrimony of the Abbey; notwithstanding, moreover, certain feelings which induced him to hurry as fast as
possible through the gloomy and evil-reputed glen, still the difficulties of the
road, and the rider's want of habitude of quick motion, were such, that
twilight came u] on him ere he had nearly cleared the narrow valley.
It was indeed a gloomy ride. The two sides of the vale were so near,
that at every double of the river the shadows from the western sky fell upon,
and totally obscured, the eastern bank; the thickets of copsewood seemed
to wave with a portentous agitation of boughs and leaves, and the very
crags and scaurs seemed higher and grimmer than they had appeared to
the monk while he was travelling in daylight, and in company. Father
Philip was heartily rejoiced, when, emerging from  the narrow glen, he
gained the open valley of the Tweed, which held on its majestic course from
current to pool, and from pool stretched away to other currents, with a dignity peculiar to itself amongst the Scottish rivers; for whatever may have
been the drought of the season, the Tweed usually fills up the space between
its banks, seldom leaving those extensive sheets of shingle which deform the
margins of many of the celebrated Scottish streams.
The monk, insensible to beauties which the age had not regarded as
deserving of notice, was, nevertheless, like a prudent general, pleased to find
himself out of the narrow glen in which the enemy might have stolen upon
him unperceived. He drew up his bridle, reduced his mule to her natural
and luxurious amble, instead of the agitating and broken trot at which, to
his no small inconvenience, she had hitherto proceeded, and, wiping his
brow, gazed forth at leisure on the broad moon, which, now mingling with
the lights of evening, was rising over field and forest, village and fortalice,
and, above all, over the stately Monastery, seen far and dim amid the yellow
light.
The worst part of the magnificent view, in the monk's apprehension, was,
that the Monastery stood on the opposite side of the river, and that of the
many fine bridges which have since been built across that classical stream,
not one then existed. There was, however, in recompense, a bridge then
standing which has since disappeared, although its ruins may still be traced
by the curious.




THE MONASTERY.                                                57
It was of a very  peculiar form.   Two  strong  abutments were  built on
either side of the river, at a part where the stream  was peculiarly contracted.
Upon a rock in the centre of the current was built a solid piece of masonry,
constructed like  the pier of a bridge, and  presenting, like a pier, an  angle
to the current of the stream. The masonry continued solid until the pier
rose to a level with the  two  abutments  upon  either side, and  from   thence
the building  rose  in  the form  of a tower.   The  lower story of this tower
consisted only of an archway or passage through  the  building, over either
entrance to which  hung a drawbridge with  counterpoises, either of which,
when  dropped, connected  the archway with  the opposite  abutment, where
the farther end  of the drawbridge rested.  When  both  bridges were thus
lowered, the passage over the river was complete.
The  bridge-keeper, who  was  the  dependant of a neighbouring  baron,
resided with his family in the second and third stories of the tower, which,
when  both  drawbridges were raised, formed  an  insulated  fortalice  in  the
midst of the  river.   He was entitled  to  a small toll or custom  for the passage, concerning  the  amount of which  disputes sometimes arose between
him  and the passengers.  It is.needless to  say, that the  bridge-ward  had
usually the better in these questions, since he could at pleasure detain the
traveller on  the opposite side; or, suffering  him  to  pass half way, might
keep him  prisoner in his tower till they were agreed on the rate of pontage.*
But it was most frequently with  the  Monks of Saint Mary's that the
warder had to dispute his perquisites.  These holy men insisted for, and at
length obtained, a right of gratuitous passage to themselves, greatly to the
discontent of the bridge-keeper.   But when  they demanded  the same immunity for the numerous pilgrims who visited the shrine, the bridge-keeper
waxed restive, and was supported by his lord in his resistance. The controversy grew animated on both sides; the Abbot menaced excommunication, and the keeper of the bridge, though unable to retaliate in kind, yet
made each individual monk who had to cross and recross the river, endure
a sort of purgatory, ere he would accommodate them  with a passage.   This
was a great inconvenience, and' would have proved a more serious one, but
that the river was fordable for man and horse in ordinary weather.
It was a fine moonlight night, as we have already said, when Father Philip
approached this bridge, the singular construction of which gives a curious
idea of the insecurity of the times.   The river was not in  flood, but it was
above its ordinary level — a heavy water, as it is called in that country,
through which  the monk had  no particular inclination to ride, if he could
manage the matter better.
"Peter, my  good  friend,"  cried  the  Sacristan, raising  his voice; "my
very excellent friend, Peter, be so kind as to lower the drawbridge.   Peter,
I say, dost thou not hear?-it is thy gossip, Father Philip, who calls thee."
Peter heard him perfectly well, and saw him into the bargain; but as he
had considered the Sacristan  as peculiarly his enemy in  his dispute with
A bridge of the very peculiar construction described in the text, actually existed at a small hamlet about
a mile and a half above Meliose, called fromn the circumstance Bridge-end. It is thus noticed in Gordlon's
der Septentrioo/le:-' In another journey through the south parts of Scotland, about a mile and a half from Melrose, in the shire
of Tevioldale, I saw the remains of a curious bridge over the river Tweed, consisting of three octangular
pillars, or rather towers, standing within the water, without any arches to join them. The middle one, which
is the most entire, has a door towards the north. and I suppose another opposite one toward the south, which
I could not see without crossing the water. In the middle of this tower is a projection or cornice surrounding
it: the whole is hollow from the door upwards, and now open at the top, near which is a small window. I
was inforned that not long ago a countryman andl his family lived in this tower-and got his livelihood by
laying out planks from pillar to pillar, and conveying passengers over the river. Whether this be ancient or
modern, I know not; but as it is singular in its kind I have thought fit to exhibit it."'he vestiges of this uncommon species of bridge still exist, and the author has often seen the foundations ot
the columns when drifting down the Tweed at night for the purpose of killing salmon by torch-light. Mr. John
Mercer of Bridge-end recollects. that about fifty years ago the pillars were visible above water; and the lata
Mr. David Kyle, of the George Inn, Melrose, told the author that he saw a stone taken from the river bearing
this inscriotion:", Sir John Pringle of Palmer stede,
Give an hundred markis of gowd sae reid,
To help lo bigg my brigg ower Tweed."
Pringle of Galashiels, afterwards of Whytbank, was the Baron to whom the bridge belonged.




58                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
the convent, he went quietly to bed, after reconnoitring the monk through
his loop-hole, observing to his wife, that "riding the water in a moonlight
night would do the Sacristan no harm, and would teach him the value of a
brig the neist time, on whilk a man might pass high and dry, winter and
summer, flood and ebb."
After exhausting his voice in entreaties and threats, which were equally
unattended to by Peter of the Brig, as he was called, Father Philip at length
moved down the river to take the ordinary ford at the head of the next stream.
Cursing the rustic obstinacy of Peter, he began, nevertheless, to persuade himself that the passage of the river by the ford was not only safe, but pleasant.
The banks and scattered trees were so beautifully reflected from the bosom
of the dark stream, the whole cool and delicious picture formed so pleasing
a contrast to his late agitation, to the warmth occasioned by his vain endeavours to move the relentless porter of the bridge, that the result was
rather agreeable than otherwise.
As Father Philip came close to the water's edge, at the spot where he
was to enter it, there sat a female under a large broken scathed oak-tree, or
rather under the remains of such a tree, weeping, wringing her hands, and
looking earnestly on the current of the river. The monk was struck with
astonishment to see a female there at that time of night. But he was, in all
honest service,-and if a step farther, I put it upon his own conscience,-a
devoted squire of dames. After observing the maiden for a moment,
although she seemed to take no notice of his presence, he was moved by her
distress, and willing to offer his assistance.  "Damsel," said he, "thou
seemest in no ordinary distress; peradventure, like myself, thou hast been
refused passage at the bridge by the churlish keeper, and thy crossing may,
concern thee either for performance of a vow, or some other weighty
charge."
The maiden uttered some inarticulate sounds, looked at the river, and then
in the face of the Sacristan. It struck Father Philip at that instant, that a
Highland chief of distinction had been for some time expected to pay his
vows at the shrine of Saint Mary's; and that possibly this fair maiden
might be one of his family, travelling alone for accomplishment of a vow,
or left behind by some accident, to whom, therefore, it would be but right
and prudent to use every civility in his power, especially as she seemed unacquainted with the Lowland tongue.  Such at least was the only motive
the Sacristan was ever known to assign for his courtesy; if there was any
other, I once more refer it to his own conscience.
To express himself by signs, the common language of all nations, the
cautious Sacristan first pointed to the river, then to his mule's crupper, and
then made, as gracefully as he could, a sign to induce the fair solitary to
mount behind him.  She seemed to understand his meaning, for she rose
up as if to accept his offer; and while the good monk, who, as we have
hinted, was no great cavalier, liboured, with the pressure of the right leg
and the use of the left rein, to place his mule with her side to the bank in
such a position that the lady might mount with ease, she rose from the
ground with rather- portentous activity, and at one bound sate behind the
monk upon the animal, much the firmer rider of the two. The mule by no
means seemed to approve of this double burden; she bounded, bolted, and
would soon have thrown Father Philip over her head, had not the maiden
with a firm hand detained him in the saddle.
At last the restive brute changed her humour; and, from refusing to budge
off the spot, suddenly stretched her nose homeward, and dashed into the ford
as fast as she could scamper. A new terror now invaded the monk's mindthe ford seemed unusually deep, the water eddied off in strong ripple from
the counter of the mule, and began to rise upon her side. Philip lost his
presence of mind, which was at no time his most ready attribute, the mule
yielded to the weight of the current, and as the rider was not attentive to




THE MONASTERY.                                                   59
keep her head turned up the river, she drifted downward, lost the ford and
her footing at once, and began to swim with her head down the stream.
And what was sufficiently strange, at the same moment, notwithstanding
the extreme peril, the damsel began to sing, thereby increasing, if anything
could increase, the bodily fear of the worthy Sacristan.
Merrily swim we, the moon shies bright,      Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright
Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright,           Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright,
Both current ard ripple are dancing in light.      Downward we drift through shadow and light,
We have roused the night raven, I heard him croak, Under von rock the eddies sleep,
As we plashed along beneath the oak                Calm and silent, dark and deep,'That flings its broad branches so far and so wide,    The Kelpy has risen from the fathomless pool,
Their shadows are dancing in midst of the tide.    He has lighted his candle of death and of dool.' Who wakens my nestlings." tht raven he said,     Look, Father, look, and you'll laugh to see
" My beak shall ere morn in his blood be red.      How he gapes and glares with his eyes on thee.
For a blue swoln corpse is a dainty meal,
And 1'11 have niy share with the pike and the eel."                      Iv.
II.                         Good luck to your fishing, whom watch ye to-night T
Merrily swim we. the moon slines bright,           A man of mean, or a man of might?
There's a golden gleam on the distant height;      Is it layman or priest that must float in your cove,
There's a silver sfhower on the alders dank,       Or lover who crosses to visit his love?
And the drooping willows that wave on the bank.    Hark! heard ye the Kelpy reply, as we pass'd.I see the abbey, both turret and tower,            "God's blessing on the warder, he lock'd the bridge
It is all astir for the vesper hour;                   fast!
The monks for the chapel are leaving each cell.    All that cone to my cove are sunk,
But where's Father Philip, should toll the bell?  Priest or laynman, lover or monk."
How  long the damsel might have continued to sing, or where the terrified
monk's journey might have'ended, is uncertain.  As she sung thelast stanza,
they arrived at, or rather in, a broad tranquil sheet of water, caused by a
strong wear or damhead, running across the river, which dashed in a broad
cataract over the barrier. The mule, whether from choice, or influenced by
the suction of the current, made towards the cut intended to supply the
convent mills, and entered it half swimming half wading, and pitching the
unlucky monk to and fro in the saddle at a fearful rate.
As his person flew  hither and thither, his garment became  loose, and  in
an effort to retain it, his hand lighted on the volume of the Lady of Avenel
which was in his bosom. No sooner had he grasped it, than his companion
pitched  him   out of the  saddle  into  the  stream, where, still keeping  her
hand on his collar, she gave him two or three good souses in the watery
fluid, so as to ensure that every other part of him had its share of wetting,
and then quitted  her hold when  he was so  near the  side that by a  slight
effort (of a great one he was incapable) he might scramble on shore. This
accordingly he accomplished, and turning his eyes to see what had become
of his extraordinary companion, she was nowhere to be seen; but still he
heard, as if from the surface of the river, and mixing with the noise of the
water breaking over the damhead, a fragment of her wild song, which
seemed to run thus:Landed-landed! the black book hath won,
Else had you seen Berwick with morning sun!
Sain ye, and save ye, and blithe mot ye be,
For seldom they land that go swimming with me.
The ecstasy of the monk's terror could be endured no longer; his head
grew dizzy, and, after staggering a few steps onward and running himself
against a wall, he sunk down in a state of insensibility.




O6                      WAVERLEY NOVELS.
Now let us sit in conclave. That these weeds
Be rooted fiom the vineyard of the church,
That these foul tares he severed from the wheat,
We are, I trust, agreed.-Yet how to do this,
Nor hurt the wholesome crop and tender vine-plants,
Craves good advisement.
TaE REFORMATION.
THE vesper service in the Monastery Church of Saint Mary's was now
over. The Abbot had disrobed himself of his magnificent vestures of ceremony, and resumed his ordinary habit, which was a black gown, worn over
a white cassock, with a narrow scapulary; a decent and venerable dress,
which was calculated to set off to advantage the portly mien of Abbot
Boniface.
In quiet times no one could have filled the state of a mitred Abbot, for
such was his dignity, more respectably than this worthy prelate. He had, no
doubt, many of those habits of self-indulgence which men are apt to acquire
who live for themselves alone. He was vain, nioreover; and when boldly
confronted, had sometimes shown symptoms of timidity, not very consistent
with the high claims which he preferred as an eminent member of the
church, or with the punctual deference which he exacted from his religious
brethren, and all who were placed under his command. But he was hospitable, charitable, and by no means of himself disposed to proceed with
severity against any one. In short, he.would in other times have slumbered
out his term of preferment with as much credit as any other " purple-Abbot,"
who lived easily, but at the same time decorously - slept soundly, and did
not disquiet himself with dreams.
But the wide alarm  spread through the whole Church of Rome by the
progress of the reformed doctrines, sorely disturbed the repose of Abbot
Boniface, and opened to him a wide field of duties and cares which he had
never so much as dreamed of. There were opinions to be combated and
refuted   practices to be inquired into -heretics to be detected and punished-the fallen off to be reclaimed-the wavering to be confirmed-scandal
to be removed from the clergy, and the vigour of discipline to be re-established.  Post upon post arrived at the Monastery of Saint Mary's —horses
reeking, and riders exhausted -this from the Privy Council, that from the
Primate of Scotland, and this other again from the Queen Mother, exhorting,
approving, condemning, requesting advice upon this subject, and requiring
information upon that.
These missives Abbot Boniface received with an important air of helplessness, or a helpless air of importance, whichever the reader may please to
term it, evincing at once gratified vanity, and profound trouble of mind.
The sharp-witted Primate of Saint Andrews had foreseen the deficiencies
of the Abbot of St. Mary's, and endeavoured to provide for them by getting
admitted into his Monastery as Sub-Prior a brother Cistercian, a man of
parts and knowledge, devoted to the service of the Catholic Church, and
very capable not'only to advise the Abbot on occasions of difficulty, but to
make him  sensible of his duty in case he should, from  good-nature or
timidity, be disposed to shrink from it.
Father Eustace played the same part in the Monastery as the old general
who, in foreign armies, is placed at the elbow of the Prince of the Blood,
who nominally commands in chief, on condition of attempting nothing
without the advice of his dry-nurse; and he shared the fate of all such drynurses, being heartily disliked as well as feared by his principal. Still,
however, the Primate's intention was fully answered.  Father Eustace




THE MONASTERY.                               61
became the constant theme and often the bugbear of the worthy Abbot, who
hardly dared to turn -himself in his bed without considering what Father
Eustace would think of it. In every case of difficulty, Father Eustace was
summoned, and his opinion asked; and no sooner was the embarrassment
removed, than the Abbot's next thought was how to get rid of his adviser.
In every letter which he wrote to those in power, he recommended Father
Eustace to some high church preferment, a bishopric or an abbey; and as
they dropped one after another, and were otherwise conferred, he began to
think, as he confessed to the Sacristan in the bitterness of his spirit, that
the Monastery of St. Mary's had got a life-rent lease of their Sub-Prior.
Yet more indignant he would have been, had he suspected that Father
Eustace's ambition was fixed upon his own mitre, which, from some attacks
of an apoplectic nature, deemed by the Abbot's friends to be more serious
than by himself, it was supposed might be shortly vacant. But the confidence which, like-other dignitaries, he reposed in his own health, prevented
Abbot Boniface from imagining that it held any concatenation with the
motions of Father Eustace.
The necessity under which he found himself of consulting with his grand
adviser, in cases of real difficulty, rendered the worthy Abbot particularly
desirous of doing without him in all ordinary cases of administration, though
not without considering what Father Eustace would have said of the matter.
He scorned, therefore, to give a hint to the Sub-Prior of the bold stroke by
which he had dispatched Brother Philip to Glendearg; but when the vespers
came without his re-appearance he became a little uneasy, the more as other
matters weighed upon his mind. The feud with the warder or keeper of the
bridge threatened to be attended with bad consequences, as.the man's quarrel
was taken up by the martial baron under whom he served;, and pressing
letters of an unpleasant tendency had just arrived from the Primate. Like
a gouty man, who catches hold of his crutch while he curses the infirmity
that induces him to use it, the Abbot, however reluctant, found himself
obliged to require Eustace's presence, after the service was over, in his
house, or rather palace, which was attached to, and made part of, the Monastery.
Abbot Boniface was seated in his high-backed chair, the grotesque carved
back of which terminated in a mitre, before a fire where two or three large
logs were reduced to one red glowing mass of charcoal. At his elbow, on
an oaken stand, stood the remains of a roasted capon, on which his reverence
had made his evening meal, flanked by a goodly stoup of Bordeaux of excellent flavour. He was gazing indolently on the fire, partly engaged in
meditation on his past and present fortunes, partly occupied by endeavouring
to trace towers and steeples in the red embers.
"Yes," thought the Abbot to himself, "in that red perspective I could
fancy to myself the peaceful towers of Dundrennan, where I passed my life
ere I was called to pomp and to trouble. A quiet brotherhood we were,
regular in our domestic duties; and when the frailties of humanity prevailed
over us, we confessed, and were absolved by each other, and the most formidable part of the penance was the jest of the convent on the culprit. I can
almost fancy that I see the cloister garden, and the pear-trees which I grafted
with my own hands. And for what have I changed all this, but to be overwhelmed with business which concerns me not, to be called My Lord Abbot,
and to be tutored by Father Eustace? I would these towers were the Abbey
of Aberbrothwick, and Father Eustace the Abbot, - or I would he were in
the fire on any terms, so I were rid of him! The Primate says our Holy'
Father the Pope hath an adviser- I am sure he could not live a week with
such a one as mine. Then there is no learning what Father Eustace thinks
till you confess your own difficulties - No hint will bring forth his opinion -
he is like a miser, who will not unbuckle his purse to bestow a farthing,
until the wretch who needs it has owned his excess of poverty, and wrung
F




62                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
out the boon by importunity. And thus I am' dishonoured in the eyes of
my religious brethren, who behold me treated like a child which hath no
sense of its own - I will bear it no longer!- Brother Bennet," - (alay
brother answered to his call) — "tell Father Eustace that I need not his
presence."
"I came to say to your reverence, that the holy father is entering even
now from the cloisters."
"Be it so," said the Abbot," he is welcome, - remove these things - or
rather, place a trencher, the holy father may be a little hungry - yet, noremove them, for. there is no good fellowship in him - Let the stoup of wine
remain, however, and place another cup."
The lay brother obeyed these contradictory commands in the way he
judged most seemly - he removed the carcass of the half-sacked capon, and
placed two goblets beside the stoup of Bourdeaux. At the same instant
entered Father Eustace.
He was a thin, sharp-faced, slight-made little man, whose keen grey eyes
seemed almost to look through the person to whom he addressed himself.
His body was emaciated not only with the fasts which he observed with
rigid punctuality, but also by the active and unwearied exercise of his sharp
and piercing intellect;A fiery soul, which working out its way,
Fretted the puny body to decay,
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
He turned with conventual reverence to the Lord Abbot; and as they
stood together, it was scarce possible to see a more complete difference of
form and expressidn. The good-natured rosy face and laughing eye of the
Abbot, which even his present anxiety could not greatly ruffle, was a wonderful contrast to the thin pallid cheek and quick penetrating glance of the
monk, in which an eager and keen spirit glanced through eyes to which it
seemed to give supernatural lustre.
The Abbot opened the conversation by motioning to his monk to take a
stool, and inviting to a cup of wine. The courtesy was declined with
respect, yet not without a remark, that the vesper service was past.
"For the stomach's sake, brother," said the Abbot, colouring a little"You know the text."
"It is a dangerous one," answered the monk, "to handle alone, or at late
hours. Cut off from  human society, the juice of the grape becomes a
perilous companion of solitude, and therefore I ever shun it."
Abbot Boniface had poured himself out a goblet which might hold about
half an English pint; but, either struck with the truth of the observation,
or ashamed to act in direct opposition to it, he suffered it to remain untasted
before him, and immediately changed the subject.
" The Primate hath written to us," said he, " to make strict search within
our bounds after the heretical persons denounced in this list, who have withdrawn themselves from  the justice which their opinions deserve. It is
deemed probable that they will attempt to retire to England by our Borders,
and the Primate requireth me to watch with vigilance, and what not."
"Assuredly," said the monk, "the magistrate should not bear the sword
in vain - those be they that turn the world upside down - and doubtless
your reverend wisdom will with due diligence second the exertions of the
Right Reverend Father in God, being in the peremptory defence of the Holy
Church."
"Ay, but how is this to be done?" answered the Abbot; " Saint Mary
aid us! The Primate writes to me-as if I were a temporal baron - a man
under command, having soldiers under him! He says, send forth - scour
the country-guard the passes-Truly these men do not travel as those who
would give their lives for nothing-the last who went south passed the dryarch at the Riding-burn with an escort of thirty spears, as our reverend




THE MONASTERY.                                63
brother the Abbot of Kelso did write unto us. How are cowls and scapu.
laries to stop the way?"
"Your bailiff is accounted a good man at arms, holy father," said Eustace;
" your vassals are obliged to rise for the defence of the Holy Kirk - it is
the tenure on which they hold their lands -if they will not come forth for
the Church which gives them bread, let their possessions be given to others."
"We shall not be wanting," said the Abbot, collecting himself with importance, "to do whatever may advantage Holy Kirk -thyself shall hear
the charge to our Bailiff and our officials-but here again is our controversy
with the warden of the bridge and the Baron of Meigallot - Saint Mary 
vexations do so multiply upon the House, and upon the generation, that a
man wots not where to turn to!  Thou didst say, Father Eustace, thou
wouldst look into our evidents touching this free passage for the pilgrims?"
"I have looked into the Chartulary of the House, holy father," said
Eustace, " and therein I find a written and formal grant of all duties and
customs payable at the drawbridge of Brigton, not only by ecclesiastics of
this foundation, but by every pilgrim truly designed to accomplish his vows
at this House, to the Abbot Ailford, and the monks of the House of Saint
Mary in Kennaquhair, from that time and for ever.  The deed is dated on
Saint Bridget's Even, in the year of Redemption, 1137, and bears the sign
and seal of the granter, Charles of Meigallot, great-great-grandfather of
this baron, and purports to be granted for the safety of his own soul, and
for the weal of the souls of his father and mother, and of all.his predecessors and successors, being Barons of Meigallot."
" But he alleges," said the Abbot, " that the bridge-wards have been in
possession of these dues, and have rendered them available for more than
fifty years - and the baron threatens violence- meanwhile, the journey of
the pilgrims is interrupted, to the prejudice of their own souls and the diminution of the revenues of Saint Mary. The Sacristan advised us to put on
a boat; but the warden, whom thou knowest to be a godless man, has sworn
the devil tear him, but that if they put on a boat on the laird's stream, he
will rive her board from board -and then some say we should compound
the claim for a small sum in silver."  Here the Abbot paused a moment
for a reply, but receiving none, he added, "But what thinkest thou, Father
Eustace? why art thou silent?"
"Because I am surprised at the question which the Lord Abbot of Saint
Mary's asks at the youngest of his brethren."
"Youngest in time of your abode with us, Brother Eustace," said the
Abbot, " not youngest in years, or I think in experience. Sub-Prior also
of this convent."
"I am astonished," continued Eustace, " that the Abbot of this venerable
house should ask of any one whether he can alienate the patrimony of our
holy and divine patroness, or give up to an unconscientious, and perhaps,
a heretic baron, the rights conferred on this church by his devout progenitor. Popes and councils alike prohibit it-the honour of the living, and
the weal of departed souls, alike forbid it  it may not be. To force, if he
dare use it, we must surrender; but never by our consent should we see the
goods of the church plundered, with as little scruple as he would drive off
a herd of English beeves. Rouse yourself, Reverend father, and doubt
nothing but that the good cause shall prevail. Whet the spiritual sword,
and direct it against the wicked who would usurp our holy rights. Whet
the. temporal sword, if it be necessary, and stir up the courage and zeal of
your loyal vassals."
The Abbot sighed deeply.  "All this," he said, "is soon spoken by him
who hath to act it not; but    "  He was interrupted by the entrance of
Bennet rather hastily.  " The mule on which the Sacristan had set out in
the morning had returned," he said, "to the convent stable all over wet,
and with the saddle turned round beneath her belly."




64                     WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"Sancta Maria!" said the Abbot, "our dear brother hath perished by
the way i"
"It may not be," said Eustace, hastily-" let the bell be tolled-cause the
brethren to get torches - alarm the village - hurry down to the river - I
myself will be the foremost."
The real Abbot stood astonished and aga.pe, when at once he beheld his
office filled, and saw all which he ought to have ordered, going forward at
the dictates of the youngest monk in the convent.  But ere the orders of
Eustace, which nobody drelamed of disputing, were carried into execution,
the necessity was prevented by the sudden apparition of the Sacristan, whose
supposed danger excited all the alarm., atn t'    rurut.
la;ei  out Ilie written troubles of the brain,
(leise tile l oul bhsom  of the perilous stuff
T'I't *weighs ul)po the heart.
MACBETBi.
5Wrr.T betwixt cold and fright the afflicted Sacristan stood before his
Superior, propped on the friendly arm  of the convent miller, drenched
with water, and scarce able to utter a syllable.
After various attempts to speak, the first words he uttered were,
"Swills we inerrily-the moon shines bright."
"Swim we merrily!" retorted the Abbot, indignantly; "a merry night
have ye chosen for swimming, and a becoming salutation to your Superior!"
"Our brother is bewildered," said Eustace;-" speak, Father Philip, how
is it with you?V'
" Good luck to your fishing,"
continued the Sacristan, making a most dolorous attempt at the tune of his
strange companion.
"Good luck to your fishing!" repeated the Abbot, still more surprised
than displeased; " by my halidome he is drunken with wine, and comes to
our presence with his jolly catches in his throat I If bread and water can
cure this folly    "
"With your pardon, venerable father," said the Sub-Prior, "of water
our brother has had enough; and methinks, the confusion of his eye, is
rather that of terror, than of aught unbecoming his profession.  Where
did you find him, HIob Miller?"
"An it please your reverence, I did but go to shut the sluice of the mill
- and as I was going to shut the sluice, I heard something groan near to
me; but judging it was one bf Giles Fletcher's hogs -for so please you he
never shuts his gate - I caught up my lever, and was about - Saint Mary
forgive me  - to strike where I heard the sound, when, as the saints would
have it, I heard the second groan just like that of a living man. So I called
up my knaves, and found the Father Sacristan lying wet and senseless
under the wall of our kiln.  So soon as we brought him to himself a bit,
he prayed to be brought to your reverence, but I doubt me his wits have
gone a bell-wavering by the road. It was but now that he spoke in somewhat better form."
"Well!" said Brother Eustace, "thou hast done well, Hob Miller; only
begone now, and remember a second time to pause, ere you strike in the
dark."




THE  MONASTERY.                              65
"Please your reverence, it shall be a lesson to me," said the miller," not
to mistake a holy man for a hog again, so long as I live."  And, making a
bow, with profound humility, the miller withdrew.
" And now that this churl is gone, Father Philip," said Eustace, " wilt
thou tell our venerable Superior what ails thee? art thou vino gravatus,
man? if so we will have thee to thy cell."
"Water! water! not wine," muttered the exhausted Sacristan.
"Nay," said the monk, "if that be thy complaint, wine may perhaps
cure thee;" and he reached him a cup, which the patient drank off to his
great benefit.
" And now," said the Abbot, " let his garments be changed, or rather let
him be carried to the infirmary; for it will prejudice our health, should
we hear his narrative while he stands there, steaming like a rising hoarfrost."
"I will hear his adventure," said Eustace, "and report it to your
reverence."  And, accordingly, he attended the Sacristan to his cell. In
about half an hour he returned to the Abbot.
"How is it with Father Philip?" said the Abbot; "and through what
came he into such a state?"
"He comes from Glendearg, reverend sir," said Eustace; "and for the
rest, he telleth such a legend, as has not been heard in this Monastery for
many a long day."  He then gave the Abbot the outlines of the Sacristan's
adventures in the homeward journey, and added, that for some time he was
inclined to think his brain was infirm, seeing he had sung, laughed, and
wept all in the same breath.
" A wonderful thing it is to us," said the Abbot, "that Satan has been
permitted to put forth his hand thus far on one of our sacred brethren!"
" True," said Father Eustace; "but for every text there is a paraphrase;
and I have my suspicions, that if the drenching of Father Philip cometh
of the Evil one, yet it may not have been altogether without his own personal fault."
"How!" said the Father Abbot; "I will not believe that thou makest
doubt that Satan, in former days, hath been permitted to afflict saints and
holy men, even as he afflicted the pious Job?"
" God forbid I should make question of it," said the monk, crossing himself; "yet, where there is an exposition of the Sacristan's tale, which is
less than miraculous, I hold it safe to consider it at least, if not to abide by
it. Now, this Hob the Miller hath a buxom daughter.  Suppose-I say
only suppose -that our Sacristan met her at the ford on her return from
her uncle's on the other side, for there she hath this evening been - suppose, that, in courtesy, and to save her stripping hose and shoon, the
Sacristan brought her across behind him-suppose he carried his familiarities faither than the maiden was willing to admit; and we may easily suppose, farther, that this wetting was the result of it."
"And this legend invented to deceive us!" said the Superior, reddening
with wrath; " but most strictly shall it be sifted and inquired into; it is
not upon us that Father Philip must hope to pass the result of his own evil
practices for doings of Satan. To-morrow cite the wench to appear before
us-we will examine, and we will punish."
"Under your reverence's favour," said Eustace, "that were but poor
policy. As things now stand with us, the heretics catch hold of each
flying report which tends to the scandal of our clergy. We must abate
the evil, not only by strengthening discipline, but also by suppressing and
stifling the voice of scandal. If my conjectures are true, the miller's
daughter will be silent for her own sake; and your reverence's authority
may also impose silence on her father, and on the Sacristan. If he is again
found to afford room for throwing dishonour on his order, he can be punished
with severity; but at the same time with secrecy. For what say the
VOL. V.-5                        F 2




66                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
Decretals! Facinora ostendi dum  punientur, flagitia  autem  abscondi
debent."
A sentence of Latin, as Eustace had before observed, had often much influence on the Abbot, because he understood it not fluently, and was ashamed
to acknowledge his ignorance. On these terms they parted for the night.
The next day, Abbot Boniface strictly interrogated Philip on the real
cause of his disaster of the previous night.  But the Sacristan stood firm to
his story; nor was he found to vary from any point of it, although the
answers he returned were in some degree incoherent, owing to his intermingling with them  ever and anon snatches of the strange damsel's song,
which had made such deep impression on his imagination, that he could not
prevent himself from imitating it repeatedly in the course of his examination.  The Abbot had compassion with the Sacristan's involuntary frailty,
to which something supernatural seemed annexed, and finally became of
opinion, that Father Eustace's more natural explanation was rather plausible
than just. And, indeed, although we have recorded the adventure as we
find it written down, we cannot forbear to add that there was a schism on
the subject in the convent, and that several of the brethren pretended to
have good reason for thinking that the miller's black-eyed daughter was at
the bottom of the affair after all. Whichever way it might be interpreted,
all agreed that it had too ludicrous a sound to be permitted to get abroad,
and therefore the Sacristan was charged, on his vow of obedience, to say no
more of his ducking; an injunction which, having once eased his mind by
telling his story, it may be well conjectured that he joyfully obeyed.
The attention of Father Eustace was much less forcibly arrested by the
marvellous tale of the Sacristan's danger, and his escape, than by the mention of the volume which he had brought with him from the Tower of Glendearg. A copy of the Scriptures, translated into the vulgar tongue, had
found its way even into the proper territory of the church, and had been
discovered in one of the most hidden and sequestered recesses of the Halidome of Saint Mary's.
He anxiously requested to see the volume. In this the Sacristan was
unable to gratify him, for he had lost it, as far as he recollected, when the
supernatural being, as he conceived her to be, took her departure from him.
Father Eustace went down to the spot in person, and searched all around
it, in hopes of recovering the volume in question; but his labour was in
vain. He returned to the Abbot, and reported that it must have fallen into
the river or the mill-stream; "for I will hardly believe," he said, "that
Father Philip's musical friend would fly off with a copy of the Holy Scriptures."
"Being," said the Abbot, "as it is, an heretical translation, it may be
thought that Satan may have power over it."
" Ay!" said Father Eustace, " it is indeed his chiefest magazine of artil.
lery, when he inspireth presumptuous and daring men to set forth their own
opinions and expositions of Holy Writ. But though thus abused, the Scriptures are the source of our salvation, and are no more to be reckoned unholy, because of these rash men's proceedings, than a powerful medicine is
to be contemned, or held poisonous, because bold and evil leeches have
employed it to the prejudice of their patients.  With the permission of
your reverence, I would that this matter were looked into more closely. I
will myself visit the Tower of Glendearg ere I am many hours older, and
we shall see if any spectre or white woman of the wild will venture to interrupt my journey or return.  Have I your reverend permission and your
blessing?" he added, but in a tone that appeared to set no great store by
either.
" Thou hast both, my brother," said the Abbot; but no sooner had Eustace left the apartment, than Boniface could not help breaking on the
willing ear of the Sacristan his sincere wish, that any spirit, black, white,




THE  MONASTERY.                               67
or gray. would read the adviser such a lesson, as to cure him of his presumption in esteeming himself wiser than the whole community.
"I wish him no worse lesson," said the Sacristan, "than to go swimming
merrily down the river with a ghost behind, and Kelpies, night-crows, and
mud-eels, all waiting to have a snatch at him.
Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright!
Good luck to your fishing, whom watch you to-night?"
"Brother Philip," said the Abbot, "we exhort thee to say thy prayers,
compose thyself, and banish that foolish chant from thy mind;-it is but a
deception of the devil's."
"I will essay, reverend Father," said the Sacristan, "but the tune hangs
by my memory like a bur in a beggar's rags; it mingles with the psalterthe very bells of the convent seem to repeat the words, and jingle to the
tune; and were you to put me to death at this very moment, it is my belief
I should die singing it-' Now swim we merrily' - it is as it were a spell
upon me."
He then again began to warble
"Good luck to your fishing.
And checking himself in the strain with difficulty, he exclaimed, "It is too
certain-I am but a lost priest! Swim we merrily-I shall sing it at the
very mass-Wo is me! I shall sing all the remainder of my life, and yet
never be able to change the tune!"
The honest Abbot replied, "he knew many a good fellow in the same
condition;" and concluded the remark with "ho  ho! ho!" for his reverence, as the reader may partly have observed, was one of those dull folks
who love a quiet joke.
The Sacristan, well acquainted with his Superior's humour, endeavoured
to join in the laugh, but his unfortunate canticle came again across his
imagination, and interrupted the hilarity of his customary echo.
"By the rood, Brother Philip," said the Abbot, much moved, "you become altogether intolerable! and I am convinced that such a spell could not
subsist over a person of religion, and in a religious house, unless he were
under mortal sin. Wherefore, say the seven penitentiary psalms    make
diligent use of thy scourge and hair-cloth -refrain for three days from all
food, save bread and water —I myself will shrive thee, and we will see if
this singing devil may be driven out of thee; at least I think Father Eustace himself could devise no better exorcism."
The Sacristan sighed deeply, but knew remonstrance was vain. He retired therefore to his cell, to try how far psalmody might be able to drive
off the sounds of the syren tune which haunted his memory.
Meanwhile, Father Eustace proceeded to the drawbridge, in his way to
the lonely valley of Glendearg.  In a brief conversation with the churlish
warder, he had the address to render him more tractable in the controversy
betwixt him and the convent. He reminded him that his father had been a
vassal under the community; that his brother was childless; and that their
possession would revert to the church on his death, and might be either
granted to himself the warder, or to some greater favourite of the Abbot, as
matters chanced to stand betwixt them  at the time. The Sub-Prior suggested to him also, the necessary connexion of interests betwixt the Monastery and the office which this man enjoyed. He listened with temper to his
rude and churlish answers; and by keeping his own interest firm pitched
in his view, he had the satisfaction to find that Peter gradually softened his
tone, and consented to let every pilgrim who travelled upon foot pass free
of exaction until Pentecost next; they who travelled on horseback or otherwise, contenting to pay the ordinary custom. Having thus accommodated
a matter in which the weal of the convent was so deeply interested, Father
Eustace proceeded on his journey.




68                    WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
Nay, daily not with time, the wise man's treasure,
Though fools are lavish on't-the fatal Fisher
Hooks souls, while we waste moments.
OLD PLAY.
A  NOVEMBER mist overspread the little valley, up which slowly but
steadily rode the Monk Eustace. He was not insensible to the feeling of
melancholy inspired by the scene and by the season. The stream  seemed
to murmur with a deep and oppressed note, as if bewailing the departure
of autumn. Among the scattered copses which here and there fringed its
banks, the oak-trees only retained that pallid green that precedes their
russet hue.  The leaves of the willows were most of them  stripped from
the branches, lay rustling at each breath, and disturbed by every step of
the mule; while the foliage of other trees, totally withered, kept still precarious possession of the boughs, waiting the first wind to scatter them.
The monk dropped into the natural train of pensive thought which these
autumnal emblems of mortal hopes are peculiarly calculated to inspire.
" There," he said, looking at the leaves which lay strewed around, "lie the
hopes of early youth, first formed that they may soonest wither, and loveliest in spring to become most contemptible in winter; but you, ye lingerers," he added, looking to a knot of beeches which still bore their withered
leaves, "you are the proud plans of adventurous manhood, formed later,
and still clinging to the mind of age, although it acknowledges their inanity I
None lasts -none endures, save the foliage of the hardy oak, which only
begins to show itself when that of the rest of the forest has enjoyed half
its existence. A pale and decayed hue is all it possesses, but still it retains
that symptom of vitality to the last.  So be it with Father Eustace! The
fairy hopes of my youth I have trodden under foot like those neglected
rustlers -to the prouder dreams of my manhood I look back as to lofty
chimeras, of which the pith and essence have long since faded; but my
religious vows, the faithful profession which I have made in my maturer
age, shall retain life while aught of Eustace lives. Dangerous it may befeeble it must be -yet live it shall, the proud determination to serve the
Church of which I am amember, and to combat the heresies by which she
is assailed."  Thus spoke, at least thus thought, a man zealous according
to his imperfect knowledge, confounding the vital interests of Christianity
with the extravagant and usurped claims of the Church of Rome, and defending his cause with an ardour worthy of a better.
While moving onward in this contemplative mood, he could not help
thinking more than once, that he saw in his path the form  of a female
dressed in white, who appeared in the attitude of lamentation. But the
impression was only momentary, and whenever he looked steadily to the
point where he conceived thefigure appeared, it always proved that he had
mistaken some natural object, a white crag, or the trunk of a decayed birchtree with its silver bark, for the appearance in question.
Father Eustace had dwelt too long in Rome to partake the superstitious
feelings of the more ignorant Scottish clergy; yet he certainly thought it
extraordinary, that so strong an impression should have been made on his
mind by the legend of the Sacristan.  "It is strange," he said to himself,
"that this story, which doubtless was the invention of Brother Philip to
cover his own impropriety of conduct, should run so much in my head,
and disturb my more serious thoughts - I am wont, I-think, to have more
command) over my senses. I will repeat my prayers, and banish such folly
from my recollection."




XHE  MONASTERY.                             69
The monk accordingly began with devotion to tell his beads, in pursuance
of the prescribed rule of his order, and was not again disturbed by any
wanderings of the imagination, until he found himself beneath the little
fortalice of Glendearg.
Dame Glendinning, who stood at the gate, set up a shout of surprise and
joy at seeing the good father. "Martin," she said, "Jasper, where be a'
the folk?- help the right reverend Sub-Prior to dismount, and take his
mule from him.-O father! God has sent you in our need-I was just going
to send man and horse to the convent, though I ought to be ashamed to
give so much trouble to your reverences."
"Our trouble matters not, good dame," said Father Eustace; " in what
can I pleasure you? I came hither to visit the Lady of Avenel."
" Well-a-day 1" said Dame Alice, " and it was on her part that I had the
boldness to think of summoning you, for the good lady will never be able
to wear over the day!-Would it please you to go to her chamber?"
" Iath she not been shriven by Father Philip?" said the monk.
" Shriven she was," said the Dame of Glendearg, " and by Father Philip,
as your reverence truly says-but-I wish it may have been a clean shrift
-Methought Father Philip looked but moody upon it — and there was a
book which he took away with him, that-" She paused as if unwilling
to proceed.
"Speak out, Dame Glendinning," said the Father; "with us it is your
duty to have no secrets."
"Nay, if it please your reverence, it is not that I would keep anything
from your reverence's knowledge, but I fear I should prejudice the lady in
your opinion; for she is an excellent lady-months and years has she dwelt
in this tower, and none more exemplary than she; but this matter, doubtless, she will explain it herself to your reverence."
"I desire first to know it from you, Dame Glendinning," said the monk;
" and I again repeat, it is your duty to tell it to me."
"This book, if it please your reverence, which Father Philip removed
from Glendearg, was this morning returned to us in a strange manner,"
said the good widow.
"Returned 1" said the monk; " how mean you?"
" I mean," answered Dame Glendinning, "that it was brought back to
the tower of Glendearg, the saints best know how - that same book which
Father Philip carried with him but yesterday. Old Martin, that is my
tasker and the lady's servant, was driving out the cows to the pasture-for
we have three good milk-cows, reverend father, blessed be Saint Waldave,
and thanks to the holy Monastery    "
The monk groaned with impatience; but he remembered that a woman
of the good dame's condition was like a top, which, if you let it spin on
untouched, must at last come to a pause; but, if you interrupt it by flogging, there is no end to its gyrations. " But, to speak no more of the cows,
your reverence, though they are likely cattle as ever were tied to a stake,
the tasker was driving them out, and the lads, that is my Halbert and my
Edward, that your reverence has seen at church on holidays, and. especially
Halbert,- for you patted him on the head and gave him a brooch of Saint
Cuthbert, which he wears in his bonnet, - and little Mary Avenel, that is
the lady's daughter, they ran all after the cattle, and began to play up and
down the pasture as young folk will, your reverence. And at length they
lost sight of Martin and the cows; and they began to run up a little cleugh
which we call Corri-nan-Shian, where there is a wee bit stripe of a burn,
and they saw there -Good guide usl!- a White Woman sitting on the
burnside wringing her hands -so the bairns were frighted to see a strange
woman sitting there, all but Halbert, who will be sixteen come Whitsuntide;
and, besides, he never feared ony thing- and when they went up to herbehold she was passed away!"




70                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"For shame, good woman!" said Father Eustace; " a woman of your sense
to listen to a tale so idle!- the young folk told you a lie, and that was all."
"Nay, sir, it was more than that," said the old dame; "for, besides that
they never told me a lie in their lives, I must warn you that on the very
ground where the White Woman was sitting, they found the Lady of Avenel's
book, and brought it with them to the tower."
" That is worthy of mark at least," said the monk. " Know you no other
copy of this volume within these bounds?"
"None, your reverence," returned Elspeth; "why should there? —no
one could read it were there twenty."
"Then you are sure it is the very same volume which you gave to Father
Philip?" said the monk.
"As sure as that I now speak with your reverence."
"It is most singular!" said the monk; and he walked across the room in
a musing posture.
"I have been upon nettles to hear what your reverence would say," continued Dame Glendinning, "respecting this matter —There is nothing I
would not do for the Lady of Avenel and her family, and that has been
proved, and for her servants to boot, both Martin and Tibb, although Tibb
is not so civil sometimes as altogether I have a right to expect; but I cannot think it beseeming to have angels, or ghosts, or fairies, or the like,
waiting upon a leddy when she is in another woman's house, in respect it is
no ways creditable. Ony thing she had to do was always done to her hand,
without costing her either pains or pence, as a country body says; and'besides the discredit, I cannot but think that there is no safety in having
such unchancy creatures about ane. But I have tied red thread round the
bairns's throats," (so her fondness still called them,) " and given ilka ane of
them a riding-wand of rowan-tree, forby sewing up a slip of witch-elm into
their doublets; and I wish to know of your reverence if there be ony thing
mair that a lone woman can do in the matter of ghosts and fairies?  Be
here! that I should have named their unlucky names twice ower!"
" Dame Glendinning," answered the mbnk, somewhat abruptly, when the
good woman had finished her narrative, "I pray you, do you know the
miller's daughter?"' Did I know Kate lapper?" replied the widow; " as well as the beggar
knows his dish - a canty quean was Kate, and a special cummer of my ain
maybe twenty years syne."
"She cannot be the wench I mean," said Father Eustace; "she after
whom I inquire is scarce fifteen, a black-eyed girl - you may have seen her
at the kirk."
"Your reverence must be in the right; and she is my cummer's niece,
doubtless, that you are pleased to speak of: but I thank God 1 have always
been too duteous in attention to the mass, to know whether young wenches
have black eyes or green ones."
The good father had so much of the world about him, that he was unable
to avoid smiling, when the dame boasted her absolute resistance to a temptation, which was not quite so liable to beset her as those of the other sex.
"Perhaps, then," he said, "you know her usual dress, Dame Glendinning?"
"Ay, ay, father," answered the dame readily enough, " a white kirtle the
wench wears, to hide the dust of the mill, no doubt -and a blue hood, that
might weel be spared, for pridefulness."
"Then, may it not be. she," said the father, "who has brought back this
book, and stepped out of the way when the children came near her?"
The dame paused — was unwilling to combat the solution suggested by
the monk-but was at a loss to conceive why the lass of the mill should
come so far from home into so wild a corner merely to leave an old book
with three children, from whose observation she wished to conceal herself.




THE MONASTERY.                               71
Above all, she could not understand why, since she had acquaintances in
the family, and since the Dame Glendinning had always paid her multure
and knaveship duly, the said lass of the mill had not come in to rest herself
and eat a morsel, and tell her the current news of the water.
These very objections satisfied the monk that his conjectures were right.
Dame," he said, "you must be cautious in what you say. This is an
instance - I would it were the sole one —of the power of the Enemy in
these days. The matter must be sifted with a curious and a careful hand."
"Indeed," said Elspeth, trying to catch and chime in with the ideas of
the Sub-Prior, " I have often thought the miller's folk at the Monastery-mill
were far over careless in sifting our melder, and in bolting it too - some
folk say they will not stick at whiles to put in a handful of ashes amongst
Christian folk's corn-meal."
" That shall be looked after also, dame," said the Sub-Prior, not displeased
to see that the good old woman went off on a false scent; "and now, by
your leave, I will see this lady - do you go before, and prepare her to see
me."
Dame Glendinning left the lower apartment accordingly, which the monk
paced in anxious reflection, considering how he might best discharge, with
humanity as well as with effect, the important duty imposed on him. He
resolved to approach the bedside of the sick person with reprimands, mitigated only by a feeling for her weak condition-he determined, in case of her
reply, to which late examples of hardened heretics might encourage her, to be
prepared with answers to the customary scruples. High fraught, also, with
zeal against her unauthorized intrusion into the priestly function, by study
of the Sacred Scriptures, he imagined to himself the answers which one of
the modern school of heresy might return to him -the victorious refutation
which should lay the disputant prostrate at the Confessor's mercy - and the
healing, yet awful exhortation, which, under pain of refusing the last consolations of religion, he designed to make to the penitent, conjuring her, as
she loved her own soul's welfare, to disclose to him what she knew of the
dark mystery of iniquity, by which heresies were introduced into the most
secluded spots of the very patrimony of the Church herself- what agents
they had who could thus glide, as it were unseen, from place to place, bring
back the volume which the Church had interdicted to the spots from which
it had been removed under her express auspices; and, who, by encouraging
the daring and profane thirst after knowledge forbidden and useless to the
laity, had encouraged the fisher of souls to use with effect his old bait of
ambition and vain-glory.
Much of this premeditated disputation escaped the good father, when
Elspeth returned, her tears flowing faster than her apron could dry them,
and made him a signal to follow her. " How," said the monk, " is she then
so near her end? - nay, the Church must not break or bruise, when comfort
is yet possible;" and forgetting his polemics, the good Sub-Prior hastened
to the little apartment, where, on the wretched bed which she had occupied
since her misfortunes had driven her to the Tower of Glendearg, the widow
of Walter Avenel had rendered up her spirit to her Creator.  "My God!"
said the Sub-Prior, " and has my unfortunate dallying suffered her to depart
without the Church's consolation! Look to her, dame," he exclaimed, with
eager impatience; "is there not yet a sparkle of the life left? - may she
not be recalled   recalled but for a moment?- Oh! would that she could
express, but by the most imperfect word-but by the most feeble motion,
her acquiescence in the needful task of penitential prayer  - Does she not
breathe? - Art thou sure she doth not?"
" She will never breathe more," said the matron. "Oh! the poor fatherless girl -now motherless also -Oh, the kind companion I have had these
many years, whom I shall never see again! But she is in heaven for certain, if ever woman went there; for a woman of better life    "




72                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
" Wo to me," said the good monk,'; if indeed she went not hence in good
assurance -wo to the reckless shepherd, who suffered the wolf to carry a
choice one from the flock, while he busied himself with trimming his sling
and his staff to give the monster battle I Oh! if in the long Hereafter,
aught but weal should that poor spirit share, what has my delay cost?-the
value of an immortal soul!"
lie then approached the body, full of the deep remorse natural to a good
man of his persuasion, who devoutly believed the doctrines of the Catholic
Church.  " Ay," said he, gazing on the pallid corpse, from which the spirit
had parted so placidly as to leave a smile upon the thin blue lips, which had
been so long wasted by decay that they had parted with the last'breath of
animation without the slightest convulsive tremor-" Ay," said Father
Eustace, "there lies the faded tree, and, as it fell, so it lies-awful thought
for me, should my neglect have left it to descend in an evil direction!"  He
then again and again conjured Dame Glendinning to tell him what she knew
of the demeanour and ordinary walk of the deceased.
All tended to the high honour of the deceased lady; for her companion,
who admired her sufficiently while alive, notwithstanding some trifling
points of jealousy, now idolized her after her death, and could think of no
attribute of praise with which she did not adorn her memory.
Indeed, the Lady of Avenel, however she might privately doubt some of
the doctrines announced by the Church of Rome, and although she had
probably tacitly appealed from that corrupted system of Christianityto the
volume on which Christianity itself is founded, had nevertheless been
regular in her attendance on the worship of the Church, not, perhaps, extending her scruples so far as to break off communion.  Such indeed was
the first sentiment of the earlier reformers, who seemed to have studied, for
a time at least, to avoid a schism, until the violence of the Pope rendered it
inevitable.
Father Eustace, on the present occasion, listened with eagerness to everything which could lead to assure him of the lady's orthodoxy in the main
points of belief; for his conscience reproached him sorely, that, instead of
protracting conversation with the Dame of Glendearg, he had not instantly
hastened where his presence was so necessary.  "If," he said, addressing
the dead body, "thou art yet free from the utmost penalty due to the followers of false doctrine-if thou dost but suffer for a time, to expiate faults
done in the body, but partaking of mortal frailty more than of deadly sin,
fear not that thy abode shall be long in the penal regions to which thou
mayest be doomed-if vigils —if masses-if penance-if maceration of my
body, till it resembles that extenuated form which the soul hath abandoned,
may assure thy deliverance. The Holy Church-the godly foundation-our
blessed Patroness herself, shall intercede for one whose errors were counterbalanced by so many virtues.-Leave me, dame-here, and by her bed-side,
will I perform those duties which this piteous case demands!"
Elspeth left the monk, who employed himself in fervent and sincere,
though erroneous prayers, for the weal of the departed spirit. For an hour
he remained in the apartment of death, and then returned to the hall, where
he found the still weeping friend of the deceased.
But it would be injustice to Mrs. Glendinning's hospitality,.if we suppose
her to have been weeping during this long interval, or rather if we suppose
her so entirely absorbed by the tribute of sorrow which she paid frankly
and plentifully to her deceased friend, as to be incapable of attending to the
rights of hospitality due to the holy visiter-who was confessor at once, and
Sub-Prior-mighty in all religious and secular considerations, so far as the
vassals of the Monastery were interested.
Her barley-bread had been toasted —her choicest cask of home-brewed
ale had been broached —her best butter had been placed on the hall-table,
along with her most savoury ham, and her choicest cheese, ere she aban




THE MONASTERY.                                73
doned herself to the extremity of sorrow; and it was not till she had
arranged her little repast neatly on the board, that she sat down in the
chimney corner, threw her checked apron over her head, and gave way to
the current of tears and sobs. In this there was no grimace or affectation,
The good dame held the honours of her house to be as essential a duty,
especially when a monk was her visitant, as any other pressing call upon her
conscience; nor until these were suitably attended to did she find herself at
liberty to indulge her sorrow for her departed friend.
When she was conscious of the Sub-Prior's presence, she rose with the
same attention to his reception; but he declined all the offers of hospitality
with which she endeavoured to tempt him. Not her butter, as yellow as"
gold, and the best, she assured him, that was made in the patrimony of St.
Mary - not the barley scones, which "the departed saint, God sain her!
used to say were so good" -not the ale, nor any other cates which poor
Elspeth's stores afforded, could prevail on the Sub-Prior to break his fast.
"This day," he said, "I must not taste food until the sun go down,
happy if, in so doing, I can expiate my own negligence — happier still, if,my sufferings of this trifling nature, undertaken in pure faith and singleness of heart, may benefit the soul of the deceased. Yet, dame," he added,. may not so far forget the living in my cares for the dead, as to leave behind
nme that book, which is to the ignorant what, to our first parents, the tree of
Knowledge of Good and Evil unhappily proved-excellent indeed in itself,
but fatal because used by those to whom it is prohibited."
"Oh, blithely, reverend father," said the widow of Simon Glendinning,
" will I give you the book, if so be I can while it from the bairns; and
indeed, poor things, as the case stands with them even now, you might
take the heart out of their bodies, and they never find it out, they are sae
begrutten."*
"Give them this missal instead, good dame," said the father, drawing
from his pocket one which was curiously illuminated with paintings, " and
I will come myself, or send one at a fitting time, and teach them the meaning of these pictures."
"The bonny images!" said Dame Glendinning, forgetting for an instant
her grief in her admiration, "and weel I wot," added she, "it is another
sort of a book than the poor Lady of Avenel's; and blessed might we have
been this day, if your reverence had found the way up the glen, instead of
Father Philip, though the Sacristan is a powerful man too, and speaks as
if he would ger the house fly abroad, save that the walls are gey thick.
Simon's forebears (may he and they be blessed!) took care of that."
The monk ordered his mule, and was about to take his leave; and the good
dame was still delaying him with questions about the funeral, when a horseman, armed and accoutred, rode into the little court-yard which surrounded
the Keep.
*Begrutten- over-weeped.
6




74                      WAVERLEY NOVELS.
For since they rode among our doors
With splent on spauld and rusty spurs,
There grows no fruit into our furs;
Thus said John Up-on-land.
BANNATYNE MS.
THE Scottish laws, which were as wisely and judiciously made as they
were carelessly and ineffectually executed, had in vain endeavoured to
restrain the damage done to agriculture, by the chiefs and landed proprietors retaining in their service what were called jack-men, from the
jack, or doublet quilted with iron which they wore as defensive armour.
These military retainers conducted themselves with great insolence towards
the industrious part of the community-lived in a great measure by plunder,
and were ready to execute any commands of their master, however unlawful.
In adopting this mode of life, men resigned the quiet hopes and regular
labours of industry, for an unsettled, precarious, and dangerous trade, which
yet had such charms for those once accustomed to it, that they became incapable of following any other. Hence the complaint of John Upland, a
fictitious character, representing a countryman, into whose mouth the poets
of the day put their general satires upon men and manners.
They ride about in such a rage,
By forest, frith, and field,
With buckler, bow, and brand.
Lo! where they ride out through the rye 
The Devil mot save the company,
Quoth John Up-oni-lald.
Christie of the Clinthill, the horseman who now arrived at the little Tower
of Glendearg, was one of the hopeful company of whom the poet complains,
as was indicated by his "splent on spauld," (iron-plates on his shoulder,)
his rusted spurs, and his long lance.  An iron skull-cap, none of the
brightest, bore for distinction a sprig of the holly, which was Avenel's
badge. A long two-edged straight sword, having a handle made of polished
oak, hung down by his side.  The meagre condition of his horse, and the
wild and emaciated look of the rider, showed their occupation could not be
accounted an easy or a thriving one.  lie saluted Dame Glendinning with
little courtesy, and the monk with less; for the growing disrespect to the
religious orders had not failed to extend itself among a class of men of such
disorderly habits, although it may be supposed they were tolerably indifferent alike to the new or the ancient doctrines.
"So, our lady is dead, Dame Glendinning?" said the jack-man; "my
master has sent you even now a fat bullock for her mart-it may serve for
her funeral.  I have left him  in the upper cleugh, as he is somewhat kenspeckle,* and is marked both with cut and birn-the sooner the skin is off,
and he is in saultfat, the less like you are to have trouble-you understand
me?  Let me have a peck of corn for my horse, and beef and beer for
myself, for I must go on to the Monastery-though I think this monk hero
might do mine errand."
" Thine errand, rude man!" said the Sub-Prior, knitting his brows"For God's sake!" cried poor Dame Glendinning, terrified at the idea of
a quarrel between them,-" 0 Christie! - it is the Sub-Prior- 0 reverend
sir, it is Christie of the Clinthill, the laird's chief jack-man; ye know that
little havings can be expected from the like o' them."
"Are you a retainer of the Laird of Avenel?" said the monk, addressing
Keaspeckle-that which is easily recognized by the eye.




THE MONASTERY.                               75
himself to the horseman, "and do you speak thus rudely to a brother of
Saint Mary's, to whom thy master is so much beholden?"
"' He means to be yet more beholden to your house, Sir Monk," answered
the fellow; " for hearing his sister-in-law, the widow of Walter of Avenel,
was on her death-bed, he sent me to say to the Father Abbot and the brethren, that he will hold the funeral-feast at their convent, and invites himself thereto, with a score of horse and some friends, and to abide there for
three days and three nights, - having horse-meat and men's-meat at the
charge of the community; of which his intention he sends due notice, that
fitting preparation may be timeously made."
"Friend," said the Sub-Prior, "believe not that I will do to the Father
Abbot the indignity of delivering such an errand.-Think'st thou the goods
of the church were bestowed upon her by holy princes and pious nobles,
now dead and gone, to be consumed in revelry by every profligate layman
who numbers in his train more followers than he can support by honest
means, or by his own incomings? Tell thy master, from the Sub-Prior of
Saint Mary's, that the Primate hath issued his commands to us that we
submit no longer to this compulsory exaction of hospitality on slight or
false pretences. Our lands and goods were given to relieve pilgrims and
pious persons, not to feast bands of rude soldiers."
" This to me!" said the angry spearman. "this to me and to my master
- Look to yourself then, Sir Priest, and try if Ave and Credo will keep
bullocks from wandering, and hay-stacks from burning."
"Dost thou menace the Holy Church's patrimony with waste and fireraising," said the Sub-Prior, "and that in the face of the sun? I call on
all who hear me to bear witness to the words this ruffian has spoken. Remember how the Lord James drowned such as you by scores in the black
pool at Jeddart.-To him and to the Primate will I complain."  The soldier
shifted the position of his lance, and brought it down to a level with the
monk's body.
Dame Glendinning began to shriek for assistance. "Tibb Tacket! Martin! where be ye all? - Christie, for the love of God, consider he is a man
of Holy Kirk!"
" I care not for his spear," said the Sub-Prior; "if I am slain in defending the rights and privileges of my community, the Primate will know how
to take vengeance."
"Let him look to himself," said Christie, but at the same time depositing
his lance against the wall of the tower; "if the Fife men spoke true who
came hither with the Governor in the last raid, Norman Leslie has him at
feud, and is like to set him hard. We know Norman a true bloodhound,
who will never quit the slot. But I had no design to offend the holy father,"
he added, thinking perhaps he had gone a little too far; " I am a rude man,
bred to lance and stirrup, and not used to deal with book-learned men and
priests; and I am willing to ask his forgiveness - and his blessing, if I have
said aught amiss."
" For God's sake! your reverence," said the widow of Glendearg apart to
the Sub-Prior, "bestow on him your forgiveness- how shall we poor folk
sleep in security in the dark nights, if the convent is at feud with such men
as he is?"
"You are right, dame," said the Sub-Prior, "your safety should, and
must be, in the first instance consulted. - Soldier, I forgive thee, and may
God bless thee and send thee honesty."
Christie of the Clinthill made an unwilling inclination with his head, and
muttered apart, " that is as much as to say, God send'thee starvation. But
now to my rraster's demand, Sir Priest? What answer am I to return?"
"That the body of the widow of Walter of Avenel," answered the Father,
" shall be interred as becomes her rank, and in the tomb of her valiant
husband. - For your master's proffered visit of three days, with such a comn



TlB           7WAV ERLEY NOVELS.
pany and retinue, I have no authority to reply to it; you must intimate your
Chief's purpose to the Reverend Lord Abbot."
" That will cost me a farther ride," said the man, " but it is all in the day's
work. - How now, my lad," said he to Halbert, who was handling the long
lance which he had laid aside; "how do you like such a plaything? -will
you go with me and be a moss-trooper?"
"The Saints in their mercy forbid!" said the poor mother; and then,
afraid of having displeased Christie by the vivacity of her exclamation, she
followed it up by explaining, that since Simon's death she could not look on
a spear or a bow, or any implement of destruction without trembling.
" Pshaw!" answered Christie, " thou shouldst take another husband, dame,
and drive such follies out of thy thoughts - what sayst thou to such a strapping lad as I? Why, this old tower of thine is fensible enough, and there
is no want of cleuchs, and crags, and bogs, and thickets, if one was set
hard; a man might bide here and keep his half-score of lads, and as many
geldings, and live on what he could lay his hand on, and be kind to thee,
old wench."
"Alas I Master Christie," said the matron, "that you should talk to a
lone woman in such a fashion, and death in the house besides'"
"Lone woman!- why, that is the very reason thou shouldst take a mate.
Thy old friend is dead, why, good-choose thou another of somewhat
tougher frame, and that will not die of the pip like a young chicken. --
Better still - Come, dame, let me have something to eat, and we will talk
more of this."
Dame Elspeth, though she well knew the character of the man, whom in
fact she both disliked and feared, could not help simpering at the personal
address which he thought proper to make to her. She whispered to the
Sub-Prior, " ony thing just to keep him quiet," and went into the tower to
set before the soldier the food he desired, trusting betwixt good cheer and
the power of her own charms, to keep Christie of the Clinthill so well
amused, that the altercation betwixt him and the holy father should not
be renewed.
The Sub-Prior was equally unwilling to hazard any unnecessary rupture
between the community and such a person as Julian of Avenel. He was
sensible that moderation, as well as firmness, was necessary to support the
tottering cause of the Church of Rome; and that, contrary to former times,
the quarrels betwixt the clergy and laity had, in the present, usually
terminated to the advantage of the latter. He resolved, therefore, to avoid
farther strife by withdrawing, but failed not, in the first place, to possess
himself of the volume which the Sacristan carried off the evening before,
and which had been returned to the glen in such a marvellous manner.
Edward, the younger of Dame Elspeth's boys, made great objections to
the book's being removed, in which Mary would probably have joined, but
that she was now in her little sleeping-chamber with Tibb, who was exerting
her simple skill to console the young lady for her mother's death. But the
younger Glendinning stood up in defence of her property, and, with a positiveness which had hitherto made no part of his character, declared, that
now the kind lady was dead, the book was Mary's, and no one but Mary
should have-it.
"But if it is not a fit book for Mary to read, mny dear boy," said the
father, gently, "you would not wish it to remain with her?"
"The lady read it," answered the young champion of property; "and so
it could not be wrong - it shall not be taken away. - I wonder where Halbert is?- listening tothe bravading tales of gay Christie, I reckon,- he is
always wishing for fighting, and now he is out of the way."
" Why, Edward, you would not fight with me, who am both a priest and
an old man?"
" If you were as good a priest as the Pope," said the boy, " and as old as




THE MONASTERY.                               77
the hills to boot, you shall not carry away Mary's book without her leave.
I will do battle for it."
" But see you, my love," said the monk, amused with the resolute friendship manifested by the boy, " I do not take it; I only borrow it; and I leave
in its place my own gay missal, as a pledge I will bring it again."
Edward opened the missal with eager curiosity, and glanced at the pictures with which it was illustrated.  "Saint George and the dragon —
Halbert will like that; and Saint Michael brandishing his sword over the
head of the Wicked One - and that will do for Ilalbert too. And see the
Saint John leading his lamb in the wilderness, with his little cross made of
reeds, and his scrip and staff- that shall be my favourite; and where shall
we find one for poor Mary? — here is a beautiful woman weeping and
lamenting herself."
"This is Saint Mary Magdalen repenting of her sins, my dear boy," said
the father.
" That will not suit our Mary; for she commits no faults, and is never
angry with us, but when we do something wrong."
"Then," said the father," I will show you a Mary, who will protect her
and you, and all good children. See how fairly she is represented, with her
gown covered with golden stars."
The boy was lost in wonder at the portrait of the Virgin, which the SubPrior turned up to him.
" This," he said, " is really like our sweet Mary; and I think I will let
you take away the black book, that has no such goodly shows in it, and
leave this for Mary instead. But you must promise to bring back the book,
good father - for now I think upon it, Mary may like that best which was
her mother's."
"I will certainly return," said the monk, evading his answer, "and perhaps I may teach you to write and read such beautiful letters as you see
there written, and to paint them blue, green, and yellow, and to blazon them
with gold."
"Ay, and to make such figures as these blessed Saints, and especially
these two Marys?" said the boy.
"With their blessing," said the Sub-Prior, " I can teach you that art too,
so far as I am myself capable of showing, and you of learning it."
" Then," said Edward, " will I paint Mary's picture-and remember you
are to bring back the black book; that you must promise me."
The Sub-Prior, anxious to get rid of the boy's pertinacity, and to set
forward on his return to the convent, without having any further interview
with Christie the galloper, answered by giving the promise Edward required, mounted his mule, and set forth on his return homeward.
The November day was well spent ere the Sub-Prior resumed his journey;
for the difficulty of the road, and the various delays which he had met with
at the tower, had detained him longer than he proposed. A chill easterly
wind was sighing among the withered leaves, and stripping them from the
hold they had yet retained on the parent trees.
"Even so," said the monk, "our prospects in this vale of time grow
more disconsolate as the stream of years passes on. Little have I gained
by nmy journey, saving the certainty that heresy is busy among us with
more than his usual activity, and that the spirit of insulting religious
orders, and plundering the Church's property, so general in the eastern
districts of Scotland, has now come nearer home."
The tread of a horse which came up behind him, interrupted his reverie,
and he soon saw he was mounted by the same wild rider whom he had left
at the tower.
" Good even, my son, and benedicite," said the Sub-Prior as he passed;
but the rude soldier scarce acknowledged the greeting, by bending his
head; and dashing the spurs into his horse, went on at a pace which soon
02




78                          WAVERLEY NOVELS.
left the monk and his mule far behind. - And there, thought the Sub-Prior,
goes another plague of the times — a fellow  whose birth  designed  him  to
cultivate the earth, but who is perverted by the unhallowed and unchristian
divisions of the country, into a daring and dissolute robber. The barons
of Scotland are now turned masterful thieves and ruffians, oppressing the
poor by violence, and wasting the Church, by extorting  free-quarters from
abbeys and priories, without either shame or reason. I fear me I shall be
too late to counsel the Abbot to make a stand against these daring sorners*
-I must make haste."   He struck  his mule with his riding wand accordingly; but, instead of mending her pace, the animal suddenly started from
the path, and the rider's utmost efforts could not force her forward.
"Art thou, too, infected  with the spirit of the times?" said  the  SubPrior; " thou wert wont to be ready and serviceable, and art now as restive
as any wild jack-man or stubborn heretic of them  all."
While he was contending with the startled animal, a voice, like that of a
female, chanted in his ear, or at least very close to it,
"Good evening, Sir Priest, and so late as you ride,
With vour mule so fair, and your mantle so wide;
But ride you througli valley, or ride you o'er hill,
There is one that has warrant to wait on you still.
Back, back,
T'he volume black!
I have a warrant to carry it back."
The Sub-Prior looked around, but neither bush nor brake was near which
could conceal an  ambushed  songstress.  "May Our Lady have mercy on
me!" he said; "I trust my  senses have not forsaken  me -yet how  my
thoughts should arrange themselves into rhymes which I despise, and music
which I care not for, or why there should be the sound of a female voice in
ears, in which its melody has been  so long indifferent, baffles my comprehension, and almost realizes the vision of Philip the Sacristan. Come,
good mule, betake thee to the path, and let us hence while our judgment
serves us."
But the mule stood as if it had been rooted to the spot, backed  from  the
point to which it was pressed by its rider, and by her ears laid close into
her neck, and her eyes almost starting from their sockets, testified that she
was under great terror.
While the Sub-Prior, by alternate  threats and  soothing, endeavoured to
reclaim  the wayward animal to her duty, the wild musical voice was again
heard close beside him.
"What, ho! Sub-Prior, and came you but here
To conjure a book from a dead woman's bier 
Sain you, and save you, be wary and wise.
Ride back with the book, or you'll pay for your prize.
Back, back,
There's death in the track l
In the name of my master I bid thee bear back."'In  the name of MY Master,"  said the astonished  monk, "that name
before which all things created tremble, I conjure thee to say what thou art
that hauntest me thus?'
The same voice replied,
"That which is neither ill nor well,
That which belongs not to Heaven nor to hell,
A wreath of the mist, a bubble of the stream,'Twixt a waking thought and a sleeping dream;
A form that men spy
With the half-shut eye.
In the beams of the setting sun, am."
"This is more than  simple fantasy," said the  Sub-Prior, rousing himself; though, notwithstanding the natural hardihood of his temper, the
* To sorne, in Scotland, is to exact free quarters against the will of the landlord. It is declared equivatent to theft, by a statute passed in the year 1445. The great chieftains oppressed the monasteries very
much oy exactions of this nature. The community of Aberbrothwick complained of an Earl of Angus, I
think, who was in the regular habit of visiting them once a-year, with a train of a thousand htrse, and
abiding till the whole winter provisions of the convent were exhausted.




THE MONASTERY.                                   79
sensible presence of a supernatural being so near him, failed not to make
his blood run cold, and his hair bristle. "I charge thee," he said aloud,
be thine errand what it will, to depart and trouble me no more! False
spirit, thou canst not appal any save those who do the work negligently."
The voice immediately answered:
Vainly, Sir Prior. wouldst thou bar me my right!
Like the star when it shoots, I can dart through the night;
I can dance on the torrent and ride on the air,
And travel the world with the bonny night-mare.
Again, again,
At the crook of the glen,
Where bickers the burnie, I'll meet thee again."
The road was now apparently left open; for the mule collected herself,
and changed from  her posture of terror to one which promised advance,
although a profuse perspiration, and general trembling of the joints, indicated the bodily terror she had undergone.
"I used to doubt the existence of Cabalists and Rosicrucians," thought
the Sub-Prior, "but, by my Holy Order, I know no longer what to say! -
My pulse beats temperately - my hand is cool- I am fasting from everything but sin, and possessed of my ordinary faculties-Either some fiend is
permitted to bewilder me, or the tales of Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus,
and others who treat of occult philosophy, are not without foundation.-At
the crook of the glen? I could have desired to avoid a second meeting,
but I am on the service of the Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against me."
He moved around accordingly, but with precaution, and not without fear;
for he neither knew the manner in which, or the place where his journey
might be next interrupted by his invisible attendant. He descended the
glen without interruption for about a mile farther, when, just at the spot
where the brook approached the steep hill, with a winding so abrupt as to
leave scarcely room for a horse to pass, the mule was again visited with the
same symptoms of terror which had before interrupted her course. Better
acquainted than before with the cause of her restiveness, the Priest employed no effort to make her proceed, but addressed himself to the object,
which he doubted not was the same that had formerly interrupted him, in
the words of solemn exorcism prescribed by the Church of Rome on such
occasions.
In reply to his demand, the voice again sung;"Men of good are bold as sackless,*
Men of rude are wild and reckless,
Lie thou still
In the nook of the hill,
For those be before thee that wish thee ill."
While the Sub-Prior listened, with his head turned in the direction from
which the sounds seemed to come, he felt as if something rushed against
him; and ere he could discover the cause, he was pushed from  his saddle
with gentle but irresistible force.  Before he reached the ground his senses
were gone, and he lay long in a state of insensibility; for the sunset had
not ceased to gild the top of the distant hill when he fell,- and when he
again became conscious of existence, the pale moon was gleaming on the
landscape.  le awakened in a state of terror, from which, for a few minutes,
he found it difficult to shake himself free. At length he sate upon the grass,
and became sensible, by repeated exertion, that the only personal injury
which he had sustained was the numbness arising from extreme cold. The
motion of something near him made the blood again run to his heart, and
by a sudden effort he started up, and, looking around, saw to his relief that
the noise wis occasioned by the footsteps of his own mule.  The peaceable
animal had remained quietly beside her master during his trance, browsing
on the grass which grew plentifully in that sequestered nook.
* Sacklcss -Innocent.




80                  YWAVERLEY NOVELS.
With some exertion he collected himself, remounted the animal, and meditating upon his wild adventure, descended the glen till its junction with the
broader valley through which the Tweed winds. The drawbridge was
readily dropped at his first summons; and so much had he won upon the
heart of the churlish warden, that Peter appeared himself with a lantern to
show the Sub-Prior his way over the perilous pass.
"By my sooth, sir," he said, holding the light up to Father Eustace's
face, "you look sorely travelled and deadly pale-but a little matter serves
to weary out you men of the cell. I now who speak to you-I have ridden
-before I was perched up here on this pillar betwixt wind and water- it
may be thirty Scots miles before I broke my fast, and have had the red of
a bramble rose in my cheek all the while-But will you taste some food, or
a cup of distilled waters?"
" I may not," said Father Eustace, " being under a vow; but I thank you
for your kindness, and pray you to give what I may not accept to the next
poor pilgrim who comes hither pale and fainting, for so it shall be the better
both with him here, and with you hereafter."
" By my faith, and I will do so," said Peter Bridge-Ward, " even for thy
sake - It is strange now, how this Sub-Prior gets round one's heart more
than the rest of these cowled gentry, that think of nothing but quaffing and
stuffing I - Wife, I say - wife, we will give a cup of distilled waters and a
crust of bread unto the next pilgrim that comes over; and ye may keep for
the purpose the grunds of the last greybeard,* and the ill-baked bannock
which the bairns couldna eat."
While Peter issued these charitable, and, at the same time, prudent injunctions, the Sub-Prior, whose mild interference had awakened the BridgeWard to such an act of unwonted generosity, was pacing onward to the
Monastery. In the way, he had to commune with and subdue his own rebellious heart, an enemy, he was sensible, more formidable than any which
the external powers of Satan could place in his way.
Father Eustace had indeed strong temptation to suppress the extraordinary incident which had befallen him, which he was the more reluctant to
confess, because he had passed so severe a judgment upon Father Philip,
who, as he was not unwilling to allow, had, on his return from G-lendearg,
encountered obstacles somewhat similar to his own. Of this the Sub-Prior
was the more convinced, when, feeling in his bosom for the Book which he
had brought off from the Tower of Glendearg, he found it was amissing,
which he could only account for by supposing it had been stolen from him
during his trance.
"If I confess this strange visitation," thought the Sub-Prior, " I become
the ridicule of all my brethren - I whom the Primate sent hither to be a
watch, as it were, and a check upon their follies. I give the Abbot an advantage over me which I shall never again recover, and Heaven only knows
how he may abuse it, in his foolish simplicity, to the dishonour and loss of
Holy Kirk. -But then, if I make not true confession of my shame, with
what face can I again presume to admonish or restrain others? -Avow,
proud heart," continued he, addressing himself, "that the weal of Holy
Church interests thee less in this matter than thine own humiliation-Yes,
Heaven has punished thee even in that point in which thou didst deem thyself most strong, in thy spiritual pride and thy carnal wisdom. Thou hast
laughed at and derided the inexperience of thy brethren - stoop thyself in
turn to their derision -tell what they may not believe -affirm that which
they will ascribe to idle fear, or perhaps to idle falsehood-sustain the disgrace of a silly visionary, or a wilful deceiver.-Be it so, I will do my duty,
and make ample confession to my Superior. If the discharge of this duty
destroys my usefulness in this house, God and Our Lady will send me where
I can better serve them."
* An old-fashioned name for an earthen jar for holding spirits.




THE  MONASTERY.                                81
There was no little merit in the resolution thus piously and generously
formed by Father Eustace.  To men of any rank the esteem of their order
is naturally most dear; but in the monastic establishment, cut off, as the
brethren are, from other objects of ambition, as well as from  all exterior
friendship and relationship, the place which they hold in the opinion of each
other is all in all.
But the consciousness how much he should rejoice the Abbot and most
of the other monks of Saint Mary's, who were impatient of the unauthorized, yet irresistible control, which he was wont to exercise in the affairs of
the convent, by a confession which would put him in a ludicrous, or perhaps
even in a criminal point of view, could not weigh with Father Eustace in
comparison with the task which his belief enjoined.
As, strong in his feelings of duty, he approached the exterior gate of the
Monastery, he was surprised to see torches gleaming, and men assembled
around it, some on horseback, some on foot, while several of the monks, distinguished through the night by their white scapularies, were making themselves busy among the crowd.  The Sub-Prior was received with a unanimous shout of joy, which at once made hin  sensible that he had himself
been the object of their anxiety.
" There he is! there he is! God be thanked-there he is, hale and fear!"
exclaimed the vassals; while the monks exclaimed, " Te Deum laudamusthe blood of thy servants is precious in thy sight!"
"What is the matter, children? what is the matter, my brethren?" said
Father Eustace, dismounting at the gate.
" Nay, brother, if thou know'st not, we will not tell thee till thou art in
the refectory," answered the monks; "suffice it that the Lord Abbot had
ordered these, our zealous and faithful vassals, instantly to set forth to guard
thee from imminent peril -Ye may ungirth your horses, children, and dismiss; and to-morrow, each who was at this rendezvous may send to the
convent kitchen for a quarter of a yard of roast beef, and a black-jack full
of double ale."
The vassals dispersed with joyful acclamation, and the monks, with equal
jubilee, conducted the Sub-Prior into the refectory.
Here we standWoundless and well, may Heaven's high name be bless'd for't!
As erst, ere treason couch'd a lance against us.
DECKER.
No sooner was the Sub-Prior hurried into the refectory by his rejoicing
companions, than the first person on whom he fixed his eye proved to be
Christie of the Clinthill. He was seated in the chimney-corner, fettered
and guarded, his features drawn into that air of sulky and turbid resolution
with which those hardened in guilt are accustomed to view the approach
of punishment. But as the Sub-Prior drew near to him, his face assumed
a more wild and startled expression, while he exclaimed-" The devil! the
devil himself, brings the dead back upon the living!"
" Nay," said a monk to him, " say rather that Our Lady foils the attempts
of the wicked on her faithful servants-our dear brother lives and moves."
* It was one of the few reminiscences of Old Parr, or Henry Jelnkins, I forget which, that, at some convent
in the veteran's neighbourhood, the community, before the dissolution, used to dole out roast-beef by the
measure of feet and yards.
YVo, V.- 6




82                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"L,ves and moves!" said the ruffian, rising and shuffling towards the
Sub-Prior as well as his chains would permit; "nay, then, I will never
trust ashen shaft and steel point more- It is even so," he added, as he
gazod on the Sub-Prior with astonishment;. "neither wem nor wound-not
as much as a rent in his frock!"
" And whence should my wound have come?" said Father Eustace.
" From the good lance that never failed me before," replied Christie of the
Clinthill.
"Heaven absolve thee for thy purpose!" said the Sub-Prior; "wouldst
thou have slain a servant of the altar?"
" To choose!" answered Christie; " the Fifemen say, an the whole pack
of ye were slain, there were more lost at Flodden."
" Villain! art thou heretic as well as murderer?"
"Not I, by Saint Giles," replied the rider; " I listened blithely enough to
the Laird of Monance, when he told me ye were all cheats and knaves; but
when he would have had me go hear one Wiseheart, a gospeller as they call
him, he'might as well have persuaded the wild colt that had flung one rider
to kneel down and help another into the saddle."
" There is some goodness about him yet," said the Sacristan to the Abbot,
who at that moment entered-" IIe refused to hear a heretic preacher."
"The better for him in the next world," answered the Abbot. "Prepare
for death, my son,-we deliver thee over to the secular arm of our bailie,
for execution on the Gallow-hill by peep of light."
" Amen I" said the ruffian; "'tis the end lmust have come by sooner or
later — and what care I whether I feed the crows at Saint Mary's or at
Carlisle?"
" Let me implore your reverend patience for an instant," said the SubPrior; " until I shall inquire  "
" What!" exclaimed the Abbot, observing him for the first time-" Our
dear brother restored to us when his life was unhoped for!-nay, kneel not
to a sinner like me-stand up-thou hast my blessing. When this villain'
came to the gate, accused by his own evil conscience, and crying out he had
murdered thee, I thought that the pillar of our main aisle had fallen - n.o
more shall a life so precious be exposed to such risks as occur in this border
country; no longer shall one beloved and rescued of Heaven hold so low a
station in the church as that of a poor Sub-Prior-I will write by express to
the Primate for thy speedy removal and advancement."
" Nay, but let me understand," said the Sub-Prior; " did this soldier say
he had slain me?"
"That he had transfixed you," answered the Abbot; "in full career with
his lance  but it seems he had taken an indifferent aim. But no sooner
didst thou fall to the ground mortally gored, as he deemed, with his weapon,
than our blessed Patroness appeared to him, as he averred    "
" I averred no such thing," said the prisoner; " I said a woman in white
interrupted me, as I was about to examine the priest's cassock, for they are
usually well lined-she had a bulrush in her hand, with one touch of which
she struck me from my horse, as I might strike down a child of four years
old with an iron mace and then, like a singing fiend as she was, she sung
to me.'Thank the holly-bush
That nods on thy brow;
Or with this slender rush
I had strangled thee now.'
I gathered myself up with fear and difficulty, threw myself on my horse,
and came hither like a fool to get myself hanged for a rogue."
"Thou seest, honoured brother," said the Abbot to the Sub-Prior, "in
what favour thou art with our blessed Patroness, that she herself becomes
the guardian of thy paths-Not since the days of our blessed founder hath
she shown such graca to any one. All unworthy were we to hold spiritual




THE  MONASTERY.                               83
Superiority over thee, and we pray thee to prepare for thy speedy removal
to Aberbrothwick."
" Alas! my lord and father," said the Sub-Prior," your words pierce my
very soul. Under the seal of confession will I presently tell thee why I
conceive myself rather the baffled sport of a spirit of another sort, than the
protected favourite of the heavenly powers. But first let me ask this unhappy man a question or two."
"Do as ye list," replied the Abbot-" but you shall not convince me that
it is fitting you remain in this inferior office in the convent of Saint Mary."
" I would ask of this poor man," said Father Eustace, "for what purpose
he nourished the thought of putting to death one who never did him evil'?"
"Ay! but thou didst menace me with evil," said the ruffian, " and no one
but a fool is menaced twice. Dost thou not remember what you said touching the Primate and Lord James, and the black pool of Jedwood?  Didst
thou think me fool enough to wait till thou hadst betrayed me to the sack
and the fork! There were small wisdom in that, methinks - as little as in
coming hither to tell my own misdeeds - I think the devil was in me when
I took this road — I might have remembered the proverb,'Never Friar
forgot feud.'"
" And it was solely for that - for that only hasty word of mine, uttered
in a moment of impatience, and forgotten ere it was well spoken?" said
Father Eustace.
"Ay! for that, and-for the love of thy gold crucifix," said Christie of
the Clinthill.
" Gracious Heaven! and could the yellow metal - the glittering earth —
so far overcome every sense of what is thereby represented?-Father Abbot,
I pray, as a dear boon, you will deliver this guilty person to my mercy."
"Nay, brother," interposed the Sacristan, "to your doom, if you will,
not to your mercy —Remember, we are not all equally favoured by our
blessed Lady, nor is it likely that every frock in the Convent will serve as
a coat of proof when a lance is couched against it."
" For that very reason," said the Sub-Prior, "I would not that for my
worthless self the community were to fall at feud with Julian of Avenel,
this man's master."
"Our Lady forbid!" said the Sacristan, "he is a second Julian the Apostate."
"With our reverend father the Abbot's permission, then," said Father
Eustace, " I desire this man be freed from his chains, and suffered to depart
uninjured; — and here, friend," he added, giving him the golden crucifix,
"is the image for which thou wert willing to stain thy hands with murder.
View it well, and may it inspire thee with other and better thoughts than
those which referred to it as a piece of bullion! Part with it, nevertheless,
if thy necessities require, and get thee one of such coarse substance that
Mammon shall have no share in any of the reflections to which it gives
rise. It was the bequest of a dear friend to me; but dearer service can it
never do than that of winning a soul to Heaven."
The Borderer, now freed from his chains, stood gazing alternately on the
Sub-Prior, and on the golden crucifix. " By Saint Giles," said he, " I understand ye not! - An ye give me gold for couching my lance at thee, what
would you give me to level it at a heretic?"
"The Church," said the Sub-Prior, "will try the effect of her spiritual
censures to bring these stray sheep into the fold, ere she employ the edge
of the sword of Saint Peter."
"Ay, but," said the ruffian, "they say the Primate recommends a little
strangling and burning in aid of both censure and of sword. But fare ye
weel, I owe you a life, and it may be I will not forget my debt."
The bailie now came bustling in, dressed in his blue coat and bandaliers,
and attended by two or three halberdiers.  "I have been a thought too




84                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
late in waiting upon your reverend lordship. I am grown somewhat fatter
since the field of Pinkie, and my leathern coat slips not on so soon as it
was won't; but the dungeon is ready, and though, as I said, I have been
somewhat late    "
Here his intended prisoner walked gravely up to the oficer's nose, to his
great amazement.'You have been indeed somewhat late, bailie," said he, "and I am
greatly obligated to your buff-coat, and to the time you took to put it on.
If the secular arm had arrived some quarter of an hour sooner, I had been
out of the reach of spiritual grace; but as it is, I wish you good even, and
a safe riddance out of your garment of durance, in which you have much
the air of a hog in armour."
Wroth was the bailie at this comparison, and exclaimed in ire- " An it
were not for the presence of the venerable Lord Abbot, thou knave-"
"Nay, an thou wouldst try conclusions," said Christie of the Clinthill,
"I will meet thee at day-break by Saint Mary's Well."
"Hardened wretch!" said Father Eustace, "art thou but this instant
delivered from death, and dost thou so soon morse thoughts of slaughter?"
" I will meet with thee ere it be long, thou knave," said the bailie, " and
teach thee thine Oremus."
" I will meet thy cattle in a moonlight night before that day," said he of
the Clinthill.
" I will have thee by the neck one misty morning, thou strong thief,"
answered the secular officer of the Church.
"Thou art thyself as strong a thief as ever rode," retorted Christie;
" and if the worms were once feasting on that fat carcass of thine I might
well hope to have thine office, by favour of these reverend men."
"A cast of their office, and a cast of mine," answered the bailie; "a
cord and a confessor, that is all thou wilt have fiom us."
"Sirs," said the Sub-Prior, observing that his brethren began to take
more interest than was exactly decorous in this wrangling betwixt justice
and iniquity, "I pray you both to depart-Master Bailie, retire with your
halberdiers, and trouble not the man whom we have dismissed.-And thou,
Christie, or whatever be thy name, take thy departure, and remember thou
owest thy life to the Lord Abbot's clemency."
"Nay, as to that," answered Christie, "I judge that I owe it to your
own; but impute it to whom ye list, I owe a life among ye, and there is
au end."  And whistling as he went, he left the apartment, seeming as if
he held the life which he had forfeited not worthy further thanks.
"Obstinate even to brutality!" said Father Eustace; "and yet who
knows but some better ore may lie under so rude an exterior?"
" Save a thief from the gallows," said the Sacristan-" you know the rest
of the proverb; and admitting, as may Heaven grant, that our lives and
limbs are safe from this outrageous knave, who shall insure our meal and
our malt, our herds and our flocks?"
" Marry, that will I, my brethren," said an aged monk. " Ah, brethren,
you little know what may be made of a repentant robber. In Abbot Ingilram's days-ay, and I remember them as it were yesterday-the freebooters
were the best welcome men that came to Saint Mary's. Ay, they paid
tithe of every drove that they brought over from the South, and because
they were something lightly come by, I have known them make the tithe a
seventh-that is, if their confessor knew his business-ay, when we saw
from the tower a score of fat bullocks, or a drove of sheep, coming down
the valley, with two or three stout men-at-arms behind them with their
glittering steel caps, and their black-jacks, and their long lances, the good
Lord Abbot Ingilram was wont to say-he was a merry man-there come
the tithes of the spoilers of the Egyptians! Ay, and I have seen the
famous John the Armstrang- a fair man he was and a goodly, the more




THE MONASTERY.                               85
pity that hemp was ever heckled for him - I have seen him come into the
Abbey-church with nine tassels of gold in his bonnet, and every tassel made
of nine English nobles, and he would go from chapel to chapel, and from
image to image, and from  altar to altar, on his knees- and leave here a
tassel, and there a noble, till there was as little gold on his bonnet as on
my hood-you will find no such Border thieves now!"
" No, truly, Brother Nicolas," answered the Abbot; "they are more apt
to, take any gold the Church has left, than to bequeath or bestow any-and
for cattle, beshrew me if I think they care whether beeves have fed on the
meadows of Lanercost Abbey or of Saint Mary's!"
"There is no good thing left in them," said Father Nicolas; "they are
clean naught- Ah, the thieves that I have seen  - such proper men! and
as pitiful as proper, and as pious as pitiful!"
"It skills not talking of it, Brother Nicolas," said the Abbot; "and I
will now dismiss you, my brethren, holding your meeting upon this our
inquisition concerning the danger of our reverend Sub-Prior, instead of the
attendance on the lauds this evening -Yet let the bells be duly rung for
the edification of the laymen without, and also that the novices may give
due reverence.-And now, benedicite, brethren! The cellarer will bestow
on each a grace-cup and a morsel as ye pass the buttery, for ye have been
turmoiled and anxious, and dangerous it is to fall asleep in such case with
empty stomach."
"Gratias agimus qutam maximas, Domine reverendissime," replied the
brethren, departing in their due order.
But the Sub-Prior remained behind, and falling on his knees before the
Abbot, as he was about to withdraw, craved him to hear under the seal of
confession the adventures of the day. The reverend Lord Abbot yawned,
and would have alleged fatigue; but to Father Eustace, of all men, he was
ashamed to show indifference in his religious duties. The confession, therefore, proceeded, in which Father Eustace told all the extraordinary circumstances which had befallen him during the journey. And being questioned
by the Abbot, whether he was not conscious of any secret sin, through
which he might have been subjected for a time to the delusions of evil
spirits, the Sub-Prior admitted, with frank avowal, that he thought he might
have deserved such penance for having judged with unfraternal rigour of
the report of Father Philip the Sacristan.
"Heaven," said the penitent, "may have been willing to convince me,
not only that he can at pleasure open a communication betwixt us and beings
of a different, and, as we word it, supernatural class, but also to punish our
pride of superior wisdom, or superior courage, or superior learning."
It is well said that virtue is its own reward; and I question if duty was
ever more completely recompensed, than by the audience which the reverend
Abbot so unwillingly yielded to the confession of the Sub-Prior. To find
the object of his fear shall we say, or of his envy, or of both, accusing himself of the very error with which he had so tacitly charged him, was a
corroboration of the Abbot's judgment, a soothing of his pride, and an
allaying of his fears. The sense of triumph, however, rather increased than
diminished his natural good-humour; and so far was Abbot Boniface from
being disposed to tyrannize over his Sub-Prior in consequence of this discovery, that in his exhortation he hovered somewhat ludicrously betwixt the
natural expression of his own gratified vanity, and his timid reluctance to
hurt the feelings of Father Eustace.
"My brother," said he, ex cathedra, "it cannot have escaped your judicious observation, that we have often declined our own judgment in favour
of your opinion, even about those matters which most nearly concerned the
community. Nevertheless, grieved would we be, could you think that we
did this, either because we deemed our own opinion less pregnant, or our
wit more shallow, than that of our brethren. For it was done exclusively:I




86                    WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
to give our younger brethren, such as your much esteemed self, my dearest
brother, that courage which is necessary to a free. deliverance of your
opinion,-we ofttimes setting apart our proper judgment, that our inferiors,
and especially our dear brother the Sub-Prior, may be comforted and encouraged in proposing valiantly his own thoughts. Which our deference and
humility may, in some sort, have produced in your mind, most reverend
brother, that self-opinion of parts and knowledge, which hath led unfortunately to your over-estimating your own faculties, and thereby subjecting
yourself, as is but too visible, to the japes and mockeries of evil spirits.
For it is assured that Heaven always holdeth us in the least esteem when
we deem of ourselves most highly, and also, on the other hand, it may be
that we have somewhat departed from what became our high seat in this
Abbey, in suffering ourselves to be too much guided, and even, as it were,
controlled, by the voice of our inferior. Wherefore," continued the Lord
Abbot, "in both of us such faults shall and must be amended —you hereafter presuming less upon your gifts and carnal wisdom, and I taking heed
not so easily to relinquish mine own opinion for that of one lower in place
and in office. Nevertheless, we would not that we should thereby lose the high
advantage which we have derived, and may yet derive, from your wise counsels; which hath been so often recommended to us by our most reverend
Primate. Wherefore, on affairs of high moment, we will call you to our
presence in private, and listen to your opinion, which, if it shall agree with
our own, we will deliver to the Chapter as emanating directly from ourselves; thus sparing you, dearest brother, that seeming victory which is so
apt to engender spiritual pride, and avoiding ourselves the temptation of
falling into that modest facility of opinion, whereby our office is lessened
and our person (were that of consequence) rendered less important in the
eyes of the community over which we preside."
Notwithstanding the high notions which, as a rigid Catholic, Father
Eustace entertained of the sacrament of confession, as his Church calls it,
there was some danger that a sense of the ridiculous might have stolen on
him, when he heard his Superior, with such simple cunning, lay out a little
plan for availing himself of the Sub-Prior's wisdom and experience, while
he should take the whole credit to himself. Yet his conscience immediately
told him he was right.
" I should have thought more," he reflected, " of the spiritual Superior,
and less of the individual. I should have spread my mantle over the frailties of my spiritual father, and done what I might to support his character,
and, of course, to extend his utility among the brethren, as well as with
others. The Abbot cannot be humbled, but what the community must be
humbled in his person. Her boast is, that over all her children, especially
over those called to places of distinction, she can diffuse those gifts which
are necessary to render them illustrious."
Actuated by these sentiments, Father Eustace frankly assented to the
charge which his Superior, even in that moment of authority, had rather
intimated than made, and signified his humble acquiescence in any mode of
communicating his counsel which might be most agreeable to the Lord
Abbot, and might best remove from himself all temptation to glory in his
own wisdom. He then prayed the reverend Father to assign him such penance as might best suit his offence, intimating, at the same time, that he had
already fasted the whole day.
"And it is that I complain of," answered the Abbot, instead of giving
him credit for his abstinence; "it is these very penances, fasts, and vigils,
of which we complain; as tending only to generate airs and fumes of vanity,
which, ascending from the stomach into the head, do but puff us up with
vain-glory and self-opinion. It is meet and beseeming that novices should
undergo fasts and vigils; for some part of every community must fast, and
young stomachs may best endure it. Besides, in them it abates wicked




THE  MONASTERY.                                 87
thoughts, and the desire of worldly delights. But, reverend brother, for.
those to fast who are dead and mortified to the world, as I and thou, is work
of supererogation, and is but the matter of spiritual pride. Wherefore, I
enjoin thee, most reverend brother, go to the buttery and drink two cups at
least of good wine, eating withal a comfortable morsel, such as may best
suit thy taste and stomach.  And in respect that thine opinion of thy own
wisdom  hath at times made thee less conformable to, and companionable
with, the weaker and less learned brethren, I enjoin thee, during the said
repast, to choose for thy companion, our reverend brother Nicolas, and without interruption or impatience, to listen for a stricken hour to his narration,
concerning those things which befel in the times of our venerable predecessor, Abbot Ingilram, on whose soul may Heaven have mercy! And for
such holy exercises as may farther advantage your soul, and expiate the
faults whereof you have contritely and humbly avowed yourself guilty, we
will ponder upon that matter, and announce our will unto you the next
morning.
It was remarkable, that after this memorable evening, the feelings of the
worthy Abbot towards his adviser were much more kindly and friendly than
when he deemed the Sub-Prior the impeccable and infallible person, in
whose garment of virtue and wisdom  no flaw was to be discerned.  It
seemed as if this avowal of his own imperfections had recommended Father
Eustace to the friendship of the Superior, although at the same time this
increase of benevolence was attended with some circumstances, which, to a
man of the Sub-Prior's natural elevation of mind and temper, were more
grievous than even undergoing the legends of the dull and verbose Father
Nicolas. For instance, the Abbot seldom mentioned him to the other monks,
without designing him our beloved Brother Eustace, poor man! -and now
and then he used to warn the younger brethren against the snares of vainglory and spiritual pride, which Satan sets for the more rigidly righteous,
with such looks and demonstrations as did all but expressly designate the
Sub-Prior as one who had fallen at one time under such delusions. Upon
these occasions, it required all the votive obedience of a monk, all the philosophical discipline of the schools, and all the patience of a Christian, to
enable Father Eustace to endure the pompous and patronizing parade of
his honest, but somewhat thick-headed Superior.  He began himself to be
desirous of leaving the Monastery, or at least he manifestly declined to
interfere with its affairs, in that marked and authoritative manner, which
he had at first practised.
f0Shtr tat dlenenit.
You call this education, do you not?
Why'tis the forced march of a herd of bullocks
Before a shouting drover. The glad van
Move on at ease, and pause a while to snatch
A passing morsel from the dewy greensward,
While all the blows, the oaths, the indignation,
Fall on the croupe of the ill-fated laggard
That cripples in the rear.
OLD PLAY.
Two or three years glided on, during which the storm of the approaching alteration in church government became each day louder and more
perilous. Owing to the circumstances which we have intimated in the end
of the last chapter, the Sub-Prior Eustace appeared to have altered con



88                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
siderably his habits of life. IHe afforded, on all extraordinary occasions,
to the Abbot, whether privately, or in the assembled Chapter, the support
of his wisdom and experience; but in his ordinary habits he seemed now
to live more for himself, and less for the community, than had been his
former practice.
IHe often absented himself for whole days from the convent; and as the
adventure of Glendearg dwelt deeply on his memory, he was repeatedly
induced to visit that lonely tower, and to take an interest in the orphans
who had their shelter under its roof. Besides, he felt a deep anxiety to
know whether the volume which he had lost, when so strangely preserved
from the lance of the murderer, had again found its way back to the Tower
of Glendearg.  " It was strange," he thought, " that a spirit," for such he
could not help judging the being whose voice he had heard, "should, on
the one side, seek the advancement of heresy, and, on the other, interpose
to save the life of a zealous Catholic priest."
But from no inquiry which he made of the various inhabitants of the
Tower of Glendearg could he learn that the copy of the translated Scriptures, for which he made such diligent inquiry, had again been seen by
any of them.
in the meanwhile, the good father's occasional visits were of no small consequence to Edward Glendinning and to Mary Avenel. The former displayed a power of apprehending and retaining whatever was taught him,
which filled Father Eustace with admiration. He was at once acute and
industrious, alert and accurate; one of those rare combinations of talent
and industry, which are seldom united.
It was the earnest desire of Father Eustace that the excellent qualities
thus early displayed by Edward should be dedicated to the service of the
Church, to which he thought the youth's own consent might be easily
obtained, as he was of a calm, contemplative, retired habit, and seemed to
consider knowledge as the principal object, and its enlargement as the greatest pleasure, in life. As to the mother, the Sub-Prior had little doubt that,
trained as she was to view the monks of Saint Mary's with such profound
reverence, she would be but too happy in an opportunity of enrolling one
of her sons in its honoured community. But the good Father proved to be
mistaken in both these particulars.
When he spoke to Elspeth Glendinning of that which a mother best loves
to hear-the proficiency and abilities of her son —she listened with a
delighted ear. But when Father Eustace hinted at the duty of dedicating
to the service of the Church, talents which seemed fitted to defend and adorn
it, the dame endeavoured always to shift the subject; and when pressed
farther, enlarged on her own incapacity, as a lone woman, to manage the
feu; on the advantage which her neighbours of the township were often
taking of her unprotected state, and on the wish she had that Edward might
fill his father's place, remain in the tower, and close her eyes.
On such occasions the Sub-Prior would answer, that even in a worldly
point of view the welfare of the family would be best consulted by one of
the sons entering into the community of Saint Mary's, as it was not to be
supposed that he would fail to afford his family the important protection
which he could then easily extend towards them. What could be a more
pleasing prospect than to see him high in honour? or what more sweet than
to have the last duties rendered to her by a son, reverend for his holiness
of life and exemplary manners? Besides, he endeavoured to impress upon
the dame, that her eldest son, Halbert, whose bold temper and headstrong
indulgence of a wandering humour, rendered him incapable of learning,
was, for that reason, as well as that he was her eldest born, fittest to bustle
through the affairs of the world, and manage the little fief.
Elspeth durst not directly dissent from what was proposed, for fear of
giving displeasure, and yet she always had something to say against it.




THE MONASTERY.                               89
Halbert, she said, was not like any of the neighbour boys - he was taller
by the head, and stronger by the half, than any boy of his years within
the Halidome. But he was fit for no peaceful work that could be devised.
If he liked a book ill, he liked a plough or a pattle worse. He had scoured
his father's old broadsword - suspended it by a belt round his waist, and
seldom stirred without it. He was a sweet boy and a gentle if spoken fair,
but cross him and he was a born devil. " In a word," she said, bursting
into tears, "deprive me of Edward, good father, and ye bereave my house
of prop and pillar; for my heart tells me that Halbert will take to his
father's gates, and die his father's death."
When the conversation came to this crisis, the good-humoured monk was
always content to drop the discussion for the time, trusting some oppor 
tunity would occur of removing her prejudices, for such he thought them,
against Edward's proposed destination.
When, leaving the mother, the Sub-Prior addressed himself to the son,
animating his zeal for knowledge, and pointing out how amply it might be
gratified should he agree to take holy orders, he found the same repugnance
which Dame Elspeth had exhibited. Edward pleaded a want of sufficient
vocation to so serious a profession-his reluctance to leave his mother, and
other objections, which the Sub-Prior treated as evasive.
" I plainly perceive," he said one day, in answer to them, " that the devil
has his factors as well as Heaven, and that they are equally, or, alas! the
former are perhaps more active, in bespeaking for their master the first of
the market. I trust, young man, that neither idleness, nor licentious pleasure, nor the love of worldly gain and worldly grandeur, the chief baits
with which the great Fisher of souls conceals his hook, are the causes of
your declining the career to which I would incite you. But above all I
trust-above all I hope-that the vanity of superior knowledge-a sin with
which those who have made proficiency in learning are most frequently
beset-has not led you into the awful hazard of listening to the dangerous
doctrines which are now afloat concerning religion. Better for you- that
you were as grossly ignorant as the beasts which perish, that that the pride
of knowledge should induce you to lend an ear to the voice of heretics."
Edward Glendinning listened to the rebuke with a downcast look, and failed
not, when it was concluded, earnestly to vindicate himself from the charge
of having pushed his studies into any subjects which the Church inhibited;
and so the monk was left to form vain conjectures respecting the cause of
his reluctance to embrace the monastic state.
It is an old proverb, used by Chaucer, and quoted by Elizabeth, that
"the greatest clerks are not the wisest men;" and it is as true as if the poet
had not rhymed, or the queen reasoned on it. If Father Eustace had not
had his thoughts turned so much to the progress of heresy, and so little to
what was passing in the tower, he might have read, in the speaking eyes
of Mary Avenel, now a girl of fourteen or fifteen, reasons which might disincline her youthful companion towards the monastic vows. I have said,
that she also was a promising pupil of the good father, upon whom her
innocent and infantine beauty had an effect of which he was himself, perhaps, unconscious. Her rank and expectations entitled her to be taught
the arts of reading and writing;-and each lesson which the monk assigned
her was conned over in company with Edward, and by him explained and
re-explained, and again illustrated, until she became perfectly mistress of it.
In the beginning of their studies, Ilalbert had been their school companion. But the boldness and impatience of his disposition soon quarrelled
with an occupation in which, without assiduity and unremitted attention,
no progress was to be expected. The Sub-Prior's visits were at regular
intervals, and often weeks would intervene between them, in which case
Halbert was sure to forget all that had been prescribed for him to learn,
and much which he had partly acquired before. His deficiencies on these
a2




90                    WAVE RLEY NOVELS.
occasions gave him  pain, but it was not of that sort which produees
amendment.
For a time, like all who are fond of idleness, he endeavoured to detach
the attention of his brother and Mary Avenel from their task, rather than
to learn his own, and such dialogues as the following would ensue:
"Take your bonnet, Edward, and make haste-the Laird of Colmslie is
at the head of the glen with his hounds."
"I care not, Halbert," answered the younger brother; " two brace of dogs
may kill a deer without my being there to see them, and I must help Mary
Avenel with her lesson."
" Ay! you will labour at the monk's lessons till you turn monk yourself,"
answered Halbert.-" Mary, will you go with me, and I will show you the
cushat's nest I told you of?"
" I cannot go with you, Halbert," answered Mary, " because I must study
this lesson - it will take me long to learn it - I am sorry I am so dull, for
if I could get my task as fast as Edward, I should like to go with you."
" Should you indeed?" said Halbert; "then I will wait for you-and,
what is more, I will try to get my lesson also."
With a smile and a sigh lie took up the primer, and began heavily to con
over the task which had been assigned him. As if banished from  the
society of the two others, he sat sad and solitary in one of the deep windowrecesses, and after in vain struggling with the difficulties of his task, and
his disinclination to learn it, he found himself involuntarily engaged in
watching the movements of the other two students, instead of toiling any
longer.
The picture which Halbert looked upon was delightful in itself, but somehow or other it afforded very little pleasure to him. The beautiful girl,
with looks of simple, yet earnest anxiety, was bent on disentangling those
intricacies which obstructed her progress to knowledge, and looking ever
and anon to Edward for assistance, while, seated close by her side, and
watchful to remove every obstacle from her way, he seemed at once to be
proud of the progress which his pupil made, and of the assistance which he
was able to render her. There was a bond betwixt them, a strong and interesting tie, the desire of obtaining knowledge, the pride of surmounting
difficulties.
Feeling most acutely, yet ignorant of the nature and source of his own
emotions, Halbert could no longer endure to look upon this quiet scene,
but, starting up, dashed his book from him, and exclaimed aloud, " To the
fiend I bequeath all books, and the dreamers that make them  - I would a
score of Southrons would come up the glen, and we should learn how little
all this muttering and scribbling is worth."
Mary Avenel and his brother started, and looked at Halbert with surprise, while he went on with great animation, his features swelling, and
the tears starting into his eyes as he spoke. -" Yes, Mary- I wish a score
of Southrons came up the glen this very day; and you should see one good
hand, and one good sword, do more to protect you, than all the books that
were ever opened, and all the pens that ever grew on a goose's wing."
Mary looked a little surprised and a little frightened at his vehemence,
but instantly replied affectionately, " You are vexed, Halbert, because you
do not get your lesson so fast as Edward can; and so am I, for I am as
stupid as you-But come, and Edward shall sit betwixt us and teach us."
"He shall not teach me," said Halbert, in the same angry mood; "I
never can teach him to do any thing that is honourable and manly, and he
shall not teach me any of his monkish tricks.-I hate the monks, with their
dlrawling nasal tone like so many frogs, and their long black petticoats like
so many women, and their reverences, and their lordships, and their lazy
vassals that do nothing but peddle in the mire with plough and harrow
from. Yule to Michaelmas. I will call none lord, but him  who wears a




THE  MONASTERY.                             91
sword to make his title good; and I will call none man, but he that can
bear himself manlike and masterful,"
"For Heaven's sake, peace, brother i" said Edward; "if such words were
taken up and reported out of the house, they would be our mother's ruin."
" Report them yourself, then, and they will be your making, and nobody's
marring save mine own. Say that Halbert Glendinning will never be vassal
to an old man with a cowl and shaven crown, while there are twenty barons
who wear casque and plume that lack bold followers. Let them grant you
these wretched acres, and much meal may they bear you to make your brachan."  lie left the room hastily, but instantly returned, and continued to
speak with the same tone of quick and irritated feeling. "And you need
not think so much, neither of you, and especially you, Edward, need not
think so much of your parchment book there, and your cunning in reading
it. By my faith, I will soon learn to read as well as you; and-for I know
a better teacher than your grim old monk, and a better book than his
printed breviary; and since you like scholarcraft so well, Mary Avenel, you
shall see whether Edward or I have most of it." IIe left the apartment,
and came not again.
" What can be the matter with him?" said Mary, following Halbert with
her eyes from the window, as with hasty and unequal steps he ran up the
wild glen -" Where can your brother be going, Edward? - what book?what teacher does he talk of?"
"It avails not guessing," said Edward. " Halbert is angry, he knows
not why, and speaks of he knows not what; let us go again to our lessons,
and he will come home when he has tired himself with scrambling among
the crags as usual."
But Mary's anxiety on account of Halbert seemed more deeply rooted.
She declined prosecuting the task in which they had been so pleasingly
engaged, under the excuse of a headach; nor could Edward prevail upon
her to resume it again that morning.
Meanwhile Halbert, his head unbonneted, his features swelled with jealous
anger, and the tear still in his eye, sped up the wild and upper extremity
of the little valley of Glendearg with the speed of a roebuck, choosing, as
if in desperate defiance of the difficulties of the way, the wildest and most
dangerous paths, and voluntarily exposing himself a hundred times to
dangers which he might have escaped by turning a little aside from them.
It seemed as if he wished his course to be as straight as that of the arrow
to its mark.
He arrived at length in a narrow and secluded cleuc/h, or deep ravine,
which ran down into the valley, and contributed a scanty rivulet to the
supply of the brook with which Glendearg is watered.' Up this he sped
with the same precipitate haste which had marked his departure from the
tower, nor did he pause and look around until he had reached the fountain
from which the rivulet had its rise.
IHere Halbert stopt short, and cast a gloomy, and almost a frightened
glance around him. A huge rock rose in front, from a cleft of which grew
a wild holly-tree, whose dark green branches rustled over the spring which
arose beneath. The banks on either hand rose so high, and approached
each other so closely, that it was only when the sun was at its meridian
height, and during the summer solstice, that its rays could reach the bottom
of the chasm in which he stood. But it was now summer, and the hour
was noon, so that the unwonted reflection of the sun was dancing in the
pellucid fountain.
"It is the season and the hour," said Halbert to himself; "and now
I - I might soon become wiser than Edward with all his pains 1 Mary
should see whether he alone is fit to be consulted, and to sit by her side,
and hang over her as she reads, and point out every word and every letter,
And she loves me better than him - I am sure she does -for she comes of




92                         WAVERLEY NOVELS.
noble blood, and scorns sloth and cowardice. -And do I myself not stand
here slothful and cowardly as any priest of them all? - Why should I fear
to call upon this form - this shape?- Already have I endured the vision,
-and why not again?  What can it do to me, who am  a man of lith  and
limb, and have by my side my father's sword?  Does my heart beat -do
ny hairs bristle, at the thought of calling  up a painted  shadow, and  how
should I face a band of Southrons in flesh and blood? By the soul of the
first Glendinning, I will make proof of the charm!"
He cast the leathern brogue or buskin from  his right foot, planted himself in a firm  posture, unsheathed his sword, and first looking around to
collect his resolution, he bowed three times deliberately towards the hollytree, and as often to the little fountain, repeating at the same time, with a
determined voice, the following rhyme:
"Thrice to the holly brake-                "Noon gleams on the LakeThrice to the well:-                        Noon glows on the Fell —
I bid thee awake,                          Wake thee, 0 wake,
White Maid of Avenel!                    White Maid of Avenel!"
These lines were hardly uttered, when there stood the figure of a female
clothed in white, within three steps of Halbert Glendinning.
" I guess'twas frightful there to see
A lady richly clad as sheBeautiful exceedingly.",qn0 trr tilt ~mtHft4.
There's something in that ancient superstition,
Which, erring as it is, our fancy loves.
The spring that, with its thousand crystal bubbles,
Bursts from the bosom of some desert rock
In secret solitude, may well be deem'd
The haunt of something purer, more refined,
And mightier than ourselves.
OLD PLAY.
YOUNG Halbert Glendinning had scarcely pronounced the mystical rhymes,
than, as we have mentioned in the conclusion of the last chapter, an appearance, as of a beautiful female, dressed in white, stood within two yards of
him.  His terror for the moment overcame his natural courage, as well as
the strong resolution which he had formed, that the figure which he had
now twice seen should not a third time daunt him. But it would seem there
is something thrilling and abhorrent to flesh and blood, in the consciousness that we stand in presence of a being in form  like to ourselves, but
so different in faculties and nature, that we can neither understand its purposes, nor calculate its means of pursuing them.
Halbert stood silent and gasped for breath, his hairs erecting themselves
on his head -  his mouth open -  his eyes fixed, and, as the sole remaining
sign of his late determined purpose, his sword pointed towards the apparition.  At length with a voice of ineffable sweetness, the White Lady, for by
that name we shall distinguish  this being, sung, or rather chanted, the
following lines: -
"Youth of the dark eye, wherefore didst thou call me?
Wherefore art thou here, if terrors can appal thee?
He that seeks to deal with us must know no fear nor failing!
To coward and churl our speech is dark, our gifts are unavailing.
The breeze that brought me hither now, must sweep Egyptian ground,
The fleecy cloud on which I ride for Araby is bound;
The fleecy cloud is drifting by, the breeze sighs for my stay,
For I must sail a thousand miles before the close of day."
*Coleridge's Clhristabelle.




THE MONASTERY.                                               93
The astonishment of IIalbert began once more to give way to  his rasolution, and  he  gained voice enough  to  say, though with  a faltering  accent,
"In the name of God, what art thou?"   The answer was in  melody of a
different tone and measure:"What I am I must not show-                      While o'er our frozen minds they pass,
What I am thou couldst not know —              Like shadows from the nilrror'd glass.
Something hetwixt heaven and hell-             Wayward, fickle is our mood,
Sornetling that neither stood nor fell-        Hovering betwixt bad and good,
Something that through thy wit or will         Happier than brief-dated man,
May work thee good —may work thee ill.         Living twenty times his span;
Neilher substance quite nor shadow,            Far less happy, for-we have
Haunling lonely meoor andl meadow,              H-elp nor hope beyond the grave!
Dancisng by the haunted spring,                Man awakes to joy or sorrow;
Riding on the whirlwind's wing;                 Ours the sleep that knows no morrow.
Aping in fantastic fashion                     This is all that I can showEvery change of human passion,                 This is all that thou mayest know."
The White Lady paused, and' appeared to await an answer; but, as Halbert hesitated how  to frame his speech, the vision seemed gradually to fade,
and  became  more  and  more incorporeal.   Justly  guessing  this  to  be  a
symptom  of her disappearance, Halbert compelled himself to say,   " Lady,
when I saw you in the glen, and when you brought back the black book of
Mary Avenel, thou didst say I should one day learn to read it."
The White Lady replied,
"Ay! and I taught thee the word and the spell,
To waken me here by the Fairies' Well,
But thou hast loved the heron and hawk,
More than to seek my haunted walk;
And thou hast loved the lance and the sword,
More than good text and holy word;
And thou hast loved the deer to track,
More than the lines and the letters black;
And thou art a ranger of moss and of wood,
And scornest the nurture of gentle blood."
"I will do so no longer, fair maiden," said  Halbert; "I desire to learn;
and thou didst promise me, that when I did  so desire, thou wouldst be my
helper; I am  no longer afraid of thy presence, and I am  no longer regardless of instruction."   As he uttered  these words, the figure of the White
Maiden grew  gradually as distinct as it had  been  at first; and what had
well-nigh faded into an ill-defined and colourless shadow, again assumed an
appearance at least of corporeal consistency, although the hues were less
ivvid, and the outline of the figure less distinct and  defined —so at least it
seemed to Halbert-than those of an ordinary inhabitant of earth.   "Wilt
thou grant my request," he said, " fair Lady, and  give to my keeping the
holy book which Mary of Avenel has so often wept for?
The White Lady replied:
"Thy craven fear my truth accused,          There is a star for thee which burn'd.
Thine idlehood my trust abused;           Its influence wanes, its course is turn'd;
He that draws to harbour late,            Valour and constancy alone
iMust sleep without, or burst the gate.   Can bring thee back the chance that's flown."
"If I have been a loiterer, Lady," answered  young  Glendinning, "thou
shalt now  find  me willing  to  press  forward  with  double  speed.  Other
thoughts  have filled  my  mind, other thoughts  have  engaged  my  heart,
within a brief period-and by Heaven, other occupations shall. henceforward fill up my time.  I have lived in this day the space of years -  I came
hither a boy- I will return a man -a man, such as may converse not only
with his own kind, but with whatever God permits to be visible to him. I
will learn the contents of that mysterious volume - I will learn why the
Lady of Avenel loved it - why the priests feared, and would have stolen it -
why thou didst twice recover it from  their hands. —What mystery is wrapt
in it? -  Speak, I conjure thee!"   The lady assumed  an  air peculiarly sad
and solemn, as drooping her head, and folding her arms on her bosom, she
replied:
" Within that awful volume lies            To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
The mystery of mysteries!                 To lift the latch, and force the way;
Halppiest they of human race,             And better had they ne'er been born,
To whom God has granted grace             Who read to doubt, or read to scorn."




94                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
" Give me the volume, Lady," said young Glendinning.  " They call me
idle - they call me dull - in this pursuit my industry shall not fail, nor,
with God's blessing, shall my understanding. Give me the volume."  The
apparition again replied:
"Many a fathom dark and deep
I have laid theh book to sleep;
Ethereal fires around it glowingEthereal music ever flowingThe sacred pledge of Heav'n
All things revere,
Each in his sphere,
Save man for whom'twas giv'n:
Lend thy hand, and thou shalt spy
Things ne'er seen by mortal eye."
Halbert Glendinning boldly reached his hand to the White Lady.
" Fearest thou to go with me?" she said, as his hand trembled at the soft
and cold touch of her own"Fearest thou to go with me?
Still it is free to thee
A peasant to dwell;
Thou mayst drive the dull steer,
And chase the king's deer,
But never more come near
This haunted well."
"If what thou sayest be true," said the undaunted boy, "my destinies
are higher than thine own. There shall be neither well nor wood which I
dare? not visit. No fear of aught, natural or supernatural, shall bar my
path through my native valley."
He had scarce uttered the words, when they both descended through the
earth with a rapidity which took away Halbert's breath and every other
sensation, saving that of being hurried on with the utmost velocity. At
length they stopped with a shock so sudden, that the mortal journeyer
through this unknown space must have been thrown down with violence,
had he not been upheld by his supernatural companion.
It was more than a minute, ere, looking around him, he beheld a grotto,
or natural cavern, composed of the most splendid spars and crystals, which
returned in a thousand prismatic hues the light of a brilliant flame that
glowed on an altar of alabaster. This altar, with its fire, formed the central
point of the grotto, which was of a round form, and very high in the roof,
resembling in some respects the dome of a cathedral. Corresponding to
the four points of the compass, there went off four long galleries, or arcades,
constructed of the same brilliant materials with the dome itself, and the
termination of which was lost in darkness.
No human imagination can conceive, or words suffice to describe, the
glorious radiance which, shot fiercely forth by the flame, was returned from
so many hundred thousand points of reflection, afforded by the sparry
pillars and their numerous angular crystals.  The fire itself did not remain steady and unmoved, but rose and fell, sometimes ascending in a
brilliant pyramid of condensed flame half way up the lofty expanse, and
again fading into a softer and more rosy hue, and hovering, as it were, on
the surface of the altar to collect its strength for another powerful exertion.
There was no visible fuel by which it was fed, nor did it emit either smoke
or vapour of any kind.
What was of all the most remarkable, the black volume so often menu
tioned lay not only unconsumed, but untouched in the slightest degree,
amid this intensity of fire, which, while it seemed to be of force sufficient
to melt adamant, had no effect whatever on the sacred book thus subjected
to its utmost influence.
The White Lady, having paused long enough to let young Glendinning
take a complete survey of what was around him, now said in her usual
chant,
"Here lies the volume thou boldly hast sought
Touch it, and take it,-'twill dearly be bought 1"




THE MONA-STERY.                                95
Familiarized in some degree with marvels, and desperately desirous of
showing the courage he had boasted, Halbert plunged his hand, without
hesitation, into the flame, trusting to the rapidity of the motion, to snatch
out the volume before the fire could greatly affect him. But he was much
disappointed.  The flame instantly caught upon his sleeve, and though he
withdrew his hand immediately, yet his arm was so dreadfully scorched,
that he had well-nigh screamed with pain.  He suppressed the natural
expression of anguish, however, and only intimated the agony which he
felt by a contortion and a muttered groan. The White Lady passed her
cold hand over his arm, and, ere she had finished the following metrical
chant, his pain had entirely gone, and no mark of the scorching was
visible:
"Rash thy deed,
Mortal weed
To immortal flames applying;
Rasher trust
Has thing of dust,
On his own weak worth relying:
Strip thee of such fences vain,
Strip, and prove thy luck again."
Obedient to what he understood to be the meaning of his conductress,
IHalbert bared his arm to the shoulder, throwing down the remains of his
sleeve, which no sooner touched the floor on which he stood than it collected itself together, shrivelled itself up, and was without any visible fire
reduced to light tinder, which a sudden breath of wind dispersed into
empty space.  The White Lady, observing the surprise of the youth, immediately repeated"Mortal warp and mortal woof,
Cannot brook this charmed roof;
All that mortal art hath wrought,
In our cell returns to nought.
The molten gold returns to clay,
The polish'd diamond melts away.
All is alter'd, all is flown,
Nought stands fast but truth alone.
Not for that thy quest give o'er:
Courage! prove thy chance once more."
Imboldened by her words, Halbert Glendinning made a second effort,
and, plunging his bare arm into the flame, took out the sacred volume without feeling either heat or inconvenience of any kind.  Astonished, and
almost terrified at his own success, he beheld the flame collect itself, and
shoot up into one long and final stream, which seemed as if it would ascend
to the very roof of the cavern, and then, sinking as suddenly, became
totally extinguished.  The deepest darkness ensued; but Halbert had no
time to consider his situation, for the White Lady had already caught his
hand, and they ascended to upper air with the same velocity with which
they had sunk into the earth.
They stood by the fountain in the Corri-nan-shian when they emerged
from the bowels of the earth; but on casting a bewildered glance around
him, the youth was surprised to observe, that the shadows had fallen far to
the east, and that the day was well-nigh spent.  He gazed on his conductress for explanation, but her figure began to fade before his eyes - her
cheeks grew paler, her features less distinct, her form became shadowy,
and blended itself with the mist which was ascending the hollow ravine.
What had late the symmetry of form, and the delicate, yet clear hues of
feminine beauty, now resembled the flitting and pale ghost of some maiden
who has died for love, as it is seen indistinctly and by moonlight, by her
perjured lover.
" Stay, spirit 1" said the youth, imboldened by his success in the subterranean dome, "thy kindness must not leave me, as one encumbered with a
weapon he knows not how to wield.  Thou must teach me the art to read,
and to understand this volume; else what avails it me that I possess it?"
But the figure of the White Lady still waned before his eye, until it




96                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
became an outline as pale and indistinct as that of the moon, when the
winter morning is far advanced, and ere she had ended the following chant,
she was entirely invisible:"Alas! alas!
Not ours the grace
These holy characters to trace:
Idle forms of painted air,
Not to us is given to share
The boon l)estow'd on Adam's race!
With patience bide,
Heaven will provide
The fitting time, the fitting guide."
The form was already gone, and now the voice itself had melted away in
irTelancholy cadence, softening, as if the Being who spoke had been slowly
wafted from the spot where she had commenced her melody.
It was at this moment that Halbert felt the extremity of the terror which
he had hitheto so manfully suppressed.  The very necessity of exertion
had given him  spirit to make it, and the presence of the mysterious Being,
while it was a subject of fear in itself, had nevertheless given him the sense
of protection Leing near to him.  It was when he could reflect with composure on what had passed, that a cold tremor shot across his limbs, his
hair bristled, and he was afraid to look around lest he should find at his
elbow something more frightful than the first vision. A breeze arising suddenly, realized the beautiful and wild idea of the most imaginative of our
modern bards *
It fann'd his cheek, it raised his hair,
Like a meadow gale in sprin-;
It mingled strangely with his fears,
Yet it fell like a welcoming.
The youth stood silent and astonished for a few minutes. It seemed to
him that the extraordinary Being he had seen, half his terror, half his protectress, was still hovering on the gale which swept past him, and that she
might again make herself sensible to his organs of sight.  " Speak!" he
said, wildly tossing his arms, "speak yet again   be once more present,
lovely vision - thrice have I now seen thee, yet the idea of thy invisible
presence around or beside me, makes my heart beat faster than if the earth
yawned and gave up a demon."
But neither sound nor appearance indicated the presence of the White
Lady, and nothing preternatural beyond what he had already witnessed,
was again audible or visible. Halbert, in the meanwhile, by the very exertion of again inviting the presence of this mysterious Being, had recovered
his natural audacity. IIe looked around once more, and resumed his solitary path down the valley into whose recesses he had penetrated.
Nothing could be more strongly contrasted than the storm of passion with
which he had bounded over stock and crag, in order to plunge himself into
the Corri-nan-shian, and the sobered mood in which he now returned homeward, industriously seeking out the most practicable path, not from a wish
to avoid danger, but that he might not by personal toil distract his attention, deeply fixed on the extraordinary scene which he had witnessed. In
the former case, he had sought by hazard and bodily exertion to indulge at
once the fiery excitation of passion, and to banish the cause of the excitement from his recollection; while now he studiously avoided all interrupfiDn to his contemplative walk, lest the difficulty of the way should interfere
with, or disturb, his own deep reflections.  Thus slowly pacing forth his
course, with the air of a pilgrim rather than of a deer-hunter, IIalbert
about the close of the evening regained his paternal tower.
* Coleridge.




THE MONASTERY.                                 97
Cnptrr tt     firftrut.
The Miller was of manly make,
To meet him was na mows;
There durst na ten come him to take,
Sae noited lie their pows.
CErrIST'S KIRK ON TEE GREEN.
IT was after sunset, as we have already stated, when Halbert Glendin.
ning returned to the abode of his father. The hour of dinner was at noon,
and that of supper about an hour after sunset at this period of the year.
The former had passed without Halbert's appearing; but this was no
uncoxilmon circumstance, for the chase, or any other pastime which occurred,
made Ilalbert a frequent neglecter of hours; and his mother, though angry
and disappointed when she saw him  not at table, was so much accustomed
to his occasional absence, and knew so little how to teach him more regularity, that a testy observation was almost all the censure with which such
omissions were visited.
On the present occasion, however, the wrath of good Dame Elspeth soared
higher than usual. It was not merely on account of the special tup's-head
and trotters, the haggis and the side of mutton, with which her table was
set forth, but also because of the arrival of no less a person than Hob Miller, as he was universally termed, though the man's name was Happer.
The object of the Miller's visit to the Tower of Glendearg was like the
purpose of those embassies which potentates send to each other's courts,
partly ostensible, partly politic.  In outward show, Hob came to visit his
friends of the Halidome, and share the festivity common among country
folk, after the barn-yard has been filled, and to renew old intimacies by
new conviviality.  But in very truth he also came to have an eye upon the
contents of each stack, and to obtain such information respecting the extent
of the crop reaped and gathered in by each feuar, as might prevent the
possibility of abstracted multures.
All the world knows that the cultivators of each barony or regality, temporal or spiritual, in Scotland, are obliged to bring their corn to be grinded
at the mill of the territory, for which they pay a heavy charge, called l.e
intown zmultures. I could speak to the thirlage of invecta et illata tc, beto
let that pass. I have said enough to intimate that I talk not withcou-a book.
Those of the Sucken, or enthralled ground, were liable in penalties, if, deviating from this thirlage, (or thraldom,) they carried their grain t, another
mill. Now such another mill, erected on the lands of a lay-baron, lay
within a tempting and convenient distance of Glendearg; and the Miller
was so obliging, and his charges so moderate, that it required Hob Miller's
utmost vigilance to prevent evasions of his right of monopoly.
The most effectual means he could devise was this show of good fellowship and neighbourly friendship,-under colour of which he made his
annual cruise through the barony-numbered every corn-stack, and computed its contents by the boll, so that he could give a shrewd hint afterwards whether or not the grist came to the right mill.
Dame Elspeth, like her compeers, was obliged to take these domiciliary
visits in the sense of politeness; but in her case they had not occurred
since her husband's death, probably because the Tower of Glendearg was
distant, and there was but a trifling quantity of arable or inrfield land
attached to it. This year there had been, upon some speculation of old
Martin's, several bolls sown in the out-field, which, the season being fine,
had ripened remarkably well. Perhaps this circumstance occasioned the
honest Miller's including Glendearg, on this occasion, in his annual round
VOL. V. ~7 




98                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
Dame Glendinning received with pleasure a visit which she used formerly
only to endure with patience; and she had changed her view of the matter
chiefly, if not entirely, because Ilob had brought with him  his daughter
Mysie, of whose features she could give so slight an account, but whose
dress she had described so accurately to the Sub-Prior.
Hitherto this girl had been an object of very trifling consideration in the
eyes of the good widow; but the Sub-Prior's particular and somewhat mysterious inquiries had set her brains to work on the subject of Mysie of the
Mill; and she had here asked a broad question, and there she had thrown
out an innuendo, and there again she had gradually led on to a conversation
on the subject of poor Mysie. And from all inquiries and investigations
she had collected, that Mysie was a dark-eyed, laughter-loving wench, with
cherry-cheeks, and a skin as white as her father's finest bolted flour, out of
which was made the Abbot's own wastel-bread. For her temper, she sung
and laughed from morning to night; and for her fortune, a material article,
besides that which the Miller might have amassed by means of his proverbial golden thumb, Mysie was to inherit a good handsome lump of land,
with a prospect of the mill and mill-acres descending to her husband on an
easy lease, if a fair word were spoken in season to the Abbot, and to the
Prior, and to the Sub-Prior, and to the Sacristan, and so forth.
By turning.and again turning these advantages over in her own mind,
Elspeth at length came to be of opinion, that the only way to save her son
Halbert from a life of " spur, spear, and snaffle," as they called that of the
border-riders, from the dint of a cloth-yard shaft, or the loop of an inchcord, was, that he should marry and settle, and that Mysie Happer should
be his destined bride.
As if to her wish, Hob Miller arrived on his strong-built mare, bearing
on a pillion behind him the lovely Mysie, with cheeks like a peony-rose, (if
Dame Glendinning had ever seen one,) spirits all afloat with rustic coquetry,
and a profusion of hair as black as ebony.  The beau-ideal which Dame
Glendinning had been bodying forth in her imagination, became unexpectedly realized in the buxom form of Mysie Happer, whom, in the course of
half an hour, she settled upon as the maiden who was to fix the restless and
-intutored Halbert.  True, Mysie, as the dame soon saw, was like to love
dancing round a May-pole as well as managing a domestic establishment,
and Halbert was like to break more heads than he would grind stacks of
corn. But then a miller should always be of manly make, and has been
described so since the days of Chaucer and James I.*  Indeed, to be able
to outdo and bully the whole Sucken, (once more we use this barbarous
phrase,) in all athletic exercises, was one way to render easy the collection
of dues which men would have disputed with a less formidable champion.
Then, as to the deficiencies of the miller's wife, the dame was of opinion
that they might be supplied by the activity of the miller's mother. " I will
keep house for the young folk myself, for the tower is grown very lonely,"
thought Dame Glendinning, " and to live near the kirk will be mair comfortable in my auld age- and then Edward may agree with his brother
about the feu, more especially as he is a favourite with the Sub-Prior, and
then he may live in the auld tower like his worthy father before him - and
wha kens but Mary Avenel, high-blood as she is, may e'en draw in her
stool to the chimney-nook, and sit down here for good and a'?-It's true
*The verse we have chosen for a motto, is from a poem imputed to James 1. of Scotland. As for the
Miller who figures among the Canterbury pilgrims, besides his sword and buckler, he bomst(tl other attributes,
all of which, but especially the last, show that lie relied more on the strength of the outside than that of the
IMtide of his skull.
The miller was a stout carl for the nones,
Full big he was of brawn, and eke of bones;
That proved'well, for wheresoe'r he cam,
At wrestling he wold bear away the ram;
He was short shoulder'd, broad, a thick gnar;
There n'as no door that he n'old heave of bar,
Or break it at a running with his head, &c.




THE MONASTERY.                                 99
she haa no tocher, but the like of her for beauty and sense ne'er crossed my
cen; and I have kend every wench in the Halidome of St. Mary's - ay, and
their mothers that bore them - ay, she is a sweet and a lovely creature as
ever tied snood over brown hair -ay, and then, though her uncle keeps her
out of her ain for the present time, yet it is to be thought the gray-goose
shaft will find a hole in his coat of proof, as, God help us! it has done in
many a better man's - And, moreover, if they should stand on their pedigree and gentle race, Edward might say to them, that is, to her gentle kith
and kin,'whilk o' ye was her best friend, when she came down the glen to
Glendearg in a misty evening, on a beast mair like a cuddie than aught
else?'-And if they tax him with churl's blood, Edward might say, that,
forby the old proverb, how
Gentle deed
Makes gentle bleid;
yet, moreover, there comes no churl's blood from Glendinning or Brydone;
for, says Edward    "
The hoarse voice of the Miller at this moment recalled the dame from her
reverie,, and compelled her to remember that if she meant to realize her
airy castle, she must begin by laying the foundation in civility to her guest
and his daughter, whom she was at that moment most strangely neglecting,
though her whole plan turned on conciliating their favour and good opinion,
and that, in fact, while arranging matters for so intimate a union with her
company, she was suffering them to sit unnoticed, and in their riding gear,
as if about to resume their journey. "And so I say, dame," concluded the
Miller, (for she had not marked the beginning of his speech,) " an ye be so
busied with your housekep, or ought else, why, Mysie and I will trot our
way down the glen again to Johnnie Broxmouth's, who pressed us right
kindly to bide with him."
Starting at once from her dream of marriages and intermarriages, mills,
mill-lands, and baronies, Dame Elspeth felt for a moment like the milk-maid
in the fable, when she overset the pitcher, on the contents of which so many
golden dreams were founded.  But the foundation of Dame Glendinning's
hopes was only tottering, not overthrown, and she hastened to restore its
equilibrium. Instead of attempting to account for her absence of mind and
want of attention to her guests,. which she might have found something
difficult, she assumed the offensive, like an able general when he finds it
necessary, by a bold attack, to disguise his weakness.
A loud exclamation she made, and a passionate complaint she set up
against the unkindness of her old friend, who could for an instant doubt
the heartiness of her welcome to him and to his hopeful daughter; and then to
think of his going back to Johnny Broxmouth's, when the auld tower stood
where it did, and had room in it for a friend or two in the worst of timesand he too a neighbour that his umquhile gossip Simon, blessed be his cast,
used to think the best friend he had in the Halidome! And on she went,
urging her complaint with so much seriousness, that she had well-nigh
imposed on herself as well as upon Hob Miller, who had no mind to take
any thing in dudgeon; and as it suited his plans to pass the night at Glendearg, would have been equally contented to do so even had his reception
been less vehemently hospitable.
To all Elspeth's expostulations on the unkindness of his proposal to leave
her dwelling, he answered composedly, " Nay, dame, what could I tell? ye
might have had other grist to grind, for ye looked as if ye scarce saw usor what know I? ye might bear in mind the words Martin and I had about
the last barley ye sawed-for I ken dry multures* will sometimes stick in
the throat. A man seeks but his awn, and yet folk shall hold him for both
miller and miller's man, that is millar and knave,t all the country over."
* Dry multures were a fine, or compensation in money, for not grinding at the mill of the thirl. It was,
and is. accounted a vexatious exaction.
i The under miller is, in the language of thirlage, called the knave, which, indeed, signified originally his




100                      WAVERLEY NOVELS.
" Alas, that you will say so, neighbour Hob," said Dame Elspeth, "or
that Martin should have had any words with you about the mill-dues! I
will chide him roundly for it, I promise you, on the faith of a true widow.
You know full well that a lone woman is sore put upon by her servants."
"Nay, dame," said the miller, unbuckling the broad belt which made
fast his cloak, and served, at the same time, to suspend by his side a swinging Andrea Ferrara, " bear no grudge at Martin, for I bear none —  take it
on me as a thing of mine office, to maintain my right of multure, lock, and
gowpen.*  And reason good, for as the old song says,
I live by my mill, God bless her,
She's parent, child, and wife.
The poor old slut, I am beholden to her for my living, and bound to stand
by her, as I say to my mill knaves, in right and in wrong.  And so should
every honest follow stand by his bread-winner. -And so, Mysie, ye may
doff your cloak since our neighbour is so kindly glad to see us-why, I
think, we are as blithe to see her-not one in the Halidome pays their multures more duly, sequels, arriage, and carriage, and mill-services, used and
wont."
With that the Miller hung his ample cloak without farther ceremony upon
a huge pair of stag's antlers, which adorned at once the naked walls of the
tower, and served for what we vulgarly call cloak-pins.
In the meantime Dame Elspeth assisted to disembarrass the damsel whom
she destined for her future daughter-in-law, of her hood, mantle, and the
rest of her riding gear, giving her to appear as beseemed the buxom daughter
of the wealthy Miller, gay and goodly, in a white kirtle, the seams of which
were embroidered with green silken lace or fringe, entwined with some silver
thread.  An anxious glance did Elspeth cast upon the good-humoured face,
which was now more fully shown to her, and was only obscured by a quantity of raven black hair, which the maid of the mill had restrained by a
snood of green silk, embroidered with silver, corresponding to the trimmings
of her kirtle.  The countenance itself was exceedingly comely-the eyes
black, large, and roguishly good-humoured-the mouth was small-the lips
well formed, though somewhat full-the teeth were pearly white- and the
chin had a very seducing dimple in it.  The form belonging to this joyous
face was full and round, and firm and fair. It might become coarse and
masculine some years hence, which is the common fault of Scottish beauty;
but in Mysie's sixteenth year she had the shape of a Hebe.  The anxious
Elspeth, with all her maternal partiality, could not help admitting within
herself, that a better man than Halbert might go farther and fare worse.
She looked a little giddy, and Halbert was not nineteen; still it was time
he should be settled, for to that point the dame always returned; and here
was an excellent opportunity.
The simple cunning of Dame Elspeth now exhausted itself in commendations of her fair guest, from the snood, as they say, to the single-soled shoe.
Mysie listened and blushed with pleasure for the first five minutes; but ere
ten had elapsed, she began to view the old lady's compliments rather as
subjects of mirth than of vanity, and was much more disposed to laugh at
than to be flattered with them, for Nature had mingled the good-humour
with which she had endowed the damsel with no small portion of shrewdness.  Even Hob himself began to tire of hearing his daughter's praises,
and broke in with, "Ay, ay, she is a clever quean enough; and, were she
five years older, she shall lay a loaded sack on an avert with e'er a lass in
lad, (Knahe —German,) but by degrees canme to be taken in a worse sense. In the'>1d translation of the
Bible, Paul is made to term himself the knave of our Saviour. The allowance of neal taken by the miller's
servant was called knave-ship.
* Th'e multure was the regular exaction for grinding the meal. The lock, signifying a small quantity, and
the yowpen, a landful, were additional perquisites demanded vb the miller, and submitted to or resisted by
the Suckener as circunlstances permitted. These and other petty dues were called in general the. Sequels.
t Aver-properly a horse of labour.




THE MONASTERY.                             101
the Halidome. But I have been looking for your two sons, dame. Men say
downby that Halbert's turned a wild springald, and that we may have word
of him from Westmoreland one moonlight night or another."
"God forbid, my good neighbour; God, in his mercy, forbid!" said Dame
Glendinning, earnestly; for it was touching the very key-note of her apprehensions, to hint any probability that Halbert might become one of the
marauders so common in the age and country. But, fearful of having betrayed too much alarm  on this subject; she immediately added, "That
though, since the last rout at Pinkiecleuch, she had been all of a tremble
when a gun or a spear was named, or when men spoke of fighting; yet,
thanks to God and our Lady, her sons were like to live and die honest and
peaceful tenants to the Abbey, as their father might have done, but for that
awful hosting which he went forth to with mony a brave man that never
returned."
"Ye need not tell me of it, dame," said the Miller, " since I was there
myself, and made two pair of legs (and these were not mine, but my
mare's,) worth one pair of hands. I judged how it would be, when I saw
our host break ranks, with rushing on through that broken ploughed field,
and so as they had made a pricker of me, I e'en pricked off with myself
while the play was good."
"Ay, ay, neighbour," said the dame, "ye were aye a wise and a wary
man; if my Simon had had your wit, he might have been here to speak
about it this day; but he was aye cracking of his good blood and his high
kindred, and less would not serve him than to bide the bang to the last,
with the earls, and knights, and squires, that had no wives to greet for
them, or else had wives that cared not how soon they were widows; but
that is not for the like of us. But touching my son Halbert, there is no
fear of him; for if it should be his misfortune to be in the like case, he has
the best pair of heels in Halidome, and could run almost as fast as your
mare herself."
" Is this he, neighbour?" quoth the Miller.
"No," replied the mother; "that is my youngest son, Edward, who can
read and write like the Lord Abbot himself, if it were not a sin to say so."
"Ay," said the Miller; "and is that the young clerk the Sub-Prior
thinks so much of? they say he will come far ben that lad; wha kens but
he may come to be Sub-Prior himself? —as broken a ship has come to land."
" To be a Prior, neighbour Miller," said Edward, "a man must first be a
priest, and for that I judge I have little vocation."
"He will take to the pleugh-pettle, neighbour," said the good dame;
"and so will Halbert too, I trust. I wish you saw Halbert.-Edward,
where is your brother?"
"Hunting, I think," replied Edward; "at least he left us this morning
to join the Laird of Colmslie and his hounds. I have heard them baying
in the glen all day."
"And if I had heard that music," said the Miller, " it would have done
my heart good, ay, and may be taken me two or three miles out of my road.
When I was the Miller of Morebattle's knave, I have followed the hounds
from Eckford to the foot of Hounam-law -followed them on foot, Dame
Glendinning, ay, and led the chase when the Laird of Cessford and his gay
riders were all thrown out by the mosses and gills. I brought the stag on
my back to Hounam Cross, when the dogs had pulled him down. I think
I see the old gray knight, as he sate so upright on his strong war-horse,
all white with foam; and'Miller,' said he to me,'an thou wilt turn thy
back on the mill, and wend with me, I will make a man of thee.' But I
chose rather to abide by clap and happer, and the better luck was mine;
for the proud Percy caused hang five of the Laird's henchmen at Alnwick
for burning a rickle of houses some gate beyond Fowberry, and it miglit
have been my luck as well as another man's."
12




102                      WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"Ah, neighbour, neighbour," said Dame Glendinning, "you were aye
wise and wary; but if. you like hunting, I must say Ilalbert's the iad to
please you.  He hath all those fair holiday terms of hawk and hound as
ready in his mouth as Tom with the tod's tail, that is the Lord Abbot's
ranger."
" Ranges he not homeward at dinner-time, dame," demanded the Miller;
"for we call noon the dinner-hour at Kennaquhair?"
The widow was forced to admit that, even at this important period of
the day, Halbert was frequently absent; at which the Miller shook his
head, intimating, at the same time, some allusion to the proverb of MacFarlane's geese, which " liked their play better than their meat."*
That the delay of dinner might not increase the Miller's disposition to
prejudge IIalbert, Dame Glendinning called hastily on Mary Avenel to take
her task of entertaining Mysie IIapper, while she herself rushed to the
kitchen, and, entering at once into the province of Tibb Tacket, rummaged
among trenchers and dishes, snatched pots from the fire, and placed pans
and gridirons on it, accompanying her own feats of personal activity with
suoh a continued list of injunctions to Tibb, that Tibb at length lost patience,
and said, "Here was as muckle wark about meating an auld miller, as if
they had been to banquet the blood of Bruce."   But this, as it was supposed to be spoken aside, Dame Glendinning did not think it convenient tc
hear.
N   lpt e he   fiens wo rt mvct
Nay, let me have the friends who eat my. victuals,
As various as my dishes. —The feast's naught,
Where one huge plate predominates. John Plaintext,
He shall be mighty beef, our English staple;
The worthy Alderman, a butter'd dumpling;
Yon pair of whisker'd Cornets, ruffs and rees:
Their friend the Dandy, a green goose in sippets.
And so the hoard is spread at once and fill'd
On the same principle - Variety.
NEW PLAY.
" AND what brave lass is this?" said Hob Miller, as Mary Avenel entered
the apartment to supply the absence of Dame Elspeth Glendinning.
"The young Lady of Avenel, father," said the Maid of the Mill, dropping as low a curtsy as her rustic manners enabled her to make. The
Miller, her father, doffed his bonnet, and made his reverence, not altogether
so low perhaps as if the young lady had appeared in the pride of rank and
riches, yet so as to give high birth the due homage which the Scotch for a
length of time scrupulously rendered to it.
Indeed, from  having had her mother's example before her for so many
years, and from a native sense of propriety and even of dignity, Mary
Avenel had acquired a demeanour, which marked her title to consideration,
and effectually checked any attempt at familiarity on the part of those who
might be her associates in her present situation, but could not be well termed
her equals.  She was by nature mild, pensive, and contemplative, gentle
* A brood of wild-geese, which long frequented one of the uppermost islands in Loch-Lomond, called InchTavoe, were supposed to have some mysterious connexion with the ancient fanily of MacFarlane of that ilk,
and it is said were never seen after the ruin and extinction of that house.''he MacFarlaies had a house
and garden upon that same island of Inch-Tavoe. Here James VI. was, on one occasion, regaled by the
chieftain. His Majesty had been previously much amused by the geese pursuing each other on the Loch.
But, when one which was brought to table, was found to be tough and ill fed, James observed —"that M;a*
Farlane's geese liked their play better than their meat," a proverb which-has been current ever since.




THE  MONASTERY.                            103
in disposition, and most placable, when accidentally offended; but still she
was of a retired and reserved habit, and shunned to mix in ordinary sports,
even when the rare occurrence of a fair or wake gave her an opportunity of
mingling with companions of her own age. If at such scenes she was seen
for an instant, she appeared to behold them with the composed indifference
of one to whom their gaiety was a matter of no interest, and who seemed
only desirous to glide away from the scene as soon as she possibly could.
Something also had transpired concerning her being born on All-hallow
Eve, and the powers with which that circumstance was supposed to invest
her over the invisible world. And from all these particulars combined, the
young men and women of the Halidome used to distinguish Mary among
themselves by the name of the Spirit of Avenel, as if the fair but fragile
form, the beautiful but rather colourless cheek, the dark blue eye, and the
shady hair, had belonged rather to the immaterial than the substantial
world. The general tradition of the White Lady, who was supposed to
wait on the fortunes of the family of Avenel, gave a sort of zest to this
piece of rural wit. It gave great offence, however, to the two sons of Simon
Glendinning; and when the expression was in their presence applied to the
young lady, Edward was wont to check the petulance of those who used it
by strength of argument, and Halbert by strength of arm. In such cases
Halbert had this advantage, that although he could render no aid to his
brother's argument, yet when circumstances required it, he was sure to
have that of Edward, who never indeed himself commenced a fray, but, on
the other hand, did not testify any reluctance to enter into combat in Halbert's behalf or in his rescue.
But the zealous attachment of the two youths, being themselves, from the
retired situation in which they dwelt, comparative strangers in the IIalidome, did not serve in any degree to alter the feelings of the inhabitants
towards the young lady, who seemed to have dropped amongst them from.
another sphere of life. Still, however, she was regarded with respect, if not
with fondness; and the attention of the Sub-Prior to the family- not to mention the formidable name of Julian Avenel, which every new incident of
those tumultuous times tended to render more famous, attached to his niece
a certain importance. Thus some aspired to her acquaintance out of pride
while the more timid of the feuars were anxious to inculcate upon their
children the necessity of being respectful to the noble orphan.  So that
Mary Avenel, little loved because little known, was regarded with a mysterious awe, partly derived from fear of her uncle's moss-troopers, and partly
from her own retired and distant habits, enhanced by the superstitious opinions of the time and country.
It was not without some portion of this awe, that Mysie felt herself left
alone in company with a young person so distant in rank, and so different
in bearing, from herself; for her worthy father had taken the first opportunity to step 9ut unobserved, in order to mark how the barnyard was filled,
and what prospect it afforded of grist to the mill. In youth, however, there
is a sort of free-masonry, which, without much conversation, teaches young
persons to estimate each other's character, and places them at ease on the
shortest acquaintance. It is only when taught deceit by the commerce of
the world, that we learn to shroud our character from observation, and to
disguise our real sentiments from those with whom we are placed in communion.
Accordingly, the two young-women were soon engaged in such objects of
interest as best became their age. They visited Mary Avenel's pigeons,
which she nursed with the tenderness of a mother; they turned over her
slender stores of finery, which yet contained some articles that excited the
respect of her companion, though Mysie was too good-humoured to nourish
envy. A  golden rosary, and some female ornaments marking superior
rank, had been rescued in the moment of their utmost adversity, more by




104                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
Tibb Tacket's presence of mind, than by the care of their owner, who was
at that sad period too much sunk in grief to pay any attention to such cir
cumstances.  They struck Mysie with a deep impression of veneration; for,
excepting what the Lord Abbot and the convent might possess, she did not
believe there was so much real gold in the world as was exhibited in these
few trinkets, and Mary, however sage and serious, was not above being
pleased with the admiration of her rustic companion.
Nothing, indeed, could exhibit a stronger contrast than the appearance
of the two girls; -the good-humoured laughter-loving countenance of the.
Maid of the Mill, who stood gazing with unrepressed astonishment on whatever was in her inexperienced eye rare and costly, and with an humble, and
at the same time cheerful acquiescence in her inferiority, asking all the
little queries about the use and value of the ornaments, while Mary Avenel,
with her quiet composed dignity and placidity of manner, produced them
one after another for the amusement of her companion.
As they became gradually more familiar, Mysie of the Mill was just venturing to ask, why Mary Avenel never appeared at the May-pole, and to
express her wonder when the young lady said she disliked dancing, when
a trampling of horses at the gate of the tower interrupted their conversation.
Mysie flew to the shot-window in the full ardour of unrestrained female
curiosity. "Saint Mary! sweet lady! here come two well-mounted gallants;
will you step this way to look at them?"
"No," said Mary Avenel, "you shall tell me who they are."
"Well, if you like it better," said Mysie-" but how shall I know them?
-Stay, I do know one of them, and so do you, lady; he is a blithe man,
somewhat light of hand, they say, but the gallants of these days think no
great harm of that. lie is your uncle's henchman, that they call Christie
of the Clinthill; and he has not his old green jerkin and the rusty blackjack over it, but a scarlet cloak, laid down with silver lace three inches
broad, and a breast-plate you might see to dress your hair in, as well as in
that keeking-glass in the ivory frame that you showed me even now. Come,
dear lady, come to the shot-window and see him."
"If it be the man you mean, Mysie," replied the orphan of Avenel, "I
shall see him soon enough, considering either the pleasure or comfort the
sight will give me."
"Nay, but if you will not come to see gay Christie," replied the Maid of
the Mill, her face flushed with eager curiosity, "come and tell me who the
gallant is that is with him, the handsomest, the very lovesomest young man
I ever saw with sight."
"It is my foster-brother, Halbert Glendinning," said Mary, with apparent indifference; for she had been accustomed to call the sons of Elspeth
her foster-brethren, and to live with them as if they had been brothers in
earnest.
" Nay, by Our Lady, that it is not," said Mysie; " I know'the favour of
both the Glendinnings well, and I think this rider be not of our country.
IIe has a crimson velvet bonnet, and long brown hair falling down under
it, and a beard on his upper lip, and his chin clean and close shaved, save a
small patch on the point of the chin, and a sky-blue jerkin slashed and lined
with white satin, and trunk-hose to suit, and no weapon but a rapier and
dagger-Well, if I was a man, I would never wear -weapon but the rapier!
it is so slender and becoming, instead of having a cartload of iron at my
back, like my father's broad-sword with its great rusty basket-hilt. Do you
not delight in the rapier and poniard, lady?"
"The best sword," answered Mary, " if I must needs answer a question
of the sort, is that which is drawn in the best cause, and which is best used
when it is out of the scabbard."
"But can you not guess who this stranger should be?" said Mysie.




THE  MONASTERY.                            105
"Indeed, I cannot even attempt it; but to judge by his companion, it is
no matter how little he is known," replied Mary.
"My benison on his bonny face," said Mysie, "if he is not going to alight
here! Now, I am as much pleased as if my father had given me the silver
earrings he has promised me so often; —nay, you had as well come to the
window, for you must see him by and by whether you will or not."
I do not know how much sooner Mary Avenel might have sought the
point of observation, if she had not been scared from it by the unrestrained
curiosity expressed by her buxom friend; but at length the same feeling
prevailed over her sense-of dignity, and satisfied with having displayed all
the indifference that was necessary in point of decorum, she no longer
thought herself bound to restrain her curiosity.
From the outshot or projecting window, she could perceive that Christie
of the Clinthill was attended on the present occasion by a very gay and
gallant cavalier, who, from the nobleness of his countenance and manner,
his rich and handsome dress, and the showy appearance of his horse and
furniture, must, she agreed with her new friend, be a person of some consequence.
Christie also seemed conscious of something, which made him call out
with more than his usual insolence of manner, "What, ho! so ho! the
house! Churl peasants, will no one answer when I call? — Ho! Martin, -
Tibb, —Dame Glendinning  - a murrain on you, must we stand keeping our
horses in the cold here, and they steaming with heat, when we have ridden
so sharply?"
At length he was obeyed, and old Martin made his appearance.  "Ha!"
said Christie, " art thou there, old Truepenny? here, stable me these steeds,
and see them well bedded, and stretch thine old limbs by rubbing them
down; and see thou quit not the stable till there is not a turned hair on
either of them."
Martin took the horses to the stable as commanded, but suppressed not
his indignation a moment after he could vent it with safety. "Would not
any one think," he said to Jasper, an old ploughman, who, in coming to his
assistance, had heard Christie's imperious injunctions, "that this loon, this
Christie of the Clinthill, was laird or lord at least of him? No such thing,
man! I remember him a little dirty turnspit boy in the house of Avenel,
that every body in a frosty morning like this warmed his fingers by kicking
or cuffing! and now he is a gentleman, and swears, d-n him and renounce
him, as if the gentlemen could not so much as keep their own wickedness
to themselves, without the like of him going to hell in their very company,
and by the same road. I have as much a mind as ever I had to my dinner,
to go back and tell him to sort his horse himself, since he is as able as I
am. 
"Hout tout, man!" answered Jasper, "keep a calm sough; better to
fleech a fool than fight with him."
Martin acknowledged the truth of the proverb, and, much comforted therewith, betook himself to cleaning the stranger's horse with great assiduity,
remarking, it was a pleasure to handle a handsome nag, and turned over the
other to the charge of Jasper. Nor was it until Christie's commands were
literally complied with that he deemed it proper, after fitting ablutions, to
join the party in the spence; not for the purpose of waiting upon them, as
a mere modern reader might possibly expect, but that he might have his
share of dinner in their company.
In the meanwhile, Christie had presented his companion to Dame Glendinning as Sir Piercie Shafton, a friend of his and of his master, come to
spend three or four days with little din in the tower. The good dame could
not conceive how she was entitled to such an honour, and would fain have
pleaded her want of every sort of convenience to entertain a guest of that
quality. But, indeed, the visiter, when he cast his eyes round the bare




106                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
walls, eyed the huge black chimney, scrutinized the meagre and broken
furniture of the apartment, and beheld the embarrassment of the mistress
of the family, intimated great reluctance to intrude upon Dame Glendinning
a visit, which could scarce, from all appearances, prove otherwise than an
inconvenience to her, and a penance to himself.
But the reluctant hostess and her guest had to do with an inexorable man,
who silenced all expostulations with, " such was his master's pleasure. And,
moreover," he continued, "though the Baron of Avenel's will must, and
ought to prove law to all within ten miles around him, yet here, dame," he
said, " is a letter from your petticoated baron, the lord-priest yonder, who
enjoins you, as you regard his pleasure, that you afford to this good knight
such decent accommodation as is in your power, suffering him to live as
privately as he shall desire.-And for you, Sir Piercie Shafton," continued
Christie, "you will judge for yourself, whether secrecy and safety is not
more your object even now, than soft beds and high cheer. And do not
judge of the dame's goods by the semblance of her cottage; for you will
see by the dinner she is about to spread for us, that the vassal of the kirk
is seldom found with her basket bare."  To Mary Avenel, Christie presented
the stranger, after the best fashion he could, as to the niece of his master
the baron.
While he thus laboured to reconcile Sir Piercie Shafton to his fate, the
widow, having consulted her son Edward on the real import of the Lord
Abbot's injunction, and having found that Christie had given a true exposition, saw nothing else left for her but to make that fate as easy as she could
to the stranger. He himself also seemed reconciled to his lot by some
feeling probably of strong necessity, and accepted with a good grace the
hospitality which the dame offered with a very indifferent one.
In fact, the dinner, which soon smoked before the assembled guests, was
of that substantial kind which warrants plenty and comfort. Dame Glendinning had cooked it after her best manner; and, delighted with the
handsome appearance which her good cheer made when placed on the table,
forgot both her plans and the vexations which interrupted them, in the
hospitable duty of pressing her assembled visiters to eat and drink, watching
every trencher as it waxed empty, and loading it with fresh supplies ere the
guest could utter a negative.
In the meanwhile, the company attentively regarded each other's motions,
and seemed endeavouring to form a judgment of each other's character.
Sir Piercie Shafton condescended to speak to no one but to Mary Avenel,
and on her he conferred exactly the same familiar and compassionate, though
somewhat scornful sort of attention, which a pretty fellow of these days will
sometimes condescend to bestow on a country miss, when there is no prettier
or more fashionable woman present. The manner indeed was different, for
the etiquette of those times did not permit Sir Piercie Shafton to pick his
teeth, or to yawn, or to gabble like the beggar whose tongue (as he says)
was cut out by the Turks, or to affect deafness or blindness, or any other
infirmity of the organs. But though the embroidery of his conversation
was different, the groundwork was the same, and the high-flown and ornate
compliments with which the gallant knight of the sixteenth century interlarded his conversation, were as much the offspring of egotism and selfconceit, as the jargon of the coxcombs of our own days.
The English knight was, however, something daunted at finding that
Mary Avenel listened with an air of indifference, and answered with wonderful brevity, to all the fine things which ought, as he conceived, to have
dazzled her with their brilliancy, and puzzled her by their obscurity. But
if he was disappointed in making the desired, or rather the expected
impression, upon her whom he addressed, Sir Piercie Shafton's discourse
was marvellous in the ears of Mysie the Miller's daughter, and not the less
so that she did not comprehend the meaning of a single word which he




THE MONASTERY.                               10T
uttered. Indeed, the gallant knight's language was far too courtly to be
understood by persons of much greater acuteness than Mysie's.
It was about this period,, that the "only rare poet of his time, the witty,
comical, facetiously-quick, and quickly-facetious, John Lylly-he that sate
at Apollo's table, and to whom  Phoebus gave a wreath of his own bays
without snatching" —he, in short, who wrote that singularly coxcomical
work, called Euphues and his England, was in the very zenith of his
absurdity and his reputation. The quaint, forced, and unnatural style which
he introduced by his "Anatomy of Wit," had a fashion as rapid as it was
momentary-all the court ladies were his scholars, and to parle Euphuisme,
was as necessary a qualification to a courtly gallant, as those of understanding how to use his rapier, or to dance a measure.
It was no wonder that the Maid of the Mill was soon as effectually blinded
by the intricacies of this erudite and courtly style of conversation, as she
had ever been by the dust of her father's own meal-sacks. But there she
sate with her mouth and eyes as open as the mill-door and the two windows,
showing teeth as white as her father's bolted flour, and endeavouring to
secure a word or two for her own future use out of the pearls of rhetoric
which Sir Piercie Shafton scattered around him with such bounteous profusion.
For the male part of the company, Edward felt ashamed of his own
manner and slowness of speech, when he observed the handsome young
courtier, with an ease and volubility of which he had no conception, run
over all the commonplace topics of high-flown gallantry.  It is true the
good sense and natural taste of young Glendinning soon informed him that
the gallant cavalier was speaking nonsense.  But, alas! where is the man
of modest merit, and real talent, who has not suffered from being outshone
in conversation and outstripped in the race of life, by men of less reserve,
and of qualities more showy, though less substantial? and well constituted
must the mind be, that can yield up the prize without envy to competitors
more worthy than himself.
Edward Glendinning had no such philosophy.  While he despised the
jargon of the gay cavalier, he envied the facility with which he could run
on, as well as the courtly tone and expression, and the perfect ease and
elegance with which he offered all the little acts of politeness to which the
duties of the table gave opportunity.  And if I am to speak truth, I must
own that he envied those qualities the more as they were all exercised in
Mary Avenel's service, and, although only so far accepted as they could not
be refused, intimated a wish on the stranger's part to place himself in her
good graces, as the only person in the room to whom he thought it worth
while to recommend himself.  His title, rank, and very handsome figure,
together with some sparks of wit and spirit which flashed across the cloud
of nonsense which he uttered, rendered him, as the words of the old song
say, " a lad for a rady's viewing;" so that poor Edward, with all his real
worth and acquired knowledge, in his home-spun doublet, blue cap, and
deerskin trowsers, looked like a clown beside the courtier, and, feeling the
full inferiority, nourished no good-will to him by whom he was eclipsed.
Christie, on the other hand, as soon as he had satisfied to the full a commodious appetite, by means of which persons of his profession could, like
the wolf and eagle, gorge themselves with as much food at one meal as
might serve them for several days, began also to feel himself more in the
back-ground than he liked to be. This worthy had, amongst his other good
qualities, an excellent opinion of himself; and, being of a bold and forward
disposition, had no mind to be thrown into the shade by any one. With an
impudent familiarity which such persons mistake for graceful ease, he
* Such, and yet more extravagant, are the compliments paid to this author by his editor, Blount. Notwithstanding all exaggeration, Lylly was really a man of wit and imagination, though both were Jefdomed by the
most urnatural affectation that ever disgraced a printed page.




108                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
broke in upon  iae knight's finest speeches with as little remorse as ho
would have driven the point of his lance through a laced doublet.
Sir Piercie Shafton, a man of rank and high birth, by no means en
couraged or endured this familiarity, and requited the intruder either with
total neglect, or such laconic replies as intimated a sovereign contempt for
the rude spearman, who affected to converse with him upon terms of
equality.
The Miller held his peace; for, as his usual conversation turned chiefly
on his clapper-and toll-dish, he had no mind to brag of his wealth in presence of Christie of the Clinthill, or to intrude his discourse on the English
cavalier.
A little specimen of the conversation may not be out of place, were it
but to show young ladies what fine things they have lost by living when
Euphuism is out of fashion.
"Credit me, fairest lady," said the knight, " that such is the cunning of
our English courtiers, of the hodiernal strain, that, as they have infinitely
refined upon the plain and rusticial discourse of our fathers, which, as I
may say, more beseemed the mouths of country roisterers in a May-game
than that of courtly gallants in a galliard, so I hold it ineffably and unutterably impossible, that those who may succeed us in that garden of wit
and courtesy shall alter or amend it. Venus delighted but in the language
of Mercury, Bucephalus will stoop to no one but Alexander, none can
sound Apollo's pipe but Orpheus."
" Valiant sir," said Mary, who could scarcely help laughing, "we have
but to rejoice in the chance which hath honoured this solitude with a
glimpse of the sun of courtesy, though it rather blinds than enlightens us."
" Pretty and quaint, fairest lady," answered the Euphuist.  " Ah, that I
had with me my Anatomy of Wit-that all-to-be-unparalleled volume-that
quintessence of human wit-that treasury of quaint invention-that exquisitively-pleasant-to-read, and inevitably-necessary-to-be-remembered manual,
of all that is worthy to be known - which indoctrines the rude in civility,
the dull in intellectuality, the heavy in jocosity, the blunt in gentility, the
vulgar in nobility, and all of them in that unutterable perfection of human
utterance, that eloquence which no other eloquence is sufficient to praise,
that art which, when we call it by its own name of Euphuism, we bestow
on it its richest panegyric."
"By Saint Mary," said Christie of the Clinthill, "if your worship had
told me that you had left such'stores of wealth as you talk of at Prudhoe
Castle, Long Dickie and I would have had them off with us if man and
horse could have carried them; but you told us of no treasure I wot of,
save the silver tongs for turning up your mustachoes."
The knight treated this intruder's mistake-for certainly Christie had no
idea that all these epithets which sounded so rich and splendid, were lavished
upon a small quarto volume-with a stare, and then turning again to Mary
Avenel, the only person whom he thought worthy to address, he proceeded
in his strain of high-flown oratory, " Even thus," said he, " do hogs contemn
the splendour of Oriental pearls; even thus are the delicacies of a choice
repast in vain offered to the long-eared grazer of the common, who turneth
from them to devour a thistle. Surely as idle is it to pour forth the treasures
of oratory before the eyes of the ignorant, and to spread the dainties of the
intellectual banquet before those who are, morally and metaphysically
speaking, no better than asses."
" Sir Knight, since that is your quality," said Edward, "we cannot strive
with you in loftiness of language; but I pray you in fair courtesy, while you
honour my father's house with your presence, to spare us such vile comparisons."
" Peace, good villagio," said the knight, gracefully waving his hand, " I
prithee peace, kind rustic; and you, my guide, whom  I may scarce call




THE  MONASTERY.                            109
honest, let me prevail upon you to imitate the laudable taciturnity of that
honest yeoman, who sits as mute as a mill-post, and of that comely damsel,
who seems as with her ears she drank in what she did not altogether comprehend, even as a palfrey listening to a lute, whereof, howsoever, he
knoweth not the gamut."
" Marvellous fine words," at length said Dame Glendinning, who began
to be tired of sitting so long silent, "marvellous fine words, neighbour
Happer, are they not?"
" Brave words-very brave words-very exceeding pyet words," answered
the Miller; "nevertheless, to speak my mind, a lippy of bran were worth
a bushel of them."
"I think so too, under his worship's favour," answered Christie of the
Clinthill. "I well remember that at the race of Morham, as we call it,
near Berwick, I took a young Southern fellow out of saddle with my lance,
and cast him, it might be, a gad's length from his nag; and so, as he had
some gold on his laced doublet, I deemed he might ha' the like on it in his
pocket too, though that is a rule that does not aye hold good - So I was
speaking to him of ransom, and out he comes with a handful of such terms
as his honour there hath gleaned up, and craved me for mercy, as I was a
true son of Mars, and such like."
" And obtained no mercy at thy hand, I dare be sworn," said the knight,
who deigned not to speak Euphuism excepting to the fair sex.
" By my troggs," replied Christie, " I would have thrust my lance down
his throat, but just then they flung open that accursed postern-gate, and
forth pricked old Hunsdon, and Henry Carey, and as many fellows at their
heels as turned the chase northward again. So I e'en pricked Bayard with
the spur, and went off with the rest; for a man should ride when he may
not wrestle, as they say in Tynedale."
"Trust me," said the knight, again turning to Mary Avenel, "if I do
not pity you, lady, who, being of noble blood, are thus in a manner compelled to abide in the cottage of the ignorant, like the precious stone in the
head of the toad, or like a precious garland on the brow of an ass. - But
soft, what gallant have we here, whose garb savoureth more of the rustic
than doth his demeanour, and whose looks seem more lofty than his habit;
even as    "
"I pray you, Sir Knight," said Mary, " to spare your courtly similitudes
for refined ears, and give me leave to name unto you my foster-brother,
HIalbert Glendinning."
"The son of the good dame of the cottage, as I opine," answered the
English knight; "for by some such name did my guide discriminate the
mistress of this mansion, which you, madam, enrich with your presence.And yet, touching this juvenal, he hath that about him which belongeth to
higher birth, for all are not black who dig coals-"
"Nor all white who are millers," said honest Happer, glad to get in a
word, as they say, edgeways.
Halbert, who had sustained the glance of the Englishman with some impatience, and knew not what to make of his manner and language, replied
with some asperity, "Sir Knight, we have in this land of Scotland an
ancient saying,'Scorn not the bush that bields you'-you area guest of
my father's house to shelter you from danger, if I am rightly informed by
the domestics. Scoff not its homeliness, nor that of its inmates-ye might
long have abidden at the court of England, ere we had sought your favour,
or cumbered you with our society. Since your fate has sent you hither
amongst us, be contented with such fare and such converse as we can afford
you, and scorn us not for our kindness; for the Scots wear short patience
and long daggers."
All eyes were turned on Halbert while he was thus speaking, and there
was a general feeling that his countenance had an expression of intelligence,
K




110                  WAVERLEY  ENOVELS.
and his person an air of dignity, which they had never before observed.
Whether it were that the wonderful Being with whom he had so hltely held
communication, had bestowed on him a grace and dignity of look and
bearing which he had not before, or whether the being conversant in high
matters, and called to a destiny beyond that of other men, had a natural
effect in giving becoming confidence to his language and manner, we pretend not to determine. But it was evident to all, that, from this day,
young Halbert was an altered man; that he acted with the steadiness,
promptitude, and determination, which belonged to riper years, and bore
himself with a manner which appertained to higher rank.
The knight took the rebuke with good humour. " By my mine honour,"
he said, "thou hast reason on thy side, good juvenal-nevertheless, I spoke
not as in ridicule of the roof which relieves me, but rather in your own
piraise, to whom, if this roof be native, thou mayst nevertheless rise from
its lowliness; even as the lark, which maketh its humble nest in the furrow,
ascendeth towards the sun, as well as the eagle which buildeth her eyry in
the cliff."
This high-flown discourse was interrupted by Dame Glendinning, who,
with all the busy anxiety of a mother, was loading her son's trencher with
food, and dinning in his ear her reproaches on account of his prolonged
absence. " And see," she said, " that you do not one day get such a sight
while you are walking about among the haunts of them that are not of our
flesh and bone, as befell Mungo Murray When he slept on the greensward
ring of the Auld Kirkhill at sunset, and wakened at daybreak in the wild
hills of Breadalbane. And see that, when you are looking for deer, the
red stag does not gall you as he did Diccon Thorburn, who never overcast
the wound that he took from a buck's horn. And see, when you go swaggering about with a long broadsword by your side, whilk it becomes no
peaceful man to do, that you dinna meet with them that have broadsword
and lance both- there are enow of rank riders in this land, that neither
fear God nor regard man."
Here her eye " in a fine frenzy rolling," fell full upon that of Christie of
the Clinthill, and at once her fears for having given offence interrupted the
current of maternal rebuke, which, like rebuke matrimonial, may be often
better meant than thned. There was something of sly and watchful significance in Christie's eye, an eye gray, keen, fierce, yet wily, formed to
express at once cunning, and malice, which made the dame instantly conjecture she had said too much, while she saw in imagination her twelve
goodly cows go lowing down the glen in a moonlight night, with half a
score of Border spearsmen at their heels.
HIer voice, therefore, sunk from the elevated tone of maternal authority
into a whimpering apologetic sort of strain, and she proceeded to say, " t
is no that I have ony ill thoughts of the Border riders, for Tibb Tacket
there has often heard me say that I thought spear and bridle as natural to
a Borderman as a pen to a priest, or a feather-fan to a lady; and - have
you not heard me say it, Tibb?"
Tibb showed something less than her expected alacrity in attesting her
mistress's deep respect for the freebooters of the southland hills; but, thus
conjured, did at length reply, " Hout ay, mistress, I'se warrant I have heard
you say something like that."
"Mother!" said HIalbert, in a firm and commanding tone of voice, "what
or whom is it that you fear under my father's roof? - I well hope that it
harbours not a guest in whose presence you are afraid to say your pleasure
to me or my brother?  I am sorry I have been detained so late, being
ignorant of the fair company which I should encounter on my return. - I
pray you let this excuse suffice: and what satisfies you, will, I trust, be
nothing less than acceptable to your guests."
An answer calculated so justly betwixt the submission due to his parent,




THE MONASTERY.                                111
and the natural feeling of dignity in one who was by birth master of the
mansion, excited universal satisfaction. And as Elspeth herself confessed
to Tibb on the same evening, " She did not think it had been in the callant.
Till that night, he took pets and passions if he was spoke to, and lap through
the house like a four-year-auld at the least word of advice that was minted
at him. but now he spoke as grave and as douce as the Lord Abbot himself. She kendna," she said, " what might be the upshot of it, but it was
like he was a wonderfu' callant even now."
The party then separated, the young men retiring to their apartments,
the elder to their household cares. While Christie went to see his horse
properly accommodated, Edward betook himself to his book, and IHalbert,
who was as ingenious in employing his hands as he had hitherto appeared
imperfect in mental exertion, applied himself to constructing a place of
concealment in the floor of his apartment by raising a plank, beneath
which he resolved to deposit that copy of the Holy Scriptures which had
been so strangely regained from the possession of men and spirits.
In the meanwhile Sir Piercie Shafton sate still'as a stone, in the chair in
which he had deposited himself, his hands folded on his breast, his legs
stretched straight out before him and resting upon the heels, his eyes cast
up to the ceiling as if he had meant to count every mesh of every cobweb
with which the arched roof was canopied, wearing at the same time a face
of as solemn and imperturbable gravity, as if his existence had depended
on the accuracy of his calculation.
He could scarce be roused from his"listless state of contemplative absorption so as to take some supper, a meal at which the younger females appeared
not. Sir Piercie stared around twice or thrice as if he missed something;
but he asked not for them, and only evinced his sense of a proper audience
being wanting, by his abstraction and absence of mind, seldom  speaking
until he was twice addressed, and then replying, without trope or figure, in
that plain English which nobody could speak better when he had a mind.
Christie, finding himself in undisturbed possession of the conversation,
indulged all who chose to listen with details of his own wild and inglorious
warfare, while Dame Elspeth's curch bristled with horror, and Tibb Tacket,
rejoiced to find herself once more in the company of a jackman, listened to
his tales, like Desdemona to Othello's, with undisguised delight. Meantime
the two young Glendinnings were each wrapped up in his own reflections,
and only interrupted in them by the signal to move bedward.
e trie n  in     ftif nehre,
He strikes no coin,'tis true. but coins new phrases,
And vends them forth as knaves vend gilded counters,
Which wise men scorn, and fools accept in payment.
OLD PLAY.
IN the morning Christie of the Clinthill was nowhere to be seen. As this
worthy personage did seldom pique himself on sounding a trumpet before
his movements, no one was surprised at his moonlight departure, though
some alarm was excited lest he had not made it empty-handed.  So, in the
language of the national ballad,
Some ran to cupboard, and some to kist,
But nought was away that could be mist.
All was in order, the k-y of the stable left above the door, and that of the
iron-grate in the inside of the lock. In short, the retreat had been made




112                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
with scrupulous attention to the security of the garrison, and so far Christie
left them nothing to complain of.
The safety of the premises was ascertained by Halbert, who instead of
catching up a gun or cross-bow, and sallying out for the day as had been
his frequent custom, now, with a gravity beyond his years, took a survey of
all around the tower, and then returned to the spence, or public apartment,
in which, at the early hour of seven, the morning meal was prepared.
There he found the Euphuist in the same elegant posture of abstruse
calculation which he had exhibited on the preceding evening, his arms
folded in the same angle, his eyes turned up to the same cobwebs, -and his
heels resting on the ground as before. Tired of this affectation of indolent
importance, and not much flattered with his guest's persevering in it to the
last, Halbert resolved at once to break the ice, being determined to know
what circumstance had brought to the tower of Glendinning a guest at once
so supercilious and so silent.
" Sir Knight," he said with some firmness, " I have twice given you good
morning, to which the absence of your mind hath, I presume, prevented
you from yielding attention, or from making return. This exchange of
courtesy is at your pleasure to give or withhold —But, as what I have
further to say concerns your comfort and your motions in an especial manner, I will entreat you to give me some signs of attention, that I may be
sure I am not wasting my words on a monumental image."
At this unexpected address, Sir Pie'tcie Shafton opened his eyes, and
afforded the speaker a broad stare; but as Halbert returned the glance
without either confusion or dismay, the knight thought proper to change
his posture, draw in his legs, raise his eyes, fix them on young Glendinning,
and assume the appearance of one who listens to what is said to him. Nay,
to make his purpose more evident, he gave voice to his resolution in these
words, " Speak I we do hear."
" Sir Knight," said the youth, "it is the custom of this Halidome, or
patrimony of St. Mary's, to trouble with inquiries no guests who receive
our hospitality, providing they tarry in our house only for a single revolution of the sun. We know that both criminals and debtors come hither for
sanctuary, and we scorn to extort from the pilgrim, whom chance may make
our guest, an avowal of the cause of his pilgrimage and penance. But when
one so high above our rank as yourself, Sir Knight, and especially one to
whom the possession of such pre-eminence is not indifferent, shows his
determination to be our guest for a longer time, it is our usage to inquire of
him whence he comes, and what is the cause of his journey?"
The English knight gaped twice or thrice before he answered, and then
replied in a bantering tone, " Truly, good villagio, your question hath in it
somewhat of embarrassment, for you ask me of things concerning which I
am not as yet altogether determined what answer I may find it convenient
to make. Let it suffice thee, kind juvenal, that thou hast the Lord Abbot's
authority for treating me to the best of that power of thine, which, indeed,
may not always so well suffice for my accommodation as either of us would
desire."
"I must have a more precise answer than this, Sir Knight," said the young
Glendinning.
"Friend," said the knight, "be not outrageous. It may suit your northern manners thus to press harshly upon the secrets of thy betters; but
believe me, that even as the lute, struck by an unskilful hand, doth produce
discords, so-"  At this moment the door of the apartment opened, and
Mary Avenel presented herself-" But who can talk of discords," said the
knight, assuming his complimentary vein and humour, "when the soul of
harmony descends upon us in the presence of surpassing beauty! For even
as foxes, wolves, and other animals void of sense and reason, do fly from the
presence of the resplendent sun of heaven when he arises in his glory, so




THE MONASTERY.                               118
do strife, wrath, and all ireful passions retreat, and, as it were, scud away,
from the face which now beams upon us, with power to compose our angry
passions, illuminate our errors- and difficulties, soothe our wounded minds,
and lull to rest our disorderly apprehensions; for as the heat and warmth
of the eye of day is to the material and physical world, so is the eye which
I now bow down before to that of the intellectual microcosm."
He concluded with a profound bow; and Mary Avenel, gazing from one
to the other, and plainly seeing that something was amiss, could only say,
"For heaven's sake, what is the meaning of this?"
The newly-acquired tact and intelligence of her foster-brother was as yet
insufficient to enable him to give an answer. He was quite uncertain how
he ought to deal with a guest, who preserving a singularly high tone of
assumed superiority and importance, seemed nevertheless so little serious in
what he said, that it was quite impossible to discern with accuracy whether
he was in jest or earnest.
Forming, however, the internal resolution to bring Sir Piercie Shafton to
a reckoning at a more fit place and season, he resolved to prosecute the
matter no farther at present; and the entrance of his mother with the
damsel of the Mill, and the return of the honest Miller from the stack-yard,
where he had been numbering and calculating the probable amount of the
season's grist, rendered farther discussion impossible for the moment.
In the course of the calculation it could not but strike the man of meal
and grindstones, that after the church's dues were paid, and after all which
he himself could by any means deduct from the crop, still the residue which
must revert to Dame Glendinning could not be less than considerable. I
wot not if this led the honest Miller to nourish any plans similar to those
adopted by Elspeth; but it is certain that he accepted with grateful alacrity
an invitation which the dame gave to his daughter, to remain a week or two
as her guest at Glendearg.
The principal persons being thus in high good humour with each other,
all business gave place to the hilarity of the morning repast; and so much
did Sir Piercie appear gratified by the attention which was paid to every
word that he uttered by the nut-brown Mysie, that, notwithstanding his
high birth and distinguished quality, he bestowed on her some of the more
ordinary and second-rate tropes of his elocution.
Mary Avenel, when relieved from  the awkwardness of feeling the full
weight of his conversation addressed to herself, enjoyed it much more; and
the good knight, encouraged by those conciliating marks of approbation
from the sex, for whose sake he cultivated his oratorical talents, made speedy
intimation of his purpose to be more communicative than he had shown
himself in his conversation with Halbert Glendinning, and gave them to
understand, that it was in consequence of some pressing danger that he was
at present their involuntary guest.
The conclusion of the breakfast was a signal for the separation of the
company.'The Miller went to prepare for his departure; his daughter to
arrange matters for her unexpected stay; Edward was summoned to consultation by Martin concerning some agricultural matter, in which Halbert
could not be brought to interest himself; the dame left the room upon her
household concerns, and Mary was in the act of following her, when she
suddenly recollected, that if she did so, the strange knight and Halbert must
be left alone together, at the risk of another quarrel.
The maiden no sooner observed this circumstance, than she instantly
returned from the door of the apartment, and, seating herself in a small
stone window-seat, resolved to maintain that curb which she was sensible
her presence imposed on Halbert Glendinning, of whose quick temper she
had some apprehensions.
The stranger marked her motions, and, either interpreting them as inviting
his society, or obedient to those laws of gallantry which permitted him not
VOL. V.-8 -                       2




11.4                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
to leave a lady in silence and solitude, he instantly placed himself near to
her side and opened the conversation as follows: —
"Credit me, fair lady," he said, addressing Mary Avenel, "it much
rejoiceth me, being, as I am, a banished man from the delights of mine own
country, that I shall find here in this obscure and silvan cottage of the
north, a fair form  and a candid soul, with whom  I may explain my mutual
sentiments. And let me pray you in particular, lovely lady, that, according
to the universal custom  now predominant in our court, the garden of superior wits, you will exchange with me some epithet whereby you may mark
my devotion to your service.  Be henceforward named, for example, my
Protection, and let me be your Affability."
" Our northern and country manners, Sir Knight, do not permit us to
exchange epithets with those to whom  we are strangers," replied Mary
Avenel.
"Nay, but see now," said the knight, "how you are startled! even as
the unbroken steed, which swerves aside from the shaking of a handkerchief,
though he must in time encounter the waving of a pennon.  This courtly
exchange of epithets of honour, is no more than the compliments which
pass between valour and beauty, wherever they meet, and under whatever
circumstances.   Elizabeth of England  herself calls Philip  Sydney  her
Courage, and he in return calls that princess his Inspiration. Wherefore,
my fair Protection, for by such  epithet it shall be mine to denominate
you —"Not without the young  lady's consent, sir!" interrupted  Halbert;
"most truly do I hope your courtly and quaint breeding will not so far
prevail over the more ordinary rules of civil behaviour."
"Fair tenant of an indifferent copyhold," replied the knight, with the
same coolness and civility of mien, but in a tone somewhat more lofty than
he used to the young lady, "we do not in the southern parts, much intermingle discourse, save with those with whom we may stand on some footing
of equality; and I must, in all discretion, remind you, that the necessity
which makes us inhabitants of the same cabin, doth not place us otherwise
on a level with each other."
" By Saint Mary," replied young Glendinning, " it is my thought that it
does; for plain men hold, that he who asks the shelter is indebted to him
who gives it; and so far, therefore, is our rank equalized while this roof
covers us both."
" Thou art altogether deceived," answered Sir Piercie; " and that thou
mayst fully adapt thyself to our relative condition, know that I account not
myself thy guest, but that of thy master, the Lord Abbot of Saint Mary's,
who, for reasons best known to himself and me, chooseth to administer his
hospitality to me through the means of. thee, his servant and vassal, who
art, therefore, in good truth, as passive an instrument of my accommodation
as this ill-made and rugged joint-stool on which I sit, or as the wooden
trencher from  which I eat my coarse commons.  Wherefore," he added,
turning to Mary, " fairest mistress, or rather, as I said before, most lovely
Protection*       "
Mary Avenel was about to reply to him, when the stern, fierce, and resentful expression of-voice and countenance with which Halbert exclaimed,
There are many instances to be met with in the ancient dramas of this whimsical and conceited custom
of persons who formed an intimacy, distinguishing each other by some quaint epithet. In Every Man out of
his Humour, there is a humorous debate upon'names most-fit to bind the relation betwixt Sogliardo arnd
Cavaliero Shift, which ends by adopting those of Countenance and Resolution. What is more to the point
is in the speech of Hedon, a voluptuary and a courtier in Cynthia's Revels. " You know that I call Madam
Plilantia my Honour, and she calls me her Ambition. Now, when I meet her in the presence, anon, I will
come to her atd say,'Sweet Honour, I have hitherto contented my sense with the lilies of your hand, and
now I'will taste the roses of your lip.' To which she cannot but blushing answer,'Nay, now you are too
ambitious;' aid then do I reply,'I cannot be too ambitious of Honour, sweet lady. Wilt not be good? " —I
think there is some remnant of this foppery preserved in masonic lodges, where each brother is distinguished
by a name in the Lodge, signifying some abstract quality as Discretion, or the like. See the poenms of Ga ria
Wilson.




THE MONASTERY.                               115
"not from the King of Scotland, did he live, would I brook such terms!"
induced iLer to throw herself between him and the stranger, exclaiming,
"for God's sake, Halbert, beware what you do!"
" Fear not, fairest Protection," replied Sir Piercie, with the utmost
serenity, "that I can be provoked by this rustical and mistaught juvenal
to do aught misbecoming your presence or mine own dignity; for as soon
shall the gunner's linstock give fire unto the icicle, as the spark of passion
inflame my blood, tempered as it is to serenity by the respect due to the
presence of my gracious Protection."
" You may well call her your protection, Sir Knight," said Halbert; "by
Saint Andrew, it is the only sensible word I have heard you speak I But
we may meet where her protection shall no longer afford you shelter."
" Fairest Protection," continued the courtier, not even honouring with a
look, far less with a direct reply, the threat of the incensed Halbert, " doubt
not that thy faithful Affability will be more commoved by the speech of this
rudesby, than the bright and serene moon is perturbed by the baying of
the cottage-cur, proud of the height of his own dunghill, which, in his conceit, lifteth him nearer unto the majestic luminary."
To what lengths so unsavoury a simile might have driven Halbert's indignation, is left uncertain; for at that moment Edward rushed into the
apartment with the intelligence that two most important officers of the Convent, the Kitchener and Refectioner, were just arrived with a sumpter-mule,
loaded with provisions, announcing that the Lord Abbot, the Sub-Prior,
and the Sacristan, were on their way thither. A circumstance so very
extraordinary had never been recorded in the annals of Saint Mary's, or in
the traditions of Glendearg, though there was a faint legendary report that
a certain Abbot had dined there in old days, after having been bewildered
in a hunting expedition amongst the wilds which lie to the northward. But
that the present Lord Abbot should have taken a voluntary journey to so
wild and dreary a spot, the very Kamtschatka of the Halidome, was a thing
never dreamt of; and the news excited the greatest surprise in all the members of the family saving Halbert alone.
This fiery youth was too full of the insult he had received to think of
anything as unconnected with it.  " I am glad of it," he exclaimed; " I am
glad the Abbot comes hither. I will know of him  by what right this
stranger is sent hither to domineer over us under our father's roof, as if we
were slaves and not freemen;   I will tell the proud priest to his beard"" Alas! alas! my brother," said Edward, "think what these words may
cost thee!"
" And what will, or what can they cost me," said Halbert, " that I should
sacrifice my human feelings and my justifiable resentment to the fear of
what the Abbot can do?"
"Our mother —our mother!" exclaimed Edward; "think, if she is de
prived of her home, expelled from her property, how can you amend what
your rashness may ruin?"
"It is too true, by Heaven!" said Halbert, striking his forehead.  Then,
stamping his foot against the floor to express the full energy of the passion
to which he dared no longer give vent, he turned round and left the apartment.
Mary Avenel looked at the stranger knight, while she was endeavouring
to frame a request that he would not report the intemperate violence of her
foster-brother to the prejudice of his family, in the mind of the Abbot. But
Sir Piercie, the very pink of courtesy, conjectured her meaning from her
embarrassment, and waited not to be entreated.
"Credit me, fairest Protection," said he, "your Affability is less than
capable of seeing or hearing, far less of reciting or reiterating, aught of an
unseemly nature which may have chanced while I enjoyed the Elysium  of
your presence.  The winds of idle passion may indeed rudely agitate tho




116                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
bosom of the rude; but the heart of the courtier is polished to resist them.
As the frozen lake receives not the influence of the breeze, even so    "
The voice of Dame Glendinning, in shrill summons, here demanded Mary
Avenel's attendance, who instantly obeyed, not a little glad to escape from
the compliments and similes of this courtlike gallant. Nor was it apparently less a relief on his part; for no sooner was she past the threshold
of the room, than he exchanged the look of formal and elaborate politeness
which had accompanied each word he had uttered hitherto, for an expression
of the utmost lassitude and ennui; and after indulging in one or two portentous yawns, broke forth into a soliloquy.
" What the foul fiend sent this wench hither? As. if it were not sufficient
plague to be harboured in a hovel that would hardly serve for a dog's kennel
in England, baited by a rude peasant-boy, and dependent on the faith of a
mercenary ruffian, -but I cannot even have time to muse over my own mishap, but must come aloft, frisk, fidget, and make speeches, to please this
pale hectic phantom, because she has gentle blood in her veins? By mine
honour, setting prejudice aside, the mill-wench is the more attractive of the
two -But patienza, Piercie Shafton; thou must not lose thy well-earned
claim to be accounted a devout servant of the fair sex, a witty-brained,
prompt, and accomplished courtier. Rather thank heaven, Piercie Shafton,
which hath sent thee a subject, wherein, without derogating from thy rank,
(since the honours of the Avenel family are beyond dispute,) thou mayest
find a whetstone for thy witty compliments, a strop whereon to sharpen
thine acute engine, a butt whereat to shoot the arrows of thy gallantry.
For even as a Bilboa blade, the more it is rubbed, the brighter and the
sharper will it prove, so    But what need I waste my stock of similitudes
in holding converse with myself? -Yonder comes the monkish retinue, like
some half score of crows winging their way slowly up the valley - I hope,
a'gad, they have not forgotten my trunk-mails of apparel amid the ample
provision they have made for their own belly-timber-Mercy, a'gad, I were
finely holped up if the vesture has miscarried among the thievish Borderers!"
Stung by this reflection, he ran hastily down stairs, and caused his horse
to be saddled, that he might, as soon as possible, ascertain this important
point, by meeting the Lord Abbot and his retinue as they came up the glen.
He had not ridden a mile before he met them advancing with the slowness
and decorum which became persons of their dignity and profession. The
knight failed not to greet the Lord Abbot with all the formal compliments
with which men of rank at that period exchanged courtesies. He had the
good fortune to find that his mails were numbered among the train of baggage which attended upon the party; and, satisfied in that particular, he
turned his horse's head, and accompanied the Abbot to the Tower of
Glendearg.
Great, in the meanwhile, had been the turmoil of the good Dame Elspeth
and her coadjutors, to prepare for the fitting reception of the Father Lord
Abbot and his retinue. The monks had indeed taken care not to trust too
much to the state of her pantry; but she was not the less anxious to make
such additions as might enable her to claim the thanks of her feudal lord
and spiritual father. Meeting Halbert, as, with his blood on fire, he returned
from his altercation with her guest, she commanded him instantly to go
forth to the hill, and not to return without venison; reminding him that he
was apt enough to go thither for his own pleasure, and must now do so for
the credit of the house.
The Miller, who was now hastening his journey homewards, promised to
send up some salmon by his own servant. Dame Elspeth, who by this time
thought she had guests enough, had begun to repent of her invitation to
poor Mysie, and was just considering by what means, short of giving offence,
she could send off the Maid of the Mill behind her father, and adjourn all
her own aerial architecture till some future opportunity, when this unex



THE MONASTERY.                             117
pected generosity on the part of the sire rendered any present attempt to
return his daughter or his hands too highly ungracious to be farther thoughl
on. So the Miller departed alone on his homeward journey.
Dame Elspeth's sense of hospitality proved in this instance its own
reward; for Mysie had dwelt too near the Convent to be altogether ignorant
of the noble art of cookery, which her father patronized to the extent of
consuming on festival days such dainties as his daughter could prepare in
emulation of the luxuries of the Abbot's kitchen. Laying aside, therefore,
her holiday kirtle, and.adopting a dress more suitable to the occasion, the
good-humored maiden bared her snowy arms above the elbows; and, as
Elspeth acknowledged, in the language of the time and country, took " entire
and aefauld part with her" in the labours of the day; showing unparalleled
talent, and indefatigable industry, in the preparation of mortreux, blancmanger, and heaven knows what delicacies besides, which Dame Glendinning, unassisted by her skill, dared not even have dreamt of presenting.
Leaving this able substitute in the kitchen, and regretting that Mary
Avenel was so brought up, that she could intrust nothing to her care, unless
it might be seeing the great chamber strewed with rushes, and ornamented
with such flowers and branches as the season afforded, Dame Elspeth hastily
donned her best attire, and with a beating heart presented herself at the
door of her little tower, to make her obeisance to the Lord Abbot as he
crossed her humble threshold. Edward stood by his mother, and felt the
same palpitation, which his philosophy was at a loss to account for. He
was yet to learn how long it is ere our reason is enabled to triumph over the
force of external circumstances, and how much our feelings are affected by
novelty, and blunted by use and habit.
On the present occasion, he witnessed with wonder and awe the approach
of some half-score of riders, sober men upon sober palfreys, muffled in their
long black garments, and only relieved by their white scapularies, showing
more like a funeral procession than aught else, and not quickening their
pace beyond that which permitted easy conversation and easy digestion.
The sobriety of the scene was indeed somewhat enlivened by the presence
of Sir Piercie Shafton, who, to show that his skill in the manege was not
inferior to his other accomplishments, kept alternately pressing and checking
his gay courser, forcing him to piaffe, to caracole, to passage, and to do all
the other feats of the school, to the great annoyance of the Lord Abbot, the
wonted sobriety of whose palfrey became at length discomposed by the
vivacity of its companion, while the dignitary kept crying out in bodily
alarm, "I do pray you - Sir Knight- good now, Sir Piercie - Be quiet,
Benedict, there is a good steed-soh, poor fellow i" and uttering all the other
precatory and soothing exclamations by which a timid horseman usually
bespeaks the favour of a frisky companion, or of his own unquiet nag,
and concluding the bead-roll with a sincere Deo gratias so soon as he
alighted in the court-yard of the Tower of Glendearg.
The inhabitants unanimously knelt down to kiss the hand of the Lord
Abbot, a ceremony which even the monks were often condemned to. Good
Abbot Boniface was too much fluttered by the incidents of the latter part
of his journey, to go through this ceremony with much solemnity, or indeed
with much patience. He kept wiping his brow with a snow-white handkerchief with one hand, while another was abandoned to the homage of his
vassals; and then signing the cross with his outstretched arm, and exclaim
ing, "Bless ye -bless ye, my children!" he hastened into the house, and
murmured not a little at the darkness and steepness of the rugged winding
stair, whereby he at length scaled the spence destined for his entertainment,
and, overcome with fatigue, threw himself, I do not say into an easy chair,
but into the easiest the apartment afforded.




118                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
1ljittr tip   Rixtuit4.
A courtier extraordinary, who by diet
Of meats and drinks, his temperate exercise,
Choice music, frequent bath, his horary sinfts
Of shirts and waistcoats, means to immortalize
Mortality itself, and makes the essence
Of his whole happiness the trim of court.
MAGNETIC LADY.
WHIEN the Lord Abbot had suddenly and superciliously vanished frc r
the eyes of his expectant vassals, the Sub-Prior made amends for thei
negligence of his principal, by the kind and affectionate greeting which he
gave to all the members of the family, but especially to Dame Elspeth, her
foster-daughter, and her son Edward.  "Where," he even condescended to
inquire, "is that naughty Nimrod, IIalbert?-IIe hath not yet, I trust,
turned, like his great prototype, his hunting-spear against man!"
"0 no, an it please your reverence," said Dame Glendinning, "Halbert
is up at the glen to get some venison, or surely he would not have been
absent when such a day of honour dawned upon me and mine."
" Oh, to get savoury meat, such as our soul loveth," muttered the SubPrior; "it has been at times an acceptable gift. - I bid you good morrow,
my good dame, as I must attend upon his lordship the Father Abbot."
-' And 0, reverend sir," said the good Widow, detaining him, " if it might
be your pleasure to take part with us if there is any thing wrong; and if
there is any thing wanted, to say that it is just coming, or to make some
excuses your learning best knows how. Every bit of vassail and silver
work have we been spoiled of since Pinkie Cleuch, when I lost poor Simon
Glendinning, that was the warst of a'."
"Never mind-never fear," said the Sub-Prior, gently extricating his
garment from the anxious grasp of Dame Elspeth, " the Refectioner has
with him the Abbot's plate and drinking cups; and I pray you to believe
that whatever is short in your entertainment will be deemed amply made
up in your good-will."
So saying, he escaped from her and went into the spence, where such
preparations as haste permitted were making for the noon collation of the
Abbot and the English knight. Here he found the Lord Abbot, for whom
a cushion, composed of all the plaids in the house, had been unable to
render Simon's huge elbow-chair a soft or comfortable place of rest.
"Benedicite t" said Abbot Boniface, "now marry fie upon these hard
benches with all my heart -they are as uneasy as the scabella of our
novices. Saint Jude be with us, Sir Knight, how have you contrived to
pass over the night in this dungeon?  An your bed was no softer than your
seat, you might as well have slept on the stone couch of Saint Pacomius.
After trotting a full ten miles, a man needs a softer seat than has fallen to
my hard lot."
With sympathizing faces, the Sacristan and the Refectioner ran to raise
the Lord Abbot, and to adjust his seat to his mind, which was at length
accomplished in some sort, although he continued alternately to bewail his
fatigue, and to exult in the conscious sense of having discharged an arduous
duty. "You errant cavaliers," said he, addressing the knight, "may now
perceive that others have their travail and their toils to undergo as well as
your honoured faculty.  And,this I will say for myself and the soldiers of
Saint Mary, among whom I may be termed captain, that it is not our wont
to flinch from the heat of the service, or to withdraw from the good fight.
No, by Saint Mary  - no sooner did I learn that you were here, and dared




THE MONASTERY.                               119
iot for certain reasons come to the Monastery, where, with as good will,
and with more convenience, we might have given you a better reception,
than, striking the table with my hammer, I called a brother- Timothy,
said I, let them  saddle Benedict-let them  saddle my black palfrey, and
bid the Sub-Prior and some half-score of attendants be in readiness tomorrow  after matins —we would ride to Glendearg. -Brother Timothy
stared, thinking, I imagine, that his ears had scarce done him justice-but
I repeated my commands, and said, Let the Kitchener and Refectioner go
before to aid the poor vassals to whom the place belongs in making a suitable collation.  So that you will consider, good Sir Piercie, our mutual incommodities, and forgive whatever you may find amiss."
"By my faith," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "there is nothing to forgive -
If you spiritual warriors have to submit to the grievous incommodities
which your lordship narrates, it would ill become me, a sinful and secular
man, to complain of a bed as hard as a board, of broth which relished as if
made of burnt wool, of flesh, which, in its sable and singed shape, seemed
to put me on a level with Richard Coeur-de-Lion, when he ate up the head
of a Moor carbonadoed, and of other viands savouring rather of the rusticity of this northern region."
"By the good Saints, sir," said the Abbot, somewhat touched in point
of his character for hospitality, of which he was in truth a most faithful
and zealous professor, " it grieves me to the heart that you have found our
vassals no better provided for your reception-Yet I crave leave to observe,
that if Sir Piercie Shafton's affairs had permitted him to honour with his
company our poor house of Saint Mary's, he might have had less to complain of in respect of easements."
" To give your lordship the reasons," said Sir Piercie Shafton, " why I
could not at this present time approach your dwelling, or avail myself of
its well-known and undoubted hospitality, craves either some delay, or,"
looking around him, " a limited audience."
The Lord Abbot immediately issued his mandate to the Refectioner:' Hie thee to the kitchen, Brother Iilarius, and there make inquiry of our
brother the Kitchener, within what time he opines that our collation may
be prepared, since sin and sorrow it were, considering the hardships of this
noble and gallant knight, no whit mentioning or weighing those we ourselves have endured, if we were now either to advance or retard the hour
of refection beyond the time when the viands are fit to be set before us."
Brother Hilarius parted with an eager alertness to execute the will of his
Superior, and returned with the assurance, that punctually at one afternoon
would the collation be ready.
"Before that time," said the accurate Refectioner, "the wafers, flamms,
and pastry-meat, will scarce have had the just degree of fire which learned
pottingers prescribe as fittest for the body; and if it should be past one
o'clock, were it but ten minutes, our brother the Kitchener opines, that the
haunch of venison would suffer in spite of the skill of the little turn-broche
whom he has recommended to your holiness by his praises."
"How I" said the Abbot, "a haunch of venison! -from whence comes
that dainty? I remember not thou didst intimate its presence in thy hamper
of vivers."
"So please your holiness and lordship," said the Refectioner, "he is a
son of the woman of the house who has shot it and sent it in -killed but
now; yet, as the animal heat hath not left the body, the Kitchener undertakes it shall eat as tender as a young chicken - and this youth hath a
special gift in shooting deer, and never misses the heart or the brain; so
that the blood is not driven through the flesh, as happens too often with us.
It is a hart of grease -your holiness has seldom seen such a haunch."
"Silence, Brother Hilarius," said the Abbot, wiping his mouth; "it is
not beseeming our order to talk of food so earnestly, especially as we must




120                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
oft have our animal powers exhausted by fasting, and be accessible (as being
ever mere mortals) to those signs of longing" (he again wiped his mouth)
" which arise on the mention of victuals to an hungry man. - Minute down,
however, the name of that youth —it is fitting merit should be rewarded,
and he shall hereafter be a frater ad succurrendum in the kitchen and buttery."
"Alas! reverend Father and my good lord," replied the Refectioner, "I
did inquire after the youth, and I learn he is one who prefers the casque to
the cowl, and the sword of the flesh to the weapons of the spirit."
" And if it be so," said the Abbot, " see that thou retain him as a deputykeeper and man-at-arms, and not as a lay brother of the Monastery —for
old Tallboy, our forester, waxes dim-eyed, and hath twice spoiled a noble
buck, by hitting him  unwarily on'the haunch. Ah!'tis a foul fault, the
abusing by evil-killing, evil-dressing, evil-appetite, or otherwise, the good
creatures indulged to us for our use. Wherefore, secure us the service of
this youth, Brother Hilarius, in the way that may best suit him. - And
now, Sir Piercie Shafton, since the fates have assigned us a space of wellnigh an hour, ere we dare hope to enjoy more than the vapour or savour of
our repast, may I pray you, of your courtesy, to tell me the cause of this
visit; and, above all, to inform us, why you will not approach our more
pleasant and better furnished hospitium?"
" Reverend Father, and my very good lord," said Sir Piercie Shafton, " it
is well known to your wisdom, that there are stone walls which have ears,
and that secrecy is to be looked to in matters which concern a man's head."
The Abbot signed to his attendants, excepting the Sub-Prior, to leave the
room, and then said, " Your valour, Sir Piercie, may freely unburden yourself before our faithful friend and counsellor Father Eustace, the benefits
of whose advice we may too soon lose, inasmuch as his merits will speedily
recommend him  to an higher station, in which we trust he may find the
blessing of a friend and adviser as valuable as himself, since I may say of
him, as our claustral rhyme goeth,*'Dixit Abbas ad Prioris.
Tu es homo boni nioris,
Quia semper sanioris
Mihi das concilia.'
Indeed," he added, " the office of Sub-Prior is altogether beneath our dear
brother; nor can we elevate him  unto that of Prior, which, for certain
reasons, is at present kept vacant amongst us. Howbeit, Father Eustace is
fully possessed of my confidence, and worthy of yours, and well may it be
said of him, Intravit in secretes nostris."
Sir Piercie Shafton bowed to the reverend brethren, and, heaving a sigh,
as if he would burst his steel cuirass, he thus commenced his speech:" Certes, reverend sirs, I may well heave such a suspiration, who have, as
it were, exchanged heaven for purgatory, leaving the lightsome sphere of
the royal court of England for a remote nook in this inaccessible desertquitting the tilt-yard, where I was ever ready among my compeers to splinter
a lance, either for the love of honour, or for the honour of love, in order to
couch my knightly spear against base and pilfering besognios and marauders- exchanging the lighted halls, wherein I used nimbly to pace the swift
coranto, or to move with a loftier grace in the stately galliard, for this
rugged and decayed dungeon of rusty-coloured stone-quitting the gay
theatre, for the solitary chimney-nook of a Scottish dog-house - bartering
the sounds of the soul-ravishing lute, and the love-awaking viol-de-gamba,
for the discordant squeak of a northern bagpipe —above all, exchanging
the smiles of those beauties, who form a gay galaxy around the throne of
England, for the cold courtesy of an untaught damsel, and the bewildered
* The rest of this doggerel rhyme may be found in Fosbrooke's earned work on British Monachism.




THE  MONASTERY.                               121
stare of a miller's maiden. More might I say of the exchange of the conversation of gallant knights and gay courtiers of mine own order and
capacity, whose conceits are bright and vivid as the lightning, for that of
monks and churchmen - but it were discourteous %o urge that topic."
The Abbot listened to this list of complaints with great round eyes, which
evinced no exact intelligence of the orator's meaning; and when the knight
paused to take breath, he looked with a doubtful -and inquiring eye at the
Sub-Prior, not well knowing in what tone he should reply to an exordium
so extraordinary.. The Sub-Prior accordingly stepped in to the relief of his
principal.
"We deeply sympathize with you, Sir Knight, in the several mortifications and hardships to which fate has subjected you, particularly in that
which has thrown you into the society of those, who, as they were conscious
they deserved not such an honour, so neither did they at all desire it. But
all this goes little way to expound the cause of this train of disasters, or, in
plainer words, the reason which has compelled you into a situation having
so few charms for you."
"Gentle and reverend sir," replied the knight, "forgive an unhappy person, who, in giving a history of his miseries, dilateth upon them extremely,
even as he who, having fallen from a precipice, looketh upward to measure
the height from which he hath been precipitated."
"Yea, but," said Father Eustace, "methinks it were wiser in him to tell
those who come to lift him up, which of his bones have been broken."
" You, reverend sir," said the knight, " have, in the encounter of our wits,
made a fair attaint; whereas I may be in some sort said to have broken my
staff across.*  Pardon me, grave sir, that I speak in the language of the
tilt-yard, which is doubtless strange to your reverend years. -Ah! brave
resort of the noble, the fair and the gay! - Ah! throne of love, and citadel
of honour!- Ah! celestial beauties, by whose bright eyes it is graced!
Never more shall Piercie Shafton advance, as the centre of your radiant
glances, couch his lance, and spur his horse at the sound of the spirit-stirring
trumpets, nobly called the voice of war —never more shall he baffle his
adversary's encounter boldly, break his spear dexterously, and ambling
around the lovely circle, receive the rewards with which beauty honours
chivalry!"
liere he paused, wrung his hands, looked upwards, and seemed lost in
contemplation of his own fallen fortunes.
" Mad, very mad," whispered the Abbot to the Sub-Prior; "I would we
were fairly rid of him; for, of a truth, I expect he will proceed from raving
to mischief-Were it not better to call up the rest of the brethren?"
But the Sub-Prior knew better than his Superior how to distinguish the
jargon of affectation from the ravings of insanity, and although the extremity
of the knight's passion seemed altogether fantastic, yet he was not ignorant
to what extravagancies the fashion of the day can conduct its votaries.
Allowing, therefore, two minutes' space to permit the knight's enthusiastic
feelings to exhaust themselves, he again gravely reminded him that the
Lord Abbot had taken a journey, unwonted to his age and habits, solely to
learn in what he could serve Sir Piercie Shafton-that it was altogether
impossible he could do so without his receiving distinct information of the
situation in which he had now sought refuge in Scotland. —" The day wore
on," he observed, looking at the window; " and if the Abbot should be
obliged to return to the Monastery without obtaining the necessary intelligence, the regret might be mutual, but the inconvenience was like to be all
on Sir Piercie's own side."
The hint was not thrown away.
* Attaint was a term of tilting used to express the champion's having attained his mark, or, in other words,
struck his lance straight and fair against the helmet or breast of his adversary. Whereas to break the lance
across, intiinated a total failure in directing the point of the weapon on the object of his aim.
L




122                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"0, goddess of courtesy!" said the knight, " can I so far have forgotten
thy behests as to make this good prelate's ease and time a sacrifice to my vain
complaints'! Know, then, most worthy, and not less worshipful, that I, your
poor visitor and guest, am by birth nearly bound to the Piercie of Northumberland, whose fame is so widely blown through all parts of the world where
English worth hath been known. Now, thjs present Earl of Northumberland, of whom I propose to give you the brief history    "
" It is altogether unnecessary," said the Abbot; " we know him to be a
good and true nobleman, and a sworn upholder of our Catholic faith, in the
spite of the heretical woman who now sits upon the throne of England.
And it is specially as his kinsman, and as knowing that ye partake with him
in such devout and faithful belief and adherence to our holy Mother Church,
that we say to you, Sir Piercie Shafton, that ye be heartily welcome to-us,
and that, and we wist how, we would labour to do you good service in your
extremity.'
"For such kind offer I rest your most humble debtor," said Sir Piercie,
"'nor need I at this moment say more than that my Right Honourable
Cousin of Northumberland, having devised with me and some others, the
choice and picked spirits of the age, how and by what means the worship
of God, according to the Catholic Church, might be again introduced into
this distracted kingdom of England, (even as one deviseth, by the assistance
of his friend, to catch and bridle a runaway steed,) it pleased him so deeply
to intrust me in those communications, that my personal safety becomes, as
it were, entwined or complicated therewith. Natheless, as we have had
sudden reason to believe, this Princess Elizabeth, who maintaineth around
her a sort of counsellors'skilful in tracking whatever schemes may be pursued for bringing her title into challenge, or for erecting again the discipline
of the Catholic Church, has obtained certain knowledge of the trains which
we had laid before we could give fire unto them. Wherefore, my Right
Honourable Cousin of Northumberland, thinking it best belike that one
man should take both blame and shame for the whole, did lay the burden
of all this trafficking upon. my back; which load I am the rather content to
bear, in that he hath always shown himself my kind and honourable kinsman, as well as that my estate, I wot not how, hath of late been somewhat
insufficient to maintain the expense of those braveries, wherewith it is
incumbent on us, who are chosen and selected spirits, to distinguish ourselves from the vulgar."
" So that possibly," said the Sub-Prior, "your private affairs rendered a
foreign journey less incommodious to you than it might have been to. the
noble earl, your right worthy cousin?"
"You are right, reverend sir," answered the courtier; "rem acu-you
have touched the point with a needle-My cost and expenses had been
indeed somewhat lavish at the late triumphs and tourneys, and. the flatcapp'd citizens had shown themselves unwilling to furnish my pocket for
new gallantries for the honour of the nation, as well as for mine own peculiar glory-and, to speak truth, it was in some part the hope of seeing these
matters amended that led me to desire a new world in England."
"So that the miscarriage of your public enterprise, with the derangement
of your own private affairs," said the Sub-Prior, "have induced you to seek
Scotland as a place of refuge?"
" Rem acu, once again," said Sir Piercie; and not without good cause,
since my neck, if I remained, might have been brought within the circumstances of a halter —and so speedy was my journey northward, that I had
but time to exchange my peach-coloured doublet of Genoa velvet, thickly
laid over with goldsmith's work, for this cuirass, which was made by Bonamico of Milan, and travelled northward with all speed, judging that I
might do well to visit my Right Honourable Cousin of Northumberland, at
one of his numerous castles. But as I posted towards Alnwick, even with




THE  MONASTERY.                             123
the speed of a star, which, darting from its native sphere, shoots wildly
downwards, I was met at Northallerton by one Henry Vaughan, a servant
of my right honourable kinsman, who showed me, that as then I might not
with safety come to his presence, seeing that, in obedience to orders from
his court, he was obliged to issue out letters for my incarceration."
"This," said the Abbot, "seems but hard measure on the part of your
honourable kinsman."
"It might be so judged, my lord," replied Sir Piercie; "nevertheless, I
will stand to the death for the honour of my Right Honourable Cousin of
Northumberland. Also, Ienry Vaughan gave me, from my said cousin, a
good- horse, and a purse of gold, with two Border-prickers, as they are
called, for my guides, who conducted me, by such roads and by-paths as
have never been seen since the days of Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristrem, into
this kingdom of Scotland, and to the house of a certain baron, or one who
holds the style of such, called Julian Avenel, with whom I found such
reception as the place and party could afford."
"And that," said the Abbot, "must have been right wretched; for to
judge from the appetite which Julian showeth when abroad, he hath not, I
judge, over-abundant provision at home."
" You are right, sir-your reverence is in the right," continued Sir Piercie;
" we had but lenten fare, and, what was worse, a score to clear at the departure; for though this Julian Avenel called us to no reckoning, yet he did
so extravagantly admire the fashion of my poniard -the poignet being of
silver exquisitely hatched, and indeed the weapon being altogether a piece of
exceeding rare device and beauty —that in faith I could not for very shame's
sake but pray his acceptance of it; words which he gave me not the trouble
of repeating twice, before he had stuck it into his greasy buff-belt, where,
credit me, reverend sir, it showed more like a butcher's knife than a gentleman's dagger."
"So goodly a gift might at least have purchased you a few days' hospitality," said Father Eustace.
"Reverend sir," said Sir Piercie, " had I abidden with him, I should have
been complimented out of every remnant of my wardrobe-actually flayed,
by the hospitable gods I swear it! Sir, he secured my spare doublet, and
had a pluck at my galligaskins — I was enforced to beat a retreat before I
was altogether unrigged. That Border knave, his serving man, had a pluck
at me too, and usurped a scarlet cassock and steel cuirass belonging to the
page of my body, whom I was fain to leave behind me. In good time I
received a letter from my Right Honourable Cousin, showing me that he
had written to you in my behalf, and sent to your charge two mails filled
with wearing apparel-namely, my rich crimson silk doublet, slashed out
and lined with cloth of gold, which I wore at the last revels, with baldric
and trimmings to correspond-also two pair black silk slops, with hanging
garters of carnation silk-also the flesh-coloured silken doublet, with the
trimmings of fur, in which I danced the salvage man at the Gray's-Ina
mummery   also - "
"Sir Knight," said the Sub-Prior, "I pray you to spare the farther inventory of your wardrobe. The monks of Saint Mary's are no free-booting
barons, and whatever part of your vestments arrived at our house, have
been this day faithfully brought hither, with the mails which contained
them. I may presume from what has been said, as we have indeed been
given to understand by the Earl of Northumberland, that your desire is to
remain for the present as unknown and as unnoticed, as may be consistent
with your high worth and distinction?'
"Alas, reverend father!" replied the courtier, "a blade when it is in the
scabbard cannot give lustre, a diamond when it is in the casket cannot give
light, and worth, when it is compelled by circumstances to obscure itself,




124                            WAVERLEY NOVELS.
cannot draw observation —my retreat can only attract the admiration of
those few  to whom   circumstances permit its displaying itself."
"I conceive now, my venerable father and lord," said the Sub-Prior, "that
your wisdom  will assign such a course of conduct to this noble knight, as may
be alike consistent with his safety, and with the weal of the community.
For you wot well, that perilous  strides  have been made in these audacious
days, to the destruction of all ecclesiastical foundations, and that our holy
community has been repeatedly menaced. Hitherto they have found no
flaw  in our raiment; but a party, friendly as well to the Queen of England,
as to the heretical doctrines of the schismatical church, or even to worse
and wilder forms of heresy, prevails now at the court of our sovereign, who
dare not yield to her suffering clergy the protection she would gladly extend
to them."
" My lord, and reverend  sir," said the knight, "I will gladly relieve you
of my presence, while ye canvass this matter at your freedom; and to speak
truly, I am  desirous to see in what case the chamberlain of my noble kinsman hath found my wardrobe, and how he hath packed the same, and
whether it has suffered from the journey -there are four suits of as pure
and elegant device as ever the fancy of a fair lady doated upon, every one
having a treble, and appropriate change of ribbons, trimmings, and fringes,
which, in  case  of need, may as it were renew  each  of them, and multiply
the four into twelve.-  There is also  my sad-coloured riding-suit, and three
cut-work shirts with falling bands-I pray you, pardon mne-I must needs
see how  matters stand with them  without farther dallying."
Thus  speaking, he  left the room; and  the  Sub-Prior, looking  after him
significantly, added, "Where the treasure is will the heart be also."
"Saint Mary  preserve  our  wits! - said  the  Abbot,  stunned  with  the
knight's abundance of words; " were man's brains ever so stuffed with silk
and  broadcloth, cut-work, and  I wot not what besides!  And  what could
move the Earl of Northumberland  to  assume for his bosom   counsellor, in
matters of death and danger, such a feather-brained coxcomb as this?"
" Had  he  been  other than what he is, venerable  father," said  the  SubPrior," he had been less fitted for the part of scape-goat, to which his Right
Honourable Cousin had probably destined him from the commencement, in
case of their plot failing.   I know  something of this Piercie Shafton.   The
legitimacy  of his mother's descent from   the  Piercie  family, the  point on
which  he  is  most jealous, hath  been  called  in  question.   If hairbrained
courage, and an outrageous  spirit of gallantry, can make good  his  pretensions to the high lineage he claims, these  qualities have never been denied
him. For the rest, he is one of the ruffling gallants of the time, like Rowland  Yorke, Stukely,*  and  others, who  wear out their fortunes, and  endanger their lives, in idle braveries, in order that they may be esteemed the
only choice gallants  of the time; and afterwards  endeavour to repair their
* "Yorke," says Camden, "was a Londoner, a man of loose and dissolute behaviour. and desperately audacroUS-fanmus in his time amongst the commnon bullies and swaggerers, as being the first that, to thle great
admiration of many at his boldness, brouglht into England the bold and dangerous way of fencing with the
rapier in duelling. Whereas, till that time, the English used to fight with long swords and bucklers, striking
with the edge, and thought it no part of man either to push or strike beneath the girdle.
Having a command in the Low Countries, Yorke revolted to the Spaniards, and died miserably, poisoned, as
was supposed, by his new allies. Three years afterwards, his bones were dug up and gibbeted by tile conmmand of tile States of Holland.
Thornits Stukely, another distinguished gallant of the time, was bred a merchant, being the son of a rich
clothier in the west. He wedded the daughter and heiress of a wealthy aldermanl of London, nalmed Curtis,
after whose death he squandered the riches he thus acquired in all manner of extravagance. His wife
whose firtune supplied his waste, represented to him that tie ought to nake more of her. Stukely replied,
"I will nmake as Imuchi of thee, believe me, as it is possible for any to do;" and ihe kept his word in one sense,
having stripped her even of her wearing apparel, before he finally ran away from her.
Having fled to Italy, he contrived to impose upon the Pope, with a plan of invading Ireland. for which he
levied soldiers, and made some preparations, but ended by engaging himself and his troops in the service of
King Sebastian of Portugal. He sailed with that prince on his fatal voyage to Baribary, and fell with him at
the battle of Alcazar.
Stikely, as one of the first gallants of the time, has had the honour to he chronicled in song, in Evans'
Old Ballads, vol. iii. edition 1810. His ftte is also introduced in a tragedy, by Geiorge Peel, as has been suppsed, called tie Battle of Alcazar, from which play Dryden is allegedt tor have taken the idea of Don Sel)astian i If so. it is surprising he omitted a character so congenial to King Charles the Second's time as the
fWtty, brave, and prolligate T'houas Stukely.




THE MONASTERY.                             125
estate, by engaging in the desperate plots and conspiracies which wiser heads
have devised. To use one of his own conceited similitudes, such courageous
fools resemble hawks, which the wiser conspirator keeps hooded and blinded
on his wrist until the quarry is on the wing, and who are then flown at
them."
"Saint Mary," said the Abbot, "he were an evil guest to introduce into
our quiet household. Our young monks make bustle, enough, and more
than is beseeming God's servants, about their outward attire already-this
knight were enough to turn their brains, from the Vesiarius down to the
very scullion boy."
"A worse evil might follow," said the Sub-Prior: "in these bad days,
the patrimony of the church is bought and sold, forfeited and distrained,
as if it were the unhallowed soil appertaning to a secular baron. Think
what penalty awaits us, were we convicted of harbouring a rebel to her
whom they call the Queen of England! There would neither be wanting
Scottish parasites to beg the lands of the foundation, nor an army from England to burn and harry the Halidome. The men of Scotland were once Scotsmen, firm and united in the love of their country, and throwing every other
consideration aside when the frontier was menaced - now they are - what
shall I call them-the one part French, the other part English, considering
their dear native country merely as a prize-fighting stage, upon which
foreigners are welcome to decide their quarrels."
"Benedictine 1" replied the Abbot, "they are indeed slippery and evil
times."
"And therefore," said Father Eustace, "we must walk warily-we must
not, for example, bring this man-this Sir Piercie Shafton, to our house of
Saint Mary's."
"But how then shall we dispose of him?" replied the Abbot; "bethink
thee that he is a sufferer for holy Church's sake-that his patron, the Earl
of Northumberland, hath been our friend, and that, lying so near us, he
may work us weal or wo according as we deal with his kinsman."
"And, accordingly," said the Sub-Prior, "for these reasons, as well as
for discharge of the great duty of Christian charity, I would protect and
relieve this man. Let him not go back to Julian Avenel-that unconscientious baron would not stick to plunder the exiled stranger-Let him remain
here-the spot is secluded, and if the accommodation be beneath his quality,
discovery will become the less likely. We will make such means for his
convenience as we can devise."
"Will he be persuaded, thinkest thou?" said the Abbot; "I will leave
my own travelling bed for his repose, and send up a suitable easychair."
"With such easements," said the Sub-Prior, "he must not complain; and
then, if threatened by any sudden danger, he can soon come down to the
sanctuary, where we will harbour him in secret until means can be devised
of dismissing him in safety."
"Were we not better," said the Abbot, "send him on to the court, and
get rid of him at once?"
"Ay, but at the expense of our friends - this butterfly may fold his wings,
and lie under cover in the cold air of Glendearg; but were he at Holyrood,
he would, did his life depend on it, expand his spangled drapery in the eyes
of the queen and court - Rather than fail of distinction, he would sue for
love to our gracious sovereign -the eyes of all men would be upon him in
the course of three short days, and the international peace of the two ends
of the island endangered for a creature, who, like a silly moth, cannot
abstain from fluttering round a light."
"Thou hast prevailed with me, Father Eustace," said the Abbot, "and it
will go hard but I improve on thy plan - I will send up in secret, not only
household stuff, but wine and wassell-bread. There is a young swankie here
u w 




126                     WAVERLEYN OVELS.
who shoots venison well.  I will give him directions to see that the knight
lacks none."
"Whatever accommodation he can have, which infers not a risk of discovery," said the Sub-Prior, "it is our duty to afford him."
" Nay," said the Abbot, " we will do more, and will instantly despatch a
servant express to the keeper of our revestiary to send us such things as
he may want, even this night.  See it done, good father."
"I will," answered Father Eustace; "but I hear the gull clamorous for
some one to truss his points.*  Ie will be fortunate if he lights on any one
here who can do him the office of groom of the chamber."
" I would he would appear," said the Abbot, "for here comes the Refectioner with the collation -By my faith, the ride hath given me a sharp
appetite-!",  apter tie    anutnnutD.
I'll seek for other aid —Spirits, they say,
Flit round invisible, as thick as motes
Dance in the sunbeam. If that spell
Or necromancer's sigil can compel them,
They shall hold council with me.
JAMES DUFF.
THE reader's attention must be recalled to Halbert Glendinning, who had
left the Tower of Glendearg immediately after his quarrel with its new
guest, Sir Piercie Shafton. As he walked with a rapid pace up the glen,
Old Martin followed him, beseeching him to be less hasty.
"Halbert," said the old man, "you will never live to have white hair, if
you take fire thus at every spark of provocation."
"And why should I wish it, old man," said Halbert, "if -I am to be the
butt that every fool may aim a shaft of scorn against? - What avails it, old
man, that you yourself move, sleep, and wake, eat thy niggard meal, and
repose on thy hard pallet?-Why art thou so well pleased that the morning
should call thee up to daily toil, and the evening again lay thee down a
wearied-out wretch?  Were it not better sleep and wake no more, than to
undergo this dull exchange of labour for insensibility and of insensibility
for labour?"
"God help me," answered Martin, "there may be truth in what thou
sayest —but walk slower, for my old limbs cannot keep pace with your
young legs -walk slower, and I will tell you why age, though unlovely, is
yet endurable."
"Speak on then," said Halbert, slackening his pace, "but remember we
must seek venison to refresh the fatigues of these holy men, who will this
morning have achieved a journey of ten miles; and if we reach not the
Brocksburn head we are scarce like to see an antler."
"Then know, my good Halbert," said Martin, "whom I love as my own
son, that I am satisfied to live till death calls me, because my Maker wills
it. Ay, and although I spend what men call a hard life, pinched with cold
in winter, and burnt with heat in summer, though I feed hard and sleep
hard, and am held mean and despised, yet I bethink me, that were I of no
use on the face of this fair creation, God would withdraw me from it."
The points were the strings of cord or ribbon, (so called, because pointed with metal like the laces of
wpmen's stays,\ which attached the doublet to the hose. They were very numerous, and required assistance
to lie them properly, which was called trussing.




THE MONASTERY.                              127
" Trlou poor old man," said Halbert, " and can such a vain conceit as this
of thy fancied use, reconcile thee to a world where thou playest so poor a
part?"
"My part was nearly as poor," said Martin, "my person nearly as much
despised, the day that I saved my mistress and her child from perishing in
the wilderness."
"Right, Martin," answered Halbert; "there, indeed, thou didst what
might be a sufficient apology for a whole life of insignificance."
"And do you account it for nothing, Halbert, that I should have the
power of giving you a lesson of patience, and submission to the destinies of
Providence? Methinks there is use for the grey hairs on the old scalp, were
it but to instruct the green head by precept and by example.'-'
Halbert held down his face, and remained silent for a minute or two, and
then resumed his discourse: " Martin, seest thou aught changed in me of
late?"
"Surely," said Martin. "I have always known you hasty, wild, and inconsiderate, rude, and prompt to speak at the volley and without reflection;
but now, methinks, your bearing, without losing its natural fire, has something in it of force and dignity which it had not before. It seems as if you
had fallen asleep a carle, and awakened a gentleman."
"Thou canst judge, then, of noble bearing?" said Halbert.
"Surely," answered Martin, "in some sort I can; for I have travelled
through court, and camp, and city, with my master, Walter Avenel, although
he coutld do nothing for me in the long run, but give me room for two score
of sheep on the hill -and surely even now, while I speak with you, I feel
sensible that my language is more refined than it is my wont to use, and
that-though I know not the reason-the rude northern dialect, so familiar
to my tongue, has given place to a more town-bred speech."
"And this change in thyself and me, thou canst by no means account
for?" said young Glendinning.
"Change!" replied Martin, "by our Lady it is not so much a change
which I feel, as a recalling and renewing sentiments and expressions which
I had some thirty years since, ere Tibb and I set up our humble household.
It is singular, that your society should have this sort of influence over me,
Halbert, and that I should never have experienced it ere now."
" Thinkest thou," said Halbert, " thou seest in me aught that can raise
me from this base, low, despised state, into one where I may rank with those
proud men, who now despise my clownish poverty?"
Martin paused an instant, and then answered, " Doubtless you may, Halbert; as broken a ship has come to land. Heard ye never of Hughie Dun,
who left this Halidome some thirty-five years gone by? A deliverly fellow
was Hughie-could read and write like a priest, and could wield brand and
buckler with the best of the riders. I mind him-the like of him was
never seen in the Halidome of Saint Mary's, and so was seen of the preferment that God sent him."
" And what was that?" said Halbert, his eyes sparkling with eagerness.
" Nothing less," answered Martin, " than body-servant to the Archbishop
of Saint Andrews!"
Halbert's countenance fell.-" A servant-and to a priest?  Was this all
that knowledge and activity could raise him to?"
Martin, in his turn, looked with wistful surprise in the face of his young
friend.  "And to what could fortune lead him  farther?" answered he.
" The son of a kirk-feuar is not the stuff that lords and knights are made
of. Courage and school craft cannot change churl's blood into gentle blood,
I trow. I have heard, forby, that Hughie Dun left a good five hundred
punds of Scots money to his only daughter, and that she married the Bailie
of Pittenweem."
At this moment, and while Halbert was embarrassed with devising a




128                  WAVERLEY NOVEL$.
suitable answer, a deer bounded across their path. In an instant the crossbow was at the youth's shoulder, the bolt whistled, and the deer, after giving
one bound upright, dropt dead on the green sward.
"There lies the venison our dame wanted," said Martin; "who would
have thought of an out-lying stag being so low down the glen at this season?
-And it is a hart of grease too, in full season, and three inches of fat on
the brisket. -Now this is all your luck, Ialbert, that follows you, go where
you like. Were you to put in for it, I would warrant you were made one
of the Abbot's yeoman-prickers, and ride about in a purple doublet as bold
as the best."
"Tush, man," answered Halbert, "I will serve the Queen or no one.
Take thou care to have down the venison to the Tower, since they expect it.
I will on to the moss. I have two or three bird-bolts at my girdle, and it
may be I shall find wild-fowl."
He hastened his pace, and was soon out of sight. Martin paused for a
moment, and looked after him. "There goes the making of a right gallant
stripling, an ambition have not the spoiling of him-Serve the Queen! said
he. By my faith, and she hath worse servants, from all that I e'er heard
of him. And wherefore should he not keep a high head? They that ettle
to the top of the ladder will at least get up some rounds. They that mint*
at a gown of gold, will always get a sleeve of it. But come, sir, (addressing
the stag,) you shall go to Glendearg on my two legs somewhat more slowly
than you were frisking it even now on your own four nimble shanks. Nay,
by my faith, if you be so heavy, I will content me with the best of you, and
that's the haunch and the nombles, and e'en heave up the rest on the old
oak-tree yonder, and come back for it with one of the yauds."t
While Martin returned to Glendearg with the venison, Halbert prosecuted
his walk, breathing more easily since he was free of his companion. "The
domestic of a proud and lazy priest-body-squire to the Archbishop of
Saint Andrews," he repeated to himself; " and this, with the privilege of
allying his blood with the Bailie of Pittenween, is thought a preferment
worth a brave man's struggling for; - nay more, a preferment which, if
allowed, should crown the hopes, past, present, and to come, of the son of
a Kirk-vassal! By Heaven, but that I find in me a reluctance to practise
their acts of nocturnal rapine, I would rather take the jack and lance, and
join with the Border-riders. - Something I will do. Here, degraded and
dishonoured, I will not live the scorn of each whiffling stranger from the
South, because, forsooth, he wears tinkling spurs on a tawney boot. This
thing-this phantom, be it what it will, I will see it once more. Since I
spoke with her, and touched her hand, thoughts and feelings have dawned
on me, of which my former life had not even dreamed; but shall I, who
feel my father's glen too narrow for my expanding spirit, brook to be
bearded in it by this vain gewgaw of a courtier, and in the sight too of
Mary Avenel? I will not stoop to it, by Heaven!"
As he spoke thus, he arrived in the sequestered glen of Corri-nan-shian,
as it verged upon the hour of noon. A few moments he remained looking
upon the fountain, and doubting in his own mind with what countenance
the White Lady might receive him. She had not indeed expressly forbidden
his again evoking her; but yet there was something like such a prohibition
implied in the farewell, which recommended him  to wait for another
guide.
Halbert Glendinning did not long, however, allow himself to pause.
Hardihood was the natural characteristic of his mind; and under the expansion and modification which his feelings had lately undergone, it had
been augmented rather than diminished. He drew his sword, undid the
buskin from his foot, bowed three times with deliberation towards the
* Mint —aim at.     t Yauds-horses; more particularly horses of labour.




THE MONASTERY.                                     129
fountain, and as often towards the tree, and repeated the same rhyme as
formerly,"Thrice to the holy brake-              Noon gleams on the lakeThrice to the well:-. Noon glows on the fellI bid thee awake,                      Wake thee, O wake,
White Maid of Avenel!                  White Maid, of Avenel!"
His eye was on the holly bush as he spoke the last line; and it was not
without an involuntary shuddering that he saw the air betwixt his eye and
that object become more dim, and condense, as it were, into the faint appearance of a form, through which, however, so thin and transparent was
the first appearance of the phantom, he could discern the outline of the
bush, as through a veil of fine crape.  But, gradually, it darkened into a
more substantial appearance, and the White Lady stood before him  with
displeasure on her brow.  She spoke, and her speech was still song, or
rather measured chant; but, as if now more familiar, it flowed occasionally
in modulated blank-verse, and at other times in the lyrical measure which
she had used at their former meeting.
"This is the day when the fairy kind
Sits weeping alone for their hopeless lot,
And the wood-rnaiden sighs'to the sighing wind,
And the mer-maiden weeps in her crystal grot:
For this is the day that a deed was wrought,
In which we have neither part nor share,
For the children of clay was salvation bought,
But not for the forms of sea or air!
And ever the mortal is most forlorn,
Who meeteth our race on the Friday morn."
" Spirit,i  said Halbert Glendinning, boldly, " it is bootless to threaten
one who holds his life at no rate. Thine anger can but slay; nor do I
think thy power extendeth, or thy will stretcheth, so far.  The terrors
which your race produce upon others, are vain against me. My heart is
hardened against fear, as by a sense of despair.  If I am, as thy words
infer, of a race more peculiarly the care of Heaven than thine, it is mine to
call, it must be thine to answer.  I am the nobler being."
As he spoke, the figure looked upon him  with a fierce and ireful countenance, which, without losing the similitude of that which it usually exhibited, had a wilder and more exaggerated cast of features. The eyes
seemed to contract and become more fiery, and slight convulsions passed
over the face, as if it was about to be transformed into something hideous.
The whole appearance resembled those faces which the imagination summons up when it is disturbed by laudanum, but which do not remain under
the visionary's command, and, beautiful in their first appearance, become
wild and grotesque ere we can arrest them.
But when Ialbert had concluded his bold speech, the White Lady stood
before him  with the same pale, fixed, and melancholy aspect, which she
usually bore.  He had expected the agitation which she exhibited would
conclude in  some frightful metamorphosis.  Folding her arms on  her
bosom, the phantom replied,"Daring youth! for thee it is well,  Did one limb shiver,
Here calling me in haunted dell,          Or an eyelid quiver,
That thy heart has not quail'd,       Thou wert lost for ever.
Nor thy courage fail'd,          Though I amn form'd from the ether blue,
And that thou couldst brook      And my blood is of the unfallen dew,
The angry look                            And thou art framed of mud and dust,
Of Her of Avenel.'Tis thine to speak, reply I must."
"I demand of thee, then," said the youth, "by what charm  it is that I
am thus altered in mind and in wishes -  that I think no-longer of deer or
dog, of bow or bolt    that my soul spurns the bounds of this obscure glen
-that my blood boils at an insult from one by whose stirrup I would some
days since have run for a whole summer's morn, contented and honoured
by the notice of a single word?  Why do I now  seek to mate me with
princes, and knights, and nobles? -  Am I the same, who but yesterday, as
it were, slumbered in contented obscurity, but who am to-day awakened to
VOL,. V.-9




130                           WAVERLEY NOVELS.
glory and ambition? - Speak - tell me, if thou canst, the meaning of this
change?-Am I spell-bound?-or have I till now been under the influence
of a spell, that I feel as another being, yet am conscious of remaining
the  same?    Speak  and  tell me, is it to  thy  influence  that the  change  is
owing?"
The White Lady replied,"A mightier wizard far than I
Wields o'er the universe his power;
Him owns the eagle in the sky,
The turtle in the bower.
Changeful in shape, yet mightiest still,
He wields the heart of man at will,
From ill to good, from good to ill,
In cot and castle-tower."
"Speak not thus darkly," said  the youth, colouring so deeply, that face,
neck, and hands were in a sanguine glow; "make me sensible of thy
purpose."
The spirit answered,"Ask thy heart, whose secret cell
Is fill'd with Marv Avenel! -
Ask thy pride, why scornful look'
In Mary's view it will not brook?
Ask it, why thou seek'st to rise
Among the mighty and the wise?Why thou spurn'st thy lowly lot?Why thy pastimes are forgot?
Why thou wouldst in bloody strife
Mend thy luck or lose thy life?
Ask thy heart, and it shall tell,
Sighing friom its secret cell,'Tis for Mary Avenel."' Tell me, then," said Halbert, his cheek  still deeply crimsoned, "thou
who hast said to me that which I dared not say to myself, by what means
shall I urge my passion-by what means make it known?"
The White Lady replied,"Do not ask me;
On doubts like these thou canst not task me.
We only see the passing show
Of human passions' ebb and flow:
And view the pageant's idle glance
As mortals eye the northern dance,
When thousand streamers, flashing bright,
Career it o'er the brow of night,
And gazers mark their changeful gleams,
But feel no influence from their beams."
"Yet thine  own  fate,"  replied  Halbert, "unless  men  greatly  err, is
linked with that of mortals?"
The phantom answered,
"By ties mysterious link'd, our fated race
Holds strange connexion with the sons of men.
The star that rose upon the House of Avenel,
When Norman Tlric first assumed the name,
That star, when culminating in its orbit,
Shot from its sphere a drop of diamond dew,
And this bright font received it-and a Spirit
Rose from the fountain, and her date of life
Hath co-existence with the House of Avenel,
And with the star that rules it."
"Speak yet more plainly," answered young Glendinning; "of this I
can  understand  nothing.   Say, what hath  forged  thy  wierded*  link  of
destiny with the House of Avenel? Say, especially, what fate now overhangs that house?"
The White Lady replied,"Look on my girdle -on this thread of gold-'Tis fine as web of lightest gossamer,
And, but there is a spell on't, would not bind,
Light as they are, the folds of my thin robe.
But when'twas donn'd, it was a massive chain,
Such as might bind the champion of the Jews,
Wierded —fated.




THE MONASTERY.                                    131
Even when his locks were longest —it hath dwindled,
Hath minish'd in its substance and its strength,
As sunk the greatness of the House of Avenel.
When this frail thread gives way, I to the elements
Resign the principles of life they lent me.
Ask me no more of this! —the stars forbid it."
"Then canst thou read -the stars," answered the youth; "and mayest
tell me the fate of my passion, if thou canst not aid it?"
The White Lady again replied,"Dim burns the once bright star of Avenel,
Dimr as the beacon when the morn is nigh,
And the o'er-wearied warder leaves the light-house;
There is an influence sorrowful and fearful,
That dogs its downward course. Disasti'ous passion,
Fierce hate and rivalry, are in the aspect
That lowers upon its fortunes."
"And rivalry?" repeated Glendinning; "it is, then, as I feared! -But
shall that English silkworm presume to beard me in my father's.house, and
in the presence of Mary Avenel?-Give me to meet him, spirit-give me to
do away the vain distinction of rank on which he refuses me the combat.
Place us on equal terms, and gleam  the stars with what aspect they will,
the sword of my father shall control their influences.'
She answered as promptly as before,"Complain not of me, child of clay,
If to thy harm I yield the way.
We, who soar thy sphere above,
Know not aught of hate or love:
As will or wisdom rules thy mood,
My gifts to evil turn, or good."
" Give me to redeem my honour," said Halbert Glendinning-" give me
to retort on my proud rival the insults he has thrown on me, and let the
rest fare as it will.  If I cannot revenge my wrong, I shall sleep quiet, and
know nought of my disgrace."
The phantom failed not to reply,"When Piercie Shafton boasteth high,
Let this token meet his eve.
The sunt is westering from the dell,
Thly wish is granted-fare thee well!"
As the White Lady spoke or chanted these last words, she undid from
her locks a silver bodkin around which they were twisted, and gave it to
Halbert Glendinning; then shaking her dishevelled hair till it fell like a
veil around her, the outlines of her form gradually became as diffuse as her
flowing tresses, her countenance grew pale as the moon in her first quarter,
her features became indistinguishable, and she melted into the air.
Habit inures us to wonders; but the youth did not find himself alone by
the fountain without experiencing, though in a much less degree, the revulsion of spirits which he had felt upon the phantom's former disappearance.  A  doubt strongly pressed upon his mind, whether it were safe to
avail himself of the gifts of a spirit which did not even pretend to belong
to the class of angels, and might, for aught he knew, have a much worse
lineage than that which she was pleased to avow.  "1 I will speak of it," he
said, "to Edward, who is clerkly learned, and will tell me what I should
do.  And yet, no-Edward is scrupulous and wary. —I will prove the effect
of her gift on Sir Piercie Shafton, if he again braves me, and by the issue,
I will be myself a sufficient judge whether there is danger in resorting to
her counsel.  Home, then, home —and we shall soon learn whether that
home shall longer hold me; for not again will I brook insult, with my
father's sword by my side, and Mary for the spectator of my disgrace.'




132                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
1laSpit  tt biggttrutn.
I give thee eighteenpence a-day,
And my bow shalt thou' bear,
And over all the north country,
I make thee the chief rydere.
And I thirteenpence a-day, quoth the queen,
By God and by my faye,
Come fetch thy payment when thou wilt,
No mal shall say thee nay.
WILLIAM OF CLOUDESLEY.
THE manners of the age did not permit the inhabitants of Glendearg to
partake of the collation which was placed in the spence of that ancient
tower, before the Lord Abbot and his attendants, and Sir Piercie Shafton.
Dame Glendinning was excluded, both by inferiority of rank and by sex,
for (though it was a rule often neglected) the Superior of Saint Mary's was
debarred from taking his meals in female society. To Mary Avenel the
latter, and to Edward Glendinning the former, incapacity attached, but it
pleased his lordship to require their presence in the apartment, and to say
sundry kind words to them upon the ready and hospitable reception which
they had afforded him.
The smoking haunch now stood upon the table; a napkin, white as snow,
was, with due reverence, tucked under the chin of the Abbot by the Refectioner; and nought was wanting to commence the repast, save the presence
of Sir Piercie Shafton, who at length appeared, glittering like the sun, in a
carnation-velvet doublet, slashed and puffed out with cloth of silver, his hat
of the newest block, surrounded by a hatband of goldsmith's work, while
around his neck he wore a collar of gold, set with rubies and topazes so
rich, that it vindicated his anxiety for the safety of his baggage from being
founded upon his love of mere finery. This gorgeous collar or chain, resembling those worn by the knights of the highest orders of chivalry, fell
down on his breast, and terminated in a medallion.
"We waited for Sir Piercie Shafton," said the Abbot, hastily assuming
his place in the great chair which the Kitchener advanced to the table with
ready hand.
"I pray your pardon, reverend father, and my good lord," replied that
pink of courtesy; " I did but wait to cast my riding slough, and to transmew myself into some civil form meeter for this worshipful company."
" I cannot but praise your gallantry, Sir Knight," said the Abbot, " and
your prudence, also, for choosing the fitting time to appear thus adorned.
Certes, had that goodly chain been visible in some part of your late progress, there was risk that the lawful owner might have parted company
therewith."
"This chain, said your reverence?" answered Sir Piercie; "surely it is
but a toy, a trifle, a slight thing which shows but poorly with this doubletmarry, when I wear that of the murrey-coloured double-piled Genoa velvet,
puffed out with ciprus, the gems, being relieved and set off by the darker
and more grave ground of the stuff, show like stars giving a lustre through
dark clouds."
"I nothing doubt it," said the Abbot, "but I pray you to sit down at the
board."
But Sir Piercie had now got into his element, and was not easily interrupted
-" I own," he continued, "that slight as the toy is, it might perchance have
had some captivation for Julian - Santa Maria!" said he, interrupting himself; "what was I about to say, and my fair and beauteous Protection, or
shall I rather term her my Discretion, here in presence! - Indiscreet hath




THE  MONAS T EY.                           133
it been.in your Affability, 0 most lovely Discretion, to suffer a stray word
to have broke out of the penfold of his mouth, that might overleap the fence
of civility, and trespass on the manor of decorum."
" Marry 1" said the Abbot, somewhat impatiently, " the greatest discretion
that I can see in the matter is, to eat our victuals being hot- Father Eustace, say the Benedicite, and cut up the haunch."
The Sub-Prior readily obeyed the first part of the Abbot's injunction, but
paused upon the second -" It is Friday, most reverend," he said in Latin,
desirous that the hint should escape, if possible, the ears of the stranger.
" We are travellers," said the Abbot, in reply, " and viatoribus licitum est
-You know the canon   a traveller must eat what food his hard fate sets
before him. I grant you all a dispensation to eat flesh this day, conditionally that you, brethren, say the Confiteor at curfew time, that the knight
give alms to his ability, and that all and each of you fast from flesh on such
day within the next month that shall seem most convenient; wherefore fall
to and eat your food with cheerful countenances, and you, Father Refectioner, da mixtus."
While the Abbot was thus stating the conditions on which his indulgence
was granted, he had already half finished a slice of the noble haunch, and
now washed it down with a flagon of Rhenish, modestly tempered with
water.
" Well is it said," he observed, as he required from the Refectioner another
slice, "that virtue is its own reward; for though this is but humble fare,
and hastily prepared, and eaten in a poor chamber, I do not remember me
of having had such an appetite since I was a simple brother in the Abbey
of Dundrennan, and was wont to labour in the garden from morning until
nones, when our Abbot struck the Cymbalum. Then would I enter keen
with hunger, parched with thirst, (da mihi vinum quceso, et merum sit,) and
partake with appetite of whatever was set before us, according to our rule;
feast or fast day, caritas or penitentia, was the same to me. I had no stomach
complaints then, which now crave both the aid of wine and choice cookery,
to render my food acceptable to my palate, and easy of digestion."
" It may be, holy father," said the Sub-Prior, "an occasional ride to the
extremity of Saint Mary's patrimony, may have the same happy effect on
your health as the air of the garden at Dundrennan."
" Perchance, with our patroness's blessing, such progresses may advantage
us," said the Abbot; " having an especial eye that our venison is carefully
killed by some woodsman that is master of his craft."
"If the Lord Abbot will permit me," said the Kitchener, "I think the
best way to assure his lordship on that important point, would be to retain
as a yeoman-pricker, or deputy-ranger, the eldest son of this good woman,
Dame Glendinning, who is here to wait upon us. I should know by mine
office what belongs to killing of game, and I can safely pronounce, that never
saw I, or any other coquinarius, a bolt so justly shot. It has cloven the
very heart of the buck."
"What speak you to us of one good shot, father?" said Sir Piercie; "I
would advise you that such no more maketh a shooter, than doth one
swallow make a summer - I have seen this springald of whom you speak,
and if his hand can send forth his shafts as boldly as his tongue doth
utter presumptuous speeches, I will own him as good an archer as -iobin
Hood."
" Marry," said the Abbot, " and it is fitting we know the truth of this
matter from the dame herself; for ill advised were we to give way to any
rashness in this matter, whereby the bounties which Heaven and our
patroness provide might be unskilfully mangled, and rendered unfit for
worthy men's use. —Stand forth, therefore, dame Glendinning, and tell to
us, as thy liege lord and spiritual Superior, using plainness and truth, without either fear or favour, as being a matter wherein we are deeply interested,
x




134                  WAVERLEY NOVE LS.
Doth this son of thine use his bow as well as the Father Kitchenex avers to
us?"
" So please your noble fatherhood," answered Dame Glendinning with a
deep curtsy, "I should know somewhat of archery to my cost, seeing my
husband-God assoilzie him  - was slain in the field of Pinkie with an
arrow-shot, while he was fighting under the Kirk's banner, as became a
liege vassal of the Halidome. He was a valiant man, please your reverence,
and an honest; and saving that he loved a bit of venison, and shifted for
his living at a time as Border-men will sometimes do, I wot not of sin that
he did. And yet, though I have paid for mass after mass to the matter of
a forty shilling, besides a quarter of wheat and four firlocks of rye, I can
have no assurance yet that he has been delivered from purgatory."
"Dame," said the Lord Abbot, "this shall be looked into heedfully; and
since thy husband fell, as thou sayest, in the Kirk's quarrel, and under her
banner, rely upon it that we will have him out of purgatory forthwith --
that is, always provided he be there.- But it is not of thy husband whom
we now devise to speak, but of thy son; not of a shot Scotsman, but of a
shot deer-Wherefore, I say, answer me to the point, is thy son a practised
archer, ay or no?"
"Alack! my reverend lord," replied the widow, " and my croft would be
better tilled, if I could answer your reverence that he is not. - Practised
archer! -marry, holy sir, I would he would practise something else-crossbow and long-bow, hand-gun and hack-but, falconet and saker, he can shoot
with them all. And if it would please this right honourable gentleman,
our guest, to hold out his hat at the distance of a hundred yards, our Halbert shall send shaft, bolt, or bullet through it, (so that right honourable
gentleman swerve not, but hold out steady,) and I will forfeit a quarter of
barley if he touch but a knot of his ribands. I have seen our old Martin
do as much, and so has our right reverend the Sub-Prior, if he be pleased
to remember it."
" I am not like to forget it, dame," said Father Eustace; " for I knew not
which most to admire, the composure of the young marksman, or the steadiness of the old mark. Yet I presume not to advise Sir Piercie Shafton to
subject his valuable beaver, and yet more valuable person, to such a risk,
unless it should be his own special pleasure."
"Be assured it is not," said Sir Piercie Shafton, something hastily; "bo
well assured, holy father, that it is not. I dispute not the lad's qualities,
for which your reverence vouches. But bows are but wood, strings are but
flax, or the silk-worm excrement at best; archers are but men, fingers may
slip, eyes may dazzle, the blindest may hit the butt, the best marker may
shoot a bow's length beside. Therefore will we try no perilous experiments."
" Be that as you Will, Sir Piercie," said the Abbot; " meantime we will
name this youth bow-bearer in the forest granted to us by good King David,
that the chase might recreate our wearied spirits, the flesh of the de r improve our poor commons, and the hides cover the books of our librarj; thus
tending at once to the sustenance of body and soul."
"Kneel down, woman, kneel down," said the Refectioner ari:-  the
Kitchener, with one voice, to Dame Glendinning, "and kiss his lox ship's
hand, for the grace which he has granted to thy son."
They then, as if they had been chanting the service and the responses, set
off in a sort of duetto, enumerating the advantages of the situation.
"A green gown and a pair of leathern galligaskins every Pentecost," said
the Kitchener.
"Four marks by the year at Candlemas," answered the Refectioner.
"A hogshead of ale at Martlemas, of the double strike, and single ale at
pleasure, as he shall agree with the Cellarer -"
"Who is a reasonable man," said the Abbot, "and will encourage an
active servant of the convent."




IT HE  MO NAS TE RY.                        135
"A mees of broth and a dole of mutton or beef, at the Kitchener's, on
each high holiday," resumed the Kitchener.
" The gang of two cows and a palfrey on our Lady's meadow," answered
his brother officer.
"An ox-hide to make buskins of yearly, because of the brambles," echoed
the Kitchener.
"And various other perquisites, quce nunc prcescribere loqngum," said the
Abbot, summing, with his own lordly voice, the advantages attached to the
office of conventional bow-bearer.
Dame Glendinning was all this while on her knees, her head mechanically
turning from the one church officer to the other, which, as they stood one on
each side of her, had much the appearance of a figure moved by clock-work,
and so soon as they were silent, most devotedly did she kiss the munificent
hand of the Abbot. Conscious, however, of Halbert's intractability in some
points, she could not help qualifying her grateful and reiterated thanks for
the Abbot's bountiful proffer, with a hope that Halbert would see his wisdom,
and accept of it.
"How," said the Abbot, bending his brows, " accept of it?-Woman, is
thy son in his right wits?"
Elspeth, stunned by the tone in which this question was asked, was altogether unable to reply to it. Indeed, any answer she might have made
could hardly have been heard, as it pleased the two office-bearers of the
Abbot's table again to recommence their alternate dialogue.
"Refuse 1" said the Kitchener.
"Refuse!" answered the Refectioner, echoing the other's word in a tone
of still louder astonishment.
"Refuse four marks by the year!" said the one.
"Ale and beer-broth and mutton-cow's grass and palfrey's!" shouted
the Kitchener.
" Gown and galligaskins!" respond,ed the Refectioner.
"A moment's patience, my brethren," answered the Sub-Prior, "and let
us not be thus astonished before cause is afforded of our amazement.  This
good dame best knoweth the temper and. spirit of her son-this much I can
say, that it lieth not towards letters or learning, of which I have in vain
endeavoured to instil into him some tincture. Nevertheless, he is a youth
of no common spirit, but much like those (in my weak judgment) whom
God raises up among a people when he meaneth that their deliverance shall
be wrought out with strength of hand and valour of heart. Such men we
have seen marked with a waywardness, and even an obstinacy of character,
which hath appeared intractability and stupidity to those among whom they
walked and were conversant, until the very opportunity hath arrived in
which it was the will of Providence that they should be the fitting instrument of great things."
"Now, in good time hast thou spoken, Father Eustace," said the Abbot;
"and we will see this swankie before we decide upon the means of employing
him. —How say you, Sir Piercie Shafton, is it not the court fashion to suit
the man to the office, and not the office to the man?"
"So please your reverence and lordship," answered the Northumbrian
knight, "I do partly, that is, in some sort, subscribe to what your wisdom
hath delivered-Nevertheless, under reverence of the Sub-Prior, we do not
look for gallant leaders and national deliverers in the hovels of the mean
common people. Credit me, that if there be some flashes of martial spirit
about this young person, which I am not called upon to dispute, (though I
have seldom seen that presumption and arrogance were made good upon the
upshot by deed and action,) yet still-these will prove insufficient to distinguish him, save in his own limited and lowly sphere-even as the glowworm,
-which makes a goodly show among the grass of the field, would be of little:avail if deposited in a beacon-grate.'




136                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
"Now, in good time," said the Sub-Prior, "and here comes the young
huntsman to speak for himself;" for, being placed opposite to the window,
he could observe Halbert as he ascended the little mound on which the tower
was situated.
"Summon him to our presence," said the Lord Abbot; and with an obedient start the two attendant monks went off with emulous alertness. Dame
Glendinning sprung away at the same moment, partly to gain an instant to
recommend obedience to her son, partly to prevail with him to change his
apparel before coming in presence of the Abbot. But the Kitchener and
Refectioner, both speaking at once, had already seized each an arm, and
were leading Halbert in triumph into the apartment, so that she could only
ejaculate, "His will be done; but an he had but had on him his Sunday's
hose!"
Limited and humble as this desire was, the fates did not grant it, for
Halbert Glendinning was hurried into the presence of the Lord Abbot and
his party without a word of explanation, and without a moment's time being
allowed to assume his holiday hose, which, in the language of the time,
implied both breeches and stockings.
Yet, though thus suddenly presented amid the centre of all eyes, there
was something in Halbert's appearance which commanded a certain degree
of respect from the company into which he was so unceremoniously intruded,
and the greater part of whom were disposed to consider him with hauteur
if not with absolute contempt. But his appearance and reception we must
devote to another chapter.
6liaptr  t^ lin~tu nntli0
Now choose thee, gallant, betwixt wealth and honour;
There lies the pelf, in sum to bear thee through
The dance of youth,and the turmoil of manhood,
Yet leave enough for age's chimney-corner;
But an thou grasp to it, farewell ambition,
Farewell each hope of bettering thy condition,
And raising thy low rank above the churls
That till the earth for bread.
OLD PLAY.
IT is necessary to dwell for some brief space on the appearance and
demeanour of young Glendinning, ere we proceed to describe his interview
with the Abbot of St. Mary's, at this momentous crisis of his life.
Halbert was now about nineteen years old, tall and active rather than
strong, yet of that hardy conformation of limb and sinew, which promises
great strength when the growth shall be complete, and the system confirmed.
Iie was perfectly well made, and, like most men who have that advantage,
possessed a grace and natural ease of manner and carriage, which prevented
his height from being the distinguished part of his external appearance. It
was not until you had compared his stature with that of those amongst or
near to whom he stood, that you became sensible that the young Glendinning
was upwards of six feet high. In the combination of unusual height with
perfect symmetry, ease, and grace of carriage, the young heir of Glendearg,
notwithstanding his rustic birth and education, had greatly the advantage
even of Sir Piercie Shafton himself, whose stature was lower, and his limbs,
though there was no particular point to object to, were on the whole less
exactly proportioned.  On the other hand, Sir Piercie's very handsome
countenance afforded him as decided an advantage over the Scotsman, as




THE  MONASTERY.                            137
regularity of features and brilliance of complexion could give over traits
which were rather strongly marked than beautiful, and upon whose complexion the "skyey influences," to which he was constantly exposed, had
blended the red and white into the purely nut-brown hue, which coloured
alike cheeks, neck, and forehead, and blushed only in a darker glow upon
the former.- Halbert's eyes supplied a marked and distinguished part of
his physiognomy. They were large and of a hazel colour, and sparkled in
moments of animation with such uncommon brilliancy, that it seemed as if
they actually emitted light.  Nature had closely curled the locks of darkbrown hair, which relieved and set off the features, such as we have
described them, displaying a bold and animated disposition, much more
than might have been expected from his situation, or from his previous
manners, which hitherto had seemed bashful, homely, and awkward.
Halbert's dress was certainly not of that description which sets off to the
best advantage a presence of itself prepossessing. His jerkin and hose were
of coarse rustic cloth, and his cap of the same. A belt round his waist served
at once to sustain the broad-sword which we have already mentioned, and
to hold five or six arrows and bird-bolts, which were stuck into it on the
right side, along with a large knife hilted with buck-horn, or, as it was then
called, a dudgeon-dagger. To complete his dress, we must notice his loose
buskins of deer's hide, formed so as to draw up on the leg as high as the
knee, or at pleasure to be thrust down lower than the calves. These were
generally used at the period by such as either had their principal occupation, or their chief pleasure, in silvan sports, as they served to protect the
legs against the rough and tangled thickets into which the pursuit of game
frequently led them.-And these trifling particulars complete his external
appearance.
It is not easy to do justice to the manner in which young Glendinning's
soul spoke through his eyes when ushered so suddenly into the company of
those whom his earliest education had taught him to treat with awe and
reverence. The degree of embarrassment, which his demeanor evinced, had
nothing in it either meanly servile, or utterly disconcerted. It was no more
than became a generous and ingenuous youth of a bold spirit, but totally
inexperienced, who should for the first time be called upon to think and act
for himself in such society and under such disadvantageous circumstances.
There was not in his carriage a grain either of forwardness or of timidity,
which a friend could have wished away.
He kneeled and kissed the Abbot's hand, then rose, and retiring two paces,
bowed respectfully to the circle around, smiling gently as he received an
encouraging nod from  the Sub-Prior, to whom alone he was personally
known, and blushing as he encountered the anxious look of Mary Avenel;
who beheld with painful interest the sort of ordeal to which her fosterbrother was about to be subjected. Recovering from the transient flurry of
spirits into which the encounter of her glance had thrown him, he stood composedly awaiting till the Abbot should express his pleasure.
The ingenuous expression of countenance, noble form, and graceful attitude of the young man, failed not to prepossess in his favor the churchmen
in whose presence he stood. The Abbot looked round, and exchanged a
gracious and approving glance with his counsellor Father Eustace, although
probably the appointment of a ranger, or bow-bearer, was one in which he
might have been disposed to proceed without the Sub-Prior's advice, were it
but to show his own free agency.  But the good mien of the young man
now innomination was such, that he rather hastened to exchange congratulation on meeting with so proper a subject of promotion, than to indulge
any other feeling. Father Eustace enjoyed the pleasure which a well-constituted mind derives from seeing a benefit light on a deserving object; for
as he had not seen Halbert since circumstances had made so material a
change in his manner and feelings, he scarce doubted that the proffered
M2




138'                  WAVE'RL  Y NOVELS.
appointment would, notwithstanding his mother's uncertainty, suit the disposition of a youth who had appeared devoted to woodland sports, and a foe
alike to sedentary or settled occupation of any kind. The Refectioner and
Kitchener were so well pleased with Halbert's prepossessing appearance, that
they seemed to think that the salary, emoluments, and perquisites, the dole,.the grazing, the gown, and the galligaskins, could scarce be better bestowed
than on the active and graceful figure before them.
Sir Piercie Shafton, whether from being more deeply engaged in his own
cogitations, or that the subject was unworthy of his notice, did not seem to
partake of the general feeling of approbation excited by the young man's
presence. IIe sate with his eyes half shut, and his arms folded, appearing
to be wrapped in contemplations of a nature deeper than those arising out
of the scene before him. But, notwithstanding his seeming abstraction and
absence of:mind, there was a flutter of vanity in Sir Piercie's very handsome countenance, an occasional change of posture from one striking attitude
(or what he conceived to be such) to another, and an occasional stolen glance
at the female part of the company, to spy how far he succeeded in riveting
their attention, which gave a marked advantage, in comparison, to the less
regular and more harsh features of Halbert Glendinning, with their composed, manly, and deliberate expression of mental fortitude.
Of the females belonging to the family of Glendearg, the Miller's daughter
alone had her mind sufficiently at leisure to admire, from time to time, the
graceful attitudes of Sir Piercie Shafton; for both Mary Avenel and Dame
Glendinning were waiting in anxiety and apprehension the answer which
Halbert was to return to the Abbot's proposal, and fearfully anticipating
the consequences of his probable refusal. The conduct of his brother
Edward, for a lad constitutionally shy, respectful, and even timid, was at
once affectionate and noble. This younger son of Dame Elspeth had stood
unnoticed in a corner, after the Abbot, at the request of the Sub-Prior, had
honoured him with some passing notice, and asked him a few common-place
questions about his progress in Donatus, and in the Promptuarium Parvuloruim, without waiting for the answers. From his corner he now glided
round to his brother's side, and keeping a little behind him, slid his right
hand into the huntsman's left, and by a gentle pressure, which Halbert
instantly and ardently returned, expressed at once his interest in his situation, and his resolution to share his fate.
The group was thus arranged, when, after the pause of two or three
minutes, which he employed in slowly sipping his cup of wine, in order that
he might enter on his proposal with due and deliberate dignity, the Abbot
at length expressed himself thus: 
" My son -we your lawful Superior, and the Abbot, under God's favour,
of the community of Saint Mary's, have heard of your manifold good gifts
a-hem - especially touching wood-craft - and the huntsman-like fashion
in which you strike your game, truly and as a yeoman should, not abusing
Heaven's good benefits by spoiling the flesh, as is too often seen in careless
rangers - a-hem." Hie made here a pause, but observing that Glendinning
only replied to his compliment by a bow, he proceeded,-" My son, we commend your modesty; nevertheless, we will that thou shouldst speak freely
to us touching that which we have premeditated for thine advancement,
meaning to confer on thee the office of bow-bearer and ranger, as well over
the chases and forests wherein our house hath privilege by the gifts of pious
kings and nobles, whose souls now enjoy the fruits of their bounties to the
Church as to those which belong to us in exclusive right of property and
perpetuity. Thy knee, my son —that we may, with our own hand, and
without loss of time, induct thee into office."
"Kneel down," said the Kitchener on the one side; and "Kneel down,"
said the Refectioner on the other.
But Halbert Glendinning remained standing.




THE  MONASTERY.                            139
"Were it to show gratitude and good-will for your reverend lordship's
noble offer, I could not," he said, " kneel low enough, or remain long enough
kneeling. But I may not kneel to take investure of your noble gift, my
Lord Abbot, being a man determined to seek my fortune otherwise."
" How is that, sir?" said the Abbot, knitting his brows; "do I hear you
speak aright? and do you, a born vassal of the Halidome, at the moment
when I am destining to you such a noble expression of my good-will, propose exchanging my service for that of any other?"
"My lord," said Halbert Glendinning, "it grieves me to think you hold
me capable of undervaluing your gracious offer, or of exchanging your
service for another. But your noble proffer doth but hasten the execution
of a determination which I have long since formed."
"Ay, my son," said the Abbot, " is it indeed so? - right early have you
learned to form resolutions without consulting those on whom you naturally
depend. But what may it be, this sagacious resolution, if I may so far
pray you?"
"To yield up to my brother and mother," answered Halbert, "mine
interest in the fief of Glendearg, lately possessed by my father, Simon Glendinning: and having prayed your lordship to be the same kind and generous
master to them, that your predecessors, the venerable Abbots of Saint
Mary's, have been to my fathers in times past; for myself, I am determined
to seek my fortune where I may best find it."
Dame Glendinning here ventured, emboldened by maternal anxiety, to
break silence with an exclamation of " 0 my son!"  Edward clinging to his
brother's side, half spoke, half whispered, a similar ejaculation, of "Brother!
brother!"
The Sub-Prior took up the matter in a tone. of grave reprehension, which,
as he conceived, the interest he had always taken in the family at Glendearg
required at his hand.
"Wilful young man," he said, " what folly can urge thee to push back
the hand that is stretched out to aid thee? What visionary aim hast thou
before thee, that can compensate for the decent and sufficient independence
which thou art now rejecting with scorn?"
" Four marks.by the year, duly and truly," said the Kitchener.
"Cow's-grass, doublet, and galligaskins," responded the Refectioner.
"Peace, my brethren," said the Sub-Prior; "and may it please your
lordship, venerable father, upon my petition, to allow this headstrong youth
a day for consideration, and it shall be my part so to indoctrinate him, as
to convince him what is due on this occasion to your lordship, and to his
family, and to himself."
" Your kindness, reverend father," said the youth, "craves my dearest
thanks -it is the continuance of a long train of benevolence towards me,
for which I give you my gratitude, for I have nothing else to offer. It is
my mishap, not your fault, that your intentions have been frustrated. But
my present resolution is fixed and unalterable. I cannot accept the generous offer of the Lord Abbot; my fate calls me elsewhere, to scenes where
I shall end it or mend it."
"By our Lady," said the Abbot, "I think the youth be mad indeed - or
that you, Sir Piercie, judged of him most truly, when you prophesied that
he would prove unfit for the promotion we designed him -it may be you
knew something of this wayward humour before?"
"By the mass, not I," answered Sir Piercie Shafton, with his usual
indifference. " I but judged of him by his birth and breeding; for seldom
doth a good hawk come out of a kite's egg."
"Thou art thyself a kite, and kestrel to boot," replied Halbert Glendinning, without a moment's hesitation.
"This in our presence, and to a man of worship?" said the Abbot, the
blood rushing to his face.




140                  WAVER-LEY  NOVELS.
"Yes, my lord," answered the youth; " even in your presence I return
to this gay man's face, the causeless dishonour which he has flung on my
name. My brave father, who fell in the cause of his country, demands that
justice at the hands of his son 1"
"Unmannered boy!" said the Abbot.
"Nay, my good lord," said the knight, "praying pardon for the coarse
interruption, let me entreat you not to be wroth with this rustical -Credit
me, the north wind shall as soon puff one of your rocks from its basis, as
aught which I hold so slight and inconsiderate as the churlish speech of an
untaught churl, shall move the spleen of Piercie Shafton."
"Proud as you are, Sir Knight," said Halbert, "in your imagined superiority, be not too confident that you cannot be moved."
" Faith, by nothing that thou canst urge," said Sir Piercie.
"Knowest thou, then, this token?" said young Glendinning, offering to
him the silver bodkin he had received from the White Lady.
Never was such an instant change, from the most contemptuous serenity,
to the most furious state of passion, as that which Sir Piercie Shafton exhibited. It was the difference between a cannon lying quiet in its embrasure,
and the same gun when touched by the linstock. He started up, every
limb quivering with rage, and his features so inflamed and agitated by
passion, that he more resembled a demoniac, than a man under the regulation of reason. He clenched both his fists, and thrusting them forward,
offered them furiously at the face of Glendinning, who was even himself
startled at the frantic state of excitation which his action had occasioned.
The next moment he withdrew them, struck his open palm against his own
forehead, and rushed out of the room in a state of indescribable agitation.
The whole matter had been so sudden, that no person present had time to
interfere.
When Sir Piercie Shafton had left the apartment, there was a moment's
pause of astonishment; and then a general demand that Halbert Glendinning should instantly explain by what means he had produced such a
violent change in the deportment of the English cavalier.
"I did nought to him," answered Halbert Glendinning, "but what you
all saw-am I to answer for his fantastic freaks of humour?"
" Boy," said the Abbot, in his most authoritative manner, " these subterfuges shall not avail thee. This is not a man to be driven from his temperament without some sufficient cause. That cause was given by thee, andl
must have been known to thee. I command thee, as thou wilt save thyself
from worse measure, to explain to me by what means thou hast moved our
friend thus - We choose not that our vassals shall drive our guests mad in
our very presence, and we remain ignorant of the means whereby that purpose is effected."
" So may it please your reverence, I did but show him this token," said
Halbert Glendinning, delivering it at the same time to the Abbot, who
looked at it with much attention, and then, shaking his head, gravely delivered it to the Sub-Prior, without speaking a word.
Father Eustace looked at the mysterious token with some attention; and
then addressing Halbert in a stern and severe voice, said, " Young man, if
thou wouldst not have us suspect thee of some strange double-dealing in
this matter, let us instantly know whence thou hadst this token, and how it
possesses an influence on Sir Piercie Shafton?" —Itwould have been extremely difficult for Halbert, thus hard pressed, to have either evaded or
answered so puzzling a question. To have avowed the truth might, in
those times, have occasioned his being burnt at a stake, although, in ours,
his confession would-have only gained for him the credit of a liar beyond
all rational credibility. He was fortunately relieved by the return of Sir
Piercie Shafton himself, whose ear caught, as he entered, the sound of the
Sub-Prior's question.




THE MONASTERY.                               141
Without waiting until Halbert Glendinning replied, he came forward,
whispering to him as he passed, "Be secret -thou shalt have the satisfaction thou hast dared to seek for."
When he returned to his place, there were still marks of discomposure on
his brow; but, becoming apparently collected and calm, he looked around
him, and apologized for the indecorum of which he had been guilty, which
he ascribed to sudden and severe indisposition. All were silent, and looked
on each other with some surprise.
The Lord Abbot gave orders for all to retire from the apartment, save
himself, Sir Piercie Shafton, and the Sub-Prior.  "And have an eye," he
added, " on that bold youth, that he escape not; for if he hath practised by
charm, or otherwise, on the health of our worshipful guest, I swear by the
alb and mitre which I wear, that his punishment shall be most exemplary."
" My lord and venerable father," said IIalbert, bowing respectfully, " fear
not but that I will abide my doom. I think you will best learn from the
worshipful knight himself, what is the cause of his distemperature, and
how slight my share in it has been."
"Be assured," said the knight, without looking up, however, while he
spoke, "I will satisfy the Lord Abbot."
With these words the company retired, and with them young Glendinning.
When the Abbot, the Sub-Prior, and the English knight were left alone,
Father Eustace, contrary to his custom, could not help speaking the first.
"Expound unto us, noble sir," he said, "by what mysterious'means the
production of this simple toy could so far move your spirit, and overcome
your patience, after you had shown yourself proof to all the provocation
offered by this self-sufficient and singular youth?"
The knight took the silver bodkin from the good father's hand, looked at
it with great composure, and, having examined it all over, returned it to the
Sub-Prior, saying at the same time, "In truth, venerable father, I cannot
but marvel, that the wisdom implied alike in your silver hairs, and in your
eminent rank, should, like a babbling hound, (excuse the similitude,) open
thus loudly on a false scent. I were, indeed, more slight to be moved than
the leaves of the aspen-tree, which wag at the least breath of heaven, could
I be touched by such a trifle as this, which in no way concerns me more
than if the same quantity of silver were stricken into so many groats.
Truth is, that from my youth upward, I have been subjected to such a
malady as you saw me visited with even now-a cruel and searching pain,
which goeth through nerve and bone, even as a good brand in the hands of
a brave soldier sheers through limb and sinew-but it passes away speedily,
as you yourselves may judge."
" Still," said the Sub-Prior, " this will not account for the youth offering
to you this piece of silver, as a token by which you were to understand
something, and, as we must needs conjecture, something disagreeable."
" Your reverence is to conjecture what you will," said Sir Piercie; " but
I cannot pretend to lay your judgment on the right scent when I see it at
fault. I hope I am not liable to be called upon to account for the foolish
actions of a malapert boy?"
" Assuredly," said the Sub-Prior, " we shall prosecute no inquiry which
is disagreeable to our guest. Nevertheless," said he, looking to his Superior, "this chance may, in some sort, alter the plan your lordship had
formed for your worshipful guest's residence for a brief term in this tower,
as a place alike of secrecy and of security; both of which, in the terms
which we now stand on with England, are circumstances to be desired."
" In truth," said the Abbot, "and the doubt is well thought on, were it
as well removed; for I scarce know in the Halidome so fitting a place of
refuge, yet see I not how to recommend it to our worshipful guest, considering the unrestrained petulance of this headstrong youth."
"Tush! reverend sirs - what would you make of me?" said Sir Piercie




142                 WA'VERLEY  NOVELS.
Shafton.  " I protest, by mine honour, I would abide in this houps were I
to choose.  What! I take no exceptions at the youth for showing a flash of
spirit, though the spark may light on mine own head. I honour the lad for
it.  I protest I will abide here, and he shall aid me in striking down a
deer. I must needs be friends with him, and he be such a shot: and we
will speedily send down to my lord Abbot a buck of the first head, killed
so artificially as shall satisfy even the reverend Kitchener."
This was said with such apparent ease and good-humour, tht the Abbot
made no farther observation on what had passed, but proceeded to acquaint
his guest with the details of furniture, hangings, provisions, and so forth;
which he proposed to send up to the Tower of Glendearg for his accommodation.  This discourse, seasoned with a cup or two of wine, served to prolong the time until the reverend Abbot ordered his cavalcade to prepare
for their return to the Monastery.
"As we have," he said, "in the course of this our toilsome journey, lost
our meridian,* indulgence shall be given to those of our attendants who
shall, from very weariness, be unable to attend the duty at prime,t and this
by way of misericord or indulgentia."I
Having benevolently intimated a boon to his faithful followers, which he
probably judged would be far from unacceptable, the good Abbot, seeing all
ready for his journey, bestowed his blessing on the assembled household 
gave his hand to be kissed by Dame Glendinning - himself kissed the cheek
of Mary Avenel, and even of the Miller's maiden, when they approached to
render him the same homage- commanded Ialbert to rule his temper, and
to be aiding and obedient in all things to the English Knight - admonished
Edward to be discipulus impiger atque stremtus —then took a courteous
farewell of Sir Piercie Shafton, advising him  to lie close, for fear of the
English borderers, who might be employed to kidnap him; and having discharged these various offices of courtesy, moved forth to the court-yard,
followed by the whole establishment. Here, with a heavy sigh, approaching
to a groan, the venerable father heaved himself upon his palfrey, whose
dark purple housings swept the ground; and, greatly comforted that the
discretion of the animal's pace would be no longer disturbed by the gambadoes of Sir Piercie and his prancing war-horse, he set forth at a sober
and steady trot upon his return to the Monastery.
When the Sub-Prior had mounted to accompany his principal, his eye
sought out Halbert, who, partly hidden by a projection of the outward wall
of the court, stood apart from, and gazing upon the departing cavalcade,
and the group which assembled around them.  Unsatisfied with the explanation he had received concerning the mysterious transaction of the silver
bodkin, yet interesting himself in the youth, of whose character he had
formed a favourable idea, the worthy monk resolved to take an early opportunity of investigating that matter. In the meanwhile, he looked upon
Halbert with a serious and warning aspect, and held up his finger to him
as he signed farewell. He then joined the rest of the churchmen, and followed his Superior down the valley.
* The hour of repose at noon, which, in the middle ages, was employed in slumber, and which the monastic
rules of nocturnal, vigils rendered necessary.
t Prime was the midnight service of the monks.
Misericord, accordinc to the learned work of Foshrooke on British Monachism, meant not only an indulgence. or exoneration from particular duties, but also a particular apartment in a convent, where the monka
Issembled to enjoy such indulgences or allowances as were granted beyond the rule.




THE MONASTERY.                               143
I hope you'll give me cause to think you noble.
And do me right with your sword, sir, as becomes
One gentleman of honour to another;
All this is fair, sir-let us make no days on't,
I'll lead your way.
LOVE'S PILGRIMAGE.
THE look and sign of warning which the Sub-Prior gave to Halbert Glen.dinning as they parted, went to his heart; for although he had profited
much less than Edward by the good man's instructions, he had a sincere
reverence for his person; and even the short time he had for deliberation
tended to show him he was embarked in a perilous adventure.  The nature
of the provocation which he had given to Sir Piercie Shafton he could not
even conjecture; but he saw that it was of a mortal quality, and he was
now to abide the consequences.
That he might not force these consequences forward by any premature
renewal of their quarrel, he resolved to walk apart for an hour, and consider
on what terms he was to meet this haughty foreigner. The time seemed
propitious for his doing so without having the appearance of wilfully shunning the stranger, as all the members of the little household were dispersing
either to perform  such tasks as had been interrupted by the arrival of the
dignitaries, or to put in order what had been deranged by their visit.
Leaving the tower, therefore, and descending, unobserved as he thought,
the knoll on which it stood, Halbert gained the little piece of level ground
which extended betwixt the descent of the hill, and the first sweep made by
the brook after washing the foot of the eminence on which the tower was
situated, where a few straggling birch and oak-trees served to secure him
froln observation. But scarcely had he reached the spot, when he was
surprised to feel a smart tap..upon the shoulder, and, turning around, he
perceived he had been closely followed by Sir Piercie Shafton.
When, whether from our state of animal spirits, want of confidence in
the justice of our cause, or any other motive, our own courage happens to
be in a wavering condition, nothing tends so much altogether to disconcert
us, as a great appearance of promptitude on the part of our antagonist.
Halbert Glendinning, both morally and constitutionally intrepid, was nevertheless somewhat troubled at seeing the stranger, whose resentment he had
provoked, appear at once before him, and with an aspect which boded hostility. But though his heart might beat somewhat thicker, he was too highspirited to exhibit any external signs of emotion. -" What is your pleasure,
Sir Piercie?"  he said to the English knight, enduring without apparent
discomposure all the terrors which his antagonist had summoned into his
aspect.
" What is my pleasure?" answered Sir Piercie; " a goodly question after
the part you have acted towards me!-Young man, I know not what
infatuation has led thee to place thyself in direct and insolent opposition to
one who is a guest of thy liege-lord the Abbot, and who, even from the
courtesy due to thy mother's roof, had a right to remain there without
meeting insult. Neither do I ask, or care, by what means thou hast become
possessed of the fatal secret by which thou hast dared to offer me open
shame. But I must now tell thee, that the possession of it has cost thee
thy life."
"Not, I trust, if my hand and sword can defend it," replied Halbert,
boldly.
"True," said the Englishman, "I mean not to deprive thee of thy fair




144                  WAVERLLEY  NOVELS.
chance of self-defence. I am only sorry to think, that, young and countrybred as thou art, it can but little avail thee. But thou must be well aware,
that in this quarrel I shall use no terms of quarter."
Rely on it, proud man," answered the youth, "that I shall ask none;
and although thou speakest as if I lay already at thy feet, trust me, that as
I am determined never to ask thy mercy, so I am not fearful of needing it."
"Thou wilt, then," said the knight, "do nothing to avert the certain fate
which thou hast provoked with such wantonness?"
" And how were that to he purchased?" replied Halbert Glendinning,
mote with the wish of obtaining some farther insight into the terms on
which he stood with this stranger, than to make him the submission which
he light require.
"Explain to me instantly," said Sir Piercie, "without equivocation or
delay, by what means thou wert enabled to wound my honour so deeply -
and shouldst thou point out to me by so doing an enemy more worthy of
my resentment, I will permit thine own obscure insignificance to draw a veil
over thine insolence."
"This is too high a flight," said Glendinning, fiercely, "for thine own
presumption to soar without being checked. Thou hast come to my father's
house, as well as I can guess, a fugitive and an exile, and thy first greeting
to its inhabitants lias been that of contempt and injury. By what means I
have been able to retort that contempt, let thine own conscience tell thee.
Enough for me that I stand on the privilege of a free Scotchman, and will
brook no insult unreturned, and no injury unrequited."
" It is well, then," said Sir Piercie Shafton; " we will dispute this matter
to-morrow morning with our swords. Let the time be daybreak, and do thou
assign the place. We will go forth as if to strike a deer."
"Content," replied Halbert Glendinning: "I will guide thee to a spot
where an hundred men might fight and fall without any chance of interruption."
"It is well," answered Sir Piercie Shafton. " Here then we part.-Many
will say, that in thus indulging the right of a gentleman to the son of a
clod-breaking peasant, I derogate from my sphere, even as the blessed sun
would derogate should he condescend to compare and match his golden
beams with the twinkle of a pale, blinking, expiring, gross-fed taper. But
no consideration of rank shall prevent my avenging the insult thou hast
offered me.  We bear a smooth face, observe me, Sir Villagio, before the
worshipful inmates of yonder cabin, and to-morrow we try conclusions with
our swords." So saying, he turned away towards the tower.
It may not be unworthy of notice, that in the last speech only, had Sir
Piercie used some of those flowers of rhetoric which characterized the usual
style of his conversation. Apparently, a sense of wounded honour, and the
deep desire of vindicating his injured feelings, had proved too strong for the
fantastic affectation of his acquired habits.  Indeed, such is usually the
influence of energy of mind, when called forth and exerted, that Sir Piercie
Shafton had never appeared in the eyes of his youthful antagonist half so
much deserving of esteem and respect as in this brief dialogue, by which
they exchanged mutual defiance. As he followed him slowly to the tower,
he could not help thinking to himself, that, had the English knight always
displayed this superior tone of bearing and feeling, he would not probably
have felt so earnestly disposed to take offence at his hand. Mortal offence,
however, had been exchanged, and the matter was to be put to mortal
arbitrement.
The family met at the evening meal, when Sir Piercie Shafton extended
the benignity of his countenance and the graces of his conversation far more
generally over the party than he had hitherto condescended to do. -The
greater part of his attention was, of course, still engrossed by his divine
and inimitable Discretion, as he chose to term Mary Avenel; but, neverthe



THE MONASTERY.                               145
less, there were interjectional flourishes to the Maid of the Mill, under the
title of Comely Damsel, and to the Dame, under that of Worthy Matron.
Nay, lest he should fail to excite their admiration by the graces of his
rhetoric, he generously, and without solicitation, added those of his voice;
and after regretting bitterly the absence of his viol-de-gamba, he regaled
them with a song, "which," said he, "the inimitable Astrophel, whom
mortals call Philip Sidney, composed in the nonage of his muse, to show the
world what they are to expect from his riper years, and which will -one day
see the light in that nott-b-be-paralleled perfection of human wit, which he
has addressed to his sister, the matchless Parthenope, whom men call Countess of Pembroke; a work," he continued, "whereof his friendship hath
plrmitted me, though unworthy, to be an occasional partaker, and whereof
Imay well say, that the deep afflictive tale which awakeneth our sorrows,
is so relieved with brilliant similitudes, dulcet descriptions, pleasant poems,
and engaging interludes, that they seem  as the stars of the firmament,
beautifying the dusky robe of night. And though I wot well how much the
lovely and quaint language will suffer by my widowed voice, widowed in
that it is no longer matched by my beloved viol-de-gamba, I will essay to
give you a taste of the ravishing sweetness of the poesy of the un-to-beimitated Astrophel."
So saying, he sung without mercy or remorse about five hundred verses;
of which the two first and the four last may suffice for a specimen -
"What tongue can her perfections tell,
On whose each part all pens may dwell.
Of whose high praise and praiseful bliss,
Goodness the pen, Heaven paper is;
The ink immortal fame doth send,
As I began so I must end."
As Sir Piercie Shafton always sung with his eyes half shut, it was not
until, agreeably to the promise of poetry, he had fairly made an end, that
looking round, he discovered that the greater part of his audience had,
in the meanwhile, yielded to the charms of repose.  Mary Avenel, indeed,
from a natural sense of politeness, had contrived to keep awake through all
the perplexities of the divine Astrophel; but Mysie was transported in
dreams back to the dusty atmosphere of her father's mill. Edward himself,
who had given his attention for some time, had at length fallen fast asleep;
and the good dame's nose, could its tones have been put in regulation, might
have supplied the bass of the lamented viol-de-gamba.  Halbert, however,
who had no temptation to give way to the charms of slumber, remained
awake with his eyes fixed on the songster; not that he was better entertained
with the words, or more ravished with the execution, than the rest of the
company, but rather because he admired, or perhaps envied, the composure,
which could thus spend the evening in interminable madrigals, when the
next morning was to be devoted to deadly combat. Yet it struck his natural
acuteness of observation, that the eye of the gallant cavalier did now and
then, furtively as it were, seek a glance of his countenance, as if to discover
how he was taking the exhibition of his antagonist's composure and serenity
of mind.
He shall read nothing in my countenance, thought Halbert, proudly, that
can make him think my indifference less than his own.
And taking from the shelf a bag full of miscellaneous matters collected
for the purpose, he began with great industry to dress hooks, and had
finished half-a-dozen of flies (we are enabled, for the benefit of those who
admire the antiquities of the gentle art of angling, to state that they were
brown hackles) by the time that Sir Piercie had arrived at the conclusion
of his long-winded strophes of the divine Astrophel. So that he also testified
a magnanimous contempt of that which to-morrow should bring forth.. As it now waxed late, the family bf Glendearg separated for the evening;
Sir Piercie first saying to the dame, that "her son Albert —
VOL. V.   10 




146                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"Halbert," said Elspeth, with emphasis, " Halbert, after his goodsire;
Halbert Brydone."
"Well, then, I have prayed your son, Halbert, that we may strive tomorrow, with the sun's earliness, to wake a stag from his lair, that I may
see whether he be as prompt at that sport as fame bespeaks him."
"Alas! sir," answered Dame Elspeth, " he is but too prompt, an you talk
of promptitude, at any thing that has steel at one end of it, and mischief
at the other. But he is at your honourable disposal, and I trust you will
teach him how obedience is due to our venerable father and lord, the Abbot,
and prevail with him to take the bow-bearer's place in fee; for, as the two
worthy monks said, it will be a great help to a widow-woman."
"Trust me, good dame," replied Sir Piercie, "it is my purpose so to indoctrinate him, touching his conduct and bearing towards his betters, that
he shall not lightly depart from the reverence due to them. —We meet, then,
beneath the birch-trees in the plain," he said, looking to Halbert, "so soon
as the eye of day hath opened its lids." - Halbert answered with a sign of
acquiescence, and the knight proceeded, " And now, having wished to my
fairest Discretion those pleasant dreams which wave their pinions around
the couch of sleeping beauty, and to this comely damsel the bounties of
Morpheus, and to all others the common good-night, I will crave you leave
to depart to my place of rest, though I may say with the poet,'Ah rest! -no rest but change of place and posture:
Ah sleep!-no sleep but worn-out Nature's swooning;
Ah bed!-no bed but cushion fill'd with stones:
Rest, sleep, nor bed, await not on an exile.'"
With a delicate obeisance he left the room, evading Dame Glendinning,
who hastened to assure him  he would find his accommodations for repose
much more agreeable than they had been the night before, there having been
store of warm  coverlets, and a soft feather-bed, sent up from the Abbey.
But the good knight probably thought that the grace and effect of his exit
would be diminished, if he were recalled from his heroics to discuss such
sublunary and domestic topics, and therefore hastened away without waiting
to hear her out.
" A pleasant gentleman," said Dame Glendinning; " but I will warrant
him an humorous —And sings a sweet song, though it is somewhat of the
longest.-Well, I make mine avow he is goodly company-I wonder when
he will go away."
Having thus expressed her respect for her guest, not without intimation
that she was heartily tired of his company, the good dame gave the signal
for the family to disperse, and laid her injunctions on Halbert to attend Sir
Piercie Shafton at daybreak, as he required.
When stretched on his pallet by his brother's side, Halbert had no small
cause to envy the sound sleep which instantly settled on the eyes of Edward,
but refused him any share of its influence.  He saw now too well what the
spirit had darkly indicated, that, in granting the boon which he had asked
so unadvisedly, she had contributed more to his harm than his good. Ho
was now sensible, too late, of the various dangers and inconveniences with
which his dearest friends were threatened, alike by his discomfiture or his
success in the approaching duel. If he fell, he might say personally, "goodnight all." But it was not the less certain that he should leave a dreadful
legacy of distress and embarrassment to his mother and family,-an anticipation which by no means tended to render the front of death, in itself a
grisly object, more agreeable to his imagination. The vengeance of the
Abbot, his conscience told him, was sure to descend on his mother and
brother, or could only be averted by the generosity of the victor-And Mary
Avenel —he should have shown himself, if he succumbed in the present
~ Humorous-full of whims-thus Shakspeare, "Humorous as winter."-The vulgar word humoraome
eomes nearest to the meaning.




THE MONASTERY.                              147
combat, as ineficient in protecting her, as he had been unnecessarily active in
bringing disaster on her, and on the house in which she had been protected
from infancy. And to this view of the case were'to be added all those imbittered and anxious feelings with which the bravest men, even in a better
or less doubtful quarrel, regard the issue of a dubious conflict, the first time
when it has been their fate to engage in an affair of that nature.
But however disconsolate the prospect seemed in the event of his being
conquered, Halbert could expect from victory little more than the safety of
his own life, and the gratification of his wounded pride. To his friends -
to his mother and brother - especially to Mary Avenel - the consequences
of his triumph would be more certain destruction than the contingency of
his defeat and death. If the English knight survived, he might in courtesy
extend his protection to themn; but if he fell, nothing was likely to screen
them from the vindictive measures which the Abbot and convent would surely
adopt against the violation of the peace of the Halidome, and the slaughter
of a protected guest by one of their own vassals, within whose house they
had lodged him for shelter. These thoughts, in which neither view of the
case augured aught short of ruin to his family, and that ruin entirely
brought on by his own rashness, were thorns in Halbert Glendinning's
pillow, and deprived his soul of peace and his eyes of slumber.
There appeared no middle course, saving one which was marked by degradation, and which, even if he stooped to it, was by no means free of danger.
He might indeed confess to the English knight the strange circumstances
which led to his presenting him with that token which the White Lady (in
her displeasure as it now seemed) had given him, that he might offer it to
Sir Piercie Shafton. But to this avowal his pride could not stoop, and
reason, who is wonderfully ready to be of counsel with pride on such occasions, offered many arguments to show it would be useless as well as mean
so tar to degrade himself. "If I tell a tale so wonderful," thought he,
"shall I not either be stigmatized as a liar, or punished as a wizard? —
Were Sir Piercie Shafton generous, noble, and benevolent, as the champions
of whom we hear in romance, I might indeed gain his ear, and, without
demeaning myself, escape from the situation in which I am placed.'But as
he is, or at least seems to be, self-conceited, arrogant, vain, and presumptuous-I should but humble myself in vain-and I will not humble myself!"
he said, starting out of bed., grasping his broadsword, and brandishing it
in the light of the moon, which streamed through the deep niche that served
them as a window; when, to his extreme surprise and terror, an airy form
stood in the moonlight, but intercepted not the reflection on the floor. Dimly
as it was expressed, the sound of the voice soon made him sensible he saw
the White Lady.
At no time had her presence seemed so terrific to him; for when he had
invoked her, it was with the expectation of the apparition, and the determination to abide the issue. But now she had come uncalled, and her
presence impressed him with a sense of approaching misfortune, and with
the hideous apprehension that he had associated himself with a demon,
over whose motions he had no control, and of whose powers and quality
he had no certain knowledge. He remained, therefore, in mere terror,
gazing on the apparition, which chanted or recited in cadence the following lines"He whose heait for vengeance sued,
Must not shrink from shedding blood
The knot that thou hast tied with word,
Thou must loose by edge of sword."
"Avaunt thee, false Spirit!" said Halbert Glendinning; " I have bought
thy advice too dearly already-Begone in the name of God I"
The Spirit laughed; and the cold unnatural sound of her laughter had
something in it more fearful than the usually melancholy tones of her voice.
She then replied, —




-148                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
"You have summon'd me once —you have summon'd me twice,
And without e'er a summons I come to you thrice;
Unask'd for. unsued for, you came to my glen;
Unsued and unask'd I am with you again."
Halbert Glendinning gave way for a moment to terror, and called on his
brother, "Edward! waken, waken, for Our Lady's sake!"
Edward awaked accordingly, and asked what he wanted.
" Look out," said Halbert, " look up! seest thou no one in the room?"
"No, upon my good word," said Edward, looking out.
" What! seest thou nothing in the moonshine upon the floor there?"
" No, nothing," answered Edward, " save thyself resting on thy naked
sword. I tell thee, Halbert, thou shouldst trust more to thy spiritual arms,
and less to those of steel and iron. For this many a night hast thou started
and moaned, and cried out of fighting, and of spectres, and of goblins -
thy sleep hath not refreshed thee-thy waking hath been a dream.-Credit.me, dear Halbert, say the Pater and Credo, resign thyself to the protection
of God, and thou wilt sleep sound and wale in comfort."
" It may be," said Halbert slowly, and having his eye still bent on the
female form which to him seemed distinctly visible,-" it may be-But tell
me, dear Edward, seest thou no one on the chamber floor but me?"
"No one," answered Edward, raising himself on his elbow; "dear
brother, lay aside thy weapon, say thy prayers, and lay thee down to
rest."
While he thus spoke, the Spirit smiled at Halbert as if in scorn; her
wan cheek faded in the wan moonlight even before the smile had passed
away, and Halbert himself no longer beheld the vision to which he had so
anxiously solicited his brother's attention.  " May God preserve my wits!"
he said, as, laying aside his weapon, he again threw himself on his bed.
"Amlen! my dearest brother," answered Edward; "but we must not
provoke that Heaven in our wantonness which we invoke in our misery.Be not angry with me, my dear brother —I know not why you have totally
of late estranged yourself from me-It is true, I am neither so athletic in
body, nor so alert in courage, as you have been from your infancy; yet,
till lately, you have not absolutely cast off my society-Believe me, I have
wept in secret, though I forbore to intrude myself on your privacy.  The
time has been when you held me not so cheap; and when, if I could not
follow the game so closely, or mark it so truly as you, I could fill up our
intervals of pastime with pleasant tales of the olden times, which I had
read or heard, and which excited even your attention as we sate and ate
our provision by some pleasant spring- but now I have, though I know
not why, lost thy regard and affection.-Nay, toss not thy arms about thee
thus wildly," said the younger brother; " from thy strange dreams, I fear
some touch of fever hath affected thy blood —let me draw closer around
thee thy mantle."
"Forbear," said Halbert-" your care is needless-your complaints are
without reason-your fears on my account are in vain."
"Nay, but hear me, brother," said Edward.  "Your speech in sleep,
and now even your waking dreams, are of beings which belong not to this
world, or to our race  Our good Father Eustace says, that howbeit we may
not do well to receive all idle tales of goblins and spectres, yet there is
warrant from  holy Scripture to believe, that the fiends haunt waste and
solitary places; and. that those who frequent such wildernesses alone, are
the prey, or the sport, of these wandering demons. And therefore, I pray
thee, brother, let me go with you when you go next up the glen, where, as
you well know, there be places of evil reputation-Thou carest not for my
escort; but, Halbert, such dangers are more safely encountered by the wise
in judgment, than by the bold in bosom; and though I have small cause to
boast of my own wisdom, yet I have that which ariseth from the written
knowledge of elder times."




THE  MONASTERY.                            149
There was a moment during this discourse, when Halbert had well-nigh
come to the resolution of disburdening his own breast, by intrusting
Edward with all that weighed upon it. But when his brother reminded
him that this was the morning of a high holiday, and that, setting aside all
other business or pleasure, he ought to go to the Monastery and shrive
himself before Father Eustace, who would that day occupy the confessional,
pride stepped in and confirmed his wavering resolution. " I will not avow,"
he thought, " a tale so extraordinary; that I may be considered as an impostor or something worse -I will not fly from this Englishman, whose
arm and sword may be no better than my own. My fathers have faced
his betters, were he as much distinguished in battle as he is by his quaint
discourse."
Pride, which has been said to save man, and woman too, from falling,
has yet a stronger influence on the mind when it embraces the cause of
passion, and seldom fails to render it victorious over conscience and reason.
Halbert, once determined, though not to the better course, at length slept
soundly, and was only awakened by the dawn of day.
lJqaplr            m rntq-$irst.
Indifferent, but indifferent-pshaw, he doth it not
Like one who is his craft's master-ne'er the less
I have seen a clown confer a bloody coxcomb
On one who was a master of defence.
OLD PLAY.
WITH  the first gray peep of dawn, Halbert Glendinning arose and
hastened to dress himself, girded on his weapon, and took a cross-bow in
his hand, as if his usual sport had been his sole object. He groped his
way down the dark and winding staircase, and undid, with as little noise:
as possible, the fastenings of the inner door, and of the exterior iron grate.
At length he stood free in the court-yard, and looking up to the tower, saw
a signal made with a handkerchief from the window. Nothing doubting
that it was his antagonist, he paused, expecting him. But it was Mary
Avenel, who glided like a spirit from under the low and rugged portal.
Halbert was much surprised, and felt, he knew not why; like one caught
in the act of a meditated trespass. The presence of Mary Avenel had till
that moment never given him pain. She spoke, too, in a tone where sorrow
seemed to mingle- with reproach, while she asked him  with emphasis,
" What he was about to do?"
He showed his cross-bow, and was about to express the pretext he had
meditated, when Mary interrupted him.
"Not so, lalbert-that evasion were unworthy of one whose word has
hitherto been truth. You meditate not the destruction of the deer —your
hand and your heart are aimed at other game -you seek to do battle with
this stranger."
"And wherefore should I quarrel with our guest?" answered Halbert,
blushing deeply.
"There are, indeed, many reasons why you should not," replied the
maiden, " nor is there one of avail wherefore you should-yet nevertheless,
such a quarrel you are now searching after."
"Why should you suppose so, Mary?" said Halbert, endeavouring to
hide his conscious purpose-" he is my mother's guest-he is protected by
the Abbot and the community, who are our masters-he is of high degree
N 2




150                  WA-E R L E'Y  N OVELS.
also,   and wherefore should you think that I can, or dare, resent a hasty
word, which he has perchance thrown out against me more from the wantonness of his wit, than the purpose of his heart?"
"Alas!" answered the maiden, "the very asking that question puts
your resolution beyond a doubt. Since your childhood you were ever
daring, seeking danger rather than avoiding it —delighting in whatever
had the, air of adventure and of courage: and it is not from fear that you
will now blench from your purpose -Oh, let it then be from pity!-from
pity, Halbert, to your aged mother, whom your death or victory will alike
deprive of the comfort and stay of her age."
"She has my brother Edward," said Halbert, turning suddenly from her.
"She has indeed," said Mary Avenel, "the calm, the noble-minded, the
considerate Edward, who has thy courage, Halbert, without thy fiery rashness, -thy generous spirit, with more of reason to guide it. He would
not have heard his mother, would not have heard his adopted sister, beseech him in vain not to ruin himself, and tear up their future hopes of
happiness and protection."
Ialbert's heart swelled as he replied to this reproach.  "Well- what
avails it speaking? -you have him that is better than me — wiser, more
considerate-braver, for aught I know-you are provided with a protector,
and need care no more for me."
Again he turned to depart, but Mary Aveiel laid her hand on his arm so
gently that he scarce felt her hold, yet felt that it was impossible for him to
strike it off. There,he stood, one foot advanced to leave the court-yard, but
so little determined on departure, that he resembled a traveller arrested by
the spell of a magician, and unable either to quit the attitude of motion, or
to proceed on his course.
Mary Avenel availed herself of his state of suspense. "Hear me," she
said, "hear me, Halbert! — I am an orphan, and even Heaven hears the
orphan - I have been the companion of your infancy, and if you will not
hear me for an instant, from whom may Mary Avenel claim so poor a
boon?"
" I hear you," said Halbert Glendinning, "but be brief, dear Mary-you
mistake the nature of my business    it is but a morning of summer sport
which we propose."
" Say not thus," said the maiden, interrupting him, "say not thus to me
-others thou mayst deceive, but me thou canst not -There has been that
in me from the earliest youth, which fraud flies from, and which imposture
cannot deceive. For what fate has given me such a power I know not; but
bred an ignorant maiden, in this sequestered valley, mine eyes can too often
see what man would most willingly hide-I can judge of the dark purpose,
though it is hid under the smiling brow, and a glance of the eye says more
to me than oaths and protestations do to others."
"Then," said Halbert, "if thou canst so read the human heart, - say,
dear Mary —what dost thou see in mine?-tell me that-say that what thou
seest-what thou readest in this bosom, does not offend thee-say but that,
and thou shalt be the guide of my actions, and mould me now and henceforward to honour or to dishonour at thy own free will!"
Mary Avenel became first red, and then deadly pale, as IIalbert Glendinning spoke. But when, turning round at the close of his address, he took
her hand, she gently withdrew it, and replied, "I cannot read the heart,
Halbert, and I would not of my will know aught of yours, save what beseems us both — I only can judge of signs, words, and actions of little outward import, more truly than those around me, as my eyes, thou knowest,
have seen objects not presented to those of others."
"Let them gaze then on one whom they shall never see more," said Ialbert, once more turning from her, and rushing out of the court-yard without again looking back.




THE  MONASTERY.                            151
Mary Avenel gave a faint scream, and clasped both her hands firmly on
her forehead and eyes. She had been a minute in this attitude, when she
was thus greeted by a voice from behind: "Generously done, my most
clement Discretion, to hide those brilliant eyes from the far inferior beams
which even now begin to gild the eastern horizon-Certes, peril there were
that Phoebus, outshone in splendour, might in very shamefacedness turn
back his car, and rather leave the world in darkness, than incur the disgrace of such an encounter-Credit me, lovely Discretion -"
But as Sir Piercie Shafton (the reader will readily set down these flowers
of eloquence to the proper owner) attempted to take Mary Avenel's hand,
in order to proceed in his speech, she shook him abruptly off, and regarding
him with an eye which evinced terror and agitation, rushed past him into
the tower.
The knight stood looking after her with a countenance in which contempt
was strongly mingled with mortification.  "By my knighthood!" he ejaculated, "I have thrown away upon this rude rustic Phidele a speech, which
the proudest beauty at the court of Felicia (so let me call the Elysium from
which I am banished!) might have termed the very matins of Cupid. Hard
and inexorable was the fate that sent thee thither, Piercie Shafton, to waste
thy wit upon country wenches, and thy valour upon hob-nailed clowns!
But that insult- that affront -had it been offered to me by the lowest plebeian, he must have died for it by my hand, in respect the enormity of the
offence doth countervail the inequality of him by whom it is given. I trust
I shall find this clownish roisterer not less willing to deal in blows than in
taunts."
While he held this conversation with himself, Sir Piercie Shafton was
hastening to the little tuft of birch-trees which had been assigned as the
place of meeting. He greeted his antagonist with a courtly salutation, followed by this commentary: "I pray you to observe, that I doff my hat to
you, though so much my inferior in rank, without derogation on my part,
inasmuch as my having so far honoured you in receiving and admitting
your defiance, doth, in the judgment of the best martialists, in some sort
and for the time, raise you to a level with me - an honour which you may
and ought to account cheaply purchased, even with the loss of your life, if
such should chance to be the issue of this duello."
"For which condescension," said Halbert, "I have to thank the token
which I presented to you."
The knight changed colour, and grinded his teeth with rage-" Draw your
weapon!" said he to Glendinning.
"Not in this spot," answered the youth; " we should be liable to interruption -Follow me, and I will bring you to a place where we shall
encounter no such risk."
He proceeded to walk up the glen, resolving that their place of combat
should be in the entrance of the Corri-nan-shian; both because the spot,
lying under the reputation of being haunted, was very little frequented, and
also because he regarded it as a place which to him might be termed fated,
and which he therefore resolved should witness his death or victory.
They walked up the glen for some time in silence, like honourable enemies
who did not wish to contend with words, and who had nothing friendly to
exchange with each other. Silence, however, was always an irksome state
with Sir Piercie, and, moreover, his anger was usually a hasty and shortlived passion. As, therefore, he went forth, in his own idea, in all love and
honour towards his antagonist, he saw not any cause for submitting longer
to the painful restraint of positive silence. He began by complimenting
Halbert on the alert activity with which he surmounted the obstacles- and
impediments of the way.
"Trust me," said he, "worthy rustic, we.have not a lighter or a firmer.
steli in our courtlike revels, and if duly set forth by a silk hose, and trained.:




152                   WAVERXLEY NOVEfXS.
unto that stately exercise, your leg would make an indifferent good show in
a pavin or a galliard. And I doubt nothing," he added, " that you have
availed yourself of some opportunity to improve yourself in the art of fence,
which is more akin than dancing to our present purpose?"
"I know nothing more of fencing," said Halbert, "than hath been taught
me by an old shepherd of ours, called Martin, and at whiles a lesson from
Christie of the Clinthill- for the rest, I must trust to good sword, strong
arm, and sound heart."
"Marry and I am  glad of it, young Audacity, (I will call you my
Audacity, and you will call me your Condescension, while we are on these
terms of unnatural equality,) I am glad of your ignorance with all my
heart. For we martialists proportion the punishments which we inflict
upon our opposites, to the length and hazard of the efforts wherewith they
oppose themselves to us. And I see not why you, being but a tyro, may
not be held sufficiently punished for your outrecuidance, and orgillous presumption, by the loss of an ear, an eye, or even a finger, accompanied by
some flesh-wound of depth and severity, suited to your error-whereas, had
you been able to stand more effectually on your defence, I see not how less
than your life could have atoned sufficiently for your presumption."
" Now, by God and Our Lady," said Halbert, unable any longer to restrain
himself, "thou art thyself over-presumptuous, who speakest thus daringly
of the issue of a combat which is not yet even begun-Are you a god, that
you already dispose of my life and limbs? or are you a judge in the justiceair, telling at your ease and without risk, how the head and quarters of a
condemned criminal are to be disposed of?"
" Not so, 0 thou, whom I have well permitted to call thyself my Audacity.
I, thy Condescension, am neither a god to judge the issue of the combat
before it is fought, nor a judge to dispose at my ease and in safety of the
limbs and head of a condemned criminal; but I am an indifferent good
master of fence, being the first pupil of the first master of the first school of
fence that our royal England affords, the said master being no other than
the truly noble, and all-unutterably skilful Vincentio Saviola, from whom
I learned the firm step, quick eye, and nimble hand —of which qualities
thou, 0 my most rustical Audacity, art full like to reap the fruits so soon as
we shall find a piece of ground fitting for such experiments."
They had now reached the gorge of the ravine, where Halbert had at
first intended to stop; but when he observed the narrowness of the level
ground, he began to consider that it was only by superior agility that he
could expect to make up his deficiency in the science, as it was called, of
defence. He found no spot which afforded sufficient room to traverse for
this purpose, until he gained the well-known fountain, by whose margin,
and in front of the huge rock from which it sprung, was an amphitheatre
of level turf, of small space indeed, compared with the great height of the
cliffs with which it was surrounded on every point save that from which the
rivulet issued forth, yet large enough for their present purpose.
When they had reached this spot of ground, fitted well by its gloom and
sequestered situation to be a scene of mortal strife, both were surprised to
observe that a grave was dug close by the foot of the rock with great neatness and regularity, the green turf being laid down upon the one side, and
the earth thrown out in a heap upon the other. A mattock and shovel lay
by the verge of the grave.
Sir Piercie Shafton bent his eye with unusual seriousness upon Halbert
Glendinning, as he asked him  sternly, "Does this bode treason, young
man? And have you purpose to set upon me here as'in an emboscata or
place of vantage?"
" Not on my part, by Heaven!" answered the youth: "I told no one of
our purpose, nor would I for the throne of Scotland take odds against a
single arm."




THE  MONASTERY.                              153
"I believe thou wouldst not, mine Audacity," said the knight, resuming
the affected manner which was become a second nature to him; "nevertheless this fosse is curiously well shaped, and might be the masterpiece of
Nature's last bed-maker, I would say the sexton-Wherefore, let us be
thankful to chance or some unknown friend, who hath thus provided for
one of us the decencies of sepulture, and let us proceed to determine which
shall have the advantage of enjoying this place of undisturbed slumber."
So saying, he stripped off his doublet and cloak, which he folded up with
great care, and deposited upon a large stone, while Halbert Glendinning,
not without some emotion, followed his example. Their vicinity to the
favourite haunt of the White Lady led him to form conjectures concerning
the incident of the grave-" It must have beefn her work!" he thought:
"the Spirit foresaw and has provided for the fatal event of the combat -I
must return from this place a homicide, or I must remain here for ever!"
The bridge seemed now broken down behind him, and the chance of
coming off honourably without killing or being killed, (the hope of which
issue has cheered the sinking heart of many a duellist,) seemed now altogether to be removed. Yet the very desperation of his situation gave him,
on an instant's reflection, both firmness and courage, and presented to him
one sole alternative, conquest, namely, or death.
"As we are here," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "unaccompanied by any
patrons or seconds, it were well you should pass your hands over my sides,
as I shall over yours; not that I suspect you to use any quaint device of
privy armour, but in order to comply with the ancient and laudable custom
practised on all such occasions."
While, complying with his antagonist's humour, Halbert Glendinning
went through this ceremony, Sir Piercie Shafton did not fail to solicit his
attention to the quality and fineness of his wrought and embroidered shirt"In this very shirt," said he, " 0 mine Audacity!- I say in this very garment, in which I am now to combat a Scottish rustic like thyself, it was my
envied lot to lead the winning party at that wonderous match at ballon,
made betwixt the divine Astrophel, (our matchless Sidney,) and the right
honourable my very good lord of Oxford. All the beauties of Felicia (by
which name I distinguish our beloved England) stood in the gallery, waving
their kerchiefs at each turn of the game, and cheering the winners by their
plaudits. After which noble sport we were refreshed by a suitable banquet,
whereat it pleased the noble Urania (being the unmatched Countess of Pembroke) to accommodate me with her fan for the cooling my somewhat too
much inflamed visage, to requite which courtesy, I said, casting my features
into a smiling, yet melancholy fashion, 0 divinest Urania! receive again
that too fatal gift, which not like the Zephyr cooleth, but like the hot breath
of the Sirocco, heateth yet more that which is already inflamed. Whereupon,
looking upon me somewhat scornfully, yet not so but what the experienced
courtier might perceive a certain cast of approbative affection    "
Here the knight was interrupted by Halbert, who had waited with courteous patience for some little time, till he found, that far from drawing to a
close, Sir Piercie seemed rather inclined to wax prolix in his reminiscences.
"Sir Knight," said the youth, "if this matter be not very much to the
purpose, we will, if you object not, proceed to that which we have in hand.
You should have abidden in England had you desired to waste time in
words, for here we spend it in blows."
"I crave your pardon, most rusticated Audacity," answered Sir Piercie;
"truly I become oblivious of every thing beside, when the recollections of
the divine court of Felicia press upon my wakened memory, even as a saint
is dazzled when he bethinks him of the beatific vision. Ah, felicitous Feliciana! delicate.nurse of the fair, chosen abode of the wise, the birth-place
and cradle of nobility, the temple of courtesy, the fane of sprightly chivalry
-Ah, heavenly court, or rather courtly heaven I cheered with dances, lulled




154                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
asleep with harmony, wakened with sprightly sports and tourneys, decored
with silks and tissues, glittering with diamonds and jewels, standing on end
with double-piled velvets, satins, and satinettas!"
"The token, Sir Knight, the token 1" exclaimed Halbert Glendinning,
who, impatient of Sir Piercie's interminable oratory, reminded him of the
ground of their quarrel, as the best way to compel him to the purpose of
their meeting.
And he judged right; for Sir Piercie Shafton no sooner heard him speak,
than he exclaimed, " Thy death-hour has struck -betake thee to thy sword
-Via!"
Both swords were unsheathed, and the combatants commenced their
engagement. Halbert became immediately aware, that, as he had expected,
he was far inferior to his adversary in the use of his weapon. Sir Piercie
Shafton had taken no more than his own share of real merit, when he termed
himself an absolutely good fencer; and Glendinning soon found that he
should have great difficulty in escaping with life and honour from such a
master of the sword. The English knight was master of all the mystery of
the stoccata, imbrocata, punto-reverso, incartata, and so forth, which the
Italian masters of defence had lately introduced into general practice. But
Glendinning, on his part, was no novice in the principles of the art, according
to the old Scottish fashion, and possessed the first of all qualities, a steady
and collected mind. At first, being desirous to try the skill, and become
acquainted with the play of his enemy, he stood on his defence, keeping his
foot, hand, eye, and body, in perfect unison, and holding his sword short,
and with the point towards his antagonist's face, so that Sir Piercie, in order
to assail him, was obliged to make actual passes, and could not avail himself
of his skill in making feints; while, on the other hand, Halbert was prompt
to parry these attacks, either by shifting his ground or with the sword. The
consequence was, that after two or three sharp attempts on the part of Sir
Piercie, which were evaded or disconcerted by the address of his opponent, he
began to assume the defensive in his turn, fearful of giving some advantage by
being repeatedly the assailant. But Halbert was too cautious to press on a
swordsman whose dexterity had already more than once placed him within
a hair's breadth of death, which he had only escaped by uncommon watchfulness and agility.
When each had made a feint or two, there was a pause in the conflict,
both as if by one assent dropping their swords' point, and looking on each
other for a moment without speaking. At length Halbert Glendinning, who
felt perhaps more uneasy on account of his family than he had done before
he had displayed his own courage, and proved the strength of his antagonist,
could not help saying, " Is the subject of our quarrel, Sir Knight, so mortal,
that one of our two bodies must needs fill up that grave? or may we with
honour, having proved ourselves against each other, sheathe our swords and
depart friends?"
" Valiant and most rustical Audacity," said the Southron knight, " to no
man on earth could you have put a question on the code of honour, who was
more capable of rendering you a reason. Let us pause for the space of one
venue, until I give you my opinion on this dependence,* for certain it is, that
brave men should not run upon their fate like brute and furious wild beasts,
but should slay each other deliberately, decently, and with reason. Therefore, if we coolly examine the state of our dependence, we may the better
apprehend whether the sisters three have doomed one of us to expiate the
same with his blood - Dost thou understand me?"
" I have heard Father Eustace," said Halbert, after a moment's recollection, " speak of the three furies, with their thread and their shears."
* Dependence-A phrase among the brethren of the sword for an existing quarrel




THE MONASTERY.                               155
"Enough -enough,"-interrupted Sir Piercie Shafton, crimsoning with
a now fit of rage, "the thread of thy life is spun!"
And with these words he attacked with the utmost ferocity the Scottish
youth, who had but just time to throw himself into a posture of defence.
But the rash fury of the assailant, as frequently happens, disappointed its
own purpose; for, as he made a desperate thrust, Halbert Glendinning
avoided it, and ere the knight could recover his weapon, requited hira (to
use his own language) with a resolute stoccata, wh;ch passed through his
body, and Sir Piercie Shafton fell to the ground.
ljuter t           ml  a Cm t-irran u.
Yes, life hath left him-every busy thought,
Each fiery passion, every strong affection,
All sense of outward ill and inward sorrow,
Are fled at once from the pale trunk before me;
And I have given that which spoke and moved,
Thought, acted, suffer'd as a living man,
To be a ghastly form of bloody clay,
Soon the foul food for reptiles.
OLD PLAY.
I BELIEVE few successful duellists (if the word successful can be applied
to a superiority so fatal) have beheld their dead antagonist stretched on the
earth at their feet, without wishing they could redeem with their own blood
that which it has been their fate to spill. Least of all could such indifference be the lot of so young a man as IIalbert Glendinning, who, unused to
the sight of human blood, was not only struck with sorrow, but with terror,
when he beheld Sir Piercie Shafton lie stretched on the green-sward before
him, vomiting gore as if impelled by the strokes of a pump. He threw his
bloody sword on the ground, and hastened to kneel and support him, vainly
striving, at the same time, to stanch his wound, which seemed rather to
bleed inwardly than externally;
The unfortunate knight spoke at intervals, when the syncope would
permit him, and his words, so far as intelligible, partook of his affected and
conceited, yet not ungenerous character.
"Most rustical youth," he said, " thy fortune hath prevailed over knightly
skill- and Audacity hath overcome Condescension, even as the kite hath
sometimes hawked at and struck down the falcon-gentle.-Fly and save thyself! —Take my purse-it is in the nether pocket of my carnation-coloured
hose -and is worth a clown's acceptance;  See that my mails, with my
vestments, be sent to the Monastery of Saint Mary's"-(here his voice grew
weak, and his mind and recollection seemed to waver) - " I bestow the cut
velvet jerkin, with close breeches conforming-for-oh!-the good of my
soul."
"Be of good comfort, sir," said Halbert, half distracted with his agony
of pity and remorse.  " I trust you shall yet do well - Oh for a leech I'
"Were there twenty physicians, 0 most generous Audacity, and that were
a grave spectacle - I might not survive, my life is ebbing fast.-Commend
me to the rustical nymph whom I called my Discretion -     Claridiana  -
true empress of this bleeding heart-which now bleedeth in sad earnest!Place me on the ground at my length, most rustical victor, born to quench
the pride of the burning light of the most felicitous court of Feliciana - 0
saints and angels   knights and ladies   masques and theatres —quaint
devices - chain-work and broidery - love, honour, and beauty!-"




156                  WAVERLEY NOVEL'S.
While muttering these last words, which slid from him, as it were unawares, while doubtless he was calling to mind the glories of the English
court, the gallant Sir Piercie Shafton stretched out his limbs-groaned
deeply, shut his eyes, and became motionless.
The victor tore his hair for very sorrow, as he looked on the pale countenance of his victim. Life, he thought, had not utterly fled, but without
better aid than his own, he saw not how it could be preserved.
" Why," he exclaimed in vain penitence, "why did I provoke him to an
issue so fatal! Would to God I had submitted to the worst insult man could
receive from man, rather than be the bloody instrument of this bloody deed
- and doubly cursed be this evil-boding spot, which, haunted as I knew it
to be by a witch or a devil, I yet chose for the place of combat! In any
other place, save this, there had been help to be gotten by speed of foot, or
by uplifting of voice -but here there is no one to be found by search, no
one to hear my shouts, save the evil spirit who has counselled this mischief.
It is not her hour-I will essay the spell howsoever; and if she can give me
aid, she shall do it, or know of what a madman is capable even against those
of another world!"
IHe spurned his bloody shoe from his foot, and repeated the spell with
which the reader is well acquainted; but there was neither voice, apparition, nor signal of answer. The youth, in the impatience of his despair,
and with the rash hardihood which formed the basis of his character,
shouted aloud, "Witch-Sorceress-Fiend!-art thou deaf to my cries of
help, and so ready to appear and answer those of vengeance? Arise and
speak to me, or I will choke up thy fountain, tear down thy hollybush, and
leave thy haunt as waste and bare. as thy fatal assistance has made me waste
of comfort and bare of counsel!"-This furious and raving invocation was
suddenly interrupted by a distant sound, resembling a hollo, from the gorge
of the ravine. " Now may Saint Mary be praised," said the youth, hastily
fastening his sandal, " I hear the voice of some living man, who may give
me counsel and help in this fearful extremity."
Having donned his sandal, Halbert Glendinning, hallooing at intervals,
in answer to the sound which he had heard, ran with the speed of a hunted
buck down the rugged defile, as if paradise had been before him, hell and
all her furies behind, and his eternal happiness or misery had depended
upon the speed which he exerted. In a space incredibly short for any one
but a Scottish mountaineer having his nerves strung by the deepest and
most passionate interest, the youth reached the entrance of the ravine,
through which the rill that flows down Corri-nan-shian discharges itself,
and unites with the brook that waters the little valley of Glendearg.
Here he paused, and looked around him upwards and downwards through
the glen, without perceiving a human form. His heart sank within him.
But the windings of the glen intercepted his prospect, and the person, whose
voice he had heard, might therefore, be at no great distance, though not
obvious to his sight. The branches of an oak-tree, which shot straight out
from the face of a tall cliff, proffered to his bold spirit, steady head, and
active limbs, the means of ascending it as a place of out-look, although the
enterprise was what most men would have shrunk from. But by one bound
from the earth, the active youth caught hold of the lower branch, and swung
himself up into the tree, and in a minute more gained the top of the cliff,
from which he could easily descry a human figure descending the valley.
It was not that of a shepherd, or of a hunter, and scarcely any others used
to. traverse this deserted solitude, especially coming from the north, since
the reader may remember that the brook took its rise from an extensive and
dangerous morass which lay in that direction.
But Halbert Glendinning did not pause to consider who the traveller
lmight be, or what might be the purpose of his journey. To know that he
saw a human being, and might receive, in the extremity of his distress, the




THE MONASTERY.                             157
countenance and advice of a fellow-creature, was enough for him at the
moment. IIe threw himself from the pinnacle of the cliff once more into
the arms of the projecting oak-tree, whose boughs waved in middle air,
anchored by the roots in a huge rift or chasm of the rock. Catching at
the branch which was nearest to him, he dropped himself from that height
upon the ground; and such was the athletic springiness of his youthful
sinews, that he pitched there as lightly, and with as little injury, as the
falcon stooping from her wheel.
To resume, his race at full speed up the glen, was the work of an instant;
and as he turned angle after angle of the indented banks of the valley,
without meeting that which he sought, he became half afraid that the form
which he had seen at such a distance had already melted into thin air, and
was either a deception of his own imagination, or of the elementary spirits
by which the valley was supposed to be haunted.
But to his inexpressible joy, as he turned round the base of a huge and
distinguished crag, he saw, straight before and very near to him, a person,
whose dress, as he viewed it hastily, resembled that of a pilgrim.
He was a man of advanced life, and wearing a long beard, having on his
head a large slouched hat, without either band or brooch. His dress was a
tunic of black serge, which, like those commonly called hussar-cloaks, had
an upper part, which covered the arms and fell down on the lower; a small
scrip and bottle, which hung at his back, with a stout staff in his hand,
completed his equipage. Iis step was feeble, like that of one exhausted
by a toilsome journey.
" Save ye, good father!" said the youth. "God and Our Lady have sent
you to my assistance."
"And in what, my son, can so frail a creature as I am, be of service to
you?" said the old man, not a little surprised at being thus accosted by so
handsome a youth, his features discomposed by anxiety, his face flushed
with exertion, his hands and much of his dress stained with blood.
"A man bleeds to death in the valley here, hard by. Come with me -
come with me! You are aged -you have experience — you have at least
your senses-and mine have well nigh left me."
" A man - and bleeding to death - and here in this desolate spot!" said
the stranger.
" Stay not to question it, father," said the youth, "but come instantly to
his rescue. Follow me,-follow me, without an instant's delay."
" Nay, but, my son," said the old man, " we do not lightly follow the
guides who present themselves thus suddenly in the bosom of a howling
wilderness. Ere I follow thee, thou must expound to me thy name, thy
purpose, and thy cause."
" There is no time to expound any thing," said Halbert; " I tell thee a
man's life is at stake, and thou must come to aid him, or I will carry thee
thither by force!"
" Nay, thou shalt not need," said the traveller; "if it indeed be as thou
sayest, I will follow thee of free-will -the rather that I am not wholly unskilled in leech-craft, and have in my scrip that which may do thy friend a
service-Yet walk more slowly, I pray thee, for I am already well-nigh forespent with travel."
With the indignant impatience of the fiery steed when compelled by his
rider to keep pace with some slow drudge upon the highway, Halbert
accompanied the wayfarer, burning with anxiety which he endeavoured to
subdue, that he might not alarm his companion, who was obviously afraid
to trust him. When they reached the place where they were to turn off the
wider glen into the Corri, the traveller made a doubtful pause, as if unwilling
to leave the broader path-" Young man," he said, " if thou meanest aught
lut good to these gray hairs, thou wilt gain little by thy cruelty-I have no
earthly treasure to tempt either robber or murderer."
o




158                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
"And I," said the youth, "am neither - and yet - God of Heaven! - I
may be a murderer, unless your aid comes in time to this wounded wretch!"
"Is it even so," said the-traveller; "and do human passions disturb the
breast of nature, even in her deepest solitude? -Yet why should I marvel
that where darkness abides the works of darkness should abound?-By its
fruits is the tree known-Lead on, unhappy youth-I follow thee!"
And with better will to the journey than he had evinced hitherto, the
stranger exerted himself to the uttermost, and seemed to forget his own
fatigue in his efforts to keep pace with his impatient guide.
What was the surprise of Halbert Glendinning, when, upon arriving at
the fatal spot, he saw no appearance of the body of Sir Piercie Shafton!
The traces of the fray were otherwise sufficiently visible. The knight's
cloak' had indeed vanished as well as his body, but his doublet remained
where he had laid it down, and the turf on which he had been stretched was
stained with blood in many a dark crimson spot.
As he gazed round him in terror and astonishment, Halbert's eyes fell
upon the place of sepulture which had so lately appeared to gape for a
victim. It was no longer open, and-it seemed that earth had received the
expected tenant; for the usual narrow hillock was piled over what had
lately been an open grave, and the green sod was adjusted over all with the
accuracy of an experienced sexton. Halbert stood aghast. The idea rushed
on his mind irresistibly, that the earth-heap before him enclosed what had
lately been a living, moving, and sentient fellow-creature, whom, on little
provocation, his fell act had reduced to a clod of the valley, as senseless and
as cold as the turf under which he rested. The hand that scooped the grave
had completed its word; and whose hand could it be save that of the mysterious being of doubtful quality, whom his rashness had invoked, and whom
he had suffered to intermingle in his destinies?
As he stood with clasped hands and uplifted eyes, bitterly ruing his rashness, he was roused by the voice of the stranger, whose suspicions of his
guide had again been awakened by finding the scene so different from what
Halbert had led him to expect.-" Young man," he said, " hast thou baited
thy tongue with falsehood to cut perhaps only a few days from the life of
one whom Nature will soon call home, without guilt on thy part to hasten
his journey?"
" By the blessed Heaven!-by our dear Lady!" ejaculated Halbert —--
"Swear not at all!" said the stranger, interrupting him, "neither by
Heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by earth, for it is his footstool - nor by
the creatures whom he hath made, for they are but earth and clay as we
are. Let thy yea be yea, and thy nay, nay.  Tell me in a word, why and
for what purpose thou hast feigned a tale, to lead a bewildered traveller yet
farther astray?"
" As I am a Christian man," said Glendinning, " I left him here bleeding
to death -and now I nowhere spy him, and much I doubt that the tomb
that thou seest has closed on his mortal remains!"
"And who is he for whose fate thou art so anxious?" said the stranger;
"or how is it possible that this wounded man could have been either removed from, or interred in, a place so solitary?"
" His name," said IIalbert, after a moment's pause, " is Piercie Shafton
-there, on that very spot I left him bleeding; and what power has conveyed him hence, I know no more than thou dost."
"Piercie Shafton?" said the stranger; " Sir Piercie Shafton of Wilverton,
a kinsman, as it is said, of the great Piercie of Northumberland? If thou
hast, slain him, to return to the territories of the proud Abbot is to give thy
neck to the gallows. He is well known, that Piercie Shafton; the meddling
tool of wiser plotters-a harebrained trafficker in treason-a champion of
the Pope, employed as a forlorn hope by those more politic heads, who have
more will to work mischief, than valour to encounter danger. - Come with




THE  MONASTE RY.                             159
me, youth, and save thyself from the evil consequences of this deed —Guide
me to the Castle of Avenel, and thy reward shall be protection and safety."
Again Halbert paused, and summoned his mind to a hasty council.  The
vengeance with which the Abbot was likely to visit the slaughter of Shafton,
his friend, and in some measure his guest, was likely to be severe; yet, in
the various contingencies which he had considered previous to their duel,
le had unaccountably omitted to reflect what was to be'his line of conduct
in case of Sir Piercie falling by his hand.  If he returned to Glendearg, he
was sure to draw on his whole family, including Mary Avenel, the resentment of the Abbot and community, whereas it was possible that flight
might make him be regarded as the sole author of the deed, and might avert
the indignation of the monks from the rest of the inhabitants of his paternal tower.  Halbert recollected also the favour expressed for the household,
and especially for Edward, by the Sub-Prior; and he conceived that he
could, by communicating his own guilt to that worthy ecclesiastic, when at
a distance from Glendearg, secure his powerful interposition in favour of
his family.  These thoughts rapidly passed through his mind, and he determined on flight. The stranger's company and his promised protection came
in aid of that resolution; but he was unable to reconcile the invitation
which the old man gave him to accompany him for safety to the Castle of
Avenel, with the connexions of Julian, the present usurper of that inheritance.  "Good father," he said, "I fear that you mistake the man with
whom you wish me to harbour.  Avenel guided Piercie Shafton into Scotland, and his henchman, Christie of the Clinthill, brought the Southron
hither."
"Of that," said the old man, "I am well aware.  Yet if thou wilt trust
to me, as I have shown no reluctance to confide in thee, thou shalt find with
Julian Avenel welcome, or at least safety."
"Father," replied Halbert, "though I can ill reconcile what thou sayest
with what Julian Avenel hath done, yet caring little about the safety of a
creature so lost as myself, and as thy words seem those of truth and honesty,
and finally, as thou didst render thyself frankly up to my conduct, I will
return the confidence thou hast shown, and accompany thee to the Castle
of Avenel by a road which thou thyself couldst never have discovered."
He led the way, and the old man followed for some time in silence.
lajptr  tl g Cmntq-g irLh.'Tis when the wound is stiffening with the cold,
The warrior first feels pain-'tis when the heat
And fiery fever of his soul is pass'd,.The sinner feels remorse.
OLD PLAY.
THE feelings of compunction with which Halbert Glendinning was visited
upon this painful occasion, were deeper than belonged to an age and.country in which human life was held so cheap. They fell far short certainly
of those which might have afflicted a mind regulated by better religious
precepts, and more strictly trained under social laws; but still they were
deep and severely felt, and divided in Halbert's heart even the regret with
which he parted from Mary Avenel and the tower of his fathers.
The old traveller walked silently by his side for some time, and then
addressed him. -" My son, it has been said that sorrow must speak or die
-Why art thou so muchcast down?-Tell me thy unhappy tale, and it may
be that my gray head may devise counsel and aid for your young life."




160                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
"Alas!" said Halbert Glendinning, "can you wonder why I am  cast
down? -I am at this instant a fugitive from my father's house, from my
mother, and from myrfriends, and I bear on my head the blood of a man
who injured me but in idle words, which I have thus bloodily requited. My
heart now tells me I have done evil  it were harder than these rocks if it
could bear unmoved the thought, that I have sent this man to a long account,
unhousled and unshrieved!"
"Pause there, my son," said the traveller.  "That thou hast defaced
God's image in thy neighbour's person —that thou hast sent dust to dust
in idle wrath or idler pride, is indeed a sin of the deepest dye -that thou
hast cut short the space which Heaven might have allowed him for repentance, makes it yet more deadly-but for all this there is balm in
Gilead."
"I understand you not, father," said Halbert, struck by the solemn tone
which was assumed by his companion.
The old man proceeded. " Thou hast slain thine enemy-it was a cruel
deed: thou hast cut him off perchance in his sins-it is a fearful aggravation. Do yet by my counsel, and in lieu of him whom thou hast perchance
consigned to the kingdom of Satan, let thine efforts wrest another subject
from the reign of the Evil One."
"I understand you, father," said Halbert; "thou wouldst have me atone
for my rashness by doing service to the soul of my adversary -But how
may this be? I have no money to purchase masses, and gladly would I
go barefoot to the Holy Land to free his spirit from  purgatory, only
that    "
"My son," said the old man, interrupting him, "the sinner for whose
redemption I entreat you to labour, is not the dead but the living. It is
not for the soul of thine enemy I would exhort thee to pray- that has
already had its final doom from a Judge as merciful as he is just; nor,
wert thou to coin that rock into ducats, and obtain a mass for each one,
would it avail the departed spirit. Where the tree hath fallen, it must lie.
But the sapling, which hath in it yet the vigour and juice of life, may be
bended to the point to which it ought to incline."
"Art thou a priest, father?" said the young man, "or by what commission dost thou talk of such high matters?"
"By that of my Almighty Master," said the traveller, "under whose
banner I am an enlisted soldier."
Halbert's acquaintance with religious matters was no deeper than could
be derived from the Archbishop of Saint Andrew's Catechism, and the
pamphlet called the Twapennie Faith, both which were industriously circulated and'recommended by the monks of Saint Mary's. Yet, however indifferent and superficial a theologian, he began to suspect that he was now
in company with one of the gospellers, or heretics, before whose influence
the ancient system of religion now tottered to the very foundation. Bred
up, as may well be presumed, in a holy horror against these formidable
sectaries, the youth's first feelings were those of a loyal and devoted church
vassal. "Old man," he said, "wert thou able to make good with thy hand
the words that thy tongue hath spoken against our Holy Mother Church,
we should have tried upon this moor which of our creeds hath the better
champion."
" Nay," said the stranger, " if thou art a true soldier of Rome, thou wilt
not pause from thy purpose because thou hast the odds of years and of
strength on thy side. Hearken to me, my son. I have showed thee how
to make thy peace with Heaven, and thou hast rejected my proffer. I will
now show thee how thou shalt make thy reconciliation with the powers of
this world. Take this gray head from the frail body which supports it,
and carry it to the chair of proud Abbot Boniface; and when thou tellest
him thou hast slain Piercie Shafton. and his ire rises at the deed, lay the




THE MONASTERY.                              161
head of Henry Warden at his foot, and thou shalt have praise instead of
censure."
Halbert Glendinning stepped back in surprise.  "What! are you that
Henry Warden so famous among the heretics, that even Knox's name is
scarce more frequently in their mouths?  Art thou he, and darest thou to
approach the Halidome of Saint Mary's?"
"I am Henry Warden, of a surety," said the old man, "far unworthy to
be named in the same breath with Knox, but yet willing to venture on
-whatever dangers my master's service may call me to."
"Hearken to me, then," said Halbert; " to slay thee, I have no heartto make thee prisoner, were equally to bring thy blood on my head —to
leave thee in this wild without a guide, were little better. I will conduct
thee, as I promised, in safety to the Castle of Avenel; but breathe not,
while we are on the journey, a word against the doctrines of the holy church
of which I am an unworthy-but though an ignorant, a zealous member.When thou art there arrived, beware of thyself-there is a high price upon
thy head, and Julian Avenel loves the glance of gold bonnet-pieces." *
"Yet thou sayest not," answered the Protestant preacher, for such he
was, "that for lucre he would sell the blood of his guest?"
"Not if thou comest an invited stranger, relying on his faith," said the
youth; "evil as Julian may be, he dare not break the rites of hospitality;
for, loose as we on these marches may be in all other ties, these are respected amongst us even to idolatry, and his nearest relations would think
it incumbent on them to spill his blood themselves, to efface the disgrace
such treason would bring upon their name and lineage.  But if thou goest
self-invited, and without assurance of safety, I promise thee thy risk is
great."
" I am in God's hand," answered the preacher; " it is on His errand that
I traverse these wilds amidst dangers of every kind; while I am useful for
my master's service, they shall not prevail against me, and when, like the
barren fig-tree, I can no longer produce fruit, what imports it when or by
whom the axe is laid to the root?"
" Your courage and devotion," said Glendinning, " are worthy of a better
cause."
" That," said Warden, " cannot be-mine is the very best."
They continued their journey in silence, Halbert Glendinning tracing
with the utmost accuracy the mazes of the dangerous and intricate morasses
and hills which divided the HIalidome from the barony of Avenel. From
time to time he was obliged to stop, in order to assist his companion to
cross the black intervals of quaking bog, called in the Scottish dialect hags,
by which the firmer parts of the morass were intersected.
" Courage, old man," said Halbert, as he saw his companion almost exhausted with fatigue, "we shall soon be upon hard ground.  And yet soft
as this moss is, I have seen the merry falconers go through it as light as
deer when the quarry was upon the flight."
"True, my son," answered Warden, " for so I will still call you, though
you term me no longer father; and even so doth headlong youth pursue its
pleasures, without regard to the mire and the peril of the paths through
which they are hurried."
" I have already told thee," answered Halbert Glendinning, sternly, "that
I will hear nothing from thee that savours of doctrine."
"Nay, but, my son," answered Warden, "thy spiritual father himself
would surely not dispute the truth of what I have now spoken for your
edification!"
Glendinning stoutly replied, "I know not how that may be - but I wot
* A gold coin of James V., the most beautiful of the Scottish series; so called because the effigy of the
sovereignty is represented wearing a bonnet.
VOL. V.-11                       Q2




162                   WAVERILEY  NOVEL'S.
well it is the fashion of your brotherhood to bait your hook with fair discourse, and to hold yourselves up as angels of light, that you may the
better extend the kingdom of darkness."
" May God," replied the preacher, "pardon those who have thus reported
of his servants!   I will not offend thee, my son, by being instant out of
season —thou speakest but as thou art taught -yet sure I trust that so
goodly a youth will be still rescued, like a brand from the burning."
While he thus spoke, the verge of the morass was attained, and their
path lay on the declivity. Green-sward it was, and, viewed from a distance,
chequered with its narrow and verdant line the dark-brown heath which it
traversed, though the distinction was not so easily traced when they were
walking on it.*  The old man pursued his journey with comparative ease;
and, unwilling again to awaken the jealous zeal of his young companion
for the Roman faith, he discoursed on other matters. The tone of his conversation was still grave, moral, and instructive. He had travelled much,
and knew both the language and manners of other countries, concerning
which Halbert Glendinning, already anticipating the possibility of being
obliged to leave Scotland for the deed he had done, was naturally and
anxiously desirous of information. By degrees he was more attracted by
the charms of the stranger's conversation than repelled by the dread of his
dangerous character as a heretic, and Halbert had called him father more
than once, ere the turrets of Avenel Castle came in view.
The situation of this ancient fortress was remarkable. It occupied a
small rocky islet in a mountain lake, or tarn, as such a piece of water is
called in Westmoreland.  The lake might be about a mile in circumference,
surrounded by hills of considerable height, which, except where old trees
and brushwood occupied the ravines that divided them from  each other,
were bare and heathy.  The surprise of the spectator was chiefly excited
by finding a piece of water situated in that high and mountainous region,
and the landscape around had features which might rather be termed wild,
than either romantic or sublime; yet the scene was not without its charms.
Under the burning sun of summer, the clear azure of the deep unruffled
lake refreshed the eye, and impressed the mind with a pleasing feeling of
deep solitude. In winter, when the snow lay on the mountains around,
these dazzling masses appeared to ascend far beyond their wonted and natural height, while the lake, which stretched beneath, and filled their bosom
with all its frozen waves, lay like the surface of a darkened and broken
mirror around the black and rocky islet, and the walls of the gray castle
with which it was crowned.
As the castle occupied, either with its principal buildings, or with its
flanking and outward walls, every projecting point of rock, which served as
its site, it seemed as completely surrounded by water as the nest of a wild
swan, save where a narrow causeway extended betwixt the islet and the
shore. But the fortress was larger in appearance than in reality; and of
the buildings which it actually contained, many had become ruinous and
uninhabitable.  In the times of the grandeur of the Avenel family, these
had been occupied by a considerable garrison of followers and retainers,
but they were now in a great measure deserted; and Julian Avenel would
probably have fixed his habitation in a residence better suited to his diminished fortunes, had it not been for the great security which the situation
of the old castle afforded to a man of his precarious and perilous mode of
life. Indeed, in this respect, the spot could scarce have been more happily
chosen, for it could be rendered almost completely inaccessible at the pleasure of the inhabitant.  The distance betwixt the nearest shore and the islet
was not indeed above an hundred yards; but then the causeway which con*T his sort of path, visible when looked at from a distance, but not to be seen when you are upon i, is
called on tie Border by the significant name of a Blind-road.




T HE MONASTERY.                                    163
nected them  was extremely narrow, and completely divided by two cuts,
one in the mid-way between the islet and shore, and another close under
the outward gate of the castle. These formed a formidable, and almost insurmountable interruption to any hostile approach.  Each was defended by
a drawbridge, one of which, being that nearest to the castle, was regularly
raised at all times during the day, and both were lifted at night.*
The situation of Julian Avenel, engaged in a variety of feuds, and a
party to almost every dark and mysterious transaction which was on foot
in that wild and military frontier, required all these precautions for his
security.  His own ambiguous and doubtful course of policy had increased
these dangers; for as he made professions to both parties in the state, and
occasionally united more actively with either the one or the other, as chanced
best to serve his immediate purpose, he could not be said to have either firm
allies and protectors, or determined enemies.  His life was a life of expedients and of peril; and while, in pursuit of his interest, he made all the
doubles which he thought necessary to attain his object, he often overran
his prey, and missed that which he might have gained by observing a
straighter course.
talI r  fltr  Cam Ptq-mrti.
I'll walk on tiptoe; arm my eye with caution,
My heart with courage, and my hand with weapon,
Like him who ventures on a lion's den.
OLD PLAY.
WHEN, issuing from the gorge of a pass which terminated upon the lake,
the travellers came in sight of the ancient castle of Avenel, the old man
looked with earnest attention upon the scene before him. The castle was,
as we have said, in many places ruinous, as was evident, even at this distance, by the broken, rugged, and irregular outline of the walls and of the
towers.  In others it seemed more entire, and a pillar of dark smoke, which
ascended from the chimneys of the donjon, and spread its long dusky pennon
through the clear ether, indicated that it was inhabited. But no corn-fields
or enclosed pasture-grounds on the side of the lake showed that provident
attention to comfort and subsistence which usually appeared near the houses
of the greater, and even of the lesser barons.  There were no cottages with
their patches of infield, and their crofts and gardens, surrounded by rows
of massive sycamores; no church with its simple tower in the valley; no
herds of sheep among the hills; no cattle on the lower ground; nothing
which intimated the occasional prosecution of the arts of peace and of industry.  It was plain that the inhabitants, whether few or numerous, must
be considered as the garrison of the castle, living within its defended precincts, and subsisting by means which were other than peaceful.
Probably it was with this conviction that the old man, gazing on the castle,
muttered to himself, "Lapis offensionis et petra scandali!" and then, turning
to Halbert Glendinning, he added, " We may say of yonder fort as King
* It is in vain to search near Melrose for any such castle as is here described. The lakes at the head of
the Yarrow, and those at the rise of the water of Ale, present no object of the kind. But in Yetholm Loch,
(a romantic sheet of water, in the dry march, as-it is called,) there are the remains of a fortress called Lochside Tower, which, like the supposed Castle of Avenel, is built upon an island, and connected with tce land
by a causeway. It is much smaller than the Castle of Avenel is described, consisting only of a single'inous
tower.




164                   WAVERLEY  NOV E-LS.
James did of another fastness in this province, that he who built it-was a
thief in his heart."*
" But it was not so," answered Glendinning; "yonder castle was built by
the old lords of Avenel, men as much beloved in peace as they were respected
in war.  They were the bulwark of the frontiers against foreigners, and the
protectors of the natives from  domestic oppression.  The present usurper
of their inheritance no more resembles them, than the night-prowling owl
resembles afalcon, because she builds on the same rock."
" This Julian Avenel, then, holds no high place in the love and regard of
his neighbours?" said Warden.
"So little," answered Halbert, " that besides the jack-men and riders with
whom he has associated himself, and of whom he has many at his disposal,
I know of few who voluntarily associate with him. He has been more than
once outlawed both by England and Scotland, his lands declared forfeited,
and his head set at a price. But in these unquiet times, a man so daring as
Julian Avenel has ever found some friends willing to protect him  against
the penalties of the law, on condition of his secret services."
"You describe a dangerous man," replied Warden.
"You may have experience of that," replied the youth, "if you deal not
the more warily; -though it may be that he also has forsaken the community of the church, and gone astray in the path of heresy."
"What your blindness terms the path of heresy," answered the reformer,
"is indeed the straight and narrow way, wherein he who walks turns not
aside, whether for worldly wealth or for worldly passions. Would to God
this man were moved by no other and no worse spirit than that which
prompts my poor endeavours to extend the kingdom of Heaven! This Baron
of Avenel is personally unknown to me, is not of our congregation or of our
counsel; yet I bear to him charges touching my safety, from those whom he
must fear if he does not respect them, and upon that assurance I will venture upon his hold —I am now sufficiently refreshed by these few minutes
of repose."
" Take then this advice for your safety," said Halbert, "and believe that
it is founded upon the usage of this country and its inhabitants. If you
can better shift for yourself, go not to the Castle of Avenel -if you do risk
going thither, obtain from him, if possible, his safe conduct, and beware
that he swears it by the Black Rood -And lastly, observe whether he eats
with you at the board, or pledges you in the cup; for if he gives you not
these signs of welcome, his thoughts are evil towards you."
"Alas 1" said the preacher, "I have no better earthly refuge for the present,
than these frowning towers, but I go thither trusting to aid which is not of
this earth-But thou, good youth, needest thou trust thyself in this dangerous den?"
" I," answered Halbert, " am in no danger. I am well known to Christie
of the Clinthill, the henchman of this Julian Avenel; and, what is a yet
better protection, I have nothing either to provoke malice or to tempt plunder."
The tramp of a steed, which clattered along the shingly banks of the loch,
was now heard behind them; and, when they looked back, a rider was
visible, his steel cap and the point of his long lance glancing in the setting
sun, as he rode rapidly towards them.
Halbert Glendinning soon recognized. Christie of the Clinthill, and made
his companion aware that the henchman of Julian Avenel was approaching.
" Ha, youngling!" said Christie to Halbert, as he-came up to them, " thou
hast made good my word at last, and come to take service with my noble
master, hast thou not?  Thou shalt find a good friend and a true; and ere
Saint Barnaby come round again, thou shalt know every pass betwixt Mill* It was of Lochwood, the hereditary fortress of the Johnstones of Annandale, a strong castle situated in
the centre of a quaklig bog, that James VI. made this remark.




THE  MONASTERY.                              165
burn Plain and Netherby, as if thou hadst been born with a jack on thy
back, and a lance in thy hand.-What old carle hast thou with thee? —He
is not of the brotherhood of Saint Mary's -at least he has not the buist*
of these black cattle."
"He is a wayfaring man," said Halbert, "who has concerns with Julian
of Avenel. For myself, I intend to go to Edinburgh to see the court and
the Queen, and when I return hither we will talk of your proffer. Meantime, as thou hast often invited me to the castle, I crave hospitality there
to-night for myself and my companion."
" For thyself and welcome, young comrade," replied Christie; "but we
harbour no pilgrims, nor aught that looks like a pilgrim."
" So please you," said Warden, " I have letters of commendation to thy
master from a sure friend, whom he will right willingly oblige in higher
matters than in affording me a brief protection. -And I am no pilgrim,
but renounce the same, with all its superstitious observances."
He offered his letters to the horseman, who shook his head.
" These," he said, " are matters for my master, and it will be well if he
can read them himself; for me, sword and lance are my book and psalter,
and have been since I was twelve years old. But I will guide you to the
castle, and the Baron of Avenel will himself judge of your errand."
By this time the party had reached the causeway, along which Christie
advanced at a trot, intimating his presence to the warders within the castle
by a shrill and peculiar whistle. At this signal the farther drawbridge was
lowered. The horseman passed it, and disappeared under the gloomy portal
which was beyond it.
Glendinning and his companion advancing more leisurely along the rugged
causeway, stood at length under the same gateway, over which frowned, in
dark red freestone, the ancient armorial bearings of the house of Avenel,
which represented a female figure shrouded and muffled, which occupied
the whole field. The cause of their assuming so singular a device was
uncertain, but the figure was generally supposed to represent the mysterious
being called the White Lady of Avenel.t  The sight of this mouldering
shield awakened in the mind of Halbert the strange circumstances which
had connected his fate with that of Mary Avenel, and with the doings of
the spiritual being who was attached to her house, and whom he saw here
represented in stone, as he had before seen her effigy upon the seal-ring of
Walter Avenel, which, with other trinkets formerly mentioned, had been
saved from  pillage, and brought to Glendearg, when Mary's mother was
driven from her habitation.
"You sigh, my son," said the old man, observing the impression made on
his youthful companion's countenance, but mistaking the cause; "if you
fear to enter, we may yet return."
"That -can ye not," said Christie of the Clinthill, who emerged at that
instant from the side-door under the archway.  "Look yonder, and choose
whether you will return skimming the water like a wild-duck, or winging
the air like a plover."
They looked, and saw that the drawbridge which they had just crossed
was again raised, and now interposed its planks betwixt the setting sun and
the portal of the castle, deepening the gloom of the arch under which they
stood. Christie laughed and bid them follow him, saying, by way of encouragement, in Halbert's ear, "Answer boldly and readily to whatever the
Baron asks you. Never stop to pick your words, and above all show no
fear of him-the devil is not so black as he is painted."
As he spoke thus, he introduced them  into the large stone hall, at the
upper end-of which blazed a huge fire of wood. The long oaken table,
* Buist —The brand, or mark, set upon sheep or cattle, by their owners.
t There is an ancient English family, I believe, which bears, or did bear, a ghost or spirit passant sable im
a field argent.'lis seems to have been a device of a punning or canting herald.




166                    WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
which, as usual, occupied the midst of the apartment, was covered with
rude preparations for the evening meal of the Baron and his chief domestics,
five or six of whom, strong, athletic, savage-looking men, paced up and
down the lower end of the hall, which rang to the jarring clang of their
long swords that clashed as they moved, and to the heavy tramp of their
high-heeled jack-boots.  Iron jacks, or coats of buff, formed the principal
part of their dress, and steel-bonnets, or large slouched hats with Spanish
plumes drooping backwards, were their head attire.
The Baron of Avenel was one of those tall, muscular, martial figures,
which are the favourite subjects of Salvator Rosa. He wore a cloak which
had- been once gaily trimmed, but which, by long wear and frequent exposure to the weather, was now faded in its colours.  Thrown negligently
about his tall person, it partly hid, and partly showed, a short doublet of
buff, under which was in some places visible that light shirt of mail which
was called a secret, because worn instead of more ostensible armour to protect against private assassination.  A leathern belt sustained a large and
heavy sword on one side, and on the other that gay poniard which had
once called Sir Piercie Shafton master' of which the hatchments and gildings were already much defaced, either by rough usage or neglect.
Notwithstandinig the rudeness of his apparel, Julian Avenel's manner and
countenance had far more elevation than those of the attendants who surrounded him. He might be fifty or upwards, for his dark hair was mingled
with gray, but age had neither tamed the fire of his eye nor the enterprise
of his disposition. His countenance had been handsome, for beauty was
an attribute of the family; but the lines were roughened by fatigue and
exposure to the weather, and rendered coarse by the habitual indulgence
of violent passions.
lie seemed in deep and moody reflection, and was pacing at a distance
from his dependents along the upper end of the hall, sometimes stopping
from time to time to caress and feed a gos-hawk, which sat upon his wrist,
with its jesses (i. e. the leathern straps fixed to its legs) wrapt around his
hand.  The bird, which seemed not insensible to its master's attention,
answered his caresses by ruffling forward its feathers, and pecking playfully at his finger. At such intervals the Baron smiled, but instantly
resumed the darksome air of sullen meditation.  He did not even deign to
look upon an object, which few could have passed and repassed so often
without bestowing on it a transient glance.
This was a woman of exceeding beauty, rather gaily than richly attired,
who sat on a low seat close by the huge hall chimney. The gold chains
round her neck and arms,-the gay gown of green which swept the floor,the silver embroidered girdle, with its bunch of keys, depending in housewifely pride by a silver chain,-the yellow silken couvrechef (Scotticb, curch)
which was disposed around her head, and partly concealed her dark profusion of hair, - above all, the circumstance so delicately touched in the old
ballad, that " the girdle was too short," the " gown of green all too strait,"
for the wearer's present shape, would have intimated the Baron's lady.
But then the lowly seat, -the expression of deep melancholy, which was
changed into a timid smile whenever she saw the least chance of catching
the eye of Julian Avenel,-the subdued look of grief, and the starting tear
for which that constrained smile was again exchanged when she saw herself entirely disregarded,-these were not the attributes of a wife, or they
were those of a dejected and afflicted female, who had yielded her love on
less than legitimate terms.
Julian Avenel, as we have said, continued to pace the hall without paying
any of that mute attention which is rendered to almost every female eitherbv affection or courtesy. IIe seemed totally unconscious of her presence,
or of that of his attendants, and was only roused from his own dark reflections by the notice he paid to the falcon, to which, however, the lady seemed




T HE M O   A ST ER Y.                       167
to attend, as if studying to find either an opportunity of speaking to the
Baron, or of finding something enigmatical in the expressions which he
used to the bird. All this the strangers had time enough to remark; for no
sooner had they entered the apartment than their usher, Christie of the
Clinthill, after exchanging a significant glance with the menials or troopers
at the lower end of the apartment, signed to Halbert Glendinning and to his
companion to stand still near the door, while he himself, advancing nearer
the table, placed himself in such a situation as to catch the Baron s observation when he should be disposed to look around, but without presuming
to intrude himself on his master's notice. Indeed, the look of this man,
naturally bold, hardy, and audacious, seemed totally changed when he was
in presence of his master, and resembled the dejected and cowering manner
of a quarrelsome dog when rebuked by his owner, or when he finds himself
obliged to deprecate the violence of a superior adversary of his own species.
In spite of the novelty of his own situation, and every painful feeling
connected with it, Halbert felt his curiosity interested in the female, who
sate by the chimney unnoticed and unregarded. He marked with what
keen and trembling solicitude she watched the broken words of Julian, and
how her glance stole towards him, ready to be averted upon the slightest
chance of his perceiving himself to be watched.
Meantime he went on with his dalliance with his feathered favourite, now
giving, now withholding, the morsel with which he was about to feed the
bird, and so exciting its appetite and gratifying it by turns. " What! more
yet? - thou foul kite, thou wouldst never have done -give thee part thou
wilt have all    Ay, prune thy feathers, and prink thyself gay-much thou
wilt make of it now - dost think I know thee not? -dost think I see not
that all that ruffling and pluming of wing and feathers is not for thy master,
but to try what thou canst make of him, thou greedy gled?-well-there —
take it then, and rejoice thyself-little boon goes far with thee, and with all
thy sex-and so it should."
He ceased to look on the bird, and again traversed the apartment. Then
taking another small piece of raw meat from the trencher, on which it was
placed ready cut for his use, he began once again to tempt and tease the
bird, by offering and withdrawing it, until he awakened its wild and bold
disposition.  "What! struggling, fluttering, aiming at me with beak and
single?*  So la! So la! wouldst mount? wouldst fly? the jesses are round
thy clutches, fool-thou canst neither stir nor soar but by my will-Beware
thou come to reclaim, wench, else I will wring thy head off one of these
days-Well, have it then, and well fare thou with it.-So ho, Jenkin!"  One
of the attendants stepped forward-" Take the foul gled hence to the mew
-or, stay; leave her, but look well to her casting and to her bathing-we
willsee her fly to-morrow.-How now, Christie, so soon returned?"
Christie advanced to his master, and gave an account of himself and his
journey, in the way in which'a police-officer holds communication with his
magistrate, that is, as much by signs as by words.
"Noble sir," said that worthy satellite, " the Laird of ——," he named no
place, but pointed with his finger in a south-western direction,-" may not
ride with you the day he purposed, because the Lord Warden has threatened that he will-"
Here another blank, intelligibly enough made up by the speaker touching
his own neck with his left fore-finger, and leaning his head a little to one
side.
"Cowardly caitiff!" said Julian; "by Heaven! the whole world turns
sheer naught-it is not worth a brave man's living in-ye may ride a day
and night, and never see a feather wave or hear a horse prance-the spirit
of our fathers is dead amongst us - the very brutes are degenerated - the
* In the kindly language of hawking, as Lady Juliana Berners terms it, hawks' talons are called their
g.  k'.




168                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
cattle we bring at our life's risk are mere carrion-our hawks are rifers*~our hounds are turnspits and trindle-tails-our men are women-and our
women are-"
He looked at the female for the first time, and stopped short in the midst
of what he was about to say, though there was something so contemptuous
in the glance, that the blank might have been thus filled up-" Our women
are such as she is."
He said it not, however, and as if desirous of attracting his attention at
all risks, and in whatever manner, she rose and came forward to him, but
with a timorousness ill-disguised by affected gaiety.-" Our women, Julian
-what would you say of the women?"
" Nothing," answered Julian Avenel, " at least nothing but that they are
kind-hearted wefches like thyself, Kate." The female coloured deeply,
and returned to her seat. - " And what strangers hast thou brought with
thee, Christie, that stand yonder like two stone statues?" said the Baron.
"The taller," answered Christie, " is, so please you, a young fellow called
Halbert Glendinning, the eldest son of the old widow at Glendearg."
"What brings him here?" said the Baron; " hath he any message from
Mary Avenel?"
"Not as I think," said Christie; "the youth is roving the country- he
was always a wild slip, for I have known him  since he was the height of
my sword."
"What qualities hath he?" said the Baron.
"All manner of qualities," answered his follower —" he can strike a buck,
track a deer, fly a hawk, halloo to a hound-he shoots in the long and crossbow to a hair's-breadth-wields a lance or sword like myself nearly-backs
a horse manfully and fairly-I wot not what more a man need to do to make
him a gallant companion."
"And who," said the Baron, "is the old misert who stands beside
him?"
"Some cast of a priest as I fancy-he says he is charged with letters to
you."
"Bid them come forward," said the Baron; and no sooner had they
approached him more nearly, than, struck by the fine form  and strength
displayed by Iialbert Glendinning, he addressed him thus: "I am  told,
young Swankie, that you are roaming the world to seek your fortune, - if
you will serve Julian Avenel, you may find it without going farther."
" So please you," answered Glendinning, " something has chanced to me
that makes it better I should leave this land, and I am bound for Edinburgh:"
"What! — thou hast stricken some of the king's deer, I warrant,'- or
lightened the meadows of Saint Mary's of some of their beeves-or thou
hast[ taken a moonlight leap over the border?"
"No, sir," said Halbert, "my case is entirely different."
"Then I warrant thee," said the Baron, " thou hast stabbed some brother
churl in a fray about a wench -thou art a likely lad to wrangle in such a
cause."
Ineffably disgusted at his tone and manner, Halbert Glendinning retiained silent, while the thought darted across his mind, what would Julian
Avenel have said, had he known the quarrel of which he spoke so lightly,
had arisen on account of his own brother's daughter! "But be thy cause
of flight what it will," said Julian, in continuation, "dost thou think the
law or its emissaries can follow thee into this island, or arrest thee under
the standard of Avenel?-Look at the depth of the lake, the strength of the
walls, the length of the causeway —look at my men, and think if they are
* So called when they only caught their prey by the feathers.
t Miser, used in the sense in which it often occurs in Spenser, and which is indeed its literal import"wretched old man."




THE MONASTERY.                               169
likely to see a comrade injured, or if I, their master, am a man to desert a
faithful follower, in good or evil. I tell thee it shall be an eternal day of
truce betwixt thee and justice, as they call it, from the instant thou hast put
my colours into thy cap -thou shalt ride by the Warden's nose as thou
wouldst pass an old market-woman, and ne'er a cur which follows him shall
dare to bay at thee!"
"I thank you for your offers, noble sir," replied Hlalbert, " but I must
answer in brief, that I cannot profit by them —my fortunes lead me elsewhere."
"Thou art a self-willed fool for thy pains," said Julian, turning from
him; and signing Christie to approach, he whispered in his ear, " there is
promise in that young fellow's looks, Christie, and we want men of limbs
and sinews so compacted  those thou hast brought to me of late are the
mere refuse of mankind, wretches scarce worth the arrow that ends them:
this youngster is limbed like Saint George. Ply him with wine and wassail
-let the wenches weave their meshes about him like spiders-thou understandest?"   Christie gave a sagacious nod of intelligence, and fell back to
a respectful distance from his master. -" And thou, old man," said the
Baron, turning to the elder traveller, "hast thou-been roaming the world
after fortune too?- it seems not she has fallen into thy way."
"So please you," replied Warden, " I were perhaps more to be pitied than
I am now, had I indeed met with that fortune, which, like others, I have
sought in my greener days."
"Nay, understand me, friend," said the Baron; "if thou art satisfied
with thy buckram gown and long staff, I also am well content thou shouldst
be as poor and contemptible as is good for the health of thy body and soul
-All I care to know of thee is, the cause which hath brought thee to my
castle, where few crows of thy kind care to settle.  Thou art, I warrant
thee, some ejected monk of a suppressed convent, paying in his old days
the price of the luxurious idleness in which he spent his youth.-Ay, or it
may be some pilgrim with a budget of lies from  Saint James of Compostella, or Our Lady of Loretto; or thou mayest be some pardoner with his
budget of relics from Rome, forgiving sins at a'penny a-dozen, and one to
the tale.-Ay, I guess why I find thee in this boy's company, and doubtless
thou wouldst have such a strapping lad as he to carry thy wallet, and relieve
thy lazy shoulders; but by the mass I will cross thy cunning. I make my
vow to sun and moon, I will not see a proper lad so misleard as to run the.country with an old knave like Simmie and his brother.*  Away with
thee!" he added, rising in wrath, and speaking so fast as to give no opportunity of answer, being probably determined to terrify the elder guest into
an abrupt flight-" Away with thee, with thy clouted coat, scrip, and scallop-shell, or, by the name of Avenel, I will have them loose the hounds on
thee."
Warden waited with the greatest patience until Julian Avenel, astonished
that the threats and violence of his language made no impression on him,
paused in a sort of wonder, and said in a less imperious tone, " Why the
fiend dost thou not answer me?"
"When you have done speaking," said Warden, in the same composed
manner, " it will be full time to reply."
" Say on man, in the devil's name-but take heed-beg not here-were it
but for the rinds of cheese, the refuse of the rats, or a morsel that my dogs
would turn from-neither a grain of meal, nor the nineteenth part of a gray
groat, will I give to.any feigned limmer of thy coat."
" It may be," answered Warden, "that you would have less quarrel with
my coat if you knew what it covers. I am neither a friar nor mendicant,
and would be right glad to hear thy testimony against these foul deceivers
* Two questionlarii, or begging friars, whose accoutrements and roguery make the subject of an old Scottish satirical poemi
P




I70                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
of God's church, and usurpers of his rights over the Christian flock, were it
given in Christian charity."
" And who or what art thou, then," said Avenel, " that thou comest to this
Border land, and art neither monk, nor soldier, nor broken man?"
" I am an humble teacher of the holy word," answered Warden. " This
letter from a most noble person will speak why I am here at this present
time."
He delivered the letter to the Baron, who regarded the seal with some
surprise, and then looked on the letter itself, which seemed to excite still
more. He then fixed his eyes on the stranger, and said, in a menacing tone,
"I think thou darest not betray me or deceive me?"
" I am not the man to attempt either," was the concise reply.
Julian Avenel carried the letter to the window, where he perused, or
at least attempted to peruse it more than once, often looking from the paper
and gazing on the stranger who had delivered it, as if he meant to read the
purport of the missive in the face of the messenger. Julian at length called
to the female,-" Catherine, bestir thee, and fetch me presently that letter
which I bade thee keep ready at hand in thy casket, having no sure lockfast
place of my own."
Catherine went with the readiness of one willing to be employed; and as
she walked, the situation which requires a wider gown and a longer girdle,
and in which woman claims from man a double portion of the most anxious
care, was still more visible than before. She soon returned with the paper,
and was rewarded with a cold —" I thank thee, wench; thou art a careful
secretary."
This second paper he also perused and reperused more than once, and
still, as he read it, bent from time to time a wary and observant eye upon
Henry Warden.  This examination and re-examination, though both the
man and the place were dangerous, the preacher endured with the most
composed and steady countenance, seeming, under the eagle, or rather the
vulture eye of the baron, as unmoved as under the gaze of an ordinary and
peaceful peasant. At length Julian Avenel folded both papers, and having
put them into the pocket of his cloak, cleared his brow, and, coming forward,
addressed his female companion. " Catherine," said he, "I have done this
good man injustice, when I mistook him for one of the drones of Rome.
HIe is a preacher, Catherine-a preacher of the - the new doctrine of the
Lords of the Congregation."
"The doctrine of the blessed Scriptures," said the preacher, "purified
from the devices of men."
" Sayest thou?" said Julian Avenel -"Well, thou mayest call it what
thou lists; but to me it is recommended, because it flings off all those sottish
dreams about saints and angels and devils, and unhorses lazy monks that
have ridden us so long, and spur-galled us so hard. No more masses and
corpse-gifts —no more tithes and offerings to make men poor —no more
prayers or psalms to make men cowards-no more christenings and penances,
and confessions and marriages."
"So please you," said Henry Warden, "it is against the corruptions, not
against the fundamental doctrines, of the church, which we desire to renovate, and not to abolish.".
"Prithee, peace, man," said the Baron; "we of the laity care not what
you set up, so you pull merrily down what stands in our way. Specially it
suits well with us of the Southland fells; for it is our profession to turn the
world upside down, and we live ever the blithest life when the downer side
is uppermost."
Warden would have replied; but the Baron allowed him not time, striking
the table with the hilt of his dagger, and crying out, —" Ha! you loitering
knaves, bring our supper-meal quickly.  See you not this holy man is




THE MONASTERY.                             171
exhausted for lack of food? heard ye ever of priest or preacher that devoured
not his five meals a-day?"
The attendants bustled to and fro, and speedily brought in several large
smoking platters filled with huge pieces of beef, boiled and roasted, but
without any variety whatsoever; without vegetables, and almost without
bread, though there was at the upper end a few oat-cakes in a basket. Julian
Avenel made a sort of apology to Warden.
" You have been commended to our care, Sir Preacher, since that is your
style, by a person whom we highly honour."
I am assured," said Warden, "that the most noble Lord    "
"Prithee, peace, man," said Avenel; " what need of naming names, so we
understand each other? I meant but to speak in reference to your safety and
comfort, of which he desires us to be chary.  Now, for your safety, look at
mny walls and water. But touching your comfort, we have no corn of our
own, and the meal-girnels of the south are less easily transported than their
beeves, seeing they have no legs to walk upon. But what though? a stoup
of wine thou shalt have, and of the best -thou shalt sit betwixt Catherine
and me at the board-end.-And, Christie, do thou look to the young springald, and call to the cellarer for a flagon of the best."
The Baron took his wonted place at the upper end of the board; his
Catherine sate down, and courteously pointed to a seat betwixt them for
their reverend guest.  But notwithstanding the influence both of hunger
and fatigue, Henry Warden retained his standing posture.
clqptr  thr   mrUntq-f1ft4+
When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betrayJULIAN Avenel saw with surprise the demeanour of the reverend
stranger. " Beshrew me," he said, "these new-fashioned religioners have
fast-days, I warrant me-the old ones used to confer these blessings chiefly
on the laity."
" We acknowledge no such rule," said the preacher-" We hold that our
faith consists not in using or abstaining from special meats on special
days; and in fasting we rend our hearts, and not our garments."
"The better - the better for yourselves, and the worse for Tom Tailor,"
said the Baron; " but come, sit down, or, if thou needs must e'en give us a
cast of thy office, mutter thy charm."
"Sir Baron," said the preacher, "I am in a strange land, where neither
mine office nor my doctrine are known, and where, it would seem, both are
greatly misunderstood. It is my duty so to bear me, that in my person,
however unworthy, my Master's dignity may be respected, and that sin
may take not confidence from relaxation of the bonds of discipline."
"Ho la! halt there," said the Baron; "thou wert sent hither for thy
safety, but not, I think, to preach to me, or control me. What is it thou
wouldst have, Sir Preacher? Remember thou speakest to one somewhat
short of patience, who loves a short health and a long draught."
" In a word, then," said Henry Warden, "that lady    "
" How?" said the Baron, starting -" what of her? - what hast thou to
say of that dame?"
" Is she thy house-dame?" said the preacher, after a moment's pause, in




172                 WAVE RLEY  NOVELS.
which he seemed to seek for the best mode of expressing what he had to
say-" Is she, in brief, thy wife?"
The unfortunate young woman pressed both her hands on her face, as if
to hide it, but the deep blush which crimsoned her brow and neck, showed
that her cheeks were also glowing; and the bursting tears, which found
their way betwixt her slender fingers, bore witness to her sorrow, as well
as to her shame.
" Now, by my father's ashes!" said the Baron, rising and spurning from
him his footstool with such violence, that it hit the wall on the opposite side
of the apartment-then instantly constraining himself, he muttered, " What
need to run myself into trouble for a fool's word?" —then resuming his
seat, he answered coldly and scornfully - " No, Sir Priest or Sir Preacher,
Catherine is not my wife-Cease thy whimpering, thou foolish wench-she
is not my wife, but she is handfasted with me, and that makes her as honest
a woman."
" landfasted?"-repeated Warden.
Knowest thou not that rite, holy man?" said Avenel, in the same tone
of derision; "then I will tell thee. We Border-men are more wary than
your inland clowns of Fife and Lothian - no jump in the dark for us- no
clenching the fetters around our wrists till we know how they will wear
with us-we take our wives, like our horses, upon trial.  When we are
handfasted, as we term it, we are man and wife for a year and day -that
space gone by, each may choose another mate, or, at their pleasure, may
call the priest to marry them for life-and this we call handfasting."*
"Then," said the preacher, " I tell thee, noble Baron, in brotherly love
to thy soul, it is a custom licentious, gross, and corrupted, and, if persisted
in, dangerous, yea, damnable.  It binds thee to the frailer being while she
is the object of desire-it relieves thee when she is most the subject of pity
it gives all to brutal sense, and nothing to generous and gentle affection.
I say to thee, that he who can meditate the breach of such an engagement,
abandoning the deluded woman and the helpless offspring, is worse than
the birds of prey; for of them the males remain with their mates until the
nestlings can take wing.  Above all, I say it is contrary to the pure Christian doctrine, which assigns woman to man as the partner of his labour,
the soother of his evil, his helpmate in peril, his friend in affliction; not as
the toy of his looser hours, or as a flower, which, once cropped, he may
throw aside at pleasure."
" Now, by the Saints, a most virtuous homily!" said the Baron;" quaintly
conceived and curiously pronounced, and to a well-chosen congregation.
Hark ye, Sir Gospeller! trow ye to have a fool in hand?  Know I not that
your sect rose by bluff Harry Tudor, merely because ye aided him to change
his Kate; and wherefore should I not use the same Christian liberty with
mine? Tush, man! bless the good food, and meddle not with what concerns
thee not-thou hast no gull in Julian Avenel."
"He hath gulled and cheated himself," said the preacher, "should he
even incline to do that poor sharer of his domestic cares the imperfect justice that remains to him.  Can he now raise her to the rank of a pure and
uncontaminated matron?-Can he deprive his child of the misery of owing
birth to a mother who has erred? He can indeed give them both the rank,
the state of married wife and of lawful son; but, in public opinion, their
names will be smirched and sullied with a stain which his tardy efforts
cannot'entirely efface.  Yet render it to them, Baron of Avenel, render to
them this late and imperfect justice. Bid me bind you together for ever,
and celebrate the day of your bridal, not with feasting or wassail, but with: This cus.tom of handfasting actually prevailed in the upland days. It arose partly from the want of
priests. While the convents subsisted, monks were detached on regular circuits through the wilder districts, to marry those who had lived in this species of connexion. A practice of the same kind existed in the
sle of Portlaud.




THE  MONASTERY.                            173
sorrow for past sin, and the resolution to commence a better life. Happy
then will have the chance been that has drawn me to this castle, though I
come driven by calamity, and unknowing where my course is bound, like a
leaf travelling on the north wind."
Tho plain, and even coarse features, of the zealous speaker, were warmed
at once and ennobled by the dignity of his enthusiasm; and the wild Baron,
lawless as he was, and accustomed to spurn at the control whether of religious or moral law, felt, for the first time perhaps in his life, that he was
under subjection to a mind superior to his own. He sat mute and suspended in his deliberations, hesitating betwixt anger and shame, yet borne
down by the weight of the just rebuke thus boldly fulminated against him.
The unfortunate young woman, conceiving hopes from her tyrant's silence
and apparent indecision, forgot both her fear and shame in her timid expectation that Avenel would relent; and fixing upon him her anxious and
beseeching eyes, gradually drew near and nearer to his seat, till at length,
laying a trembling hand on his cloak, she ventured to utter, "0 noble
Julian, listen to the good man!"
The speech and the motion were ill-timed, and wrought on that proud and
wayward spirit the reverse of her wishes.
The fierce Baron started up in a fury, exclaiming, " What! thou foolish
callet, art thou confederate with this strolling vagabond, whom thou hast
seen beard me in my own hall! Hence with thee, and think that I am
proof both to male and female hypocrisy!"
The poor girl started back, astounded at his voice of thunder and looks
of fury, and, turning pale as death, endeavoured to obey his orders, and
tottered towards the door. Her limbs failed in the attempt, and she fell on
the stone floor in a manner which her situation might have rendered fatal
- The blood gushed from her face. - Halbert Glendinning brooked not a
sight so brutal, but, uttering a deep imprecation, started from his seat, and
laid his hand on his sword, under the strong impulse of pdssing it through
the body of the cruel and hard-hearted ruffian. But Christie of the Clinthill, guessing his intention, threw his arms around him, and prevented him
from stirring to execute his purpose.
The impulse to such an act of violence was indeed but momentary, as it
instantly appeared that Avenel. himself, shocked at the effects of his violence, was lifting up and endeavouring to soothe in his own way the terrified
Catherine.
" Peace," he said, "prithee, peace, thou silly minion-why, Kate, though
I listen not to this tramping preacher, I said not what might happen an thou
dost bear me a stout boy. There-there-dry thy tears-Call thy women.
- So ho!-where be these queans? -Christie-Rowley —utcheon-drag
them hither by the hair of the head!"
A half dozen of startled wild-looking females rushed into the room, and
bore out her who might be either termed their mistress or their companion.
She showed little sign of life, except by groaning faintly and keeping her
hand on her side.
No sooner had this luckless female been conveyed from the apartment,
than the Baron, advancing to the table, filled and drank a deep goblet of
wine; then, putting an obvious restraint on his passions, turned to the
preacher, who stood horror-struck at the scene he had witnessed, and said,
" You have borne too hard on us, Sir Preacher - but coming with the commendations which you have brought me, I doubt not but your meaning was
good. But we are a wilder folk than you inland men of Fife and Lothian.
Be advised, therefore, by me-Spur not an unbroken horse-put not your
ploughshare too deep into new land-Preach to us spiritual liberty, and we
will hearken to you.-But we will give no way to spiritual bondage.- Sit,
therefore, down, and pledge me in old sack, and we will talk over these
matters."
r2




174                              WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"It is from  spiritual bondage," said the preacher, in the same tone of
admonitory reproof, "that I came to deliver you-it is from  a bondage
more fearful than than that of the heaviest earthly gyves- it is from your
own evil passions."
"' Sit down," said Avenel, fiercely; "sit down while the play is good —
else by my father's crest and my mother's honour!   "
" Now," whispered Christie of the Clinthill to Halbert, " if he refuse to
sit down, I would not give a gray groat for his head."
"Lord Baron," said Warden, "thou hast placed me in extremity. But
if the question be, whether I am to hide the light which I am commanded
to show forth, or to lose the light of this world, my choice is made.  I say
to  thee, like the Holy Baptist to Herod, it is not lawful for thee to have this
woman; and I say it though bonds and death be the consequence, counting
my life as nothing in comparison of the ministry to which I am called."
Julian A venel, enraged at the firmness of this reply, flung from his right
hand the cup in which he was about to drink to his guest, and from  the
other cast off the hawk, which flew wildly through the apartment. His
first motion was to lay hand upon his dagger.  But, changing his resolution, he exclaimed, "To the dungeon with this insolent stroller I-I will hear
no man speak a word for him   Look to the falcon, Christie, thou fool-an
she escape; I will despatch you after her every man-Away with that hypocritical dreamer-drag him hence if he resist!"
He was obeyed in both points.  Christie of the Clinthill arrested the
hawk's flight, by putting his foot on her jesses, and so holding her fast,
while Henry Warden was led off, without having shown the slightest symptonms of terror, by two of the Baron's satellites.  Julian Avenel walked the
apartment for a short time in sullen silence, and despatching one of his
attendants with a whispered message, which probably related to the health
of the unfortunate Catherine, he said aloud, "These rash and meddling
priests —By Heaven! they make us worse than we would be without
them." *
The answer which he presently received seemed somewhat to pacify his
angry mood, and he took his place at the board, commanding his retinue to
the like.  All sat down in silence, and began the repast.
During the meal Christie in vain attempted to engage his youthful companion  in  carousal,  or,  at  least,  in  conversation.   Hlalbert  Glendinning
pleaded fatigue, and expressed himself unwilling to take any liquor stronger
If it were necessary to name a prototype for this brutal, licentious and cruel Border chief, in an age
which showed but too many such, the Laird of Black Ormiston might be selected for that purpose.  He was
a friend and confidant of Bothwell, and an agent in Henry Darnley's murder. At his last stage, he was, like
other great offenders, a seeming penitent; and, as his confession bears, divers gentlemen and servants being
in the chamber, he said, "For God's sake, sit down'and pray for me, for I have been a great sinner otherwise," (that is, besides his share in Darnley's death,) "for the which God is this day punishinig me; for of all
men on the earth, I have been one of the proudest, and most hiah-minded, and most unclean of my body.
But specially I have shed the innocent blood of one Michael Hunter with miy own hands. Alas, therefore!
because the said Michael, having me lying on my back, having a fork in his hand, might have slain me if he
had pleased, and did it not, which of all things grieves me nost in conscience. Also, in a rage, I hanged a
poor man for a horse; —with many other wicked deeds, for whill I ask my God mercy. It is not marvel I
have been wicked, considering the wicked company that ever I have been in, but specially within the seven,years by-past, in which I never saw two good men or one good deed, but all kind of wicklediness, and yet God
would not suffer me to be lost." - See the whole confession in the State Trials.
Another worthy of the Borders, called Geordy Bourne, of s(omewhat subordinate rank, was a similar picture of profligacy.  He had fallen into the hands of Sir Robert Carey, then Warden of the Englisl East
Marches, who gives the following account of his prisoner's confession:" When all things were qielet, and the watch set at night, after supper, about ten of the clock, I took one of my
men's liveries. and put it about me, and took two other of nm  servants with me in their liveries; and we three,
as the Warden's men, came to the Provost Marshal's where Bourne was, and were let into his chamber. We
sate down by him, and told him that we were desirous to see him, because we heard he was stout and valiant,
and true to his friend, and that we were sorry our master could not be moved to save his life. He voluntarily of himself said, that he had lived long enough to do so many villanles as lie had done; and withal told
us, that he had lain with above forty men's wives, what in Englalnd what in Scotland'; -and that he had killed
seven Englishmen with his own hands, cruelly mlurderling thenm; and that he had spent his whole time in
whoring, drinking, stealing, arnd taking deep revenge for slight offentces.  He seenmed to be very penitent, and
much desired a minister for the comfort of his soul. We promised him  to let our master know his dlesire,
who, we knew would promptly grant it. We took leave of  iim; arnd presently I took order that Mr. Selby,
a very honest preacher, should go to him, and not stir fiom him till his execution the next morning; for after
I had heard his own confession, I was resolved no conditions should save his life, arnd so took order, that at.
thie gates opening the next nmorning, he should be carried to execution, which accordingly was performed."Wemoirs of Sir Robert Carey, Earl of Monmouth.




THIE MONASTERY.                                 175
than the heather ale, which was at that time frequently used at meals.
Thus every effort at jovialty died away, until the Baron, striking his hand
against the table, as if impatient of the long unbroken silence, cried out
aloud, "What, ho! my masters-are ye Border-riders, and sit as mute over
your meal as a mess of monks and friars?- Some one sing, if no one list
to speak. Much eaten without either mirth or music is ill of digestion. -
Louis," he added, speaking to one of the youngest of his followers, "thou
art ready enough to sing when no one bids thee."
The young man looked first at his master, then up to the arched roof of
the hall, then drank off the horn of ale, or wine, which stood beside him,
and with a rough, yet not unmelodious voice, sung the following ditty to the
ancient air of " Blue bonnets over the Border."
I.                                     ii.
March, march, Ettrick and Teviotdale,  Come from the hills where the hlrsels are grazing,
Why the deil dinna ye march forward in order?    Come from the glen of the buck and the roe;
March, march, Eskdale and Liddesdale,  Come to the crag where the beacon is blazing,
All the Blue Bonnets are bound for the Border    Come with the buckler, the lance, and the bow.
Many a banner spread,                 Trumpets are sounding,
Flutters above your head,             War-s!eeds are bounding,
Mapy a crest that is famous in story;  Stand to your arms then, and march in good order;
Mount and make ready then,            England shall many a day
Sons of the mountain glen,            Tell of the bloody fray,
Fight for the Queen and the old Scottish glory!    When the Blue Bonnets came over the Border!
The song, rude as it was, had in it that warlike character which at any
other time would have roused Halbert's spirit; but at present the charm of
minstrelsy had no effect upon him.  IHe made it his request to Christie to
suffer him to retire to rest, a request with which that worthy person, seeing
no chance of making a favourable impression on his intended proselyte in
his present humour, was at length pleased to comply.  But no Sergeant
Kite, who ever practised the profession of recruiting, was more attentive
that his object should not escape him, than was Christie of the Clinthill.
lie indeed conducted Halbert Glendinning to a small apartment overlooking
the lake, which was accommodated with a truckle bed.  But before quitting
him, Christie took special care to give a look to the bars which.crossed the
outside of the window, and when he left the apartment, he failed not to give
the key a double turn; circumstances which convinced young Glendninnin
that there was no intention of suffering him  to depart from the Castle of
Avenel at his own time and pleasure. He judged it, however, most prudent
to let these alarming symptoms pass without observation.
No sooner did he find himself in undisturbed solitude, than he ran rapidly
over the events of the day in his recollection, and to his surprise found that
his own precarious fate, and even the death of Piercie Shafton, made less
impression on him than the singularly bold and determined conduct of his
companion, Henry Warden. Providence, which suits its instruments to the
end they are to achieve, had awakened in the cause of Reformation in Scotland, a body of preachers of more energy than refinement, bold in spirit,
and strong in faith, contemners of whatever stood betwixt them  and their
principal object, and seeking the advancement of the great cause in which
they laboured by the roughest road, provided it were the shortest. The soft
breeze may wave the willow, but it requires the voice of the tempest to
agitate the boughs of the oak; and, accordingly, to milder hearers, and in
a less rude age, their manners would have been ill-adapted, but they were
singularly successful in their mission to the rude people to whom it was
addressed.
Owing to these reasons, Halbert Glendinning, who had resisted and
repelled the arguments of the preacher, was forcibly struck by the firmness
of his demeanour in the dispute with Julian Avenel.  It might be discour
teous, and most certainly it was incautious, to choose such a place and such
an audience, for upbraiding with his transgressions a baron, whom  both
manners and situation placed in full possession of independent power.  But
the conduct of the preacher was uncompromising, firm, manly, and obviously




176                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
grounded upon the deepest conviction which duty and principle could afford;
and Glendinning, who had viewed the conduct of Avenel with the deepest
abhorrence, was proportionally interested in the brave old man, who had
ventured life rather than withhold the censure due to guilt. This pitch of
virtue seemed to him to be in religion what was demanded by chivalry of
her votaries in war; an absolute surrender of all selfish feelings, and a come
bination of every energy proper to the human mind, to discharge the task
which duty demanded.
Halbert was at the period when youth was most open to generous emotions, and knows best how to appreciate them in others, and he felt, although
he hardly knew why, that, whether catholic or heretic, the safety of this
man deeply interested him. Curiosity mingled with the feeling, and led
him to wonder what the nature of those doctrines could be, which stole their
votary so completely from himself, and devoted him to chains or to death as
their sworn champion. He had indeed been told of saints and martyrs of
former days, who had braved for their religious faith the extremity of death
and torture. But their spirit of enthusiastic devotion had long slept in the
ease and indolent habits of their successors, and their adventures, like those
of knights-errant, were rather read for amusement than for edification. A
new impulse had been necessary to rekindle the energies of religious zeal,
and that impulse was now operating in favour of a purer religion, with one
of whose steadiest votaries the youth had now met for the first time.
The sense that he himself was a prisoner, under the power of this savage
chieftain, by no means diminished Halbert's interest in the fate of his fellow sufferer, while he determined at the same time so far to emulate his
fortitude, that neither threats nor suffering should compel him to enter into
the service of such a master. The possibility of escape next occurred to
him, and though with little hope of effecting it in that way, Glendinning
proceeded to examine more particularly the window of the apartment. The
apartment was situated in the first story of the castle; and was not so far
from the rock on which it was founded, but that an active and bold man
might with little assistance descend to a shelf of rock which was immediately below the window, and from thence either leap or drop himself down
into the lake which lay before his eye, clear and blue in the placid light of
a full summer's moon.-" Were I once placed on that ledge," thought Glendinning,'Julian Avenel and Christie had seen the last of me."  The size
of the window favoured such an attempt, but the stanchions or iron bars
seemed to form an insurmountable obstacle.
While Halbert Glendinning gazed from the window with that eagerness
of hope which was prompted by the energy of his character and his determination not to yield to circumstances, his ear caught some sounds from
below, and listening with more attention, he could distinguish the voice of
the preacher engaged in his solitary devotions. To open a correspondence
with him became immediately his object, and failing to do so by less marked
sounds, he at length ventured to speak, and was answered from beneath"Is it thou, my son?"  The voice of the prisoner now sounded more distinctly than when it was first heard, for Warden had approached the small
aperture, which, serving his prison for a window, opened just betwixt the
wall and the rock, and admitted a scanty portion of light through a wall
of immense thickness.  This soupirail being placed exactly under Halbert's
window, the contiguity permitted the prisoners to converse in a low tone,
when Halbert declared his intention to escape, and the possibility he saw
of achieving his purpose, but for the iron stanchions of the window"Prove thy strength, my son, in the name of God!" said the preacher.
Halbert obeyed him more in despair than hope, but to his great astonishment, and somewhat to his terror, the bar parted asunder near the bottom,
and the longer part being easily bent outwards, and not secured with lead
in the upper socket, dropt out into Halbert's hand. He immediately whis



THE MONASTERY.                               177
pered, but- as energetically as a whisper could be expressed-" By Heaven,
the bar has given way in my hand!"
"Thank Heaven, my son, instead of swearing by it," answered Warden
from his dungeon.'With little effort Halbert Glendinning forced himself through the opening
thus wonderfully effected, and using his leathern sword-belt as a rope to
assist him, let himself safely drop on the shelf of rock upon which the
preacher's window opened. But through this no passage could be effected,
being scarce larger than a loop-hole for musketry, and apparently constructed for that purpose.
"Are there no means by which I can assist your escape, my father?"
said Halbert.
"There are none, my son," answered the preacher; "but if thou wilt
ensure my safety, that may be in thy power."
"I will labour earnestly for it," said the youth.
" Take then a letter which I will presently write, for I have the means
of light and writing materials in my scrip —Hasten towards Edinburgh,
and on the way thou wilt meet a body of horse marching southwards-Give
this to their leader, and acquaint him of the state in which thou hast left
me. It may hap that thy doing so will advantage thyself."
In a minute or two the light of a taper gleamed through the shot-hole,
and very shortly after,. the preacher, with the assistance of his staff, pushed
a billet to Glendinning through the window.
" God bless thee, my son," said the old man, "and complete the marvellous work which he has begun."
"Amen!' answered Halbert, with solemnity, and proceeded on his
enterprise.
He hesitated a moment whether he should attempt to descend to the edge
of the water; but the steepness of the rock, and darkness of the night,
rendered the enterprise too dangerous. He clasped his hands above his
head and boldly sprung from the precipice, shooting himself forward into
the air as far as he could for fear of sunken rocks, and alighted. on the
lake, head foremost, with such force as sunk him for a minute below the
surface. But strong, long-breathed, and accustomed to such exercise, Halbert, even though encumbered with his sword, dived and rose like a seafowl, and swam across the lake in the northern direction. When he landed
and looked back on the castle, he could observe that the alarm had been
given, for lights glanced from window to window, and he heard the drawbridge lowered, and the tread of horses' feet upon the causeway. But,
little alarmed for the consequence of a pursuit during the darkness, he
wrung the water from his dress, and, plunging into the moors, directed his
course to the north-east by the assistance of the polar star
Why, what an intricate impeach is this!
I think you all have drank of Circe's cup.
If here you housed him, here he would have been;
If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly.
COMEDY OF ERRORS.
THE course of our story, leaving for the present Halbert Glendinning to
the guidance of his courage and his fortune, returns to the Tower of Glendearg, where matters in the meanwhile fell out, with which it is most fitting
that the reader should be acquainted.
VOL. V.- 12




1T8                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
The meal was prepared at noontide with all the care which Elspeth and
Tibb, assisted by the various accommodations which had been supplied
from the Monastery, could bestow on it. Their dialogue ran on as usual in
the intervals of their labour, partly as between mistress and servant, partly
as maintained by gossips of nearly equal quality.
"Look to the minced meat, Tibb," said Elspeth; "and turn the broach
even, thou good-for-nothing Simmie, - thy wits are harrying birds' nests,
child.  Weel, Tibb, this is a fasheous job, this Sir Piercie lying leaguer
with us up here, and wha kens for how lang?"
"A fasheous job indeed," answered her faithful attendant, "and little
good did the name ever bring to fair Scotland. Ye may have your hands
fuller of them than they are yet. Mony a sair heart have the Piercies given
to Scots wife and bairns with their pricking on the Borders. There was
Hotspur and many more of that bloody kindred, have sate in our skirts
since Malcolm's time, as Martin says!"
"Martin should keep a well-scrapit tongue in his head," said Elspeth,
"and not slander the kin of any body that quarters at Glendearg; forby,
that Sir Piercie Shafton is much respected with the holy fathers of the community, and they will make up to us ony fasherie that we may have with
him, either by good word or good deed, I'se warrant them. IIe is a considerate lord the Lord Abbot."
"And weel he likes a saft seat to his hinder end," said Tibb; "I have
seen'a belted baron sit on a bare bench, and find nae fault. But an ye are
pleased, mistress, I am pleased."
"Now, in good time, here comes Mysie of the Mill.-And where hae ye
been, lass for a's gane wrang without you?" said Elspeth.' I just gaed a blink up the burn," said Mysie, "for the young lady has
been down on her bed, and is no just that weel-So I gaed a gliff up the burn."
" To see the young lads come hame frae the sport, I will warrant you,'
said Elspeth.  "Ay, ay, Tibb, that's the way the young folk guide us, Tibbie -leave us to do the wark, and out to the play themsells."
" Ne'er a bit of that, mistress," said the Maid of the Mill, stripping her
round pretty arms, and looking actively and good-humouredly round for
some duty that she could discharge, "but just - I thought ye might like to
ken if they were coming back, just to get the dinner forward."
"And saw ye ought of them then?" demanded Elspeth.
"Not the least tokening," said Mysie, "though I got to the head of a
knowe, and though the English knight's beautiful white feather could have
been seen over all the bushes in the Shaw."
"The knight's white feather!" said Dame Glendinning; "ye are a silly
hempie — my Halbert's high head will be seen farther than his feather, let
it be as white as it like, I trow."
Mysie made no answer, but began to knead dough for wastel-cake with
all despatch, observing that Sir Piercie had partaken of that dainty, and
commended it upon the preceding day. And presently, in order to place on
the fire the girdle, or iron plate on which these cates were to be baked, she
displaced a stew-pan in which one of Tibb's delicacies were submitted to the
action of the kitchen fire. Tibb muttered betwixt her teeth -" And it is
the broth for my sick bairn, that maun make room for the dainty Southron's
wastel-bread.  It was a blithe time in Wight Wallace's day, or good King
Robert's, when the pock-puddings gat naething here but hard straiks and
bloody crowns. But we will see how it will a' end."
Elspeth did not think it proper to notice these discontented expressions
of Tibbie, but they sunk into her mind; for she was apt to consider her as
a sort of authority in matters of war and policy, with which her former
experience as bower-woman at Avenel Castle made her better acquainted
than were the peaceful inhabitants of Halidome. She only spoke, however,
to express her surprise that the hunters did not return.




THE  MONASTERY.                            179
"An they come not back the sooner," said Tibb, " they will fare the waur,
for-the meat will be roasted to a cinder-and there is poor Simmie that can
turn the spit nae langer: the bairn is melting-like an icicle in warm water
- Gang awa, bairn, and take a mouthful of the caller air, and I will turn
the broach till ye come back."
"Rin up to the bartizan at the tower-head, callant," said Dame Glendinning, " the air will be callerer there than ony gate else, and bring us word
if our Halbert and the gentleman are coming down the glen."
The boy lingered long enough to allow his substitute, Tibb Tacket,
heartily to tire of her own generosity, and of his cricket-stool by the side of
a huge fire. He at length returned with the news that he had seen nobody.
The matter was not so remarkable as far as Halbert Glendinning was
concerned, for, patient alike of want and of fatigue, it was no uncommon
circumstance for him to remain in the wilds till curfew time. But nobody
had given Sir Piercie Shafton credit for being so keen a sportsman, and the
idea of an Englishman preferring the chase to his dinner was altogether
inconsistent with their preconceptions of the national character. Amidst
wondering and conjecturing, the usual dinner-hour passed long away; and
the inmates of the tower, taking a hasty meal themselves, adjourned their
more solemn preparations until the hunters' return at night, since it seemed
now certain that their sport had either carried them to a greater distance, or
engaged them for a longer time than had been expected.
About four hours after noon, arrived, not the expected sportsmen, but an
unlooked for visitant, the Sub-Prior from the Monastery. The scene of the
preceding day had dwelt on the mind of Father Eustace, who was of that
keen and penetrating cast of mind which loves not to leave unascertained
whatever of mysterious is subjected to its inquiry.  His kindness was
interested in the family of Glendearg, which he had now known for a long
time; and besides, the community was interested in the preservation of the
peace betwixt Sir Piercie Shafton and his youthful host, since whatever
might draw public attention on the former, could not fail to be prejudicial
to the Monastery, which was already threatened by the hand of power. He
found the family assembled, all but Mary Avenel, and was informed that
Halbert Glendinning had accompanied the stranger oi a day's sport.  So
far was well. They had not returned; but when did youth and sport conceive themselves bound by set hours? and the circumstance excited no alarm
in his mind.
While he was conversing with Edward Glendinning touching his progress
in the studies he had pointed out to him, they were startled by a shriek from
Mary Avenel's apartment, which drew the whole family thither in headlong
haste.  They found her in a swoon in the arms of old Martin, who was
bitterly accusing himself of having killed her;'so indeed it seemed, for her
pale features and closed eyes argued rather a dead corpse than a living person.  The whole family were instantly in tumult.  Snatching her from
Martin's arms with the eagerness of affectionate terror, Edward bore her to
the casement, that she might receive the influence of the open air; the SubPrior, who, like many of his profession, had some knowledge of medicine,
hastened to prescribe the readiest remedies which occurred to him, and the
terrified females contended with, and impeded each other, in their rival
efforts to be useful.
"It has been ane of her weary ghaists," said Dame Glendinning.
"It's just a trembling on her spirits, as her blessed mother used to have,"
said Tibb.
"It's some ill news has come ower her," said the miller's maiden; while
burnt feathers, cold water, and all the usual means of restoring suspended
animation, were employed alternately, and with little effect.
At length a new assistant, who had joined the group unobserved, tendered
his aid in the following terms:- " How is this, my most fair Discretion?




180                  WAVE R'LEY  NOVELS.
What cause hath moved the ruby current of life to rush back to the citadel
of the heart, leaving pale those features in which it should have delighted
to meander for ever?-Let me approach her," he said, "with this sovereign
essence, distilled by the fair hands of the divine Urania, and powerful to
recall fugitive life, even if it were trembling on the verge of departure."
Thus speaking, Sir Piercie Shafton knelt down, and most gracefully presented to the nostrils of Mary Avenel a silver pouncet-box, exquisitely
chased, containing a sponge dipt in the essence which he recommmended so
highly.  Yes, gentle reader, it was Sir Piercie Shafton himself who thus
unexpectedly proffered his good offices! his cheeks, indeed, very pale, and
some part of his dress stained with blood, but not otherwise appearing
different from what he was on the preceding evening. But no sooner had
Mary Avenel opened her eyes, and fixed them on the figure of the officious
courtier, than she screamed faintly, and exclaimed,-" Secure the murderer!"
Those present stood aghast with astonishment, and none more so than the
Euphuist, who found himself so suddenly and so strangely accused by the
patient whom  he was endeavouring to succour, and who repelled his
attempts to yield her assistance with all the energy of abhorrence.
" Take him away!" she exclaimed-" take away the murderer!"
"Now, by my knighthood," answered Sir Piercie, "your lovely faculties
either of mind or body are, 0 my most fair Discretion, obnubilated by some
strange hallucination. For either your eyes do not discern that it is Piercie
Shafton, your most devoted Affability, who now stands before you, or else,
your eyes discerning truly, your mind hath most erroneously concluded
that he hath been guilty of some delict or violence to which his hand is a
stranger. No murder, 0 most scornful Discretion, hath been this day done,
saving but that which your angry glances are now performing on your most
devoted captive."
He was here interrupted by the Sub-Prior, who had, in the meantime,
been speaking with Martin apart, and had received from him an account of
the circumstances, which, suddenly communicated to Mary Avenel, had
thrown her into this state. " Sir Knight," said the Sub-Prior, in a very
solemn tone, yet with some hesitation, " circumstances have been communicated to us of a nature so extraordinary, that, reluctant as I am to exercise such authority over a guest of our venerable community, I am constrained
to request from you an explanation of them. You left this tower early in
the morning, accompanied by a youth, Halbert Glendinning, the eldest son
of this good dame, and you return hither without him. Where, and at
what hour, did you part company from him?"
The English knight paused for a moment, and then replied,-" I marvel
that your reverence employs so grave a tone to enforce so light a question.
I parted with the villagio whom you call Halbert Glendinning some hour or
twain after sunrise."
" And at what place, I pray you?" said the monk.
" In a deep ravine, where a fountain rises at the base of a huge rock; an
earth-born Titan, which heaveth up its gray head, even as —
" Spare us farther description," said the Sub-Prior; "we know the spot.
But that youth hath not since been heard of, and it will fall on you to
account for him."
"My bairn! my bairn!" exclaimed Dame Glendinning. "Yes, holy
father, make the villain account for my bairn!"
"I swear, good woman, by bread and by water, which are the props of
our life    "
"Swear by wine and wastel-bread, for these are the props of thy life,
thou greedy Southron 1" said Dame Glendinning; - " a base belly-god, to
come here to eat the best, and practise on our lives that give it to
him!"




THE MONASTERY.                             181
"I tell thee, woman," said Sir Piercie Shafton,' I did but go with thy
son to the hunting."
"A black hunting it has been to him, poor bairn," replied Tibb; "and
sae I said it wad prove since I first saw the false Southron snout of thee.
Little good comes of a Piercie's hunting, from Chevy Chase till now."
"Be silent, woman," said the Sub-Prior, "and rail not upon the English
knight; we do not yet know of any thing beyond suspicion."
"We will have his heart's blood!" said Dame Glendinning; and, seconded
by the faithful Tibbie, she made such a sudden onslaught on the unlucky
Euphuist, as must have terminated in something serious, had not the monk,
aided by Mysie Happer, interposed to protect him from their fury. Edward
had left the apartment the instant the disturbance broke out, and now
entered, sword in hand, followed by Martin and Jasper, the one having a
hunting spear in his hand, the other a cross-bow.
"Keep the door," he said to his two attendants; "shoot him or stab him
without mercy, should he attempt to break forth; if he offers an escape, by
Heaven he shall die!"
"How now, Edward," said the Sub-Prior; " how is this that you so far
forget yourself? meditating violence to a guest, and in my presence, who
represent your liege lord?"
Edward stepped forward with his drawn sword in his hand. "Pardon
me, reverend father," he said, "but in this matter the voice of nature speaks
louder and stronger than yours. I turn my sword's point against this proud
man, and I demand of him the blood of my brother-the blood of my father's
son - of the heir of our name i If he denies to give me a true account of
him, he shall not deny me vengeance."
Embarrassed as he was, Sir Piercie Shafton showed no personal fear.
"Put up thy sword," he said, "young man; not in the same day does
Piercie Shafton contend with two peasants."
" Hear him! he confesses the deed, holy father," said Edward.
"Be patient, my son," said the Sub-Prior, endeavouring to soothe the
feelings which he could not otherwise control, "be patient-thou wilt
attain the ends of justice better through my means than thine own violence-And you, women, be silent-Tibb, remove your mistress and Mary
Avenel."
While Tibb, with the assistance of the other females of the household,
bore the poor mother and Mary Avenel into separate apartments, and while
Edward, still keeping his sword in his hand, hastily traversed the room, as
if to prevent the possibility of Sir Piercie Shafton's escape, the Sub-Prior
insisted upon knowing from the perplexed knight the particulars which he
knew respecting Halbert Glendinning. His situation became extremely
embarrassing, for what he might with safety have told of the issue of their
combat was so revolting to his pride, that he could not bring himself to
enter into the detail; and of Halbert's actual fate he knew, as the reader
is well aware, absolutely nothing.
The father in the meanwhile pressed him with remonstrances, and prayed
him to observe, he would greatly prejudice himself by declining to give a
full account of the transactions of the day. "You cannot deny," he said,
" that yesterday you seemed to take the most violent offence at this unfortunate youth; and that you suppressed your resentment so suddenly as to
impress us all with surprise. Last night you proposed to him this day's
hunting party, and you set out together by break of day. You parted, you
said, at the fountain near the rock, about an hour or twain after sunrise,
and it appears that before you parted you had been at strife together."
"I said not so," replied the knight.  "Here is a coil indeed about the
absence of a rustical bondsman, who, I dare say, hath gone off (if he be
gone) to join the next rascally band of freebooters! Ye ask me, a knight
of the Ptercie's lineage, to account for such an insignificant fugitive, and I'Q




182                WAVERLEY NOVELS.
answer, -let me know the price of his head, and I will pay it to your con
vent treasurer."
"You admit, then, that you have slain my brother?" said Edward, interfering once more; "I will presently show you at what price we Scots rate
the lives of our fiiends."
"Peace, Edward, peace-I entreat-I command thee," said the SubPrior.  " And you, Sir Knight, think better of us than to suppose you may
spend Scottish blood, and reckon for it as for wine spilt in a drunken revel.
This youth was no bondsman -thou well knowest, that in thine own land
thou hadst not dared to lift thy sword against the meanest subject of England, but her laws would have called thee to answer for the deed. Do not
hope it will be otherwise here, for you will but deceive yourself."
"You drive me beyond my patience," said the Euphuist, "even as the
over-driven ox is urged into madness I -What can I tell you of a young
fellow whom I have not seen since the second hour after sunrise?"
" But can you explain in what circumstances you parted with him?" said
the monk.
"What are the circumstances, in the devil's name, which you desire
should be explained?-for although I protest against this constraint as
alike unworthy and inhospitable, yet would I willingly end this fray, provided that by words it may be ended," said the knight.
" If these end it not," said Edward, " blows shall, and that full
speedily."
"Peace, impatient boy!" said the Sub-Prior; " and do you, Sir Piercie
Shafton, acquaint me why the ground is bloody by the verge of the fountain in Corri-nan-shian, where, as you say yourself, you parted from Halbert Glendinning?"
Resolute not to avow his defeat if possibly he could avoid it, the knight
answered in a haughty tone, that he supposed it was no unusual thing to
find the turf bloody where hunters had slain a deer.
" And did you bury your game as well as kill it?" said the monk. "We
must know from you who is the tenant of that grave, that newly-made
grave, beside the very fountain whose margin is so deeply crimsoned with
blood? -thou seest thou canst not evade me; therefore be ingenuous, and
tell us the fate of this unhappy youth, whose body is doubtless lying under
that bloody turf."
"If it be," said Sir Piercie, " they must have buried him  alive; for I
swear to thee, reverend father, that this rustic juvenal parted from me in
perfect health. Let the grave be searched, and if his body be found, then
deal with me as ye list."
" It is not my sphere to determine thy fate, Sir Knight, but that of the
Lord Abbot, and the right reverend Chapter. It is but my duty to collect
such information as may best possess their wisdom with the matters which
have chanced."
"Might I presume so far, reverend father," said the knight, "I should
wish to know the author and evidence-of all these suspicions, so unfoundedly
urged against me?"
"It is soon told," said the Sub-Prior; "nor do I wish to disguise it, if it
can avail you in your defence. This maiden, Mary Avenel, apprehending
that you nourished malice against her foster-brother under a friendly brow,
did advisedly send up the old man, Martin Tacket, to follow your footsteps
and to prevent mischief. But it seems that your evil passions had outrun
precaution: for when he came to the spot, guided by your footsteps upon
the dew, he found but the bloody turf and the new covered grave; and
after long and vain search through the wilds after Halbert and yourself,
he brought back the sorrowful news to her who had sent him."
"Saw he not my doublet, I pray you?" said Sir Piercie; "for when I




THE  MONASTERY.                              183
came to myself, I found that I was wrapped in my cloak, but without my
under garment as your reverence may observe."
So saying, he opened his cloak, forgetting, with his characteristical inconsistency, that he showed his shirt stained with blood.
" How! cruel man," said the monk, when he observed this confirmation
of his suspicions; "wilt thou deny the guilt, even while thou bearest on
thy person the blood thou hast shed?-Wilt thou longer deny that thy rash
hand has robbed a mother of a son, our community of a vassal, the Queen
of Scotland of a liege subject? and what canst thou expect, but that, at
the least, we deliver thee up to England, as undeserving our farther protection?"
"By the Saints!" said the knight, now driven to extremity, "if this
blood be the witness against me, it is but rebel blood, since this morning at
sunrise it flowed within my own veins."
" How were that possible, Sir Piercie Shafton," said the monk, " since I
see no wound from whence it can have flowed?"
" That," said the knight, " is the most mysterious part of the transaction
-See here!"
So saying, he undid his shirt collar, and, opening his bosom, showed the
spot through which Halbert's sword had passed, but already cicatrized, and
bearing the appearance of a wound lately healed.
" This exhausts my patience, Sir Knight," said the Sub-Prior, "and is
adding insult to violence and injury.  Do you hold me for a child or an
idiot, that you pretend to make me believe that the fresh blood with which
your shirt is stained, flowed from a wound which has been healed for weeks
or months? Unhappy mocker, thinkest thou thus to blind us? Too well
do we know that it is the blood of your victim, wrestling with you in the
desperate and mortal struggle, which has thus dyed your apparel."
The knight, after a moment's recollection, said in reply, "I will be open
with you, my father —bid these men stand out of ear-shot, and I will tell
you all I know of this mysterious business; and muse not, good father,
though it may pass thy wit to expound it, for I avouch to you it is too dark
for mine own."
The monk commanded Edward and the two men to withdraw, assuring
the-former that his conference with the prisoner should be brief, and giving
him permission to keep watch at the door of the apartment; without which
allowance he might, perhaps, have had some difficulty in procuring his
absence. Edward had no sooner left the chamber, than he despatched
messengers to one or two families of the Halidome, with whose sons his
brother and he sometimes associated, to tell them that Halbert Glendinning
had been murdered by an Englishman, and to require them to repair to the
Tower of Glendearg without delay. The duty of revenge in such cases
was held so sacred, that he had no reason to doubt they would instantly
come with such assistance as would ensure the detention of the prisoner.
He then locked the doors of the tower, both inner and outer, and also the
gate of the court-yard. Having taken these precautions, he made a hasty
visit to the females of the family, exhausting himself in efforts to console
them, and in protestations that he would have vengeance for his murdered
brother.




184                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
(^anph~r fll^  ^mpniii-^^nnt^.
Now, by Our Lady, Sheriff,'tis hard reckoning,
That I, with every odds of birth and barony
Should be detain'd here for the casual death
Of a wild forester, whose utmost having
Is but the brazen buckle of the belt
In which he sticks ris hedge-knife.
OLD PLAY.
WtHIr,E Edward was making preparations for securing and punishing the
supposed murderer of his brother, with an intense thirst for vengeance,
which had not hitherto shown itself as part of his character, Sir Piercie
Shafton made such communications as it pleased him  to the Sub-Prior,
who listened with great attention, though the knight's narrative was none
of the clearest, especially as his self-conceit led him to conceal or abridge
the details which were necessary to render it intelligible.
"You are to know," he said, "reverend father, that this rustical juvenal
having chosen to offer me, in the presence of your venerable Superior,
yourself, and other excellent and worthy persons, besides the damsel, Mary
Avenel, whom  I term  my Discretion in all honour and kindness, a gross
insult, rendered yet more intolerable by the time and place, my just resentment did so gain the mastery over my discretion, that I resolved to
allow him the privileges of an equal, and to indulge him with the combat."
" But, Sir Knight," said the Sub-Prior, "you still leave two matters very
obscure.  First, why the token he presented to you gave you. so much
offence, as I with others witnessed; and then again, how the youth, whom
you then met for the first, or, at least, the second time, knew so much of
your history as enabled him so greatly to move you."
The knight colouied very deeply.
"For your first query," he said, "most reverend father, we will, if you
please, pretermit it as nothing essential to the matter in hand; and for the
second-I protest to you that I know as little of his means of knowledge as
you do, and that I am well-nigh persuaded he deals with Sathanas, of
which more anon.-Well, sir —In the evening, I failed not to veil my purpose with a pleasant brow, as is the custom  amongst us martialists, who
never display the bloody colours of defiance in our countenance until our
hand is armed to fight. under them.  I amused the fair Discretion with
some canzonettes, and other toys, which could not but be ravishing to her
inexperienced ears. I arose in the morning, and met my antagonist, who,
to say truth, for-an inexperienced villagio, comported himself as stoutly as
I could have desired.  So, coming to the encounter, reverend sir, I did try
his mettle with some half-a-dozen of downright passes, with any one of
which I could have been through his body, only that I was loth to take so
fatal an advantage, but rather, mixing mercy with my just indignation,
studied to inflict upon him some flesh-wound of no very fatal quality.  But,
sir, in the midst of my clemency, he, being instigated, I think, by the devil,
did follow up his first offence with some insult of the same nature. Whereupon, being eager to punish him, I made an estramazone, and my foot
slipping at the same time,-not from any fault of fence on my part, or any
advantage of skill on his, but the devil having, as I said, taken up the
matter in hand, and the grass being slippery,-ere I recovered my position
I encountered his sword, which he had advanced, with my undefended
person, so that, as I think, I was in some sort run through the body. My
iuvenal, being beyond measure appalled at his own unexpected and unmerited success in this strange encounter, takes the flight and leaves me




THE  MONASTERY.                            185
there, and I fall into a dead swoon for the lack of the blood I had lost so
foolishly - and when I awake, as from a sound sleep, I find myself lying,
an it like you, wrapt up in my cloak at the foot of one of the birch-trees
which stand together in a clump near to this place. I feel my limbs, and
experience little pain, but much weakness-I put my hand to the woundit was whole and skinned over as you now see it - I rise and come hither;
and in these words you have my whole day's story."
"I can only reply to so strange a tale," answered the monk, "that it is
scarce possible that Sir Piercie Shafton can expect me to credit it. Here is
aquarrel, the cause of which you conceal,-a wound received in the morning, of which there is no recent appearance at sunset, - a grave filled up,
in which no body is deposited - the vanquished found alive and well - the
victor departed no man knows whither. These things, Sir Knight, hang
not so well together, that I should receive them as gospel."
"Reverend father," answered Sir Piercie Shafton, " I pray you in the
first place to observe, that. if I offer peaceful and civil justification of that
which I have already averred to be true, I do so only in devout deference to
your dress and to your order, protesting, that to any other opposite, saving
a man of religion, a lady or my liege prince, I would not deign to support
that which I had once attested, otherwise than with the point of my good
sword. And so much being premised, I have to add, that I can but gage
my honour as a gentleman, and my faith as a Catholic Christian, that the
things which I have described to you have happened to me as I have described them, and not otherwise."
"It is a deep assertion, Sir Knight," answered the Sub-Prior; "yet,
bethink you, it is only an assertion, and that no reason can be alleged why
things should be believed which are so contrary to reason. Let me pray
you to say whether the grave, which has been seen at your place of combat,
was open or closed when your encounter took place?"
"Reverend father," said the knight, "I will veil from you nothing, but
show you each secret of my bosom; even as the pure fountain revealeth
the smallest pebble which graces the sand at the bottom  of its crystal
mirror, and as —"
"Speak in plain terms, for the love of heaven!" said the monk; "these
holiday phrases belong not to solemn affairs-Was the grave open when
the conflict began?"
"It was," answered the knight, "I acknowledge it; even as he that
acknowledgeth    "
"Nay, I pray you, fair son, forbear these similitudes, and observe me.
On yesterday at even no grave was found in that place, for old Martin
chanced, contrary to his wont, to go thither in quest of a strayed sheep. At
break of day, by your own confession, a grave was opened in that spot, and
there a combat was fought - only one of the combatants appears, and he is
covered with blood, and to all appearance woundless." —Here the knight
made a gesture of impatience.-" Nay, fair son, hear me but one momentthe grave is closed and covered by the sod-what can we believe, but that it
conceals the bloody corpse of the fallen duellist?"
"By Heaven, it cannot!" said the knight, "unless the juvenal hath slain
himself and buried himself, in order to place me in the predicament of his
murderer."
"The grave shall doubtless be explored, and that by to-morrow's dawn,"
said the monk; " I will see it done with mine own eyes."
" But," said the prisoner, " I protest against all evidence which may arise
from its contents, and do insist beforehand, that whatever may be found in
that grave shall not prejudice me in my defence. I have been so haunted
by diabolical deceptions in this matter, that what do I know but that the
devil may assume the form of this rustical juvenal, in order to procure me
farther vexation?-I protest to you, holy father, it is my very thought that
Q2




186                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
there is witchcraft in all that hath befallen me. Since I entered ihto this
northern land, in which men say that sorceries do abound, I, who am held
in awe and iegarid even by the prime gallants in the court of Feliciana, have
been here bearded and taunted by a clod-treading clown. I, whom Vincentio
Saviola termed his nimblest and most agile disciple, was, to speak briefly,
foiled by a cow-boy, who knew no more of fence than is used at every country wake.  I am run, as it seemed to me, through the body, with a very
sufficient stoccata, and faint on the spot; and yet, when I recover, I find
myself without either wem or wound, and, lacking nothing of my apparel,
saving my murrey-coloured doublet, slashed with satin,which I will pray may
be inquired after, lest the devil, who transported me, should have dropped
it in his passage among some of the trees or bushes-it being a choice and
most fanciful piece of raiment, which I wore for the first time at the Queen's
pageant in Southwark."
"Sir Knight," said the monk, "you do again go astray from this matter.
I inquire of you respecting that which concerns the life of another man, and
it may be, touches your own also, and you answer me with the tale of an
old doublet!"
"Old 1" exclaimed the knight; "now, by the gods and saints, if there be
a gallant at the British Court more fancifully considerate, and more considerately fanciful, but quaintly curious, and more curiously quaint, in frequent
changes of all rich articles of vesture, becoming one who may be accounted
point-de-vice a courtier, I will give you leave to term me a slave and a
iar."
The monk thought, but did not say, that he had already acquired right
to doubt the veracity of the Euphuist, considering the marvellous tale which
he had told.  Yet his own strange adventure, and that of Father Philip,
rushed on his mind, and forbade his coming to any conclusion.  He contented himself, therefore, with observing, that these were certainly strange
incidents, and requested to know if Sir Piercie Shafton had any other reason
for suspecting himself to be in a manner so particularly selected for the sport
of sorcery and witchcraft.
"Sir Sub-Prior," said the Euphuist, "the'most extraordinary circumstance remains behind, which alone, had I neither been bearded in dispute,
nor foiled in combat, nor wounded and cured in the space of a few hours,
would nevertheless of itself, and without any other corroborative, have com-n
pelled me to believe myself the subject of some malevolent fascination.
Reverend sir, it is not to your ears that men should tell tales of love and
gallantry, nor is Sir Piercie Shafton one who, to any ears whatsoever, is wont
to boast of his fair acceptance with the choice and prime beauties of the
court; insomuch that a lady, none of the least resplendent constellations
which revolve in that hemisphere of honour, pleasure, and beauty, but whose
name I here pretermit, was wont to call me her Taciturnity.  Nevertheless
truth must be spoken; and I cannot but allow, as the general report of the
court, allowed in camps, and echoed back by city and country, that in the
alacrity of the accost, the tender delicacy of the regard, the facetiousness of
the address, the adopting and pursuing of the fancy, the solemn close and
the graceful fall-off, Piercie Shafton was accounted the only gallant of the
time, and so well accepted -among the choicer beauties of the age, that no
silk-hosed reveller of the presence-chamber, or plumed jouster of the tiltyard, approached him by a bow's length in the ladies' regard, being the
mark at which every well-born and generous juvenal aimeth his shaft.
Nevertheless, reverend sir, having found in this rude place something which
by blood and birth might be termed a lady, and being desirous to keep my
gallant humour in exercise, as well as to show my sworn devotion to the sex in
general, I did shoot off some arrows of compliment at this Mary Avenel, terming her my Discretion, with other quaint and well-imagined courtesies, rather
bestowed out of my bounty than warranted by her merit, or perchance like




TH'E MONASTERY.                             187
unto the boyish fowler, who, rather than not exercise his bird-piece, will
shoot at crows or imagpies for lack of better game   "
"Mary Avenel is much obliged by your notice" answered the monk;' but to what does all this detail of past and present gallantry conduct us?"
"Marry, to this conclusion," answered the knight; "that either this my
Discretion, or I myself, am  little less than bewitched; for, instead of
receiving my accost with a gratifying bow, answering my regard with a
suppressed smile, accompanying my falling off or departure with a slight
sigh-honours with which I protest to you the noblest dancers and proudest
beauties in Feliciana have graced my poor services -she hath paid me as
little and as cold regard as if I had been some hob-nailed clown of these
bleak mountains'  Nay, this very day, while I was in the act of kneeling
at her feet to render her the succouis of this pungent quintessence, of purest
spirit distilled by the fairest hands of the court of Feliciana, she pushed me
from her with looks which savoured of repugnance, and, as I think, thrust
at me with her foot as if to spurn me from her presence. These things,
reverend father, are strange, portentous, unnatural, and befall not in the
current of mortal affairs, but are symptomatic of sorcery and fascination.
So that, having given to your reverence a perfect, simple, and plain account
of all that I know concerning this matter, I leave it to your wisdom to solve
what may be found soluble in the same, it being my purpose to-morrow,
with the peep of dawn, to set forward towards Edinburgh."
" I grieve to be an interruption to your designs, Sir Knight," said the
monk, " but that purpose of thine may hardly be fulfilled."
"How, reverend father!" said the knight, with an air of the utmost surprise; "if what you say respects my departure, understand that it must be;
for I have so resolved it."
" Sir Knight," reiterated the Sub-Prior, " I must once more repeat, this
cannot be, until the Abbot's pleasure be known in the matter."
"Reverend sir," said the knight, drawing himself up with great dignity,
" I desire my hearty and thankful commendations to the Abbot; but in this
matter I have nothing to do with his reverend pleasure, designing only to
consult my own."
"Pardon me," said the Sub-Prior; " the Lord Abbot hath in this matter
a voice potential."
Sir Piercie Shafton's colour began to rise-" I marvel," he said, " to hear
your reverence talk thus-What! will you, for the imagined death of a
rude, low-born frampler and wrangler, venture to impinge upon the liberty
of the kinsman of the house of Piercie?"
"Sir Knight," returned the Sub-Prior, civilly, "your high lineage and
your kindling anger will avail you nothing in this matter — You shall not
come here to seek a shelter, and then spill our blood as if it were water."
"I tell you," said the knight, "once more, as I have told you already,
that there was no blood spilled but mine own!"
"That remains to be proved," replied the Sub-Prior; "we of the community of Saint Mary's of Kennaquhair, use not to take fairy tales in
exchange for the lives of our liege vassals."
"We of the house of Piercie," answered Shafton, "brook neither threats
nor restraint - I say I will travel to-morrow, happen what may!"
"And I," answered the Sub-Prior, in the same tone of determination,
"say that I will break your journey, come what may!"
"Who shall gainsay me," said the knight, " if I make my way by force?"
"You will judge wisely to think ere you make such an attempt," answered
the monk, with composure; "there are men enough in the Halidome to
vindicate its rights over those who dare infringe them."
"My cousin of Northumberland will know how to revenge this usage to
a beloved kinsman so near to his blood," said the Englishman.
"The Lord Abbot will know how to protect the rights of his territory,




188                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
both with the temporal ad srl and spiritual sword," said the monk. "Besides,
consider, were we to send you to your kinsman at Alnwick or Warkworth
to-morrow, he dare do nothing but transmit you in fetters to the Queen of
England. Bethink, Sir Knight, that you stand on slippery ground, and
will act most wisely in reconciling yourself to be a prisoner in this place
until the Abbot shall decide the matter. There are armed men enow to
countervail all your efforts at escape. Let patience and resignation, therefore, arm you to a necessary submission."
So saying, he clapped his hands, and called aloud. Edward entered,
accompanied by two young men who had already joined him, and were well
armed.
" Edward," said the Sub-Prior, "you will supply the English Knight here
in this spence with suitable food and accommodation for the night, treating
him with as much kindness as if nothing had happened between you. But
you will place a sufficient guard, and look carefully that he make not his
escape. Should he attempt to break forth, resist him to the death; but in
no other case harm a hair of his head, as you shall be answerable."
Edward Glendinning replied, - " That I may obey your commands,
reverend sir, I will not again offer myself to this person's presence; for
shame it were to me to break the peace of the Halidome, but not less shame
to leave my brother's death unavenged."
As he spoke, his lips grew livid, the blood forsook his cheek, and he was
about to leave the apartment, when the Sub-Prior recalled him and said in
a solemn tone, - " Edward, I have known you from infancy - I have done
what lay within my reach to be of use to you - I say nothing of what you
owe to me as the representative of your spiritual Superior -I say nothing
of the duty from the vassal to the Sub-Prior —But Father Eustace expects
from the pupil whom he has nurtured -he expects from Edward Glendinning, that he will not by any deed of sudden violence, however justified in
his own mind by the provocation, break through the respect due to public
justice, or that which he has an especial right to claim from him."
" Fear nothing, my reverend father, for so in an hundred senses may I
well term you," said the young man; "fear not, I would say, that I will in
any thing diminish the respect I owe to the venerable community by whom
we have so long been protected, far less that I will do aught which can be
personally less than respectful to you. But the blood of my brother must
not cry for vengeance in vain-your reverence knows our Border creed."
"'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will requite it,"' answered
the monk. "The heathenish custom of deadly feud which prevails in this
land, through which each man seeks vengeance at his own hand when the
death of a friend or kinsman has chanced, hath already deluged our vales
with the blood of Scottish men, spilled by the hands of countrymen and
kindred. It were endless to count up the fatal results. On the Eastern
Border, the Homes are at feud with the Swintons and Cockburns; in our
Middle Marches, the Scotts and Kerrs have spilled as much brave blood in
domestic feud as might have fought a pitched field-in England, could they
have but forgiven and forgotten a casual rencounter that placed their names
in opposition to each other. On the west frontier, the Johnstones are at
war with the Maxwells, the Jardines with the Bells, drawing with them the
flower of the country, which should place their breasts as a bulwark against
England, into private and bloody warfare, of which it is the only end to
waste and'impair the forces of the country; already divided in itself. Do
not, my dear son Edward, permit this bloody prejudice to master your mind.
I cannot ask you to think of the crime supposed as if the blood spilled had
been less dear to you - Alas! I know that is impossible. But I do require
you, in proportion to your interest in the supposed sufferer, (for as yet the
whole is matter of supposition,) to bear on your mind the evidence on which
the guilt of the accused person must be tried. He hath spoken with me,




THE  MONASTERY.                              189
and I confess his tale is so extraordinary, that I should have, without a
moment's hesitation, rejected it as incredible, but that an affair which
chanced to myself in this very glen - More of that another time - Suffice
it for the present to say, that from what I have myself experienced, I deem
it possible, that, extraordinary as Sir Piercie Shafton's story may seem, I
hold it not utterly impossible."
"Father," said Edward Glendinning, when he saw that his preceptor
paused, unwilling farther to explain upon what grounds he was inclined to
give a certain degree of credit to Sir Piercie Shafton's story, while he
admitted it as improbable   "Father to me you have been in every sense.
You know that my hand grasped more readily to the book than to the sword;
and that I lacked utterly the ready and bold spirit which distinguished    "
Here his voice faltered, and he paused for a moment, and then went on with
resolution and rapidity -" I would say, that I was unequal to Halbert in
promptitude of heart and of hand; but Ialbert is gone, and I stand his
representative, and that of my father-his successor in all his rights,"
(while he said this his eyes shot fire,) "and bound to assert and maintain
them as he would have done-therefore I am a changed man, increased in
courage as in my rights and pretensions. And, reverend father, respectfully, but plainly and firmly do I say, his blood, if it has been shed by this
man, shall be atoned - Halbert shall not sleep neglected in his lonely grave,
as if with him the spirit of my father had ceased forever. His blood flows
in my veins, and while his has been poured forth unrequited, mine will permit me no rest. My poverty and meanness of rank shall not avail the lordly
murderer. My calm nature and peaceful studies shall not be his protection.
Even the obligations, holy father, which I acknowledge to you, shall not be
his protection. I wait with patience the judgment of the Abbot and Chapter,
for the slaughter of one of their most anciently descended vassals. If they
do right to my brother's memory, it is well. But mark me, father, if they
shall fail in rendering me that justice, I bear a heart and a hand which,
though I love not such extremities, are capable of remedying such an error.
lie who takes up my brother's succession must avenge his death."
The monk perceived with surprise, that Edward, with his extreme diffidence, humility, and obedient assiduity, for such were his general characteristics, had still boiling in his veins the wild principles of those from whom
he was descended, and by whom he was surrounded.  His eyes sparkled,
his frame was agitated, and the extremity of his desire for vengeance seemed
to give a vehemence to his manner resembling the restlessness of joy.
" May God help us,".said Father Eustace, "for, frail wretches as we are,
we cannot help ourselves under sudden and strong temptation. - Edward,
I will rely on your word that you do nothing rashly."
" That will I not," said Edward, -" that, my better than father, I surely
will not. But the blood of my brother,.- the tears of my mother - and —
and    and of Mary Avenel, shall not be shed in vain. I will not deceive
you, father- if this Piercie Shafton hath slain my brother, he dies, if the
whole blood of the whole house of Piercie were in his veins."
There was a deep and solemn determination in the utterance of Edward
Glendinning expressive of a rooted resolution.  The Sub-Prior sighed
deeply, and for the moment yielded to circumstances, and urged the acquiescence of his pupil no farther. He commanded lights to be placed in the
lower chamber, which for a time he paced in silence.
A thousand ideas, and even differing principles, debated with each other
in his bosom. He greatly doubted the English knight's account of the duel,
and of what had followed it. Yet the extraordinary and supernatural circumstances which had befallen the Sacristan and himself in that very glen.
prevented him from being absolutely incredulous on the score of the wonderful wound and recovery of Sir Piercie Shafton, and prevented him from at
once condemning as impossible that which was altogether improbable. Then




190                  WAVERLEY  NOVELiS.
he was at a loss how to control the fraternal affections of Edward, with respects
to whom he felt something like the keeper of a wild animal, a lion's whelp
or tiger's cub, which he has held under his command from infancy, but
which, when grown to maturity, on some sudden provocation displays his
fangs and talons, erects his crest, resumes his savage nature, and bids
defiance at once to his keeper and to all mankind.
How to restrain and mitigate an ire which the universal example of the
times rendered deadly and inveterate, was sufficient cause of anxiety to
Father Eustace. But he had also to consider the situation of his community, dishonoured and degraded by submitting to suffer the slaughter of a
vassal to pass unavenged; a circumstance which of itself might in those
times have afforded pretext for a revolt among their wavering adherents, or,
on the other hand, exposed the community to imminent danger, should they
proceed against a subject of England of high degree, connected with the
house of Northumberland, and other northern families of high rank, who,
as they possessed the means, could not be supposed to lack inclination, to
wreak upon the patrimony of Saint Mary of Kennaquhair, any violence
which might be offered to their kinsman.
In either case, the Sub-Prior well knew that the ostensible cause of feud,
insurrection, or incursion, being once afforded, the case would not be ruled
either by reason or by evidence, and he groaned in spirit when, upon counting up the chances which arose in this ambiguous dilemma, he found he had
only a choice of difficulties. IHe was a monk, but he felt also as a man,
indignant at the supposed slaughter of young Glendinning by one skilful
in all the practice of arms, in which the vassal of the Monastery was most
likely to be deficient; and to aid the resentment which he felt for the loss
of a youth whom he had known from infancy, came in full force the sense
of dishonour arising to his community from passing over so gross an insult
unavenged. Then the light in which it might be viewed by those who at
present presided in the stormy Court of Scotland, attached as they were to
the Reformation, and allied by common faith and common interest with
Queen Elizabeth, was a formidable subject of apprehension. The Sub-Prior
well knew how they lusted after the revenues of the Church, (to express it
in the ordinary phrase of the religious of the time,) and how readily they
would grasp at such a pretext for encroaching on those of Saint Mary's, as
would be afforded by the suffering to pass unpunished the death of a native
Scottishman by a Catholic Englishman, a rebel to Queen Elizabeth.
On the other hand, to deliver up to England, or, which was nearly the
same thing; the Scottish administration, an English knight leagued with the
Piercie by kindred and political intrigue, a faithful follower of the Catholic
Church, who had fled to the Halidome for protection, was, in the estimation
of the Sub-Prior, an act most unworthy in itself, and meriting the malediction of Heaven, besides being, moreover, fraught with great temporal risk.
If the government of Scotland was now almost entirely in the hands of the
Protestant party, the Queen was still a Catholic, and there was no knowing
when, amid the sudden changes which agitated that tumultuous country,
she might find herself at the head of her own affairs, and able to protect
those of her own faith. Then, if the Court of England and its Queen were
zealously Protestant, the northern counties, whose friendship or enmity were
of most consequence in the first instance to the community of Saint Mary's,
contained many Catholics, the heads of whom were able, and must be supposed willing, to avenge any injury suffered by Sir Piercie Shafton.
On either side, the Sub-Prior, thinking, according to his sense of duty,
most anxiously for the safety and welfare of his Monastery, saw the greatest risk of damage, blame, inroad, and confiscation. The only course on
which he could determine, was.to stand by the helm like a resolute pilot,
watch every contingence, do his best to weather each reef and shoal, and
commit the rest to heaven and his patroness.




T-HE MONASTERY.                                                    191
As he left the apartment, the knight called after him, beseeching he would
order his trunk-mails to be sent into his apartment, understanding he was
to be guarded there for the night, as he wished to make some alteration in
his apparel.*
"Ay, ay," said the monk, muttering as he went up the winding stair,
"carry him  his trumpery with all despatch.  Alas! that man, with so
many noble objects of pursuit, will amuse himself like a jackanape, with a
laced jerkin and a cap and bells!-I must now to the melancholy work of
consoling that which is well-nigh inconsolable, a mother weeping for her
first-born."
Advancing, after a gentle knock, into the apartment of the women, he
found that Mary Avenel had retired to bed, extremely indisposed, and that
Dame Glendinning and Tibb were indulging their sorrows by the side of a
decaying  fire, and  by the  light of a  small iron  lamp, or cruize, as  it was
termed. Poor Elspeth's apron was thrown over her head, and bitterly did
she sob and weep for "her beautiful, her brave, -the very image of her
dear Simon Glendinning, the stay of her widowhood and the support of her
old age."
Sir Piercie Shafton's extreme love of dress was an attribute of the coxcombs of this period. The display
made by their forefathers was in the numbers of their retinue; but as the actual influence of the nohilit,
began to be restrained both in France and England by the increasing power of the crown, the indulgence oft
vanity in personal display became more inordinate. There are many allusions to this change of custom in
Shakspeare and other dramatic writers, where the reader may find nention made of
"Bonds enter'd into
For gay apparel against the triumph day."
Jonson informs us, that for the first entrance of a gallant, "'twere good you turned four or five hundred acres
of your best land into two or three trunks of apparel."-Every Man out of his fHumour.
In the MAemorie of the Somerville family, a curious instance occurs of this fashionable species of extravagance. In the year 1537, when James V. brought over his shortlived bride from France, the Lord Somerville
of the day was so profuse in the expense of his apparel, that the money which lie borrowed on the occasion
was compensated by a perpetual annuity of threescore pounds Scottish, payable out of the barony of Carnwarth till doomsday, which was assigned by the creditor to Saint Magdalen's Chapel. By this deep expense
the Lord Somerville had rendered himself so glorious in apparel, that the King, who saw so brave a gallant
enter the gate of Holvrood, followed by only two pages, called upon several of the courtiers to ascertain who
it could be who was so richly dressed and so slightly attended, and he was not recognised until he entered
the presence-chamber. "You are very brave, my lord," said the King, as he received his homage; "but
where are all your men and attendants t"'The Lord Somerville readily answered, " If it please your Majesty;
here Ihey are," pointing to the lace that was on his own and his pages' clothes; whereat the King laughed
heartily, and loving surveyed the finery more nearly, bade hln  have away with it all, and let him have his
swout band of spears again.
There is a scene in Jonson's " Every Man out of his Humour," (Act IV. Scene 6,) in which a Eiphuist of
the imne gives an account of the effects of a duel on the clothes of himself and lis opponent, and never
departs a syllable from the catalogue of his wardrobe. We shall insert it in evidence that the foppery of our
ancestors was not inferior to that of our own time.
" Flslidius. Good faith, Signior, now you speak, of a quarrel, I'll acquaint you with a difference that hap
pelled between a gallant and myself, Sir Puntarvolo. You know him if I should name hit —Signor Luculento
"Punt. Luculento! WAhat inauspicious chance interposed itself to your two lives?
*' Fast. Faith, sir, the same that sundered Agamemnon, and great Thetis' son; but let the cause escape
sir. He sent me a challenge, mixt with some few braves, which I restored; and, in fine, we met. Now
indeed, sir, I must tell you, he did offer at first very desperately, but without judgment; for look you, sir, I
cast myself into this figure; now he came violently on, and withal advancing his rapier to strike, I thought
to have tooK his arm, for lie had left his body to my election, and I was sure he could not recover his guard.
Sir, I mist my purpose in his arm, rashed iris doublet sleeves, ran him close by the left cheek and through his
hair. He, again, light me here-    had on a gold cable hat-band, then new come up, about a murrey French
hat I had; cuts mry hat-band, and yet it was massy goldsmith's work, cuts my brim, which, by good fortule,
being thick embroidered with gold twist and spangles, disappointed the force of the blow; nevertheless it
grazed on my shoulder, takes me away six purls of an Italian cut-work band I wore, cost me three pounds in
the Exchange but three days before.
"Punt. This was a strange encounter.
"Fast. Nay, you shall hear, sir. With this, we both fell out and breathed.  Now, upon the second sign
of his assault, I betook me to my former manner of defence; he, on the other side, abandoned his body to the
samle danger as before, and follows nle still with blows; but I, being loath to take the deadly advantage that
lay before me of his left side, made a kind of straimazoun, ran him up to the hilt through the doublet, through
thie shirt, and yet missecd the skill. He, naking a reverse blow, falls upon my embossed girdle,-I thad thrown
off the hangers a little before,-strikes off a start of a thick-laced satin doublet 1 had, lined with four taffetas,
cuts off two panes embroidered with pearl, rends through the drawings-out of tissue, enters the linings, and
spiks the flesh.' Car. I wonder lie speaks not of his wrought shirt.
" Fast.  Here, in the opinion of mutual ldamage, we paused. But, ere I proceed, I must tell you, signior,
that in the last encounter, not having leisure to put off my silver spurs, one of the rowels catched hold oft hie
ruffles of nmy boot, and, being Spanish leather and subject to tear, overthrows me, rends me two pair of silk
stockings that I put on, being sromewhat of a raw morning, a peach colour and another, and strikes me some
half-inch deep into the side of the calf: He, seeing tile blood come, presently takes horse and away; I having
bound up my wound with apiece of my wrought shirt" Car. O. comes it in there.
"Fast. Ride after him. and, lighting at the court gate both together, embraced, and marched hand in hand
up into the presence. Was not this business well carried?
"Maci.  Well! yes; and by this we can guess what apparel the gentleman wore.
" Punt.'Fore valour! it was a designmelt begun with imuch resolution, maintained with as much prowess,
and ended with more humanity."




192                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
The faithful Tibb echoed her complaints, and, more violently clamorous,
made deep promises of revenge on Sir Piercie Shafton, "if there were a
man left in the south who could draw a whinger, or a woman that could
thraw a rape." The presence of the Sub-Prior imposed silence -on these
clamours.  He sate down by the unfortunate mother, and essayed, by such
topics as his religion and reason suggested, to interrupt the current of
)ame Glendinning's feelings; but the attempt was in vain.  She listened,
indeed, with some little interest, while he pledged his word and his influence with the Abbot, that the family which had lost their eldest-born by
means of a guest received at his command, should experience particular
protection at the hands of the community; and that the fief which belonged
to Simon Glendinning should, with extended bounds and added privileges,
be conferred on Edward.
But it was only for a very brief space that the mother's sobs were apparently softer, and her grief more mild.  She soon blamed herself for casting
a moment's thought upon world's gear while poor Ilalbert was lying
stretched in his bloody shirt.  The Sub-Prior was not more fortunate,
when he promised that Halbert's body "should be removed to hallowed
ground, and his soul secured by the prayers of the Church in his behalf.'
Grief would have its natural course, and the voice of the comforter was
wasted in vain.
b^li hr tl^e'urnt4-I ghtljt.
He is at liberty, I have ventured for him!
~_- ~ — _____   if the law
Find and condemn me for't, some living wenches,
Some honest-hearted maids will sing my dirge,
And tell to memor  y dy eath was noble,
Dying almost a mlartyr.
THE Two NOBLE KINStMEN.
TiHE Sub-Prior of Saint Mary's, in taking his departure from the spence
lb which Sir Piercie Shafton was confined, and in which some preparations
were made for his passing the night as the room which might be most convenaItly guarded, left more than one perplexed person behind him. There
waz connected with this chamber, and opening into it, a small outshot,
or projecting part of the building, occupied by a sleeping apartment, which
upon ordinary occasions, was that of Mary Avenel, and which, in the unusual number of guests who had cometo the tower on the former evening,
had also accommodated Mysie Happer, the Miller's daughter; for anciently,
as well as in the present day, a Scottish house was always rather too narrow
and limited for the extent of the owner's hospitality, and some shift and
contrivance was necessary, upon any unusual occasion, to ensure the accommodation of all the guests.
The fatal news of Halbert Glendinning's death had thrown all former
arrangements into confusion.  Mary Avenel, whose case required immediate attention, had been transported into the apartment hitherto occupied
by Halbert and his brother, as the latter proposed to watch all night, in
order to prevent the escape of the prisoner. Poor Mysie had been altogether
overlooked, and had naturally enough betaken herself to the little apartment
which she had hitherto occupied, ignorant that the spence, through which
lay the only access to it, was to be the sleeping chamber of Sir Piercie
Shafton. The measures taken for securing him there had been so sudden,




THE MONASTERY.                             193
that she was not aware of it, until she found that the other females had been
removed from the spence by the Sub-Prior's direction, and having once
missed the opportunity of retreating along with them; bashfulness, and the
high respect which she was taught to bear to the monks, prevented her venturing forth alone, and intruding herself on the presence of Father Eustace,
while in secret conference with the Southron. There appeared no remedy
but to wait till their interview was over; and, as the door was thin, and
did not shut very closely, she could hear every word that passed betwixt
them.
It thus happened, that without any intended intrusion on her part, she
became privy to the whole conversation of the Sub-Prior and the English
knight, and could also observe from the window of her little retreat, that
more than one of the young men summoned by Edward arrived successively
at the tower. These circumstances led her to entertain most serious apprehension that the life of Sir Piercie Shafton was in great and instant
peril.
Woman is naturally compassionate, and not less willingly so when youth
and fair features are on the side of him who claims her sympathy. The
handsome presence, elaborate dress and address, of Sir Piercie Shafton,
which had failed to make any favorable impression on the grave and lofty
character of Mary Avenel, had completely dazzled and bewildered the poor
Maid of the Mill. The knight had perceived this result, and, flattered by
seeing that his merit was not universally underrated, he had bestowed on
Mysie a good deal more of his courtesy than in his opinion her rank warranted. It was not cast away, but received with a devout sense of his condescension, and with gratitude for his personal notice, which, joined to her
fears for his safety, and the natural tenderness of her disposition, began.to
make wild work in her heart.
"To be sure it was very wrong in him to slay Halbert Glendinning," (it
was thus she argued the case with herself,) "but then he was a gentleman
born, and a soldier, and so gentle and courteous withal, that she was sure
the quarrel had been all of young Glendinning's own seeking; for it was
well known that both these lads were so taken up withthat Mary Avenel,
that they never looked at another lass in the Halidome, more than if they
were of a different degree. And then Halbert's dress was as clownish as
his manners were haughty; and this poor young gentleman, (who was
habited like any prince,) banished from his own land, was first drawn into
a quarrel by a rude brangler, and then persecuted and like to be put to
death by his kin and allies."
Mysie wept bitterly at the thought, and then her heart rising against such
cruelty and oppression to a defenceless stranger, who dressed with so much
skill, and spoke with so much grace, she began to consider whether she
could not render him some assistance in this extremity.
Her mind was now entirely altered from its original purpose. At first
her only anxiety had been to find the means of escaping from the interior
apartment, without being noticed by any one; but now she began to think
that Heaven had placed her there for the safety and protection of the persecuted stranger. She was of a simple and affectionate, but at the same time
an alert and enterprising character, possessing more than female strength
of body, and more than female courage, though with feelings as capable of
being bewildered with gallantry of dress and language, as a fine gentleman
of any generation would have desired to exercise his talents upon. " I will
save him," she thought, " that is the first thing to be resolved - and then I
wonder what he will say to the poor Miller's maiden, that has done for him
what all the dainty dames in London or Holyrood would have been afraid
to venture upon."
Prudence began to pull her sleeve as she indulged speculations so hazard
ous, and hinted to her that the warmer Sir Piercie Shafton's gratitude might
VOL. V.- 13 




194                  WAVERL EY NOVELS.
prove, it was the more likely to be fraught with danger to his benefactress
Alas! poor Prudence,thou mayest say with our moral teacher,
"I preach for ever, but I preach in vain."
The Miller's maiden, while you pour your warning into her unwilling bosom,
has glanced her eye on the small mirror by which she has placed her little
lamp, and it returns to her a countenance and eyes, pretty and sparkling at
all times, but ennobled at present with the energy of expression proper to
those who have dared to form, and stand prepared to execute, deeds of
generous audacity.  "Will these features —will these eyes, joined to the
benefit I am about to confer upon Sir Piercie Shafton, do nothing towards
removing the distance of rank between us?"
Such was the question which female vanity asked of fancy; and though
even fancy dared not answer in a ready affirmative, a middle conclusion was
adopted- " Let me first succour the gallant youth, and trust to fortune for
the rest."
Banishing, therefore, from her mind every thing that was personal to
herself, the rash but generous girl turned her whole thoughts to the means
of executing this enterprise.
The difficulties which interposed were of no'ordinary nature. The vengeance of the men of that country, in cases of deadly feud, that is, in cases
of a quarrel excited by the slaughter of any of their relations, was one of
their most marked characteristics; and Edward, however gentle in other
respects, was so fond of his brother, that there could be no doubt that he
would be as signal in his revenge as the customs of the country authorized.
There were to be passed the inner door of the apartment, the two gates of
the tower itself, and the gate of the court-yard, ere the prisoner was at
liberty; and then a guide and means of flight were to be provided, otherwise ultimate escape was impossible.  But where the will of woman is
strongly bent on the accomplishment of such a purpose, her wit is seldom
baffled by difficulties, however embarrassing.
The Sub-Prior had not long left the apartment, ere Mysie had devised a
scheme for Sir Piercie Shafton's freedom, daring, indeed, but likely to be
successful, if dexterously conducted. It was necessary, however, that she
should remain where she was till so late an hour, that all in the tower
should have betaken themselves to repose, excepting those whose duty made
them watchers. The interval she employed in observing the movements of
the person in whose service she was thus boldly a volunteer.
She could hear Sir Piercie Shafton pace the floor to and fro, in reflection
doubtless on his own untoward fate and precarious situation. By and by
she heard him making a rustling among his trunks, which, agreeable to the
order of the Sub-Prior, had been placed in the apartment to which he was
confined, and which he was probably amusing more melancholy thoughts
by examining and arranging. Then she could hear him resume his walk
through the room, and, as if his spirits had been somewhat relieved and
elevated by the survey of his wardrobe, she could distinguish that at one
turn he half recited a sonnet, at another half whistled a galliard, and at the
third hummed a saraband. At length she could understand that he extended
himself on the temporary couch which had been allotted to him, after muttering his prayers hastily,. and in a short time she concluded he'must be
fast asleep.
She employed the moment which intervened in considering her enterprise
under every different aspect; and dangerous as it was, the steady review
which she took of the various perils accompanying her purpose, furnished
her with plausible devices for obviating them. Love and generous compassion, which give singly such powerful impulse to the female heart, wore in
this case united, and championed her to the last extremity of hazard.
It was an hour past midnight. All in the tower slept sound but those




THE  MONASTERY.                            195
who had undertaken to guard the English prisoner; or if sorrow and suffering drove sleep from the bed of Dame Glendinning and her foster-daughter,
they were too much wrapt in their own griefs to attend to external sounds.
The means of striking light were at hand in the small apartment, and thus
the Miller's maiden was enabled to light and trim a small lamp. With a
trembling step and throbbing heart, she undid the door which separated her
from the apartment in which the Southron knight was confined, and almost
flinched from her fixed purpose, when she found herself in the same room
with the sleeping prisoner. She scarcely trusted herself to look upon him, as
he lay wrapped in his cloak, and fast asleep upon the pallet bed, but turned
her eyes away while she gently pulled his mantle with no more force than
was just equal to awaken him.  IHe moved not until she had twitched his
cloak a second and a third time, and then at length looking up, was about
to make an exclamation in the suddenness of his surprise.
Mysie's bashfulness was conquered by her fear. She placed her fingers
on her lips, in token that he must observe the most strict silence, and then
pointed to the door to intimate that it was watched.
Sir Piercie Shafton now collected himself and sat upright on his couch.
He gazed with surprise on the graceful figure of the young woman who
stood before him; her well-formed person, her flowing hair, and the outline
of her features, showed dimly, and yet to advantage, by the partial and
feeble light which she held in her hand. The romantic imagination of the
gallant would soon have coined some compliment proper for the occasion,
but Mysie left him not time.
" I come," she said, "to save your life, which is else in great peril —if
you answer me, speak as low as you can, for they have sentinelled your door
with armed men."
" Comeliest of miller's daughters," answered Sir Piercie, who by this time
was sitting upright on his couch, "dread nothing for my safety. Credit
me, that, as in very truth, I have not spilled the red puddle (which these
villagios call the blood) of their most uncivil relation, so I am under no
apprehension whatever for the issue of this restraint, seeing that it cannot
but be harmless to me. Natheless, to thee, O most Molendinar beauty, I
return the thanks which thy courtesy may justly claim."
" Nay, but, Sir Knight," answered the maiden, in a whisper as low as it
was tremulous, " I deserve no thanks unless you will act by my counsel.
Edward Glendinning hath sent for Dan of the Howlet-hirst, and young Adie
of Aikenshaw, and they are come with three men more, and with bow, and
jack, and spear, and I heard them say to each other, and to Edward, as they
alighted in the court, that they would have amends for the death of their
kinsman, if the monk's cowl should smoke for it -And the vassals are so
wilful now, that the Abbot himself dare not control them, for fear they turn
heretics, and refuse to pay their feu-duties."
"In faith," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "it may be a shrewd temptation, and
perchance the monks may rid themselves of trouble and cumber, by handing me over the march to Sir John Foster or Lord Hundson, the English
wardens, and so make peace with their vassals and with England at once.
Fairest Molinara, I will for once walk by thy rede, and if thou dost contrive
to extricate me from this vile kennel, I will so celebrate thy wit and beauty,
that the Baker's nymph of Raphael d'Urbino shall seem but a gipsey in
comparison of my Molinara."
"I pray you, then, be silent," said the Miller's daughter; " for if your
speech betrays that you are awake, my scheme fails utterly, and it is
Heaven's mercy and Our Lady's that we are not already overheard and
discovered."
"I am silent," replied the Southron, "Leven as the starless night —but
yet — if this contrivance of thine should endanger thy safety, fair and no




196                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
less kind than fair damsel, it were utterly unworthy of me to accept it at
thy hand."
"Do not think of me," said Mysie, hastily; "I am safe -I will take
thought for myself, if I once saw you out of this dangerous dwelling -if
you would provide yourself with any part of your apparel or goods, lose no
time."
The knight did, however, lose some time, ere he could settle in his own
mind what to take and what to abandon of his wardrobe, each article of
which seemed endeared to him by recollection of the feasts and revels at
which it had been exhibited. For some little while Mysie left him to make
his selections at leisure, for she herself had also some preparations to make
for flight. But when, returning from the chamber into which she had
retired, with a small bundle in her hand, she found him still indecisive, she
insisted in plain terms, that he should either make up his baggage for the
enterprise, or give it up entirely. Thus urged, the disconsolate knight
hastily made up a few clothes into a bundle, regarded his trunk-mails with
a mute expression of parting sorrow, and intimated his readiness to wait
upon his kind guide.
She led the way to the door of the apartment, having first carefully extinguished her lamp, and motioning to the knight to stand close behind her,
tapped once or twice at the door. She was at length answered by Edward
Glendinning, who demanded to know who knocked within, and what was
desired.
"Speak low," said Mysie Ilapper, "or you will awaken the English
knight. It is I, Mysie Happer, who knock — I wish to get out - you have
locked me up- and I was obliged to wait till the Southron slept."
" Locked you up 1" replied Edward, in surprise.
" Yes," answered the Miller's daughter, " you have locked me up into this
room - I was in Mary Avenel's sleeping apartment."
"And can you not remain there till morning," replied Edward, " since it
has so chanced?"
"What!' said the Miller's daughter, in a tone of offended delicacy, "I
remain here a moment longer than I can get out without discovery!-I would
not, for all the Halidome of St. Mary's, remain a minute longer in the neighbourhood of a man's apartment than I can help it-For whom, or for what
do you hold me?  I promise you my father's daughter has been better
brought up than to put in peril her good name."
" Come forth then, and get to thy chamber in silence," said Edward.
So saying, he undid the bolt. The staircase without was in utter darkness, as Mysie had before ascertained. So soon as she stept out, she took
hold of Edward as if to support herself, thus interposing her person betwixt
him  and Sir Piercie Shafton, by whom she was closely followed. Thus
screened frozm observation, the Englishman slipped past on tiptoe, unshod
and in silence, while the damsel complained to Edward that she wanted a
light.
"I cannot get you a light," said he, "for I cannot leave this post; but
there is a fire below."
"I will sit below till morning," said the Maid of the Mill; and, tripping
down stairs, heard Edward bolt and bar the door of the now tenantless
apartment with vain caution.
At the foot of the stair which she descended, she found the object of her
care waiting her farther directions. She recommended to him the most
absolute silence, which, for once in his life, he seemed not unwilling to
observe, conducted him, with as much caution as if he were walking on
cracked ice, to a dark recess, used for depositing wood, and instructed him
to ensconce himself behind the fagots. She herself lighted her lamp once
more at the kitchen fire, and took her distaff and spindle, that she might
not seem to be unemployed, in case any one came into the apartment.




THE MONASTERY.                             197
From time to time, however, she stole towards the window on tiptoe, to
catch the first glance of the dawn, for the farther prosecution of her adventurous project. At length she saw, to her great joy, the first peep of the
morning brighten upon the gray clouds of the east, and, clasping her hands
together, thanked Our Lady for the sight, and implored protection during
the remainder of her enterprise. Ere she had finished her prayer, she
started at feeling a man's arm across her shoulder, while a rough voice
spoke in her ear-"What! menseful Mysie of the Mill so soon at her
prayers?-now, benison on the bonny eyes that open so early!-I'll have a
kiss for good morrow's sake."
Dan of the Howlet-hirst, for he was the gallant who paid Mysie this compliment, suited the action with the word, and the action, as is usual in such
cases of rustic gallantry, was rewarded with a cuff, which Dan received as
a fine gentleman receives a tap with a fan, but which, delivered by the
energetic arm of the Miller's maiden, would have certainly astonished a less
robust gallant.
" How now, Sir Coxcomb 1" said she, " and must you be away from your
guard over the English knight, to plague quiet folks with your horsetricks!"
" Truly you are mistaken, pretty Mysie," said the clown, " for I have not
yet relieved Edward at his post; and were it not a shame to let him stay
any longer, by my faith, I could find it in my heart not to quit you these
two hours."
"Oh, you have hours and hours enough to see any one," said Mysie; " but
you must think of the distress of the household even now, and get Edward
to sleep for a while, for he has kept watch this whole night."
"I will have another kiss first," answered Dan of the Howlet-hirst.
But Mysie was now on her guard, and, conscious of the vicinity of the
wood-hole, offered such strenuous resistance, that the swain cursed the
nymph's bad humour with very unpastoral phrase and emphasis, and ran
up stairs to relieve the guard of his comrade. Stealing to the door, she
heard the new sentinel hold a brief conversation with Edward, after which
the latter withdrew, and the former entered upon the duties of his watch.
Mysie suffered him to walk there a little while undisturbed, until the
dawning became more general, by which time she supposed he might
have digested her coyness, and then presenting herself before the watchful
sentinel, demanded of him "the keys of the outer tower, and. of the courtyard gate."
" And for what purpose?" answered the warder.
"To milk the cows, and drive them out to their pasture," said Mysie;
"you would not have the poor beasts kept in the byre a' morning, and the
family in such distress, that there is na ane fit to do a turn but the byrewoman and myself?"
"And where is the byre-woman?" said Dan.
" Sitting with me in the kitchen, in case these distressed folks want any
thing."
"There are the keys, then, Mysie Dorts," said the sentinel.
"Many thanks, Dan Ne'er-do-weel," answered the Maid of the Mill, and
escaped down stairs in a moment.
To hasten to the wood-hole, and there to robe the English knight in a
short gown and petticoat, which she had provided for the purpose, was the
work of another moment. She then undid the gates of the tower, and
made towards the byre, or cow-house, which stood in one corner of the courtyard. Sir Piercie Shafton remonstrated against the delay which this would
occasion.
"Fair and generous Molinara," he said, "had we not better undo the
outward gate, and make the best of our way hence, even like a pair of seamews who make towards shelter of the rocks. as the storm waxes high? 
R2




198                 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"We n.ust drive out the cows first," said Mysie, " for a sin it were to
spoil the poor widow's cattle, both for her sake and the poor beasts' own;
and I have no mind any one shall leave the tower in a hurry to follow us.
Besides, you must have your horse, for you will need a fleet one ere all be
done."
So saying, she locked and double-locked both the inward and outward
door of the tower, proceeded to the cow-house, turned out the cattle, and,
giving the knight his own horse to lead, drove them before her out at the
court-yard gate, intending to return for her own palfrey. But the noise attending the first operation caught the wakeful attention of Edward, who,
starting to the bartizan, called to know what the matter was.
Mysie answered with great readiness, that "she was driving out the cows,
for that they would be spoiled for want of looking to."
"I tha   ththee, kind maiden," said Edward   " and yet," he added, after
a moment's pause, "what damsel is that thou hast with thee?"
Mysie was about to answer, when Sir Piercie Shafton, who apparently did
not desire that the great work of his liberation should be executed without
the interposition of his own ingenuity, exclaimed from beneath, " I am she,
0 most bucolical juvenal, under whose charge are placed the milky-mothers
of the herd."
"Hell and darkness " exclaimed Edward, in a transport of fury and
astonishment, "it is Piercie Shafton-What! treason! treason!-ho!-Dan
-Jasper-Martin — the villain escapes!"
"To horse! to horse!" cried Mysie, and in an instant mounted behind
the knight, who was already in the saddle.
Edward caught up a cross-bow, and let fly a bolt, which whistled so near
Mysie's ear, that she called to her companion,-" Spur-spur, Sir Knight!
-the next will not miss us.-Had it been Halbert instead of Edward who
bent that bow, we had been dead."
The knight pressed his horse, which dashed past the cows, and down the
knoll on which the tower was situated. Then taking the road down the
valley, the gallant animal, reckless of its double burden, soon conveyed them
out of hearing of the tumult and alarm with which their departure filled the
Tower of Glendearg.
Thus it strangely happened, that two men were flying in different directions at the same time, each accused of being the other's murderer.
&lapter tt e   Citt-i Ttnt4.
--- Sure he cannot
Be so unmanly as to leave me here;
If he do, maids will not so easily
Trust men again.
THE Two NOBLE KINSMEN.
THE knight continued to keep the good horse at a pace as quick as the
road permitted, until they had cleared the valley of Glendearg, and entered
upon the broad dale of the Tweed, which now rolled before them in crystal
beauty, displaying on its opposite bank the huge gray Monastery of St.
Mary's, whose towers and pinnacles were scarce yet touched by the newlyrisen sun, so deeply the edifice lies shrouded under the mountains which
rise to the southward.
Turning to the left, the knight continued his road down to the northern




THE MONASTERY.                             199
bank of the river, until they arrived nearly opposite to the weir, or
dam-dike, where Father Philip concluded his extraordinary aquatic excursion.
Sir Piercie Shafton, whose brain seldom admitted more than one idea at
a time, had hitherto pushed forward without very distinctly considering
where he was going. But the sight of the Monastery so near to him, reminded him that he was still on dangerous ground, and that he must necessarily provide for his safety by choosing some settled -plan of escape. The
situation of his guide and deliverer also occurred to him, for he was far
from being either selfish or ungrateful. IIe listened, and discovered that
the Miller's daughter was sobbing and weeping bitterly as she rested her
head on his shoulder.
"What ails thee," he said, "my generous Molinara? —is there aught that
Piercie Shafton can do which may show his gratitude to his deliverer?"
Mysie pointed with her finger across the river, but ventured not to turn her
-eyes in that direction. "Nay, but speak plain, most generous damsel,"
said the knight, who, for once, was puzzled as much as his own elegance
of speech was wont to puzzle others, "for I swear to you that I comprehend nought by the extension of thy fair digit."
"Yonder is my father's house," said Mysie, in a voice interrupted by the
increased burst of her sorrow.
" And I was carrying thee discourteously to a distance from thy habitation?" said Shafton, imagining he had found out the source of her grief.
"Wo worth the hour that Piercie Shafton, in attention to his own safety,
neglected the accommodation of any female, far less of his most beneficent
liberatrice!  Dismount, then, 0 lovely Molinara, unless thou wouldst
rather that I should transport thee on horseback to the house of thy
molendinarv father, which, if thou sayest the word, I am prompt to do,
defying all dangers which may arise to me personally, whether by monk
or miller."
Mysie suppressed her sobs, and with considerable difficulty muttered her
desire to alight, and take her fortune by herself. Sir Piercie Shafton, too
devoted a squire of dames to consider the most lowly as exempted from a
respectful attention, independent of the claims which the Miller's maiden
possessed over him, dismounted instantly from his horse, and received in
his arms-the poor girl, who still wept bitterly, and, when placed on the
ground, seemed scarce able t6 support herself, or at least still clung,
though, as it appeared, unconsciously, to the support he had afforded. He
carried her to a weeping birch tree, which grew on the green-sward bank
around which the road winded, and, placing her on the ground beneath it,
exhorted her to compose herself. A strong touch of natural feeling struggled with, and half overcame, his acquired affectation, while he said,
"Credit me, most generous damsel, the service you have done to Piercie
Shafton he would have deemed too dearly bought, had he foreseen it was to
cost you these tears and singults. Show me the cause of your grief, and
if I can do aught to remove it, believe that the rights you have acquired
over me will make your commands sacred as those of an empress. Speak,
then, fair Molinara, and command him whom fortune hath rendered at
once your debtor and your champion. What are your orders?"
"Only that you will fly and save yourself," said Mysie, mustering up her
utmost efforts to utter these few words.
"Yet," said the knight, "let me not leave you without some token of
remembrance."  Mysie would have said there needed none, and most truly
would she have spoken, could she have spoken for weeping. "Piercie
Shafton is poor," he continued, "but let this chain testify he is not ungrateful to his deliverer."
He took from his neck the rich chain and medallion we have formerly
mentioned, and put it into the powerless hand of the poor maiden, who




200                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
neither received nor rejected it, but, occupied with more intense feelings,
seemed scarce aware of what he was doing.
"We shall meet again," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "at least I trust so;
meanwhile, weep no more, fair Molinara, an thou lovest me."
The phrase of conjuration was but used as an ordinary commonplace
expression of the time, but bore a deeper sense to poor Mysie's ear. She
dried her tears; and when the knight, in all kind and chivalrous courtesy,
stooped to embrace her at their parting, she rose humbly up to receive the
proffered honour in a posture of more deference, and meekly and gratefully
accepted the offered salute. Sir Piercie Shafton mounted his horse, and
began to ride off, but curiosity, or perhaps a stronger feeling, soon induced
him  to look back, when he beheld the Miller's daughter standing still
motionless on the spot where they had parted, her eyes turned after him,
and the unheeded chain hanging from her hand.
It was at this moment that a glimpse of the real state of Mysie's affections, and of the motive from which she had acted in the whole matter;
glanced on Sir Piercie Shafton's mind. The gallants of that age,-disinterested, aspiring, and lofty-minded, even in their coxcombry, were strangers
to those degrading and mischievous pursuits which are usually termed low
amours. They did not "chase the humble maidens of the plain," or degrade their own rank, to deprive rural innocence of peace and virtue. It
followed, of course, that as conquests in this class were no part of their
ambition, they were in most cases totally overlooked and unsuspected, left
unimproved, as a modern would call it, where, as on the present occasion,
they were casually made. The companion of Astrophel, and flower of the
tilt-yard of Feliciana, had no more idea that his graces and good parts could
attach the love of Mysie Happer, than a first-rate beauty in the boxes
dreams of the fatal wound which her charms may inflict on some attorney's
romantic apprentice in the pit. I suppose, in any ordinary case, the pride
of rank and distinction would have pronounced on the humble admirer the
doom which Beau Fielding denounced against the whole female world,
"Let them look and die;" but the obligations under which he lay to the
enamoured maiden, miller's daughter as she was, precluded the possibility
of Sir Piercie's treating the matter en cavalier, and, much embarrassed, yet
a little flattered at the same time, he rode back to try what could be done
for the damsel's relief.
The innate modesty of poor Mysie could not prevent her showing too
obvious signs of joy at Sir Piercie Shafton's return.  She was betrayed by
the sparkle of the rekindling eye, and a caress which, however timidly
bestowed, she could not help giving to the neck of the horse which brought
back the beloved rider
"What farther can I do for you, kind Molinara?" said Sir Piercie
Shafton, himself hesitating and blushing; for, to the grace of Queen Bess's
age be it spoken, her courtiers wore more iron on their breasts than brass
on their foreheads, and even amid their vanities preserved still the decaying spirit of chivalry, which inspired of yore the very gentle Knight of
Chaucer,
Who in his port was modest as a maid.
Mysie blushed deeply, with her eyes fixed on the ground, and Sir Piercie
proceeded in the same tone of embarrassed kindness.  "Are you afraid to
return home alone, my kind Molinara?-would you that I should accompany you?"
" Alas!" said Mysie, looking up, and her cheek changing from scarlet to
pale, "I have no home left."
"How! no home!" said Shafton; "says my generous Molinara she hath
no home, when yonder stands the house of her father, and but a crystal
stream between?"
"Alas!" answered the Miller's maiden, "I have no longer either home




THE MONASTERY.                             201
or father. I-e is a devoted servant to the Abbey -I have offended the
Abbot, and if I return home my father will kill me."
"He dare not injure thee, by Heaven!" said Sir Piercie; "I swear to
thee, by my honour and knighthood, that the forces of my cousin of
Northumberland shall lay the Monastery so flat, that a horse shall not
stumble as he rides over it, if they should dare to injure a hair of your
head! Therefore be hopeful and content, kind Mysinda, and know you
have obliged one who can and will avenge the slightest wrong offered to
you."
He sprung from his horse as he spoke, and, in the animation of his
argument, grasped the willing hand of Mysie, (or Mysinda as he had now
christened her.) He gazed too upon full black eyes, fixed upon his own
with an expression which, however subdued by maidenly shame, it was
impossible to mistake, on cheeks where something like hope began to
restore the natural colour, and on two lips which, like double rosebuds,
were kept a little apart by expectation, and showed within a line of teeth
as white as pearl. All this was dangerous to look upon, and Sir Piercie
Shafton, after repeating with less and less force his request that the fair
Mysinda would allow him to carry her to her father's, ended by asking the
fair MXsinda to go along with himi  "At least," he added, " until I shall
be able to conduct you to a place of safety."
Mysie Happer made no answer; but blushing scarlet betwixt joy and
shame, mutely expressed her willingness to accompany the Southron
Knight, by knitting her bundle closer, and preparing to resume her seat en
croupe. "And what is your pleasure that I should do with this?" she said,
holding up the chain as if she had been for the first time aware that it was
in her hand.
"Keep it, fairest Mysinda, for my sake," said the Knight.
"Not so, sir," answered Mysie, gravely; "the maidens of my country
take no such gifts from their superiors, and I need no token to remind me
of this morning."
Most earnestly and courteously did the Knight urge her acceptance of
the proposed guerdon, but on this point Mysie was resolute; feeling, perhaps, that to accept of any thing bearing the appearance of reward, would
be to place the service she had rendered him on a mercenary footing. In
short, she would only agree to conceal the chain, lest it might prove the
means of detecting the owner, until Sir Piercie should be placed in perfect
safety.
They mounted and resumed their journey, of which Mysie, as bold and
sharp-witted in some points as she was simple and susceptible in others,
now took in some degree the direction, having only inquired its general
destination, and learned that Sir Piercie Shafton desired to go to Edinburgh,
where he hoped to find friends and protection. Possessed of this information, Mysie availed herself of her local knowledge to get as soon as possible
out of the bounds of the Halidome, and into those of a temporal baron,
supposed.to be addicted to the reformed doctrines, and upon whose limits,
at least, she thought their pursuers would not attempt to hazard any violence.
She was not indeed very apprehensive of a pursuit, reckoning with some
confidence that the inhabitants of the Tower of Glendearg would find it a
matter of difficulty to surmount the obstacles arising from their own bolts
and bars, with which she had carefully secured them before setting forth on
the retreat.
They journeyed on, therefore, in tolerable security, and Sir Piercie
Shafton found leisure to amuse the time in high-flown speeches and long
anecdotes of the court of Feliciana, to which Mysie bent an ear not a whit
less attentive, that she did not understand one word out of three which was
uttered by her fellow-traveller. She listened, however, and admired upon
trust, as many a wise man has been contented to treat the conversation of a




202                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
handsome but silly mistress.  As for Sir Piercie, he was in his element;
and, well assured of the interest and full approbation of his auditor, he
went on spouting Euphuism  of more than usual obscurity, and at more
than usual length.  Thus passed the morning, and noon brought them
within sight of a winding stream, on the side of which arose an ancient
baronial castle, surrounded by some large trees. At a small distance from
the gate of the mansion, extended, as in those days was usual, a straggling
hamlet, having a church in the centre.
"There are two hostelries in this Kirk-town," said Mysie, " but the worst
is best for our purpose; for it stands apart from the other houses, and I ken
the man weel, for he has dealt with my father for malt."
This causa scientice, to use a lawyer's phrase, was ill chosen for Mysie's
purpose; for Sir Piercie Shafton had, by dint of his own loquacity, been
talking himself all this while into a high esteem for his fellow-traveller,
and, pleased with the gracious reception which she afforded to his powers
of conversation, had well-nigh forgotten that she was not herself one of
those high-born beauties of whom he was recounting so many stories, when
this unlucky speech at once placed the most disadvantageous circumstances
attending her lineage under his immediate recollection. He said nothing,
however. What indeed could he say?  Nothing was so natural as that a
miller's daughter should be acquainted with publicans who dealt with her
father for malt, and all that was to be wondered at was the concurrence of
events which had rendered such aTemale the companion and guide of Sir
Piercie Shafton of Wilverton, kinsman of the great Earl of Northumberland, whom princes and sovereigns themselves termed cousin, because of
the Piercie blood.*  He felt the disgrace of strolling through the country
with a miller's maiden on the crupper behind him, and was even ungrateful
enough to feel some emotions of shame, when he halted his horse at the
door of the little inn.
But the alert intelligence of Mysie Happer spared him farther sense of
derogation, by instantly springing from his horse, and cramming the ears
of mine host, who came out with his mouth agape to receive a guest of the
knight's appearance, with an imagined tale, in which circumstance on circumstance were huddled so fast, as to astonish Sir Piercie Shafton, whose
own invention was none of the most brilliant. She explained to the publican that this was a great English knight travelling from the Monastery to
the court of Scotland, after having paid his vows to Saint Mary, and that
she had been directed to conduct him so far on the road; and that Ball, her
palfrey, had fallen by the way, because he had been over-wrought with carrying home the last melder of meal to the portioner of Langhope; and that
she had turned in Ball to graze in the Tasker's park, near Cripplecross, for
he had stood as still as Lot's wife with very weariness; and that the knight
had courteously insisted she should ride behind him, and that she had
brought him to her kend friend's hostelry rather than to proud Peter Peddie's, who got his malt at the Mellerstane mills; and that he must get the
best that the house afforded, and that he must get it ready in a moment of
time, and that she was ready to help in the kitchen.
All this ran glibly off the tongue without pause on the part of Mysie
Happer, or doubt on that of the landlord. The guest's horse was conducted
to the stable, and he himself installed in the cleanest corner and best seat
which the place afforded. Mysie, ever active and officious, was at once
engaged in preparing food, in spreading the table, and in making all the
better arrangements which her experience could suggest, for the honour
and comfort of her companion. He would fain have resisted this; for while
it was impossible not to be gratified with the eager and alert kindness
which was so active in his service, he felt an undefinable pain in seeing
* Fioissart tells us somewhere, (the readers of romances are indifferent to accurate reference,) that the
King of France called one of the Piercies cousin, because of the blood of Northumberland.




THE  MONASTERY.                            203
Mysinda engaged in these menial services, and discharging them, moreover,
as one to whom they were but too familiar. Yet this jarring feeling was
mixed with, and perhaps balanced by, the extreme grace with which the
neat-handed maiden executed these tasks, however mean in themselves,
and gave to the wretched corner of a miserable inn of the period, the air
of a bower, in which an enamoured fairy, or at least a shepherdess of
Arcadia, was displaying, with unavailing solicitude, her designs on the
heart of some knight, destined by fortune to higher thoughts, and a more
splendid union.
The lightness and grace with which Mysie covered the little round table
with a snow-white cloth, and arranged upon it the hastily-roasted capon,
with its accompanying stoup of Bourdeaux, were but plebeian graces in
themselves; but yet there were very flattering ideas excited by each glance.
She was so very well made, agile at once and graceful, with her hand and
arm as white as snow, and her face in which a smile contended with a blush,
and her eyes which looked ever at Shafton when he looked elsewhere, and
were dropped at once when they encountered his, that she was irresistible!
In fine, the affectionate delicacy of her whole demeanour, joined to the
promptitude and boldness she had so lately evinced, tended to ennoble the
services she had rendered, as if some
sweet engaging Grace
Put on some clothes to come abroad,
And took a waiter's place.
But, on the other hand, came the damning reflection, that these duties
were not taught her by Love, to serve the beloved only, but arose from the
ordinary and natural habits of a miller's daughter, accustomed, doubtless,
to render the same service to every wealthier churl who frequented her
father's mill. This stopped the mouth of vanity, and of the love which
vanity had been hatching, as effectually as a peck of literal flour would
have done.
Amidst this variety of emotions, Sir Piercie Shafton forgot not to ask the
object of them to sit down and partake the good cheer which she had been
so anxious to provide and to place in order. IHe expected that this invi.
tation would have been bashfully, perhaps, but certainly most thankfully,
accepted; but he was partly flattered, and partly piqued, by the mixture
of deference and resolution with which Mysie declined his invitation. Immedia.tely after, she vanished from the apartment, leaving the Euphuist to
consider whether he was most gratified or displeased by her disappearance.
In fact, this was a point on which he would have found it difficult to make
up his mind, had there been any necessity for it. As there was none, he
drank a few cups of claret, and sang (to himself) a strophe or two of the
canzonettes of the divine Astrophel. But in spite both of wine and of Sir
Philip Sidney, the connexion in which he now stood, and that which he
was in future to hold, with the lovely Molinara, or Mysinda, as he had been
pleased to denominate Mysie Happer, recurred to his mind. The fashion
of the times (as we have already noticed) fortunately coincided with his
own natural generosity of disposition, which indeed amounted almost to
extravagance, in prohibiting, as a deadly sin, alike against gallantry, chivalry, and morality, his rewarding the good offices he had received from this
poor maiden, by abusing any of the advantages which her confidence in-his
honour had afforded. To do Sir Piercie justice, it was an idea which never
entered into his head; and he would probably have dealt the most scientific
imbroccata, stoccata, or punto reverso, which the school of Vincent Saviola
had taught him, to any man who had dared to suggest to him such selfish
and ungrateful meanness. On the other hand, he was a man, and foresaw
various circumstances which might render their journey together in this
intimate fashion a scandal and a snare. Moreover, he was a coxcomb'and
a courtier, and felt there was something ridiculous in travelling the land




204                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
with a miller's daughter behind his saddle, giving rise to suspicions not very
creditable to either, and to ludicrous constructions, so far as he himself was
concerned.
"I would," he said half aloud, " that if such might be done without
harm or discredit to the too-ambitious, yet too-well-distinguishing Molinara,
she and I were fairly severed, and bound on our different courses; even as
we see the goodly vessel bound for the distant seas hoist sails and bear
away into the deep, while the humble fly-boat carries to shore those
friends, who, with wounded hearts and watery eyes, have committed to their
higher destinies the more daring adventurers by whom the fair frigate is
manned."
He had scarce uttered the wish when it was gratified; for the host entered
to say that his worshipful knighthood's horse was ready to be brought forth
as he had desired; and on his inquiry for "the-the damsel-that is-the
young woman -"
"Mysie Happer," said the landlord, "has returned to her father's; but
she bade me say, you could not miss the road for Edinburgh, in respect it
was neither far way nor foul gate."
It is seldom we are exactly blessed with the precise fulfilment of our
wishes at the moment when we utter them; perhaps, because Heaven
wisely withholds what, if granted, would be often received with ingratitude.
So at least it chanced in the present instance; for when mine host said that
Mysie was returned homeward, the knight was tempted to reply, with an
ejaculation of surprise and vexation, and a hasty demand, whither and when
she had departed? The first emotions his prudence suppressed, the second
found utterance.
"Where is she gane?" said the host, gazing on him, and repeating his
question-" She is gane hame to her father's, it is like -and she gaed just
when she gave orders about your worship's horse, and saw it well fed, (she
might have trusted me, but millers and millers' kin think a' body as thieflike as themselves,) an' she's three miles on the gate by this time."
"Is she gone then?" muttered Sir Piercie, making two or three hasty
strides through the narrow apartment-" Is she gone?-Well, then, let her
go. She could have had but disgrace by abiding by me, and I little credit
by her society. That I should have thought there was such difficulty in
shaking her off! I warrant she is by this time laughing. with some clown
she has encountered; and my rich chain will prove a good dowry.-And
ought it not to prove so? and has she not deserved it, were it ten times
more valuable? - Piercie Shafton! Piercie Shafton! dost thou grudge thy
deliverer the guerdon she hath so dearly won?  The selfish air of this
northern land hath infected thee, Piercie Shafton! and blighted the blossoms of thy generosity, even as it is said to shrivel the flowers of the mulberry.-Yet I thought," he added, after a moment's pause, "that she would
not so easily and voluntarily have parted from me. But it skills not thinking of it.-Cast my reckoning, mine host, and let your groom lead forth my
nag."
The good host seemed also to have some mental point to discuss, for he
answered not instantly, debating perhaps whether his conscience would bear
a double charge for the same guests. Apparently his -conscience replied in
the negative, though not without hesitation, for he at length replied- " It's
daffing to lee; it winna deny that the lawing is clean paid. Ne'ertheless,
if your worshipful knighthood pleases to give aught for increase of trouble     "
"How!" said the knight; "the reckoning paid? and by whom, I pray
you?"
"E'en by Mysie Happer, if truth maun be spoken, as I said before,"
answered the honest landlord, with as many compunctious visitings for
telling the verity as another might have felt for making a lie in the circum.




THE  MQNASTERY.                             205
stances - "And out of the moneys supplied for your honour's journey by
the Abbot, as she tauld to me. And laith were I to surcharge any gentleman that darkens my doors." lIe added in the confidence of honesty which
his frank avowal entitled him to entertain, "Nevertheless, as I said before,
if it pleases your knighthood of free good-will to consider extraordinary
trouble "
The knight cut short his argument, by throwing the landlord a rose-noble,
which probably doubled the value of a Scottish reckoning, though it would
have defrayed but a half one at the Three Cranes or the Vintry. The bounty
so much delighted mine host, that he ran to fill the stirrup-cup (for which
no charge was ever made) from a butt yet charier than that which he had
pierced for the former stoup. The knight paced slowly to horse, partook of
his courtesy, and thanked him with the stiff condescension of the court of
Elizabeth; then mounted and followed the northern path, which was pointed
out as the nearest to Edinburgh,and which, though very unlike a modern
highway, bore yet so distinct a resemblance to a public and frequented road
as not to be easily mistaken.
"I shall not need her guidance it seems," said he to himself, as he rode
slowly onward; "and I suppose that was one reason of her abrupt departure, so different from what one might have expected.- Well, I am well rid
of her. Do we not, pray to be liberated from temptation? Yet that she
should have. erred so much in estimation of her own situation and mine, as
to think of defraying the reckoning! I would I saw her once more, but to
explain to her the solecism of which her inexperience hath rendered her
guilty. And I fear," he added, as he emerged from some straggling trees,
and looked out upon a wild moorish country, composed of a succession of
swelling lumpish hills, "I fear I shall soon want the aid of this Ariadne,
who might afford me a clew through the recesses of yonder mountainous
labyrinth."
As the Knight thus communed with himself, his attention was caught by
the sound of a horse's footsteps; and a lad, mounted on a little gray Scottish nag, about fourteen hands high, coming along a path which led from
behind the trees, joined him on the high-road, if it could be termed such.
The dress of the lad was completely in village fashion, yet neat and handsome in appearance. lie had a jerkin of gray cloth slashed and trimmed,
with black hose of the same, with deer-skin rullions or sandals, and handsome silver spurs. A cloak of a dark mulberry colour was closely drawn
round the upper part of his person, and the cape in part muffled his face,
which was also obscured by his bonnet of black velvet cloth, and its little
plume-of feathers.
Sir Piercie Shafton, fond of society,. desirous also to have a guide, and,
moreover, prepossessed in favour of so handsome a youth, failed not to ask
him whence he came, and whither he was going. The youth looked another
way, as he answered, that he was going to Edinburgh, "to seek service in
some nobleman's family."
"I fear me you have run away from your last master," said Sir Piercie,
"since you dare not look me in the face while you answer my question."
"Indeed, sir, I have not," answered the lad, bashfully, while, as if with
reluctance, he turned round his face, and instantly withdrew it. It was a
glance, but the discovery was complete. There was no mistaking the dark
full eye, the cheek in which much embarrassment could not altogether disguise an expression of comic humour, and the whole figure at once betrayed,
under her metamorphosis, the Maid of the Mill. The recognition was joyful,
and Sir Piercie Shafton was too much pleased to have regained his companion to remember the very good reasons which had consoled him for
losing her.
To his questions respecting her dress, she answered that she had obtained
it in the Kirktown from a friend; it was the holiday suit of a son of hers,
s




206                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
who had taken the field with his liege-lord, the baron of the land. She had
borrowed the suit under pretence she meant to play in some mumming or
rural masquerade. She had left, she said, her own apparel in exchange,
which was better worth ten crowns than this was worth four.
" And the nag, my ingenious Molinara," said Sir Piercie, " whence comes
the nag?"
"I borrowed him from our host at the Gled's-Nest," she replied; and
added, half stifling a laugh, "he has sent to get, instead of it, our Ball,
which I left in the Tasker's Park at Cripplecross. He will be lucky if he
find it there."
"But then the poor man will lose his horse, most argute Mysinda," said
Sir Piercie Shafton, whose English notions of property were a little startled
at a mode of acquisition more congenial to the ideas of a miller's daughter
(and he a Border miller to boot) than with those of an English person of
quality.
" And if he does lose his horse," said Mysie, laughing, " surely he is not
the first man on the marches who has had such a mischance. But he will
be no loser, for I warrant he will stop the value out of moneys which he has
owed my father this many a day."
" But then your father will be the loser," objected yet again the pertinacious uprightness of Sir Piercie Shafton.
" What signifies it now to talk of my father?" said the damsel, pettishly;
then instantly changing to a tone of deep feeling, she added, "my father
has this day lost that which will make him hold light the loss of all the gear
he has left."
Struck with the accents of remorseful sorrow in which his companion
uttered these few words, the English knight felt himself bound both in
honour and conscience to expostulate with her as strongly as he could, on
the risk of the step which she had now taken, and on the propriety of her
returning to her father's house. The matter of his discourse, though
adorned with many unnecessary flourishes, was honourable both to his head
and heart.
The Maid of the Mill listened to his flowing periods with her head sunk
on her bosom as she role, like one in deep thought or deeper sorrow. When
he had finished, she raised up her countenance, looked full on the knight,
and replied with great firmness- "If you are weary of my company, Sir
Piercie Shafton, you have but to say so, and the Miller's daughter will be
no farther cumber to you. And do not think I will be a burden to you,'if
we travel together to Edinburgh; I have wit enough and pride enough to
be a willing burden to no man. But if you reject not my company at present, and fear not it will be burdensome to you hereafter, speak no more to
me of returning back. All that you can say to me I have said to myself;
and that I am now here, is a sign that I have said it to no purpose. Let
this subject, therefore, be forever ended betwixt us. I have already, in some
small fashion, been useful to you, and the time may come I may be more
so; for this is not your land of England, where men say justice is done with
little fear or favour to great and to small; but it is a land where men do by
the strong hand, and defend by the ready wit, and I know better than you
the perils you are exposed to."
Sir Piercie Shafton was somewhat mortified to find that the damsel conceived her presence useful to him as a protectress as well as guide, and said
something of seeking protection of nought save his own arm and his good
sword. Mysie answered very quietly, that she nothing doubted his bravery;
but it was that very quality of bravery which was most likely to involve him
in danger.  Sir Piercie Shafton, whose head never kept very long in any
continued train of thinking, acquiesced without much reply, resolving in his
own mind that the maiden only used this apology to disguise her real motive,?f affection to his person. The romance of the situation flattered his vanity




THE MONASTERY.                             207
and elevated his imagination, as placing him in the situation of one of those
ronmantic heroes of whom he had read the histories, where similar transformations made a distinguished figure.
He took many a sidelong glance at his page, whose habits of country sport
and country exercise had rendered her quite adequate to sustain the character she had assumed. She managed the little nag with dexterity, and even
with grace; nor did any thing appear that could have betrayed her disguise,
except when a bashful consciousness of her companion's eye being fixed on
her, gave her an appearance of temporary embarrassment, which greatly
added to her beauty.
The couple rode forward as in the morning, pleased with themselves ani
with each other, until they arrived at the village where they were to repose
for the night, and where all the inhabitants of the little inn, both male and
female, joined in extolling the good grace and handsome countenance of the
English knight, and the uncommon beauty of his youthful attendant.
It was here that Mysie Happer first made Sir Piercie Shafton sensible of
the reserved manner in which she proposed to live with him. She announced
him as her master, and, waiting upon him with the reverent demeanour of
an actual domestic, permitted not the least approach to familiarity, not even
such as the knight might with the utmost innocence have ventured upon.
For example, Sir Piercie, who, as we know, was a great connoisseur in dress,
was detailing to her the advantageous change which he proposed to make in
her attire as soon as they should reach Edinburgh, by arraying her in his
own colours of pink and carnation.  Mysie Happer listened with great
complacency to the unction with which he dilated upon welts, laces, slashes,
and trimmings, until, carried away by the enthusiasm with which he was
asserting the superiority of the falling band over the Spanish ruff, he
approached his hand, in the way of illustration, towards the collar of his
page's doublet. She instantly stepped back and gravely reminded him that
she was alone and under his protection.
" You cannot but remember the cause which has brought me here," she
continued; "make the least approach to any familiarity which you would
not offer to a princess surrounded by her court, and you have seen the last
of the Miller's daughter - She will vanish as the chaff disappears from the
shieling-hill * when the west wind blows."
"I do protest, fair Molinara," said Sir Piercie Shafton —but the fair
Molinara had disappeared before his protest could be uttered.  "A most
singular wench," said he to himself; "and by this hand, as discreet as she
is fair-featured —Certes, shame it were to offer her scathe or dishonour!
She makes similes too, though somewhat savouring of her condition. Iad
she but read Euphues, and forgotten that accursed mill and shieling-hill, it
is my thought that her converse would be broidered with as many and as
choice pearls of compliment, as that of the most rhetorical lady in the court
of Feliciana. I trust she means to return to bear me company."
But that was no part of Mysie's prudential scheme. It was then drawing
to dusk, and he saw her not again until the next morning, when the horses
were brought to the door that they might prosecute their journey.
But our story here necessarily leaves the English knight and his page, to
return to the Tower of Glendearg.
* The place where corn was winnowed, while that operation was performea by the hard, was called i
Scotland the Shieling-hill.




208                   WAV E RLEY  NOVELS.
lS an f    tjHi   ^pritti^tI 
You call it an ill angel-it may be so,
But sure I ail, anioilg the ranks which fell,'Tis the first fiend e'er counsell'd nan to rise,
And win the bliss the sprite himself had forfeited.
OLD PLAY.
WE must resume our narrative at the period when Mary Avenel was
conveyed to the apartment which had been formerly occupied by the two
Glendinnings, and when her faithful attendant, Tibbie, had exhausted herself in useless attempts to compose and to comfort her.  Father Eustace
also dealt forth with well-meant kindness those apophthegms and dogmata of
consolation, which friendship almost always offers to grief, though they are
uniformly offered in vain.  She was at length left to indulge in the desolation of her own sorrowful feelings.  She felt as those who, loving for the
first time, have lost what they-loved, before time and repeated calamity have
taught them that every loss is to a certain extent reparable or endurable.
Such grief may be conceived better than it can be described, as is well
known to those who have experienced it. But Mary Avenel had been taught
by the peculiarity of her situation, to regard herself as the Child of Destiny;
and the melancholy and reflecting turn of her disposition gave to her sorrows
a depth and breadth peculiar to her character. The grave - and it was a
bloody grave - had closed, as she believed, over the youth to whom she was
secretly, but most warmly attached; the force and ardour of Halbert's character bearing a singular correspondence to the energy of which her own was
capable.  HIer sorrow did not exhaust itself in sighs and tears, but when the
first shock had passed away, concentrated itself with deep and steady meditation, to collect and calculate, like a bankrupt debtor, the full amount of
her loss. It seemed as if all that connected her with earth, had vanished
with this broken tie.  She had never dared to anticipate the probability of
an ultimate union with lalbert, yet now his supposed fall seemed that of
the only tree which was to shelter her from the storm. She respected the
more gentle character, and more peaceful attainments, of the younger Glendinning; but it had not escaped her (what never indeed escaped woman in
such circumstances) that he was disposed to place himself in competition
with what she, the daughter of a proud and warlike race, deemed the more
manly qualities of his elder brother; and there is no time when a woman
does so little justice to the character of a surviving lover, as when comparing
him with the preferred rival of whom she has been recently deprived.
The motherly, but coarse kindness of Dame Glendinning, and the doatrng
fondness of her old domestic, seemed now the only kind feeling of which
she formed the object; and she could not but reflect how little these were to
be compared with the devoted attachment of a high-souled youth, whom the
least glance of her eye could command, as the high-mettled steed is
governed by the bridle of the rider.  It was when plunged among these
desolating reflections, that Mary Avenel felt the void of mind, arising from
the narrow and bigoted ignorance in which Rome then educated the children of her church.  Their whole religion was a ritual, and their prayers
were the formal iteration of unknown words, which, in the hour of affliction, could yield but little consolation to those who from habit resorted to
them. Unused to the practice of mental devotion, and of personal approach
to the Divine Presence by prayer, she could not help exclaiming in her distress, "There is no aid for me on earth, and I know not how to ask it from
Heaven!"
As she spoke thus in an agony of sorrow, she cast her eyes into the apart



TiHE  MONASTERY.                              209
ment, and saw the mysterious Spirit, which waited upon the fortunes of her
house, standing in the moonlight in the midst of the room. The same
form, as the reader knows, had more than once offered itself to her sight;
and either her native boldness of mind, or some peculiarity attached to her
from her birth, made her now look upon it without shrinking. But the
White Lady of Avenel was now more distinctly visible, and more closely
present, than she had ever before seemed to be, and Mary was appalled by
her presence. She would, however, have spoken; but there ran a tradition,
that though others who had seen the White Lady had asked questions and
received answers, yet those of the house of Avenel who had ventured to
speak to her, had never long survived the colloquy. The figure, besides, as
sitting up in her bed, Mary Avenel gazed on it intently, seemed by its ges
lures to caution her to keep silence, and at the same time to bespeak atten
tion.
The White Lady then seemed to press one of the planks of the floor with
her foot, while, in her usual low, melancholy, and musical chant, she repeated the following verses:
"Maiden, whose sorrows wail the Living Dead,
Whose eyes shall commnune with the Dead Alive,
Maiden, attend! Beneath my foot lies hid
The Word, the Law, the Path, which thou dost strive
To find and canst not find.-Could spirits shed
Tears for their lot, it were mny lot to weep,
Showing the road which I shall never tread,
T'hough my foot points it.-Sleep, eternal sleep,
Dark, long, and cold forgetfulness mny lot!But do not thou at human ills repine,
Secure there lies full guerdon il this spot
For all the woes that wait frail Adam's lineStoop, then, and make it yours —I may not make it mine!"
The phantom  stooped towards the floor as she concluded, as if with the
intention of laying her hand on the board on which she stood. But ere she
had completed that gesture, her form became indistinct, was presently only
like the shade of a fleecy cloud, which passed betwixt earth and the moon,
and was soon altogether invisible.
A strong impression of fear, the first which she had experienced in her
life to any agitating extent, seized upon the mind of Mary Avenel, and for
a minute she felt a disposition to faint. She repelled it, however, mustered
her courage, and addressed herself to saints and angels, as her church
recommended.  Broken slumbers at length stole on her exhausted mind
and frame, and she slept until the dawn was about to rise, when she was
awakened by the cry of " Treason! treason! follow, follow!" which arose
in the tower, when it was found that Piercie Shafton had made his escape.
Apprehensive of some new misfortune, Mary Avenel hastily arranged
the dress which she had not laid aside, and, venturing to quit her chamber,
learned from Tibb, who, with her gray hairs dishevelled like those of a
sibyl, was flying from room to room, that the bloody Southron villain had
made his escape, and that IHalbert Glendinning, poor bairn, would sleep
unrevenged and unquiet in his bloody grave. In the lower apartments, the
young men were roaring like thunder, and venting in oaths and exclamations against the fugitives the rage which they experienced in finding themselves locked up within the tower, and debarred from their vindictive pursuit by the wily precautions of Mysie Happer. The authoritative voice of
the Sub-Prior commanding silence was next heard; upon which Mary
Avenel, whose tone of feeling did not lead her to enter into counsel or
society with the rest of the party, again retired to her solitary chamber.
The rest of the family held counsel in the spence, Edward almost beside
himself with rage, and the Sub-Prior in no small degree offended at the effron
tery of Mysie Happer in attempting such a scheme, as well as at the min
gled boldness and dexterity with which it had been executed.  But neither
surprise nor anger availed aught. The windows, well secured with iron
bars for keeping assailants out, proved now as effectual for detaining the
VOL. V.-14                        s2




210                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
inhabitants within. The battlements were open, indeed; but without ladder
or ropes to act as a substitute for wings, there was no possibility of descending trom them. They easily succeeded in alarming the inhabitants of the
cottages beyond the precincts of the court; but the men had been called in
to strengthen the guard for the night, and only women and children re
mained who could contribute nothing in the emergency, except their use
less exclamations of surprise, and there were no neighbours for miles
around. Dame Elspeth, however, though drowned in tears, was! not so unmindful of external affairs, but that she could find voice enough to tell the
women and children without, to "leave their skirling, and look after the
cows that she couldna get minded, what wi' the awfu' distraction of her
mind, what wi' that fause slut having locked them up in their ain tower as
fast as if they had been in the Jeddart tolbooth."
Meanwhile, the men finding other modes of exit impossible, unanimously
concluded to force the doors with such tools as the house afforded for the
purpose. These were not very proper for the occasion, and the strength of
the doors was great.  The interior one, formed of oak, occupied them  for
three mortal hours, and there was little prospect of the iron door being
forced in double the time.
While they were engaged in this ungrateful toil, Mary Avenel had with
much less labour acquired exact knowledge of what the Spirit had intimated in her mystic rhyme. On examining the spot which the phantom
had indicated by her gestures, it was not difficult to discover that a board
had been loosened, which might be raised at pleasure. On removing this
piece of plank, Mary Avenel was astonished to find the Black Book, well
remembered by her as her mother's favourite study, of which she immediately took possession, with as much joy as her present situation rendered
her capable of feeling.
Ignorant in a great measure of its contents, Mary Avenel had been taught
from her infancy to hold this volume in sacred veneration. It is probable
that the deceased Lady of Walter Avenel only postponed initiating her
daughter into the mysteries of the Divine Word, until she should be better
able to comprehend both the lessons which it taught, and the risk at which,
in those times, they were studied. Death interposed, and removed her before the times became favourable to the reformers, and before her daughter
was so far advanced in age as to be fit to receive religious instruction of
this deep import. But the affectionate mother had made preparations for
the earthly work which she had most at heart.  There were slips of paper
inserted in the volume, in which, by an appeal to, and a comparison of,
various passages in holy writ, the errors and human inventions with which
the Church of Rome had defaced the simple edifice of Christianity, as
erected by its divine architect, were pointed out. These controversial topics
were treated with a spirit of calmness and Christian charity, which might
have been an example to the theologians of the period; but they were
clearly, fairly, and plainly argued, and supported by the necessary proofs
and references. Other papers there were which had no reference whatever
to polemics, but were the simple effusions of a devout mind communing
with itself. Among these was one frequently used, as it seemed from  the
state of the-manuscript, on which the mother of Mary had transcribed and
placed- together those affecting texts to which the heart has recourse, in
affliction, and which assures us at once of the sympathy and protection
afforded to the children of the promise. In Mary Avenel's state of mind,
these attracted her above all the other lessons, which, coming from a hand
so dear, had reached her at a time so critical, and in a manner so touching.
She read the affecting promise, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,"
and the consoling exhortation, "Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I
will deliver thee." She read them, and her heart acquiesced in the conclusion Surely this is the word of God I




THE MONASTERY.                             211
There are those to whom a sense of religion has come in storm  and tempest; there are those whom it has summoned amid scenes of revelry and
idle vanity; there are those, too, who have heard its "still small voice"
amid rural leisure and placid contentment. But perhaps the knowledge
which causeth not to err, is most frequently impressed upon the mind
during seasons of affliction; and tears are the softened showers which cause
the seed of Heaven to spring and take root in the human breast. At least
it was thus with Mary Avenel. She was insensible to the discordant noise
which rang below, the clang of bars and the jarring symphony of the levers
which they used to force them, the measured shouts of the labouring inmates
as they combined their strength for each heave, and gave time with their
voices to the exertion of their arms, and their deeply muttered vows of
revenge on the fugitives who had bequeathed them at their departure a task
so toilsome and difficult. Not all this din, combined in hideous concert, and
expressive of aught but peace, love, and forgiveness, could divert Mary
Avenel from the new course of study on which she had so singularly entered.
" The serenity of Heaven," she said, "is above me; the sounds which are
around are but those of earth and earthly passion."
Meanwhile the noon was passed, and little impression was made on the
iron grate, when they who laboured at it received a sudden reinforcement
by the unexpected arrival of Christie of the Clinthill. lie came at the head
of a small party, consisting of four horsemen, who bore in their caps the
sprig of holly, which was the badge of Avenel.
" What, ho — my masters," he said, " I bring you a prisoner."
"You had better have brought us liberty," said Dan of the Howlethirst.
Christie looked at the state of affairs with great surprise.  "An I were
to be hanged for it," he said, " as I may for as little a matter, I could not
forbear laughing at seeing men peeping through their own bars like so many
rats in a rat-trap, and he with the beard behind, like the oldest rat in the
cellar."
"Hush, thou unmannered knave," said Edward, "it is the Sub-Prior;
and this is neither time, place, nor company, for your ruffian jests."
" What, ho! is my young master malapert?" said Christie; " why, man,
were he my own carnal father, instead of being father to half the world, I
would have my laugh out. And now it is over, I must assist you, I reckon,
for you are setting very greenly about this gear -put the pinch nearer the
staple, man, and hand me an iron crow through the grate, for that's the
fowl to fly away with a wicket on its shoulders. I have broke into as many
grates as you have teeth in your young head - ay, and broke out of them
too, as the captain of the Castle of Lochmaben knows full well."
Christie did not boast more skill than he really possessed; for, applying
their combined strength, under the direction of that experienced engineer,
bolt and staple gave way before them, and in less than half an hour, the
grate, which had so long repelled their force, stood open before them.
" And now," said Edward, "to horse, my mates, and pursue the villain
Shafton!"
" Halt, there," said Christie of the Clinthill; "pursue your guest, my
master's friend and my own?-there go two words to that bargain.  What
the foul fiend would you pursue him for?"
"Let me pass," said Edward, vehemently, "I will be staid by no manthe villain has murdered my brother!"
" What says he?" said Christie, turning to the others; " murdered? who
is murdered, and by whom?"
" The Englishman, Sir Piercie Shafton," said Dan of the Howlet-hirst,
"has murdered young Halbert Glendinning yesterday morning, and we
have all risen to the fray.?'
"It is a bedlam business, I think," said Christie. "First I find you all




212                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
locked up in your own tower, and next I am come to prevent you revenging a murder that was never committed 1"
"I tell you," said Edward, " that my brother was slain and buried yesterday morning by this false Englishman."
"And I tell you," answered Christie, " that I saw him alive and well last
night. I would I knew his trick of getting out of the grave; most men find
it more hard to break through a green sod than a grated door."
Every body now paused, and looked on Christie in astonishment, until the
Sub-Prior, who had hitherto avoided communication with him, came up and
required earnestly to know, whether he meant really to maintain that Halbert Glendinning lived.
" Father," he said, with more respect than he usually showed to any one
save his master, "I confess I may sometimes jest with those of your coat,
but not with you; because, as you may partly recollect, I owe you a life.
It is certain as the sun is in heaven, that Halbert Glendinning supped at
the house of my master the Baron of Avenel last'night, and that he came
thither in company with an old man, of whom more anon."
" And where is he now?"
" The devil only can answer that question," replied Christie, " for the
devil has possessed the whole family, I think. He took fright, the foolish
lad, at something or other which our Baron did in his moody humour, and
so he jumped into the lake and swam ashore like a wild-duck. Robin of
Redcastle spoiled a good gelding in chasing him this morning."
"And why did he chase the youth?" said the Sub-Prior; "what harm
had he done?"
"None that I know of," said Christie; "but such was the Baron's order,
being in his mood, and all the world having gone mad, as I have said
before."
"Whither away so fast, Edward?" said the monk.
"To Corri-nan-shian, Father," answered the youth. -" Martin and Dan,
take pickaxe and mattock, and follow me if you be men!"
" Right," said the monk, " and fail not to give us instant notice what you
find."
"If you find aught there like Halbert Glendinning," said Christie, hallooing after Edward, "I will be bound to eat him unsalted. -'T is a sight
to see how that fellow takes the bent - It is in the time of action men see
what lads are made of. IHalbert was aye skipping up and down like a roe,
and his brother used to sit in the chimney nook with his book and sic-like
trash-But the lad was like a loaded hackbut, which will stand in the corner as quiet as an old crutch until ye draw the trigger, and then there is
nothing but flash and smoke. -But here comes my prisoner; and, setting
other matters aside, I must pray a word with you, Sir Sub-Prior, respecting
him. I came on before to treat about him, but I was interrupted with this
i'asherie."
As he spoke, two more of Avenel's troopers rode into the court-yard,
leading betwixt them a horse, on which, with his hands bound to his side,
sate the reformed preacher, Henry Warden.




THE MON A S TiER Y.                          213
C0nEprr tlj  ^intl-rh          titv
At school I knew him-a sharp-witted youth,
Grave. thoughtful, and reserved anmong his mates,
Turning the hours of sport and food to labour,
Starving his body to inform his mind.
OLD PLAY.
TrHE Sub-Prior, at the Borderer's request, had not failed to return to the
tower, into which he was followed by Christie of the Clinthill, who, shutting
the door of the apartment, drew near, and began his discourse with great
confidence and familiarity.
"My master," he said, "sends me with his commendations to you, Sir
Sub-Prior, above all the community of Saint Mary's, and more specially
than even to the Abbot himself; for though he be termed my lord, and so
forth, all the world knows that you are the tongue of the trump."
"If you have aught to say to me concerning the community," said the
Sub-Prior, "it were well you proceeded in it without farther delay.  Time
presses, and the fate of young Glendinnning dwells on my mind."
" I will be caution for him, body for body," said Christie.  "I do protest
to you, as sure as I am a living man, so surely is he one."
" Should I not tell his unhappy mother the joyful tidings?" said Father
Eustace, -" and yet better wait till they return from searching the grave.
Well, Sir Jackman, your message to me from your master?"
"My lord and master," said Christie, "hath good reason to believe that,
from the information of certain back friends, whom he will reward at more
leisure, your reverend community hath been led to deem him ill attached to
Holy Church, allied with heretics and those who favour heresy, and a hungerer after the spoils of your Abbey."
" Be brief, good henchman," said -the Sub-Prior, " for the devil is ever
most to be feared when he preacheth."
"Briefly, then- my master desires your friendship; and to excuse himself from the maligner's calumnies, he sends to your Abbot that Henry
Warden, whose sermons have turned the world upside down, to be dealt
with as Holy Church directs, and as the Abbot's pleasure may determine."
The Sub-Prior's eyes sparkled at the intelligence; for it had been accounted a matter of great importance that this man should be arrested,
possessed, as he was known to be, of so much zeal and popularity, that
scarcely the preaching of Knox himself had been more awakening to the
people, and more formidable to the Church of Rome.
In fact, that ancient system, which so well accommodated its doctrines to
the wants and wishes of a barbarous age, had, since the art of printing,
and the gradual diffusion of knowledge, lain floating like some huge Leviathan, into which ten thousand reforming fishers were darting their harpoons. The Roman Church of Scotland, in particular, was at her last gasp,
actually blowing blood and water, yet still with unremitted, though animal
exertions, maintaining the conflict with the assailants, who on every side
were plunging their weapons into her bulky body. In many large towns,
the monasteries had been suppressed by the fury of the populace; in other
places, their possessions had been usurped by the power of the reformed
nobles; but still the hierarchy made a part of the common law of the realm,
and might claim both its property and its privileges wherever it had the
means of- asserting them. The community of Saint Mary's of Kennaquhair
was considered as being particularly in this situation. They had retained,
undiminished, their territorial power and influence; and the great barons
in the neighbourhood, partly from their attachment to the party in the state
who still upheld the old system of religion, partly because each grudged the




214                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
share of the prey which the others must necessarily claim, had as yet ab,
stained from despoiling the Halidome.  The Community was also understood to be protected by the powerful Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, whose zealous attachment to the Catholic faith caused at a later
period the great rebellion of the tenth of Elizabeth.
Thus happily placed, it was supposed by the friends of the decaying cause
of the Roman Catholic faith, that some determined example of courage and
resolution, exercised where the franchises of the church were yet entire, and
her jurisdiction undisputed, might awe the progress of the new opinions
into activity; and, protected by the laws which still existed,.and by the
favour of the sovereign, might be the means of securing the territory which
Rome yet preserved in Scotland, and perhaps of recovering that which she
had lost.
The matter had been considered more than once by the northern Catholics
of Scotland, and they had held communication with those of the south.
Father Eustace,. devoted by his public and private vows, had caught the
flame, and had eagerly advised that they should execute the doom of heresy
on the first reformed preacher, or, according to his sense, on the first heretic
of eminence, who should venture within the precincts of the Halidome. A
heart, naturally kind and noble, was, in this instance, as it has been in
many more, deceived by its own generosity.  Father Eustace would have
been a bad administrator of the inquisitorial power of Spain, where that
power was omnipotent, and where judgment was exercised without danger
to those who inflicted it. In such a situation his rigour might have relented
in favour of the criminal, whom it was at his pleasure to crush or to place
at fieedom. But in Scotland, during this crisis, the case was entirely different. The question was, whether one of the spirituality dared, at the
hazard of his own life, to step forward to assert and exercise the rights of
the church. Was there any who would venture to wield the thunder in
her cause, or must it remain like that in the hand of a painted Jupiter, the
object of derision instead of terror?  The crisis was calculated to awake
the soul of Eustace; for it comprised the question, whether he dared, at all
hazards to himself, to execute with stoical severity a measure which, according to the general opinion, was to be advantageous to the church, and, according to ancient law, and to his firm belief, was not only justifiable but
meritorious.
While such resolutions were agitated amongst the Catholics, chance
placed a victim within their grasp.  Ienry Warden had, with the animation
proper to the enthusiastic reformers of the age, transgressed, in the
vehemence of his zeal, the bounds of the discretional liberty allowed to his
sect so far, that it was thought the Queen's personal dignity was concerned
in bringing him  to justice.  He fled from  Edinburgh, with recommendati.ons, however, from Lord James Stewart, afterwards the celebrated Earl
of Murray, to some of the Border chieftains of inferior rank, who were
privately conjured to procure him safe passage into England. One of the
principal persons to whom such recommendation was addressed, was Julian
Avenel; for as yet, and for a considerable time afterwards, the correspondence and interest of Lord James lay rather with the subordinate
leaders than with the chiefs of great power, and men of distinguished influence upon the Border. Julian Avenel had intrigued without scruple
with both parties-yet bad as he was, he certainly would not have practised
aught against the guest whom Lord James had recommended to his hospitality, had it not been for what he termed the preacher's officious intermeddling in his family affairs. But when he had determined to make
Warden rue the lecture he had read him, and the scene of public scandal
which he had caused in his hall, Julian resolved, with the constitutional
shrewdness of his disposition, to combine his vengeance with his interest.
And therefore, instead of doing violence. on the person of Henry Warden




THE  MONASTERY.                            215
within his own castle, he determined to deliher him up to the Community
of Saint Mary's, and at once make them the instruments of his own revenge, and found a claim of personal recompense, either in money, or in a
grant of Abbey lands at a low quit-rent, which last began now to be the
established form in which the temporal nobles plundered the spirituality.
The Sub-Prior, therefore, of Saint Mary's, unexpectedly saw the steadfast, active, and inflexible enemy of the church delivered into his hand,
and felt himself called upon to make good his promises to the friends of
the Catholic faith, by quenching heresy in the blood of one of its most
zealous professors.
To the honour more of Father Eustace's heart than of his consistency,
the communication that Henry Warden was placed within his power, struck
him with more sorrow than triumph; but his next feelings were those of
exultation.  " It is sad," he said to himself, "to cause human suffering; it
is awful to cause human blood to be spilled; but the judge to whom the
sword of Saint Paul, as well as the keys of Saint Peter, are confided, must
not flinch from his task. Our weapon returns into our own bosom, if not
wielded with a steady and unrelenting hand against the irreconcilable
enemies of the Holy Church. Pereat iste! It is the doom he has incurred,
and were all the heretics in Scotland armed and at his back, they should
not prevent its being pronounced, and, if possible, enforced. -Bring the
heretic before me," he said, issuing his commands aloud, and in a tone of
authority.
Henry Warden was led in, his hands still bound, but his feet at liberty.
"Clear the apartment," said the Sub-Prior, "of all but the necessary
guard on the prisoner."
All retired except Christie of the Clinthill, who, having dismissed the
inferior troopers whom he commanded, unsheathed his sword, and placed
himself beside the door, as if taking upon him the character of sentinel.
The judge and the accused met face to face, and in that of both was
enthroned the noble confidence of rectitude. The monk was about, at the
utmost risk to himself and his community, to exercise what in his ignorance
he conceived to be his duty. The preacher, actuated by a better-informed,
yet not a more ardent zeal, was prompt to submit to execution for God's
sake, and to seal, were it necessary, his mission with his blood. Placed at
such a distance of time as better enables us to appreciate the tendency
of the principles on which they severally acted, we cannot doubt to which
the palm ought to be awarded. But the zeal of Father Eustace was as
free from passion and personal views as if it had been exerted in a better
cause.
They approached each other, armed each and prepared for intellectual
conflict, and each intently regarding his opponent, as if either hoped to spy
out some defect, some chasm in the armour of his antagonist. - As they
gazed on each other, old recollections began to awake in either bosom, at
the sight of features long unseen and much altered, but not forgotten.
The brow of the Sub-Prior dismissed by degrees its frown of command, the
look of calm yet stern defiance gradually vanished from that of Warden,
and both lost for an instant that of gloomy solemnity. They had been
ancient and intimate friends in youth at a foreign university, but had been
long separated from  each other; and the change of name, which the
preacher had adopted from motives of safety, and the monk from the common custom of the convent, had prevented the possibility of their hitherto
recognizing. each other in the opposite parts which they had been playing
in the great polemical and political drama. But now the Sub-Prior exclaimed, " Henry Wellwood 1" and the preacher replied, " William Allan!"
-and, stirred by the old familiar names, and never-to-bN-forgotten recollections of college studies and college intimacy, their hanus were for a moment locked in each other.




21.6                 WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
"Remove his bonds," said the Sub-Prior, and assisted Christie in performing that office with his own hands, although the prisoner scarcely
would consent to be unbound, repeating with emphasis, that he rejoiced in
the cause for which he suffered shame. When his hands were at liberty,
however, he showed his sense of the kindness by again exchanging a grasp
and a look of affection with the Sub-Prior.
The salute was frank and generous on either side, yet it was but the
friendly recognition and greeting which are wont to take place betwixt
adverse champions, who do nothing in hate but all in honour. As each
felt the pressure of the situation in which they stood, he quitted the grasp
of the other's hand, and fell back, confronting each other with looks more
calm  and sorrowful than expressive of any other passion.  The Sub-Prior
was the first to speak.
"And is this, then, the end of that restless activity of mind, that bold
and indefatigable love of truth that urged investigation to its utmost limits,
and seemed to take heaven itself by storm-is this the termination of
Wellwood's career? — And having known and loved him  during the best
years of our youth, do we meet in our old age as judge and criminal?"
"Not as judge and criminal," said Henry Warden, -for to avoid confusion we describe him by his later and best known name-" Not as judge
and criminal do we meet, but as a misguided oppressor and his ready and
devoted victim. I, too, may ask, are these the harvest of the rich hopes
excited by the classical learning, acute logical powers, and varied knowledge of William Allan, that he should sink to be the solitary drone of a
cell,-graced only above the swarm with the high commission of executing
Roman malice on all who oppose Roman imposture?"
"Not to thee," answered the Sub-Prior, "be assured-not unto thee, nor
unto mortal man, will I render an account of the power with which the
church may have invested me. It was granted but as a deposit for her
welfare -for her welfare it shall at every risk be exercised, without fear
and without favour."
"I expected no less from your misguided zeal," answered the preacher;
"'and in me have you met one on whom you may fearlessly exercise your
authority, secure that his mind at least will defy your influence, as the snows
of that Mont Blanc which we saw together, shrink not under the heat of
the hottest summer sun."
"I do believe thee," said the Sub-Prior, "I do believe that thine is indeed
metal unmalleable by force. Let it yield then to persuasion. Let us debate
these matters of faith, as we once were wont to conduct our scholastic disputes, when hours, nay, days, glided past in the mutual exercise of our
intellectual powers. It may be thou mayest yet hear the voice of the shepherd, and return to the universal fold."
" No, Allan," replied the prisoner, "this is no vain question, devised by
dre.aming scholiasts, on which they may whet their intellectual faculties until
the very metal be wasted away. The errors which I combat are like those
fiends which are only cast out by fasting and prayer. Alas! not many wise,
not many learned are chosen; the cottage and the hamlet shall in our days
bear witness against the schools and their disciples.  Thy very wisdom,
which is foolishness, hath made thee, as the Greeks of old, hold as foolish
ness that which is the only true wisdom."
" This," said the Sub-Prior, sternly, "is the mere cant of ignorant enthusiasm, which appealeth from learning and from  authority, from the sure
guidance of that lamp which God hath afforded us in the Councils and in
the Fathers of the Church, to a rash, self-willed, and arbitrary interpretation
of the Scriptures, wrested according to the private opinion of each speculating heretic."
"I disdain to reply to the charge," replied Warden.  "The question at
issue between your Church and mine, is, whether we will be judged by the




THE  MONASTERY.                            217
iloly Scriptures, or by the devices and decisions of men not less subject to
error than ourselves, and who have defaced our holy religion with vain
devices, reared up idols of stone and wood, in form of those, who, when they
lived, were but sinful creatures, to share the worship due only to the Creator
-established a toll-house betwixt heaven and hell, that profitable purgatory
of which the Pope keeps the keys, like an iniquitous judge commutes punishment for bribes, and    "
"Silence, blasphemer," said the Sub-Prior, sternly, " or I will have thy
blatant obloquy stopped with a gag V'
"Ay," replied Warden, "such is the freedom of the Christian conference
to which Rome's priests so kindly invite us!-the gag-the rack-the
axe- is the ratio ultima Romce. But know thou, mine ancient friend, that
the character of thy former companion is not so changed by age, but that
he still dares to endure for the cause of truth all that thy proud hierarchy
shall dare to inflict."
"Of that," said the monk, "I nothing doubt- Thou wert ever a lion to
turn against the spear of the hunter, not a stag to be dismayed at the sound
of his bugle."- -Ie walked through the room in silence. "Wellwood," he
said at length, "we can no longer be friends.  Our faith, our hope, our
anchor on futurity, is no longer the same."
"Deep is my sorrow that thou speakest truth. May God so judge me,"
said the Reformer, " as I would buy the conversion of a soul like thine with
my dearest heart's blood."
"To thee, and with better reason, do I return the wish," replied the SubPrior; "it is such an arm as thine that should defend -the bulwarks of the
Church, and it is now directing the battering-ram against them, and rendering practicable the breach through which all that is greedy, a.nd all that is
base, and all that is mutable and hot-headed in this innovating age, already
hope to advance to destruction and to spoil. But since such is our fate, that
we can no longer fight side by side as friends, let us at least act as generous
enemies. You cannot have forgotten,'O gran bonta dei cavalieri antiqui!
Erano nemici, eral' de fede diversa'Although, perhaps," he added, stopping short in his quotation, " your new
faith forbids you to reserve a place in your memory, even for what high
poets have recorded of loyal faith and generous sentiment."
" The faith of Buchanan," replied the preacher, "the faith of Buchanan
and of Beza, cannot be unfriendly to literature.  But the poet you have
quoted affords strains fitter for a dissolute court than for a convent."
"I might retort on your Theodore Beza," said the Sub-Prior, smiling;
"but I hate the judgment that, like the flesh-fly, skims over whatever is
sound, to detect and settle upon some spot which is tainted.  But to the
purpose. If I conduct thee or send thee a prisoner to St. Mary's, thou art
to-night a tenant of the dungeon, to-morrow a burden to the gibbet-tree. If
I were to let thee go hence at large, I were thereby wronging the Holy
Church, and breaking mine own solemn vow. Other resolutions may be
adopted in the capital, or better times may speedily ensue.  Wilt thou
remain a true prisoner upon thy parole, rescue or no rescue, as is the phrase
amongst the warriors of this country?  Wilt thou solemnly promise that
thou wilt do so, and at my summons thou wilt present thyself before the
Abbot and Chapter at Saint Mary's, and that thou. wilt not stir from this
house above a quarter of a mile in any direction? Wilt thou, I say, engage
me thy word for this? and such is the sure trust which I repose in thy good
faith, that thou shalt remain here unharmed and unsecured, a prisoner at
large, subject only to appear before our court when called upon."
The preacher paused —  " I am unwilling," he said, "to fetter my native
liberty by'any self-adopted engagement. But I am already in your power,
T




~18                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
and you may bind ne to my answer. By such promise, to abide within a
certain limit, and to appear when called upon, I renounce not any liberty
which I at present possess, and am free to exercise; but, on the contrary,
being in bonds, and at your mercy, I acquire thereby a liberty which I at
present possess not. I will therefore accept of thy proffer, as what is courteously offered on thy part, and may be honourably accepted on mine."
"Stay yet," said the Sub-Prior; " one important part of thy engagement
is forgotten    thou art farther to promise, that while thus left at liberty,
thou wilt not preach or teach, directly or indirectly, any of those pestilent
heresies by which so many souls have been in this our day won over from
the kingdom of light to the kingdom of darkness."
"There we break off our treaty," said Warden, firmly —" Wo unto me if
I preach not the Gospel!"
The Sub-Prior's countenance became clouded, and he again paced the
apartment, and muttered, "A plague upon the self-willed fool i" then stopped
short in his walk, and proceeded in his argument. —" Why, by thine own
reasoning, Henry, thy refusal here is but peevish obstinacy.  It is in my
power to place you where your preaching can reach no human ear; in
promising therefore to abstain from it, you grant nothing which you have it
in your power to refuse."
" I know not that," replied Henry Warden; "thou mayest indeed cast me
into a dungeon, but can I foretell that my Master hath not task-work for me
to perform even in that dreary mansion? The chains of saints have, ere
now, been the means of breaking the bonds of Satan.  In a prison, holy
Paul found the jailor whom he brought to believe the word of salvation, he
and all his house."
"Nay," said the Sub-Prior, in a tone betwixt anger and scorn, "if you
match yourself with the blessed Apostle, it were time we had done-prepare
to endure what thy folly, as well as thy heresy, deserves.-Bind him, soldier."
With proud submission to his fate, and regarding the Sub-Prior with
something which almost amounted to a smile of superiority, the preacher
placed his arms so that the bonds could be again fastened round him.
" Spare me not," he said to Christie; for even that ruffian hesitated to
draw the cord straitly.
The Sub-Prior, meanwhile, looked at him from under his cowl, which he
had drawn over his head, and partly over his face, as if he wished to shade
his own emotions. They were those of a huntsman within point-blank shot
of a noble stag, who is yet too much struck with his majesty of front and
of antler to take aim at him. They were those of a fowler, who, levelling
his gun at a magnificent eagle, is yet reluctant to use his advantage when
he sees the noble sovereign of the birds pruning himself in proud defiance
of whatever may be attempted against him. The heart of the Sub-Prior
(bigoted as he was) relented, and he doubted if he ought to purchase, by a
rigorous discharge of what he deemed his duty, the remorse he might afterwards feel for the death of one so nobly independent in thought and character, the friend, besides, of his own happiest years, during which they
had, side by side, striven in the noble race of knowledge, and indulged
their intervals of repose in the lighter studies of classical and general
letters.
The Sub-Prior's hand pressed his half-o'ershadowed cheek, and his eye,
more completely obscured, was bent on the ground, as if to hide the workings of his relenting nature.
"Were but Edward safe from the infection," he thought to himself"Edward, whose eager and enthusiastic mind presses forward in the chase
of all that hath even the shadow of knowledge, I might trust this enthusiast
with the women, after due caution to them that they cannot, without guilt,
attend to his reveries."
As the Sub-Prior revolved these thoughts, and delayed the definitive




THE MONASTER~Y.                              219
order which was to determine the fate of the prisoner, a sudden noise at
the entrance of the tower diverted his attention for an instant, and, his
cheek and brow inflamed with all the glow of heat and determination,
Edward Glendinning rushed into the room.
Then in my gown of sober gray
Along the mountain path I'll wander,
And wind my solitary TYy
To the sad shrine that courts me yonder.
There, in the calm monastic shade,
All injuries may be forgiven;
And there for thee, obdurate maid,
My orisons shall rise to heaven.
THE CRUEL LADY OF THE MOUNTAINS.
THE first words which Edward uttered were,-" My brother is safe, reverend father-he is safe, thank God, and lives! -There is not in Corri-nanshian a grave, nor a vestige of a grave.  The turf around the fountain has
neither been disturbed by pick-axe, spade, nor mattock, since the deer'shair first sprang there. He lives as surely as I live 1"
The earnestness of the youth -the vivacity with which he looked and
moved   the springy step, outstretched hand, and ardent eye, reminded
Henry Warden of Halbert, so lately his guide.  The brothers had indeed a
strong family resemblance, though Halbert was far more athletic and active
in his person, taller and better knit in the limbs, and though Edward had,
on ordinary occasions, a look of more habitual acuteness and more profound reflection. The preacher was interested as well as the Sub-Prior.
"Of whom do you speak, my son?" lie said, in a tone as unconcerned as
if his own fate had not been at the same instant trembling in the balance,
and as if a dungeon and deathf did not appear to be his instant doom-" Of
whom, I say, speak you?  If of a youth somewhat older than you seem to
be —brown-haired, open-featured, taller and stronger than you appear, yet
having much of the same air and of the same tone of voice-if such a one
is the brother whom you seek, it may be I can tell you news of him."
" Speak    n, then, for  eaven's sake," said Edward   "life or death lies on
thy tongue!"
The Sub-Prior joined eagerly in the same request, and, without waiting to
be urged, the preacher gave so minute an account of the circumstances under
which he met the elder Glendinning, with so exact a description of his person, that there remained no doubt as to his identity. When he mentioned
that HIalbert Glendinning had conducted him to a dell in which they found
the grass bloody, and a grave newly closed, and told how the youth accused
himself of the slaughter of Sir Piercie Shafton, the Sub-Prior looked on
Edward with astonishment.
" Didst thou not say, even now," he said, "that there was no vestige of a
grave in that spot?"
"No more vestige of the earth having been removed than if the turf had,
grown there since the days of Adam," replied Edward Glendinning. "It is
true," he added, "that the adjacent grass was trampled and bloody."
"These are delusions of the Enemy," said the Sub-Prior, crossing himself. -" Christian men may no longer doubt of it."
"But an it be so," said Warden, "Christian men might better guard



220                   WAVER LEY NOVELS.
themselves byKthe sword of prayer than by the idle form of a cabalistical
spell."
" The badge of our salvation," said the Sub-Prior, "cannot be so term -d
-the sign of the cross disarmeth all evil spirits."
"Ay," answered Henry Warden, apt and armed for controversy, "but it
should be borne in the heart, not scored with the fingers in the air. That
very impassive air, through which your hand passes, shall as soon bear the
imprint of your action, as the external action shall avail the fond bigot who
substitutes vain motions of the body, idle genuflections, and signs of the
cross, for the living and heart-born duties of faith and good works."
"I pity thee," said the Sub-Prior, as actively ready for polemics as himself, -" I pity thee, Henry, and reply not to thee. Thou mayest as well
winnow forth and measure the ocean with a sieve, as mete out the power of
holy words, deeds, and signs, by the erring gauge of thine own reason."
"Not by mine own reason would.l mete them," said Warden; "but by
Iis holy Word, that unfading and unerring lamp of our paths, compared to
which human reason is but as a glimmering and fading taper, and your
boasted tradition only a misleading wildfire.  Show me your Scripture warrant for ascribing virtue to such vain signs and motions i"
"I offered thee a fair field of debate," said the Sub-Prior, "which thou
didst refuse.  I will not at present resume the controversy."
" Were these my last accents," said the reformer, " and were'they uttered
at the stake, half-choked with smoke, and as the fagots kindled into a blaze
around me, with that last utterance I would testify against the superstitious
devices of Rome."
The Sub-Prior suppressed with pain the controversial answer which arose
to his lips, and, turning to Edward Glendinning, he said, "there could be
now no doubt that his mother ought presently to be informed that her son
lived."
"I told you that two hours since," said Christie of the Clinthill, " an you
would have believed me.  But it seems you are more willing to take the
word of an old gray sorner, whose life has been spent in pattering heresy,
than mine, though I never rode a foray in my life without duly saying my
paternoster."
"Go then," said Father Eustace to Edward; "let thy sorrowing mother
know that her son is restored to her from  the grave, like the child of the
widow of Zarephath; at the intercession," he added, looking at Henry Warden, " of the blessed Saint whom I invoked in his behalf."
"Deceived thyself," said Warden, instantly, "thou art a deceiver of
others. It was no dead man, no creature of clay, whom the bless d Tishbite
invoked, when,stung by the reproach of the Shunamite woman, he prayed
that her son's soul might come into him again."
"It was by his intercession, however," repeated the Sub-Prior; "for
what says-the Vulgate?  Thus it is written:'Et exacdivit Domninus vocem
Helie; *et reversa estanimappueri intra eum, et revixit;' - and thinkest thou
the intercession of a glorified saint is more feeble than when he walks on
earth, shrouded in a tabernacle of clay, and seeing but with the eye of flesh?"
During-this controversy Edward Glendinning appeared restless and impatient, agitated by some internal feeling, but whether of joy, grief, or expectation, his countenance did mot expressly declare. IIe took now the unusual
freedom to break in.upon the discourse of the Sub-Prior, who, notwithstanding
his resolution to the contrary, was obviously kindling in the spirit of controversy, which Edward diverted by conjuring his reverence to allow him to
speak a few words with him in private.
"Remove the prisoner," said the Sub-Prior to Christie; "look to him
carefully that he escape not; but for thy life do him no injury."
His commands being obeyed, Edward and the monk were left alone, when
the Sub-Priol thus addressed him:




THE  MONASTERY.                             221
" What hath come over thee, Edward, that thy eye kindles so wildly, and
thy cheek is thus changing from scarlet to pale? Why didst thou break in
so hastily and unadvisedly upon the argument with which I was prostrating
yonder heretic? And wherefore dost thou not tell thy mother that her son
is restored to her by the intercession; as Holy Church well warrants us to
believe, of Blessed Saint Benedict, the patron of our Order?  For if ever
my prayers were put forth to him with zeal, it hath been in behalf of this
house, and thine eyes have seen the result  go tell it to thy mother."
"I must tell her then," said Edward, "that if she has regained one son,
another is lost to her."
"What meanest thou, Edward? what language is this?" said the Sub
Prior.
" Father," said the youth, kneeling down to him," my sin and my shame
shall be told thee, and thou shalt witness my penance with thine own
eyes."
" I comprehend thee not," said the Sub-Prior. "What canst thou have
done to deserve such self-accusation? -Iast thou too listened," he added,
knitting his brows, " to the demon of heresy, ever most effectual tempter of
those, who, like yonder unhappy man, are distinguished by their love of
knowledge?'
"I am guiltless in that matter," answered Glendinning, "nor have presumed to think otherwise than thou, my kind father, hast taught me, and
than the Church allows.'
"And what is it then, my son,"' said the Sub-Prior, kindly, "which thus
afflicts thy conscience? speak it to me, that I may answer thee in the words
of comfort; for the Church's mercy is great to those obedient children who
doubt not her power."
" My confession will require her mercy," replied Edward. "My brother
Halbert-so kind, so brave, so gentle, who spoke not, thought rot, acted
not, but in love to me, whose hand had aided me in every difficulty, whose
eye watched over me like the eagle's over her nestlings, when they prove
their first flight from the eyry- this brother, so kind, so gently affectionate
-I heard of his sudden, his bloody, his violent death, and I rejoiced-I
heard of his unexpected restoration, and I sorrowed!"
"Edward,' said the father, "thou art beside thyself-what could urge
thee to such odious ingratitude? -In your hurry of spirits you have mistaken the confused tenor of your feelings - Go, my son, pray and compose
thy mind -we will speak of this another time."
"No, father, no," said Edward, vehemently, " nowor never!-I will find
the means to tame this rebellious heart of mine, or I will tear it out of my
bosom - Mistake its passions? -No, father, grief can ill be mistaken for
joy - All wept, all shrieked around me- my mother - the menials - she
too, the cause of my crime - all wept -and I - I could hardly disguise my
brutal and insane joy under the appearance of revenge - Brother, I said, I
cannot give thee tears, but I will give thee blood -Yes, father, as I counted
hour after hour, while I kept watch upon the English prisoner, and said, I
am an hour nearer to hope and to happiness    "
"I understand thee not, Edward," said the monk, "nor can I conceive in
what way thy brother's supposed murder should have affected thee with
such unnatural joy   Surely the sordid desire to succeed him in his small
possessions -"
"Perish the paltry trash'" said Edward, with the same emotion. "No,
father, it was rivalry-it was jealous rage-it was the love of MarN Avenel,
that rendered me the unnatural wretch I confess myself!"
Of Mary Avenel I" said the Priest-" of a lady so high above either of
you in name and in rank? How dared Halbert-how dared you, to presume to lift your eye to her but in honour and respect, as a superior of
another degree from yours?"
T2




222                  WAVERLEYl NO VE L S.
"When did love wait for the sanction of heraldry?" replied Edward;
"and in what but a line of dead ancestors was Mary, our mother's guest
and foster-child, different from. us, with whom she was brought up? —
Enough, we loved -we both loved her!  But the passion of HIalbert was
requited. He knew it not, he saw it not-but I was sharper-eyed. I saw
that even when I was more approved, Halbert was more beloved. With me
she would sit for hours at our common task with the cold simplicity and
indifference of a sister, but with Halbert she trusted not herself. She
changed colour, she was fluttered when he approached her; and when he
left her, she was sad, pensive, and solitary. I bore all this -I saw myrival's advancing progress in her affections —I bore it, father, and yet I
hated him not-I could not hate him i"
" And well for thee that thou didst not," said the father; " wild and headstrong as thou art, wouldst thou hate thy brother for partaking in thine own
folly?"
"Father," replied Edward, "the world esteems thee wise, and holds thy
knowledge of mankind high; but thy question shows that thou hast never
loved. It was by an effort that I saved myself from hating my kind and.
affectionate brother, who, all unsuspicious of my rivalry, was perpetually
loading me with kindness. Nay, there were moods of my mind, in which.
I could return that kindness for a time with energetic enthusiasm. Never
di.l I feel this so strongly as on the night which parted us. But I could not
he\ - rejoicing when he was swept from my path-could not help sorrowing.
when he was again restored to be a stumbling-block in my paths."'May God be gracious to thee, my son!" said the monk; "this is an
awful state of mind. Even in such evil mood did the first murderer rise up
against his brother, because Abel's was the more acceptable sacrifice."
" I will wrestle with the demon which has haunted me, father," replied
the youth, firmly-" I will wrestle with him, and I will subdue him. But
first I must remove from the scenes which are to follow here. I cannot endure that I should see Mary Avenel's eyes again flash with joy at the restoration of her lover. It were a sight to make indeed a second Cain of me!
My fierce, turbid, and transitory joy discharged itself in a thirst to commit
homicide, and how can I estimate the frenzy of my despair?"
"Madman 1" said the Sub-Prior, "at what dreadful crime does thy fury
drive?"
" My lot is determined, father," said Edward, in a resolute tone; "I will
embrace the spiritual state which you have so oft recommended. It is my
purpose to return with you to Saint Mary's, and, with the permission of the
Holy Virgin and of Saint Benedict, to offer my profession to the Abbot."
" Not now, my son," said the Sub-Prior, "not in this distemperature of
mind. The wise and good accept not gifts which are made in heat of blood,
and which may be after repented of; and shall we make our offerings to
wisdom and to goodness itself with less of solemn resolution and deep devotion of mind, than is necessary to make them acceptable to our own frail
companions in this valley of darkness? This I say to thee, my son, not as
meaning to deter thee from the good path thou art now inclined to prefer,:
but that thou mayst make thy vocation and thine election sure."
"There are actions, father," returned Edward, "which brook no delay,
and this is one. It must be done this very now; or it may never be done.
Let me go with you; let me not behold the return of HIalbert into this house.
6hame, and the sense of the injustice I have already done him, will join,with these dreadful passions which urge me to do him yet farther wrong.
Let me then go with you."
" With me, my son," said the Sub-Prior, "thou shalt surely go; but our
rule, as well as reason and good order, require that you should dwell a
space with us as a probationer, or novice, before taking upon thee those




THE MONA STERY.                            223
final vows, which, sequestering thee for ever from the world, dedicate thee
to the service of leaven."
"And when shall we set forth, father?" said the youth, as eagerly as if
the journey which he was now undertaking led to the pleasures of a summer
holiday.
"Even now, if thou wilt," said the Sub-Prior, yielding to his impetuosity"go, then, and command them to prepare for our. departure.-Yet stay," he
said, as Edward, with all the awakened enthusiasm of his character, hastened from his presence, " come hither, my son, and kneel down."
Edward obeyed, and kneeled down before him. Notwithstanding his
slight figure and thin features, the Sub-Prior could, from the energy of his
tone, and the earnestness of his devotional manner, impress his pupils and
his penitents with no ordinary feelings of personal reverence. Iis heart
always was, as well as seemed to be, in the duty which he was immediately
performing; and the spiritual guide who thus shows a deep conviction of
the importance of his office, seldom fails to impress a similar feeling upon
his hearers. Upon such occasions as the present, his puny body seemed to
assume more majestic stature-his spare and emaciated countenance bore a
bolder, loftier, and more commanding port —his voice, always beautiful,
trembled as labouring under the immediate impulse of the Divinity -and
his whole demeanour seemed to bespeak, not the mere ordinary man, but
the organ of the Church in which she had vested her high power for delivering sinners from their load of iniquity.
"Hast thou, my fair son," said he, "faithfully recounted the circumstances which have thus suddenly determined thee to a religious life?"
"The sins I have confessed, my father," answered Edward, "but I have
not yet told of a strange appearance, which, acting in my mind, hath, I
think, aided to determine my resolution."
" Tell it, then, now," returned the Sub-Prior; " it is thy duty to leave me
uninstructed in nought, so that thereby I may understand the temptation:
that besets-thee."
"-I tell it with unwillingness," said Edward; "for although, God wot, I
speak but the mere truth, yet even while my tongue speaks it as truth, my
own ears receive it as fable."
"Yet say the whole," said Father Eustece; "neither fear rebuke from
me, seeing I may know reasons for receiving as true that which others might
regard as fabulous."
" Know, then, father," replied Edward, "that betwixt hope and despair
-and, heavens! what a hope - the hope to find the corpse mangled and
crushed hastily in amongst the bloody clay which the foot of the scornful
victor had trod down upon my good, my gentle, my courageous brother,I sped to the glen called Corri-nan-shian; but, as your reverence has been
already informed, neither the grave, which my unhallowed wishes had in
spite of my better self longed to see, nor any appearance of the earth
having been opened, was visible in the solitary spot where Martin had, at
morning yesterday, seen the fatal hillock. You know your dalesmen, father.
The place hath an evil name, and this deception of the sight inclined then
to leave it. My companions became affrighted, and hastened down the glen
as men caught in trespass. My hopes were too much blighted, my mind
too much agitated, to fear either the living or the dead. I descended the
glen more slowly than they, often looking back, and not ill pleased with the
poltroonery of my companions, which left me to my own perplexed and
moody humour, and induced them to hasten into the broader dale. They
were already out of sight, and lost amongst the windings of the glen, when,
looking back, I saw a female form standing beside the fountain    "
" How, my fair son?" said the Sub-Prior, "beware you jest not with your
present situation!"
"I jest, not, father," answered the youth; "it may be I shall never jest




224                       WAVERLEY NOVELS.
again-surely not for many a day.  I saw, I say, the form  of a female clad
in white, such as the Spirit which haunts the house of Avenel is supposed
to be.  Believe me, my father, for, by heaven and earth, I say nought but
what I saw with these eyes!"
"I believe  thee, my son," said  the  monk; "proceed in  thy strange
story."
"The apparition," said Edward Glendinning, "sung, and thus ran her
lay; for, strange as it may seem  to you, her words abide by my remembrance as if they had been sung to me from  infancy upward:
The Living Dead, whose sober brow'Thou who seek'st my fountain lone,        Oft shrouds such thoughllts as thou hast now,
With thoughts and hopes thou dar'st not own;  Whose hearts within are seldon cured
Whose heart withini leap'd wildly glad    Of passions by their vows abjured;
When most his brow seerr'd dark and sad;  Where, under sad and solemn show,
Hie thee back, thou find'st not here      Vain hopes are nursed, wild wishes glow.
Corpse or coffin, grave or bier;           Seek the convent's vaulted room,
The Dead Alive is gone and fled-           Prayer and vigil be thy doom;
Go thou, and join the Living Dead  Doff the green, and don the gray,
To the cloister hence away!'"'Tis a wild lay," said the Sub-Prior, "and chanted, I fear me, with no
good end.  But we have power to turn the machinations of Satan to his
shame.  Edward, thou shalt go with me as thou desirest; thou shalt prove
the life for which I have long thought thee best fitted - thou shalt aid, my
son, this trembling hand of mine to sustain the Holy Ark, which bold unhallowed men press rashly forward to touch and to profane.-Wilt thou not
first see thy mother?"
" I will see no one,"? said Edward, hastily; "I will risk nothing that may
shake the purpose of my heart.  From  Saint Mary's they shall learn my
destination      all of them  shall learn it.  My mother-  Mary Avenel -  my
restored  and  happy brother-they shall all know  that Edward  lives no
longer to the world to be a clog on their happiness.  Mary shall no longer
need to constrain her looks and expressions to coldness because I am nigh.
She shall no longer        "
"My son," said the Sub-Prior, interrupting him, "it is not by looking
back on the vanities and vexations of this world, that we fit ourselves for
the discharge of duties which are not of it.  Go, get our horses ready, and,
as we descend the glen together, I will teach thee the truths through which
the fathers and wise men of old had that precious alchemy, which can convert suffering into happiness."
Crqter t ll& ^rrtirhI-^ L
Now, on my faith, this gear is all entangled,
Like to the yarn-clew of the drowsy knitter,
Dragg'd by the frolic kitten through the cabin,
While the good damne sits nodding o'er the fire!
Masters, attend;'twill crave some skill to clear it.
OLD PLAY.
EDWARD, with the speed of one who doubts the steadiness of his own
resolution, hastened to prepare the horses for their departure, and at the
aame time thanked and dismissed the neighbours who had come to his
assistance, and who were not a little surprised both at the suddenness of
his proposed departure, and at the turn affairs had taken.
" Here's cold hospitality," quoth Dan of the Howlet-hirst to his comrades;
"I trow the Glendinnings may die and come alive right oft, ere I put foot;
in stirrup tlagain for the matter.'




THE  MONASTERY.                              225
Martin soothed them by placing food and liquor before them.  They ate
sullenly, however, and departed in bad humour.
The joyful news that Ilalbert Glendinning lived, was quickly communi'
cated through the sorrowing family.  The mother wept and thanked Heaven
alternately; until her habits of domestic economy awakening as her feelings
became calmer, she observed, "It would be an unco task to mend the yetts,
and what were they to do while they were broken in that fashion? At open
doors dogs come in."
Tibb remarked, " She aye thought HIalbert was ower gleg at his weapon
-to be killed sae easily by ony Sir Piercie of them a'. They might say of
these Southrons as they liked; but they had not the pith and wind of a canny
Scot, when it came to close grips."
On 1iary Avenel the impression was inconceivably deeper.  She had but
newly learned to pray, and it seemed to her that her prayers had been
instantly answered-that the compassion of Heaven, which she had learned
to implore in the words of Scripture, had descended upon her after a manner almost miraculous, and recalled the dead from the grave at the sound
of her lamentations. There was a dangerous degree of enthusiasm in this
strain of feeling, but it originated in the purest devotion.
A silken and embroidered muffler, one of the few articles of more costly
attire which she possessed, was devoted to the purpose of wrapping up and'concealing the sacred volume, which henceforth she was to regard as her
chiefest treasure, lamenting only that, for want of a fitting interpreter, much
must remain to her a book closed and a fountain sealed. She was unaware
of the yet greater danger she incurred, of putting an imperfect or even false
sense upon some of the doctrines which appeared most comprehensible. But
Heaven had provided against both these hazards.
While Edward was preparing the horses, Christie of the Clinthill again
solicited his orders respecting the reformed preacher, Henry Warden, and
again the worthy monk laboured to reconcile in his own mind the compassion and esteem which, almost in spite of him, he could not help feeling for
his former companion, with the duty which he owed to the Church.  The
unexpected resolution of Edward had removed, he thought, the chief objection to his being left.at Glendearg.
"If I carry this Well-wood, or Warden, to the Monastery," he thought,
"he must die-die in his heresy-perish body and soul. And though such
a measure was once thought advisable, to strike terror into the heretics, yet
such is now their daily increasing strength, that it may rather rouse them
to fury and to revenge. True, he refuses to pledge himself to abstain from
sowing his tares among the wheat; but the ground here is too barren to
receive them.  I fear not his making impression on these poor women, the
vassals of the Church, and bred up in due obedience to her behests. The
keen, searching, inquiring, and bold disposition of Edward, might haye
afforded fuel to the fire; but that is removed, and there is nothing left which
the flame may catch to. -Thus shall he have no power to spread his evil
doctrines abroad, and yet his life shall be preserved, and it may be his soul
rescued as a prey from the fowler's net. I will myself contend with him in
argument; for when we studied in common, I yielded not to him, and surely
the cause for which I struggle will support me, were I yet more weak than
I deem myself. Were this man reclaimed from his errors, an hundred-fold
more advantage would arise to the Church from his spiritual regeneration,
than from his temporal death."
Iaving finished these meditations, in which there was at once goodness
of disposition and narrowness of principle, a considerable portion of selfopinion, and no small degree of self-delusion, the Sub-Prior commanded the
prisoner to-be brought into his presence.
"Henry," he said, " whatever a rigid sense of duty.may demand of me,
ancient friendship and Christian compassion forbid me to lead thee tte as
VOL. V.-15




226                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
sured death. Thou wert wont to be generous, though stern and stubborn
in thy resolves; let not thy sense of what thine own thoughts term duty,
draw thee farther than mine have done. Remember, that every sheep whom
thou shalt here lead astray from the fold, will be demanded in time and
through eternity of him who hath left thee the liberty of doing such evil.
I ask no engagement of thee, save that thou remain a prisoner on thy word
at this tower, and wilt appear when summoned."
"Thou hast found an invention to bind my hands," replied the preacher,' more sure than would have been the heaviest shackles in the prison of thy
convent. I will not rashly do what may endanger thee with thy unhappy
superiors, and I will be the more cautious, because, if we had farther opportunity of conference, I trust thine own soul may yet be rescued as a brand
from the burning, and that, casting from thee the livery of Anti-Christ, that
trader in human sins and human souls, I may yet assist thee to lay hold on
the Rock of Ages."
The Sub-Prior heard the sentiment, so similar to that which had occurred
to himself, with the same kindly feelings with which the game-cock hears
and replies to the challenge of his rival.
" I bless God and Our Lady," said he, drawing himself up, " that my
faith is already anchored on that Rock on which Saint Peter founded his
Church."
"It is a perversion of the text," said the eager Henry Warden, "grounded
on a vain play upon words-a most idle paronomasia."
The controversy would have been rekindled, and in all probability - for
what can insure the good temper and moderation of polemics? —might have
ended in the preacher's being transported a captive to the Monastery, had
not Christie of the Clinthill observed that it was growing late, and that he,
having to descend the glen, which had no good reputation, cared not greatly
for travelling there after sunset. The Sub-Prior, therefore, stifled his desire
of argument, and again telling the preacher, that he trusted to his gratitude
and generosity,, he bade him farewell.
"Be assured, my old friend," replied Warden, "that no willing act of
mine shall be to thy prejudice. But if my Master shall place work before
nle, I nmust obey God rather than man."
These two men, both excellent from  natural disposition and acquired
knowledge, had more points of similarity than they themselves would have
admitted. In truth, the chief distinction betwixt them was, that the Catholic, defending a religion which afforded little interest to the feelings, had,
in his devotion to the cause he espoused, more of the head than of the heart,
and was politic, cautious, and artful; while the Protestant, acting under
the strong impulse of more latelv-adopted conviction, and feeling, as he
justly might, a more animated confidence in -his cause, was enthusiastic,
eager, and precipitate in his desire to advance it. The priest would have
been contented to defend, the preacher aspired to conquer; and, of course,
the impulse by which the latter was governed, was more active and more
decisive. They could not part from each other without a second pressure
of hands, and each looked in the face of his old companion, as he bade him
adieu, with a countenance strongly expressive of sorrow, affection, and pity.
Father Eustace then explained briefly to Dame Glendinning, that this
person was to be her guest for some days, forbidding her and her whole
household, under high spiritual censures, to hold any conversation with him
on religious subjects, but commanding her to attend to his wants in all other
particulars.
"May Our Lady forgive me, reverend father," said Dame Glendinning,
somewhat dismayed at this intelligence, " but I must needs say, that ower
iOony guests have been the ruin of mony a house, and I trow they will bring
down Glendearg. First came the Lady of Avenel- (her soul be at restshe meant nae ill) - but she brought with her as mony bogles and fairies,




THE  MONASTERY.                             227
as hae kept the house in care ever since, sae that we have been living as it
were in a dream. And then came that English knight, if it please you,
and if he hasna killed my son outright, he has chased him aff the gate, and
it may be lang eneugh ere I see him  again —forby the damage done to
outer door atd inner door. And now your reverence has given me the
charge of a heretic, who, it is like, may bring the great horned devil himself down upon us all; and they say that it is neither door nor window will
serve him, but he will take away the side of the auld tower along with him.
Nevertheless, reverend father, your pleasure is doubtless to be done to our
power."
"Go to, woman>" said the Sub-Prior; "send for workmen froim the
clachan, and let them charge the expense of their repairs to the Community,
and I will give the treasurer warrant to allow them. Moreover, in settling
the rental mails, and feu-duties, thou shalt have allowance for the trouble
and charges to which thou art now put, and I Will-cause strict search to be
made after thy son."
The dame curtsied deep and low at each favourable expression; -and when
the Sub-Prior had done speaking, she added her farther hope that the SubPrior would hold some communing with her gossip the Miller, concerning
the fate of his daughter, and expound to him that the chance had by no
means happened through any negligence on her part.
" I sair doubt me, father," she said, "whether Mysie finds her way back
to the Mill in a hurry; but it was all her father's own fault that let her run
-lamping about the country, riding on bare-backed naigs, and never settling
to do a turn of wark within doors, unless it were to dress dainties at dinnertime for his ain kyte."
"You remind me, dame, of another matter of urgency," said Father
Eustaee; "and, God knows, too many of them press on me at this moment.
This English knight must be sought out, and explanation given to him of
these most strange chances. The giddy girl must also be recovered. If
-she hath suffered in reputation by this unhappy mistake, I will not hold
myself innocent of the disgrace. Yet how to find them out I know not."
"So please you," said Christie of the Clinthill, " I am willing to take the
chase, and bring them back by fair means or foul; for though you have
always looked as black as night at me, whenever we have forgathered, yet
I have not forgotten that had it not been for you, my neck would hav:^ kend
the weight of my four quarters. If any man can track the tread of themI will say in the face of both Merse and Teviotdale, and take the Forest to
boot, I am that man. But first I have matters to treat of on my master's
score, if you will permit me to ride down the glen with you."
"Nay, but my friend," said the Sub-Prior, "thou shouldst remember I
have but slender cause to trust thee for a companion through a place so
solitary."
"Tush! tush!" said the Jackman, "fear me not; I had the worst too
surely to begin that sport again. - Besides, have I not said a dozen of tines,
I owe you a life? and *hen I owe a man either a good turn or a bad, I
never fail to pay it sooner or later. Moreover, beshrew me if I care to go
alone down the glen, or even with my troopers, who are, every loon of them,
as much devil's bairns as myself; whereas, if your reverence, since that is
the word, take beads and psalter, and I come along with jack and spear,
you will make the devils take the air, and I will make all human enemies
take the earth."
Edward here entered, and told his reverence that his horse was prepared.
At this instant his eye caught his mother's, and the resolution which he
had so strongly formed was staggered when he recollected the necessity of
bidding her farewell. The Sub-Prior saw his embarrassment, and came to
his relief.




228                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
" Dame," said he, " I forgot to mention that your son Edward goes with
me to Saint Mary's, and will not return for two or three days."
"You'll be wishing to help him to recover his brother?  May the saints
reward your kindness!"
The Sub-Prior returned the benediction which, in this instance, he had
not very well deserved, and he and Edward set forth on their route.  They
were presently followed by Christie, who came up with his followers at
such a speedy pace, as intimated sufficiently that his wish to obtain spiritual
convoy through the glen, was extremely sincere. He had, however, othel
matters to stimulate his speed, for he was desirous to communicate to thi
Sub-Prior a message. from his master Julian, connected with the delivery
of the prisoner Warden; and having requested the Sub-Prior to ride with
him a few yards before Edward, and the troopers of his own party, he thus
addressed him, sometimes interrupting his discourse in a manner testifying
that his fear of supernatural beings was not altogether lulled to rest by his
confidence in the sanctity of his fellow-traveller.
"My master," said the rider, " deemed he had sent you an acceptable
gift in that old heretic preacher; but it seems, from the slight care you
have taken of him, that you make small account of the boon."
" Nay," said the Sub-Prior, "do not thus judge of it. The Community
must account highly of the service, and will reward it to thy master in
goodly fashion. But this man and I are old friends, and I trust to bring
him back from the paths of perdition."
" Nay," said the moss-trooper, " when I saw you shake hands at the beginning I counted that you would fight it all out in love and honour, and
that there would be no extreme dealings betwixt ye - however it is all one
to my master-Saint Mary! what call you yon, Sir Monk?"
" The branch of a willow streaming across the path betwixt us and the
sky."
" Beshrew me," said Christie, " if it looked not like a man's hand holding
a sword.-But touching my master, he, like a prudent man, hath kept himself aloof in these broken times, until he could see with precision what
footing he was to stand upon. Right tempting offers he hath had from the
Lords of Congregation, whom you call heretics; and at one time he was
minded, to be plain with you, to have taken their way-for he was assured
that the Lord James* was coming this road at the head of a round body of
ravalry. And accordingly Lord James did so far reckon upon him, that he
~sent this man Warden, or whatsoever be his name, to my master's protection, as an assured friend; and, moreover, with tidings that he himself was
marching hitherward at the head of a strong body of horse."
" Now, Our Lady forfend!" said the Sub-Prior.
"Amen!" answered Christie, in some trepidation, "did your reverence
see aught?"
" Nothing whatever," replied the monk; "it was thy tale which wrested
firom me that exclamation."
"And it was some cause," replied he of the Clinthill, " for if Lord James
should come hither, your IIalidome would smoke for it. But be of good
cheer-that expedition is ended before it was begun.  The Baron of Avenel
had sure news that Lord James has been fain to march.westward with his
merry-men, to protect Lord Senmple against Cassilis and the Kennedies.
By my faith, it will cost. him  a brush; for wot ye what they say of that
name,-'Twixt Wigton and the town of Ayr,
Portpatrick and the cruives of Cree,
No man need think for to bide there,
Unless he court Saint Kennedie.'"
"Then," said the Sub-Prior," the Lord James's purpose of coming south
* Lord James Stewart, afterwards the Regent Murray.




TIIE  MONASTERY.                              229
wards being broken, cost this person, Henry Warden, a cold reception at
Avenel Castle."'It would not have been altogether so rough a one," said the mosstrooper; "for my master was in heavy thought what to do in these unsettled
times, and would scarce have hazarded misusing a man sent to him by so
terrible a leader as the Lord James. - But, to speak the truth, some busy
devil tempted the old man to meddle with my master's Christian liberty of
hand-fasting with Catherine of Newport.  So that broke the wand of peace
between them, and now ye may have my master, and all the force he can
make, at your devotion, for Lord James never forgave wrong done to him;
and if he come by the upper hand, he will have Julian's head if there were
never another of the name, as it is like there is not, excepting the bit slip
of a lassie yonder.  And now I have told you more of my master's affairs
than he would thank me for; but you have done me a frank turn once, and
I may need one at your hands again."
"Thy frankness," said the Sub-Prior, "shall surely advantage thee; for
much it concerns the Church in these broken times to know the purposes
and motives of those around us. But what is it that thy master expects
from us in reward of good service? for I esteem him one of those who are
not willing to work without their hire."
" Nay, that I can tell you flatly; for Lord James had promised him, in
case he would be of his faction in these parts, an easy tack of the teindsheaves of his own Barony of Avenel, together with the lands of Cranberrymoor, which lie intersected with his own. And he will look for no less at
your hand."
"But there is old Gilbert of Cranberry-moor," said the Sub-Prior; "what
are we to make of him?  The heretic Lord James may take on him to dispone upon the goods and lands of the Halidome at his pleasure, because,
doubtless, but for the protection of God, and the baronage which yet remain
faithful to their creed, he may despoil us of them by force; but while they
are the property of the Community, we may not take steadings from ancient
and faithful vassals, to gratify the covetousness of thosewho serve God only
from the lucre of gain."
" By the mass," said Christie, "it is well talking, Sir Priest; but when
ye consider that Gilbert has but two half-starved cowardly peasants to follow
him, and only an auld jaded aver to ride upon, fitter for the plough than for
manly service; and that the Baron of Avenel never rides with fewer than
ten jackmen at his back, and oftener with fifty, bodin in all that effeirs to
war as if they were to do battle for a kingdom, and mounted on nags that
nicker at the clash of the sword as if it were the clank of the lid of a cornchest- I say, when ye have computed all this, ye may guess what course
will best serve your Monastery."
"Friend," said the monk, "I would willingly purchase thy master's assistance on his own terms, since times leave us no better means of defence
against sacrilegious spoliation of heresy; but to take from a poor man his
patrimony      "
" For that matter," said the rider, " his seat would scarce be a soft one, if
my master thought that Gilbert's interest stood betwixt him and what he
wishes.  The IHalidome has land enough, and Gilbert may be quartered
elsewhere."
"We will consider the possibility of so disposing the matter," said the
monk, " and will expect in consequence your master's most active assistance,
with all the followers he can make, to join in the defence of the Halidome,
against any force by which it may be threatened."
"A man's hand and a mailed glove on that,"* said the jackman. "They
* As some atonement for their laxity of morals on most occasions. the Borderers were severe observers of
the faith which they had pledged, even to an eiemy. If any person broke his word so plighted, the individual
to whom faith had not been observed, used to bring to the next Border-meeting a glove hung on l he point ot
U




230                      WAVERLEY. NOVELS.
call us marauders, thieves, and what not; but the side we take we hold by.
-And I will be blithe when my Baron comes to a point which side he will
take, for the castle is a kind of hell, (Our Lady forgive me for naming such
a word in this place!) while he is in his mood, studying how he may best
advantage himself. And now, Heaven be praised, we are in the open valley,
and I may swear a round oath, should aught happen to provoke it."
"My friend," said the Sub-Prior, "thou hast little merit in abstaining
from oaths or blasphemy, if it be only out of fear of evil spirits."
"Nay, I am  not quite a Church vassal yet," said the jackman, "and if
you link the curb too tight on a young horse, I promise you he will rearWhy, it is much for me to forbear old customs on any account whatever."
The night being fine, they forded the river at the spot where the Sacristan
met with his unhappy encounter with the spirit.  As soon as they arrived
at the gate of the Monastery, the porter in waiting eagerly exclaimed,
"Reverend father, the Lord Abbot is most anxious for your presence."
" Let these strangers be carried to the great hall," said the Sub-Prior,
"and be treated with the best by the cellarer; reminding them, however,
of that modesty and decency of conduct which becometh guests in a house
like this."
" But the Lord Abbot demands you instantly, my venerable brother," said
Father Philip, arriving in great haste. "I have not seen him more discouraged or desolate of counsel since the field of Pinkie-cleugh was stricken."
" I come, my good brother, I come," said Father Eustace.  " I pray thee,
good brother, let this youth, Edward Glendinning, be conveyed to the Chamber of the Novices, and placed under their instructor.  God hath touched
his heart, and he proposeth laying aside the vanities of the world, to become
a brother of our holy order; which, if his good parts be matched with fitting
docility and humility, he may one day live to adorn."
"My very venerable brother," exclaimed old Father Nicholas, who came
hobbling with a third summons to the Sub-Prior, "I pray thee to hasten to
our worshipful Lord Abbot.  The holy patroness be with us! never saw I
Abbot of the House of St. Mary's in such consternation; and yet I remember me well when Father Ingelram  had the news of Flodden-field."
"I come, I come, venerable brother," said Father Eustace-And having
repeatedly ejaculated "I come!" he at last went to the Abbot in good earnest.
ijapitr   t^r'irt11-Yuu1rt1.
It is not texts will do it-Church artillery
Are silenced soon by real ordnance,
And canons are but vlin opposed to calnon.
Go, coin your crosier, melt your church plate down
Bid the starved soldier bhnquet in your halls,
And quaff your long-saved hogsheads-'Turn them out
Thus primed with your good cheer, to guard your wall,
And they will venture for't.OLD PLAY.
THE Abbot received his counsellor with a tremulous eagerness of welcome,
which announced to the Sub-Prior an extreme agitation of spirits, and the
a spear, and proclaim to Scots and English the name of the defaulter. This was accounted so greal a disrrace
to all connected with him, that his own clansmen sometimes destroyed him, to escape the infamy he had
brought on therm.
Constable, a spy engaged by Sir Ralph Sadler, talks of two Border thieves, whom he used as his guides:l'hat they would not care lo steal, and yet that they would not betray any man that trusts in them, for all
Ihe gold in Scotland or in France. They are my guides and outlaws. If they would betray me they might
get their pardons, and cause me to be hanged; but I have tried them ere Lhis." —Sadler's Letters during the
Northern Iusurrection.




THE MONASTERY.                                    231
utmost need of good counsel. There was neither mazer-dish nor standingcup upon the little table, at the elbow of his huge chair of state; his beads
alone lay there, and it seemed as if he had been telling them in his extremity
of distress.  Beside the beads was placed the mitre of the Abbot, of an antique fcrm, and blazing with precious stones, and the rich and highly-embossed crosier rested against the same table.
The Sacristan and old Father Nicholas had followed the Sub-Prior into
the Abbot's apartment, perhaps with the hope of learning something of the
important matter which seemed to be in hand.- They were not mistaken:
for, after having ushered in the Sub-Prior, and being themselves in the act
of retiring, the-Abbot made them a signal to remain.
"My brethren," he said, " it is well known to you with what painful zeal
we have overseen the weighty affairs of this house committed to our unworthy hand -your bread hath been given to you, and your water hath been
sure -I have not wasted the revenues of the Convent on vain pleasures, as
hunting or hawking, or in change of rich cope or alb, or in feasting idle
bards and jesters, saving those who, according to old wont, were received
in time of Christmas and Easter. Neither have I enriched either mine own
relations nor strange women, at the expense of the Patrimony."
"There hath not been such a Lord Abbot," said Father Nicholas, "to
my knowledge, since the days of Abbot Ingelram, who    "
At that portentous word, which always preluded a long story, the Abbot
broke in.
" May God have mercy on his soul! -we talk not of him now. —What I
would know of ye, my brethren, is, whether I have, in your mind, faithfully
discharged the duties of mine office?"
"There has never been subject of complaint," answered the Sub-Prior.
The Sacristan, more diffuse, enumerated the various acts of indulgence
and kindness which the mild government of Abbot Boniface had conferred
on the brotherhood of Saint Mary's -  the indulgentic -  the gratias -  the
biberes-the weekly mess of boiled almonds - the enlarged accommodation
of the refectory-the better arrangement of the cellarage-the improvement
of the revenue of the Monastery-the diminution of the privations of the
brethren.
"You might have added, my brother," said the Abbot, listening with
melancholy acquiescence to the detail of his own merits, " that I caused to
be built that curious screen, which secureth the cloisters from the north-east
wind.-But all these things avail nothing-As we read in holy Maccabee,
Capta est civmtas per voluntatem Dei.  It hath cost me no little thought, no
common toil, to keep these weighty matters in such order as you have seen
them-there was both barn and binn to be kept full-Infirmary, dormitory,
guest-hall, and refectory, to be looked to-processions to be made, confessions
to be heard, strangers to be entertained, venice to be granted or refused; and
I warrant me, when every one of you was asleep in your cell, the Abbot
hath lain awake for a full hour by the bell, thinking how these matters
might be ordered seemly and suitably."
"May we ask, reverend my lord," said the Sub-Prior, " what additional
care has now been thrown upon you, since your discourse seems to point
that way?"
"Marry, this it is," said the Abbot.  " The talk is not now of biberes,*
* The biberes, caritas, and boiled almonds, of which Ahhot Boniface speaks, were special occasions for enjoying luxuries, afforded to the monks by grants from different sovereigns, or from other benefactors to the
convent. There is one of these charters called De Pitancia Centum Librarum. By this charter, which is
very curious, our Robert Bruce, on the 10th January, and in the twelfth year of his reign, assigns, out of the
customs of Berwick, and failing them, out of the customs of Edinburgh or Haddington, the sum of one hundred pounds, at the half-yearly terms of Pentecost and Saint Martin's in winter, to the abbot and community
of the monks of Melrose. The precise purpose of this annuity is to furnish to each of the monks of the said
monastery, while placed at food in the refectory, an extra mess of rice boiled with milk, or of almonds, or
peas, or other pulse of that kind which could be procured in the country. This addition to their commons
is to be entitled the King's Mess. And it is declared, that although any monk should, from some honest
apology, wailt appetite or inclination to eat of the king's mess, his share should, nevertheless, be placed on




232                               WAVERLEY NOVELS.
or of caritas, or of boiled almonds, but of an English band coming against
us from Hexham, commanded by Sir John Foster; nor is it of the screening
us from the east wind, but how to escape Lord James Stewart, who cometh
to lay  waste and destroy  with his heretic soldiers."
"  thought that purpose had been broken by the feud between Semple
and the Kennedies," said the Sub-Prior, hastily.
" They have accorded that' matter at the expense of the church as usual,"
said  the Abbot; "the Earl of Cassilis  is  to  have  the  teind-sheaves  of his
lands, which were given to the house of Crossraguel, and he has stricken
hands with Stewart, who is now called Murray.- P-rincipes convenerunt
unum adversus Dominum.-There are the letters."
The Sub-Prior took the letters, which had come by an express messenger
from  the Primate of Scotland, who still laboured to uphold the tottering
fabric of the system  under which he was at length buried, and, stepping
towards the lamp, read them with an air of deep and settled attention-the
Sacristan and Father Nicholas looked as helplessly at each other, as the
denizens of the poultry-yard when the hawk soars over it.  The Abbot
seemed bowed down with the extremity of sorrowful apprehension, but kept
his eye timorously fixed on the Sub-Prior, as if striving to catch some comfort from the expression of his countenance.  When at length he beheld
that,, after  a  second  intent perusal of the  letters, he remained  still silent
and full of thought, he asked him  in an anxious tone, "What is to be
done?"
the table with those of his brethren, and afterwards carried to the gate and given to the poor. " Neither is
it our pleasure," continues the bountiful sovereign, "that the dinner, which is (ir ought to be served up to
the saitd   onks accordling to their ancient rule, should be diminished in quantity, or rendered inferior in
quality, on account of this our rmess, so furnished as aforesaid."  It is, moreover, provided, tnat the abbot,
with tie consent of the lmost sage of his brethren, shall nnaite a prudent and decent mrionk for receiving, directing, and expending, all matters concerniing this annuity for the benefit of the connmunity, agreeablly to
the royal desire and intention, rendering a fattihful account thereof to tie abbot and superiors of the sanme
conveint.  And the sanme charter declares the king's farther pleasure, tiat the said mnen of religion should be
htound yearly and for ever, in acknowledlntmnent of the above donation, to clothe fifteen poor men at tlhe feast
of Saint Martin in winter, and to feed them on the same day, delivering to each of then fiur ells of large or
broad, or six ells of. narrow cloth, and to each also a new pair of shoes or sandals, according to tieir order'
atnd if the said nmonks shall fail in their engagernents or any of thenm, it is the Iking's will th;at the fault shall
be redeemed by a double performance of what ihas been omitted, to be execute  att the siglit of tile chief
forester of Ettrick foin the titlre being, and before the return of Saint Martin's day succeeding that on whichl
the omiission has taken place.
Of this ciharter, respecting the pittance of 1001 assigned to furnish the monks of Melrose with a daily mess
of boiled rice. allmondrs, or other pulse, to mend their commons, the antiquarian reader will be pleased,
doubtless, to see tie original.
CARTA REGIS ROBERTI I.  ABBATI ET CONVENTUI DE nMELROSS.
Carta de Pitancia Centumn Libranrnm.
Robertus Del gracia Rex Scottorum  omnibus prohis hominibus tocins terre sue Sallutem. Sciatis nos pro
salute anilne nostre et pro salute aniimlarurn antecessorumll et siccessoruI l nlostrorunL  ei esm  Sc.ocie Dedisse
Concessisse et hac presenti Carta nostra confirmasse Deo et Beate Marie virgini et Rellgiosis viris Aibbati et
Conventui die Melross et eorum successorihus in perpetuumn  Centurn Libras Sterlingorluml  Annui Redditus
siingulis anilis percipienidas de firiis inostris Burgi Berwici super. Twedam  ad terlilnos Pentecostis et Sancti
Martini in hyeme pro equali portione vel de tiov  Custumna nostra Burgi predicti si firme nostre predicte ad
dicttam suatimnam pecunie sufficere non poterunt vel dte nova Custunia nostra Burgortno  nostrorum de Edenhurg et tie Hadington Si firine nostre et Custumia nostra ville Berwici aliquo casu conntingente ad hoc fnorte
non snfficiant. Ita quotd dicta suinmma pecunie Centum  Librarum  eis annluatirm integre et.absque contra.
dictioiie aliqua plenarie persolvatur pre cuictsis alis qihbuscunque assignacionhibus per nos factis seu ficiendia
ad inveniendum in perpetunm singulis diebus cuilibet miionaclioo nloasterii predicti comedenti in Refectcrio
unuin sufficiens ferculu-nr  risaruinl factarlnlr cnum lacte, arnmidalarum  vel pisaruinl sive alinorum cib)orun!  consinilis condicionis inventorutn  in patria et illud fercullum ferculum Regis vocnfbitur in eternumi. Et si aliquis
nionachus ex aliqua causa honesta de dicto ferculo coniedere noluerit vel refici non poterit non mtinus
attamren sibi de dicto ferculo ministretur et ad portam  pro pauperibus deportetur. Nec volunmiis qunel
occasione ferculi nolstri predicti prandiumrr dicti Conventus de quo antiquitus conmrrnuniter eis deserviri s c'
ministrari solebat in aliquo pejoretur seu diniinuatur.  Volum us insuper et ordinanlms quod Abbas ejusdem
ntonasterii qui pro tenrpore fuerit de consensu sanliorum de Contventtu specialiter constituat unum monlacllum
providum et discretum ad recipiendurr ordinandum et expendendum  totant summamr pecunie nmemorate pro
ntilitate conventns secunduni votunl et intenctionem rlentis nostre superius annotaLurn et ad reddendnum.
fidele compotumn coram Abbate et Maioribus de Conventu singulis annis de pecunia sic recepta.  Et volunuus
quod dicti religiosi teneantur annnatirn  in perpetuum pro predicta donacione nostra ad perpetuam  nostri
mernoriam vestire quindecim pauperes ad festum  Sancti Martini in hielme  et eosdem  cibare eodemn die
liberando eorum cuilibet quatuor ulnas panni grossi et lati vel sex ulnas panni stricti et eorum cuilibet
uunum novurnn par sotularium de ordine sue. Et si dicti religiosi in prenmissis vel aliquo premissorumr aliquo
anno defecerinlt volunmus quod illud quod minus perimpletum fuerit dupplicetur diehus magis necessariis per
visumn capitalis forestarii nostri de Selkirk, qui pro tempore fuerit. Et quod dicta dupplicatio fiat ante
natale dolmini proxi-nmo sequens festunna Sancti Martini predictum.  In cnijus rei testimoniurn presenti Carte
nostre sigillumn nostrum precipinus apponi. Testibus venerabilibus in Christo patribus Willielino, Johanne,
Willielmo et David Sarncti Andree, Glasguensis, Dunkeldensis et Moraviensis ecclesiarum dei gracia episcopis
Bernalrdo Abhate de Abirbrothock Cancellario, Dunllcano, Malisio, et Hugone de Fyf de Strathin et de Ross,
i'omrnitibus Waltero Senescallo Scocie. Jacobo domini de Duglas et Alexandro Fraser Canterario nostre
tocie nlilitibus. Apud Abirbrothock, decimo die Januarij. Anno Regni nostri vicesimo.




THE  MONASTERY.                            233' Our duty must be done," answered the Sub-Prior, "and the rest is in
the hands of God."
"Our duty-our duty?" answered the Abbot, impatiently; "doubtless
we are to do our duty; but what is that duty? or how will it serve us?
Will bell, book, and candle, drive back the English heretics? or will Murray
care for psalms and antiphonars? or can I fight for the Halidome, like
Judas Maccabeus, against those profane Nicanors? or send the Sacristan
against this new Holofernes, to bring back his head in a basket?"
" True, my Lord Abbot," said the Sub-Prior, "we cannot fight with
carnal weapons, it is alike contrary to our habit and vow; but we can die
for our Conventand for our Order. Besides, we can arm those who will
and can fight. The English are but few in number, trusting, as it would
seem, that they will be joined by Murray, whose march has been interrupted. If Foster, with his Cumberland and Hexham bandits, ventures to
inarch into Scotland, to pillage and despoil our House, we will levy our
vassals, and, I trust, shall be found strong enough to give him battle."
" In the blessed name of Our Lady," said the Abbot, " think you that I
am Petrus Eremita, to go forth the leader of an host?"
" Nay," said the Sub-Prior, " let some man skilled in war lead our people
-there is Julian Avenel, an approved soldier."
"But a scoffer, a debauched person, and, in brief, a man of Belial,"
quoth the Abbot.
"Still," said the monk, "we must use his ministry in that to which, he
has been brought up. We can guerdon him richly, and indeed I already
know the price of his service. The English, it is expected, will presently
set forth, hoping here to seize upon Piercie Shafton, whose refuge being
taken with us, they make the pretext of this unheard-of inroad."
" Is it even so?" said the Abbot; " I never judged that his body of satin
and his brain of feathers boded us much good."
"Yet we must have his assistance, if possible," said the Sub-Prior; "he
may interest in our behalf the great Piercie, of whose friendship he boasts,
and that good and faithful Lord may break Foster's purpose. I' will
despatch the jackman after him with all speed.- Chiefly, however, I trust
to the military spirit of the land, which will not suffer peace to be easily
broken on the frontier. Credit me, my lord, it will bring to our side the
hands of many, whose hearts may have gone astray after strange doctrines.
The great chiefs and barons will be ashamed to let the vassals of peaceful
monks fight unaided against the old enemies of Scotland."
" It may be," said the Abbot, " that Foster will wait for Murray, whose
purpose hitherward is but delayed for a short space."
"By the rood, he will not," said the Sub-Prior; "we know this Sir John
Foster-a pestilent heretic, he will long to destroy the church —born a
Borderer, he will thirst to plunder her of her wealth-a Border-warden, he
will be eager to ride in Scotland. There are too many causes to urge him
on. If he joins with Murray, he will have at best but an auxiliary's share
of the spoil —if he comes hither before him, he will reckon on the whole
harvest of depredation as his own. Julian Avenel also has, as I have
heard, some spite against Sir John Foster; they will fight, when they meet,
with double determination. - Sacristan, send for our bailiff.-Where is the
roll of fencible men liable to do suit and service to the Halidome? - Send
off to the' Baron of Meigallot; he can raise threescore horse and better —
Say to him the Monastery will compound with him for the customs of his
bridge, which have been in controversy, if he will show himself a friend ot
such a point. -And now, my lord, let us compute our possible numbers,
and those of the enemy, that human blood be not spilled in vain —Let us
therefore calculate~ -"
"My brain is dizzied with the emergency," said the poor Abbot-" I am
not, I think, more a coward than others, so far as my own person is conv2




234                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
corned; but speak to me of marching and collecting soldiers, and calculating forces, ard you may as well tell of it to the youngest novice of a
nunnery.  But my resolution is taken.-Brethren," he said, rising up, and
coming forward with that dignity which his comely person enabled him to
assume, "hear for the last time the voice of your Abbot Boniface. I. have
done for you the best that I could; in quieter times I had perhaps done
better, for it was for quiet that I sought the cloister, which has been to me
a place of turmoil, as much as if I had sate in the receipt of custom, or
ridden forth as leader of an armed host. But now matters turn worse and
worse, and I, as I grow old, am less able to struggle with them. Also, it 
becomes me not to hold a place, whereof the duties, through my default or
misfortune, may be but imperfectly filled by me. Wherefore I have iesolved to demit this mine high office, so that the order of these matters may
presently devolve upon Father Eustatius here present, our well-beloved SubPrior; and I now rejoice that he hath not been provided according to his
merits elsewhere, seeing that I well hope he will succeed to the mitre and
staff which it is my present purpose to lay down."
"In the name of Our Lady, do nothing hastily, my lord!" said Father
Nicholas   " I do remember that when the worthy Abbot Ingelram, being
in his ninetieth year-for I warrant you he could remember when Benedict
the Thirteenth was deposed-and being ill at ease and bed-rid, the brethren
rounded in his ear that he were better resign his office. And what said he,
being a pleasant man? marry, that while he could crook his little finger he
would keep hold of the crosier with it."
The Sacristan also strongly remonstrated against the resolution of his
Superior, and set down the insufficiency he pleaded to the native modesty
of his disposition.  The Abbot listened in downcast silence; even flattery
could not win his ear.
Father Eustace took a nobler tone with his disconcerted and dejected Superior.  " My Lord Abbot," he said, "if I have been silent concerning the
virtues with which you have governed this house, do not think that I anm
unaware of them.  I know that no man ever brought to your high office a
more sincere wish to do well to all mankind; and if your rule has not been
marked with the bold lines which sometimes distinguished your spiritual
predecessors, their faults have equally been strangers to your character."
"I did not believe," said the Abbot, turning his looks to Father Eustace
with some surprise, " that you, father, of all men, would have done me this
justice."
"In your absence," said the Sub-Prior, "I have even done it more fully.
Do not lose the good opinion which all men entertain of you, by renouncing
your office when your care is most needed."
" But, my brother," said the Abbot, "I leave a more able in my place."
" That you do not," said Eustace; "because it is not necessary you should
resign, in order to possess the use of whatever experience or talent I may
be accounted master of. I have been long enough in this profession to know
that the individual qualities which any of us may have, are not his own,
but the property of the Community, and only so far useful wh6n they promote the general advantage. If you care not in person, my lord, to deal
with this troublesome matter, let me implore you to go instantly to Edinburgh, and make what friends you can in our behalf, while I in your absence will, as Sub-Prior, do my duty in defence of the Halidome. If I
succeed, may the honour and praise be yours, and if I fail, let the disgrace
and shame be mine own."
The Abbot mused for a space, and then replied,-" No, Father Eustatius,
you shall not conquer me by your generosity. In times like these, this
house must have a stronger pilotage than my weak hands afford; and he
wno steers the vessel must be chief of the crew. Shame were it to accept
the praise of other men's labours; and, in my poor mind, all the praise




THE  MONASTERY.                            235
which can be bestowed on him who undertakes a task so perilous and perplexing, is a meed beneath his merits. Misfortune to him would deprive
him of an iota of it! Assume, therefore, your authority to-night, and proceed in the preparations you judge necessary. Let the Chapter be summoned to-morrow after we have heard mass, and all shall be ordered as I
have told you. Benedicite, my brethren! -peace be with you! May the
new Abbot-expectant sleep as sound as he who is about to resign his
mitre."
They retired, affected even to tears. The good Abbot had shown a point
of his character to which they were strangers. Even Father Eustace had
held his spiritual Superior hitherto as a good-humoured, indolent, self-indulgent man, whose chief merit was the absence of gross faults; so that this
sacrifice of power to a sense of duty, even if a little alloyed by the meaner
motives of fear and apprehended difficulties, raised him considerably in the
Sub-Prior's estimation. He even felt an aversion to profit by the resignation of the Abbot Boniface, and in a manner to rise on his ruins; but this
sentiment did not long contend with those which led him to recollect higher
considerations. It could not be denied that Boniface was entirely unfit for
his situation in the present crisis; and the Sub-Prior felt that he himself,
acting merely as a delegate, could not well take the decisive measures which
the time required; the weal of the Community therefore demanded his elevation. If, besides, there crept in a feeling of a high dignity obtained, and
the native exultation of a haughty spirit called to contend with the imminent dangers attached to a post'of such distinction, these sentiments were
so cunningly blended and amalgamated with others of a more disinterested
nature, that, as the Sub-Prior himself was unconscious of their agency, we,
who have a regard for him, are not solicitous to detect it.
The Abbot elect carried himself with more dignity than formerly, when
giving such directions as the pressing circumstances of the times required;
and those who approached him could perceive an unusual kindling of his
falcon eye, and an unusual flush upon his pale and faded cheek. With
briefness and precision he wrote and dictated various letters to different
barons, acquainting them with the meditated invasion of the Halidome by
the English, and conjuri ig them to lend aid and assistance as in a commlon
cause. The temptation of advantage was held out to those whom he judged
less sensible of the cause of honour, and all were urged by the motives of
patriotism and ancient animosity to the English. The time had been when
no such exhortations would have been necessary. But so essential was
Elizabeth's aid to the reformed party in Scotland, and so strong was that
party almost every where, that there was reason to believe a great many
would observe neutrality on the present occasion, even if they did not go
the length of uniting with the English against the Catholics.
When Father Eustace considered the number of the immediate vassals
of the church whose aid he might legally command, his heart sunk at the
thoughts of ranking them under the banner of the fierce and profligate
Julian Avenel.
"Were the young enthusiast Halbert Glendinning to be found," thought
Father Eustace in his anxiety, " I would have risked the battle under his
leading, young as he is, and with better hope of God's blessing. But the
bailiff is now too infirm, nor know I a chief of name whom I might trust
in this important matter better'than this Avenel."-He touched a bell which
stood on the table, and commanded Christie of the Clinthill to be brought
before him.-" Thou owest me alife," said he to that person on his entrance,
" and I may do thee another good turn if thou be'st sincere with me."
Christie had already drained two standing-cups of wine, which would, on
another occasion, have added to the insolence of his familiarity. But at.
present there was something in the augmented dignity of manner of Father
Eustace, which imposed a restraint on him. Yet his answers partook of




236                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
his usual character of undaunted assurance. Ho professed himself willing
to return a true answer to all inquiries.
"Has the Baron (so styled) of Avenel any friendship with Sir John
Foster, Warden of the West Marches of England?"
"Such friendship as is between the wild-cat and the terrier," replied the
rider.
" Will he do battle with him should they meet?"
"As surely," answered Christie, "as ever cock fought on Shrovetideeven."
"And would he fight with Foster in the Church's quarrel?"
"On any quarrel, or upon no quarrel whatever," replied the jackman.
"We will then write to him, letting him know, that if upon occasion of
an apprehended incursion by Sir John Foster, he will join his force with
ours, he shall lead our men, and be gratified for doing so to the extent of his
wish. -Yet one word more-Thou didst say thou couldst find out where the
English knight Piercie Shafton has this day.fled to?"
" That I can, and bring him back too, by fair means or force, as best likes
your reverence."
" No force must be used upon him. Within what time wilt thou find him
out?"
" Within thirty hours, so he have not crossed the Lothian firth- If it is
to do you a pleasure, I will set off directly, and wind him as a sleuth-dog
tracks the moss-trooper," answered Christie.
" Bring him hither then, and thou wilt deserve good at our hands, which
I may soon have free means of bestowing on thee."
" Thanks to your reverence, I put myself in your reverence's hands. We
of the spear and snaffle walk something recklessly through life; but if a
man were worse than he is, your reverence knows he must live, and that's
not to be done without shifting, I trow."
"Peace, sir, and begone on thine errand —thou shalt have a letter from
us to Sir Piercie."
Christie made two steps towards the door; then turning back and hesitating, like one who would make an impertinent pleasantry if he dared, he
asked what he was to do with the wench Mysie Happer whom the Southron
knight had carried off with him.
"Am I to bring her hither, please your reverence?"
" Hither, you malapert knave?" said the churchman; "remember you to
whom you speak?"
" No offence meant," replied Christie; "but if such is not your will, I
would carry her to Avenel Castle, where a well-favoured wench was never
unwelcome.
"Bring the unfortunate girl to her father's and break no scurril jests
here," said the Sub-Prior-"See that thou guide her in all safety and
honour."
"In safety, surely," said the rider, "and in such honour as her outbreak
has left her.- I bid your reverence farewell, I must be on horse before cockcrow."
" What, in the dark  - how knowest thou which way to go?"
" I tracked the knight's horse-tread as far as near to the ford, as we rode
along together," said Christie, " and I observed the track turn to the northward. He is for Edinburgh, I will warrant you - so soon as daylight comes
I will be on the road again. It is a.kenspeckle hoof-mark, for the shoe was
made by old Eckie of Cannobie- I would swear to the curve of the caulker."
So saying, he departed.
" Hateful necessity," said Father Eustace, looking after him, " that obliges
us to use such implements as these! But assailed as we are on all sides,
and by all conditions of men, what alternative is left us?- But now let me
to my most needful task."




THIE MONASTERY.                              237
The Abbot elect accordingly sate down to write letters, arrange orders,
and take upon him the whole charge of an institution which tottered to its
fall, with the same spirit of proud and devoted fortitude wherewith the conimandor of a fortress, reduced nearly to the last extremity, calculates what
means remain to him to protract the fatal hour of successful storm.  In the
meanwhile Abbot Boniface, having given a few natural sighs to the downfall of the pre-eminence he had so long enjoyed amongst his brethren, fell
fast asleep, leaving the whole cares and toils of office to his assistant and
su ccessor.
Vlaptrr t        ~t 4 tiri-   ifti
And when he came to broken briggs,
He slacked his bow and swam;
And when he came to grass growing,
Set down his feet and ran.
GIL MORRICE.
WE return to Halbert Glendinning, who, as our readers may remember,
took the high road to Edinburgh. His intercourse with the preacher, IIenry
Warden, from whom he received a letter at the moment of his deliverance,
had been so brief, that he had not even learned the name of the nobleman
to whose care he was recommended. Something like a name had been spoken
indeed, but he had only comprehended that he was to meet the chief advancing towards the south, at the head of a party of horse. When day dawned
on his journey he was in the same uncertainty.  A better scholar would
have been informed by the address of the letter, but Halbert had not so far
profited by Father Eustace's lessons as to be able to decipher it. His motherwit taught him that he must not, in such uncertain times, be too hasty in
asking information of any one; and when, after a long day's journey, night
surprised him near a little village, he began to be dubious and anxious concerning the issue of his journey.
In a poor country, hospitality is generally exercised freely, and Halbert,
when he requested a night's quarters, did nothing either degrading or extraordinary.  The old woman, to whom he made this request, granted it the
more readily, that she thought she saw some resemblance between Halbert
and her son Saunders, who had been killed in one of the frays so common
in the time.  It is true, Saunders was a short square-made fellow, with red
hair and a freckled face, and somewhat bandy-legged, whereas the stranger
was of a brown complexion, tall, and remarkably well-made. Nevertheless,
the widow was clear that there existed a general resemblance betwixt her
guest and Saunders, and kindly pressed him to share of her evening cheer.
A pedlar, a man of about forty years old, was also her guest, who talked
with great feeling of the misery of pursuing such a profession as his in tho
time of war and tumult.
"We think much of knights and soldiers," said he; "but the peddercoffe who travels the land has need of more courage than them all. I am
sure he maun face mair risk, God help him.  Here have I come this length,
trusting the godly Earl of Murray would be on his march to the Borders,
for he was to have guestened with the Baron of Avenel; and instead of that
comes news that he has gone westlandways about some tuilzie in Ayrshire.
And what to do I wot not; for if I go to the south without a safeguard, the
next bonny rider I meet might ease me of sack and pack, and maybe of my
life to boot; and then, if I try to strike across the moors, I inay be as ill off
before I can join myself to that good Lord's company."




238                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
No one was quicker at catching a hint than Halbert Glendinning.  Hie
said he himself had a desire to go westward.  The pedlar looked at him
with a very doubtful air, when the old dame, who perhaps thought her young
guest resembled the umquhile Saunders, not only in his looks, but in a certain pretty turn to sleight-of-hand, which the defunct was supposed to have
possessed, tipped him the wink, and assured the pedlar he need have no
doubt that her young cousin was a true man.
" Cousin i" said the pedlar, " I thought you said this youth had been a
stranger."
"Ill hearing makes ill rehearsing," said the landlady; "he is a stranger
to me by eye-sight, but that does not make him a stranger to me by blood,
more especially seeing his likeness to my son Saunders, poor bairn."
The pedlar's scruples and jealousies being thus removed, or at least
silenced, th thtravellers agreed that they would proceed in company together
the next morning by daybreak, the pedlar acting as a guide to Glendinning,
and the youth as a guard to the pedlar, until they should fall in with Murray's detachment of horse. It would appear that the lady never doubted
what was to be the event of this compact, for, taking Glendinning aside,
she charged him, " to be moderate with the puir body, but at all events, not
to forget to take a piece of black say, to make the auld wife a new rokelay."
Halbert laughed and took his leave.
It did not a little appal the pedlar, when, in the midst of a black heath,
the young man told him the nature of the commission with which their
hostess.had charged him.  lie took heart, however, upon seeing the open,
frank, and friendly demeanor of the youth, and vented his exclamations on
the ungrateful old traitress.  "I gave her," he said, "yesterday-e'en nas
farther gane, a yard of that very black say, to make her a couvre-chef; but
I see it is ill done to teach the cat the way to the kirn."
Thus set at ease on the intentions of his companion (for in those happy
days the worst was always to be expected from a stranger), the pedlar acted
as Halbert's guide over moss and moor, over hill and many a dale, in such
a direction as might best lead them towards the route of Murray's party.
At length they arrived upon the side of an eminence, which commanded a
distant prospect over a tract of savage and desolate moorland, marshy and
waste-an alternate change of shingly hill and level morass, only varied by
blue stagnant pools of water. A road scarcely marked winded like a serpent through the wilderness, and the pedlar, pointing to it, said —" The
road from Edinburgh to Glasgow. Here we must wait, and if Murray and
his train be not already passed by, we shall soon see trace of them, unless
some new purpose shall have altered their resolution; for in these blessed
days no man, were he the nearest the throne, as the Earl of Murray may
be, knows when he lays his head on his pillow at night where it is to lie
upon the following even."
They paused accordingly and sat down, the pedlar cautiously using for a
seat the box which contained his treasures, and not concealing from his
companion that he wore under his cloak a pistolet hanging at his belt in
case of need. He was courteous, however, and offered Hlalbert a share of
the provisions which he carried about him for refreshment.  They were of
the coarsest kind- oat-bread baked in cakes, oatmeal slaked with cold
water, an onion or two, and a morsel of smoked ham completed the feast.
But such as it was, no Scotsman of the time, had his rank been much higher
than that of Glendinning, would have refused to share in it, especially as
the pedlar produced, with a mysterious air, a tup's horn, which he carried
slung from his shoulders, and which, when its contents were examined, produced to each party a clam-shell-full of excellent usquebaugh- a liquor
strange to Italbert, for the strong waters known in the south of Scotland
came from France, and  ri fact such were but rarely used. The pedlar
recommended it as excellent, said he had procured it in his last visit to the




THE  MONASTERY.                              239
braes of Doune, where he had securely traded under the safe-conduct of the
Laird of Buchanan. lie also set an example to Halbert, by devoutly emptying the cup " to the speedy downfall of Anti-Christ."
Their conviviality was scarce ended, ere a rising dust was seen on the
road of which they commanded the prospect, and half a score of horsemen
were dimly descried advancing at considerable speed, their casques glancing,
and the points of their spears twinkling as they caught a glimpse of the sun.
"These," said the pedlar, "must be the out-scourers of Murray's party;
let us lie down in the peat-hag, and keep ourselves out of sight."
"And why so?" said Halbert; " let us rather go down and make a signal
to them."
" God forbid i" replied the pedlar; " do you ken so ill the customs of our
Scottish nation? That plump of spears that are spurring on so fast are
doubtless commanded by some wild kinsman of Morton, or some such daring
fear-nothing as neither regards God nor man. It is their business, if they
meet with any enemies, to pick quarrels and'clear the way of them; and the
chief knows nothing of what happens, coming up with his more discreet
and moderate friends, it may be a full mile in the rear. Were we to go
near these lads of the laird's belt, your letter would do you little gdod, and
my pack would do me muckle black ill; they would tirl every steek of
claithes from our back, fling us into a moss-hag with a stone at our heels,
naked as the hour that brought us into this cumbered and sinful world, and
neither Murray nor any other man ever the wiser.  But if he did come to
ken of it, what might he help it?- it would be accounted a mere mistake,
and there were all the moan made. O credit me, youth, that when men
draw cold steel on each other in their native country, they neither can nor
may dwell deeply on the offences of those whose swords are useful to them."
They suffered, therefore, the vanguard, as it might be termed, of the Earl
of Murray's host to pass forward; and it was not long until a denser cloud
of dust began to arise to the northward.
" Now," said the pedlar, " let us hurry down the hill; for to tell the truth,"
said he, dragging Halbert along earnestly, " a Scottish noble's march is like
a serpent -the head is furnished with fangs, and the tail hath its sting;
the only harmless point of access is the main body."
"I will hasten as fast as you," said the youth; " but tell me why the rearward of such an army should be as dangerous as the van?"
"Because, as the vanguard consists of their picked wild desperates, resolute for mischief, such as neither fear God nor regard their fellow-creatures,
but understand themselves bound to hurry from the road whatever is displeasing to themselves, so the rear-guard consists of misproud serving-men,
who, being in charge of the baggage, take care to amend by their exactions
upon travelling-merchants and others, their own thefts on their master's
property. You will hear the advanced enfans perdus, as the French call
them, and so they are indeed. namely, children of the fall, singing unclean
and fulsome ballads of sin and harlotrie.  And then will come on the middle-ward, when you will hear the canticles and psalms sung by the reforming
nobles, and the gentry, and honest and pious clergy, by whom they are
accompanied. And last of all, you will find in the rear a legend of godless
lackies, palfreniers, and horse-boys, talking of nothing but dicing, drinking,
and drabbing."
As the pedlar spoke, they had reached the side of the high-road, and Murray's main body was in sight, consisting of about three hundred horse,
marching with great regularity, and in a closely compacted body.  Some
of the troopers wore the liveries of their masters, but this was not common.
Most of them were dressed in such colours as chance dictated.  But the
majority, being clad in blue cloth, and the whole armed with cuirass and
back-plate, with sleeves of mail, gauntlets, and poldroons, and either mailed
hose or strong jack-boots, they had something of a uniform  appearance.




240                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
Many of the leaders were clad in complete armour, and all in a certain
half-military dress, which no man of quality in those disturbed times ever
felt himself sufficiently safe to abandon.
The foremost of this party immediately rode up to the pedlar and to Hal
bert Glendinning, and demanded of them who they were. The pedlar told
his story, the young Glendinning exhibited his letter, which a gentleman
carried to Murray. In an instant after, the word "Halt!"-  was given
through the' squadron, and at once the onward heavy tramp, which seemed
the most distinctive attribute of the body, ceased, and was heard no more.
The command was announced that the troop should halt here for an hour
to refresh themselves and their horses. The pedlar was assured of safe
protection, and accommodated with the use of a baggage horse. But at the
same time he was ordered into the rear; a command which he reluctantly
obeyed, and. not without wringing pathetically the hand of Halbert as he
separated from him.
The young heir of Glendearg was in the meanwhile conducted to a plot
of ground more raised, and therefore drier than the rest of the moor. Here
a carpet was flung on the ground by way of table-cloth, and around it sat
the leaders of the party, partaking of an entertainment as coarse, with
relation to their rank, as that which Glendinning had so lately shared.
Murray himself rose as he came forward, and advanced a step to meet him.
This celebrated person had in his appearance, as well as in his mind,
much of the admirable qualities of James V. his father. Had not the stain
of illegitimacy rested upon his birth, he would have filled the Scottish
throne with as much honour as any of the Stewart race. But History, while
she acknowledges his high talents, and much that was princely, nay, royal,
in his conduct, cannot forget that ambition led him farther than honour or
loyalty warranted. Brave amongst the bravest, fair in presence and in
favour, skilful to manage the most intricate affairs, to attach to himself
those who were doubtful, to stun and overwhelm, by the suddenness and
intrepidity of his enterprises, those who were resolute in resistance, he
attained, and as to personal merit certainly deserved, the highest place in
the kingdom. But he abused, under the influence of strong temptation, the
opportunities which his sister Mary's misfortunes and imprudence threw in
his way; he supplanted his sovereign and benefactress in her power, and
his history affords us one of those mixed characters, in which principle was
so often sacrificed to policy, that we must condemn the statesman while we
pity and regret the individual.  Many events in his life gave likelihood to
the charge that he himself aimed at the crown; and it is too true, that he
countenanced the fatal expedient of establishing an English, that is a foreign
and a hostile interest, in the councils of Scotland. But his death may be
received as an atonement for his offences, and may serve to show how much
more safe is the person of a real patriot, than that of the mere head of a
faction, who is accounted answerable for the offences of his meanest attendants.
When Muiray approached, the young rustic was naturally abashed at the
dignity of his presence.  The commanding form and the countenance to
which high and important thoughts were familiar, the features which bore
the resemblance of Scotland's long line of kings, were well calculated to
impress awe and reverence. His dress had little to distinguish him from
the high-born nobles and barons by whom he was attended.  A buff-coat,
richly embroidered with silken lace, supplied the place of armour; and a
massive gold chain, with its medal, hung round his neck. His'black velvet
bonnet was decorated with a string of large and fair pearls, and with a small
tufted feather; a long heavy sword was girt to his side, as the familiar companion of his hand. He wore gilded spurs on his boots, and these completed his equipment.
"This letter," he said, "is from the godly preacher of the word, Henry




THE  MONASTERY.                            241
Warden, young man? is it not so?" Halbert answered in the affirmative.
"And he writes to us, it would seem, in some strait, and refers us to you
for the circumstances. Let us know, I pray you, how things stand with
him."
In some perturbation Halbert Glendinning gave an account of the circumstances which had accompanied the preacher's imprisonment. When he
came to the discussion of the handfasting engagement, he was struck with
the ominous and displeased expression of Murray's brows, and, contrary to
all prudential and politic rule, seeing something was wrong, yet not well
awarewhat that something was, had almost stopped short in his narrative.
" What ails the fool? said the Earl, drawing his dark-red eyebrows together, while the same dusky glow kindled on his brow-" Hast thou not
learned to tell a true tale without stammering?"
"So please you," answered Halbert, with considerable address, " I have
never before spoken in such a presence."
" He seems a modest youth, said Murray, turning to his next attendant,
" and yet one who in a good cause will neither fear friend nor foe. - Speak
on, friend, and speak freely."
Halbert then gave an account of the quarrel betwixt Julian Avenel and
the preacher, which the Earl, biting his lip the while, compelled himself to
listen to as a thing of indifference. At first he appeared even to take the
part of the Baron.
" Henry Warden," he sfif., " is too hot in his zeal. The law both of God
and man maketh allowance for certain alliances, though not strictly formal,
and the issue of such may succeed."
This general declaration he expressed, accompanying it with a glance
around upon the few followers who were present at this interview. The
most of them answered-" There is no contravening that;" but one or two
looked on the ground, and were silent. Murray then turned again to Glendinning, commanding him to say what next chanced, and not to omit any
particular. When he mentioned the manner in which Julian had cast from
him his concubine, Murray drew a deep breath, set his teeth hard, and laid
his hand on the hilt of his dagger. Casting his eyes once more around the
circle, which was now a.ugmented by one or two of the reformed preachers,
he seemed to devour his rage in silence, and again commanded Halbert to
proceed. When he came to describe how Warden had been dragged to a
dungeon, the Earl seemed to have found the point at which he might give
vent to his own resentment, secure of the sympathy and approbation of all
who were present. "Judge you," he said, looking to those around him,
"judge you, my peers, and noble gentlemen of Scotland, betwixt me and
this Julian Avenel —he hath broken his own word, and hath violated my
safe-conduct -and judge you also, my reverend brethren, he hath put his
hand forth upon a preacher of the gospel, and perchance may sell his blood
to the worshippers of Anti-Christ!"
"Let him die the death of a traitor," said the secular chiefs, "and let
his tongue be struck through with the hangman's fiery iron to avenge his
perjury!"
"Let him go down to his place with Baal's priests," said the preachers,
"and be his ashes cast into Tophet!"
Murray heard them with the smile of expected revenge; yet it is probable that the brutal treatment of the female, whose circumstances somewhat
resembled those of the Earl's own mother, had its share in the grim smile
which curled his sun-burnt cheek and its haughty lip. To Halbert Glendinning, when his narrative was finished, he spoke with great kindness.
"He is a bold and gallant youth," said he to those around, " and formed
of the stuff which becomes a bustling time. There are periods when men's
spirits shine bravely through them. I will know something more of him."
IIe questioned him more particularly concerning the Baron of Avenel's
VOL. V.-16                      V




242                  WAVER-LEY  NOVELS.
probable forces-the strength of his castle-the dispositions of hils  ext
heir, and this brought necessarily forward the sad history of his brother's
daughter, Mary Avenel, which was told with an embarrassment that did not
escape Murray.
"Ha! Julian Avenel," he said, "and do you provoke my resentment,
when you have so much more reason to deprecate my justice! I knew
Walter Avenel, a true Scotsman and a good soldier. Our sister, the Queen,
must right his daughter; and were her land restored, she would be afitting
bride to some brave man who may better merit our favour than the traitor
Julian." —-Then looking at Halbert, he said, "Art thou of gentle blood,
young man?"
Ilalbert, with a faltering and uncertain voice, began to speak of his distant
pretensions to claim a descent from the ancient Glendonwynes of Galloway,
when Murray interrupted him with a smile.
"Nay - nay- leave pedigrees to bards and heralds. In our days, each
man is the son of his own deeds. The glorious light of reformation hath
shone alike on prince and peasant; and peasant as well as prince may be
illustrated by fighting in its defence. It is a stirring world, where all may
advance themselves who have stout hearts and strong arms. Tell me frankly
why thou hast left thy father's house."
Halbert Glendinning made a frank confession of his duel with Piercie
Shafton, and mentioned his supposed death.
"'By my hand," said Murray, "thou art a bold sparrow-hawk, to match
thee so early with such a kite as Piercie Shafton. Queen Elizabeth would
give her glove filled with gold crowns to know that meddling coxcomb to be
under the sod.-Would she not, Morton?"
"Ay, by my word, and esteem her glove a better gift than the crowns,"
replied Morton, "which few Border lads like'this fellow will esteem just
valuation."
" But what shall we do with this young homicide?" said Murray; "what
will our preachers say?"
" Tell them of Moses and of Benaiah," said Morton; "' it is but the smiting
of an Egyptian when all is said out."
"Let it be so," said Murray, laughing; "but we will bury the tale, as
the prophet did the body, in the sand. I will take care of this swankie. -
Be near to us, Glendinning, since that is thy name. We retain thee as a
squire of our household. The master of our horse will see thee fully equipped
and armed."'
During the expedition which he was now engaged in, Murray found several opportunities of putting Glendinning's courage and presence of mind
to the test, and he began to rise so rapidly in his esteem, that those who
knew the Earl considered the youth's fortune as certain. One step only was
wanting to raise him to a still higher degree of confidence and favour -it
was the abjuration of the Popish religion. The ministers who attended
upon Murray and formed his chief support amongst the people, found an
easy convert in Halbert Glendinning, who, from his earliest days, had never
felt much devotion towards the Catholic faith, and who listened eagerly to
more reasonable views of religion. By thus adopting the faith of his master,
he rose higher in his favour, and was constantly about his person during
his prolonged stay in the west of Scotland, which the intractability of thesd
whom the Earl had to deal with, protracted from day to day, and week to
week.




THE MONASTERY.                             243
flJaftr tat Wi0r4-lirx t.
Faint the din of battle bray'd
Distant down the hollow wind;
War and terror fled before,
Wounds and death were left behind.
PENROSE.
oini  utumn of the year was well advanced, when the Earl of Morton,
one morning, rather unexpectedly, entered the antechamber of Murray, in
which Halbert Glendinning was in waiting.
" Call your master, Halbert," said the Earl; " I have news for him from
Teviotdale; and for you too, Glendinning.-News! news! my Lord of
Murray!" he exclaimed at the door of the Earl's bedroom; "come forth
instantly."  The Earl appeared, and greeted his ally, demanding eagerly
his tidings.
" I have had a sure friend with me from the south," said Morton; "he
has been at Saint Mary's Monastery, and brings important tidings."
"Of what complexion?" said Murray, " and can you trust the bearer?"
"He is faithful, on my life," said Morton; " I wish all around your Lordship may prove equally so."
"At what, and whom, do you point?" demanded Murray.
"Here is the Egyptian of trusty Halbert Glendinning, our Southland
Moses, come alive again, and flourishing, gay and bright as ever, in that
Teviotdale Goshen, the Halidome of Kennaquhair."
" What mean you, my lord?" said Murray.
" Only that your new henchman has put a false tale upon you. Piercie
Shafton is alive and well; by the same token that the gull is thought to be
detained there by love to a miller's daughter, who roamed the country with
him in disguise."
" Glendinning," said Murray, bending his brow into his darkest frown,
"thou hast not, I trust, dared to bring me a lie in thy mouth, in order to
win my confidence?"
"My lord," said Halbert, "I am incapable of a lie. I should choke on
one were my life to require that I pronounced it. I say, that this sword of
my father was through the body-the point came out behind his back-the
hilt pressed upon his breast-bone. And I will plunge it as deep in the
body of any one who shall dare to charge me with falsehood."
" How, fellow!" said Morton, "wouldst thou beard a nobleman?"
"Be silent, Halbert," said Murray, "and you, my Lord of Morton, forbear him. I see truth written on his brow."
"I wish the inside of the manuscript may correspond with the superscription," replied his more suspicious ally.  "Look to it, my lord, you will
one dav lose your life by too much confidence."
" And you will lose your friends by being too readily suspicious," answered Murray. "Enough of this-let me hear thy tidings."
"Sir John Foster," said Morton, " is about to send a party into Scotland
to waste the Halidome."
"How! without waiting my presence and permission?" said Murray"he is mad-will he come as an enemy into the Queen's country?"
"He has Elizabeth's express orders," answered Morton, "and they are
not to be trifled with. Indeed, his march has been more than once projected and laid aside during the time we have been here, and has caused
much alarm  at Kennaquhair. Boniface, the old Abbot, has resigned, and
whom think you they have chosen in his place?"




244                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
"No one surely," said Murray; " they would presume to hold no election
until the Queen's pleasure and mine were known?"
Morton shrugged his shoulders-" They have chosen the pupil of old Cardinal Beatoun, that wily determined champion of Rome, the bosom-friend
of our busy Primate of Saint Andrews. Eustace, late the Sub-Prior of
Kennaquhair, is now its Abbot, and, like a second Pope Julius, is levying
men and making musters to fight with Foster if he comes forward."
"We must prevent that meeting," said Murray, hastily; "whichever
party wins the day, it were a fatal encounter for us -Who commands the
troop of the Abbot?"
"Our faithful old friend, Julian Avenel, nothing less," answered Morton.
"Glendilnning," said Murray, " sound trumpets to horse directly, and let
all who love us get on horseback without delay -Yes, my lord, this were
indeed a fatal dilemma.  If we take part with our English friends, the
country will cry shame on us-the very old wives will attack us with their
rocks and spindles -the very stones of the street will rise up against uswe cannot set our face to such a deed of infamy.  And my sister, whose
confidence I already have such difficulty in preserving, will altogether withdraw it from me. Then, were we to oppose the English Warden, Elizabeth
would call it a protecting of her enemies and what not, and we should lose
her."
" The she-dragon," said Morton, "is the best card in our pack; and yet
I would not willingly stand still and see English blades carve Scots flesh 
What say you to loitering by the way, marching far and easy for fear of
spoiling our horses?  They might then fight dog fight bull, fight Abbot
fight archer, and no one could blame us for what chanced when we were
not present."
" All would blame us, James Douglas," replied Murray; " we should lose
both sides -we had better advance with the utmost celerity, and do what
we can to keep the peace betwixt them. -I would the nag that brought
Piercie Shafton hither had broken his neck over the highest heuch in Northumberland!-H e is a proper coxcomb to make all this bustle about, and to
occasion perhaps a national war!"
"Had we known in time," said Douglas, " we might have had him privily
waited upon as he entered the Borders; there are strapping lads enough
would have rid us of him for the lucre of his spur-whang.*  But to the
saddle, James Stewart, since so the phrase goes. I hear your trumpets
sound to horse and away-we shall soon see which nag is best breathed."
Followed by. a train of about three hundred well-mounted men-at-arms,
these two powerful barons directed their course to Dumffries, and from
thence eastward to Teviotdale, marching at a rate which, as Morton had
foretold, soon disabled a good many of their horses, so that when they approached the scene of expected action, there were not above two hundred
of their train remaining in a body, and of these most were mounted on
steeds which had been sorely jaded.
They had hitherto been amused and agitated by various reports concerning the advance of the English soldiers, and the degree of resistance which
the Abbot was able to oppose to them. But when they were six or seven
miles from  Saint Mary's of Kennaquhair, a gentleman of the country,
whom Murray had summoned to attend him, and on whose intelligence he
knew he could rely, arrived at the head of two or three servants, "bloody
with spurring, fiery red with haste."  According to his report, Sir John
Foster, after several times announcing, and as often delaying, his intended
incursion, had at last been so stung with the news that Piercie Shafton was
openly residing within the Halidome, that he determined to execute the
commands of his mistress, which directed him, at every risk, to make himself master of the Euphuist's person.  The Abbot's unceasing exertions
* Spur-whang —Spur-leather.




THE  MONASTERY.                            2:45
had collected a body of men almost equal in number to those of the English
Warden, but less practised in arms. They were united under the command
of Julian Avenel, and it was apprehended they would join battle upon the
banks of a small stream which forms the verge of the Halidome.
"Who knows the place?" said Murray.
"I do, my lord," answered Glendinning.
"'Tis well," said the Earl; "take a score of the best-mounted horse -
make what haste thou canst, and announce to them that I am coming up
instantly with a strong power, and will cut to pieces, without mercy, whichever party strikes the first blow.-Davidson," said he to the gentleman who
brought the intelligence, "thou shalt be my guide. - Hie thee on, Glendinning-Say to Foster, I conjure him, as he respects his mistress's service,
that he will leave the matter in my hands. Say to the Abbot, I will burn
the Monastery over his head, if he strikes a stroke till I come - Tell the
dog, Julian Avenel, that he hath already one deep score to settle with meI will set his head on the top of the highest pinnacle of Saint Mary's, if he
presume to open another. Make haste, and spare not the spur for fear of
spoiling horse-flesh."
"Your bidding shall be obeyed, my lord," said Glendinning; and choosing those whose horses were in best plight to be his attendants, he went
off as fast as the jaded state of their cavalry permitted. Hill and hollow
vanished from under the feet of the chargers.
They had not ridden half the way, when they met stragglers coming off
from the field, whose appearance announced that the conflict was begun.
Two supported in their arms a third, their elder brother, who was pierced
with an arrow through the body. Halbert, who knew them to belong to
the Halidome, called them by their names, and questioned them of the state
of the affray; but just then, in spite of their efforts to retain him in the
saddle, their brother dropped from the horse, and they dismounted in haste
to receive his last breath. From men thus engaged, no information was to
be obtained. Glendinning, therefore, pushed on with his little troop, the
more anxiously, as he perceived other stragglers, bearing Saint Andrew's
cross upon their caps and corslets, flying apparently from the field of battle.
Most of these, when they were aware of a body of horsemen approaching
on the road, held to the one hand or the other, at such a distance as precluded coming to speech of them. Others, whose fear was more intense,
kept the onward road, galloping wildly as fast as their horses could carry
them, and when questioned, only glared without reply on those who spoke
to them, and rode on without drawing bridle. Several of these were also
known to Halbert, who had therefore no doubt, from the circumstances in
which he met them, that the men of the Halidome were defeated. He became now unspeakably anxious concerning the fate of his brother, who, he
could not doubt, must have been engaged in the affray. He therefore increased the speed of his horse, so that not above five or six of his followers
could keep up with him. At length he reached a little hill, at the descent
of which, surrounded by a semi-circular sweep of a small stream, lay the
plain which had been the scene of the skirmish.
It was a melancholy spectacle. War and terror, to use the expression
of the poet, had rushed on to the field, and left only wounds and death
behind them. The battle had been stoutly contested, as was almost always
the case with these Border skirmishes, where ancient hatred, and mutual
injuries, made men stubborn in maintaining the cause of their conflict.
Towards the middle of the plain, there lay the bodies of several men who
had fallen in the very act of grappling with the enemy; and there were
seen countenances which still bore the-stern expression of unextiniguishable
hate and defiance, hands which clasped the hilt of the broken falchion, or
strove in vain to pluck the deadly arrow from  the wound. Some were
wounded, and, cowed of the courage they had lately shown, were begging
v2




246                 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
aid, and craving water, in a tone of melancholy depression, while others
tried to teach the faltering tongue to pronounce some half-forgotten prayer,
which, even when first learned, they had but half understood.  Halbert,
uncertain what course he was next to pursue, rode through the plain to see
if, among the dead or wounded, he could discover any traces of his brother
Edward. He experienced no interruption from the English. A distant
cloud of dust announced that they were still pursuing the scattered fugitives,
and he guessed, that to approach them with his followers, until they were
again under some command, would be to throw away his own life, and that
of his men, whom the victors would instantly confound with the Scots,
against whom they had been successful.  lie resolved, therefore, to pause
until Murray came up with his forces, to which he was the more readily
moved, as he heard the trumpets of the English Warden sounding the
retreat, and recalling from the pursuit. He drew his men together, and
made a stand in an advantageous spot of ground, which had been occupied
by the Scots in the beginning of the action, and most fiercely disputed while
the skirmish lasted.
While he stood here, Halber.'s ear was assailed by the feeble moan of a
woman, which he had not expected to hear amid that scene, until the
retreat of the foes had permitted the relations of the slain to approach, for
the purpose of paying them the last duties. He looked with anxiety, and
at length observed, that by the body of a knight in bright armour, whose
crest, though soiled and broken, still showed the marks of rank and birth,
there sat a female wrapped in a horseman's cloak, and holding something
pressed against her bosom, which he soon discovered to be a child. lie
glanced towards the English. They advanced not, and the continued and
prolonged sound of their trumpets, with the shouts of the leaders, announced
that their powers would not be instantly re-assembled. He had, therefore,
a moment to look after this unfortunate woman. lie gave his horse to a
spearman as he dismounted, and, approaching the unhappy female, asked
her, in the most soothing tone he could assume, whether he could assist her
in her distress. The mourner made him no direct answer; but endeavouring, with a trembling and unskilful hand, to undo the springs of the visor
and gorget, said, in a tone of impatient grief, " Oh, he would recover instantly could I but give him air-land and living, life and honour, would I
give for the power of undoing these cruel iron platings that suffocate him!"
Ie that would soothe sorrow must not argue on the vanity of the most deceitful hopes. The body lay as that of one whose last draught of vital air
had been drawn, and who must never more have concern with the nether
sky. But Halbert Glendinning failed not to raise the visor and cast loose
the gorget, when, to his great surprise, he recognized the pale face of Julian
Avenel. His last fight was over, the fierce and turbid spirit had departed
in the strife in which it had so long delighted.
"Alas! he is gone," said Halbert, speaking to the young woman, in whom
he had now no difficulty of knowing the unhappy Catherine.
" Oh, no, no, no!" she reiterated, " do not say so - he is not dead -he is
but in a swoon. I have lain as long in one myself- and then his voice
would arouse me, when he spoke kindly, and said, Catherine, look up for
my sake-And look up, Julian, for mine!" she said, addressing the senseless
corpse; " I know you do but counterfeit to frighten me, but I am not frightened," she added, with an hysterical attempt to laugh; and then instantly
changing her tone, entreated him to " speak, were it but to curse my folly.
Oh, the rudest word you ever said to me would now sound like the dearest
you wasted on me before I gave you all. Lift him up," she said, "lift him
up, for God's sake!-have you no compassion? IHe promised to wed me if
I bore him a boy, and this child is so like to its father! —How shall he keep
his word, if you do not help me to awaken him?-Christie of the Clinthill,




THE MONASTERY.                               247
Rowley, Hutcheon! ye were constant at his feast, but ye fled from him  at
the fray, false villains as ye are!
"Not I, by Heaven!" said a dying man, who made some shift to raise
himself on his elbow, and discovered to Halbert the well-known features of
Christie; " I fled not a foot, and a man can but fight while his breath lasts
-mine is going fast.-So, youngster," said he, looking at Glendinning, and
seeing his military dress, "thou hast ta'en the basnet at last? it is a better
cap to live in than die in.  I would chance had sent thy brother here
instead-there was good in him- but thou art as wild, and wilt soon be as
wicked as myself."
" God forbid!" said Halbert, hastily.
"Marry, and amen, with all my heart," said the wounded man, "there
will be company enow without thee where I am going. But God be praised
I had no hand in that wickedness," said he, looking to poor Catherine;
and with some exclamation in his mouth, that sounded betwixt a prayer and
a curse, the soul of Christie of the Clinthill took wing to the last account.
Deeply wrapt in the painful interest which these shocking events had
excited, Glendinning forgot for a moment his own situation and duties, and
was first recalled to them  by a trampling of horse, and the cry of Saint
George for England, which the English soldiers still continued to use. His
handful of men, for most of the stragglers had waited for Murray's coming
up, remained on horseback, holding their lances upright, having no command either to submit or resist.
"There stands our Captain," said one of them, as a strong party of English came up, the vanguard of Foster's troop.
"Your Captain! with his sword sheathed, and on foot in the presence of
his enemy? a raw soldier, I warrant him," said the English leader. " So!
ho! young man, is your dream out, and will you now answer me if you will
fight or fly?"
" Neither," answered Halbert Glendinning, with great tranquillity.
" Then throw down thy sword and yield thee," answered the Englishman.
" Not till I can help myself no otherwise," said Halbert, with the same
moderation of tone and manner.
" Art thou for thine own hand, friend, or to whom dost thou owe service?"
demanded the English Captain.
" To the noble Earl of Murray."
"Then thou servest," said the Southron, " the most disloyal nobleman
who breathes-false both to England and Scotland."
" Thou liest," said Glendinning, regardless of all consequences.
" Ha! art thou so hot now, and wert so cold but a minute since? I lie,
do I? Wilt thou do battle with me on that quarrel?"
" With one to one - one to two - or two to five, as you list," said Halbert
Glendinnnig; "grant me but a fair field."
" That thou shalt have. - Stand back, my mates," said the brave Englishman. " If I fall, give him fair play, and let him go off free with his people."
"Long life to the noble Captain!" cried the soldiers, as impatient to see
the duel, as if it had been a bull-baiting.
"He will have a short life of it, though," said the sergeant, " if he, an old
man of sixty, is to fight, for any reason, or for no reason, with every man
he meets, and especially the young fellows he might be father to. - And
here comes the Warden besides to see the sword-play."
In fact, Sir John Foster came up with a considerable body of his horsemen, just as his Captain, whose age rendered him unequal to the combat
with so strong and active a youth as Glendinning, was deprived of his
sword.
" Take it up for shame, old Stawarth Bolton," said the English Warden;
"and thou, young man, tell me who and what thou art?"
"A follower of the Earl of Murray, who bore his will to y our honour,"




248:                 WAVERLEY' NOVELS.
answered Glendinning, -"but here he comes to say it himself; I see the
van of his horsemen come over the hills."
"Get into order, my masters," said Sir John Foster to his followers; " you
that have broken your spears, draw your swords. We are something unprovided for a second field, but if yonder dark cloud on the hill edge bring us
foul weather, we must bear as bravely as our broken cloaks will bide it.
Meanwhile, Stawarth, we have got the deer we have hunted for-here is
Piercie Shafton hard and fast betwixt two troopers."
"Who, that lad?" said Bolton; "he is no more Piercie Shafton than I
am. He hath his gay cloak indeed -but Piercie Shafton is a round dozen
of years older than that slip of roguery. I have known him since he was
thus high. Did you never see him in the tilt-yard or in the presence?"
"To the devil with such vanities!- said Sir John Foster; "when had I
leisure for them or any thing else? During my whole life has she kept me
to this hangman's office, chasing thieves one day and traitors another, in
daily fear of my life; the lance never hung up in the hall, the foot never
out of the stirrup, the saddles never off my nags' backs; and now, because
I have been mistaken in the person of a man I never saw, I warrant me, the
next letters from the Privy Council will rate me as I were a dog - a man
were better dead than thus slaved and harassed."
A trumpet interrupted Foster's complaints, and a Scottish pursuivant who
attended, declared " that the noble Earl of Murray desired, in all honour
and safety, a personal conference with Sir John Foster, midway between their
parties, with six of company in each, and ten free minutes to come and go."
"And now," said the Englishman, "comes another plague. I must go
speak with yonder false Scot, and he knows how to frame his devices, to cast
dust in the eyes of a plain man, as well as ever a knave in the north. I am
no match for him in words, and for hard blows we are but too ill provided.Pursuivant, we grant the conference - and you, Sir Swordsman," (speaking
to young Glendinning,) "draw off with your troopers to your own party
march - attend your Earl's trumpet. - Stawarth Bolton, put our troop in
order, and be ready to move forward at the wagging of a finger. - Get you
gone to your own friends, I tell you, Sir Squire, and loiter not here."
Notwithstanding this peremptory order, Halbert Glendinning could not
help stopping to cast a look upon the unfortunate Catherine, who lay insensible of the danger and of the trampling of so many horses around her,
insensible, as the second glance assured him, of all and forever. Glendinning almost rejoiced when he saw that the last misery of life was over, and
that the hoofs of the war-horses, amongst which he was compelled to leave
her, could only injure and deface a senseless corpse. Ile caught the infant
from her arms, half ashamed of the shout of laughter which rose on all
sides, at seeing an armed man in such a situation assume such an unwonted
and inconvenient burden.
"Shoulder your infant!" cried a harquebusier.
"Port your infant!" said a pikeman.
"Peace, ye brutes," said Stawarth Bolton,."and respect humanity in
others if you have none yourselves. I pardon the lad having done some
discredit to my gray hairs, when I see him take care of that helpless creature, which ye would have trampled upon as if ye had been littered of bitchwolves, not born of women."
While this passed, the leaders on either side met in the neutral space
betwixt the forces of either, and the Earl accosted the English Warden:
"Is this fair or honest usage, Sir John, or for whom do you hold the Earl
of Morton and myself, that you ride in Scotland with arrayed banner, fight,
slay, and make prisoners at your own pleasure? Is it well done, think you,
to spoil our land and shed our blood, after the many proofs we have given
to your mistress of our devotion due to her will, saving always the allegiance
due to our own sovereign?"




THE  MONASTERY.                            249
"My Lord of Murray," answered Foster, " all the world knows you to be
a man of quick ingine and deep wisdom, and these several weeks you have
held me in hand with promising to arrest my sovereign mistress's rebel, this
Piercie Shafton of Wilverton, and you have never kept your word, alleging
turmoils in the west, and I wot not what other causes of hinderance. Now,
since he has had the insolence to return hither, and live openly within ten
miles of England, I could no longer, in plain duty to my mistress and queen,
tarry upon your successive delays, and therefore I have used her force to
take her rebel, by the strong hand, wherever I can find him."
"And is Piercie Shafton in your hands, then?' said the Earl of Murray.
"Be aware that I may not, without my own great shame, suffer you to
remove him hence without doing battle."
"Will you, Lord Earl, after all the advantages you have received at the
hands of the Queen of England, do battle in the cause of her rebel?" said
Sir John Foster.
" Not so, Sir John," answered the Earl, "but I will fight to the death in
defence of the liberties of our free kingdom of Scotland."
" By my faith," said Sir John Foster, " I am well content - my sword is
not blunted with all it has done yet this day."
"By my honour, Sir John," said Sir George Ieron of Chipchase, "there
is but little reason we should fight these Scottish Lords e'en now, for I hold
opinion with old Stawarth Bolton, and believe yonder prisoner to be no more
Piercie Shafton than he is the Earl of Northumberland; and you were but
ill advised to break the peace betwixt the countries for a prisoner of less
consequence than that gay mischief-maker."
" Sir George," replied Foster, "I have often heard you herons are afraid
of hawks - Nay, lay not hand on sword, man - I did but jest; and for this
prisoner, let him be brought up hither, that we may see who or bwhat he is
-always under assurance, my Lords," he continued, addressing the Scots.
"Upon our word and honour," said Morton, "we will offer no violence."
The laugh turned against Sir John Foster considerably, when the prisoner,
being brought up, proved not only a different person from Sir Piercie Shafton, but a female in man's attire.
" Pluck the mantle from the quean's face, and cast her to the horse-boys,"
said Foster; "she has kept such company ere now, I warrant."
Even Murray was moved to laughter, no common thing with him, at the
disappointment of the English Warden; but he would not permit any
violence to be offered to the fair Molinara, who had thus a second time rescued Sir Piercie Shafton at her own personal risk.
" You have already done more mischief than you can well answer," said
the Earl to the English Warden, "and it were dishonour to me should I
permit you to harm ahair of this young woman's head."
"My lord," said Morton, "if Sir John will ride apart with me but for
one moment, I will show him  such reasons as shall make him content to
depart, and to refer this unhappy day's work to the judgment of the Commissioners nominated to try offences on the Border."
He then led Sir John Foster aside, and spoke to him in this manner:"Sir John Foster, I much marvel that a man who knows your Queen Elizabeth as you do, should not know that, if you hope any thing from her, it
must be for doing her useful service, not for involving her in quarrels with
her neighbours without any advantage. Sir Knight, I will speak frankly
what I know to be true. Had you seized the true Piercie Shafton by this
ill-advised inroad; and had your deed threatened, as most likely it might, a
breach betwixt the countries, your politic princess and her politic council
would rather have disgraced Sir John Foster than entered into war in his
behalf. But now that you have stricken short of your aim, you may rely
on it you will have little thanks for carrying the matter farther. I will
work thus far on the Earl of Murray, that he will undertake to dismiss Sir




250                  WAVER.L EY  NOVELS.
Piercie Shafton from the realm of Scotland. —Be well advised, and let the
matter now pass off-you will gain nothing by farther violence, for if we
fight, you as the fewer and the weaker through your former action, will
needs have the worse."
Sir John Foster listened with his head declining on his breast-plate.
"It is a cursed chance," he said, "and I shall have little thanks for my
day's work."
He then rode up to Murray, and said, that, in deference to his Lordship's
presence and that of my Lord of Morton, he had come to the resolution of
withdrawing himself, with his power, without farther proceedings.
"Stop there, Sir John Foster," said Murray; "I cannot permit you to
retire in safety, unless you leave some one who may be surety to Scotland,
that the injuries you have at present done us may be fully accounted for -
you will reflect, that by permitting your retreat, I become accountable to my
Sovereign, who will demand a reckoning of me for the blood of her subjects,
if I suffer those who shed it to depart so easily."
" It shall never be told in England," said the Warden, " that John Foster
gave pledges like a subdued man, and that on the very field on which he
stands victorious.-But," he added, after a moment's pause, "if Stawarth
Bolton wills to abide with you on his own free choice, I will say nothing
against it; and, as I bethink me, it were better he should stay to see the
dismissal of this same Piercie Shafton."
"I receive him as your hostage, nevertheless, and shall treat him as such,"
said the Earl of Murray. But Foster, turning away as if to give directions
to Bolton and his men, affected not to hear this observation.
"There rides a faithful servant of his most beautiful and Sovereign
Lady," said Murray aside to Morton. " Happy man! he knows not whether the execution of her commands may not cost him his head; and yet he
is most certain that to leave them unexecuted will bring disgrace and death
without reprieve. Happy are they who are not only subjected to the caprices of Dame Fortune, but held bound to account and be responsible for
them, and that to a sovereign as moody and fickle as her humorous ladyship
herself!"
"We also have a female Sovereign, my lord," said Morton.
"We have so, Douglas," said the Earl, with a suppressed sigh; "but it
remains to be seen how long a female hand can hold the reins of power in a
realm so wild as ours. We will now go on to Saint Mary's, and see ourselves after the state of that House.-Glendinning, look to that woman, and
protect her.-What the fiend, man, hast thou got in thine arms?-an infant
as I live — where couldst thou find such a charge, at such a place and moment?"
Halbert Glendinning briefly told the story. The Earl rode forward to
the place where the body of Julian Avenel lay, with his unhappy companion's arms wrapped around him like the trunk of an uprooted oak borne
down by the tempest with all its ivy garlands. Both were cold dead. Murray was touched in an unwonted degree, remembering, perhaps, his own
birth.' What have they to answer for, Douglas," he said, "who thus abuse
the sweetest gifts of affection?"
The Earl of Morton, unhappy in his marriage, was a libertine in his
amours.
"You must ask that question of Henry Warden, my lord, or of John
Knox-I am but a wild counsellor in women's matters."
"Forward to Saint Mary's," said the Earl; "pass the word on-Glendin
ning, give the infant to this same female cavalier, and let it be taken charge
of. Let no dishonour be done to the dead bodies, and call on the country
to bury or remove them.-Forward, I say, my masters I"




THE MONASTERY.                               2515
Gone to be married'?-Gone to swear a peace!
KING JOHN.
THE news of the lost battle, so quickly carried by the fugitives to the vili
rage and convent, had spread the greatest alarm among the inhabitants.
The Sacristan and other monks counselled flight; the Treasurer recommended that the church plate should be offered as a tribute to bribe the
English officer; the Abbot alone was unmoved and undaunted.
"My brethren," he said, " since God has not given our people victory in
the combat, it must be because he requires of us, his spiritual soldiers, to
fight the good fight of martyrdom, a conflict in which nothing but our own
faint-hearted cowardice can make us fail of victory. Let us assume, then,
the armour of faith, and prepare, if it be necessary, to die under the ruin
of these shrines, to the service of which we have devoted ourselves.'Highly
honoured are we all in this distinguished summons, from our dear brother
Nicholas, whose gray hairs have been preserved until they should be surrounded by the crown of martyrdom, down to my beloved son Edward, who,
arriving at the vineyard at the latest hour of the day, is yet permitted to
share its toils with those who have laboured from the morning. Be of good
courage, my children. I dare not, like my sainted predecessors, promise to
you that you shall be preserved by miracle-I and you are alike unworthy
of that especial interposition, which, in earlier times, turned the sword of
sacrilege against the bosom  of tyrants by whom  it was wielded, daunted
the hardened hearts of heretics with prodigies, and called down hosts of
angels to defend the shrine of God and of the Virgin. Yet, by -heavenly
aid, you shall this day see that your Father and Abbot will not disgrace
the mitre which sits upon his brow. Go to your cells, my children, and
exercise your private devotions. Array yourselves also in alb and cope, as
for our most solemn festivals, and be ready, when the tolling of the largest
bell announces the approach of the enemy, to march forth to meet them in
solemn procession. Let the church be opened to afford such refuge as may
be to those of our vassals, who, from their exertion in this day's unhappy
battle, or the cause, are particularly apprehensive of the rage of the enemy.
Tell Sir Piercie Shafton, if he has escaped the fight —-— "
"I am here, most venerable Abbot," replied Sir Piercie; "'and if it so
seemeth meet to you, I will presently assemble such of the men as have
escaped this escaramouche, and will renew the resistance, even unto the
death. Certes, you will learn from all, that I did my part in this unhappy
matter. Had it pleased Julian Avenel to have attended to my counsel,
specially in somewhat withdrawing of his main battle, even as you may
have marked the heron eschew the stoop of the falcon, receiving him rather
upon his beak than upon his wing, affairs, as I do conceive, might have had
a different face, and we might then, in a more bellacose manner, have maintained that affray. Nevertheless, I would not be understood to speak any
thing in disregard of Julian Avenel, whom  I saw fall fighting manfully
with his face to his enemy, which hath banished from my memory the unseemly term of'meddling coxcomb,' with which it pleased him  something
rashly to qualify my advice, and for which, had it pleased Heaven and the
saints to have prolonged the life of that excellent person, I had it bound
upon my soul to have put him to death with my own hand."
" Sir Piercie," said the Abbot, at length interrupting him, "our time allows brief leisure to speak'what might have been."
"You are right, most venerable Lord and Father," replied the incorrigible Euphuist; "the preterite, as grammarians have it, concerns frail mor*




252                  WAVERL.EY  NOVELS.
tality less than the future mood, and indeed our cogitations respect chiefly
the present. In a word, I am willing to head all who will follow me, and
offer such opposition as manhood and mortality may permit, to the advance
of the English, though they be my own countrymen; and be assured, Piercie Shafton will measure his length, being five feet ten inches, on the ground
as he stands, rather than give two yards in retreat, according to the usual
motion in which we retrograde."
" I thank you, Sir Knight," said the Abbot, " and I doubt not that you
would make your words good; but it is not the will of Heaven that carnal
weapons should rescue us. We are called to endure, not to resist, and may
not waste the blood of our innocent commons in vain-Fruitless opposition
becomes not men of our profession; they have my commands to resign the
sword and the spear,-God and Our-Lady have not blessed our banner."
" Bethink you, reverend lord," said Piercie Shafton, very eagerly, "ere
you resign the defence that is in your power- there are many posts near
the entry of this village, where brave men might live or die to the advantage; and I have this additional motive to make defence, — the safety,
namely, of a fair friend, who, I hope, hath escaped the hands of the heretics."
" I understand you, Sir Piercie," said the Abbot-" you mean the daughter of our Convent's miller?"
"Reverend my lord," said Sir Piercie, not without hesitation, " the fair
Mysinda is, as may be in some sort alleged, the daughter of one who mechanically prepareth corn to be manipulated into bread, without which wo
could not exist, and which is therefore an employment in itself honourable,
nay necessary. Nevertheless, if the purest sentiments of a generous mind,
streaming forth like the rays of the sun reflected by a diamond, may ennoble
one, who is in some sort the daughter of a molendinary mechanic   "
" I have no time for all this, Sir Knight," said the Abbot; " be it enough
to answer, that with our will we war no longer with carnal weapons. We
of the spirituality will teach you of the temporality how to die in cold blood,
our hands not clenched for resistance, but folded for prayer-our minds not
filled with jealous hatred, but with Christian meekness and forgiveness 
our ears not deafened, nor our senses confused, by the sound of clamorous
instruments of war; but, on the contrary, our voices composed to Halleluiah, Kyrie-Eleison, and Salve Regina, and our blood temperate and cold,
as those who think upon reconciling themselves with God, not of avenging
themselves of their fellow-mortals."
" Lord Abbot," said Sir Piercie, " this is nothing to the fate of my Molinara, whom I beseech you to observe, I will not abandon, while golden hilt
and steel blade bide together on my falchion.  I commanded her not to
follow us to the field, and yet methought I saw her in her page's attire
amongst the rear of the combatants."
" You must seek elsewhere for the person in whose fate you are so deeply
interested," said the Abbot; "and at present I will pray of your knighthood to inquire concerning her at the church, in which all our more defenceless vassals have taken refuge. It is my advice to you, that you also abide
by the horns of the altar; and, Sir Piercie Shafton," he added, " be of one
thing secure, that if you come to harm, it will involve the whole of this
brotherhood; for never, I trust, will the meanest of us buy safety at the
expense of surrendering a friend or a guest. Leave us, my son, and may
God be your aid!"
When Sir Piercie Shafton had departed, and the Abbot was about to
betake himself to his own cell, he was surprised by an unknown person
anxiously requiring a conference, who, being admitted, proved to -be no
other than Henry Warden. The Abbot started as he entered, and exclaimed,
angrily,-" Ha I are the few hours that fate allows him who may last wear
the mitre of this house, not to is excused from the intrusion cf h(resy?




THE  MONASTERY.                             253
Dost thou come," he said, "to enjoy the hopes which fate holds out to thy
demented and accursed sect, to see the bosom of destruction sweep away
the pride of old religion - to deface our shrines,-to mutilate and lay waste
the bodies of our benefactors, as well as their sepulchres -to destroy the
pinnacles and carved work of God's house, and Our Lady's?"
"Peace, William Allan!" said the Protestant preacher, with dignified
composure; "for none of these purposes do I come.  I would have these
stately shrines deprived of the idols which, no longer simply regarded as the
effigies of the good and of the wise, have become the objects of foul idolatry.
I would otherwise have its ornaments subsist, unless as they are, or may
be, a snare to the souls of men; and especially do I condemn those ravages
which have been made by the heady fury of the people, stung into zeal
against will-worship by bloody persecution. Against such wanton devastations I lift my testimony."
"Idle distinguisher that thou art!" said the Abbot Eustace, interrupting
him; "what signifies the pretext under which thou dost despoil the house
of God? and why at this present emergence will thou insult the master of
it by thy ill-omened presence?"
" Thou art unjust, William Allan," said Warden; " but I am not the less
settled in my resolution. Thou hast protected me some time since at the
hazard of thy rank, and what I know thou holdest still dearer, at the risk
of thy reputation with thine own sect. Our party is now uppermost, and,
believe me, I have come down the valley, in which thou didst quarter me for
sequestration's sake, simply with the wish to keep my engagements to thee."
"Ay," answered the Abbot, "and it may be, that my listening to that
worldly and infirm compassion which pleaded with me for thy life, is now
avenged by this impending judgment.  Heaven hath smitten, it may be,
the erring shepherd, and scattered the flock."
" Think better of the Divine judgments," said Warden. "Not for thy
sins, which are those of thy blended education and circumstances; not for
thine own sins, William Allan, art thou stricken, but for the accumulated
guilt which thy mis-named Church hath accumulated on her head, and those
of her votaries, by the errors and corruption of ages."
" Now, by my sure belief in the Rock of Peter," said the Abbot, " thou
dost'rekindle the last spark of human indignation for which my bosom has
fuel- I thought I might not again have felt the impulse of earthly passion,
and it is thy voice which once more calls me to the expression of human
anger! yes, it is thy voice that comest to insult me in my hour of sorrow,
with these blasphemous accusations of that church which hath kept the light
of Christianity alive from the times of the Apostles till now."
"From the times of the Apostles?" said the preacher, eagerly.  "Negatur, Gulielme Allan -the primitive church differed as much from that of
Rome, as did light from darkness, which, did time permit, I should speedily
prove. And worse dost thou judge, in saying, I come to insult thee in thy
hour of affliction, being here, God wot, with the Christian wish of fulfilling
an engagement I had made to my host, and of rendering myself to thy will
while it had yet power to exercise aught upon me, and if it might so be, to
mitigate in thy behalf the rage of the victors whom God hath sent as a scourge
to thy obstinacy."
"I will none of thy intercession," said the Abbot, sternly; "the dignity
to which the church has exalted me, never should have swelled my bosom
more proudly in the time of the highest prosperity, than it doth at this crisis
- I ask nothing of thee, but the assurance that my lenity to thee hath been
the means of perverting no soul to Satan, that I have not given to the wolf
any of the stray lambs whom the Great Shepherd of souls had intrusted to
my charge."
"William Allan," answered the Protestant, "I will be sincere with thee.
What I promised I have kept —I have withheld my voice from speaking
w




251                  WAVE R LEY  NOVEL S.
even good things.  But it has pleased Heaven to call the maiden Mary
Avenel to a better sense of faith than thou and all the disciples of Rome can
teach.  Her I have aided with my humble power- I have extricated her
filom the machinations of evil spirits to which she and her house were
exposed during the blindness of their Romish superstition, and, praise be to
my Master, I have not reason to fear she will again be caught in thy snares."
" Wretched man 1" said the Abbot, unable to suppress his rising indignation, " is it to the Abbot of St. Mary's that you boast having misled the soul
of a dweller in Our Lady's Halidome into the paths of foul error and damning heresy?- Thou dost urge me, Wellwood, beyond what it becomes me
to bear, and movest me to employ the few moments of power I may yet
possess, in removing from the face of the earth one whose qualities, given
by. God, have been so utterly perverted as thine to the service of Satan."
"Do thy pleasure," said the preacher; " thy vain wrath shall not prevent
my doing my duty to advantage thee, where it may be done without neglecting my higher call. I go to the Earl of Murray."
Their conference, which was advancing fast into bitter disputation, was
here interrupted by the deep and sullen toll of the largest and heaviest bell
of the Convent, a sound famous in the chronicles of the Community, for
dispelling of tempests, and putting to flight demons, but which now only
announced danger, without affording any means of warding against it.
Hastily repeating his orders, that all the brethren should attend in the
choir, arrayed for solemn procession, the Abbot ascended to the battlements
of the lofty Monastery, by His own private staircase, and there met the
Sacristan, who had been in the act of directing the tolling of the huge bell,
which fell under his charge.
" It is the last time I shall discharge mine office, most venerable Father
and Lord," said he to the Abbot, "for yonder come the Philistines; but I
would not that the large bell of Saint Mary's should sound for the last time,
otherwise than in true and full tone -I have been a sinful man for one of
our holy profession," added he, looking upward, "yet may I presume to
say, not a bell hath sounded out'of tune from the tower of the house, while
Father Philip had the superintendence of the chime and the belfry."
The Abbot,' without reply, cast his eyes towards the path, which, winding
around the mountain, descends upon Kennaquhair, from the south-east. -HIe
beheld at a distance a cloud of dust, and heard the neighing of many horses,
while the occasional sparkle of the long line of spears, as they came downwards into the valley, announced that the band came thither in arms.
"Shame on my weakness!" said Abbot Eustace, dashing the tears from
his eyes; "my sight is too much dimmed to observe their motions- look,
my son Edward," for his favourite novice had again joined him, "and tell
me what ensigns they bear."
" They are Scottish men, when all is done'" exclaimed Edward   " I see
the white crosses it may be the Western Borderers, or Fernieherst and his
clan."
"Look at the banner," said the Abbot; "tell me, what are the blazonries?"
" The arms of Scotland," said Edward, "the lion and its tressure, quartered, as I think, with three cushions-Can it be the royal standard?"
"Alas! no," said the Abbot, " it is that of the Earl of Murray. He hath
assumed with his new' conquest the badge of the valiant Randolph, and
hath dropt from his hereditary coat the bend which indicates his own base
birth-would to God he may not have blotted it also from his memory, and
aim as well at possessing the name, as the power, of a king."
"At least, my father," said Edward, "he will secure us from the violence
of the Southron."
" Ay, my son, as the shepherd secures a silly lamb from the wolf, which
he destines in due time to his own banquet. Oh my son, evil days are on




TH E MONASTERY.                            255
uts! A breach has been made in the walls of our sanctuary- thy brother
hath fallen from the faith. Such news brought my last secret intelligence
- Murray hath already spoken of rewarding his services with the hand of
Mary Avenel."
" Of Mary Avenel!" said the novice, tottering towards and grasping hold
of one of the carved pinnacles which adorned the proud battlement.
"Ay, of Mary Avenel, my son, who has also abjured the faith of her
fathers. Weep not, my Edward, weep not, my beloved son! or weep for
their apostasy, and not for their union-Bless God, who hath called thee to
himself, out of the tents of wickedness; but for the grace of Our Lady and
Saint Benedict, thou also hadst been a castaway."
"I endeavour, my father," said Edward, "I endeavour to forget; but what
I would now blot from my memory has been the thought of all my former
life-Murray dare not forward a match so unequal in birth."
"He dares do what suits his purpose-The Castle of Avenel is strong, and
needs a good castellan, devoted to his service; as for the difference of their'birth, he will mind it no more than he would mind defacing the natural
regularity of the ground, were it necessary he should erect upon it military
lines and intrenchments. But do not droop for that-awaken thy soul
within thee, my son. Think you part with a vain vision, an idle dream,
nursed in solitude and inaction.-I weep not, yet what am I now like to
lose? —Look at these towers, where saints dwelt, and where heroes have
been buried-Think that I, so briefly called to preside over the pious flock,
which has dwelt here since the first light of Christianity, may be this day
written down the last father of this holy community-Come, let us descend,
and meet our fate. I see them approach near to the village."
The Abbot descended, the novice cast a glance around him; yet the
sense of the danger impending over the stately structure, with which he
was now united, was unable to banish the recollection of Mary Avenel." HIs brother's bride!" he pulled the cowl over his face, and followed his
Superior.
The whole bells of the Abbey now added their peal to the death-toll of the
largest which had so long sounded. The monks wept and prayed as they
got themselves into the order of their procession for the last time, as seemed
but too probable.
" It is well our Father Boniface hath retired to the inland," said Father
Philip; " he could never have put over this day-it would have broken his
heart 1"
"God be with the soul of Abbot Ingelram!" said old Father Nicholas,
"there were no such doings in his days.  They say we are to be put forth
of the cloisters; and how I am to live any where else than where I have
lived for these seventy years, I wot not-the best is, that I have not long to
live any where."
A few moments after this the great gate of the Abbey was flung open,
and the procession moved slowly forward from beneath its huge and richlyadorned gateway. Cross and banner, pix and chalice, shrines containing
relics, and censers steaming with incense, preceded and were intermingled
with the long and solemn array of the brotherhood, in their long black
gowns and cowls, with their white scapularies hanging over them, the various officers of the convent each displaying his proper badge of office. In
the centre of the procession came the Abbot, surrounded and supported by
his chief assistants. He was dressed in his habit of high solemnity, and
appeared as much unconcerned as if he had been taking his usual part in.
some ordinary ceremony. After him came the inferior persons of the convent; the novices in their albs or white dresses, and the lay brethren distinguished by their beards, which were seldom worn by the Fathers. Women
and children, mixed with a few men, came in the rear, bewailing the apprehended desolation of their ancient sanctuary. They moved, however,




256                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
in order, and restrained the marks of their sorrow to a low wailing sound,
which rather mingled with than interrupted the measured-chant of the
monks.
In this order the procession entered the market-place of the village of
Kennaquhair, which was then, as now, distinguished by an ancient cross
of curious workmanship, the gift of some former monarch of Scotland. Close
by the cross, of much greater antiquity, and scarcely less honoured, was an
immensely large oak-tree, which perhaps had witnessed the worship of the
Druids, ere the stately Monastery to which it adjoined had raised its spires
in honour of the Christian faith.  Like the Bentang-tree of the African villages, or the Plaistow-oak mentioned in White's Natural History of Selborne, this tree was the rendezvous of the villagers, and regarded with
peculiar veneration; a feeling common to most nations, and which perhaps
may be traced up to the remote period when the patriarch feasted the angels
under the oak at Mamre.*
The monks formed themselves each in their due place around the cross,
while under the ruins of the aged tree crowded the old and the feeble, with
others who felt the common alarm. When they had thus arranged themselves, there was a deep and solemn pause.  The monks stilled their chant,
the lay populace hushed their lamentations, and all awaited in terror and
silence the arrival of those heretical forces, whom they had been so long
taught to regard with fear and trembling.
A distant trampling was at length heard, and the glance of spears was
seen to shine through the trees above the village. The sounds increased,
and became more thick, one close continuous rushing sound, in which the
tread of hoofs was mingled with the ringing of armour.  The horsemen
soon appeared at the principal entrance which leads into the irregular
square or market-place which forms the centre of the village. They entered
two by two, slowly, and in the greatest order.  The van continued to move
on, riding round the open space, until they had attained the utmost point,
and then turning their horses' heads to the street, stood fast; their companions followed in the same order, until the whole market-place was closely
surrounded with soldiers; and the files who followed, making the same manoeuvre, formed an inner line within those who had first arrived, until the
place was begirt with a quadruple file of horsemen closely drawn up.'There
was now a pause, of which the Abbot availed himself, by commanding the
brotherhood to raise the solemn chant De profundis clanmavi.  He looked
around the armed ranks, to see what impression the solemn sounds made on
them. All were silent, but the brows of some had an expression of contempt, and almost all the rest bore a look of indifference; their course had
been too long decided to permit past feelings of enthusiasm to be anew
awakened by a procession or by a hymn.
"Their hearts are hardened," said the Abbot to himself in dejection,
but not in despair; "it remains to see whether those of their leaders are
equally obdurate."
The leaders, in the meanwhile, were advancing slowly, and Murray, with
Morton, rode in deep conversation before a chosen band of their most distinguished followers, amongst whom came Halbert Glendinning.  But the
preacher Henry Warden, who, upon leaving the Monastery, had instantly
Joined them, was the only person admitted to their conference.
"You are determined, then," said Morton to Murray, "to  give the
heiress of Avenel, with all her pretensions, to this nameless and obscure
young man?"
"Hath not Warden told you," said Murray, "that they have been bred
together, and are lovers from their youth upward?"
"And that they are both," said Warden, "by means which may be
* 1; is scarcely necessary to say, that in Melrose, the prototype of Kennaquhair, no such sak over existed.




THIE MONASTE.RY.                                                  257
almost termed miraculous, rescued from the delusions of Rome, and brought
within the pale of the true church.  My residence at Glendearg hath madec
me well acquainted with these things.  Ill would it beseem my habit and
ny calling, to thrust myself into match-making and giving in marriage,
but worse were it in me to see your lordships do needless wrong to the
feelings which are proper to our nature, and which, being indulged honestly
and under the restraints of religion, become a pledge of domestic quiet
here, and future happiness in a better world.   I say, that you will do ill to
rend those ties asunder, and to give this maiden to the kinsman of Lord
Morton, though Lord Morton's kinsman he be."
"These are fair reasons, my Lord of Murray," said Morton, "why you
should refuse me so simple a boon as to bestow this silly damsel upon
young Bennygask. Speak out plainly, my lord; say you would rather see
the Castle of Avenel in the hands of one who owes his name and existence
solely to your favour, than in the power of a Douglas, and of my kinsman."
" My Lord of Morton," said Murray, " I have done nothing in this matter
which should aggrieve you. This young man Glendinning has done me
good service, and may do me more. My promise was in some degree
passed to him, and that while Julian Avenel was alive, when aught beside
the maiden's lily hand would have been hard to come by; whereas, you
never thought of such an alliance for your kinsman, till you saw Julian lie
dead yonder on the field, and knew his land to be a waif free to the first
who could seize it. Come, come, my lord, you do less than justice to your
gallant kinsman, in wishing him a bride bred up under the milk-pail; for
this girl is a peasant wench in all but the accident of birth. I thought
you had more deep respect for the honour of the Douglasses."
" The honour of the Douglasses is safe in my keeping," answered Morton,
haughtily; "that of other ancient families may suffer as well as the name
of Avenel, if rustics are to be matched with the blood of our ancient
barons."
" This is but idle talking," answered Lord Murray; "in times like these,
we must look to men and not to pedigrees. IHay was but a rustic before
the battle of Loncarty-the bloody yoke actually dragged the plough ere
it was emblazoned on a crest by the herald.  Times of action make princes
into peasants, and boors into barons. All families have sprung from one
mean man; and it is well if they have never degenerated from his virtue
who raised them first from obscurity."
" My Lord of Murray will please to except the house of Douglas," said
Morton, haughtily; " men have seen it in the tree, but never in the sapling
-have seen it in the stream, but never in the fountain.*    In the earliest of
* The late excellent and laborious antiquary, Mr. George Chalmers, has rebuked the vaunt of the Hcase
of Douglas, or ratler of Hurme of Godscroft, their historian, but with less than his wonted accuracy. In the
first volumneof his Caledonia, he quotes the passage in Godscroft for the purpose of confuting it.
l'he historian (of the Douglasses) cries out, " We donot- know them in the fountain, but in the stream;
not in the root, but in the stem; for we know not which is the mean man that did rise above the vulgar."
This assumption Mr. Chalmers conceives ill-timed, and alleges, that if the historian had attended nore to
research than to declamation, he might easily have seen the first meani man of this renowned family.'Ihis
hle alleges to fiave been one Theobaldos Flamimaticus, or Theobald the Fleming, to whom Arnold, Abbot,f
Kelso, between the year 1147 and ]160, granted certain lands on Douglas water, by a deed which Mr. Chalmers conceives to be the first link of the chain of title-deeds to Douglasdale.  Hence, he says, the family
must renounce their family domain, or acknowledge this obscure Fleming as their ancestor. TIheobald tle
Fleming, it is acknowledged, did not himself assume the name of Douglas;  but," says the' antiquary, "his
soi William, who inherited his estate, called himself, and was named by others, De Duglas;" and he refers
to the dleeds in which he is so designed. Mr. Chalmers' full argument may be found in the first volune of
his Caledonia, p. 579.
This proposition is one whicl a Scotsman will admit unwillingly, and only upon undeniable testimony: and
as it is liable to strong grounds of challenge, the present author, with all the respect to Mr. Chalmers wlich
his zealous and effectual researches merit, is not unwilling to take this opportunity to state some plausible
grounds for doubting that Theobaldus Flammaticus was either the father of the first William ilt Douglas, or
in the slightest degree connected with the Douglas family.
It must first be observed, that there is no reason whatever for concluding Theobaldus Flammaticus to be
the father of William de Douglas, except that they both held lands upon the small river of Douglas; and
that there are two strong presumptions to the contrary. For, first, the father being rnamled Fleming, there
seems no good reason why the son should have assumed a different designation: secondly, there does not
occur a single instance of the.name of Theobald during the long line of the Douglas pedigree, an omrission
sery unlikely to take place had the original father of the race been so called. These ale secondary con
VOL. V -17                                      w2




258                            WAVERLEY NOVELS.
our Scottish annals, the Black Douglas was powerful and distinguished as
now."
"I bend to the honours of the house of Douglas," said Murray, somewhat. ironically; "I am  conscious we  of the Royal House have little right
to compete with them in dignity-What though we have worn crowns and
carried sceptres for a few generations, if our genealogy moves no farther
back than to the humble. Alanus Dapifer!"*
Morton's cheek reddened as he was about to reply; but Henry Warden
availed himself of the liberty which  the  Protestant clergy long  possessed,
and exerted it to interrupt a discussion which was becoming too eager and
personal to be friendly.
"My lords," he said, "I must be bold in discharging the duty of my
Master.   It is a shame and scandal to  hear two nobles, whose hands have
been so forward in the work of reformation, fall into discord about such
vain follies as now  occupy your thoughts.   Bethink you how  long you have
thought with  one  mind, seen with  one  eye, heard with one ear, confirmed
by  your union  the  congregation  of  the  Church, appalled  by  your joint
authority the congregation of Anti-Christ; and will you now fall into discord, about an old decayed castle and a few barren hills, about the loves
and likings of an humble spearman, and a damsel bred in the same obscurity, or about the still vainer questions of idle genealogy?"
"The good man hath spoken right, noble Douglas," said Murray, reaching him his hand, " our union is too essential to the good cause to be broken
off upon such idle  terms of dissension.   I am  fixed to  gratify Glendinning
in this matter-my promise is passed.  The wars, in which I have had my
share, have made many a family miserable; I will at least try if I may not
make one happy. There are maids and manors enow in Scotland.    I promise you, my noble ally, that young Bennygask shall be richly wived."
" My lord," said Warden, " you speak nobly, and like a Christian.  Alas!
this is a land of hatred and bloodshed-let us not chase from  thence the few
traces that remain of gentle and domestic love. -And be not too eager for
wealth to thy noble kinsman, my Lord of Morton, seeing contentment in
the marriage state no way depends on it."
"If you  allude to  my family misfortune," said Morton, whose Countess,
wedded by him for her estate and honours, was insane in her mind, "the
habit you wear, and  the  liberty, or rather license, of your profession, protect you from  my resentment."
" Alas! my lord," replied Warden, "how  quick and sensitive is our selflove!  When pressing  forward in our high calling, we point out the errors
of the Sovereign, who  praises  our boldness  more  than  the  noble Morton?
But touch we upon his own sore, which most needs lancing, and he shrinks
from the faithful chirurgeon in fear and impatient anger I"
siderations indeed; but they are important, in so far as they exclude any support of Mr. Chalmers' system,
except from the point which he has rather assumed than proved, nlamely, that the lands granted to Theobald
the Fleming were the same which were granted to William de Douglas, and which constituted the origina.
domain of which we find this powerful family lords.
Now, it happens, singularly enoulgh, that the lands granted by the Abbot of Kelso to Theobaldus Fk-r..
maticus are not the same of which William de Douglas was in possession. Nay, it would appear, from comparing the charter granted to'Ilheobaldus Flaniraticus, that, though situated on the water of Douglas, they
never made a part of the harony of that name, and therefore cannot be the same with those held by William d(e Douglas in the succeeding generation. But if Willian  de Douglas did not succeed Theobaldus
Fiamnmaticus, there is no nlore reason for holding these two persons to be father and son than if they hid
lived in different provinces; and we are still as far friom having discovered the first mean man of the
Douglas family as Hume of Godscroft was in the 16th century. We leave the question to antiquaries and
genealogists.
* To atone to the memory of the learned and indefatigable Chalmers for having ventured to impeach his
genealogical proposition concerning the descent of the Douglasses, we are bound to render him our.grateful
thanks for the felicitous light which he has thrown on that of the House of Stewart, still more important
to Scottish history.
The acute pen of Lord Hailes, which, like the spear of Tthuriel, conjured so many shadows from Scottish
history, had dismissed among the rest those of Banquo and Fleance, the rejection of which fables left the
illustrious family of Stewart without an ancestor beyond Walter the son of Allan, who is alluded to In the
text. The researches of our late learned antiquary detected in this Walter, the descendant of Allan, the
son of Flaald, who obtained fromn William the Conqueror the Castle of Oswestry in Shropshire, and was the
father of asu illustrious line of Elnglish nobles, by his first son, William, and by his second son, Walter, the
progenitor of the royal family of Stewart.




-T   E  MONA S T E RY.                      259
"Enougl (f this, good and reverend sir," said Murray; "you transgress
the prudence yourself recommended even now.-We are now close upon the
village, and the proud Abbot is come forth at the head of his\ hive. Thou
hast pleaded well for him, Warden, otherwise I had taken this occasion to
pull down the nest, and chase away the-rooks."
"Nay, but do not so," said Warden; "this William Allan, whom they
call the Abbot Eustatius, is a man whose misfortunes would more prejudice
our cause than his prosperity. You cannot inflict more than he will endure;
and the more that he is made to bear, the higher will be the influence of his
talents and his courage. In his conventual throne he will be but coldly
looked on - disliked, it may be, and envied. But turn his crucifix of gold
into a crucifix of wood -let him travel through the land, an oppressed and
impoverished man, and his patience, his eloquence, and learning, will win
more hearts from the good cause, than all the mitred abbots of Scotland
have been able to make prey of during the last hundred years."
"Tush! tush! man," said Morton, "the revenues of the Halidome will
bring more men, spears, and horses, into the field in one day, than his
preaching in a whole lifetime. These are not the days of Peter the Hermit, when monks could march armies from England to Jerusalem; but gold
and good deeds will still do as much or more than ever. Had Julian Avenel
had but a score or two more men this morning, Sir John Foster had not
missed a worse welcome. I say, confiscating the monk's revenues is drawing his fang-teeth."
" We will surely lay him under contribution," said Murray; "and, moreover, if he desires to remain in his Abbey, he will do well to produce Piercie
Shafton."
As he thus spoke, they entered the market-place, distinguished by their
complete armour and their lofty plumes, as well as by the number of followers bearing their colours and badges. Both these powerful nobles, but
more especially Murray, so nearly allied to the crown, had at that time a
retinue and household not much inferior to that of Scottish royalty. As
they advanced into the market-place, a pursuivant, pressing forward from
their train, addressed the monks in these words:-" The Abbot of Sainb
Mary's is commanded to appear before the Earl of Murray."
" The Abbot of Saint Mary's," said Eustace, " is, in the patrimony of his
Convent, superior to every temporal. lord. Let the Earl of Murray, if he
seeks him, come himself to his presence."
On receiving this answer, Murray smiled scornfully, and, dismounting
from his.lofty saddle, he advanced, accompanied by Morton, and followed
by others, to the body of monks assembled around the cross. There was an
appearance of shrinking among them at the approach of the heretic lord,
so dreaded and so powerful. But the Abbot, casting on them a glance of
rebuke and encouragement, stepped forth from their ranks like a courageous
leader, when he sees that his personal valour must be displayed to revive
the drooping courage of his followers. "Lord James Stewart," he said,
" er Earl of Murray, if that be thy title, I, Eustatius, Abbot of Saint Mary's,
demand by what right you have filled our peaceful village, and surrounded
our brethren, with these bands of armed men? If hospitality is sought, we
have never refused it to courteous asking-if violence be meant against
peaceful churchmen, let us know at once the pretext and the object?" 
" Sir Abbot," said Murray, " your language would better have become
another age, and a presence inferior to ours. We come not here to reply to
your interrogations, but to demand of you why you have broken the peace,
collecting your vassals in arms, and cruvocating the Queen's lieges, whereby
many men have been slain, and much trouble, perchance breach of amity
with England, is likely to arise?"
"Lupus infabula," answered the Abbot, scornfully.  "The wolf accused
the sheep of muddying the stream when he drank in it above her  but it




260                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
served as a pretext for devouring her. Convocate the Queen's lieges! tI
did so to defend the Queen's land against foreigners. I did but my duty;
and I regret I had not the means to do it more effectually."
" And was it also a part of your duty to receive and harbour the Queen
of England's rebel and traitor; and to inflame a war betwixt England and
Scotland?" said Murray.
" In my younger days, my lord," answered the Abbot, with the same
intrepidity, "a war with England was no such dreaded matter; and not
merely a mitred abbot, bound by his rule to show hospitality and afford
sanctuary to all, but the poorest Scottish peasant, would have been ashamed
to have pleaded fear of England as the reason for shutting his door against
a persecuted exile. But in those olden days; the English seldom saw the
face of a Scottish nobleman, save through the bars of his visor."
"Monk!" said the Earl of Morton, sternly, "this insolence will little
avail thee; the days are gone by when Rome's priests were permitted to
brave noblemen with impunity. Give us up this Piercie Shafton, or by my
father's crest I wrll set thy Abbey in a bright flame 1"
" And if thou dost, Lord of Morton, its ruins will tumble above the tombs
of thine own ancestors. Be the issue as God wills, the Abbot of Saint
Mary's gives up no one whom he hath promised to protect."
" Abbot!' said Murray, " bethink thee ere we are driven to deal roughly
-the hands of these men," he said, pointing to the soldiers, "will make
wild work among shrines and cells, if we are compelled to undertake a
search for this Englishman."
" Ye shall not need," said a voice from the crowd; and, advancing gracefully before the Earls, the Euphuist flung from him the mantle in which he
was muffled.  "Via the cloud that shadowed Shafton!" said he; "behold,
my lords, the Knight of Wilverton, who spares you the guilt of violence
and sacrilege."
" I protest before God and man against any infraction of the privileges
of this house," said the Abbot, "by an attempt to impose violent hands
upon the person of this noble knight.  If there be yet spirit in a Scottish
Parliament, we will make you hear of this elsewhere, my lords!"
"Spare your threats," said Murray; "it may be, my purpose with Sir
Piercie Shafton is not such as thou dost suppose-Attach him, pursuivant,
as our prisoner, rescue or no rescue."
" I yield myself," said the Euphuist, "reserving my right to defy my
Lord of Murray and my Lord of Morton to single duel, even as one gentleman may demand satisfaction of another."
"You shall not want those who will answer your challenge, Sir Knight,"
replied Morton, "without aspiring to men above thine own degree."
"And where am I to find these superlative champions," said the English
knight, "whose blood runs more pure than that of Piercie Shafton?"
"Here is a flight for you, my lord!" said Murray.
" As ever was flown by a wild-goose," said Stawarth Bolton, who had
now approached to the front of the party.
" Who dared to say that word?" said the Euphuist, his face crimson with
rage.
" Tut! man," said Bolton, "make the best of it, thy mother's father was
but a tailor, old Overstitch of Holderness-Why, what! because thou art a
misproud bird, and despiseth thine own natural lineage, and rufflest in unpaid silks and velvets, and keepest company with gallants and cutters, must
we lose our memory for that?  Thy mother, Moll Overstitch, was the prettiest wench in those parts-she was wedded by.wild Shafton of Wilverton,
who men say, was akin to the Piercie on the wrong side of the blanket."
"Ielp the knight to some strong waters," said Morton; "he hath fallen
from such a height, that-he is stunned with the tumble."
In fact, Sir Piercie Shafton looked like a man stricken by a thunderbolt,,




THE M ONASTERY.                                            261
while, notwithstanding the seriousness of the scene hitherto, no one of those
present, not even  the Abbot himself, could  refrain  from  laughing  at the
rueful and mortified expression of his face.
"Laugh on," he said at length, "laugh  on, my masters,"  shrugging  his
shoulders; " it is not for me to be offended-yet would I know full fain from
that squire who is laughing with the loudest, how he had discovered this
unhappy blot in an otherwise spotless lineage, and for what purpose he hath
made it known?"
"Imake it known?" said Halbert Glendinning, in astonishment,-for to
him  this pathetic  appeal was made, -  "I never heard  the thing  till this
moment."
"Why, did not that old rude soldier learn it from  thee?  said the knight,
in increasing amazement.
" Not I, by Heaven 1"  said Bolton; "I never saw  the youth  in  my life
before."
"But you have seen him ere now, my worthy master," said Dame Glendinning, bursting in her turn from  the crowd.   " My son, this is Stawarth
Bolton, he to whom we owe life, and the means of preserving it - if he be
a prisoner, as seems most likely, use thine interest with these noble lords
to be kind to the widow's friend."
" What, my Dame of the Glen!" said Bolton, " thy brow is more withered,
as well as mine, since we met last, but thy tongue holds the touch better
than  my  arm.  This boy  of thine gave me the foil sorely  this morning.
The Brown Varlet has turned as stout a trooper as I prophesied; and where
is White Head?"
"Alas 1" said the mother, looking down, "Edward has taken orders, and
become a monk of this Abbey."
" A monk and a soldier! Evil trades both, my good dame. Better have
made one a good master fashioner, like old Overstitch, of Holderness. I
sighed when I envied you the two bonny children, but I sigh not now to call
either the monk or the soldier mine own. The soldier dies in the field, the
monk scarce lives in the cloister."
"My dearest mother," said Halbert, "where is Edward-can I not speak
with him?"
" IIe has just left us for the present," said Father Philip, " upon a message
from the Lord Abbot."
"And Mary, my dearest mother?" said Halbert.-Mary Avenel was not
far distant, and the three were soon withdrawn from  the crowd, to hear and
relate their various chances of fortune.
While the subordinate personages thus disposed of themselves, the Abbot
held  serious discussion with  the two Earls, and, partly  yielding  to  their
demands, partly defending  himself with  skill and  eloquence, was enabled
to make a composition for his Convent, which left it provisionally in no
worse situation than before.  The  Earls were  the  more  reluctant to  drive
matters to extremity, since  he protested, that if urged  beyond  what his
conscience would  comply  with, he would  throw  the whole  lands of the
Monastery into the Queen of Scotland's hands, to be disposed of at her
T*'he contrivance of provoking the irritable vanity of Sir Piercie Shafton, by presenting him with a bodkin, indicative of his descent from a tailor, is borrowed from a German romance, by the celebrated'lieck,
called )as Peter Manchern, i. e. The Dwarf Peter. I'lhe being who gives name to the tale, is the Burg-geist,
or castle spectre, of a German family, whoml he aids with his counsel, as he defends their castle by his
supernatural power. But the Dwarf Peter is so unfortunate an adviser, that all his counsels, though producing success in the immediate results, are in the issue attended with mishap and with guilt. The youthful
baron, the owner of the haunted castle, falls in love with a maiden, the daughter of a neighbouring'count, a
marf of great pride, who refuses him the hand of the young lady, on account of his own superiority of
descent. The lover, repulsed and affronted, returns to take counsel with the Dwarf Peter, how he may
silence the count, and obtain the victory in the argument, the next time they enter on the topic of pedigree.
The dwarf gives his patron or pupil a horse-shoe, instructing him to give it to the count when lie is next
giving himself superior airs on the subject of his family. It has the effect accordingly. The count, under-'
standing it as an allusion to a misalliance of one of his ancestors with the daughter of a blacksmith, is
thrown into a dreadful passion with the young lover, the consequences of which are the seduction of the
young lady, and the slaughter of her father.
If we suppose the dwarf to represent the corrupt part of human nature.-that "law in our nleibere
which wars against the law of our iinids,"-the work forms an ingenious allegory.




262                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
pleasure. This would not have answered the views of the Earls, who were
contented, for the time, with a moderate sacrifice of money and lands.
Matters being so far settled, the Abbot became anxious for the fate of Sir
Piercie Shafton, and implored mercy in his behalf.
"He is a coxcomb." he said, " my lords, but he is a generous, though a
vain fool; and it is my firm belief you have this day done him more pain
than if you had run a poniard into him."
"Run a needle into him you mean, Abbot," said the Earl of Morton;
"by mine honour, I thought this grandson of a fashioner of doublets was
descended from a crowned head at least!"
"I hold with the Abbot," said Murray; "there were little honour in
surrendering him to Elizabeth, but he shall be sent where he can do her no
injury. Our pursuivant and Bolton shall escort him to Dunbar, and ship
him off for Flanders. - But soft, here he comes, and leading a female, as I
think."
" Lords and others," said the English knight with great solemnity,
"make way for the Lady of Piercie Shafton - a secret which I listed not
to make known, till fate, which hath betrayed what I vainly strove to conceal, makes me less desirous to hide that which I now announce to you."
"It is Mysie Happer, the Miller's daughter, on my life!" said Tibb
Tacket, " I thought the pride of these Piercies would have a fa'."
"It is indeed the lovely Mysinda," said the knight, " whose merits
towards her devoted servant deserved higher rank than he had to bestow."
" I suspect, though," said Murray,'.' that we should not have heard of
the Miller's daughter being made a lady, had not the knight proved to be
the grandson of a tailor."
"My lord," said Piercie Shafton, "it is poor valour to strike him that
cannot smite again; and I hope you will consider what is due to a prisoner
by the law of arms, and say nothing more on this odious subject. When I
am once more mine own man, I will find a new road to dignity."
" Shape one, I presume," said the Earl of Morton.
"Nay, Douglas, you will drive him mad," said Murray; "besides, we
have other matter in hand-I must see Warden wed Glendinning with Mary
Avenel, and put him in possession of his wife's castle without delay. It
will be best done ere our forces leave these parts."
"And I," said the Miller, " have the like grist to grind; for I hope some
one of the good fathers will wed my wench with her gay bridegroom."
"It needs not," said Shafton; "the ceremonial hath been solemnly
performed."
" It will not be the worse of another bolting," said the Miller; " it is'always best to be sure, as I say when I chance to take multure twice from
the same meal-sack."
" Stave the miller off him," said Murray, " or he will worry him dead.
The Abbot, my lord, offers us the hospitality of the Convent; I move we
should repair hither, Sir Piercie and all of us. I must learn to know the
Maid of Avenel  to-morrow I must act as her father - All Scotland shall
see how Murray can reward a faithful servant."
Mary Avenel and her lover avoided meeting the Abbot, and took up their
temporary abode in a house of the village, where next day their hands were
united by the Protestant preacher in presence of the two Earls. On the
same day Piercie Shafton and his bride departed, under an escort which was
to conduct him to the sea-side, and see him embark for the Low Countries.
Early on the following morning the bands of the Earls were under march
to the Castle of Avenel, to invest the young bridegroom with the property
of his wife, which was surrendered to them without opposition.
But not without those omens which seemed to mark every remarkable
event which befell the fated family, did Mary take possession of the ancient
castle of her forefathers. The same warlike, form which had appeared more;




THE MONASTERY.                                  2463
than once at Glendearg, was seen by Tibb Tacket and Martin, who returned
with their young mistress to partake her altered fortunes. It glided before
the cavalcade as they advanced upon the long causeway, paused at each
drawbridge, and flourished its hand, as in triumph, as it disappeared under
the gloomy archway, which was surmounted by the insignia of the house
of Avenel. The two trusty servants made their vision only known to Dame
Glendinning, who, with much pride of heart, had accompanied her son to
see him take his rank among the barons of the land.' Oh, my dear bairn!"
she exclaimed, when she heard the tale, "the castle is a grand place to be
sure, but I wish ye dinna a' desire to be back in the quiet braes of Glendearg before the play be played out." But this natural reflection, springing
from maternal anxiety, was soon forgotten amid the busy and pleasing task
of examining and admiring the new habitation of her son.
While these affairs were passing, Edward had hidden himself and his
sorrows in the paternal Tower of Glendearg, where every object was full of
matter for bitter reflection. The Abbot's kindness had despatched him
thither upon pretence of placing some papers belonging to the Abbey in
safety and secrecy; but in reality to prevent his witnessing the triumph of
his brother. Through the deserted apartments, the scene of so many bitter
reflections, the unhappy youth stalked like a discontented ghost, conjuring
up around him at every step new subjects for sorrow and for self-torment.
Impatient, at length, of the state of irritation and agonized recollection in
which he found himself, he rushed out and walked hastily up the glen, as
if to shake off the load which hung upon his mind.  The sun was setting
when he reached the entrance of Corri-nan-shian, and the recollection of
what he had seen when he last visited that haunted ravine, burst on his
mind.  He was in a humour, however, rather to seek out danger than to
avoid it.
" I will face this mystic being," he said; " she foretold the fate which has
wrapt me in this dress,-I will know whether she has aught else to tell me
of a life which cannot but be miserable."
He failed not to see the White Spirit seated by her accustomed haunt, and
singing in her usual low and sweet tone. While she sung, she seemed to
look with sorrow on her golden zone, which was now diminished to the
fineness of a silken thread.'Fare thee well, thou Holly green,      "Farewell, Fountain! now not long
Thou shalt seldom now be seen,           Shalt thou murmur to my song,
With all thy glittering garlands bending,  While thy crystal bubbles glancing,
As to greet iny slow descending,        Keep the time in mystic dancing,
Startling the bewilder'd hind,          Rise and swell, are burst and lost,
Who sees thee wave without a wind.      Like mortal schemes by fortune crest.
"The knot of fate at length is tied,
The Churl is Lord, the Maid is bride.
Vainly did my magic sleight
Send the lover from her sight;
Wither bush, and perish well,
Fall'n is lofty Avenel!"
The vision seemed to weep while she sung; and the words impressed on
Edward a melancholy belief, that the alliance of Mary with his brother
might be fatal to them both.
Here terminates the First Part of the Benedictine's Manuscript.  I have
in vain endeavoured to ascertain the precise period of the story, as the dates
cannot be exactly reconciled with those of the most accredited histories.
But it is astonishing how careless the writers of Utopia are upon these
important subjects.  I observe that the learned Mr. Laurence Templeton,
in his late publication entitled IVANHOE, has not only blessed the bed:f




264                  WAVEiRLEY  NOVELS.
Edward the Confessor with an offspring unknown to history, with sundry
other solecisms of the same kind, but has inverted the order of nature, and
feasted his swine with acorns in the midst of summer. All that can be
alleged by the warmest admirer of this author amounts to this, -that the
circumstances objected to are just as true as the rest of the story; which
appears to me (more especially in the matter of the acorns) to be a very
imperfect defence, and that the author will do well to profit by Captain
Absolute's advice to his servant, and never tell him more lies than are
indispensably necessary.
htD Of THE MONASTBIR.








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TH  E  A-BBOT.
(265)








THE  ABBOT;
BEING  THE  SEQUEL TO  THE  MONASTERY.
INTRODUCTION -(1831.)
FROM what is said in the Introduction to the Monastery, it must necessarily be inferred, that the Author considered that romance as something very
like a failure. It is true, the booksellers did not complain of the sale, because, unless on very felicitous occasions, or on those which are equally the
reverse, literary popularity is not gained or lost by a single publication.
Leisure must be allowed for the tide both to flow and ebb. But I was conscious that, in my situation, not to advance was in some degree to recede,
and being naturally unwilling to think that the principle of decay lay in
myself, I was at least desirous to know of a certainty, whether the degree
of discountenance which I had incurred, was now owing to an ill-managed
story, or an ill-chosen subject.
I was never, I confess, one of those who are willing to suppose the brains
of an author to be a kind of milk, which will not stand above a single
creaming, and who are eternally harping to young authors to husband their
efforts, and to be chary of their reputation, lest it grow hackneyed in the
eyes of men. Perhaps I was, and have always been, the more indifferent
to the degree of estimation in which I might be held as an author, because
I did not put so high a value as many others upon what is termed literary
reputation in the abstract, or at least upon the species of popularity which
had fallen to my share; for though it were worse than affectation to deny
that my vanity was satisfied at my success in the department in which
chance had in some measure enlisted me, I was, nevertheless, far from
thinking that the novelist or romance-writer stands high in the ranks of
literature. But I spare the reader farther egotism on this subject, as I have
expressed my opinion very fully in the Introductory Epistle to the Fortunes
of Nigel, first edition; and, although it be composed in an imaginary
character, it is as sincere and candid as if it had been written "without my
gown and band."
In a word, when I considered myself as having been unsuccessful in the
Monastery, I was tempted to try whether I could not restore, even at the
risk of totally losing, my so-called reputation, by a new hazard- I looked
round my library, and could not but observe, that, from the time of Chaucer
to that of Byron, the most popular authors had been the most prolific.
Even the aristarch Johnson allowed that the quality of readiness and profusion had a merit in itself, independent of the intrinsic value of the composition. Talking of Churchill, I believe,- who had little merit in his
prejudiced eyes, he allowed him that of fertility, with some such qualification as this, " A crab-apple can bear but crabs after all; but there is a great
(267)




268                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
difference in favour of that which bears a large quantity of fruit, however
indifferent, and that which produces only a few."
Looking more attentively at the patriarchs of literature, whose career was
as long as it was brilliant, I thought I perceived that in the busy and prolonged course of exertion, there were no doubt occasional failures, but that
still those who were favourites of their age triumphed over these miscarriages. By the new efforts which they made, their errors were obliterated,
they became identified with the literature of their country, and after having
long received law from the critics, came in some degree to impose it. And
when such a writer was at length called from the scene, his death first made
the public sensible what a large share he had occupied in their attention.
1 recollected a passage in Grimm's Correspondence, that while the unexhausted Voltaire sent forth tract after tract to the very close of a long life,
the first impression made by each as it appeared, was, that it was inferior
to its predecessors; an opinion adopted from the general idea that the Patriarch of Ferney must at last find the point from which he was to decline.
But the opinion of the public finally ranked in succession the last of Voltaire's Essays on the same footing with those which had formerly charmed
the French nation. The inference from this and similar facts seemed to me
to be, that new works were often judged of by the public, not so much
from their own intrinsic merit, as from  extrinsic ideas which readers had
previously formed with regard to them, and over which a writer might hope
to triumph by patience and by exertion.  There is risk in the attempt;
"If he fall in, good night, or sink or swim."
But this is a chance incident to every literary attempt, and by which men
of a sanguine temper are little moved.
I may illustrate what I mean, by the feelings of most men in travelling.
If we have found any stage particularly tedious, or in an especial degree
interesting, particularly short, or much longer than we expected, our imaginations are so apt to exaggerate the original impression, that, on repeating
the journey, we usually find that we have considerably over-rated the predominating quality, and the road appears to be duller or more pleasant,
shorter or more tedious, than what we expected, and, consequently, than
what is actually the case.  It requires a third or fourth journey to enable
us to form an accurate judgment of its beauty, its length, or its other attributes.
In the same manner, the public, judging of a new work, which it receives
perhaps with little expectation, if surprised into applause, becomes very often
ecstatic, gives a great deal more approbation than is due, and elevates the
child of its immediate favour to a rank which, as it affects the author, it is
equally difficult to keep, and painful to lose. If, on this occasion, the author
trembles at the height to which he is raised, and becomes afraid of the
shadow of his own renown, he may indeed retire from the lottery with the
prize which he has drawn, but, in future ages, his honour will be only in
proportion to his labours.  If, on the contrary, he rushes again into the
lists, he is sure to be judged with severity proportioned to the former favour
of the public. If he be daunted by a bad reception on this second occasion,
he may again become a stranger to the arena. If, on the contrary, he can
keep his ground, and stand the shuttlecock's fate, of being struck up and
down, he will probably, at length, hold with some certainty the level in
public opinion which he may be found to deserve; and he may perhaps
boast of arresting the geneial attention, in the same manner as the Bachelor
Samson Carrasco, of fixing the weathercock La Giralda of Seville for weeks,
months, or years, that is, for as long as the wind shall uniformly blow from
one quarter. To this degree of popularity the author had the hardihood to
aspire, while, in order to attain it, he assumed the daring resolution to keep
himself in the view of the public by frequent appearances before them.




INTRODUCTION TO THE ABBOT.                             269
It must be added, that the author's incognito gave him greater courage to
renew his attempts to please the public, and an advantage similar to that
which Jack the Giant-killer received from his coat of darkness. In sending
the Abbot forth so soon after the Monastery, he had used the well-known
practice recommended by Bassanio:"In my school days, when I had lost one shaft,
I shot another of the self-sane flight,
The self-same way, with more advised watch,
To find the other forth."
And, to continue the simile, his shafts, like those of the lesser Ajax, were
discharged more readily that the archer was as inaccessible to criticism,
personally speaking, as the Grecian archer under his brother's sevenfold
shield.
Should the reader desire to know upon what principles the Abbot was
expected to amend the fortune of the Monastery, I have first to request his
attention to the Introductory Epistle addressed to the imaginary Captain
Clutterbuck; a mode by which, like his predecessors in this walk of fiction,
the real author makes one of his dramatis personce the means of communicating his own sentiments to the public, somewhat more artificially than by
a direct address to the readers. A pleasing French writer of fairy tales,
Monsieur Pajon, author of the History of Prince Soly, has set a diverting
example of the same machinery, where he introduces the presiding Genius
of the land of Romance conversing with one of the personages of the tale.
In this Introductory Epistle, the author communicates, in confidence, to
Captain Clutterbuck, his sense that the White Lady had not met the taste
of the times, and his reason for withdrawing her from  the scene. The
author did not deem it equally necessary to be candid respecting another
alteration. The Monastery was designed, at first, to have contained some
supernatural agency, arising out of the fact, that Melrose had been the place
of deposit of the great Robert Bruce's heart. The writer shrunk, however,
from filling up, in this particular, the sketch as it was originally traced;
nor did he venture to resume, in continuation, the subject which he had left
unattempted in the original work. Thus, the incident of the discovery of
the heart, which occupies the greater part of the Introduction to the Monastery, is a mystery unnecessarily introduced, and which remains at last very
imperfectly explained. In this particular, I was happy to shroud myself
by the example of the author of " Caleb Williams," who never condescends
to inform us of the actual contents of that Iron Chest which makes such a
figure in his interesting work, and gives the name to Mr. Colman's drama.
The public had some claim  to inquire into this matter, but it seemed
indifferent policy in the author to give the explanation.  For, whatever
praise may be due to the ingenuity which brings to a general combination
all the loose threads of a narrative, like the knitter at the finishing of her
stocking, I am greatly deceived if in many cases a superior advantage is
not attained, by the air of realitywhich the deficiency of explanation attaches
to a work written on a different system. In life itself, many things befall
every mortal, of which the individual never knows the real cause or origin;
and were we to point out the most marked distinction between a real and a
fictitious narrative, we would say, that the former in reference to the remote
causes of the events it relates, is obscure, doubtful, and mysterious; whereas,
in the latter case, it is a part of the author's duty to afford satisfactory
details upon the causes of the separate events he has recorded, and, in a
word, to account for every thing. The reader, like Mungo in the Padlock,
will not be satisfied with hearing what he is not made fully to comprehend.
I omitted, therefore, in the Introduction to the Abbot, any attempt to
explain the previous story, or to apologize for unintelligibility.
Neither would it have been prudent to have endeavoured to proclaim, in
the Introduction to the Abbot, the real spring, by which I hoped it might
x2




270                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
attract a greater degree of interest than its immediate predecessor. A taking
title, or the announcement of a popular subject, is a recipe for success much
in favour with booksellers, but which authors will not always find efficacious. The cause is worth a moment's examination.
There occur in every country some peculiar historical characters, which
are, like a spell or charm, sovereign to excite curiosity and attract attention,
since every one in the slightest degree interested in the land which they
belong to, has heard much of them, and longs to hear more. A tale turning
on the fortunes of Alfred or Elizabeth in England, or of Wallace or Bruce
in Scotland, is sure by the very announcement to excite public curiosity to
a considerable degree, and ensure the publisher's being relieved of the
greater part of an impression,. even before the contents of the work are
known.  This is of the last importance to the bookseller, who is at once, to
use a technical phrase, " brought home," all his outlay being repaid. But
it is a different case with the author, since it cannot be denied that we are
apt to feel least satisfied with the works of which we have been induced, by
titles and laudatory advertisements, to entertain exaggerated expectations.
The intention of the work has been anticipated, and misconceived or misrepresented, and although the difficulty of executing the work again reminds
us of Hotspur's task of "o'er-walking a current roaring loud," yet the
adventurer must look for more ridicule if he fails, than applause if he executes, his undertaking.
Notwithstanding a risk, which should make authors pause ere they adopt
a theme which, exciting general interest and curiosity, is often the preparative for disappointment, yet it would be an injudicious regulation which
should deter the poet or painter from attempting to introduce historical portraits, merely from  the difficulty of executing the task in a satisfactory
manner.  Something must be trusted to the generous impulse, which often
thrusts an artist upon feats of which he knows the difficulty, while he trusts
courage and exertion may afford the means of surmounting it.
It is especially when he is sensible of losing ground with the public, that
an author may be justified in using with address, such selection of subject
or title as is most likely to procure a rehearing. It was with these feelings
of hope and apprehension, that I venture to awaken, in a work of fiction,
the memory of Queen Mary, so interesting by her wit, her beauty, her
misfortunes, and the mystery which still does, and probably always will,
overhang her history. In doing so, I was aware that failure would be a
conclusive disaster, so that my task was something like that of an enchanter
who raises a spirit over whom  he is uncertain of possessing an effectual
control; and I naturally paid attention to such principles of composition, as
I conceived were best suited to the historical' ovel.
Enough has been already said to explain the purpose of composing the
Abbot. The historical references are, as usual, explained in the notes. That
which relates to Queen Mary's escape from  Lochleven Castle, is a more
minute account of that romantic adventure, than is to be found in the histories of the period.
ABBOTSFORD,  }
l it January, 1831.|




INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE.                            271
INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE.
FROM THE AUTHOR OF "WAVERLEY," TO CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK, LATE OF HIS
MAJESTY'S      REGIMENT OF INFANTRY.
DEAR CAPTAIN:
I AM sorry to observe, by your last favour, that you disapprove of the
numerous retrenchments and alterations which I have been under the necessity of making on the Manuscript of your friend, the Benedictine, and I
willingly make you the medium of apology to many, who have honoured
me more than I deserve..
I admit that my retrenchments have been numerous, and leave gaps in the
story, which, in your original manuscript, would have run well-nigh to a
fourth volume, as my printer assures me. I am sensible, besides, that, in
consequence of the liberty of curtailment you have allowed me, some parts
of the story have been huddled up without the necessary details.' But, after
all, it is better that the travellers should have to step over a ditch, than to
wade through a morass-that the reader should have to suppose what may
easily be inferred, than be obliged to creep through pages of dull explanation. I have struck out, for example, the whole machinery of the White
Lady, and the poetry by which it is so ably supported, in the original manuscript. But you must allow that the public taste gives little encouragement
to those legendary superstitions, which formed alternately the delight and
the terror of our predecessors. In like manner, much is omitted illustrative
of the impulse of enthusiasm  in favour of the ancient religion in Mother
Magdalen and the Abbot. But we do not feel deep sympathy at this period
with what was once the most powerful and animating principle in Europe,
with the exception of that of the Reformation, by which it was successfully
opposed.
You rightly observe, that these retrenchments have rendered the title nbT
longer applicable to the subject, and that some other would have been more
suitable to the Work, in its present state, than that of THE ABBOT, who
made so much greater figure in the original, and for whom your friend, the
Benedictine, seems to have inspired you with a sympathetic respect. I must
plead guilty to this accusation, observing, at the same time, in manner of
extenuation, that though the objection might have been easily removed, by
giving a new title to the Work, yet, in doing so, I should have destroyed the
necessary cohesion between the present history, and its predecessor THE
MONASTERY, which I was unwilling to do, as the period, and several of the
personages, were the same.
After all, my good friend, it is of little consequence what the work is
called, or on what interest it turns, provided it catches the public attention;
for the quality of the wine (could we but insure it) may, according to the
old proverb, render the bush unnecessary, or of little consequence.
I congratulate you upon your having found it consistent with prudence
to establish your Tilbury, and approve of the colour, and of your boy's
livery, (subdued green and pink.)-As you talk of completing your descriptive poem on the "Ruins of Kennaquhair, with notes by an Antiquary," I
hope you have procured a steady horse.-I remain, with compliments to all
friends, dear Captain, very much
Yours, &c. &c. &c.
THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEF.




THE ABBOT.
U gptar tr    t first.
Domum mansit —lanam fect.
Ancient Ronian Epitaph.
She keepit close the hous, and birlit at the quhele.
GAWAIN DOUGLAS.
THE time which passes over our heads so imperceptibly, makes the same
gradual change in habits, manners, and character, as in personal appearance. At the revolution of every five years we find ourselves another, and
yet the same-there is a change of views, and no less of the light in which
we regard them; a change of motives as well as of actions.  Nearly twice
that space had glided away over the head of Halbert Glendinning and his
lady, betwixt the period of our former narrative, in which they played a
distinguished part, and the date at which our present tale commences.
Two circumstances only had imbittered their union, which was otherwise
as happy as mutual affection could render it. The first of these was indeed
the common calamity of Scotland, being the distracted state of that unhappy
country, where every man's sword was directed against his neighbour's
bosom. Glendinning had proved what Murray expected of him, a steady
friend, strong in battle, and wise in counsel, adhering to him, from motives
of gratitude, in situations where by his own unbiassed will he would either
have stood neuter, or have joined the opposite party. Hence, when danger
was -near-and it was seldom far distant-Sir Halbert Glendinning, for he
now bore the rank of knighthood, was perpetually summoned to attend his
patron on distant expeditions, or on perilous enterprises, or to assist him
with his counsel in the doubtful intrigues of a halfbarbarous court. He
was thus frequently, and for a long space, absent from his castle and from
his lady; and to this ground of regret we must add, that their union had
not been blessed with children, to occupy the attention of the Lady of Avenel, while she was thus deprived of her husband's domestic society.
On such occasions she lived almost entirely secluded from  the world,
within the walls of her paternal mansion. Visiting amongst neighbors was
a matter entirely out of the question, unless on occasions of solemn festival,
and then it was chiefly confined to near kindred. Of these the Lady of
Avenel had none who survived, and the dames of the neighbouring barons
affected to regard her less as the heiress of the house of Avenel than as the
wife of a peasant, the son of a church-vassal, raised up to mushroom eminence by the capricious favour of Murray.
The pride of ancestry, which rankled in the bosom of the ancient gentry,
was more openly expressed by their ladies, and was, moreover, imbittered
not a little by the political feuds of the time, for most of the Southern chiefs
were friends to the authority of the Queen, and very jealous of the power of
Murray.  The Castle of Avenel was, therefore, on all these accounts, as
(272)




THE  ABBOT.                              273
melancholy and solitary a residence for its lady as could well be imagined.
Still it had the essential recommendation of great security. The reader is
already aware that the fortress was built upon an islet on a small lake, and
was only accessible by a causeway, intersected by a double ditch, defended
by two draw-bridges, so that without artillery, it might in those days be
considered as impregnable.  It was only necessary, therefore, to secure
against surprise, and the service of six able men within the castle was sufficient for that purpose.  If more serious danger threatened, an ample
garrison was supplied by the male inhabitants of a little hamlet, which,
under the auspices of Halbert Glendinning, had arisen on a small piece of
level ground, betwixt the lake and the hill, nearly adjoining to the spot
where the causeway joined the mainland.  The Lord of Avenel had found
it an easy matter to procure inhabitants, as he was not only a kind and
beneficent overlord, but well qualified, both by his experience in arms, his
high character for wisdom and integrity, and his favour with the powerful
Earl of Murray, to protect and defend those who dwelt under his banner.
In leaving his castle for any length of time, he had, therefore, the consolation to reflect, that this village afforded, on the slightest notice, a band of
thirty stout men, which was more than sufficient for its defence; while the
families of the villagers, as was usual on such occasions, fled to the recesses
of the mountains, drove their cattle to the same places of shelter, and left
the enemy to work their will on their miserable cottages.
One guest only resided generally, if not constantly, at the Castle of Avenel.
This was Henry Warden, who now felt himself less able for the stormy task
imposed on the reforming clergy; and having by his zeal given personal
offence to many of the leading nobles and chiefs, did not consider himself as
perfectly safe, unless when within the walls of the strong mansion of some
assured friend. He ceased not, however, to serve his cause as eagerly with
his pen, as he had formerly done with his tongue, and had engaged in a
furious and acrimonious contest, concerning the sacrifice of the mass, as it
was termed, with the Abbot Eustatius, formerly the Sub-Prior of Kennaquhair.  Answers, replies, duplies, triplies, quadruplies, followed thick upon
each other, and displayed, as is not unusual in controversy, fully as much
zeal as Christian charity. The disputation very soon became as celebrated
as that of John Knox and the Abbot of Crosraguel, raged nearly as fiercely,
and, for aught I know, the publications to which it gave rise may be as
recious in the eyes of bibliographers.*  But the engrossing nature of his'cupation rendered the theologian not the most interesting companion for
a solitary female; and his grave, stern, and absorbed deportment, which
seldom  showed any interest, except in that which concerned his religious
profession, made his presence rather add to than diminish the gloom which
hung over the Castle of Avenel.  To superintend the tasks of numerous
female domestics, was the principal part of the Lady's daily employment;
her spindle and distaff, her Bible, and a solitary walk upon the battlements
of the castle, or upon the causeway, or occasionally, but more seldom, upon
the banks of the little lake, consumed the rest of the day.  But so great
was the insecurity of the period, that when she ventured to extend her walk
beyond the hamlet, the warder on the watch-tower was directed to keep a
sharp look-out in every direction, and four or five men held themselves in
readiness to mount and sally forth from the castle on the slightest appearance of alarm.
Thus stood affairs at the castle, when, after an-absence of several weeks,
the Knight of Avenel, which was now the title most frequently given to Sir
Halbert Glendinning, was daily expected to return home.  Day after day,
however, passed away, and he returned not.  Letters in those days were
rarely written, and the Knight must have resorted to a secretary to express
The tracts which appeared in the Disputation between the Scottish Reformer and Quentin Jennedy
Abbot of Crosraguel, are among the scarcest in Scottish Bibliography. See M'Crie's Life of Knox, p. 268.
VOL. V.-18




2T4                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
his intentions in that manner; besides, intercourse of all kinds was precarious and unsafe, and no man cared to give any public intimation of the time
and direction of a journey, since, if his route were publicly known, it was
always likely he might in that case meet with more enemies than friends
upon the road. The precise day, therefore, of Sir Halbert's return, was not
fixed, but that which his lady's fond expectation had calculated upon in her
own mind had long since passed, and hope delayed began to make the heart
sick.
It was upon the evening of a sultry summer's day, when the sun was
half-sunk behind the distant western mountains of Liddesdale, that the Lady
took her solitary walk on the battlements of a range of buildings, which
formed the front of the castle; where a flat roof of flag-stones presented a
broad and convenient promenade.  The level surface of the lake, undisturbed except by the occasional dipping of a teal-duck, or coot, was gilded
with the beams of the setting luminary, and reflected, as if in a golden
mirror, the hills amongst which it lay embossed. The scene, otherwise so
lonely, was occasionally enlivened by the voices of the children in the village, which, softened by distance, reached the ear of the Lady, in her solitary walk; or by the distant call of the herdsman, as he guided his cattle
from the glen in which they had pastured all day, to place them in greater
security for the night, in the immediate vicinity of the village. The deep
lowing of the cows seemed to demand the attendance of the milk-maidens,
who, singing shrilly and merrily, strolled forth, each with her pail on her
head, to attend to the duty of the evening. The Lady of Avenel looked and
listened; the sounds which she heard reminded her of former days, when
her most important employment, as well as her greatest delight, was to
assist Dame Glendinning and Tibb Tackett in milking the cows at Glendearg.
The thought was fraught with melancholy.
" Why was I not," she said, " the peasant girl which in all men's eyes I
seemed to be?  Halbert and I had then spent our life peacefully in his
native glen, undisturbed by the phantoms either of fear or of ambition. His
greatest pride had then been to show the fairest herd in the Ilalidome; his
greatest danger to repel some pilfering snatcher from the Border; and the
utmost distance which would have divided us, would have been the chase
of some outlying deer. But, alas! what avails the blood which Halbert has
shed, and the dangers which he encounters, to support a name and rank,
dear to him because he has it from me, but which we shall never transmit
to our posterity! with me the name of Avenel must expire."
She sighed as the reflections arose, and, looking towards the shore of the
lake, her eye was attracted by a group of children of various ages, assenmbled to see a little ship, constructed by some village artist, perform its first
voyage on the water. It was launched amid the shouts of tiny voices and
the clapping of little hands, and shot bravely forth on its voyage with a
favouring wind, which promised to carry it to the other side of the lake.
Some of the bigger boys ran round to receive and secure it on the farther
shore, trying their speed against each other as they sprang like young fawns
along the shingly verge of the lake. The rest, for whom such a journey
seemed too arduous, remained watching the motions of the fairy vessel from
the spot where it had been launched.  The sight of their sports pressed on
the mind of the childless Lady of Avenel.
"Why are none of these prattlers mine?" she continued, pursuing the
tenor of her melancholy reflections.  "Their parents can scarce find them
the coarsest food- and I, who could nurse them  in plenty, I am doomed
never to hear a child call me mother!"
The thought sunk on her heart with a bitterness which resembled envy,
so deeply is the desire of offspring implanted in the female breast.  She
pressed her hands together as if she were wringing them  in the extremity
of her desolate feeling, as one whom Heaven had written childless. A large




THE ABBOT.                             275
stag-hound of the greyhound species approached at this moment, and
attracted perhaps by the gesture, licked her hands and pressed his large
head against them. He obtained the desired caresses in return, but still
the sad impression remained.
"Wolf," she said, as if the animal could have understood her complaints,
"thou art a noble and beautiful animal; but, alas! the love and affection
that I long to bestow, is of a quality higher than can fall tc thy share,
~though I love thee much."
And, as if she were apologizing to Wolf for withholding from him any
part of her regard, she caressed his proud head and crest, while, looking in
her eyes, he seemed to ask her what she wanted, or what he could do to
show his attachment. At' this moment a shriek of distress was heard on
the shore, from the playful group which had been lately so jovial. The
Lady looked, and saw the cause with great agony.
The little ship, the object of the children's delighted attention, had stuck
among some tufts of the plant which bears the water-lily, that marked a
shoal in the lake about an arrow-flight from the shore. A hardy little boy,
who had taken the lead in the race round the margin of the lake, did not
hesitate a moment to strip off his wylie-coat, plunge into the water, and
swim towards the object of their common solicitude.  The first movement
of the Lady was to call for help; but she observed that the boy swam
strongly and fearlessly, and as she saw that one or two villagers, who were
distant spectators of the incident, seemed to give themselves no uneasiness
on his account, she supposed that he was accustomed to the exercise, and
that there was no danger. But whether, in swimming, the boy had struck
his breast against a sunken rock, or whether he was suddenly taken with
cramp, or whether he had over-calculated his own strength, it so happened,
that when he had disembarrassed the little plaything from the flags in which
it was entangled, and sent it forward on its course, he had scarce swam a
few yards in his way to the shore, than he raised himself suddenly fiom the
water, and screamed aloud, clapping his hands at the same time with an
expression of fear and pain.
The Lady of Avenel, instantly taking the alarm, called hastily to the
attendants to get the boat ready. But this was an affair of some time. The
only boat permitted to be used on the lake, was moored within the second
cut which intersected the canal, and it was several minutes ere it could be
unmoored and got under way. Meantime, the Lady of Avenel, with agonizing anxiety, saw that the efforts that the poor boy made to keep himself
afloat, were now exchanged for a faint struggling, which would soon have
been over,-but for aid equally prompt and unhoped-for. Wolf, who, like
some of that large species of greyhound, was a practised water-dog, had
marked the object of her anxiety, and, quitting his mistress's side, had
sought the nearest point from which he could with safety plunge into the
lake. With the wonderful instinct which these noble animals have so often
displayed in the like circumstances, he swam straight to the spot where his
assistance was so much wanted, and seizing the child's under-dress in his
mouth, he not only kept him afloat, but towed him towards the causeway.
The boat having put off with a couple of men, met the dog half-way, and
relieved him of his burden. They landed on the causeway, close by the
gates of the castle, with their yet lifeless charge, and were there met by the
Lady of Avenel, attended by one or two of her maidens, eagerly waiting to
administer assistance to the sufferer.
-He was borne into the castle, deposited upon a bed, and every mode of
recovery resorted to, which the knowledge of the times, and the skill of
Henry Warden, who professed some medical science, could dictate. For
some time it was all in vain, and the Lady watched, with unspeakable earnestness, the pallid countenance of the beautiful child. He seemed about ten
years old. His dress was of the meanest sort, but his long curled hair, and



276                 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
the noble cast of his features, partook not of that poverty of appearance.
The proudest noble in Scotland might have been yet prouder could he have
called that child his heir. While, with breathless anxiety, the Lady of
Avenel gazed on his well-formed and expressive features, a slight shade of
colour returned gradually to the cheek; suspended animation became
restored by degrees, the child sighed deeply, opened his eyes, which to the
human countenance produces the effect of light upon the natural landscape,
stretched his arms towards the Lady, and muttered the word "Mother,"
that epithet, of all others, which is dearest to the female ear.
"God, madam," said the preacher, " has restored the child to your wishes;
it must be yours so to bring him up, that he may not one day wish that he
hlad perished in his innocence."
"It shall be my charge," said the Lady; and again throwing her arms
around the boy, she overwhelmed him with kisses and caresses, so much was
she agitated by the terror arising from the danger in which he had been
just placed, and by joy at his unexpected deliverance.
" But you are not my mother," said the boy, recovering his recollection,
and endeavouring, though faintly, to escape from the caresses of the Lady
of Avenel; " you are not my mother,-alas! I have no mother-only I have
dreamt that I had one."
"I will read the dream for you, my love," answered the Lady of Avenel;
"and I will be myself your mother. Surely God has heard my wishes,
and, in his own marvellous manner, hath sent me an object on which my
affections may expand themselves."  She looked towards Warden as she
spoke. The preacher hesitated what he should reply to a burst of passionate
feeling, which, perhaps, seemed to him more enthusiastic than the occasion
demanded. In the meanwhile, the large stag-hound, Wolf, which, dripping
wet as he was, had followed his mistress into the apartment, and had sat by
the bedside, a patient and quiet spectator of all the means used for resuscitation of the being whom  he had preserved, now became impatient of
remaining any longer unnoticed, and began to whine and fawn upon the
Lady with his great rough paws.
"Yes," she said,'" good Wolf, and you shall be remembered also for your
day's work; and I will think the more of you for having preserved the life
of a creature so beautiful."
But Wolf was not quite satisfied with the share of attention which he
thus attracted; he persisted in whining and pawing upon his mistress, his
caresses rendered still more troublesome by his long shaggy hair being so
much and thoroughly wetted, till she desired one of the domestics, with
whom  he was familiar, to call the animal out of the apartment. Wolf
resisted every invitation to this purpose, until his mistress positively commanded him to be gone, in an angry tone; when, turning towards the bed
on which the body still lay, half awake to sensation, half drowned in the
meanders of fluctuating delirium, he uttered a deep and savage growl,
curled up his nose and lips, showing his full range of white and sharpened
teeth, which might have matched those of an actual wolf, and then, turning
round, sullenly followed the domestic out of the apartment.
"It is singular," said the Lady, addressing Warden; " the animal is not
only so good-natured to all, but so particularly fond of children. What can
ail him at the little fellow whose life he has saved?"
" Dogs," replied the preacher, " are but too like the human race in their
foibles, though their instinct be less erring than the reason of poor mortal
man when relying upon his own unassisted powers. Jealousy, my good
lady, is a passion not unknown to them, and they often evince it, not only
with respect to the preferences which they see given by their masters to
individuals of their own species, but even when their rivals are children.
You have caressed that child much and eagerly, and the d-g considers
himself as a discarded favourite,"




THE AB'BOT.                            277
"It is a strange instinct," said the Lady; "and from the gravity with
which you mention it, my reverend friend, I would almost say that you
supposed this singular jealousy of my favourite Wolf, was not only well
founded, but justifiable. But perhaps you speak in jest?"
" I seldom jest," answered the preacher; " life was not lent to us to be
expended in that idle mirth which resembles the crackling of thorns under
the pot. I would only have you derive, if it so please you, this lesson from
what I have said, that the best of our feelings, when indulged to excess,
mIty give pain to others. There is but one in which we may indulge to the
utmost limit of vehemence of which our bosom is capable, secure that excess
cannot exist in the greatest intensity to which it can be excited-I mean the
love of our Maker."
"Surely," said the Lady of Avenel, "we are commanded by the same
authority to love our neighbour?"
"Ay, madam," said Warden, " but our love to God is to be unboundedwe are to love him with our whole heart, our whole soul, and our whole
strength. The love which the precept commands us to bear to our neighbour, has affixed to it a direct limit and qualification —we are to love our
neighbour as ourself; as it is elsewhere explained by the great commandment, that we must do unto him as we would that he should do unto us.
Iere there is a limit, and a bound, even to the most praiseworthy of our
affections, so far as they are turned upon sublunary and terrestrial objects.
We are to render to our neighbour, whatever be his rank or degree, that
corresponding portion of affection with which we could rationally expect
we should ourselves be regarded by those standing in the same relation to
us. Hence, neither husband nor wife, neither son nor daughter, neither
friend nor relation, are lawfully to be made the objects of our idolatry.
The Lord our God is a jealous God, and will not endure that we bestow on
the creature that extremity of devotion which He who made us demands as
his own share. I say to you, Lady, that even in the fairest, and purest, and
most honourable feelings of our nature, there is, that original taint of sin
which ought to make us pause and hesitate, ere we indulge them to excess."
"I understand not this, reverend sir," said the Lady; "nor do I guess
what I can have now said or done, to draw down on me an admonition
which has something a taste of reproof."
"Lady,". said Warden, "I crave your pardon, if I have urged aught
beyond the limits of my duty. But consider, whether in the sacred promise
to be not only a protectress, but a mother, to this poor child, your purpose
may meet the wishes of the noble knight your husband. The fondness
which you have lavished on the unfortunate, and, I own, most lovely child,
has met something like a reproof in the bearing of your household dog.Displease not your noble husband. Men, as well as animals, are jealous of
the affections of those they love."
"This is too much, reverend sir," said the Lady of Avenel, greatly
offended.  "You have been long our guest, and have received from the
Knight of Avenel and myself that honour and regard which your character
and profession so justly demand. But I am yet to learn that we have at
any time authorized your interference in our family arrangements, or placed
you as a judge of our conduct towards each other. I pray this may be
forborne in future."
"Ladv," replied the preacher, with the boldness peculiar to the clergy
of his persuasion at that time, " when you weary of my admonitions when
I see that my services are no longer acceptable to you, and the noble knight
your husband, I shall know that my Master wills me no'longer to abide
here; and, praying for a continuance of his best blessings on your ramily
I will then, were the season the depth of winter, and the hour midnight,
walk out on yonder waste, and travel forth through these wild mountains,
as lonely and unaided, though far more helpless, than when I first met your
IT




278                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
husband in the valley of Glendearg. But while I remain hero, I will not
see you err from the true path, no, not a hair's-breadth, without making the
old man's voice and remonstrance heard."
" Nay, but," said the Lady, who both loved and respected the good man,
though sometimes a little offended at what she conceived to be an exuberant
degree of zeal, "we will not part this way, my good friend.  Women are
quick and hasty in their feelings; but, believe nme, my wishes and my purposes towards this child are such as both my husband and you will approve
of."  The clergyman bowed, and retreated to his own apartment.
How steadfastly he fix'd his eyes on meHis dark eyes shining through forgotten tearsThen stretch'd his little arms, and call'd me mother!
What could I do? I took the bantling homeI could not tell the imp he had no mother.
COUNT BASIL.
WHEN Warden had left the apartment, the Lady of Avenel gave way to
the feelings of tenderness which the sight of the boy, his sudden danger,
and his recent escape, had inspired; and no longer awed by the sternness,
as she deemed it, of the preacher, heaped with caresses the lovely and
interesting child. He was now, in some measure, recovered from the consequences of his accident, and received passively, though not without wonder,
the tokens of kindness with which he was thus loaded. The face of the
lady was strange to him, and her dress different and far more sumptuous
than any he remembered. But the boy was naturally of an undaunted
temper; and indeed children are generally acute physiognomists, and not
only pleased by that which is beautiful in itself, but peculiarly quick in
distinguishing and replying to the attentions of those who really love them.
If they see a person in company, though a perfect stranger, who is by
nature fond of children, the little imps seem to discover it by a sort of freemasonry, while the awkward attempts of those who make advances to them
for the purpose of recommending themselves to the parents, usually fail in
attracting their reciprocal attention. The little boy, therefore, appeared in
some degree sensible of the lady's caresses, and it was with difficulty she
withdrew herself from his pillow, to afford him leisure for necessary repose.
"To whom  belongs our little rescued varlet?" was the first question
which the Lady of Avenel put to her handmaiden Lilias, when they had
retired to the hall.
"To an old woman in the hamlet," said Lilias, "who is even now come
so far as the porter's lodge to inquire concerning his safety. Is it your
pleasure that she be admitted?"
"Is it my pleasure?" said the Lady of Avenel, echoing the question with
a strong accent of displeasure and surprise; " can you make any doubt of
it?  What woman but must pity the agony of the mother, whose heart is
throbbing for the safety of a child so lovely!"
" Nay, but, madam," said Lilias, " this woman is too old to be the mother
of the child; I rather think she must be his grandmother, or some more
distant relation."
"Be she who she will, Lilias," replied the Lady, "she must have an
aching heart while the safety of a creature so lovely is uncertain. Go in'




THE  ABBOT.                            279
stantly and bring her hither. Besides, I would willingly learn something
concerning his birth."
Lilias left the hall, and presently afterwards returned, ushering in a tall
female very poorly dressed, yet with more pretension to decency and cleanliness than was usually combined with such coarse garments. The Lady
of Avenel knew her figure the instant she presented herself. It was the
fashion of the family, that upon every Sabbath, and on two evenings in the
week besides, Henry Warden preached or lectured in the chapel at the
castle. The extension of the Protestant faith was, upon principle, as well
as in good policy, a primary object with the Knight of Avenel. The inhabitants of the village were therefore invited to attend upon the instructions
of IIenry Warden, and many of them were speedily won to the doctrine
which their master and protector approved. These sermons, homilies, and
lectures, had made a great impression on the mind of the Abbot Eustace,
or Eustatius, and were a sufficient spur to the severity and sharpness of his
controversy with his old fellow-collegiate; and, ere Queen Mary was dethroned, and while the Catholics still had considerable authority in the
Border provinces, he more than once threatened to levy his vassals, and
assail and level with the earth that stronghold of heresy the Castle of
Avenel. But notwithstanding the Abbot's impotent resentment, and notwithstanding also the disinclination of the country to favour the new religion, Henry Warden proceeded without remission in his labours, and
made weekly converts from  the faith of Rome to that of the reformed
church. Amongst those who gave most earnest and constant attendance
on his ministry, was- the aged woman, whose form, tall, and otherwise too
remarkable to be forgotten, the Lady had of late observed frequently as
being conspicuous among the little audience. She had indeed more than
once desired to know who that stately-looking woman was, whose appearance was so much above the poverty of her vestments. But the reply had
always been, that she was an Englishwoman, who was tarrying-for a season
at the hamlet, and that no one knew more concerning her. She now asked
her after her name and birth.
"Magdalen Graeme is my name," said the woman; "I come of the
Grmmes of Heathergill, in Nicol Forest,* a people of ancient blood."
" And what make you," continued the Lady, " so far distant from your
home?"
"I have no home," said Magdalen Grseme, "it was burnt by your
Border-riders- my husband and my son were slain - there is not a drop's
blood left in the veins of any one which is of kin to mine."
" That is no uncommon fate in these wild times, and in this unsettled
land," said the Lady; " the English hands have been as deeply dyed in
our blood as ever those of Scotsmen have been in yours."
-"You have right to say it, Lady," answered Magdalen Grseme; "for
men tell of a time when this castle was not strong enough to save your
father's life, or to afford your mother and her infant a place of refuge.
And why ask ye me, then, wherefore I dwell not in mine own home, and
with mine own people?"
" It was indeed an idle question," answered the Lady, "where misery
so often makes wanderers; but wherefore take refuge in a hostile country?"
"My neighbours were Popish and mass-mongers," said the old woman;
"it has pleased Heaven to give me a clearer sight of the gospel, and I
have tarried here to enjoy the ministry of that worthy man Henry Warden,
who, to the praise and comfort of many, teacheth the Evangel in truth and
in sincerity."
"Are you poor?" again demanded the Lady of Avenel.
"You hear me ask alms of no one," answered the Englishwoman.
* A district of Cumberland, lying close to the Scottish Border.




280                  WAVER LEY  NOVELS.
Here there was a pause. The manner of the woman was, if not disrespectful, at least much less than gracious; and she appeared to give no
encouragement to farther communication. The Lady of Avenel renewed
the conversation on a different topic.
" You have heard of the danger in which your boy has been placed?"
" I have, Lady, and how by an especial providence he was rescued from
death. May Heaven make him thankful, and me!"
"What relation do you bear to him?"
"I am his grandmother, lady, if it so please you; the only relation he
hath left upon earth to take charge of him."
"The burden of his maintenance must necessarily be grievous to you in
your deserted situation?" pursued the Lady.
"I have complained of it to no one," said Magdalen Greme, with the
same unmoved, dry, and unconcerned tone of voice, in which she had
answered all the former questions.
"If," said the Lady of Avenel, "your grandchild could be received into
a noble family, would it not advantage both him and you?"
" Received into a noble family!" said the old woman, drawing herself up,
and bending her brows until her forehead was wrinkled into a frown of
unusual severity; "and for what purpose, I pray you? -to be my lady's
page, or my lord's jackman, to eat broken victuals, and contend with other
menials for the remnants of the master's meal?  Would you have him to
fan the flies from my lady's face while she sleeps, to carry her train while
she walks, to hand her trencher when she feeds, to ride before her on horseback, to walk after her on foot, to sing when she lists, and to be silent when
she bids? -a very weathercock, which, though furnished in appearance
with wings and plumage, cannot soar into the air-cannot fly from the
spot where it is perched, but receives all its impulse, and performs all its
revolutions, obedient to the changeful breath of a vain woman? When the
eagle of Helvellyn perches on the tower of Lanercost, and turns and changes
his place to show how the wind sits, Roland Grmme shall be what you would
make him.
The woman spoke with a rapidity and vehemence which seemed to have
in it a touch of insanity; and a sudden sense of the danger to which the
child must necessarily be exposed in the charge of such a keeper, increased
the Lady's desire to keep him in the castle if possible.
" You mistake me, dame," she said, addressing the old woman in a soothing manner; "I do not wish your boy to be in attendance on myself, but
upon the good knight my husband. Were he himself the son of a belted
earl, he could not better be trained to arms, and all that befits a gentleman,
than by the instructions and discipline of Sir Halbert Glendinning."
A y," answered the old woman, in the same style of bitter irony, "I
know the wages of that service; - a curse when the corslet is not sufficiently
brightened, - a blow when the girth is not tightly drawn, - to be beaten
because the hounds are at fault, -to be reviled because the foray is unsuo.
cessful, -to stain his hands for the master's bidding in the blood alike of
beast and of man, —to be a butcher of harmless deer, a murderer and
defacer of God's own image, not at his own pleasure, but at that of his lord,
-to live a brawling ruffian, and a common stabber- exposed to heat, to
cold, to want of food, to all the privations of an anchoret, not for the love
of God, but for the service of Satan, —to die by the gibbet, or in some
obscure skirmish, —to sleep out his brief life in carnal security, and to
a.wake in the eternal fire, which is never quenched."
"Nay," said the Lady of Avenel, " but to such unhallowed course of life
your grandson will not be here exposed. My husband is just and kind to
those who live under his banner; and you yourself well know, that youth
have here a strict as-well as a good preceptor in the person of our chaplain.'
The old woman appeared to pause.




THE ABBOT.                              281
"You have unmed," she said, "the only circumstance which can move
me. I must soon onward, the vision has said it —I must not tarry in the
same spot — I must on, -I must on, it is my weird. - Swear, then, that
you will protect the boy as if he were your own, until I return hither and
claim him, and I will consent for a space to part with him. But especially
swear, he shall not lack the instruction of the godly man who hath placed
the gospel-truth high above those idolatrous shavelings, the monks and
friars."
"Be satisfied, dame," said the Lady of Avenel; "the boy shall have as
much care as if he were born of my own blood. Will you see him now?"
"No," answered the old woman sternly; " to part is enough. I go forth
on my own mission. I will not soften my heart by useless tears and wailings, as one that is not called to a duty."
" Will you not accept of something to aid you in your pilgrimage?" said
the Lady of Avenel, putting into her hands two crowns of the sun.. The
old woman flung them down on the table.
" Am I of the race of Cain," she said, " proud Lady, that you offer me
gold in exchange for my own flesh and blood?"
" I had no such meaning," said the Lady, gently; " nor am I the proud
woman you term  me.  Alas! my own fortunes might have taught me
humility, even had it not been born with me."
The old woman seemed somewhat to relax her tone of severity.
"You are of gentle blood," she said, "else we had not parleyed thus
long together.  You are of gentle blood, and to such," she added, drawing
up her tall form as she spoke, "pride is as graceful as is the plume upon
the bonnet. But for these pieces of gold, lady, you must needs resume them.
I need not money. I am well provided; and I may not care for myself,
nor think how, or by whom, I shall be sustained. Farewell, and keep
your word. Cause your gates to be opened, and your bridges to'be lowered.
I will set forward this very night. When I come again, I will demand from
you a strict account, for I have left with you the jewel of my life! Sleep
will visit me but in snatches, food will not refresh me, rest will not restore
my strength, until I see Roland Grmeme. Once more, farewell." 
"Make your obeisance, dame," said Lilias to Magdalen Grmeme, as she
retired, " make your obeisance to her ladyship, and thank her for her goodness, as is but fitting and right."
The old woman turned short around on the officious waiting-maid. " Let
her make her obeisance to me then, and I will return it. Why should I
bend to her? -is it because her kirtle is of silk, and mine of blue lockeram?-Go to, my lady's waiting-woman.  Know that the rank of the man
rates that of the wife, and that she who marries a churl's son, were she a
king's daughter, is but a peasant's bride."
Lilias was about to reply in great indignation, but her mistress imposed
silence on her, and commanded that the old woman should be safely conducted to the mainland.
"Conduct her safe!" exclaimed the incensed waiting-woman, while Magdalen Graeme left the apartment; "I say, duck her in the loch, and then
we will see whether she is witch or not, as every body in the village of
Lochside will say and swear. I marvel your ladyship could bear so long
with her insolence." But the commands of the Lady were obeyed, and the
old dame, dismissed from the castle, was committed to her fortune. She
kept her word, and did not long abide in that place, leaving the hamlet on
the very night succeeding the interview, and wandering no one asked
whither. The Lady of Avenel inquired under what circumstances she had
appeared among them, but could only learn that she was believed to be
the widow of some man of consequence among the Grmmes who then
inhabited the Debateable Land, a name given to a certain portion of territory which was the frequent subject of dispute betwixt Scotland and EngY2




28-2                 WAVE RLEY NOVELS.
land -that she had suffered great wrong in some of the frequent forays by
which that unfortunate district was wasted, and had been driven from her
dwelling-place. She had arrived in the hamlet no one knew for what
purpose, and was held by some to be a witch, by others a zealous Protestant,
and by others again a Catholic devotee. Her language was mysterious,
and her manners repulsive; and all that could be collected from her conversation seemed to imply that she was under the influence either of a spell
or of a vow,    there was no saying which, since she talked as one who
acted under a powerful and external agency.
Such were the particulars which the Lady's inquiries were able to collect
concerning Magdalen Grgeme, being far too meagre and contradictory to
authorize any satisfactory deduction. In truth, the miseries of the time,
and the various turns of fate incidental to a frontier country, were perpetually chasing from their habitations those who had not the means of
defence or protection. These wanderers in the land were too often seen, to
excite much attention or sympathy. They received the cold relief which
was extorted by general feelings of humanity; a little excited in some
breasts, and perhaps rather chilled in others, by the recollection that they
who gave the charity to-day might themselves want it to-morrow. Magdalen Graeme, therefore, came and departed like a shadow from the neighbourhood of Avenel Castle.
The boy whom Providence, as she thought, had thus strangely placed
under her care, was at once established a favourite with the Lady of the
castle. How could it be otherwise?  He became the object of those affectionate feelings, which, finding formerly no object on which to expand themselves, had increased the gloom of the castle, and imbittered the solitude of
its mistress. To teach him reading and writing as far as her skill went, to
attend to his childish comforts, to watch his boyish sports, became the
Lady's favourite amusement. In her circumstances, where the ear only
heard the lowing of the cattle from the distant hills, or the heavy step of
the warder as he walked upon his post, or the half-envied laugh of her
maiden as she turned her wheel, the appearance of the blooming and
beautiful boy gave an interest which can hardly be conceived by those who
live amid gayer and busier scenes. Young Roland was to the Lady of
Avenel what the flower, which occupies the window of some solitary captive, is to the poor wight by whom it is nursed and cultivated —something
which at once excited and repaid her care; and in giving the boy her
affection, she felt, as it were, grateful to him for releasing her from the
state of dull apathy in which she had usually found herself during the
absence of Sir Halbert Glendinning.
But even the charms of this blooming favourite were unable to chase the
recurring apprehensions which arose from her husband's procrastinated
return. Soon after Roland Grinee became a resident at the castle, a
groom, despatched by Sir Halbert, brought tidings that business still
delayed the Knight at the Court of Holyrood. The more distant period
which the messenger had assigned for his master's arrival at length glided
away, summer melted into autumn, and autumn was about to give place to
winter, and yet he came not.




THE ABBOT.                               283
The waning harvest-moon shone broad and bright,
The warder's horn was heard at dead of night,
And while the portals wide were flung,
With trampling hoofs the rocky pavement rung.
LEYDEN.
"AND y u, too, would be a soldier, Roland?" said the Lady of Avenel
to her young charge, while, seated on a stone chair at one end of the
battlements, she saw the boy attempt, with a long stick, to mimic the
motions of the warder, as he alternately shouldered, or ported, or sloped
pike.
"Yes, Lady," said the boy,- for he was now familiar, and replied to her
questions with readiness and alacrity,-" a soldier will I be; for there ne'er
was gentleman but who belted him with the brand."
"Thou a gentleman!" said Lilias, who, as usual, was in attendance;
"such a gentleman as I would make of a bean-cod with a rusty knife."
"Nay, chide him  not, Lilias," said the Lady of Avenel, "for, beshrew
me, but I think he comes of gentle blood —see how it musters in his face
at your injurious reproof."
" Had I my will, madam," answered Lilias, " a good birchen wand should
make his colour muster to better purpose still."
"On my word, Lilias," said the Lady, "one would think you had received harm  from the poor boy- or is he so far on the frosty side of your
favour because he enjoys the sunny side of mine?"
"Over heavens forbode, my Lady!" answered Lilias; "I have lived too
long with gentles, I praise my stars for it, to fight with either follies or
fantasies, whether they relate to beast, bird, or boy."
Lilias was a favourite in her own class, a spoiled domestic, and often
accustomed to take more licence than her mistress was at all times willing
to encourage. But what did not please the Lady of Avenel, she did not
choose to hear, and thus it was on the present occasion. She resolved to
look more close and sharply after the boy, who had hitherto been committed
chiefly to the management of Lilias. He must, she thought, be born of
gentle blood; it were shame to think otherwise of a form so noble, and
features so fair; —the very wildness in which he occasionally indulged, his
contempt of danger, and impatience of restraint, had in them something
noble;-assuredly the child was born of high rank.  Such was her conclusion, and she acted upon it accordingly. The domestics around her, less
jealous, or less scrupulous than Lilias, acted as servants usually do, following the bias, and flattering, for their own purposes, the humour of the
Lady; and the boy soon took on him those airs of superiority, which the
sight of habitual deference seldom fails to inspire. It seemed, in truth, as
if to command were his natural sphere, so easily did he use himself to exact
and receive compliance with his humours.  The chaplain, indeed, might
have interposed to check the air of assumption which Roland Graeme so
readily indulged, and most probably would have willingly rendered him
that favour; but the necessity of adjusting with his brethren some disputed points of church discipline had withdrawn him for some time from
the castle, and detained him in a distant part of the kingdom.
Matters stood thus in the castle of Avenel, when a winded bugle sent its
shrill and prolonged notes from the shore of the lake, and was replied to
cheerily by the signal of the warder. The Lady of Avenel knew the
sounds of her husband, and rushed to the window of the apartment in
which she was sitting... A. band of about thirty spearmen, with a.penncau




284                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
displayed before them, winded along the indented shores of the lake, and
approached the causeway. A single horseman rode at the head of the
party, his bright arms catching a glance of the October sun as he moved
steadily along.'Even at that distance, the Lady recognized the lofty plume,
bearing the mingled colours of her own liveries and those of Glendonwyne,
blended with the holly-branch; and the firm seat and dignified demeanour
of the rider, joined to the stately motion of the dark-brown steed, sufficiently
announced Halbert Glendinning.
The Lady's first thought was that of rapturous joy at her husband's
return -her second was connected with a fear which had sometimes intruded itself, that he might not altogether approve the peculiar distinction
with which she had treated her orphan ward. In this fear there was implied a consciousness, that the favour she had shown him was excessive;
for Halbert Glendinning was at least as gentle and indulgent, as he was
firm and rational in the intercourse of his household; and to her in particular, his conduct had ever been most affectionately tender.
Yet she did fear, that, on the present occasion, her conduct might incur
Sir Halbert's censure; and hastily resolving that she would not mention
the anecdote of the boy until the next day, she ordered him to be withdrawn
from the apartment by Lilias.
" I will not go with Lilias, madam," answered the spoiled child, who had
more than once carried his point by perseverance, and who, like his betters,
delighted in the exercise of such authority, -"I will not go to Lilias's
gousty room- I will stay and see that brave warrior who comes riding so
gallantly along the drawbridge."
"You must not stay, Roland," said the Lady, more positively than she
usually spoke to her little favourite.
" I will," reiterated the boy, who had already felt his consequence, and
the probable chance of success.
" Y:l  will, Roland!" answered the Lady, " what manner of word is that?
I tell you, you must go."
" Will," answered the forward boy, "is a word for a man, and must is
no word for a lady."
" You are saucy, sirrah," said the Lady   " Lilias, take him with you
instantly."
"I always thought," said Lilias, smiling, as she seized the reluctant boy
by the arm, " that my young master must give place to my old one."
" And you, too, are malapert, mistress!" said the Lady; "hath the moon
changed, that ye all of you thus forget yourselves?"
Lilias made no reply, but led off the boy, who, too proud to offer un
availing resistance, darted at his benefactress a glance, which intimated
plainly, how willingly he would have defied her authority, had he possessed
the power to make good his point.
The Lady of Avenel was vexed to find how much this trifling circumstance had discomposed her, at the moment when she ought naturally to
have been entirely engrossed by her husband's return. But we do not
recover composure by the mere feeling that agitation is mistimed. The
glow of displeasure had not left the Lady's cheek, her ruffled deportment
was not yet entirely composed, when her husband, unhehneted, but still
wearing the rest of his arms, entered the apartment. His appearance
banished the thoughts of every thing else; che rushed to him, clasped his
iron-sheathed frame in her arms, and kissed his martial and manly face
with an affection which was at once evident and sincere. The warrior
returned her embrace and her caress with the same fondness; for the time
which had passed since their union had diminished its romantic ardour,
perhaps, but it had rather increased its rational tenderness, and Sir Halbert,
Giendinning's long and frequent absences from his castle had prevented;
affection from degenerating by habit into indifference,




T H E  ABBOT.                           285
When the first eager greetings were paid and received, the Lady gazed
fondly on her husband's face as she remarked, "You are altered, Halbert —
you have ridden hard and far to-day, or you have been ill?"
"I have been well, Mary," answered the Knight, " passing well have I
been; and a long ride is to me, thou well knowest, but a thing of constant
custom. Those who are born noble may slumber out their lives within the
walls of their castles and manor-houses; but he who hath achieved nobility
by his own deeds must ever be in the saddle, to show that he merits his
advancement."
While he spoke thus, the Lady gazed fondly on him, as if endeavouring
to read his inmost soul; for the tone in which he spoke was that of melancholy depression.
Sir Halbert Glendinning was the same, yet a different person from what
he had appeared in his early years. The fiery freedom of the aspiring
youth had given place to the steady and stern composure of the approved
soldier and skilful politician. There were deep traces of care on those
noble features, over which each emotion used formerly to pass, like light
clouds across a summer sky. That sky was now, not perhaps clouded, but
still and grave, like that of the sober autumn evening. The forehead was
higher and more bare than in early youth, and the locks which still clustered thick and dark on the warrior's head, were worn away at the temples,
not by age, but by the constant pressure of the steel cap, or helmet. Iis
beard, according to the fashion of the time, grew short and thick, and was
turned into mustaches on the upper lip, and peaked at the extremity. The
cheek, weather-beaten and embrowned, had lost the glow of youth, but
showed the vigorous complexion of active and confirmed manhood. Halbert Glendinning was, in a word, a knight to ride at a king's right hand, to
bear his banner in war, and to be his counsellor in time of peace; for his
looks expressed the considerate firmness which can resolve wisely and dare
boldly. Still, over these noble features, there now spread an air of dejection, of which, perhaps, the owner was not conscious, but which did not
escape the observation of his anxious and affectionate partner.
"Something has happened, or is about to happen," said the Lady of
Avenel; "this sadness sits not on your brow without cause —misfortune,
national or particular, must needs be at hand."
"There is nothing new that I wot of," said Halbert Glendinning; "but
there is little of evil which can befall a kingdom, that may not be apprehended in this unhappy and divided realm."
" Nay, then," said the Lady, "I see there hath really been some fatal
work on foot. My Lord of Murray has not so long detained you at HIolyrood, save that he wanted your help in some weighty purpose." 
"I have not been at Holyrood, Mary," answered the Knight; "I have
been several weeks abroad."
"Abroad! and sent me no word?" replied the Lady.
"What would the knowledge have availed, but to have rendered you unhappy, my love?" replied the Knight; "your thoughts would have converted the slightest breeze that curled your own lake, into a tempest raging
in the German ocean."
"And have you then really crossed the sea?" said the Lady, to whom the
very idea of an element which she had never seen conveyed notions of terror
and of wonder, -" really left your own native land, and trodden distant
shores, where the Scottish tongue is unheard and unknown?"
"Really, and really," said the Knight, taking her hand in affectionate
playfulness, "I have done this marvellous deed -have rolled on the ocean
for three days and three nights, with the deep green waves dashing by the
side of my pillow, and but a thin plank to divide me from it."
"Indeed, my Halbert," said the Lady, "that was a tempting of Divine
Providence. I never bade you unbuckle the sword from your side, or lay




.286                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
the lance from your hand -I never bade you sit still when your honour
called you to rise and ride;'but are not blade and spear an  par  ngers enough for
one man's life, and why would you trust rough waves and raging seas?"
"We have in Germany, and in the Low Countries, as they are called,"
answered Glendinning, "men who are united with us in faith, and with
whom it is fitting we should unite in alliance. To some of these I was
despatched on business as important as it was secret. I went in safety, and
I returned in security; there is more danger to a man's life betwixt this
and Holyrood, than are in all the seas that wash the lowlands of Holland."
"And the country, my IHalbert, and the people," said the Lady, "are
they like our kindly Scots? or what bearing have they to strangers?"
" They are a people, Mary, strong in their wealth, which renders all other
nations weak, and weak in those arts of war by which other nations are
istrong."
"I do not understand you," said the Lady.
" The Hollander and the Fleming, Mary, pour forth their spirit in trade,
and not in war; their wealth purchases them the arms of foreign soldiers,
by whose aid they defend it. They erect dikes on the sea-shore to protect
the land which they have won, and they levy regiments of-the stubborn
Switzers and hardy Germans to protect the treasures which they have
amassed. And thus they are strong in their weakness; for the very wealth
which tempts their masters to despoil them, arms strangers in their behalf."
"The slothful hinds 1" exclaimed Mary, thinking and feeling like a Scotswoman of the period; " have they hands, and fight not for the land which
bore them? They should be notched off at the elbow!"
" Nay, that were but hard justice," answered her husband; "for their
hands serve their country, though not in battle, like ours. Look at these
barren hills, Mary, and at that deep winding vale by which the cattle are
even now returning from their scanty browse. The hand of the industrious
Fleming would cover these mountains with wood, and raise corn where we
now see a starved and scanty sward of heath and ling. It grieves me, Mary,
when I look on that land, and think what benefit it might receive from, such
men as I have lately seen -men who seek not the idle fame derived from
dead ancestors, or the bloody renown won in modern broils, but tread along
the land, as preservers and improvers, not as tyrants and destroyers."
"These amendments would here be but a vain fancy, my Halbert,"
answered the Lady of Avenel; "the trees would be burned by the English
foemen, ere they ceased to be shrubs, and the grain that you raised would
be gathered in by the first neighbour that possessed more riders than follow
your train. Why should you repine at this? The fate that made you Scotsman by birth, gave you head, and heart, and hand, to uphold the name as
it must needs be upheld."
" It gave me no name to uphold," said Halbert, pacing the floor slowly;
"my arm has been foremost in every strife-my voice has been heard in.every council, nor have the wisest rebuked me. The crafty Lethington, the
deep and dark Morton, have held secret council with me, and Grange and
Lindsay have owned, that in the field I did the devoir of a gallant knightbut let the emergence be passed when they need my head and hand, and
they only know me as son of the obscure portioner of Glendearg."
This was a theme which the Lady always dreaded; for the rank conferred
on her husband, the favour in which he was held by the powerful Earl of
Murray, and the high talents by which he vindicated his right to that rank
and that favour, were qualities which rather increased than diminished the
envy which was harboured against Sir Halbert Glendinning among a proud
aristocracy, as a person originally of inferior and obscure birth, who had
risen to his present eminence solely by his personal merit. The natural
firmness of his mind did not enable him to despise the ideal advantages of
a higher pedigree, which were held in such universal esteem by all with




THE- ABBOT.                                   287
whom he cotiversed; and so open are the noblest minds to jealous inconsistencies, that there were moments in which he felt mortified that his lady
should possess those advantages of birth and high descent which he himself
did not enjoy, and regretted that his-importance as the proprietor of Avenel
was qualified by his possessing it only as the husband of the heiress. He
was not so unjust as to permit any unworthy feelings to retain permanent
possession of his mind, but yet they recurred from time to time, and did
not escape his lady's anxious observation.
" Had we been blessed with children," she was wont on such occasions
to say to herself, "had our blood been united in a son who might have joined
my advantages of descent with my husband's personal worth, these painful
and irksome reflections had not disturbed our union even for a moment.
But the existence of such an heir, in whom our affections, as well as our protensions, might have centred, has been denied to us."
With such mutual feelings, it cannot be wondered that it gave the Lady
pain to hear her husband verging towards this topic of mutual discontent.
On the present, as on other similar occasions, she endeavoured to divert the
knight's thoughts from this painful channel.
" How can you," she said, " suffer yourself to dwell upon things which
profit nothing?  Have you indeed no name to uphold?  You, the good and
the brave, the wise in council, and the strong in battle, have you not to
support the reputation your own deeds have won, a reputation more honourable than mere ancestry can supply?  Good men love and honour you, the
wicked fear, and the turbulent obey you; and is it not necessary you should
exert yourself to ensure the endurance of that love, that honour, and wholesome fear, and that necessary obedience?"
As she thus spoke, the eye of her husband caught from hers courage and
comfort, and it lightened as he took her hand and replied, "It is most true,
my Mary, and I deserve thy rebuke, who forget what I am, in repining
because I am not what I cannot be.  I am now what the most famed ancestors of those I envy were, the mean man raised into eminence by his own
exertions; and sure it is a boast as honourable to have those capacities
which are necessary to the foundation of a family, as to be descended from
one who possessed them  some centuries before.  The Hay of Loncarty,
who bequeathed his bloody yoke to his lineage,-the'dark gray man,' who
first founded the house of Douglas, had yet less of ancestry to boast than I
have.  For thou knowest, Mary, that my name derives itself from a line of
ancient warriors, although my immediate forefathers preferred the humble
station in which thou didst first find them; and war and counsel are not
less proper to the house of Glendonwyne, even in its most remote descendants, than to the proudest of their baronage."*
He strode across the hall as he spoke; and the Lady smiled internally to
observe how much his mind dwelt upon the prerogatives of birth, and endeavoured to establish his claims, however remote, to a share in them, at the
very moment when he affected to hold them in contempt.  It will easily be
guessed, however, that she permitted no symptom to escape her that could
show she was sensible of the weakness of her husband, a perspicacity which
perhaps his proud spirit could not very easily have brooked.
As he returned from  the extremity of the hall, to which he had stalked
while in the act of vindicating the title of the house of Glendonwyne in its
* This was a house of ancient descent and superior consequence, including persons who fought at Bannockburn and Otterburn, and closely connected by alliance and friendship with the great Earls of Douglas. The
Knight in the story argues as most Scotsmen would do in his situation, for all of the same clan are popularly
considered as descended from the same stock, and as having a right to the ancestral honour of the chief
branch. This opinion, though sometimes ideal, is so strong, even at this day of innovation, thot it may be
observed as a national difference between my. countrymen and the English. If you ask an Englishman of
good birth, whether a person of the same name be connected with him, he answers, (if in dubio,) " No-he is
a mere namesake." Ask a similar question of a Scot, (I mean a Scotsman,) he replies -" He is one of our
clan; I daresay there is a relationship, though I do not know how distant." The Englishman thinks of discountenancing a species of rivalry in society; the Scotsman's answer is grounded on the ancient idea of
Strengthening the clan.




288                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
most remote branches to the full privileges of aristocracy; "Where," he said,
"is Wolf? I have not seen him since my return, and he was usually the first
to welcome my home-coming." 
"Wolf," said the Lady, with a slight degree of embarrassment, for which
perhaps, she would have found it difficult to assign any reason even to herself, " Wolf is chained up for the present. He hath been surly to my page."
"Wolf chained up - and Wolf surly to your page!" answered Sir Halbert Glendinning; "Wolf never was surly to any one; and the chain will
either break his spirit or render him savage - So ho, there - set Wolf free
directly."
He was obeyed; and the huge dog rushed into the hall, disturbing, by his
unwieldy and boisterous gambols, the whole economy of reels, rocks, and
distaffs, with which the maidens of the household were employed when the
arrival of their lord was a signal to them to withdraw, and extracting from
-Lilias, who was summoned to put them again in order, the natural observation," That the Laird's pet was as troublesome as the lady's page."
" And who is this page, Mary?" said the Knight, his attention again called
to the subject by the observation of the waiting-woman, —" Who is this
page, whom every one seems to weigh in the balance with my old friend and
favourite, Wolf? - When did you aspire to the dignity of keeping a page,
or who is the boy?"
" I trust, my Halbert," said the Lady, not without a blush, " you will not
think your wife entitled to less attendance than other ladies of her quality?"
" Nay, Dame Mary," answered the Knight, " it is enough you desire such
an attendant. -Yet I have never loved to nurse such useless menials   a
lady's page-it may well suit the proud English dames to have a slender
youth to bear their trains from bower to hall, fan them when they slumber,
and touch the lute for them when they please to listen; but our Scottish
matrons were wont to be above such vanities, and our Scottish youth ought
to be bred to the spear and the stirrup."
" Nay, but,. my husband," said the Lady, " I did but jest when I called
this boy my page; he is in sooth a little orphan whom we saved from perishing in the lake, and whom I have since kept in the castle out of charity. 
Lilias, bring little Roland hither."
Roland entered accordingly, and, flying to the Lady's side, took hold of
the plaits of her gown, and then turned round, and gazed with an attention
not unmingled with fear, upon the stately form of the Knight.-" Roland,"
said the Lady, "go kiss the hand of the noble Knight, and ask him to be
thy protector."-But Roland obeyed not, and, keeping his station, continued to gaze fixedly and timidly on Sir Halbert Glendinning. - "Go to
the Knight, boy," said the Lady; "what dost thou fear, child? Go, kiss
Sir Halbert's hand."
" I will kiss no hand save yours, Lady," answered the boy.
"Nay, but do as you are commanded, child," replied the Lady.   " He is
dashed by your presence," she said, apologizing to her husband; " but is he
not a handsome boy?"
" And so is Wolf," said Sir Halbert, as he patted his huge four-footed
favourite, "a handsome dog; but he has this double advantage over your
new favourite, that he does what he is commanded, and hears not when he
is praised."
"Nay, now you are displeased with me," replied the Lady; "and yet
why should you be so? There is nothing wrong in relieving the distressed
orphan, or in loving that which is in itself lovely and deserving of affection.
But you have seen Mr. Warden at Edinburgh, and he has set you against the
poor boy."
" My dear Mary," answered her husband, " Mr. Warden better knows his
place than to presume to interfere either in your affairs or mine. I neither
tlame your relieving this boy, nor your kindness for him. But, I think,




THE  ABBOT.                            289
considering his birth and prospects, you ought not to treat him with injudicious fondness, which can only end in rendering him unfit for the humble
situation to which Heaven has designed him."
" Nay, but, my Halbert, do but look at the boy," said the Lady, " and see
whether he has not the air of being intended by Heaven for something
nobler than a mere peasant. May he not be designed, as others have been,
to rise out of a humble situation into honour and eminence?"
Thus far had she proceeded, when the consciousness that she was treading
upon delicate ground at once occurred to her, and induced her to take the most
natural, but the worst of all courses in such occasions, whether in conversation or in an actual bog, namely, that of stopping suddenly short in the
illustration which she had commenced. HIer brow crimsoned, and that of
Sir Halbert Glendinning was slightly overcast. But it was only for an
instant; for he was incapable of mistaking his lady's meaning, or supposing
that she meant intentional disrespect to him.
" Be it as you please, my love," he replied; " I owe you too much to contradict you in aught which may render your solitary mode of life more
endurable. Make of this youth what you will, and you have my full
authority for doing so. But remember he is your charge, not mine-remember he hath limbs to do man's service, a soul and a tongue to worship God;
breed him, therefore, to be true to his country and to Heaven; and for the
rest, dispose of him as you list — it is, and shall rest, your own matter."
This conversation decided the fate of Roland Grseme, who from thenceforward was little noticed by the master of the mansion of Avenel, but
indulged and favoured by its mistress.
This situation led to many important consequences, and, in truth, tended
to bring forth the character of the youth in all its broad lights and deep
shadows. As the Knight himself seemed tacitly to disclaim alike interest
and control over the immediate favourite of his lady, young Roland was,
by circumstances, exempted from the strict.discipline to which, as the
retainer of a Scottish man of rank, he would otherwise have been subjected,
according to all the rigour of the age. But the steward, or master of the
household -such was the proud title assumed by the head domestic of each
petty baron -deemed it not advisable to interfere with the favourite of the,a.dy, and especially since she had brought the estate into the present family.
Master Jasper Wingate was a man experienced, as he often boasted, in the
ways of great families, and knew how to keep the steerage even when the
wind and tide chanced to be in contradiction.
This prudent personage winked at much, and avoided giving opportunity
for farther offence, by requesting little of Roland Graeme beyond the degree
of attention which he was himself disposed to pay; rightly conjecturing,
that however lowly the place which the youth might hold in the favour of
the Knight of Avenel, still to make an evil report of him would make an
enemy of the Lady, without securing the favour of her husband. With
these prudential considerations, and doubtless not without an eye to his own
ease and convenience, he taught the boy as much, and only as much, as he
chose to- learn, readily admitting whatever apology it pleased his pupil to
allege in excuse for idleness or negligence. As the other persons in the
castle, to whom such tasks were delegated, readily imitated the prudential
conduct of the major-domo, there was little control used towards Roland
Grieme, who, of course, learned no more than what a very active mind, and
a total impatience of absolute idleness led him to acquire upon his own
account, and by dint of his own exertions. The latter were especially
earnest, when the Lady herself condescended to be his tutress, or to examine
his progress.
It followed also from his quality as my Lady's favourite, that Roland was
viewed with no peculiar good-will by the followers of the Knight, many of
whom, of the same age, and apparently similar origin, with the fortunate
VOL. V.- 19                     z




290                WAVERLE    NOVELS.
page, were subjected to severe observance of the ancient and rigorous dis
cipline of a feudal retainer. To these, Roland Grieme was of course an
object of envy, and, in consequence, of dislike and detraction; but the youth
possessed qualities which it was impossible to depreciate. Pride, and a
sense of early ambition, did for him what severity and constant instruction
did for others. In truth, the youthful Roland displayed that early flexibility
both of body and mind, which renders exercise, either mental or bodily,
rather matter of sport than of study; and it seemed as if he acquired accidentally, and by starts, those accomplishments, which earnest and constant
instruction, enforced by frequent reproof and occasional chastisement, had
taught to others. Such military exercises, such lessons of the period, as he
found it agreeable or convenient to apply to, he learned so perfectly, as to
confound those who were ignorant how often the want of constant application is compensated by vivacity of talent and ardent enthusiasm. The
lads, therefore, who were more regularly trained to arms, to horsemanship,
and to other necessary exercises of the period, while they envied Roland
Groome the indulgence or negligence with which he seemed to be treated,
had little reason to boast of their own superior acquirements; a few hours,
with the powerful exertion of a most energetic will, seemed to do for him
more than the regular instruction of weeks could accomplish for others.
Under these advantages, if, indeed, they were to be termed such, the character of young Roland began to develope itself. It was bold, peremptory,
decisive, and overbearing; generous, if neither withstood nor contradicted;
vehement and passionate, if censured or opposed. He seemed to consider
himself as attached to no one, and responsible to no one, except his mistress, and even over her mind he had gradually acquired that species of
ascendancy which indulgence is so apt to occasion.  And although the
immediate followers and dependents of Sir IIalbert Glendinning saw his
ascendancy with jealousy, and often took occasion to mortify his vanity,
there wanted not those who were willing to acquire the favour of the Lady
of Avenel by humouring and taking part with the youth whom she protected; for although a favourite, as the poet assures us, has no friend, he
seldom fails to have both followers and flatterers.
The partisans of Roland Graeme were chiefly to be found amongst the
inhabitants of the little hamlet on the shore of the lake. These villagers,
who were sometimes tempted to compare their own situation with that of
the immediate and constant followers of the Knight, who attended him on
his frequent journeys to Edinburgh and elsewhere, delighted in considering
and representing themselves as more properly the subjects of the Lady of
Avenel than of her husband. It is true, her wisdom and affection on all
occasions discountenanced the distinction which was here implied; but the
villagers persisted in thinking it must be agreeable to her to enjoy their
peculiar and undivided homage, or at least in acting as if they thought so;
and one chief mode by which they evinced their sentiments, was by the
respect they paid to young Roland Graeme, the favourite attendant of the
descendant of their ancient lords. This was a mode of flattery too pleasing
to encounter rebuke or censure; and the opportunity which it afforded the
youth to form, as it were, a party of his own within the limits of the ancient
barony of Avenel, added not a little to the audacity and decisive tone of a
character, which was by nature bold, impetuous, and incontrollable.
Of the two members of the household who had manifested an early
jealousy of Roland Grreme, the prejudices of Wolf were easily overcome;
and in process of time the noble dog slept with Bran, Luath, and the celebrated hounds of ancient days. But Mr. Warden, the chaplain, lived, and
retained his dislike to the youth. That good man, single-minded and benevolent as he really was, entertained rather more than a reasonable idea of
the respect due to him as a minister, and exacted from the inhabitants of
the castle more deference than the haughty young page, proud of his mis




THE ABBOT.                             291
tress's favour, and petulant from youth and situation, was at all times
willing to pay. His bold and free demeanour, his attachment to rich dress
and decoration, his inaptitude to receive instruction, and his hardening
himself against rebuke, were circumstances which induced the good old
man, with more haste than charity, to set the forward page down as a vessel
of wrath, and to presage that the youth nursed that pride and haughtiness
of spirit which goes before ruin and destruction. On the other hand, Roland
evinced at times a marked dislike, and even something like contempt, of the
chaplain. Most of the attendants and followers of Sir Halbert Glendinning
entertained the same charitable thoughts as the reverend Mr. Warden; but
while Roland was favoured by their lady, and endured by their lord, they
saw no policy in making their opinions public.
Roland Grgeme was sufficiently sensible of the unpleasant situation in
which he stood; but in the haughtiness of his heart he retorted upon the
other domestics the distant, cold, and sarcastic manner in which they treated
him, assumed an air of superiority which compelled the most obstinate to
obedience, and had the satisfaction at least to be dreaded, if he was heartily
hated.
The chaplain's marked dislike had the effect of recommending him to the
attention of Sir Halbert's brother, Edward, who now, under the conventual
appellation of Father Ambrose, continued to be one of the few monks who,
with the Abbot Eustatius, had, notwithstanding the nearly total downfall
of their faith under the regency of Murray, been still permitted to linger in
the cloisters at Kennaquhair.  Respect to Sir Halbert had prevented their
being altogether driven out of the Abbey, though their order was now in a
great measure suppressed, and they were interdicted the public exercise of
their ritual, and only allowed for their support a small pension out of their
once splendid revenues. Father Ambrose, thus situated, was an occasional,
though very rare visitant, at the Castle of Avenel, and was at such times
observed to pay particular attention to Roland Greeme, who seemed to return
it with more depth of feeling than consisted with his usual habits.
Thus situated, years glided on, during which the Knight of Avenel continued to act a frequent and important part in the convulsions of his distracted country; while young Groeme anticipated, both in wishes and personal accomplishments, the age which should enable him to emerge from
the obscurity of his present situation.
gaptfr  t      f  narf[.
Anid their cups that freely flow'L
Their revelry and mirth,
A youthful lord tax'd Valentine
With base and doubtful birth.
VALENTINE AND ORSON.
WHEN Roland Grmeme was a youth about seventeen years of age, he
chanced one summer morning to descend to the mew in which Sir Halbert
Glendinning kept his hawks, in order to superintend the training of an eyas,
or young hawk, which he himself, at the imminent risk of neck and limbs,
had taken from the celebrated eyry in the neighborhood, called Gledscraig.
As he was by no means satisfied with the attention which had been bestowed
on his favourite bird, he was not slack in testifying his displeasure to the
falconer's lad, whose duty it was to have attended upon it.
"What, ho! sir knave," exclaimed Roland, " is it thus you feed the eyas




292                  WAVER LEY  NOVELS.
with unwashed mPeat, as if you were gorging the foul brancher of a worthless hoodie-crow? by the mass, and thou hast neglected its castings also for
these two days! Think'st thou I ventured my neck to bring the bird down
from the crag, that thou shouldst spoil him by thy neglect?" And to add
force to his remonstrances, he conferred a cuff or two on the negligent
attendant of the hawks, who, shouting rather louder than was necessary
under all the circumstances, brought the master falconer to his assistance.
Adam Woodcock, the falconer of Avenel, was an Englishman by birth,
but so long in the service of Glendinning, that he had lost much of his
notional attachment in that which he had formed to his master. I-e was a
favourite in his department, jealous and conceited of his skill, as masters of
the game usually are; for the rest of his character he was a jester and a
parcel poet, (qualities which by no means abated his natural conceit,) ajolly
fellow, who, though a sound Protestant, loved-a flagon of ale better than a
long sermon, a stout man of his hands when need required, true to his
master, and a little presuming on his interest with him.
Adam Woodcock, such as we have described him, by no means relished
the freedom used by young Grieme, in chastising his assistant. " Hey, hey,
my Lady's page," said he, stepping between his own boy and Roland, "fair
and softly, an it like your gilt jacket — hands off is fair play- if my boy
has done amiss, I can beat him myself, and then you may keep your hands
soft."
I will beat him and thee too," answered Roland, without hesitation, " an
you look not better after your business.  See how the bird is cast away
between you.  I found the careless lurdane feeding him with unwashed
flesh, and she an eyas."*
" Go to," said the falconer, " thou art but an eyas thyself, child Roland.
-What knowest thou of feeding?  I say that the eyas should have her
meat unwashed, until she becomes a brancher-'twere the ready way to
give her the frounce, to wash her meat sooner, and so knows every one who
knows a gled from a falcon."
"It is thine own laziness, thou false English blood, that dost nothing but
drink and sleep," retorted the page, " and leaves that lither lad to do the
work, which he minds as little as thou."
" And am I so idle then," said the falconer, "that have three cast of hawks
to look after, at perch and mew, and to fly them in the field to boot?- and
is my Lady's page so busy a man that he must take me up short?-and am
I of false English blood? - I marvel what blood thou art - neither Englander nor Scot-fish nor flesh- a bastard from the Debateable Land,
without either kith, kin, or ally! - Marry, out upon thee, foul kite, that
would fain be a tercel gentle!"
The reply to this sarcasm was a box on the ear, so well applied, that it
overthrew the falconer into the cistern in which water was kept for the
benefit of the hawks. Up started Adam Woodcock, his wrath no way appeased by the cold immersion, and seizing on a truncheon which stood by,
would have soon requited the injury he had received, had not Roland laid
his hand on his poniard, and sworn by all that was sacred, that if he offered
a stroke towards him, he would sheath the blade in his bowels. The noise
was now so great, that more than one of the household came in, and amongst
others the major-domo, a grave personage, already mentioned, whose gold
chain and white wand intimated his authority. At the appearance of this
dignitary, the strife was for the present appeased. He embraced, however,
so favourable an opportunity, to read Roland Grieme a shrewd lecture on
the impropriety of his deportment to his fellow-menials, and to assure him,
that, should he communicate this fray to his master, (who, though now on
There is a difference amongst authorities how long the nestling hawk should be fed with flesh which has
r'sviously been washed.




TH E AB.OT.                             293
one of his frequent expeditions, was speedily expected to return,) which but
for respect to his- Lady he would most certainly do, the residence of the
culprit in the Castle of Avenel would be but of brief duration.  "But,
however," added the prudent master of the household, "I will report the
matter first to my Lady."
"Very just, very right, Master Wingate," exclaimed several voices together; " my Lady will consider if daggers are to be drawn on us for every
idle word, and whether we are to live in a well-ordered household, where
there is the fear of God, or amidst drawn dirks and sharp knives."
The object of this general resentment darted an angry glance around
him, and suppressing with difficulty the desire which urged him to reply in
furious or in contemptuous language, returned his dagger into his scabbard,
looked disdainfully around upon the assembled menials, turned short upon
his heel, and pushing aside those who stood betwixt him and the door, left
the apartment.
"This will be no tree for my nest," said the falconer, "if this cocksparrow is to crow over us as he seems to do."
" He struck me with his switch yesterday," said one of the grooms,
"because the tail of his worship's gelding was not trimmed altogether so as
suited his humour."
"And I promise you," said the laundress, "my young master will stick
nothing to call an honest woman slut and quean, if there be but a speck of
-soot upon his band-collar."
"If Master Wingate do not his errand to my Lady," was the general
result, " there will be no tarrying in the same house with Roland Graeme."
The master of the household heard them all for some time, and then,
motioning for universal silence, he addressed them with all the dignity of
Malvolio himself.-" My masters,  not forgetting you, my mistresses,- do
not think the worse of me that I proceed with as much care as haste in this
matter. Our master is a gallant knight, and will have his sway at home
and abroad, in wood and field, in hall and bower, as the saying is. Our
Lady, my benison upon her, is also a noble person of long descent, and
rightful heir of this place and barony, and she also loves her will; as for
that matter, show me the woman who doth not. Now, she hath favoured,
doth favour, and will favour, this jack-an-ape, —for what good part about
him I know not, save that as one noble lady will love a messan dog, and
another a screaming popinjay, and a third a Barbary ape, so doth it please
our noble dame to set her affections upon this stray elf of a page, for
nought that I can think of, save that she was the cause of his being saved
(the more's the pity) from drowning." And here Master Wingate made a
pause.
"I would have been his caution for a gray groat against salt water or
fresh," said Roland's adversary, the falconer; "marry, if he crack not a
rope for stabbing or, for snatching, I will be content never to hood hawk
again."
"Peace, Adam Woodcock," said Wingate, waving his hand; "I prithee,
peace man-Now, my Lady liking this springald, as aforesaid, differs
therein from my Lord, who loves never a bone in his skin. Now, is it for
me to stir up strife betwixt them, and put as'twere my finger betwixt the
bark and the tree, on account of a pragmatical youngster, whom, nevertheless, I would willingly see whipped forth of the barony?  Have patience,
and this boil will break without our meddling. I have been in service since
I wore a beard on my chin, till now that that beard is turned gray, and I
have seldom known any one better themselves, even by taking the lady's
part against the lord's; but never one who did not dirk himself, if he took
the lord's against the lady's."
"And so," said Lilias, "we are to be crowed over, every one of us, men
and women, cock and hen, by this little upstart? -I will try titles with
z2




294-                  WAVE-RLEY NOVELS.
him first, I promise you.-I fancy, Master Wingate, for as wise as you look,'
you will be pleased to tell what you have seen to-day, if my lady commands
you?"
"To speak the truth when my lady commands me," answered the pru
dential major-domo, "is in some measure my duty, Mistress Lilias; always
providing for and excepting those cases in which it cannot be spoken without breeding mischief and inconvenience to myself or my fellow-servants;
for the tongue of a tale-bearer breaketh bones as well as Jeddart-staff."*
"But this imp of Satan is none of your friends or fellow-servants," said
Lilias; "and I trust you mean not to stand up for him against the whcle
family besides?"
"Credit me, Mrs. Lilias," replied the senior, "should I see the time
fitting, I would with right good-will give him a lick with the rough side of
my tongue."
"Enough said, Master Wingate," answered Lilias; " then trust me his
song shall soon be laid. If my mistress does not ask me what is the matter
below stairs before she be ten minutes of time older, she is no born woman,
and my name is not Lilias Bradbourne."
In pursuance of her plan, Mistress Lilias failed not to present herself
before her mistress with all the exterior of one who is possessed of an inlortant secret,-that is, she had the corners of her mouth turned down,
her eyes raised up, her lips pressed as fast together as if they had been
sewed up, to prevent her babbling, and an air of prim mystical importance.
diffused over her whole person and demeanour, which seemed to intimate,
"I know something which I am resolved not to tell you!"
Lilias had rightly read her mistress's temper, who, wise and good as she
was, was yet a daughter of grandame Eve, and could not witness this
mysterious bearing on the part of her waiting-woman without longing to
ascertain the secret cause. For a space, Mrs. Lilias was obdurate to all
inquiries, sighed, turned her eyes up higher yet to heaven, hoped for the
best, but had nothing particular to communicate.  All this, as was most
natural and proper, only stimulated the Lady's curiosity; neither was her
importunity to be parried with,-" Thank God, I am no makebate-no talebearer,-thank God, I never envied any one's favour, or was anxious to
propale their misdemeanour-only, thank God, there has been no bloodshed
and murder in the house- that is all."
"Bloodshed and murder!" exclaimed the Lady, "what does the quean
mean? -if you speak not plain out, you shall have something you will
scarce be thankful for."
"Nay, my Lady," answered Lilias, eager to disburden her mind, or, in
Chaucer's phrase, to " unbuckle her mail," " if you bid me speak out the
truth, you must not be moved with what might displease you-Roland
Grseme has dirked Adam Woodstock -that is all."
"Good Heaven!" said the Lady, turning pale as ashes, "is the man
slain?"
"No, madam," replied Lilias, "but slain he would have been, if there
had not been ready help; but may be, it is your Ladyship's pleasure that
this young esquire shall poniard the servants, as well as switch and baton
them."
"Go to, minion," said the Lady, "you are saucy-tell the master of the
household to attend me instantly."
Lilias hastened to seek out Mr. Wingate, and hurry him to his lady's
presence, speaking as a word in season to him on the way, " I have set the
stone a-trowling, look that you do not let it stand still."
The steward, too prudential a person to commit himself otherwise,
answered by a sly look and a nod of intelligence, and presently after stood
* A species of battle-axe, so called as being in especial use in that ancient burgh, whose armorial bearings
4till reirQseiit an armed horseman brandishing such a weapon.




T H E AB BOT.                          295
in the presence of the Lady of Avenel, with a look of great respect for his
lady, partly real, partly affected, and an air of great sagacity, which inferred no ordinary conceit of himself.
" How is this, Wingate," said the Lady, "and what rule do you keep in
the castle, that the domestics of Sir Halbert Glendinning draw the dagger
on each other, as in a cavern of thieves and murderers? -is the wounded
man much hurt? and what  what hath become of the unhappy boy?"
"There is no one wounded as yet, madam," replied he of the golden
chain; "it passes my poor skill to say how many may be wounded before
Pasche,* if some rule be not taken with this youth-not but the youth is a
fair youth," he added, correcting himself, "and able at his exercise; but
somewhat too ready with the ends of his fingers, the butt of his ridingswitch, and the point of his dagger."
"And whose fault is that," said the Lady, "but yours, who should have
taught him better discipline, than to brawl or to draw his dagger."
" If it please your Ladyship so to impose the blame on me," answered
the steward, "it is my part, doubtless, to bear it - only I submit to your
consideration, that unless I nailed his weapon to the scabbard, I could no
more keep it still, than I could fix quicksilver, which defied even the skill
of Raymond Lullius."
" Tell me not of Raymond Lullius," said the Lady, losing patience " but
send me the chaplain hither. You grow all of you too wise for me, during
your lord's long and repeated absences. I would to God his affairs would
permit him to remain at home and rule his own household, for it passes my
wit and skill!"
"God forbid, my Lady!" said the old domestic, "that you should sincerely think what you are now pleased to say: your old servants might well
hope, that after so many years' duty, you would do their service more justice than to distrust their gray hairs, because they cannot rule the peevish
humour of a green head, which the owner carries, it may be, a brace of
inches higher than becomes him."
"Leave me," said the Lady; " Sir Halbert's return must now be expected
daily, and he will look into these matters himself-leave me, I say, Wingate, without saying more of it. I know you are honest, and I believe the
boy is petulant; and yet I think it is my favour which hath set all of you
against him."
The steward bowed and retired, after having been silenced in a second
attempt to explain the motives on which he acted.
The chaplain arrived; but neither from him did the Lady receive much
comfort. On the contrary, she found him disposed, in plain terms, to lay
to the door of her indulgence all the disturbances which the fiery temper of
Roland Greeme had already occasioned, or might hereafter occasion, in the
family. "I would," he said, " honoured Lady, that you had deigned to be
ruled by me in the outset of this matter, sith it is easy to stem evil in the
fountain, but hard to struggle against it in the stream. You, honoured
madam, (a word which I do not use according to the vain forms of this
world, but because I have ever loved and honoured you as an honourable
and elect lady,)-you, I say, madam, have been pleased, contrary to my poor
but earnest counsel, to raise this boy from his station, into one approaching
to your own."
"What mean you, reverend sir'" said the Lady; "I have made this
youth a page —is there aught in my doing so that does not become my
character and quality?"
"I dispute not, madam," said the pertinacious preacher, "your benevolent purpose in taking charge of this youth, or your title to give him this
idle character of page, if such was your pleasure; though what the educa* Easter.




296                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
tion of a boy in the train of a female can tend to, save to ingraft foppery
and effeminacy on conceit and arrogance, it passes my knowledge to discover. But I blame you more directly for having taken little care to guard
him against the perils of his condition, or to tame and humble a spirit naturally haughty, overbearing, and impatient.  You have brought into your
bower a lion's cub; delighted with the beauty of his fur, and the grace of
his gambols, you have bound him with no fetters befitting the fierceness of
his disposition.  You have let him grow up as unawed as if he had been
still a tenant of the forest, and. now you are surprised, and call out for
assistance, when he begins to ramp, rend, and tear, according to his proper
nature."
"Mr. Warden," said the Lady, considerably offended, "you are my husband's ancient friend, and I believe your love sincere to him and to his
household. Yet let me say, that when I asked you for counsel, I expected
not this asperity of rebuke.. If I have done wrong in loving this poor
orphan lad more than others of his class, I scarce think the error merited
such severe censure; and if stricter discipline were required to keep his fiery
temper in order, it ought, I think, to be considered, that I am a woman, and
that if I have erred in this matter, it becomes a friend's part rather to aid
than to rebuke me. I would these evils were taken order with before my
lord's return. IIe loves not domestic discord or domestic brawls; andi
would not willingly that he thought such could arise from one whom I
favoured-What do you counsel me to do?"
" Dismiss this youth from your service, madam," replied the preacher.
" You cannot bid me do so," said the Lady; "you cannot, as a Christian
and a man of humanity, bid me turn away an unprotected creature against
whom my favour, my injudicious favour if you will, has reared up so many
enemies."
"It is not necessary you should altogether abandon him, though you
dismiss him to another service, or to a calling better suiting his station and
character," said the preacher; " elsewhere he may be an useful and profitable
imember of the commonweal - here he is but a makebate, and a stumblingblock of offence.  The youth has snatches of sense and of intelligence,
though he lacks industry.  I will myself give him letters commendatory to
Olearius Schinderhausen, a learned professor at the famous university of
Leyden, where they lack an under-janitor-where, besides gratis instruction,
if God give him the grace to seek it, he will enjoy five merks by the year,
and the professor's cast-off suit, which he disparts with biennially."
"This will never do, good Mr. Warden," said the Lady, scarce able to
suppress a smile; " we will think more at large upon this matter.  In the
meanwhile, I trust to your remonstrances with this wild boy and with the
family, for restraining these violent and unseemly jealousies and bursts of
passion; and I entreat you to press on him  and them  their duty in this
respect towards God, and towards their master."
"You shall be obeyed, madam," said Warden.  "On the next Thursday
I exhort the family, and will, with God's blessing, so wrestle with the demon
of wrath and violence, which hath entered into my little flock, that I trust
to hound the wolf out of the fold, as if he were chased away with bandogs."
This was the part of the conference from which Mr. Warden derived the
greatest pleasure. The pulpit was at that time the same powerful engine
for affecting popular feeling which the press has since become, and he had
been no unsuccessful preacher, as we have already seen. It followed as a
natural consequence, that he rather over-estimated the powers of his own
oratory, and, like some of his brethren about the period, was glad of an
opportunity to handle any matters of importance, whether public or private,
the discussion of which could be dragged into his discourse. In that rude
ae the delicacy was unknown which prescribed time and place to personal




THE ABBOT.                              297
exhortations; and as the court-preacher often addressed the King individually, and dictated to him the conduct he ought to observe in matters of
state, so the nobleman himself, or any of his retainers, were, in the chape.
of the feudal castle, often incensed or appalled, as the case might be, by
the discussion of their private faults in the evening exercise, and by spiritual censures directed against them, specifically, personally, and by name.
The sermon, by means of which Henry Warden purposed to restore concord and good order to the Castle of Avenel, bore for text the well-known
words, "He who strileth with the sword shall perish by the sword," and was a
singular mixture of good sense and powerful oratory with pedantry and ba i
taste. He enlarged a good deal on the word striketh, which he assured his
hearers comprehended blows given with the point as well as with the edge,
and more generally, shooting with hand-gun, cross-bow, or long-bow, thrusting with a lance, or doing any thing whatever by which death might be
occasioned to the adversary.  In the same manner, he proved satisfactorily,
that the word sword comprehended all descriptions, whether backsword or
basket-hilt, cut-and-thrust or rapier, falchion, or scimitar.  "But.if," he
continued,.with still greater animation, "the text includeth in its anathema
those who strike with any of those weapons which man hath devised for the
exercise of his open hostility, still more doth it comprehend such as from
their form and size are devised rather for the gratification of privy malice
by treachery, than for the destruction of an enemy prepared and standing
upon his defence.  Such," he proceeded, looking sternly at the place where
the page was seated on a cushion at the feet of his mistress, and wearing
in his crimson belt a gay dagger with a gilded hilt,-" such, more especially;
I hold to be those implements of death, which, in our modern and fantastic
times, are worn not only by thieves and cut-throats, to whom they most
properly belong, but even by those who attend upon women, and wait in
the chambers of honourable ladies. Yes, my friends,-every species of this
unhappy weapon, framed for all evil and for no good, is comprehended
under this deadly denunciation, whether it be a stillet, which we have borrowed from the treacherous Italian, or a dirk, which is borne by the savage
Highlandman, or a whinger, which is carried by our own Border thieves
and cut-throats, or a dudgeon-dagger, all are alike engines invented by the
devil himself, for ready implements of deadly wrath, sudden to execute,
and difficult to be parried. Even the common sword-and-buckler brawler
despises the use of such a treacherous and malignant instrument, which is
therefore fit to be used, not by men or soldiers, but by those who, trained
under female discipline, become themselves effeminate hermaphrodites,
having female spite and female cowardice added to the infirmities and evil
passions of their masculine nature."
The effect which this oration produced upon the assembled congregation
of Avenel cannot very easily be described.  The lady seemed at once
embarrassed and offended; the menials could hardly contain, under an affectation of deep attention, the joy with which they heard the chaplain lanch
his thunders at the head of the unpopular favourite, and the weapon which
they considered as a badge of affectation and finery. Mrs. Lilias crested
and drew up her head with all the deep-felt pride of gratified resentment 
while the steward, observing a strict neutrality of aspect, fixed his eyes upon
an old scutcheon on the opposite side of the wall, which he seemed to
examine with the utmost accuracy, more willing, perhaps, to incur the censure of being inattentive to the sermon, than that of seeming to listen with
marked approbation to what appeared so distasteful to his mistress.
The unfortunate subject of the harangue, whom nature had endowed with
passions which had hitherto found no effectual restraint, could not disguise
the resentment which he felt at being thus directly held up to the scorn, as
well as the censure, of the assembled inhabitants of the little world in which
he lived. His brow grew red, his lip grew pale, he set his teeth, he clenched.




298                  WAVEIRLEY NOVELS.
his hand, and then with mechanical readiness grasped the weapon of which
the clergyman had given so hideous a character; and at length, as the
preacher heightened the colouring of his invective, he felt his rage become
so ungovernable, that, fearful of being hurried into some deed of desperate
violence, he rose up, traversed the chapel with hasty steps, and left the
congregation.
The preacher was surprised into a sudden pause, while the fiery youth
shot across him like a flash of lightning, regarding him as he passed, as if
he had wished to dart from his eyes the same power of blighting and of
consuming. But no sooner had he crossed the chapel, and shut with
violence behind him the door of the vaulted entrance by which it communicated with the castle, than the impropriety of his conduct supplied Warden
with one of those happier subjects for eloquence, of which he knew how to
take advantage for making a suitable impression on his hearers. He paused
for an instant, and then pronounced, in a slow and solemn voice, the deep
anathema: " le hath gone out from us because he was not of us-the sick
man hath been offended at the wholesome bitter of the medicine —the
wounded patient hath flinched from the friendly knife of the surgeon- the
sheep hath fled from the sheepfold and delivered himself to the wolf, because
he could not assume the quiet and humble conduct demanded of us by the
great Shepherd. Ah! my-brethren, beware of wrath - beware of pride -
beware of the deadly and destroying sin which so often shows itself to our
frail eyes in the garments of light! What is our earthly honour? Pride,
and pride only - What our earthly gifts and graces?  Pride and vanity.
Voyagers speak of Indian men who deck themselves with shells, and anoint
themselves with pigments, and boast of their attire as we do of our miserable carnal advantages — Pride could draw down the morning-star from
Heaven even to the verge of the pit - Pride and self-opinion kindled the
flaming sword which waves us off from  Paradise -Pride made Adam
mortal, and a weary wanderer on the face of the earth, which he had else
been at this day the immortal lord of — Pride brought amongst us sin, and
doubles every sin it has brought. It is the outpost which the devil and the
flesh most stubbornly maintain against the assaults of grace; and until it
be subdued, and its barriers levelled with the very earth, there is more hope
of a fool than of the sinner. Rend, then, from your bosoms this accursed
shoot of the fatal apple; tear it up by the roots, though it be twisted with
the chords of your life. Profit by the example of the miserable sinner that
has passed from us, and embrace the means of grace while it is called today-ere your conscience is seared as with a fire-brand, and your ears
deafened like those of the adder, and your heart hardened like the nether
mill-stone. Up, then, and be doing-wrestle and overcome; resist, and the
enemy shall flee from you -Watch and pray, lest ye fall into temptation,
and let the stumbling of others be your warning and your example. Above
all, rely not on yourselves, for such self-confidence is even the worst symptom of the disorder itself.  The Pharisee, perhaps, deemed himself humble
while he stooped in the Temple, and thanked God that he was not as other
men, and even as the publican. But while his knees touched the marble
pavement, his head was as high as the topmost pinnacle of the Temple. Do
not, therefore, deceive yourselves, and offer false coin, where the purest you
can present is but as dross-think not that such will pass the assay of
Omnipotent Wisdom. Yet shrink not from the task, because, as is my
bounden duty, I do not disguise from you its difficulties. Self-searching can
do much   Meditation can do much- Grace can do all."
And he concluded with a touching and animating exhortation to his
hearers to seek divine grace, which is perfected in human wakness.
The audience did not listen to this address without being considerably
affected; though it might be doubted whether the feelings of triumph,
excited by the disgraceful retreat of the favourite page, did not greatly




THE  ABBOT.                             299
qualify in the minds of many the exhortations of the preacher to charity
and to humility. And, in fact, the expression of their countenances much
resembled the satisfied triumphant air of a set of children, who, having just
seen a companion punished for a fault in which they had no share, con their
task with double glee, both because they themselves are out of the scrape,
and because the culprit is in it.
With very different feelings did the Lady of Avenel seek her own apartment.  She felt angry at Warden having made a domestic matter, in which
she took a personal interest, the subject of such public discussion.  But
this she knew the good man claimed as a branch of his Christian liberty as
a preacher, and also that it was vindicated by the universal custom of his
brethren. But the self-willed conduct of her protege afforded her yet deeper
concern. That he had broken through in so remarkable a degree, not
only the respect due to her presence, but that which was paid to religious
admonition in those days with such peculiar reverence, argued a spirit as
unttameable as his enemies had represented him to possess. And yet so far
as he had been under her own eye, she had seen no more of that fiery spirit
than appeared to her to become his years and his vivacity. This opinion
might be founded in some degree on partiality; in some degree, too, it
might be owing to the kindness and indulgence which she had always
extended to him; but still she thought it impossible that she could be
totally mistaken in the estimate she had formed of his character. The
extreme of violence is scarce consistent with a course of continued hypocrisy,
(although Lilias charitably hinted, that in some instances they were happily
united,) and therefore she could not exactly trust the report of others against
her own experience and observation. The thoughts of this orphan boy
clung to her heartstrings with a fondness for which she herself was unable
to account. He seemed to have been sent to her by Heaven, to fill up those
intervals of languor and vacuity which deprived her of much enjoyment.
Perhaps he was not less dear to her, because she well saw that he was a
favourite with no one else, and because she felt, that to give him up was to
afford the judgment of her husband and others a triumph over her own; a
circumstance not quite indifferent to the best of spouses of either sex.
In short, the Lady of Avenel formed the internal resolution, that she
would not desert her page while her page could be rationally protected;
and, with a view of ascertaining how far this might be done, she caused
him to be summoned to her presence.
(5l^pt r tJP  37ftiU
— In the wild storm,
The seaman hews his mast down, and the merchant
Heaves to the billows wares he once deem'd precious;
So prince and peer,'mid popular contentions,
Cast off their favourites.
OLD PLAY.
IT was some time ere Roland Grseme appeared. The messenger (his old
friend Lilias) had at first attempted to open the door of his little apartment
with  the charitable purpose, doubtless, of enjoying the confusion, and
marking the demeanour of the culprit. But an oblong bit of iron, ycleped
a bolt, was passed across the door on the inside, and prevented her benign
intentions. Lilias knocked and called at intervals. "Roland-Roland
Graeme-Master Roland Grasme," (an emphasis on the word Master,) "will




0S0                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
you be pleased to undo the door? —What ails you?-are you at your
prayers in private, to complete the devotion which you left unfinished in
public?- Surely we must have a screened seat for you in the chapel, that
your gentility may be free from the eyes of common folks!"  Still no
whisper was heard in reply. "Well, master Roland," said the waitingmaid, "I must tell my mistress, that if she would have an answer, she
must either come herself, or send those on errand to you who can beat the
door down."
"What says your Lady?" answered the page from within.
"Marry, open the door, and you shall hear," answered the waiting-maid.
I trow it becomes my Lady's message to be listened to face to face; and
I will not for your idle pleasure, whistle it through a key-hole."
" Your mistress's name," said the page, opening the door, "is too fair a
cover for your impertinence-What says my Lady?"
"That you will be pleased to come to her directly, in the withdrawingroom," answered Lilias. "I presume she has some directions for you concerning the forms to be observed in leaving chapel in future."
" Say to my Lady, that I will directly wait on her," answered the page;
and returning into his apartment, he once more locked the door in the face
of the waiting-maid.
"Rare courtesy!" muttered Lilias; and, returning to her mistress,
acquainted her that Roland Grneme would wait on her when it suited his
convenience.
"What, is that his addition, or your own phrase, Lilias?" said the Lady,
coolly.
"Nay, madam," replied the attendant, not directly answering the question, "he looked as if he could have said much more impertinent things
than that, if I had been willing to hear them.-But here he comes to
answer for himself."
Roland Graeme entered the apartment with a loftier mien, and somewhat
a higher colour than his wont; there was embarrassment in his manner,
but it was neither that of fear nor of penitence.
" Young man," said the Lady, " what trow you I am to think of your
conduct this day?"
" If it has offended you, madam, I am deeply grieved," replied the youth.
"To have offended me alone," replied the Lady, " were but little -You
have been guilty of conduct which will highly offend your master —of violence to your fellow-servants, and of disrespect to God himself, in the person
of his ambassador."
"Permit me again to reply," said the page, "that if I have offended my
only mistress, friend, and benefactress, it includes the sum of my guilt,
and deserves the sum of my penitence - Sir Halbert Glendinning calls me
not servant, nor do I call him master —he is not entitled to blame me for
chastising an insolent groom- nor do I fear the wrath of Heaven for treating with scorn the unauthorized interference of a meddling preacher."
The Lady of Avenel had before this seen symptoms in her favourite of
boyish petulance, and of impatience of censure or reproof. But his present
demeanour was of a graver and more determined character, and she was
for a moment at a loss how she should treat the youth, who seemed to have
at once assumed the character not only of a man, but of a bold and determined one. She paused an instant, and then assuming the dignity which
was natural to her, she said, "Is it to me, Roland, that you hold this language? Is it for the purpose of making me repent the favour I have shown
you, that you declare yourself independent both of an earthly and a
Heavenly master?  Have you forgotten what you were, and to what the
loss of my protection would speedily again reduce you?"
"Lady," said the page, "I have forgot nothing, I remember but too
much. I know, that but for you, I should have perished in yon blue




THE ABBOT.                             301
waves," poining, as he spoke, to the lake, which was seen through the
window, agitated by the western wind. " Your goodness has gone farther,
madam-you have protected me against the malice of others, and against
my own folly. You are free, if you are willing, to abandon the orphan
you have reared. You have left nothing undone by him, and he complains
of nothing. And yet, Lady, do not think I have been ungrateful -I have
endured something on my part, which I would have borne for the sake of
no one but my benefactress."
"For my sake!" said the Lady; "and what is it that I can have subjected you to endure, which can be remembered with other feelings than
those of thanks and gratitude?"
"You are too just, madam, to require me to be thankful for the cold
neglect with which your husband has uniformly treated me - neglect not
unmingled with fixed aversion. You are too just, madam, to require me to
be grateful for the constant and unceasing marks of scorn and malevolence
with which I have been treated by others, or for such a homily as that with
which your reverend chaplain has, at my expense, this very day regaled
the assembled household."
"Heard mortal ears the like of this!" said the waiting-maid, with her
hands expanded and her eyes turned up to heaven; "he speaks as if he
were son of an earl, or of a belted knight the least penny!"
The page glanced on her a look of supreme contempt, but vouchsafedd no
other answer. His mistress, who began to feel herself seriously offended,
and yet sorry for the youth's folly, took up the same tone.
"Indeed, Roland, you forget yourself so strangely," said she, "that you
will tempt me to take serious measures to lower you in your own opinion
by reducing you to your proper station in society."
" And that," added Lilias, " would be best done by turning him out the
same beggar's brat that your ladyship took him in."
"Lilias speaks too rudely," continued the Lady, "but she has spoken
the truth, young man; nor do I think I ought to spare that pride which
hath so completely turned your head. You have been tricked up with fine
garments, and treated like the son of a gentleman, until you have forgot
the fountain of your churlish blood."
" Craving your pardon, most honourable madam, Lilias hath not spoken
truth, nor does your ladyship know aught of my descent, which should
entitle you to treat it with such decided scorn. I am no beggar's brat-my
grandmother begged from no one, here nor elsewhere -she would have
perished sooner on the bare moor. We were harried out and driven from
our home - a chance which has happed elsewhere, and to others. Avenel
Castle, with its lake and its towers, was not at all times able to protect its
inhabitants from want and desolation."
" Hear but his assurance!" said Lilias, "he upbraids my Lady with the
distresses of her family!"
"It had indeed been a theme more gratefully spared," said the Lady,
affected nevertheless with the allusion.
" It was necessary, madam, for my vindication," said the page, " or I had
not even hinted at a word that might give you pain. But believe, honoured
Lady, I am of no churl's blood. My proper descent I know not; but my
only relation has said, and my heart has echoed it back and attested the
truth, that I am sprung of gentle blood, and deserve gentle usage."
"And upon an assurance so vague as this," said the Lady, " do you propose to expect all the regard, all the privileges, befitting high rank and distinguished birth, and become a contender for concessions which are only
due to the noble?  Go to, sir, know yourself, or the master of the house.
hold shall make you know you are liable to the scourge as a malapert boy.
You have tasted too little the discipline fit for your age and station."
" The master of the household shall taste of my dagger, ere I taste of his
2 A




3~02                 WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
discipline," said the page, giving way to his restrained passion.   L'ady, t
have been too long the vassal of a pantoufle, and the slave of a silver
whistle. You muse henceforth find some other to answer your call; and
let him be of birth and spirit mean enough to, brook the scorn of your
menials, and to call a church vassal his master."
"I have deserved this insult," said the Lady, colouring deeply,. "for so
long enduring and fostering your petulance.  Begone, sir. Leave this
castle to-night-I will send you the means of subsistence till you find some
honest mode of support, though I fear your imaginary grandeur will be
above all others, save those of rapine and violence. Begone, sir, and see
my face no more."
The page threw himself at her feet in an agony of sorrow. " My dear
and honoured mistress," he said, but was unable; to bring out another
syllable.
"      Arie, sir," said the Lady, " and let go my mantle-hypocrisy is a poor
cloak for ingratitude."
"I am incapable of either, madam," said the page, springing up with
the hasty start of passion which belonged to his rapid and impetuous
temper. " Think not I meant to implore permission to reside here; it has
been long my determination to leave Avenel, and I will never forgive
myself for having permitted you to say the word begone, ere I said,'I
leave you."  I did but kneel to ask your forgiveness for an ill-considered
word used in the height of displeasure, but which ill became my mouth, as
addressed to you. Other grace I asked not-you have done much for mebut I repeat, that. you better know what you yourself have done, than what
I have suffered."
" Roland," said the Lady, somewhat appeased, and relenting towards her
favourite, "you had me to appeal to when you were aggrieved. You were
neither called upon to suffer wrong, nor entitled to resent it, when you were
under my protection."
"And what," said the youth, " if I sustained wrong from those you
loved and favoured, was I to disturb your peace with idle tale-bearings and
eternal complaints? No, madam; I have borne my own burden in silence,
and without disturbing you with murmurs.; and the respect with which you
accuse me of wanting, furnishes the only reason why I have neither appealed to you, nor taken vengeance at my own hand in a manner far more
effectual. It is well,, however, that we part. I was not born to be a
stipendiary, favoured by his mistress, until ruined by the calumnies of
others. May Heaven multiply its choicest blessings on your honoured
head; and, for your sake, upon all that are dear to you!"
He was about to leave the apartment, when the Lady called upon him to
return. He stood still, while she thus addressed him: "It was not my
intention, nor would it be just, even in the height of my displeasure, to
dismiss you without the means of support; take this purse of gold."
"Forgive me, Lady," said the boy, " and let me go hence with the consciousness that I have not been degraded to the point of accepting alms.
If my poor services can be placed against the expense of my apparel and
my maintenance, I only remain debtor to you for my life, and that alone is
a debt which I can never repay; put up then that purse, and only say,
instead, that you do not part from me in anger."
"No, not in anger," said the Lady, "in sorrow rather for your wilfulness; but take the gold, you cannot but need it."'
"May God evermore bless you for the kind tone and the kind word! but
the gold I cannot take. I am able of body, and do not lack friends so
wholly as you may think; for the time may come that I may yet show
myself more thankful than by mere words."  He threw himself on his
knees, kissed the hand which she did not withdraw, and then hastily left
the apartment.




THE ABBOT.                                303
Lilias, for a moment or two, kept her eye fixed on her mistress, who
looked so unusually pale, that she seemed about to faint; but the Lady
instantly recovered herself, and declining the assistance which her attendant
offered her, walked to her own apartment.
(f Iaft 14t i ttW4
Thou hast each secret of the household, Francis.
I dare he sworn thou hast been in the buttery,
Steeping thy curious humour in fat ale,
And in thy butler's tattle-ay, or chatting
With the glib waiting-woman o'er her comfitsThese bear the key to each domestic mystery.
OLD PLAY.
UPON the morrow succeeding the scene we have described, the disgraced
favourite left the castle; and at breakfast-time the cautious old steward and
Mrs. Lilias sat in the apartment of the latter personage, holding grave converse on the important event of the day, sweetened by a small treat of
comfits, to which the providence of Mr. Wingate had added a little flask of
racy canary.
" He is gone at last," said the abigail, sipping her glass; "and here is to
his good journey."
"Amen,"  answered the steward, gravely; "I wish the poor deserted lad
no ill."
"And he is gone like a wild-duck, as he came," continued Mrs. Lilias;
"no lowering of drawbridges, or pacing along causeways, for him.  My
master has pushed off in the boat which they call the little IIerod, (more
shame to them  for giving the name of a Christian to wood and iron,) and
has rowed himself by himself to the farther side of the loch, and off and
away with himself, and left all his finery strewed about his room. I wonder
who is to clean his trumpery out after him —though the things are worth
lifting, too."
" Doubtless, Mistress Lilias," answered the master of the household "in
the which case, I am free to think, they will not long cumber the floor.'
"And now tell me, Master Wingate," continued the damsel, "do not the
very cockles of your heart rejoice at the house being rid of this upstart whelp,
that flung us all into shadow?"
"Why, Mistress Lilias," replied Wingate, "as to rejoicing- those who
have lived as long in great families as has been my lot, will be in no hurry
to rejoice at any thing. And for Roland Greeme, though he may be a good
riddance in the main, yet what says the very sooth proverb,'Seldom comes
a better.' 
"Seldom  comes a better, indeed! echoed Mrs. Lilias.  "I say, never
can come a worse, or one half so bad. He might have been the ruin of our
poor dear mistress," (here she used her kerchief,) " body and soul, and estate
too; for she spent more coin on his apparel than on any four servants about
the house."
"Mistress Lilias," said the sage steward, "I do opine that our mistress
requireth not this pity at your hands, being in all respects competent to take
care of her own body, soul, and estate into the bargain."
" You would not mayhap have said so," answered the waiting-woman,
"had you seen how like Lot's wife she looked:when young master took his
leave.  My mistress is a good lady, and a virtuous, and a well-doing lady,




804                    WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
and a well-spolen of- but I would not Sir IIalbert had spn her last evening for two and a plack."
"Oh, foy I foy! foy 1" reiterated the steward; " servants should hear and
see, and say nothing. Besides that, my lady is utterly devoted to Sir Halbert, as well she may, being, as he is, the most renowned knight in these
parts."
" Well, well," said the abigail, "I mean no more harm; but they that
seek least renown abroad, are most apt to find quiet at home, that's all; and
my Lady's lonesome situation is to be considered, that made her fain to take
up with the first beggar's brat that a dog brought her out of the loch."
"And, therefore," said the steward, "I say, rejoice not too much, or too
hastily, Mistress Lilias; for if your Lady wished a favourite to pass away
the time, depend upon it, the time will not pass lighter now that he is gone.
So she will have another favourite to choose for herself; and be assured, if
she wishes such a toy, she will not lack one."
"And where should she choose one, but among her own tried and faithful
servants," said Mrs. Lilias, "who have broken her bread, and drunk her
drink, for so many years?  I have known many a lady as high as she is,
that never thought either of a friend or favourite beyond their own waitingwoman-always having a proper respect, at the same time, for their old
and faithful master of the household, Master Wingate."
"Truly, Mistress Lilias," replied the steward, " I do partly see the mark
at which you shoot, but I doubt your bolt will fall short. Matters being
with our Lady as it likes you to suppose, it will neither be your crimped
pinners, Mrs. Lilias, (speaking of them with due respect,) nor my silver
hair, or golden chain, that will fill up the void which Roland Groeme must
needs leave in our Lady's leisure. There will be a learned young divine
with some new doctrine- a learned leech with some new drug -a bold
cavalier, who will not be refused the favour of wearing her colours at a
running at the ring -a cunning harper that could harp the heart out of
woman's breast, as they say Signor David Rizzio did to our poor Queen; —
these are the sort of folk who supply the loss of a well-favoured favourite,
and not an old steward, or a middle-aged waiting-woman."
" Well," replied Lilias, " you have experience, Master Wingate, and truly
I would my master would leave off his picking hither and thither, and look
better after the affairs of his household.  There will be a papestrie among
us next, for what should I see among master's clothes but a string of gold
beads!  I promise you, aves and credos both! —I seized on them  like a
falcon."
"I doubt it not, I doubt it not," said the steward, sagaciously nodding
his head; " I have often noticed that the boy had strange observances which
savoured of popery, and that he was very jealous to conceal them. But you
will find the Catholic under the Presbyterian cloak as often as the knave
under the Friar's hood-what then? we are all mortal-Right proper beads
they are," he added, looking attentively at them, "and may weigh four
ounces of fine gold."
" And I will have them melted down presently," she said, " before they
be the misguiding of some poor blinded soul."
"Very cautious, indeed, Mistress Lilias," said the steward, nodding his
head in assent.
"I will have them made," said Mrs. Lilias, " into a pair of shoe-buckles;
I would not wear the Pope's trinkets, or whatever has once borne the shape
of them, one inch above my instep, were they diamonds instead of goldBut this is what has come of Father Ambrose coming about the castle, as
demure as a cat that is about to steal cream."
"Father Ambrose is our master's brother," said the steward gravely.
"Very true, Master Wingate," answered the Dame; "but is that a good
reason why he should pervert the king's liege subjects to papistrie?"




THE  ABBOT.                            305
"Heaven forbid, Mistress Lilias," answered the sententious major-domo
"but yet there are worse folkthan the Papists."
"I wonder where they' are to be found," said the waiting-woman, with
some asperity; "but I believe, Master Wingate, if one were to speak to
you about the devil himself, you would say there were worse people than
Satan."
"Assuredly I might say so," replied the steward,'" supposing that I saw
Satan standing at my elbow."
The waiting-woman started, and having exclaimed, "God bless us!'
added, "I wonder, Master Wingate, you can take pleasure in frightening
one thus."
"Nay, Mistress Lilias, I had no such purpose," was the reply; " but
look you here —the Papists are but put down for the present, but who
knows how long this word present will last? There are two great Popish
earls in the north of England, that abominate the very word reformation;
I mean the Northumberland and Westmoreland Earls, men of power
enough to shake any throne in Christendom.  Then, though our Scottish
king be, God bless him, a true Protestant, yet he is but a boy; and here is
his mother that was our queen-I trust there is no harm to say, God bless
her too-and she is a Catholic; and many begin to think she has had but
hard measure, such as the Hamiltons in the west, and some of our Border
clans here, and the Gordons in the north, who are all wishing to see a new
world; and if such a new world should chance to come up, it is like that
the Queen will take back her own crown, and that the mass and the cross
will come up, and then down go pulpits, Geneva-gowns, and black silk
skull-caps."
"And have you, Master Jasper Wingate, who have heard the word, and
listened unto pure and precious Mr. Henry Warden, have you, I say, the
patience to speak, or but to think, of popery coming down on us like a
storm, or of the woman Mary again making the royal seat of Scotland a
throne of abomination?  No marvel that you are so civil to the cowled
monk, Father Ambrose, when he comes hither with his downcast eyes that
he never raises to my Lady's face, and with his low sweet-toned voice, and
his benedicites, and his benisons; and who so ready to take them kindly as
Master Wingate?"
" Mistress Lilias," replied the butler, with an air which was intended to
close the debate, "there are reasons for all things. If I received Father
Ambrose debonairly, and suffered him to steal a word now and then with
this same Roland Grseme, it was not that I cared a brass bodle for his
benison or malison either, but only because I respected my master's blood.
And who can answer, if Mary come in again, whether he may not be as
stout a tree to lean to as ever his brother hath proved to us? For down
goes the Earl of Murray when the Queen comes by her own again; and
good is his luck if he can keep the head on his own shoulders. And down
goes our Knight, with the Earl, his patron; and who so like to mount into
his empty saddle as this same Father Ambrose? The Pope of Rome can
so soon dispense with his vows, and then we should have Sir Edward the
soldier, instead of Ambrose the priest."
Anger and astonishment kept Mrs. Lilias silent, while her old friend, in
his self-complacent manner, was making known to her his political speculations. At length her resentment found utterance in words of great ire
and scorn. " What, Master Wingate! have you eaten my mistress's bread,'
to say nothing of my master's, so many years, that you could live to think
of her being dispossessed of her own Castle of Avenel, by a wretched
monk, who is not a drop's blood to her in the way of relation? I, that am
but a woman, would try first whether my rock or his cowl was the better
metal.  Shame on you, Master Wingate! If I had not held you as so old
an acquaintance, this should have gone to my Lady's ears tb Pugh I had
VOL. V. -20                    2A 2




806                   WAVE-R LEY  NOVELS.
been called pickthank and tale-pyet for my pains, as when I told of Roland
Greme shooting the wild swan."
Master Wingate was somewhat dismayed at perceiving, that the details
which he had given of his far-sighted political views had produced on his
hearer rather suspicion of his fidelity, than admiration of his wisdom, and
endeavoured, as hastily as possible, to apologize and to explain, although
internally extremely offended at the unreasonable view, as he deemed it,
which it had pleased Mistress Lilias Bradbourne to take of his expressions;
*and mentally convinced that her disapprobation of his sentiments arose
solely out of the consideration, that though Father Ambrose, supposing
him to become the master of the castle, would certainly require the services of a steward, yet- those of a waiting-woman would, in the supposed
circumstances, be altogether superfluous.
After his explanation had been received as explanations usually are, the
two friends separated; Lilias to attend the silver whistle which called her
to her mistress's chamber, and the sapient major-domo to the duties of his
own department.  They parted with less than their usual degree of reverence and regard; for the steward felt that his worldly wisdom was rebuked
by the more disinterested attachment of the waiting-woman, and Mistress
Lilias Bradbourne was compelled to consider her old friend as something
little better than a time-server.
When I hae a saxpence under my thumb,
Then I get credit in ilka town;
But when I am puir they bid me gae byOh, poverty parts good company!
OLD SONG.
WHILE the departure of the page afforded subject for the conversation
which we have detailed in our last chapter, the late favourite was far
advanced on his solitary journey, without well knowing what was its object,
or what was likely to be its end.  lie had rowed the skiff in which he left
the castle, to the side of the lake wnost distant from the village, with the
desire of escaping from the notice of the inhabitants.  His pride whispered,
that he would be, in his discarded state, only the subject of their wonder
and compassion; and his generosity told him, that any mark of sympathy
which his situation should excite, might be unfavourably reported at the
castle. A trifling incident convinced him he had little to fear for his friends
on the latter score.  He was met by a young man some years older than
himself, who had on former occasions been but too happy to be permitted
to share in his sports in the subordinate character of his assistant. Ralph
Fisher approached to greet him, with all the alacrity of an humble friend.
"What, Master Roland, abroad on this side, and without either hawk or
hound?"
" Hawk or hound," said Roland, " I will never perhaps hollo to again. I
have been dismissed- that is, I have left the castle."
Ralph was surprised.  " What! you are to pass into the Knight's service,
and take the black jack and the lance?"
"Indeed," replied Roland Graeme, "I am not — I am now leaving the
service of Avenel for ever."
And whither are you going, then?" said the young peasant.




-TH-E- A-BBOT.                          380
"Nay, that is a question which it craves time to answer —I have that
inmtter to determine yet," replied the disgraced favourite.
"Nay, nay," said Ralph, " I warrant you it is the same to you which way
you go - my Lady would not dismiss you till she had put some lining into
the pouches of your doublet."
"Sordid slave!" said Roland Graeme, "dost thou think I would have
accepted a boon from one who was giving me over a prey to detraction and
to ruin, at the instigation of a canting priest and a meddling serving-woman?
The bread that I had bought with such an alms would have choked me at
the first mouthful."
Ralph looked at his quondam friend with an air of wonder not unmixed
with contempt. "Well," he said, at length, "no occasion for passioneach man knows his own stomach best-but, were I on a black moor' at
this time of day, not knowing whither I was going, I should be glad to
have a broad piece or two in my pouch, come by them as I could. -But
perhaps you will go with me to my father's -that is, for a night, for tomorrow we expect my uncle Menelaus and all his folk; but, as I said, for
one night    "
The cold-blooded limitation of the offered shelter to one night only, and
that tendered most unwillingly, offended the pride of the discarded favourite.
"I would rather sleep on the fresh heather, as I have done many a night
on less occasion," said Roland Grneme, "than in the smoky garret of your
father, that smells of peat smoke and usquebaugh like a Highlander's
plaid."
"You may choose, my master, if you are so nice," replied Ralph Fisher;
" you may be glad to smell a peat-fire, and usquebaugh too, if you journey
long in the fashion you propose. You might have said God-a-mercy for your
proffer, though - it is not every one that will put themselves in the way of
ill-will by harbouring a discarded serving-man."
"Ralph," said Roland Graeme, "I would pray you to remember that I
have switched you before now, and this is the same riding-wand which you
have tasted."
Ralph, who was a thickset clownish figure, arrived at his full strength,
and conscious of the most complete personal superiority, laughed contemptuously at the threats of the slight-made stripling.
" It may be the same wand," he said, " but not the same hand; and that
is as good rhyme as if it were in a ballad. Look you, my Lady's page that
was, when your switch was up, it was no fear of you, but of your betters,
that kept mine down- and I wot not what hinders me from clearing old
scores with this hazel rung, and showing you it was your Lady's livery-coat
which I spared, and not your flesh and blood, Master Roland."
In the midst of his rage, Roland Grieme was just wise enough to see, that
by continuing this altercation, he would subject himself to very rude treatment from the boor, who was so much older and stronger than himself; and
while his antagonist, with a sort of jeering laugh of defiance, seemed to
provoke the contest, he felt the full bitterness of his own degraded condition,
and burst into a passion of tears, which he in vain endeavoured to conceal
with both his hands.
Even the rough churl was moved with the distress of his quondam companion.
"Nay, Master Roland," he said, " I did but as'twere jest with thee - I
would not harm thee, man, were it but for old acquaintance sake. But ever
look to a man's inches ere you talk of switching - why, thine arm, man, is
but like a spindle compared to mine. - But hark, I hear old Adam Woodcock hollowing to his hawk   Come along, man, we will have a merry
afternoon, and go jollily to my father's in spite of the peat-smoke and usquebaugh to boot. Maybe we may put you into some honest way of winning
your bread, though it's hard to come by in these broken times."




808                 WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
The unfortunate page made no answer, nor did he withdraw his hands
from his face, and Fisher continued in what he imagined a suitable tone of
comfort.
"Why, man, when you were my Lady's minion, men held you proud,
and some thought you a Papist, and I wot not what; and so, now that you
have no one to bear you out, you must be companionable and hearty, and
wait on the minister's examinations, and put these things out of folk's head;
and if he says you are in fault, you must jouk your head to the stream; and
if a gentleman, or a gentleman's gentleman, give you a rough word, or a
light blow, you must only say, thank you for dusting my doublet, or the
like, as I have done by you.-But hark to Woodcock's whistle again. Come,
and I will teach you all the trick on't as we go on."
"I thank you," said Roland Graeme, endeavouring to assume an air of
indifference and of superiority; "but I have another path before me, and
were it otherwise, I could not tread in yours."
"Very true, Master Roland," replied the clown; "and every man knows
his own matters best, and so I will not keep you from the path, as you say.
Give us a grip of your hand, man, for auld lang syne.-What! not clap palms
ere we part? —well, so be it —a wilful man will have his way, and so farewell, and the blessing of the morning to you."
"Good-morrow-good-morrow," said Roland, hastily; and the clown
walked lightly off, whistling as he went, and glad, apparently, to be rid of
an acquaintance, whose claims might be troublesome, and who had no longer
the means to be serviceable to him.
Roland Greme compelled himself to walk on while they were within
sight of each other, that his former intimate might not augur any vacillation of purpose, or uncertainty of object, from his remaining on the same
spot; but the effort was a painful one. He seemed stunned, as it were, and
giddy; the earth on which he stood felt as if unsound, and quaking under
his feet like the surface of a bog; and he had once or twice nearly fallen,
though the path he trode was of firm greensward. He kept resolutely
moving forward, in spite of the internal agitation to which these symptoms
belonged, until the distant form of his acquaintance disappeared behind the
slope of a hill, when his heart failed at once; and, sitting down on the turf,
remote from human ken, he gave way to the natural expressions of wounded
pride, grief, and fear, and wept with unrestrained profusion and unqualified
bitterness.
When the first violent paroxysm of his feelings had subsided, the deserted
and friendless youth felt that mental relief which usually follows such discharges of sorrow. The tears continued to chase each other down his cheeks,
but they were no longer accompanied by the same sense of desolation; an
afflicting yet milder sentiment was awakened in his mind, by the recollection of his benefactress, of the unwearied kindness which had attached her
to him, in spite of many acts of provoking petulance, now recollected as
offences of a deep dye, which had protected him against the machinations
of others, as well as against the consequences of his own folly, and would
have continued to do so, had not the excess of his presumption compelled
her to withdraw her protection.
"Whatever indignity I have borne," he said, " has been the just reward
of my own ingratitude. And have I done well to accept the hospitality,
the more than maternal kindness, of my protectress, yet to detain from her
the knowledge of my religion?- but she shall know that a Catholic has as
much gratitude as a Puritan-that I have been thoughtless, but not wicked
-that in my wildest moments I have loved, respected, and honoured herand that the orphan boy might indeed be heedless, but was never ungrateful!"
Ie.turned, as these thoughts passed through his mind, and began hastily,
to retread his footsteps towards the castle. But he checked the first eager-.




TH-E ABBOT. -09
10ess of his repentant haste, when he reflected on the scorn and contempt
with which the family were likely to see the return of the fugitive, humbled, as they must necessarily suppose him, into a supplicant, who requested
pardon for his fault, and permission to return to his service. He slackened
his pace, but he stood not still.
"I care not," he resolutely determined; " let them wink, point, nod, sneer,
speak of the conceit which is humbled, of the pride which has had a fallI care not; it is a penance due to my folly, and I will endure it with
patience.  But if she also, my benefactress, if she also should think me
sordid and weak-spirited enough to beg, not for her pardon alone, but for a
renewal of the advantages which I derived from her favour -her suspicion
of my meanness I cannot-I will not brook."
Ile stood still, and his pride rallying with constitutional obstinacy against
his more just feeling, urged that -he would incur the scorn of the Lady of
Avenel, rather than obtain her favour, by following the course which the
first ardour of his repentant feelings had dictated to him.
"If I had but some plausible pretext," he thought, "some ostensible
reason for my return, some excuse to allege which might show I came not
as a degraded supplicant, or a discarded menial, I might go thither-but as
I am, I cannot-my heart would leap from its place and burst."
As these thoughts swept through his mind, something passed in the air
so near him as to dazzle his eyes, and almost to brush the plume in his cap.
He looked up —it was the favourite falcon of Sir Hlalbert, which, flying
around his head, seemed to claim his attention, as that of a well-known
friend. Roland extended his arm, and gave the accustomed whoop, and the
falcon instantly settled on his wrist, and began to prune itself, glancing at
the youth from time to time an acute and brilliant beam of its hazel eye,
which seemed to ask why he caressed it not with his usual fondness.
"Ah, Diamond!" he said, as if the bird understood him, "thou and I
must be strangers henceforward. Many a gallant stoop -have I seen thee
make, and many a brave heron strike down; but that is all gone and over,
and there is no hawking more for me!"
" And why not, Master Roland," said Adam Woodcock the falconer, who
came at that instant from behind a few alder bushes which had concealed
him  from view, "why should there be no more hawking for you? Why,
man, what were our life without our sports? - thou know'st the jolly old
song -
"And rather would Allan in dungeon lie,
Than live at llre- where the falcon cannot fly;
And Allan would rather lie in Sexton's pound,
Than live where lie followed not the merry hawk and hound."
The voice of the falconer was hearty and friendly, and the tone in which
he half-sung half-recited his rude ballad, implied honest frankness and cordiality. But remembrance of their quarrel, and its consequences, embarrassed Roland, and prevented his reply. The falconer saw his hesitation,
and guessed the cause.
"What now," said he, " Master Roland? do you, who are half an Englishman, think that I, who am a whole one, would keep up anger against
you, and you in distress?  That were like some of the Scots, (my master's
reverence always excepted,) who can be fair and false, and wait their time,
and keep their mind, as they say, to themselves, and touch pot and flagon
with you, and hunt and hawk with you, and, after all, when time serves,
pay off some old feud with the point of the dagger. Canny Yorkshire has
no memory for such old sores. Why, man, an you had hit me a rough
blow, maybe I would rather have taken it from you, than a rough word
from another; for you have a good notion of falconry, though you stand up
for washing the meat for the eyases. So give us your hand, man, and bear
no malice."




810                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
Roland, though he felt his proud blood rebel at the familiarity of honest
Adam's address, could not resist its downright frankness.  Covering his
face with the one hand, he held out the other to the falconer, and returned
with readiness his friendly grasp.
"Why, this is hearty now," said Woodcock; "I always said you had a
kind heart, though you have a spice of the devil in your disposition, that is
certain. I came this way with the falcon on purpose to find you, and yon
half-bred lubbard told me which way you took flight.  You ever thought
too much of that kestril-kite, Master Roland, and he knows nought of sport
after all, but what he caught from you.  I saw how it had been betwixt
you, and I sent him  out of my company with a wanion -I would rather
have a rifler on my perch than a false knave at my elbow-and now, Master
Roland, tell me what way wing ye?"
"That is as God pleases," replied the page, with a sigh which he could
not suppress.
"Nay, man, never droop a feather for being cast off," said the falconer;
" who knows but you may soar the better and fairer flight for all this yet?
-Look at Diamond there,'tis a noble bird, and shows gallantly with his
hood, and bells, and jesses; but there is many a wild falcon in Norway that
would not change properties with him - And that is what I would say of
you. You are no longer my Iady's page, and you will not clothe so fair,
or feed so well, or sleep so soft, or show so gallant -What of all that? if
you are not her page, you are your own man, and may go where you will,
without minding whoop or whistle.  The worst is the loss of the sport, but
who knows what you may come to?  They say that Sir Halbert himself, I
speak with reverence, was once glad to be the Abbot's forester, and now he
has hounds and hawks of his own, and Adam Woodcock for a falconer to
the boot."
"You are right, and say well, Adam," answered the youth, the blood
mantling in his cheeks, " the falcon will soar higher without his bells than
with them, though the bells be made of silver."
" That is cheerily spoken," replied the falconer; " and whither now?"
"I thought of going to the Abbey of Kennaquhair," answered Roland
Griemne, "to ask the counsel of Father Ambrose."
"And joy go with you," said the falconer, "though it is likely you may
find the old monks in some sorrow; they say the commons are threatening
to turn them  out of their cells, and make a devil's mass of it in the old
church, thinking they have forborne that sport too long; and troth I am
clear of the same opinion."
" Then will Father Ambrose be the better of having a friend beside him!"
said the page, manfully.
"Ay, but, my young fearnought," replied the falconer, "the friend will
scarce be the better of being beside Father Ambrose-he may come by the
redder's lick, and that is ever the worst of the battle."
"I care not for that," said the page, "the dread of a lick should not hold
me back; but I fear I may bring trouble between the brothers by visiting
Father Ambrose.  I will tarry to-night at Saint Cuthbert's cell, where the
old priest will give me a night's shelter; and I will send to Father Ambrose
to ask his advice before I go down to the convent."
" By Our Lady," said the falconer, "and that is a likely plan-and now,"
he continued, exchanging his frankness of manner for a sort of awkward
embarrassment, as if he had somewhat to say that he had no ready means
to bring out -" and now, you wot well that I wear a pouch for my hawk's
meat,* and so forth; but wot you what it is lined with, Master Roland?"
"With leather, to be sure," replied Roland, somewhat surprised at the
* This same hag, like every thing belonging to faleonry, was esteemed an honourable distinction. and worn
often by the nobility and gentry. One of the Sommervilles of Carlnethan was called Sir John with the red
ayf because it was his wont to wear his hawking pouch covered with satin of that colour.




THE  ABBOT.                              311
hesitation with which Adam Woodcock asked a question apparently so
simple.
" With leather, lad?" said Woodcock; "ay, and with silver to the boot
of that.  See here," he said, showing a secret slit in the lining of his bag
of 6ffice -" here they are, thirty good Harry groats as ever were struck in
bluff old Hal's time, and ten of them  are right heartily at your service;
and now the murder is out."
Roland's first idea was to refuse his assistance; but he recollected the
vows of humility which he had just taken upon him, and it occurred that
this was the opportunity to put his new-formed resolution to the test.
Assuming a strong command of himself, he answered Adam  Woodcock
with as much frankness as his nature permitted him to wear, in doing what
was so-contrary to his inclinations, that he accepted thankfully of his kind
offer, while, to soothe his own reviving pride, he could not help adding,
"he hoped soon to requite the. obligation."
"That as you list-that as you list, young man," said the falconer, with
glee, counting out and delivering to his young friend the supply he had
so generously offered, and then adding, with great cheerfulness,-" Now
you may go through the world; for he that can back a horse, wind a horn,
hollow a greyhound, fly a hawk, and play'at sword and buckler, with a
whole pair of shoes, a green jacket, and ten lily-white groats in his pouch,
may bid Father Care hang himself in his own jesses. Farewell, and God
be with you!"
So saying, and as if desirous to avoid the thanks of his companion, he
turned hastily round, and left Roland Greame to pursue his journey alone.
C0ater tilt it05t8.
The sacred tapers lights are gone,
Gray moss has clad the altar stone,
The holy image is o'erthrown,
The bell has ceased to toll,
The long ribb'd aisles are burst and shrunk,
The holy shrines to ruin sunk,
Departed is the pious monk,
God's blessing on his soul!
REDIVIVA.
TnE cell of Saint Cuthbert, as it was called, marked, or was supposed to
mark, one of those resting-places, which that venerable saint was pleased to
assign to his monks, when his convent, being driven from Lindisfern by the
Danes, became a peripatetic society of religionists, and bearing their patron's
body on their shoulders, transported him from place to place through Scotland and the borders of England, until he was pleased at length to spare
them the pain of carrying him farther, and to choose his ultimate place of
rest in the lordly towers of Durham. The odour of his sanctity remained
behind him  at each place where he had granted the monks a transient
respite from their labours; and proud were those who could assign, as his
temporary resting-place, any spot within their vicinity.  There were few
cells more celebrated and honoured than that of Saint Cuthbert, to which
Roland Graeme now bent his way, situated considerably to the north-west
of the great Abbey of Kennaquhair, on which it was dependent.  In the
neighbourhood were some of those recommendations which weighed with
the experienced priesthood of Rome, in choosing their sites for places of
religion.




312                 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
There was a well, possessed of some medicinal qualities, which, of course,
claimed the saint for its guardian and patron, and occasionally produced
some advantage to the recluse who inhabited his cell, since none could
reasonably expect to benefit by the fountain who did not extend their bounty
to the saint's chaplain. A few rods of fertile land afforded the monk his
plot of garden ground; an eminence well clothed with trees rose behind the
cell, and sheltered it from the north and the east, while the front, opening
to the south-west, looked up a wild but pleasant valley, down which wandered a lively brook, which battled with every stone that interrupted its
passage.
The cell itself was rather plainly than rudely constructed -a low Gothic
building with two small apartments, one of which served the priest for his
dwelling-place, the other for his chapel. As there were few of the secular
clergy who durst venture to reside so near the Border, the assistance of this
monk in spiritual affairs had not been useless to the community, while the
Catholic religion retained the ascendancy; as he could marry, christen, and
administer the other sacraments of the Roman church. Of late, however,
as the Protestant doctrines gained ground, he had found it convenient to
live in close retirement, and to avoid, as much as possible, drawing upon
himself observation or animadversion. The appearance of his habitation,
however, when Roland Greme came before it in the close of the evening,
plainly showed that his caution had been finally ineffectual.
The page's first movement was to knock at the door, when he observed,
to his surprise, that it was open, not from being left unlatched, but because,
beat off its upper hinge, it was only fastened to the door-post by the lower,
and could therefore no longer perform its functions. Somewhat alarmed at
this, and receiving no answer when he knocked and called, Roland began to
look more at leisure upon the exterior of the little dwelling before he ventured to enter it. The flowers, which had been trained with care against
the walls, seemed to have been recently torn down, and trailed their dishonoured garlands on the earth; the latticed window was broken and
dashed in. The garden, which the monk had maintained by his constant
labour in the highest order and beauty, bore marks of having been lately
trod down and destroyed by the hoofs of animals, and the feet of men.
The sainted spring had not escaped. It was wont to rise beneath a canopy
of ribbed arches, with which the devotion of elder times ha I secured and protected its healing waters. These arches were now almost entirely demolished,
and the stones of which they were built were tumbled into the well, as if
for the purpose of choking up and destroying the fountain, which, as it had
shared in other days the honour of the saint, was, in the present, doomed
to partake his unpopularity. Part of the roof had been pulled down from
the house itself, and an attempt had been made with crows and levers upon
one of the angles, by which several large corner-stones had been forced out
of their place; but the solidity of ancient mason-work had proved too
great for the time or patience of the assailants, and they had relinquished
their task of destruction. Such dilapidated buildings, after the lapse of
years, during which nature has gradually covered the effects of violence
with creeping plants, and with weather-stains, exhibit, amid their decay, a
melancholy beauty. But when the visible effects of violence appear raw
and recent, there is no feeling to mitigate the sense of devastation with
which they impress the spectators; and such was now the scene on which
the youthful page gazed, with the painful feelings it was qualified to excite.
When his first momentary surprise was over, Roland Graeme was at no
loss to conjecture the cause of these ravages. The destruction of the Popish
edifices did not take place at once throughout Scotland, but at different
times, and according to the spirit which actuated the reformed clergy; some
of whom instigated their hearers to these- acts of demolition, and others,
with better taste and feeling, endeavoured to protect the ancient shrines,




THE  ABBOT..813
while they desired to see them purified from the objects which had attracted
idolatrous  devotion.  From  time to time, therefore, the populace of the
Scottish towns and villages, when instigated either by their own feelings of
abhorrence for Popish superstition, or by the doctrines of the more zealous
preachers, resumed the work of destruction, and exercised it upon some
sequestered church, chapel, or cell, which had escaped the first burst of
their indignation against the religion of Rome. In many places, the vices
of the Catholic clergy, arising out of the wealth and the corruption of that
tremendous hierarchy, furnished too good an apology for wreaking vengeance upon the splendid edifices which they inhabited; and of this an old
Scottish historian gives a remarkable instance.
" Why mourn ye," said an aged matron, seeing the discontent of some of
the citizens, while a stately convent was burnt by the multitude,- " why
mourn ye for its destruction? If you knew half the flagitious wickedness
which has been perpetrated within that house, you would rather bless the
divine judgment, which permits not even the senseless walls that screened
such profligacy, any longer to cumber Christian ground."
But although, in many instances, the destruction of the Roman Catholic
buildings might be, in the matron's way of judging, an act of justice, and
in others an act of policy, there is no doubt that the humour of demolishing
monuments of ancient piety and munificence, and that in a poor country
like Scotland, where there was no chance of their being replaced, was both
useless, mischievous, and barbarous.
In the present instance, the unpretending and quiet seclusion of the monk
of Saint Cuthbert's had hitherto saved him from  the general wreck; but it
would seem ruin had now at length reached him. Anxious to discover if he
had at least escaped personal harm, Roland Grome entered the half ruined
cell.
The interior of the building was in a state which fully justified the
opinion he had formed from its external injuries. The few rude utensils of
the solitary's hut were broken down, and lay scattered on the floor, where
it seemed as if a fire had'been made with some of the fragments to destroy
the rest of his property, and to consume, in particular, the rude old image
of Saint Cuthbert, in its episcopal habit, which lay on the hearth like Dagon
of yore, shattered with the axe and scorched with the flames, but only partially destroyed. In the little apartment which served as a chapel, the altar
was overthrown, and the four huge stones of which it had been once composed lay scattered around the floor. The large stone crucifix which occupied the niche behind the altar, and fronted the supplicant while he paid his
devotion there, had been pulled down and dashed by its own weight into
three'fragments.  There were marks of sledge-hammers on each of these;
yet the image  had  been  saved  from  utter demolition by the size and
strength of the remaining fragments, which, though much injured, retained
enough of the original sculpture to show what it had been intended to
represent.*
Roland Groeme, secretly nursed in the tenets of Rome, saw with horror
the profanation of the most sacred emblem, according to his creed, of our
holy religion.
"It is the badge of our redemption," he said, "which the felons' have
I may here observe, that this is entirely an ideal scene. Saint Cuthhert, a person of established sanctify,
had, no doubt, several places of worship on the Borders, where he flourished whilst living; but Tillmouth
Chapel is the only one which bears some resemblance to the hermitage described in the text. It has, indeed,
a well, famous fri gratifying three wishes for every worshipper who shall quaff the fountain with sufficient
belief in its efficacy. At this spot the Saint is said to have landed in his stone coffin, in which he sailed down
the Tweed from Melrose. and here the stone coffin long lay, in evidence of the fact. The late Sir Francis
Blake Delaval is said to have taken the exact measure of the coffin, and to have ascertained, by hydrostatic
principles, that it mighit have actually swurn. A profane farmer in the neighborhood announced his intention
of converting this last bed of the Saint into a trough for his swine; but the profanation was rendered inpossible, either by the Saint, or by some pious votary in his behalf, for on the following morning the stone sarcophagsrs was found broken in two fi'aslnents.
Tillmouth Chapel, with these points of resemblance, lies, however, in exactly the opposite direction as
regards Melrose, which thie supposed cell of St. Cut.hbert is said to have borne towards Kesnaquhair
2B




814                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
dared to violate - would to God my weak strength were able to replace it
my humble strength, to atone for the sacrilege!"
He stooped to the task he first meditated, and with a sudden, and to himself almost an incredible exertion of power, he lifted up the one extremity of
the lower shaft of the cross, and rested it upcn the edge of the large stone
which served for its pedestal. Encouraged by this success, he applied his
force to the other extremity, and, to his own astonishment, succeeded so far
as to erect the lower end of the limb into the socket, out of which it had
been forced, and to place this fragment of the image upright.
While he was employed in this labour, or rather at the very moment
when he had accomplished the elevation of the fragment, a voice, in thrilling
and well-known accents, spoke behind him these words:-" Well done, thou
good and faithful servant! Thus would I again meet the child of my love
-the hope of my aged eyes."
Roland turned round in astonishment, and the tall commanding form of
Magdalen Graeme stood beside him.  She was arrayed in a sort of loose
habit, in form like that worn by penitents in Catholic countries, but black
in colour, and approaching as near to a pilgrim's cloak as it was safe to
wear in a country where the suspicion of Catholic devotion in many places
endangered the safety of those who were suspected of attachment to the
ancient faith. Roland Graeme threw himself at her feet.  She raised and
embraced him, with affection indeed, but not unmixed with gravity which
amounted almost to sternness.
"Thou hast kept well," she said, " the bird in thy bosom.* As a boy, as
a youth, thou hast held fast thy faith amongst heretics-thou hast kept thy
secret and mine own amongst thine enemies. I wept when I parted from
you -I who seldom weep, then shed tears, less for thy death than for thy
spiritual danger — I dared not even see thee to bid thee a last farewellmy grief, my swelling grief, had betrayed me to these heretics. But thou
hast been faithful - down, down on thy knees before the holy sign, which
evil men injure and blaspheme; down, and praise saints and angels for the
grace they have done thee, in preserving thee from the leprous plague which
cleaves to the house in which thou wert nurtured!"
"If, my mother - so I must ever call you," replied Graeme, -"if I am
returned such as thou wouldst wish me, thou must thank the care of the pious
father Ambrose, whose instructions confirmed your early precepts, and
taught me at once to be faithful and to be silent."
" Be he blessed for it," said she; "blessed in the cell and in the field, in
the pulpit and at the altar - the saints rain blessings on him! -they are
just, and employ his pious care to counteract the evils which his detested
brother works against the realm and the church,- but he knew not of thy
lineage?"
"I could not myself tell him that," answered Roland.  "I knew but
darkly from your words, that Sir Ialbert Glendinning holds mine inheritance, and that I am of blood as noble as runs in the veins of any Scottish
Baron - these are things not to be forgotten, but for the explanation I must
now look to you."
"And when time suits, thou shalt not look for it in vain. But men say,
my son, that thou art bold and sudden; and those who bear such tempers
are not lightly to be trusted with what will strongly move them."
"Say rather, my mother," returned Roland Grame, " that I am laggard
and cold-blooded - what patience or endurance can you require of which he
is not capable, who for years has heard his religion ridiculed and insulted,
yet failed to plunge his dagger into the blasphemer's bosom!"
"Be contented, my child," replied Magdalen Grame; "the time, which
then and even now demands patience, will soon ripen to that of effort and
An expression used by Sir Ralph Percy, slain in the battle of Hedgly-moor in 1464, %'en dying, tc UlreMia having preserved unstained.iB fidelity to the house of Lanoastor




THE ABBOT.                             815?
action-great events are on the wing, and thou,-thou shalt have-thy share
in advancing them.  Thou hast relinquished the service of the Lady of
Avenel?"
"I have been dismissed from it, my mother-I have lived to be dismissed,
as if I were the meanest of the train."
"It is the better, my child," replied she; "thy mind will be the more
hardened to undertake that which must be performed."
"Let it be nothing, then, against the Lady of Avenel," said the page,
"as thy look and words seem to imply. I have eaten her bread -I have
experienced her favour- I will neither injure nor betray her."
"Of that hereafter, my son," said she; "but learn this, that it is not for
thee to capitulate in thy duty, and to say this will I do, and that will I
leave undone-No, Roland! God and man will no longer abide the wickedness of this generation. Seest thou these fragments -knowest thou what
they represent? -and canst thou think it is for thee to make distinctions
amongst a race so accursed by Heaven, that they renounce, violate, blaspheme, and destroy, whatsoever we are commanded to believe in, whatsoever we are commanded to reverence?'
As she spoke, she bent her head towards the broken image, with a countenance in which strong resentment and zeal were mingled with an expression of ecstatic devotion; she raised her left hand aloft as in the act of
making a vow, and thus proceeded; "Bear witness for me, blessed symbol
of our salvation, bear witness, holy saint, within whose violated temple we
stand, that as it is not for vengeance of my own that my hate pursues these
people, so neither, for any favour or earthly affection towards any amongst
them, will I withdraw my hand from the plough, when it shall pass through
the devoted furrow! Bear witness, holy saint, once thyself a wanderer and
fugitive as we are now -bear witness, Mother of Mercy, Queen of Heaven
-bear witness, saints and angels!"
In this high train of enthusiasm, she stood, raising her eyes through the
fractured roof of the vault, to the stars which now began to twinkle through
the pale twilight, while the long gray tresses which hung down over her
shoulders waved in the night-breeze, which the chasm and fractured windows admitted freely.
Roland Graeme was too much awed by early habits, as well as by the
mysterious import of her words, to ask for farther explanation of the purpose she obscurely hinted at. Nor did she farther press him on the subject;
for, having concluded her prayer or obtestation, by clasping her hands together with solemnity, and then signing herself with the cross, she again
addressed her grandson, in a tone more adapted to the ordinary business
of life.
"Thou must hence," she said, "Roland, thou must hence, but not till
morning  And now, how wilt thou shift for thy night's quarters? - thou
hast been more softly bred than when we were companions in the misty
hills of Cumberland and Liddesdale."
"I have at least preserved, my good mother, the habits which I then
learned -can lie hard, feed sparingly, and think it no hardship. Since I
was a wanderer with thee on the hills, I have been a hunter, and fisher, and
fowler, and each of these is accustomed to sleep freely in a worse shelter
than sacrilege has left us here."
" Than sacrilege has left us here!" said the matron, repeating his words,
and pausing on them. " Most true, my son; and God's faithful children
are now worst sheltered, when they lodge in God's own house and the
demesne of his blessed saints. We shall sleep cold here, under the night.
wind, which whistles through the breaches which heresy has made. They
shall lie warmer who made them-ay, and through a long hereafter."
Notwithstanding the wild and singular expression of this female, she appeared to retain towards Roland Graeme, in a strong degree, that affectionate




816                   WAVEiRLY  NOVELS.
and sedulous love which women bear to their nurslings, and the children
dependent on their care. It seemed as if she would not permit him to do
aught for himself which in former days her attention had been used to do
for him, and that she considered the tall stripling before her as being
equally dependent on her careful attention as when he was the orphan child,
who had owed all to her affectionate solicitude.
"What' hast thou to eat now?" she said, as, leaving the chapel, they
went into the deserted habitation of the priest; " or what means of kindling
a fire, to defend thee from this raw and inclement air? Poor child! thou
hast made slight provision for a long journey; nor hast thou skill to help
thyself by wit, when means are scanty. But Our Lady has placed by thy
side one to whom want,-in all its forms, is as familiar as plenty and splendour have formerly been. And with want, Roland, come the arts of which
she is the inventor."
With an active and officious diligence, which strangely contrasted with
her late abstracted and high tone of Catholic devotion, she set about her
domestic arrangements for the evening. A pouch, which was hidden under
her garment, produced a flint and steel, and from the scattered fragments
around (those pertaining to the image of Saint Cuthbert scrupulously excepted) she obtained splinters sufficient to raise a sparkling and cheerful fire
on the hearth of the deserted cell.
" And now," she said, " for needful food."
" Think not of it, mother," said Roland, " unless you yourself feel hunger.
It is a little thing for me to endure a night's abstinence, and a small atonement for the necessary transgression of the rules of the Church upon which
I was compelled during my stay in the castle."
"Hunger for myself!" answered the matron -"Know, youth, that a
mother knows not hunger till that of her child is satisfied."  And with
affectionate inconsistency, totally different from  her usual manner, she
added, "Roland, you must not fast; you have dispensation; you are young,
and to youth food and sleep are necessaries not to be dispensed with. Husband your strength, my child,-your sovereign, your religion, your country,
require it. Let age macerate by fast and vigil a body which can only suffer;
let youth, in these active times, nourish the limbs and the strength which
action requires."
While she thus spoke, the scrip, which had produced the means of striking fire, furnished provision for a meal; of which she herself scarce partook,
but anxiously watched her charge, taking a pleasure, resembling that of an
epicure, in each morsel which he swallowed with a youthful appetite which
abstinence had rendered unusually sharp. Roland readily obeyed her
recommendations, and ate the food which she so affectionately and earnestly
placed before him. But she shook her head when invited by him in return
to partake of the refreshment her own cares had furnished; and when his
solicitude became more pressing, she refused him in a loftier tone of rejection.
"Young man," she said, " you know not to whom or of what you speak.
They to whom Ieaven declares its purpose must merit its communication
by mortifying the senses; they have that within which requires not the superfluity of earthly nutriment, which is necessary to those who are without
the sphere of the Vision. To them the watch spent in prayer is a refreshing slumber, and the sense of doing the will of Heaven is a richer banquet
than the tables of monarchs can spread before them! - But do thou sleep
soft, my son," she said, relapsing from the tone of fanaticism into that of
maternal affection and tenderness; "do thou sleep sound while life is but
young with thee, and the cares of the day can be drowned in the slumbers
of the evening. Different is thy duty and mine, and as different the means
by which we must qualify and strengthen ourselves to perform  it. Froml
thee is demanded strength of body-fr m me, strength of soul."




TH E  ABBOT.                          817
When she thus spoke, she prepared with ready address a pallet-couch,
composed partly of the dried leaves which had once furnished a bed to the.solitary, and the guests who occasionally received his hospitality, and which,
neglected by the destroyers of his humble cell, had remained little disturbed
in the corner allotted for them. To these her care added some of the vestures which lay torn and scattered on the floor. With a zealous hand she
selected all such as appeared to have made any part of the sacerdotal vestments, laying them aside as sacred from ordinary purposes, and with the
rest she made, with dexterous promptness, such a bed as a weary man
might willingly stretch himself on; and during the time she was preparing
it, rejected, even with acrimony, any attempt which the youth made to assist her, or any entreaty which he urged, that she would accept of the place
of rest for her own use. "Sleep thou," said she, "Roland Graeme, sleep
thou-the persecuted, the disinherited orphan-the son of an ill-fated
mother-sleep thou! I go to pray in the chapel beside thee."
The manner was too enthusiastically earnest, too obstinately firm, to
permit Roland Grgeme to dispute her will any farther. Yet he felt some
shame in giving way to it. It seemed as if she had forgotten the years that
had passed away since their parting; and expected to meet, in the tall,
indulged, and wilful youth, whom she had recovered, the passive obedience
of the child whom she had left in the Castle of Avenel. This did not fail
to hurt her grandson's characteristic and constitutional pride. He obeyed,
indeed, awed into submission by the sudden recurrence of former subordination, and by feelings of affection and gratitude. Still, however, he felt
the yoke.
"Have I relinquished the hawk and the hound," he said, "to become
the pupil of her pleasure, as if I were still a child?-I, whom even my
envious mates allowed to be superior in those exercises which they took
most pains to acquire, and which came to me naturally, as if a knowledge
of them had been my birthright? This may not, and must not be. I will
be no reclaimed sparrow-hawk, who is carried hooded on a woman's wrist,
and has his quarry only shown to him when his eyes are uncovered for his
flight. I will know her purpose ere it is proposed to me to aid it."
These, and other thoughts, streamed through the mind of Roland Grasme;
and although wearied with the fatigues of the day, it was long ere he could
compose himself to rest.
ZCffpttt tat 111 0tl.
Kneel with nie-swear it-'tis not in words I trust,
Save when they're fenced with an appeal to Heaven.
OLD PLAY
AFTER passing the night in that sound sleep for which agitation and
fatigue had prepared him, Roland was awakened by the fresh morning air,
and by the beams of the rising sun. His first feeling was that of surprise;
for, instead of looking forth from a turret window on the Lake of Avenel,
which was the prospect his former apartment afforded, an unlatticed aperture gave him the view of the demolished garden of the banished anchorite.
He sat up on his couch of leaves, and arranged in his memory, not without
wonder, the singular events of the preceding day, which appeared the more
surprising the more he considered them. He had lost the protectress of his
youth, and, in the same day, he had recovered the guide' and guardian of
his childhood. The former deprivation he felt ought to be matter of un2 B 2




318                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
ceasing regret, and it seemed as if the latter could hardly bo the subject of
unmixed self-congratulation. He remembered this person, who had stood
to him in the relation of a mother, as equally affectionate in her attention,
and absolute in her authority. A singular mixture of love and fear attended
upon his early remembrances as they were connected with her; and the
fear that she might desire to resume the same absolute control over his
motions-a fear which her conduct of yesterday did not tend much to dissipate —weighed heavily against the joy of this second meeting.
"She cannot mean," said his rising pride, " to lead and direct me as a
pupil, when I am at the age of judging of my own actions?-this she
cannot mean, or meaning it, will feel herself strangely deceived."
A sense of gratitude towards the person against whom his heart thus
rebelled, checked his course of feeling. He resisted the thoughts which
involuntarily arose in his mind, as he would have resisted an actual instigation of the foul fiend; and, to aid him in his struggle, he felt for his
beads. But, in his hasty departure from the Castle of Avenel, he had
forgotten and left them behind him.
"This is yet worse," he said; "but two things I learned of her under
the most deadly charge of secrecy-to tell my beads, and to conceal that I
did so; and I have kept my word till now; and when she shall ask me for
the rosary, I must say I have forgotten it I Do I deserve she should believe
me when I say I have kept the secret of my faith, when I set so light by
its symbol?"
He paced the floor in anxious agitation. In fact, his attachment to his
faith was of a nature very different from that which animated the enthusiastic matron, but which, notwithstanding, it would have been his last
thought to relinquish.
The early charges impressed on him by his grandmother, had been instilled into a mind and memory of a character peculiarly tenacious. Child
as he was, he was proud of the confidence reposed in his discretion, and
resolved to show that it had not been rashly intrusted to him. At the same
time, his resolution was no more than that of a child, and must, necessarily,
have gradually faded away under the operation both of precept and
example, during his residence at the Castle of Avenel, but for the exhortaons of Father Ambrose, who, in his lay estate, had been called Edward
Glendinning. This zealous monk had been apprized, by an unsigned letter
placed-in his hand by a pilgrim, that a child educated in the Catholic faith
was now in the Castle of Avenel, perilously situated, (so was the scroll
expressed,) as ever the three children who were cast into the fiery furnace
of persecution. The letter threw upon Father Ambrose the fault, should
this solitary lamb, unwillingly left within the demesnes of the prowling
wolf, become his final prey. There needed no farther exhortation to the
monk than the idea that a soul might be endangered, and that a Catholic
might become an apostate; and he made his visits more fiequent than usual
to the castle of Avenel, lest, through want of the private encouragement
and instruction which he always found some opportunity of dispensing, the
church should lose a proselyte, and, according to the Romish creed, the
devil acquire a soul.
Still these interviews were rare; and though they encouraged the solitary
boy to keep his secret and hold fast his religion, they were neither frequent
nor long enough to inspire him with any thing beyond a blind attachment
to the observances which the priest recommended. He adhered to the
forms of his religion rather because he felt it would be dishonourable to
change that of his fathers, than from any rational conviction or sincere
belief of its mysterious doctrines. It was a principal part of the distinction
which, in his own opinion, singled him out from those with whom he lived,
and gave him an additional, though an internal and concealed reason, for
contemlning those of the household who showed an undisguised dislike of




.HE  ABBOT.                            819
him, and for hardening himself against the instructions of the chaplain,
Hlenry Warden. 
"The fanatic preacher," he thought within himself, during some one of
the chaplain's frequent discourses against the Church of Rome, " he little
knows whose ears are receiving his profane doctrine, and with what contempt and abhorrence they hear his blasphemies against the holy religion
by which kings have been crowned, and for which martyrs have died!"
But in such proud feelings of defiance of heresy, as it was termed, and
of its professors, which associated the Catholic religion with a sense of
generous independence, and that of the Protestants with the subjugation of
his mind and temper to the direction of Mr. Warden, began and ended the
faith of Roland Greme, who; independently of the pride of singularity,
sought not to understand, and had no one to expound to him, the peculiarities of the tenets which he professed. His regret, therefore, at missing
the rosary which had been conveyed to him through the hands of Father
Ambrose, was rather the shame of a soldier who has dropped his cockade,
or badge of service, than that of a zealous votary who had forgotten a
visible symbol of his religion.
His thoughts on the subject, however, were mortifying, and the more so
from apprehension that his negligence must reach the ears of his relative.
He felt it could be no one but her who had secretly transmitted these beads
to Father Ambrose for his use, and that his carelessness was but an indifferent requital of her kindness.
" Nor will she omit to ask me about them," said he to himself; "for hers
is a zeal which age cannot quell; and if she has not quitted her wont, my
answer will not fail to incense her."
While he thus communed with himself, Magdalen Grmme entered tho
apartment.  "The blessing of the morning on your youthful head, my
son," she said, with a solemnity of- expression which thrilled the youth to
the heart, so sad and earnest did the benediction flow from her lips, in a
tone where devotion was blended with affection.  "And thou hast started
thus early from thy couch to catch the first breath of the dawn? But it is
not well, my Roland. Enjoy slumber while thou canst; the time is not far
behind when the waking eye must be thy portion, as well as mine."
She uttered these words with an affectionate and anxious tone, which
showed, that devotional as were the'habitual exercises of her mind, the
thoughts of her nursling yet bound her to earth with the cords of human
affection and passion.
But she abode not long in a mood which she probably regarded as a
momentary dereliction of her imaginary high calling-" Come," she said,
"youth, up and be doing-It is time that we leave this place."
" And whither do we go?" said the young man; "or what is the object
of our journey?"
The matron stepped back, and gazed on him with surprise, not unmingled
with displeasure.
" To what purpose such a question?" she said; "is it not enough that I
lead the way? Hast thou lived with heretics till thou hast learned to instal
the vanity of thine own private judgment in place of due honour and
obedience?"
"Thetime," thought Roland Greme within himself, "is already come,
when I must establish my freedom, or be a willing thrall for ever-I feel
that I must speedily look to it."
She instantly fulfilled his foreboding, by recurring to the theme by which
her thoughts seemed mpst constantly engrossed, although, when she pleased,
no one could so perfectly disguise her religion.
" Thy beads, my son-hast thou told thy beads?"
Roland Greme coloured high; he felt the storm was approaching, but
Scorned to avert it by a falsehood.




820'                  WAVEIRLEY  NOVELS.
" I have forgotten my rosary," he said,' at the Castle of A eneI."'
"Forgotten thy -rosary!" she exclaimed; "false both to religion and to
natural duty, hast thou lost what was sent so far, and at such risk, a token
of the truest affection, that should have been, every bead of it, as dear to
thee as thine eyeballs?"
"I am grieved it should have so chanced, mother," replied the youth,
"and much did I value the token, as coming from you. For what remains,
I trust to win gold enough, when I push my way in the world; and till
then, beads of black oak, or a rosary of nuts, must serve the turn."
"Hear him!" said his grandmother; "young as he is, he hath learned
already the lessons of the devil's school! The rosary, consecrated by the
Holy Father himself, and sanctified by his blessing, is but a few knobs of
gold, whose value may be replaced by the wages of his profane labour, and
whose virtue may be supplied by a string of hazel-nuts!-This is heresySo Henry Warden, the. wolf who ravages the flock of the Shepherd, hath
taught thee to speak and to think."
"Mother," said Roland Groeme, "I am no heretic; I believe and I pray
according to the rules of our church-This misfortune I regret, but I cannot
amend it."
"Thou canst repent it, though," replied his spiritual directress, "repent
it in dust and ashes, atone for it by fasting, prayer, and penance, instead
of looking on me with a countenance as light as if thou hadst lost but a
button from thy cap."
" Mother," said Roland, "be appeased; I will remember my fault in the
next confession which I have space and opportunity to make, and will do
whatever the priest may require of me in atonement. For the heaviest
fault I can do no more. -But, mother," he added, after a moment's pause,
" let me not incur your farther displeasure, if I ask whither our journey is
bound, and what is its object. I am no longer a child, but a man, and at
my own disposal, with down upon my chin, and a sword by my side- I
wvill go to the end of the world with you to do your pleasure; but I owe it
to myself to inquire the purpose and direction of our travels."
" You owe it to yourself, ungrateful boy?" replied his relative, passion
rapidly supplying the colour which age had long chased from her features,
-" to yourself you owe nothing - you can owe nothing - to me you owe
every thing   your life when an infant-your support while a child-the
means of instruction, and the hopes of honour-and, sooner than thou
shouldst abandon the noble cause to which I have devoted thee, would I see
thee lie a corpse at my feet!"
Roland was alarmed at the vehement agitation with which she spoke, and
which threatened to overpower her aged frame; and he hastened to reply,
- " I forget nothing of what I owe to you, my dearest mother -show me
how my blood can testify my gratitude, and you shall judge if I spare it.
But blindfold obedience has in it as little merit as reason."
"Saints and angels!" replied Magdalen, " and do I hear these words from
the child of my hopes, the nursling by whose bed I have kneeled, and for
whose weal I have wearied every saint in heaven with prayers? Roland;
by obedience only canst thou show thy affection and thy gratitude. What
avails it that you might perchance adopt the course I propose to thee, were
it to be fully explained? Thou wouldst not then follow my command; but
thine own judgment; thou wouldst not do the will of Heaven, communicated through thy best friend, to whom thou owest thine all; but thou
wouldst observe the blinded dictates of thine own imperfect reason. Hear
me, Roland! a lot calls thee-solicits thee-demands thee-the proudest to
which man can be destined, and it uses the voice of thine earliest, thy best,:
thine only friend-Wilt thou resist it? Then go thy way —leave me here
-my hopes on earth are gone and withered-I will kneel me down before




THE- ABBOT.                                  821
yonder profaned altar, and when the raging heretics return, they shall dye
it with the blood of a martyr."
"But, my dearest mother," said Roland Grmme, whose early recollections
of her violence were formidably renewed by these wild expressions of reckless passion, "I will not forsake you-I will abide with you-worlds shall
not force me from your side-I will protect-I will defend you —I will live
with you, and die for you!"
"One word, my son, were worth all these-say only,' I will obey you.' "
"Doubt it not, mother," replied the youth, "I will, and that with all my
heart; only-   "
"Nay, I receive no qualifications of thy promise," said Magdalen Grneme,
catching at the word, " the obedience which I require is absolute; and a
blessing on thee, thou darling memory of my beloved child, that thou hast
power to make a promise so hard to human pride! Trust me well, that in
the design in which thou dost embark, thou hast for thy partners the mighty
and the valiant, the power of the church, and the pride of the noble. Succeed or fail, live or die, thy name shall be among those with whom success
or failure is alike glorious, death or life alike desirable.  Forward, then,
forward! life is short, and our plan is laborious - Angels, saints, and the
whole blessed host of heaven, have their eyes even now on this barren and
blighted land of Scotland-What say I? on Scotland? —their eye is on us,
Roland   on the frail woman, on the inexperienced youth, who, amidst the
ruins which sacrilege hath made in the holy place, devote themselves to
God's cause, and that of their lawful Sovereign.  Amen, so be it!  The
blessed eyes of saints and martyrs, which see our resolve, shall witness the
execution; or their ears, which hear our vow, shall hear our death-groan
drawn in the sacred cause!"
While thus speaking, she held Roland Grgeme firmly with one hand, while
she pointed upward with the other, to leave him, as it were, no m(eans of
protest against the obtestation to which he was thus made a party.  When
she had finished her appeal to Heaven, she left him no leisure for farther
hesitation, or for asking any explanation of her purpose; but passing with
the same ready transition as formerly, to the solicitous attentions of an
anxious parent, overwhelmed him with questions concerning his residence in
the Castle of Avenel, and the qualities and accomplishments he had acquired.
" It is well," she said, when she had exhausted her inquiries, "my gay
goss-hawk* hath been well trained, and will soar high; but those who bred
him will have cause to fear as well as to wonder at his flight.-Let us now,"
she said, "to our morning meal, and care not though it be a scanty one.  A
few hours' walk will bring us to more friendly quarters."
They broke their fast accordingly, on such fragments as remained of their
yesterday's provision, and immediately set out on their farther journey.
MIagdalen Grgeme led the.way, with a firm  and active step much beyond
her years, and Roland Greme followed, pensive and anxious, and far from
satisfied with the state of dependence to which he seemed again to be
reduced.
" Am I for ever," he said to himself, "to be devoured with the desire of
independence and free agency, and yet to be for ever led on, by circumstances, to follow the will of others?"
*'he comparison is taken from some beautiful verses in an old ballad, entitled Fause Foodrage, published
in the " Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border." A deposed queen, to preserve her infant son from the traitois
who have slain his father, exchanges him with the female offspring of a faithful friend, and goes on to direct
he education of the children, and the private signals by which the parents are to hear news each of her onsa
offspring.
"And you shall learn my gay goss-hawk   And ye shall learn my gay goss-hawk
Right well to breast a steed;          To wield both bow and brand;
And so will I your turtle dow,         And so will I your turtle dow,
As well to write and read.             To lay gowd with her hand.
At kirk or market when we meet,
We'll dare make no avow,
But,'Dame, how does my gay goss-hawk''Madame, how does my dowl'"
VOL.. — 21




822                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
clJU8ten   tlpt Sta.
She dwelt unnoticed and alone,
Beside the springs of Dove:
A naid whom there was none to praise,
And very few to love.
WORDSWORTH.
IN the course of their journey the travellers spoke little to each other.
Magdalen Graeme chanted, from time to time, in a low voice, a part of some
one of those beautiful old Latin hymns which belong to the Catholic service,
muttered an Ave or a Credo, and so passed on, lost in devotional contemplation. The meditations of her grandson were more bent on mundane matters;
and many a time, as a moor-fowl arose from the heath, and shot along the
moor, uttering his bold crow of defiance, he thought of the jolly Adam
Woodcock, and his trusty goss-hawk; or, as they passed a thicket where
the low trees and bushes were intermingled with tall fern, furze, and
broom, so as to form a thick and intricate cover, his dreams were of a roebuck and a brace of gaze-hounds. But frequently his mind returned to the
benevolent and kind mistress whom he had left behind him, offended justly.
and unreconciled by any effort of his.
"My step would be lighter," he thought, " and so would my heart, could
I but have returned to see her for one instant, and to say, Lady, the orphan
boy was wild, but not ungrateful!"
Travelling in these divers moods, about the hour of noon they reached a
small straggling village, in which, as usual, were seen one or two of those
predominating towers, or peel houses, which, for reasons of defence elsewhere detailed, were at that time to be found in every Border hamlet. A
brook flowed beside the village, and watered the valley in which it stood.
There was also a mansion at the end of the village, and a little way separated from  it, much dilapidated, and in very bad order, but appearing to
have been the abode of persons of some consideration.  The situation was
agreeable, being an angle formed by the stream, bearing three or four large
sycamore trees, which were in full leaf, and served to relieve the dark
appearance of the mansion, which was built of a deep red stone.  The
house itself was a large one, but was now obviously too big for the inmates;
several windows were built up, especially those which opened from the
lower story; others were blockaded in a less substantial manner. The
court before the door, which had once been defended with a species of low
outer-wall, now ruinous, was paved, but the stones were completely covered
with long gray nettles, thistles, and other weeds, which, shooting up betwixt
the flags, had displaced many of them from their level. Even matters demanding more peremptory attention had been left neglected, in a manner
which argued sloth or poverty in the extreme. The stream, undermining a
part of the bank near an angle of the ruinous wall, had brought it down,
with a corner turret, the ruins of which lay in the bed of the river. The
current, interrupted by the ruins which it had overthrown, and turned yet
nearer to the site of the tower, had greatly enlarged the breach it had
made, and was in the process of undermining the ground on which the
house itself stood, unless it were speedily protected by sufficient bulwarks.
All this attracted Roland Graeme's observation, as they approached the
dwelling by a winding path, which gave them, at intervals, a view of it
from different points.
"If we go to yonder house," he said to his mother, " I trust it is but for
a short visit. It looks as if two rainy days from the north-west would send
the whole into the brook."




THE AB BOT.                             323
"You see buit with the eyes of the body," said the old woman; "God
will defend his own, though it be forsaken and despised of men. Better to
dwell on the sand, under his law, than fly to the rock of human trust."
As she thus spoke, they entered the court before the old mansion, and
Roland could observe that the front of it had formerly been considerably
ornamented with carved work, in the same dark-coloured freestone of which
it was built. But all these ornaments had been broken down and- destroyed,
and only the shattered vestiges of niches and entablatures now strewed the
place which they had once occupied. The larger entrance in front was
walled up, but a little footpath, which, from its appearance, seemed to be
rarely trodden, led to a small wicket, defended by adoor well clenched
with iron-headed nails, at which Magdalen Graeme knocked three times,
pausing betwixt each knock, until she heard an answering tap from within.
At the last knock, the wicket was opened by a pale thin female, who said,
" Benedicti qui venient in nomine Domini."  They entered, and the portress
hastily shut behind them the wicket, and made fast the massive fastenings
by which it was secured.
The female led the way through a narrow entrance, into a vestibule of
some extent, paved with stone, and having benches of the same solid material ranged around. At the upper end was an oriel window, but some of
the intervals formed by the stone shafts and mullions were blocked up, so
that the apartment was very gloomy.
Here they stopped, and the mistress of the mansion, for such she was,
embraced Magdalen Groeme, and greeting her by the title of sister, kissed
her with much solemnity, on either side of the face.
"The blessing of Our Lady be upon you, my sister," were her next
words; and they left no doubt upon Roland's mind respecting the religion
of their hostess, even if. he could have suspected his venerable and zealous
guide of resting elsewhere than in the habitation of an orthodox Catholic.
They spoke together a few words in private, during which he had leisure to
remark more particularly the appearance of his grandmother's friend.
Her age might be betwixt fifty and sixty; her looks had a mixture of
melancholy and unhappiness that bordered on discontent, and obscured the
remains of beauty which age had still left on her features. Her dress was
of the plainest and most ordinary description, of a dark colour, and, like
Magdalen Graeme's, something approaching to a religious habit.  Strict
neatness and cleanliness of person, seemed to intimate, that if poor, she
was not reduced to squalid or heart-broken distress, and that she was still
sufficiently attached to life to retain a taste for its decencies, if not its elegancies. Her manner, as well as her features and appearance, argued an
original condition and education far above the meanness of her present appearance. In short, the whole figure was such as to excite the idea,  "That
female must have had a history worth knowing."  While'Roland Gnreme
was making this very reflection, the whispers of the two females ceased, and
the mistress of the mansion, approaching him, looked on his face and person
with much attention, and, as it seemed, some interest.
"This, then," she said, addressing his relative, "is the child of thine
unhappy daughter, sister Magdalen; and him, the only shoot from your
ancient tree, you are willing to devote to the Good Cause?"
" Yes, by the rood," answered Magdalen Grgeme, in her usual tone 6f
resolved determination, "to the good cause I devote him, flesh and fell,
sinew and limb, body and soul."
" Thou art a happy woman, sister Magdalen," answered her companion,
"that, lifted so high above human affection and human feeling, thou canst
bind such a victim to the horns of the altar. Had I been called to make
such a sacrifice-to plunge a youth so young and fair into the plots and
bloodthirsty dealings of the time, not the patriarch Abraham, when he led
Isaac up the mountain, would have rendered more melancholy obedience."




824                  WAVE:RLEY  NOVELS.
She then continued to look at Roland with a mournful aspect of compassion, until the intentness of her gaze occasioned his colour to rise, and he
was about to move out of its influence, when he was stopped by his grandmother with one hand, while with the other she divided the hair upon his
forehead, which was now crimson with bashfulness, while she added, with
a mixture of proud affection and firm resolution, -" Ay, look at him well,
my sister, for on a fairer face thine eye never rested. I too, when I first
saw him, after a long separation, felt as the worldly feel, and was half
shaken in my purpose. But no wind can tear a leaf from the withered tree
which has long been stripped of its foliage, and no mere human casualty
can awaken the mortal feelings which have long slept in the calm of devotion."
While the old woman thus spoke, her manner gave the lie to her assertions, for the tears rose to her eyes while she added, " But the fairer and the
xnore spotless the victim, is it not, my sister, the more worthy of acceptance?'
She seemed glad to escape from the sensations which agitated her, and
instantly added, " He will escape, my sister - there will be a ram caught in
the thicket, and the hand of our revolted brethren shall not be on the youthful Joseph. Ileaven can defend its own rights, even by means of babes and
sucklings, of women and beardless boys."
"Heaven hath left us," said the other female; "for our sins and our
fathers' the succours of the blessed Saints have abandoned this accursed
land. We may win the crown of Martyrdom, but not that of earthly triumph.
One, too, whose prudence was at this deep crisis so indispensable, has been
called to a better world. The Abbot Eustatius is no more."
" May his soul have mercy!" said Magdalen Grseme, " and may Heaven,
too, have mercy upon us, who linger behind in this bloody land! His loss
is indeed a perilous blow to our enterprise; for who remains behind possessing his far-fetched experience, his self-devoted zeal, his consummate
wisdom, and his undaunted courage! He hath fallen with the church's
standard in his hand, but God will raise up another to lift the blessed banner. Whom have the Chapter elected in his room?"
"It is rumoured no one of the few remaining brethren dare accept the
office. The heretics have sworn that they will permit no future election,
and will heavily punish any attempt to create a new Abbot of Saint Mary's.
Conjuraverunt inter se principes, dicentes, Projiciamus lacqueos ejus."
"Quousque, Dornine!"- ejaculated Magdalen; "this, my sister, were
indeed a perilous and fatal breach in our band; but I am  firm in my
belief, that another will arise in the place of him so untimely removed.
Where is thy daughter Catharine?"
"In the parlour," answered the matron, " but"-She looked at Roland
Graeme, and muttered something in the ear of her friend.
"Fear it not," answered Magdalen Graeme, " it is both lawful and necessary - fear nothing from him - I would he were as well grounded in the
faith by which alone comes safety, as he is free from thought, deed, or speech
of villany. Therein is the heretics' discipline to be commended, my sister,
that they train up their youth in strong morality, and choke up every inlet
to youthful folly."
" It is but a cleansing the outside of the cup," answered her friend, " a
whitening of the sepulchre; but he shall see Catharine, since you, sister,
judge it safe and meet.- Follow us, youth," she added, and led the way
from the apartment with her friend. These were the only words which the
matron had addressed to Roland Grreme, who obeyed them in silence. As
they paced through several winding passages and waste apartments with a
very slow step, the young page had leisure to make some reflections on his
situation, -reflections of a nature which his ardent temper considered as
specially disagreeable. It seemed he had now got two mistresses, or tutoresses, instead of one, both elderly women, and both, it would seem, in league




.THE  ABBOT.                            325
to direct his motions according to their own pleasure, And for the accomplishment of plans to which he was no party. This, he thought, was too
much; arguing reasonably enough, that whatever right his grandmother and
benefactress had to guide his motions, she was neither entitled to transfer
her authority or divide it with another, who seemed to assume, without cerexnony, the same tone of absolute command over him.
"But it shall not long continue thus," thought Roland; " I will not be
all my life the slave of a woman's whistle, to go when she bids, and come
when she calls. No, by Saint Andrew! the hand that can hold the lance is
above the control of the distaff. I will leave them the slipp'd collar in their
hands on the first opportunity, and let them execute their own devices by
their own proper force. It may save them both from peril, for I guess what
they meditate is not likely to prove either safe or easy  the Earl of Murray
and his heresy are too well rooted to be grubbed up by two old women."
As he thus resolved, they entered a low room, in which a third female
was seated. This apartment was the first he had observed in the mansion
which was furnished with moveable seats, and with a wooden table, over
which was laid a piece of tapestry. A carpet was spread on the floor, there
was a grate in the chimney, and, in brief, the apartment had the air of being
habitable and inhabited.
But Roland's eyes found better employment than to make observations
on the accommodations of the chamber; for this second female inhabitant
of the mansion seemed something very different from any thing he had yet
seen there. At his first entry, she had greeted with a silent and low obeisance the two aged matrons, then glancing her eyes towards Roland, she
adjusted a veil which hung back over her shoulders, so as to bring it over
her face; an operation which she performed with much modesty, but without either affected haste or embarrassed timidity.
During this manoeuvre Roland had time to observe, that the face was that
of a girl apparently not much past sixteen, and that the eyes were at once
soft and brilliant. To these very favourable observations was added the
certainty that the fair object to whom they referred possessed an excellent
shape, bordering perhaps on enbonpoint, and therefore rather that of a Hebe
than of a Sylph, but beautifully formed, and shown to great advantage by
the close jacket and petticoat which she wore after a foreign fashion, the
last not quite long enough to conceal a very pretty foot, which rested on a
bar of the table at which she sate; her round arms and taper fingers very
busily employed in repairing the piece of tapestry which was spread on it,
which exhibited several deplorable fissures, enough to demand the utmost
skill of the most expert seamstress.
It is to be remarked, that it was by stolen glances that Roland Groeme
contrived to ascertain these interesting particulars; and he thought he could
once or twice, notwithstanding the texture of the veil, detect the damsel in
the act of taking similar cognizance of his own person. The matrons in the
meanwhile continued their separate conversation, eyeing from time to time
the young people, in a manner which left Roland in no doubt that they were
the subject of their conversation. At length he distinctly heard Magdalen
Grremne say these words - " Nay, my sister, we must give them opportunity
to speak together, and to become acquainted; they must be personally known
to each other, or how shall they be able to execute what they are intrusted
with?"
It seemed as if the matron, not fully satisfied with her friend's reasoning,
continued to offer some objections; but they were borne down by her more
dictatorial friend.
"It must be so," she said, "my dear sister; let us therefore go forth on
the balcony, to finish our conversation.-And do you," she said, addressing
Roland and the girl, "become acquainted with each other."
With this she stepped up to the young woman, and raising her veil, dis20




826                   WAVERLEY 1 NOV.'ELS.
covered features which, whatever might be their ordinary complexion, were
now covered with a universal blush.
"Licitum sit," said Magdalen, looking at the other matron.
"Vix licitum," replied the other, with reluctant and hesita'ing acquiescence; and again adjusting the veil of the blushing girl, she dropped it so
as to shade, though not to conceal her countenance, and whispered to her,
in a tone loud enough for the page to hear, "Remember, Catharine, who
thou art, and for what destined."
The matron then retreated with Magdalen Graeme through one of the
casements of the apartment, that opened on a large broad balcony, which,
with its ponderous balustrade, had once run along the whole south front of
the building which faced the brook, and formed a pleasant and commodious
walk in the open air. It was now in some places deprived of the balustrade,
in others broken and narrowed; but, ruinous as it was, could still be used
as a pleasant promenade.  Here then walked the two ancient dames, busied
in their private conversation; yet not so much so, but that Roland could
observe the matrons, as their thin forms darkened the casement in passing
or repassing before it, dart a glance into the apartment, to see how matters
were going on there.
Life hath its May, and is mirthful then:
The woods are vocal, and the flowers all odour;
Its very blast has mirth in't,-and the maidens,
The while they don their cloaks to screen their kirtles,
Laugh at the rain that wets them.
OLD PLAY.
CATHERINE was at the happy age of innocence and buoyancy of spirit,
when, after the first moment of embarrassment was over, a situation of
awkwardness, like that in which she was suddenly left to make acquaintance with a handsome youth, not even known to her by name, struck her, in
spite of herself, in a ludicrous point of view. She bent her beautiful eyes
upon the work with which she was busied, and with infinite gravity sate out
the two first turns of the matrons upon the balcony; but then, glancing her
deep blue eye a little towards Roland, and observing the embarrassment under
which he laboured, now shifting on his chair, and now dangling his cap, the
whole man evincing that he was perfectly at a loss how to open the conversation, she could keep her composure no longer, but after a vain struggle
broke out into a sincere, though a very involuntary fit of laughing, so richly
accompanied by the laughter of her merry eyes, which actually glanced
through the tears which the effort filled them with, and by the waving of
her rich tresses, that the goddess of smiles herself never looked more lovely
than Catherine at that moment. A court page would not have left her long
alone in her mirth; but Roland was country-bred, and, besides, having
some jealousy as well as bashfulness, he took it into his head that he was
himself the object of her inextinguishable laughter.  His endeavours to
sympathize with Catherine, therefore, could carry him no farther than a
forced giggle, which had more of displeasure than of mirth in it, and which
so much enhanced that of the girl, that it seemed to render it impossible
for her ever to bring her laughter to an end, with whatever anxious pains
she laboured to do so. For every one has felt, that when a paroxysm of
laughter has seized him at a misbecoming time and place, the efforts which




THE ABBOT.                              2T7
he made to suppress it, nay, the very sense of the impropriety of giving way
to it, tend only to augment and prolong the irresistible impulse.
It was undoubtedly lucky for Catherine, as well as for Roland, that the
latter did not share in the excessive mirth of the former. For, seated as
she was, with her back to the casement, Catherine could easily escape the
observation of the two matrons during the course of their promenade;
whereas Grame was so placed, with his side to the window, that his mirth,
had he shared that of his companion, would have been instantly visible,
and could not have failed to give offence to the personages in question. lie
sate, however, with some impatience, until Catherine had exhausted either
her power or her desire of laughing, and was returning with good grace to
the exercise of her needle, and then he observed with some dryness, that
"there seemed no great occasion to recommend to them to improve their
acquaintance, as it seemed, that they were already tolerably familiar."
Catherine had an extreme desire to set off upon a fresh score, but she
repressed it strongly, and fixing her eyes on her work, replied by asking
his pardon, and promising to avoid future offence.
Roland had sense enough to feel, that an air of offended dignity was very
much misplaced, and that it was with a very different bearing he ought to
meet the deep blue eyes which had borne such a hearty burden in the
laughing scene. lie tried, therefore, to extricate himself as well as he
could from his blunder, by assuming a tone of correspondent gaiety, and
requesting to know of the nymph, "how it was her pleasure that they
should proceed in improving the acquaintance which had commenced so
merrily."
"That," she said, "you must yourself discover; perhaps I have gone a
step too far in opening our interview."
"Suppose," said Roland Grneme, " we should begin as in a tale-book, by
asking each other's names and histories?"
"It is right well imagined," said Catherine, " and shows an argute judgment. Do you begin, and I will listen, and only put in a question or two
at the dark parts of the story. Come, unfold then your name and history,
my new acquaintance."
"I am called Roland Groeme, and that tall woman is my grandmother."
"And your tutoress?- good. Who are your parents?"
"They are both dead," replied Roland.
" Ay, but who were they? you had parents, I presume?"
" I suppose so," said Roland, " but I have never been able to learn much
of their history. My father was a Scottish knight, who died gallantly in
his stirrups -my mother was a Grneme of Hathergill, in the Debateable
Land —most of her family were killed when the Debateable country was
burned by Lord Maxwell and Herries of Caerlaverock."
"Is it long ago?" said the damsel.
"Before I was born," answered the page.
"That must be a great while since," said she, shaking her head gravely;
"look you, I cannot weep for them."
" It needs not," said the youth, " they fell with honour."
"So much for your lineage, fair sir," replied his companion, " of whom
I like the living specimen (a glance at the casement) far less than those
that are dead. Your much honoured grandmother looks as if she could
make one weep in sad earnest. And now, fair sir, for your own person -
if you tell not the tale faster, it will be cut short in the middle; Mother
Bridget pauses longer and longer every time she passes the window, and
with her there is as little mirth as in the grave of your ancestors."
" My tale is soon told- I was introduced into the castle of Avenel to be
page to the lady of the mansion."
" She is a strict Huguenot, is she not?" said the maiden.
"As strict as Calvin himself. But my grandmother can play the puri




828                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
tan when it suits her purpose, and she had some plan of her own, for
quartering me in the Castle -it would have failed, however, after we had
remained several weeks at the hamlet, but for an unexpected master of
ceremonies    "
" And who was that?" said the girl.
" A large black dog, Wolf by name, who brought me into the castle one
day in his mouth, like a hurt wild-duck, and presented me to the lady."
"A  most respectable introduction, truly," said Catherine; "and what
might you learn at this same castle?  I love dearly to know what my
acquaintances can do at need."
" To fly a hawk, hollow to a hound, back a horse, and wield lance, bow,
and brand."
"And to boast of all this when you have learned it," said Catherine,
"which, in France at least, is the surest accomplishment of a page. But
proceed, fair sir; how came your Huguenot lord and your no less Huguenot lady to receive and keep in the family so perilous a person as a
Catholic page?"
"Because they knew not that part of my history, which from infancy I
have been taught to keep secret-and because my grand-dame's former
zealous attendance on their heretic chaplain, had laid all this suspicion to
sleep, most fair Callipolis," said the page; and in so saying, he edged his
chair towards the seat of the fair querist.
" Nay, but keep your distance, most gallant sir," answered the blue-eyed
maiden, "for, unless I greatly mistake, these reverend ladies will soon interrupt our amicable conference, if the acquaintance they recommend shall
seem to proceed beyond a certain point-so, fair sir, be pleased to abide by
your station, and reply to my questions.- By what achievements did you
prove the qualities of a page, which you had thus happily acquired?"
Roland, who began to enter into the tone and spirit of the damsel's conversation, replied to her with becoming spirit.
"In no feat, fair gentlewoman, was I found inexpert, wherein there was
mischief implied. I shot swans, hunted cats; frightened serving-women,
chased the deer, and robbed the orchard. I say nothing of tormenting the
chaplain in various ways, for that was my duty as a good Catholic."
"Now, as I am a gentlewoman," said Catherine, "I think these heretics
have done Catholic penance in entertaining so all-accomplished a servingman!'.And what, fair sir, might have been the unhappy event which deprived them of an inmate altogether so estimable?"
" Truly, fair gentlewoman," answered the youth, "your real proverb says
that the longest lane will have a turning, and mine was more - it was, in
fine, a turning off."
" Good!" said the merry young maiden, "it is an apt play on the word
-and what occasion was taken for so important a catastrophe?-Nay, sta t'
not for my learning, I do know the schools-in plain phrase, why were you
sent from service?"
The page shrugged his shoulders while he replied, -"A short tale is
soon told-and a short horse soon curried. I made the falconer's boy taste
of my switch-the falconer threatened to make me brook his cudgel-he is
a kindly clown as well as a stout, and I wotild rather have been cudgelled
by him than any man in Christendom  to choose- but I knew not his
qualities at that time-so I threatened to make him brook the stab, and my
Lady made me brook the'Begone;' so adieu to the page's office and the
fair Castle of Avenel — I had not travelled far before I met my venerable
parent-And so tell your tale, fair gentlewoman, for mine is done."
"A happy grandmother," said the maiden, "who had the luck to find
the stray page just when his mistress had slipped his leash, and a most
lucky page that has jumped at once from a page to an old lady's gentlemanusher!'




THE ABBOT,                             329
All this is nothing of your history," answered Roland Grame, who
began to be much interested in the congenial vivacity of this facetious
young gentlewoman,-" tale for tale is fellow-traveller's justice."
"Wait till we are fellow-travellers, then," replied Catherine.
"Nay, you escape me not so," said the page; "if you deal not justly by
me, I will call out to Dame Bridget, or whatever your dame be called, and
proclaim you for a cheat."
"You shall not need," answered the maiden-" my history is the counterpart of your own; the same words might almost serve, change but dress
and name. I am called Catherine Seyton, and I also am an orphan."
"Have your parents been long dead?"
"This is the only question," said she, throwing down her fine eyes with
a sudden expression of sorrow, "that is the only question I cannot laugh at."
" And Dame Bridget is your grandmother?"
The sudden cloud passed away like that which crosses for an instant the
summer sun, and she answered with her usual lively expression, "Worse
by twenty degrees -Dame Bridget is my maiden aunt."
" Oier gods forbode!" said Roland —" Alas! that you have such a tale to
tell! and what horror comes next?"
" Your own history, exactly. I was taken upon trial for service  -"
"And turned off for pinching the duenna, or affronting my lady's waiting-woman?"
" Nay, our history varies there," said the damsel-" Our mistress broke
up house, or had her house broke up, which is the same thing, and I am a
fiee woman of the forest."
"And I am as glad of it as if any one had lined my doublet with cloth
of gold," said the youth.
"I thank you for your mirth," said she, "but the matter is not likely to
concern you."
"Nay, but go on," said the page, "for you will be presently interrupted;
the two good dames have been soaring yonder on the balcony, like two old
hooded crows, and their croak grows hoarser as night comes on; they will
wing to roost presently.-This mistress of yours, fair gentlewoman, who
was she, in God's name?"
" Oh, she has a fair name in the world," replied Catherine Seyton. "Few
ladies kept a fairer house, or held more gentlewomen in her household; my
aunt Bridget was one of her housekeepers. We never saw our mistress's
blessed face, to be sure, but we heard enough of her; were up early and
down late, and were kept to long prayers and light food."
"Out upon the penurious old beldam!" said the page.
"For Heaven's sake, blaspheme not!" said the girl, with an expression
of fear.-" God pardon us both! I meant no harm. I speak of our blessed
Saint Catherine of Sienna! - may God forgive me that I spoke so lightly,
and made you do a great sin and a great blasphemy. This was her nunnery,
in which there were twelve nuns and an abbess. My aunt was the abbess,
till the heretics turned all adrift."
"And where are your companions?" asked the youth.
"With the last year's snow," answered the maiden; " east, north, south,
and west -some to France, some to Flanders, some, I fear, into the world
and its pleasures. We have got permission to remain, or rather our remaining has been connived at, for my aunt has great relations among the
Kerrs, and they have threatened a death-feud if any one touches us; and
bow and spear are the best warrant in these times."
"Nay, then, you sit under a sure shadow," said the youth; "and I suppose you wept yourself blind when Saint Catherine broke up housekeeping
before you had taken aries* in her service?"....... -...:
* Anglice-Earnest-money.
-2c2




.330                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
"HIush! for Heaven's sake," said the damsel, crossing herself; "no more
of that! but I have not quite cried' my eyes out," said she, turning them
upon him, and instantly again bending them upon her work. It was one
of those glances which would require the threefold plate of brass around
the heart, more than it is needed by the mariners, to whom Horace recommends it. Our youthful page had no defence whatever to offer.
"What say you, Catherine," he said, "if we two, thus strangely turned
out of service at the same time, should give our two most venerable duennas
the torch to hold, while we walk a merry measure with each other over the
floor of this weary world?"
"A goodly proposal, truly," said Catherine, "and worthy the mad-cap
brain of a discarded page! -And what shifts does your worship propose
we should live by? -by singing ballads, cutting purses, or swaggering on
the highway? for there, I think, you would find your most productive
exchequer."
" Choose, you proud peat!" said the page, drawing off in huge disdain at
the calm and unembarrassed ridicule with which his wild proposal was
received. And as he spoke the words, the casement was again darkened
by the forms of the matrons-it opened, and admitted Magdalen Granmem
and the Mother Abbess, so we must now style her, into the apartment.
Rlptrr  tat ffmtlft^.
Nay, hear me, brother-I am elder, wiser,
And holier than thon-And age, and wisdom,
And holiness, have peremptory claims,
And will be listen'd to.
OLD PLAY.
WHEN the matrons re-entered, and put an end to the conversation which
we have detailed in the last chapter, Dame Magdalen Graeme thus addressed
her grandson and his pretty companion: " Have you spoke together, my
children? -Have you become known to each other as fellow-travellers on
the same dark and dubious road, whom chance-hath brought together, and
who study to learn the tempers and dispositions of those by whom their
perils are to be shared?"
It was seldom the light-hearted Catharine could suppress a jest, so that
she often spoke when she would have acted more wisely in holding her
peace.
"Your grandson admires the journey which you propose so very greatly,
that he was even now preparing for setting out upon it instantly."
"This is to be too forward, Roland," said the dame, addressing him, "as
yesterday you were over slack-the just mean lies in obedience, which both
waits for the signal to start, and obeys it when given.-But once again, my
children, have you so perused each other's countenances, that when you
meet, in whatever disguise the times may impose upon you, you may recognize each in the other the secret agent of the mighty work in which you are
to be leagued?-Look at each other, know each line and lineament of each!
other's countenance. Learn to distinguish by the step, by the sound of the
voice, by the motion of the hand, by the glance- of the eye, the partner
whom Heaven hath sent to aid in working its will.- Wilt thou know that
maiden, whensoever, or wheresoever you shall again meet her, my Roland
Gramme?"




THIE  ABBOT.                           331
As readily as truly did Roland answer in the affirmative.  "And thou,
my daughter, wilt thou again remember the features of this youth?"
"Truly, mother," replied Catherine Seyton, "I have not seen so many
men of late, that I should immediately forget your grandson, though I mark
not much about him that is deserving of especial remembrance."
" Join hands, then, my children," said Magdalen Graeme; but, in saying
so, was interrupted by her companion, whose conventual prejudices had
been gradually giving her more and inore uneasiness, and who could remain
acquiescent no longer.
" Nay, my good sister, you forget," said she to Magdalen, " Catharine is
the betrothed bride of Heaven-these intimacies cannot be."
"It is in the cause of Heaven that I command them to embrace," said
Magdalen, with the full force of her powerful voice; "the end, sister, sanctifies the means we must use."
" They call me Lady Abbess, or Mother at the least, who address me,"
said Dame Bridget, drawing herself up, as if offended at her friend's authoritative manner-" the Lady of Heathergill forgets that she speaks to
the Abbess of Saint Catherine."
" When I was what you call me," said Magdalen, "you indeed were the
Abbess of Saint Catherine, but both names are now gone, with all the rank
that the world and that the church gave to them; and we are now, to the
eye of human judgment, two poor, despised, oppressed women, dragging
our dishonoured old age to a humble grave. But what are we in the eye
of Heaven? - Ministers, sent forth to work his will, - in whose weakness
the strength of the church shall be manifested-before whom shall be humbled the wisdom of Murray, and the dark strength of Morton,-And to
such wouldst thou apply the narrow rules of thy cloistered seclusion?or, hast thou forgotten the order which I showed thee from thy Superior,
subjecting thee to me in these matters?"
"On thy head, then, be the scandal and the sin," said the Abbess, sullenly.
"On mine be they both," said Magdalen. "I say, embrace each other,
my children."
But Catherine, aware, perhaps, how the dispute was likely to terminate,
had escaped from the apartment, and so disappointed the grandson, at least
as much as the old matron.
"She is gone," said the Abbess, "to provide some little refreshment.
But it will have little savour to those who dwell in the world; for I, at least,
cannot dispense with the rules to which I am vowed, because it is the will
of wicked men to break down the sanctuary in which they wont to be
observed."
"It is well, my sister," replied Magdalen, " to pay each even the smallest
tithes of mint and cummin which the church demands, and I blame not thy
scrupulous observance of the rules of thine order. But they were established by the church, and for the church's benefit; and reason it is that
they should give way when the salvation of the church herself is at stake."
The Abbess made no reply.
One more acquainted with human nature than the inexperienced page,
might have found amusement in comparing the different kinds of fanaticisms which these two females exhibited. The Abbess, timid, narrowminded, and discontented, clung to ancient usages and pretensions which
were ended by the Reformation; and was in adversity, as she had been in
prosperity, scrupulous, weak-spirited, and bigoted. While the fiery and.more lofty spirit of her companion suggested a wider field of effort, and
would not be limited by ordinary rules in the extraordinary sche'mes which
were suggested by her bold and irregular imagination. But Roland Graeme,
instead of tracing these peculiarities of character in the two old dames, only
waited with great anxiety for the return of Catherine, expecting probably




832                  WAV ERLEY  NOVELS.
that the proposal of the fraternal embrace would be renewed, as his grand
mother seemed disposed to carry matters with a high hand.
-Iis expectations, or hopes, if we may call them so, were, however, disappointed; for, when Catherine re-entered on the summons of the Abbess,
and placed on the table an earthen pitcher of water, and four wooden platters, with cups of the same materials, the Dame' of Heathergill, satisfied
with the arbitrary mode in which she had borne down the opposition of the
Abbess, pursued her victory no farther-a moderation for which her grandson, in his heart, returned her but slender thanks.
In the meanwhile, Catherine continued to place upon the table the slender
preparations for the meal of a recluse, which consisted almost entirely of
colewort, boiled and served up in a wooden platter, having no better seasoning than a little salt, and no better accompaniment than some coarse
barley-bread, in very moderate quantity. The water-pitcher, already mentioned, furnished the only beverage. After a Latin grace, delivered by the
Abbess, the guests sat down to their spare entertainment. The simplicity
of the fare appeared to produce no distaste in the females, who ate of it
moderately, but with the usual appearance of appetite. But Roland Grweme
had been used to better cheer.  Sir Halbert Glendinning, who affected even
an unusual degree of nobleness in his housekeeping, maintained it in a
style of genial hospitality, which rivalled that of the Northern Barons of
England. He might think, perhaps, that by doing so, he acted yet more
completely the part for which he was born -that of a great Baron and a
leader. Two bullocks, and six sheep, weekly, were the allowance when the
Baron was at home, and the number was not greatly diminished during his
absence. A boll of malt was weekly brewed into ale, which was used by
the household at discretion. Bread was baked in proportion for the consumption of his domestics and retainers; and in this scene of plenty had
Roland Graeme now lived for several years. It formed a bad introduction
to lukewarm  greens and spring-water; and probably his countenance indicated some sense of the difference, for the Abbess observed, " It would seem,
my son, that the tables of the heretic Baron, whom you have so long followed, are more daintily furnished than those of the suffering daughters of
the church; and yet, not upon the most solemn nights of festival, when the
nuns were permitted to eat their portion at mine own table, did I consider
the cates, which were then served up, as half so delicious as these vegetables and this water, on which I prefer to feed, rather than do aught which
may derogate from the strictness of my vow. It shall never be said that
the mistress of this house made it a house of feasting, when days of darkness and of affliction were hanging over the Holy Church, of which I am
an unworthy member."
" Well hast thou said, my sister," replied Magdalen Grmeme; "but now it
is not only time to suffer in the good cause, but to act in it. And since our
pilgrim's meal is finished, let us go apart to prepare for our journey tomorrow, and to advise on the manner in which these children shall be
employed, and what measures we can adopt to supply their thoughtlessness
and lack of discretion."
Notwithstanding his indifferent cheer, the heart of Roland Grmeme bounded
high at this proposal, which he doubted not would lead to another tete-d-tUte
betwixt him and the pretty novice. But he was mistaken.  Catherine, it
would seem, had no mind so far to indulge him; for, moved either by delicacy or caprice, or some of those indescribable shades betwixt the one and
the other, with which women love to tease, and at the same time to captivate,
the ruder sex, she reminded the Abbess that it was necessary she should
retire an hour before vespers; and, receiving the ready and approving nod
of her Superior, she arose to withdraw. But before leaving the apartment, she
made obeisance to the matrons, bending herself till her hands touched her
knees, and then made a lesser reverence to Roland, which consisted in a




THE ABBOT.                               333
slight bend of the body and gentle depression of the head.  This she performed very demurely; but the party on whom the salutation was conferred,
thought he could discern in her manner an arch and mischievous exultation
over his secret disappointment. — " The devil take the saucy girl," he
thought in his heart, though the presence of the Abbess should have
repressed all such profane imaginations, -" she is as hard-hearted as the
laughing hyaena that the story-books tell of- she has a mind that I shall
not forget her this night at least."
The matrons now retired also, giving the page to understand that he was
on no account to stir from the convent, or to show himself at the windows,
the Abbess assigning as a reason, the readiness with which the rude heretics
caught at every occasion of scandalizing the religious orders.
" This is worse than the rigour of Mr. Henry Warden, himself," said the
page, when he was left alone; "for, to do- him justice, however strict in
requiring the most rigid attention during the time of his homilies, he left
us to the freedom of our own wills afterwards -ay, and would take a share
in our pastimes, too, if he thought them entirely innocent. But these old
women are utterly wrapt up in gloom, mystery and self-denial.-Well, then,
if I must neither stir out of the gate nor look out at window, I will at least
see what the inside of the house contains that may help to pass away one's
time - peradventure I may light on that blue-eyed laugher in some corner
or other.
Going, therefore, out of the chamber by the entrance opposite to that
through which the two matrons had departed, (for it may be readily supposed that he had no desire to intrude on their privacy,) he wandered from
one chamber to another, through the deserted edifice, seeking, with boyish
eagerness, some source of interest and amusement. Here he passed through
a long gallery, opening on either hand into the little cells of the nuns, all
deserted, and deprived of the few trifling articles of furniture which the
rules of the order admitted.
"The birds are flown," thought the page; "but whether they will find
themselves worse off in the open air than in these damp narrow cages, I
leave my Lady Abbess and my venerable relative to settle betwixt them.
I think the wild young lark whom they have left behind them, would like
best to sing under God's free sky."
A winding stair, strait and narrow, as if to remind the nuns of their
duties of fast and maceration, led down to a lower suite of apartments,
which occupied the ground story of the house.  These rooms were even
more ruinous than those which he had left: for, having encountered the first
fury of the assailants by whom the nunnery had been wasted, the windows
had been dashed in, the doors broken down, and even the partitions betwixt
the apartments, in some places, destroyed. As he thus stalked from desolation to desolation, and began to think of returning from so uninteresting
a research to the chamber which he had left, he was surprised to hear the
low of a cow very close to him. The sound was so unexpected at the time
and place, that Roland Graeme started as if it had been the voice of a lion,
and laid his hand on his dagger, while at the same moment the light and
lovely form of Catherine Seyton presented itself at the door of the apartment from which the sound had issued.
"Good even to you, valiant champion.!" said she: "since the days of
Guy of Warwick, never was one more worthy to encounter a dun cow."
"Cow?" said Roland Grmeme, "by my faith, I thought it had been the
devil that roared so near me. Who ever heard of a convent containing a
cow-house?"
"Cow and calf may come hither now," answered Catherine, "for we have
no means to keep out either. But I advise you, kind sir, to return to the
place from whence you came."
"Not till I see your charge, fair sister," answered Roland, and made his




834'WAV ER L EY,  NOVEL S.
way into the apartment, in  spite of the half serious half laughing remonr
strances of the girl.
The poor solitary cow, now  the only severe recluse within  the nunnery,
was quartered in a spacious chamber, which had once been the refectory of
the convent. The roof was graced with groined arches, and the wall with.
niches, from  which the images had been pulled down.  These remnants of
architectural ornaments were strangely contrasted with the rude crib constructed for the cow in one corner of the apartment, and the stack of fodder
which was piled beside it for her food.*
" By my faith," said the page, " Crombie is more lordly lodged than any
one here!"
" You had best remain with her," said Catherine, " and supply by your
filial attentions the offspring she has had the ill luck to lose."
"I will remain, at least, to help you to prepare her night's lair, pretty
Catherine," said Roland, seizing upon a pitch-fork.
"By no means," said Catherine; " for, besides that you know  not in the
least how to do her that service, you will bring a chiding my way, and I get
enough of that in the regular course of things."
"What! for accepting my assistance?" said the page,-"for accepting
my assistance, who am  to be your confederate in some deep matter of import?   That were altogether unreasonable-and, now  I think on it, tell me
if you can, what is this mighty emprise to which I am  destined?"
" Robbing a bird's nest, I should suppose," said Catherine, "considering
the champion whom  they have selected."
" By my faith," said the youth, " and he that has taken a falcon's nest in
the Scaurs of Polmoodie, has done something to brag of; my fair sister. 
But that is all over now -a murrain on the nest, and the eyases and their
food, washed or unwashed, for it was all anon of cramming these worthless
kites that I was sent upon my present travels.  Save that I have met with
you, pretty sister, I could eat my dagger-hilt for vexation at my own folly.
But, as we are to be fellow-travellers           "
"Fellow-labourers! not fellow-travellers!"  answered  the girl; "for to
your comfort be it known, that the Lady Abbess and I set out earlier than
you and your respected relative to-morrow, and that I partly endure your
company at present, because it may be long ere we meet again."
"By Saint Andrew, but it shall not though," answered Koland; "I will
not hunt at all unless we are to hunt in couples."
" I suspect, in that and in other points, we must do as we are bid," replied
the young lady. -" But, hark! I hear my aunt's voice."
The old lady entered in good earnest, and darted a severe glance at her
niece, while Roland had the ready wit to busy himself about the halter of
the cow.
" The young gentleman," said Catherine, gravely, "is helping me to tie
the cow up faster to her stake, for I find that last night when she put her
head out ofwindow and lowed, she alarmed the whole village; and we shall
be suspected of sorcery among the heretics, if they do not discover the cause
of the apparition, or lose our cow if they do."
"Relieve yourself of that fear," said the Abbess, somewhat ironically;
"the person to whom she is now sold, comes for the animal presently."
* This, like the cell of Saint Cllthbert, is an imaginary scene, hut I took one or two ideas of the desolation
of the interior from a story told me by ny father. In his youth-it may be near eighty years since, as he was
b6rn il 1729 —he had occasion to visit an old lady who resided in a Border castle of considerable renown.
Only one very limited portion of the extensive ruins sufficed for the accommodation of the inmates, and my
father amused himself by wandering through the part that was untenanted. In a dining apartment, having
a roof richly adorned with arches and drops, there was deposited a large stack of hay, to which calves were
helping themselves from opposite sides. As my father was scaling a dark ruinous turnpike staircase, his
greyhound ran up before him, and probably was the nmeans of saving his life. for the animal fell through a
trap door, or aperture in the stair, thus warning'the owner of the danger of the ascent. As the dog continued howling from a great depth, ny father got the old butler, who alone knew most of the localitiesanout
the castle, to unlock a sort of stable, in which Kill-buck was found safe and sound, the place being filled
with the same cosmmlodity which littered the stalls of Augeas, and which had rendered the dog's faL aa
itsy one.




THE ABBOT.                             335
"Good night, then, my poor companion," said Catherine, patting the
animal's shoulders; " I hope thou hast fallen into kind hands, for my happiest hours of late have been spent in tending thee —I would I had been
born to no better task!"
"Now, out upon thee, mean-spirited wench!" said the Abbess; "is that
a speech worthy of the name of Seyton, or of the mouth of a sister of this
house, treading the path of election - and to be spoken before a stranger
youth, too?-Go to my oratory, minion-there read your Hours till I come
thither, when I will read you such a lecture as shall make you prize the
blessings which you possess."
Catherine was about to withdraw in silence, casting a half sorrowful half
comic glance at Roland Grseme, which seemed to say -" You see to what
your untimely visit has exposed me," when, suddenly changing her mind,
she came forward to the page, and extended her hand as she bid him good
evening. Their palms had pressed each other ere the astonished matron
could interfere, and Catherine had time to say -" Forgive me, mother; it
is long since we have seen a face that looked with kindness on us. Since
these disorders have broken up our peaceful retreat, all has been gloom and
malignity. I bid this youth kindly farewell, because he has come hither in
kindness, and because the odds are great, that we may never again meet in
this world. I guess better than he, that the schemes on which you are
rushing are too mighty for your management, and that you are now setting
the stone a-rolling, which must surely crush you in its descent. I bid farewell," she added, "to my fellow-victim!"
This was spoken with a tone of deep and serious feeling, altogether different from the usual levity of Catherine's manner, and plainly showed,
that beneath the giddiness of extreme youth and total inexperience, there
lurked in her bosom a deeper power of sense and feeling, than her conduct
had hitherto expressed.
The Abbess remained a moment silent after she had left the room. The
proposed rebuke died on her tongue, and she appeared struck with the deep
and foreboding tone in which her niece had spoken her good-even. She led
the way in silence to the apartment which they had formerly occupied, and
where there was prepared a small refection, as the Abbess termed it, consisting of milk and barley-bread. Magdalen Groeme, summoned to take
share in this collation, appeared from an adjoining apartment, but Catherine
was seen no more. There was little said during the hasty meal, and after
was finished, Roland Greeme was dismissed to the nearest cell, where some
preparations had been made for his repose.
The strange circumstances in which he found himself, had their usual
effect in preventing slumber from hastily descending on him, and he could
distinctly hear, by a low but earnest murmuring in the apartment which he
had left, that the matrons continued in deep consultation to a late hour.
As they separated he heard the Abbess distinctly express herself thus: "In
a word, my sister, I venerate your character and the authority with which
my Superiors have invested you; yet it seems to me, that, ere entering on
this perilous course, we should consult some of the Fathers of the Church."
"And how and where are we to find a faithful Bishop or Abbot at whom
to ask counsel? The faithful Eustatius is no more - he is withdrawn from
a world of evil, and from the tyranny of heretics. May Heaven and our
Lady assoilzie him of his sins, and' abridge the penance of his mortal infirmities!-Where shall we find another, with whom to take counsel?"
" Heaven will provide for the Church," said the Abbess; " and the faithful fathers who yet are suffered to remain in the house of Kennaquhair,
will proceed to elect an Abbot. They will not suffer the staff to fall down,
or the mitre to be unfilled, for the threats of heresy."
" That will I learn to-morrow," said Magdalen Greme; "yet who now
takes the office of an hour, save to partake with the spoilers in their work




836                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
of plunder? -to-morrow will tell us if one of the thousand saints who are
sprung fromtthe House of Saint Mary's continues to look down on it in its
misery.- Farewell, my sister —we meet at Edinburgh."
"Benedicite!" answered the Abbess, and they parted.
"To Kennaquhair and to Edinburgh we bend our way," thought Roland
Grgeme.  "That information have I purchased by a sleepless hour-it suits
well with my purpose.  At Kennaquhair I shall see Father Ambrose; -at
Edinburgh I shall find the means of shaping my own course through this
bustling world, without burdening my affectionate relation-at Edinburgh,
too, I shall see again the witching novice, with her blue eyes and her protoking smile." — He fell asleep, and it was to dream of Catherine Seyton.
dt itrr tn   t   btlurttanttt
What, Dagon up again!-T thought we had hurl'd him
Down on the threshold, never more to rise.
Bring wedge andl axe; and, neighbours, lend your hands
And rive the idol into winter fagots!
ATHELSTANE, OR THE CONVERTED DANE.
ROLAND GR2EME slept long and sound, and the sun was high over the
horizon, when the voice of his companion summoned him to resume their
pilgrimage; and when, hastily arranging his dress, he went to attend her
call, the enthusiastic matron stood already at the threshold, prepared for
her journey. There was in all the deportment of this remarkable woman,
a promptitude of execution, and a sternness of perseverance, founded on
the fanaticism which she nursed so deeply, and which seemed to absorb all
the ordinary purposes and feelings of mortality. One only human affection
gleamed through her enthusiastic energies, like the broken glimpses of the
Fun through the rising clouds of a storm. It was her maternal fondness for
her grandson  a fondness carried almost to the verge of dotage, in circumitances where the Catholic religion was not concerned, but which gave way
instantly when it chanced either to thwart or come in contact with the more
settled purpose of her soul, and the more devoted duty of her life. Her life
she would willingly have laid down to save the earthly object of her affection; but that object itself she was ready to hazard, and would have been
willing to sacrifice, could the restoration of the Church of Rome have been
purchased with his blood.  Her discourse by the way, excepting on the few
occasions in which her extreme love of her grandson found opportunity to
display itself in anxiety for his health and accommodation, turned entirely
on the duty of raising up the fallen honours of the Church, and replacing a
Catholic sovereign on the throne. There were times at which she hinted,
though very obscurely and distantly, that she herself was foredoomed by
Heaven to perform a part in this important task; and that she had more
than mere human warranty for the zeal with which she-engaged in it. But
fn this subject she expressed herself in such general language, that it was
not easy to decide whether she made any actual pretensions to a direct and
supernatural call, like the celebrated Elizabeth Barton, commonly called
the Nun of Kent;* or whether she dwelt upon the general duty which was
* A fanatic nun, called the Holy Maid of Kent, who pretended to the gift of prophecy and power of
miracles. Having denounced the doom of speedy death against Henry VITI. for his marriage with Anne
Boleyn, the prophetess was attainted in Parliament, and executed with her accomplices. Her imposture was
for a time so successful, that even Sir Thomas More was disposed to be a believer.




THE ABBOT.                             387
incumbent on all Catholics of the time, and the pressure of which she felt
in an extraordinary degree.
Yet though Magdalen Greeme gave no direct intimation of her pretensions
to be considered as something beyond the ordinary class of mortals, the
demeanour of one or two persons amongst the travellers whom they occasionally met, as they entered the more fertile and populous part of the
valley, seemed to indicate -their belief in her superior attributes. It is true,
that two clowns, who drove before them a herd of cattle-one or two village
wenches, who seemed bound for some merry-making-a strolling soldier, in
a rusted morion, and a wandering student, as his threadbare black cloak
and his satchel of books proclaimed him - passed our travellers without
observation, or with a look of contempt; and, moreover, that two or three
children, attracted by the appearance of a dress so nearly resembling that
of a pilgrim, joined in hooting and calling " Out upon the mass-monger!"
But one or two, who nourished in their bosoms respect for the downfallen
hierarchy - casting first a timorous glance around, to see that no one
observed them —hastily crossed themselves-bent their knee to Sister Magdalen, by which name they saluted her -kissed her hand, or even the hem
of her dalmatique —received with humility the Benedicite with which she
repaid their obeisance; and then starting up, and again looking timidly
round to see that they had been unobserved, hastily resumed their journey.
Even while within sight of persons of the prevailing faith, there were individuals bold enough, by folding their arms and bending their head, to give
distant and silent intimation that they recognized Sister Magdalen, and
honoured alike her person and her purpose.
She failed not to notice to her grandson these marks of honour and respect
which from time to time she received. "You see," she said, " my son, that
the enemies have been unable altogether to suppress the good spirit, or to
root out the true seed. Amid heretics and schismatics, spoilers of the
church's lands, and scoffers at saints and sacraments, there is left a remnant."
"It is true, my mother,".said Roland Grseme; "but methinks they are
of a quality which can help us but little. See you not all those who wear
steel at their side, and bear marks of better quality, ruffle past us as they
would past the meanest beggars? for those who give us any marks of sympathy, are the poorest of the poor, and most outcast of the needy, who have
neither bread to share with us, nor swords to defend us, nor skill to use
them if they had. That poor wretch that last kneeled to you with such
deep devotion, and who seemed emaciated by the touch of some wasting
disease within, and the grasp of poverty without-that pale, shivering,
miserable caitiff, how can he aid the great schemes you meditate?"
"' Much, my son," said the Matron, with more mildness than the page
perhaps expected.  "When that pious son of the church returns from the
shrine of Saint Ringan, whither he now travels by my counsel, and by the
aid of good Catholics, -when he returns, healed of his wasting malady,
high in health, and strong in limb, will not the glory of his faithfulness,
and its miraculous reward, speak louder in the ears of this besotted people
of Scotland, than the din which is weekly made in a thousand heretical
pulpits?"
"Ay, but, mother, I fear the Saint's hand is out.  It is long since we
have heard of a miracle performed at St. Ringan's."
The matron made a dead pause, and, with a voice tremulous with emotion,
asked, "Art thou so unhappy as to doubt the power of the blessed Saint?"
"Nay, mother," the youth hastened to reply, "I believe as the Holy
Church commands, and doubt not Saint Ringan's power of healing; but, be
it said with reverence, he hath not of late showed the inclination."
"And has this land deserved it?" said the Catholic matron, advancing
hastily while she spoke, until she attained the summit of a rising ground,
VOL. V.~-22                    2D




338                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
over which the path led, and then standing again still.  "Here," she said,
"stood the Cross, the limits of the Halidome of Saint Mary's - here - on
this eminence-from which the eye of the holy pilgrim might first catch a
view of that ancient monastery, the light of the land, the abode of Saints,
and the grave of monarchs -Where is now that emblem of our faith? It
lies on the earth-a shapeless block, from which the broken fragments have
been carried off, for the meanest uses, till now no semblance of its original
form remains. Look towards the east, my son, where the sun was wont to
glitter on stately spires  from which crosses and bells have now been
hurled, as if-the land had been invaded once more by barbarous heathens.Look at yonder battlements, of which we can, even at this distance, descry
the partial demolition; and ask if this land can expect from the blessed
saints, whose shrines and whose images have been profaned, any other
miracles but those of vengeance?  How long," she exclaimed, looking
upward, "How long shall it be delayed?"  She paused, and then resumed
with enthusiastic rapidity, "Yes, my son, all on earth is but for a period -
joy and grief, triumph and desolation, succeed each other like cloud and
sunshine; -the vineyard shall not be forever trodden down, the gaps shall
be amended, and the fruitful branches once more dressed and trimmed.
Even this day-ay, even this hour, I trust to hear news of importance.
Dally not-let us on-time is brief, and judgment is certain."
She resumed the path which led to the Abbey - a path which, in ancient
times, was carefully marked out by posts and rails, to assist the pilgrim in
his journey - these were now torn up and destroyed. A half-hour's walk
placed them in front of the once splendid Monastery, which, although the
church was as yet entire, had not escaped the fury of the times. The long
range of cells and of apartments for the use of the brethren, which occupied
two sides of the great square, were almost entirely ruinous, the interior
having been consumed by fire, which only the massive architecture of the
outward walls had enabled them to resist. The Abbot's house, which formed
the third side of the square, was, though injured, still inhabited, and
afforded refuge to the few brethren, who yet, rather by connivance than by
actual authority, were permitted to remain at Kennaquhair. Their stately
offices-their pleasant gardens - the magnificent cloisters constructed for
their recreation, were all dilapidated and ruinous; and some of the building
materials had apparently been put into requisition by persons in the village
and in the vicinity, who, formerly vassals of the Monastery, had not hesitated to appropriate to themselves a part of the spoils. Roland saw fragments of Gothic pillars richly carved, occupying the place of door-posts to
the meanest huts; and here and there a mutilated statue, inverted or laid
on its side, made the door-post, or threshold, of a wretched cow-house. The
church itself was less injured than the other buildings of the Monastery.
But the images which had been placed in the numerous niches of its columns
and buttresses, having all fallen under the charge of idolatry, to which the
superstitious devotion of the Papists had justly exposed them, had been
broken and thrown down, without much regard to the preservation of the
rich and airy canopies and pedestals on which they were placed; nor, if the
devastation had stopped short at this point, could we have considered the
preservation of these monuments of antiquity as an object to be put in the
balance with the introduction of the reformed worship.
Our pilgrims saw the demolition of these sacred and venerable representations of saints and angels —for as sacred and venerable they had been
taught to consider them - with very different feelings. The antiquary may
be permitted to regret the necessity of the action, but to Magdalen G-raeme
it seemed a deed of impiety, deserving the instant vengeance of heaven, —
a sentiment in which her relative joined for the moment as cordially as
herself. Neither, however, gave vent to their feelings in words, and uplifted
hands and eyes formed their only mode of expressing them. The page was




THE ABBOT.                             839
about to approach the great eastern gate of the church, but was prevented
by his guide. " That gate," she said, " has long been blockaded, that the
heretical rabble may not know there still exist among the brethren of Saint
Mary's men who dare worship where their predecessors prayed while alive,
and were interred when dead -follow me this way, my son."
Roland Groeme followed accordingly; and Magdalen, casting a hasty
glance to see whether they were observed, (for she had learned caution from
the danger of the times,) commanded her grandson to knock at a little wicket
which she pointed out to him. "But knock gently," she added, with a
motion expressive of caution. After a little space, during which no answer
was returned, she signed to Roland to repeat his summons for admission;
and the door at length partially opening, discovered a glimpse of the thin
and timid porter, by whom the duty was performed, skulking from the
observation of those who stood without; but endeavouring at the same time
to gain a sight of them without being himself seen.  How different from
the proud consciousness of dignity with which the porter of ancient days
offered his important brow, and his goodly person, to the pilgrims who
repaired to Kennaquhair! His solemn "Intrate, meifilii," was exchanged
for a tremulous "You cannot enter now   the brethren are in their chambers."  But, when Magdalen Grieme asked, in an under tone of voice,
"Hast thou forgotten me, my brother?" he changed his apologetic refusal
to " Enter, my honoured sister, enter speedily, for evil eyes are upon us;"
They entered accordingly, and having waited until the porter had, with
jealous haste, barred and bolted the wicket, were conducted by him through
several dark and winding passages. As they walked slowly on, he spoke to
the matron in a subdued voice, as if'he feared to trust the very walls with
the avowal which he communicated.
"Our Fathers are assembled in the Chapter-house, worthy sister-yes, in
the Chapter-house - for the election of an Abbott.-Ah, Benedicite! there
must be no ringing of bells - no high mass-no opening of the great gates
now, that the people might see and venerate their spiritual Father! Our
Fathers must hide themselves rather like robbers who choose a leader, than
godly priests who elect a mitred Abbot."
" Regard not that, my brother," answered Magdalen Greme; "the first
successors of Saint Peter himself were elected, not in sunshine, but in tempests -not in the halls of the Vatican, but in the subterranean vaults and
dungeons of heathen Rome-they were not gratulated with shouts and
salvos of cannon-shot and of musketry, and the display of artificial fireno, my brother - but by the hoarse summons of Lictors and Prators, who
came to drag the Fathers of the Church to martyrdom. From such adversity was the Church once raised, and by such will it now be purified.-And
mark me, brother! not in the proudest days of the mitred Abbey, was a
Superior ever chosen, whom his office shall so much honour, as he shall be
honoured, who now takes it upon him in these days of tribulation.  On
whom, my brother, will the choice fall?"
"On whom can it fall -or, alas! who would dare to reply to the call,
save the worthy pupil of the Sainted Eustatius-the good and valiant Father
Ambrose?"
" I know it," said Magdalen; " my heart told me long ere your lips had
uttered his name.  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 oDe poor
decrepit old man."




340                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
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-meil 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.
The most fatal symptom of the whole appeared to be, that, though this
violence had now been committed for many months, the Fathers had lost so
totally all heart and resolution, that they had not adventured even upon
clearing away the rubbish, or restoring the church to some decent degree
of order. This might have been done without much labour. But terror
had overpowered the scanty remains of a body once so powerful, and,
sensible they were only suffered to remain in this ancient seat by connivance
and from compassion, they did not venture upon taking any step which
might be construed into an assertion of their ancient rights, contenting
themselves with the secret and obscure exercise of their religious ceremonial,
in as unostentatious a manner as was possible.
Two or three of the more aged brethren had sunk under the pressure of
the times, and the ruins had been partly cleared away to permit their interment. One stone had been laid over Father Nicholas, which recorded of
him in special, that he had taken the vows during the incumbency of Abbot
Ingelram, the period to which his memory so frequently recurred. Another
flag-stone, yet more recently deposited, covered the body of Philip the
Sacristan, eminent for his aquatic excursion with the phantom of Avenel,
and a third, the most recent of all, bore the outline of a mitre, and the
words HFicjacet Eustatius Abbas; for no one dared to add a word of commendation in favour of his learning, and strenuous zeal for the Roman
Catholic faith.
Magdalen Graeme looked at and perused the brief records of these monuments successively, and paused over that of Father Eustace. " In a good
hour for thyself," she said, "but oh! in an evil hour for the Church, wert
thou called from us. Let thy spirit be with us, holy man - encourage thy
successor to tread in thy footsteps -give him thy bold and inventive capacity, thy zeal and thy discretion-even thy piety exceeds not his."  As she
spoke, a side door, which closed a passage from the Abbot's house into the
church, was thrown open, that the Fathers might enter the choir, and conduct to the high altar the Superior whom they had elected.
In former times, this was one of the most splendid of the many pageants
which the hierarchy of Rome had devised to attract the veneration of the
faithful. The period during which the Abbacy remained vacant, was a
state of mourning, or, as their emblematical phrase expressed it, of widowhood; a melancholy term, which was changed into rejoicing and triumph
when a new Superior was chosen. When the folding doors were on such
solemn occasions thrown open, and the new Abbot appeared on the threshold
in full-blown dignity, with ring and mitre, and dalmatique and crosier, his
hoary standard-bearers and his juvenile dispensers of incense preceding
him, and the. venerable train of monks behind him, with all besides which
could announce the supreme authority to which he was now raised, his
appearance was a signal for the magnificent jubilate to rise from the organ




THE ABBOT.                              341
and music-loft, and to be joined by the corresponding bursts of Alleluiah
from the whole assembled congregation. Now all was changed.  In the
midst of rubbish and desolation, seven or eight old men, bent and shaken
as much by grief and fear as by age, shrouded hastily in the proscribed
dress of their order, wandered like a procession of spectres, from the door
which had been thrown open, up through the encumbered passage, to the
high altar, there to instal their elected Superior a chief of ruins. It was
like a band of bewildered travellers choosing a chief in the wilderness of
Arabia; or a shipwrecked crew electing a captain upon the barren island
on which fate has thrown them.
They who, in peaceful times, are most ambitious of authority among
others, shrink from the competition at such eventful periods, when neither
ease nor parade attend the possession of it, and when it gives only a painful
pre-eminence both in danger and in labour, and exposes the ill-fated chieftain to the murmurs of his discontented associates, as well as to the first
assault of the common enemy. But he on whom the office of the Abbot of
Saint Mary's was now conferred, had a mind fitted for the situation to which
he was called.  Bold and enthusiastic, yet generous and forgiving-wise
and skilful, yet zealous and prompt-he wanted but a better cause than the
support of a decaying superstition, to have raised him to the rank of a truly
great man. But as the end crowns the work, it also forms the rule by which
it must be ultimately judged; and those who, with sincerity and generosity,
fight and fall in an evil cause, posterity can only compassionate as victims
of a generous but fatal error. Amongst these, we must rank Ambrosius,
the last Abbot of Kennaquhair, whose designs must be condemned, as their
success would have riveted on Scotland the chains of antiquated superstition
and spiritual tyranny; but whose talents commanded respect, and whose
virtues, even from the enemies of his faith, extorted esteem.
The bearing of the new Abbot served of itself to dignify a ceremonial
which was deprived of all other attributes of grandeur. Conscious of the
peril in which they stood, and recalling, doubtless, the better days they had
seen, there hung over his brethren an appearance of mingled terror, and
grief, and shame, which induced them to hurry over the office in which they
were engaged, as something at once degrading and dangerous.
But not so Father Ambrose.  His features, indeed, expressed a deep
melancholy, as he walked up the centre aisle, amid the ruin of things which
he considered as holy, but his brow was undejected, and his step firm and
solemn. Ile seemed to think that the dominion which he was about to
receive, depended in no sort upon the external circumstances under which
it was conferred; and if a mind so firm was accessible to sorrow or fear, it
was not on his own account, but on that of the Church to which he had
devoted himself.
At length he stood on the broken steps of the high altar, barefooted, as
was the rule, and holding in his hand his pastoral staff, for the gemmed
ring'and jewelled mitre had become secular spoils. 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 Zffice;
2D2




342                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
and the brethren listened to that which, short as it was, they wished yet
more abridged.*
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. The winding of horns, blown with no regard to
harmony or concert; the jangling of bells, the thumping of drums, the
squeaking of bagpipes, and the clash of cymbals —the shouts of a multitude, now as in laughter, now as in anger-the shrill tones of female voices,
and of those of children, mingling with the deeper clamour of men, formed
a Babel of sounds, which first drowned, and then awed into utter silence,
the official hymns of the Convent. The cause and result of this extraordinary interruption will be explained in the next chapter.
Not the wild billow, when it breaks its barrierNot the wild wind, escaping from its cavernNot the wild fiend, that mingles both together,
And pours their rage upon the ripening harvest,
Can match the wild freaks of this mirlhful meetingComic, yet fearful-droll, and yet destructive.
THE CONSPIRACY.
THE monks ceased their song, which, like that of the choristers in the
legend of the Witch of Berkley, died away in a quaver of consternation;
and, like a flock of chickens disturbed by the presence of the kite, they at
first made a movement to disperse and fly in different directions, and then,
with  despair, rather than  hope, huddled themselves around their new
Abbot; who, retaining the lofty and undismayed look which had dignified
him through the whole ceremony, stood on the higher step of the altar, as
if desirous to be the most conspicuous mark on which danger might discharge itself, and to save his companions by his self-devotion, since he
could afford them no other protection.
Involuntarily, as it were, Magdalen Graeme and the page stepped from
the station which hitherto they had occupied unnoticed, and approached to
the altar, as desirous of sharing the fate which approached the monks,
whatever that might be.  Both bowed reverently low to the Abbot; and
while Magdalen seemed about to speak, the youth, looking towards the
main entrance, at which the noise now  roared most loudly, and which
was at the same time assailed with much knocking, laid his hand upon
his dagger.
The Abbot motioned to both to forbear: "Peace, my sister," he said, in
a low tone, but which, being in a different key from the tumultuary sounds
without, could be distinctly heard, even amidst the tumult; — " Peace," he
said, "my sister; let the new Superior of Saint Mary's himself receive and
reply to the grateful acclamations of the vassals, who come to celebrate his
installation.-And thou, my son; forbear, I charge thee, to touch thy earthly
weapon;-if it is the pleasure of our protectress, that her shrine be this day
* 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 rna.s,. abridged and maimed of its rites,
called a hunting-mass, the brevity of which was designed to correspond with the impatience of the au&ience.




THE ABBOT.                                                  343
desecrated by deeds of violence, and polluted by blood-shedding, let it not,
I charge thee, happen through the deed of a Catholic son of the dhurch."
The noise and knocking at the outer gate became now every moment
louder; and voices were heard impatiently demanding admittance.  The
Abbot, with dignity, and with a step which even the emergency of danger
rendered  neither faltering nor precipitate, moved  towards the  portal, and.
demanded to know, in a tone of authority, who it was that disturbed their
worship, and what they desired?
There was a moment's silence, and then a loud laugh from without. At
length a voice replied, " We desire entrance into the church; and when tihe
door is opened you will soon see who we are."
"By whose authority do you require entrance?" said the Father.
"By authority of the right reverend Lord Abbot of Unreason," * replied
*We learn from no less authority than that of Napoleon Bonaparte, that there is but a single step between
the sublime and ridiculous; and it is a transition from one extreme to another; so very easy, that the vulgar
of evely degree are peculiarly captivated with it.'thus the inclination to laugh becomnes uncontrollable,
when the solemnnity and gravity of time, place, and circumstances, render it peculiarly improper.  Some
species of general license, like that which inspired the ancient Saturnalia, or the modern Carnival, has been
ciurnmonly indulged to the people at all times and in almost all countries. But it was, I think. peculiar to thle
Roman Catholic Church, that while they studied how to render their church rites imposing and magnificent,
by all that pomp, music, architecture, and external display could add to them. they nevertheless connived,
upon speci.tl occasions, at the trolics of the rude vulgar, who, in almost all Catholic countries, enjoyed, or at
least assumied, the privilege of imaking some Lord of the revels, who. under. the namle of the Abbot of
Unreason, the Boy Bishop, or the President of Fools, occupied the churches, profaned the holy places by a
lmock imitation of the sacred rites. and sung indecent parodies on hymnrs of the church. The indifference of
the clergy, even when tleir power was greatest, to the indecent exhibitions which they always tolerated, and
sometimles encouraged, forlrs a strong contrast to the sensitiveness with which they regarded any serious.attempt, by preaching or writing, to inpeach any of the doctrines of the church. It could only be compared
to tlie singular apathy with which they endured, and oftenr admrired the gross novels which Chaicer, Dunbar,
Boccacio, Baindelo, and others, composed upon the bad morals of the clergy. It seems as if the churchmen
in both instances had endeavoured to comprtonise with the laity, and allowed them occasionally to gratify
their coarse humour by indecent satire, provided they would abstain from any grave question concerning tho
fiundation of tile doctrines on which was erected such an immense falbric of ecclesiastical power.
But the sports thus licensed assumed a very different appearance, so soon as the Protestant doctrines began
to prevs il; and the license which their forefathers lad exercised in mere gaiety of heart, and without thl
least intention of dishonouring religion by their frolics, were now persevered in. by the common people as a
mode of testifying their utter disregard for the Roman priesthoold and its ceremonies.
I rrav observe, tor examrple, the case of an apparitor sent to Borthwick fronm the Primate of Saint Andrews,
to cite the lord of that castle, wlho was opposed by anl Abbot of Unreason, at wtlose command the officer of
the spiritual court was appointed to he ducked in a mill-dam. and obliged to eat up his parchmenet citation.
The reader may be armused with the following whimsical details of this incident, which took place in the
castle of Borthwick, in the year 1517. It appears, tliat in consequence of a process betwixt Master George
I-lay de Minzeane and the Lord Borthwick, letters of excommunic-ation had passed against the latter, oil
account of the contumacy of certain witnesses.  Willian  Langlands, an apparitor or macer (bocularius) of
the See of St Andrews, presented these letters to the curate of the church of Borthwick, requiring him to
puhlish the same at the service of high mass. It seems that the inhabitants of the castle were at this tisme
engaged in the favourite sport of enacting the Abbot of IUnreason, a species of high jinks, in which a mimic
prelate was elected, who, like the Lord of Misrule in England, turned all sort of lawful authority, and particularly tile church ritual, into ridicule. This frolicsomre person with his retinue, notwithstanding of the.
apparitor's character, entered the church, seized upon the primate's officer without hesitation, and, draggine
him to the mic;l-dam oil the south side of the castle, compelled him to leap into the water. Not contented
with tiis partial immersion, the Abbot of Unreason pronounced, that Mr. William  Langlands was not vet
sufficiently bathed, and therefore caused his assistants to lay him on his back in the stream, and duck hiri in
the most satisfactory and perfect manner. Tle unfortunate apparitor was then conducted back to the chulrch,
where, for his refreshmnent after his hath, the letters of excommnunication were torn to pieces, and steeped in
a bowl of wine; the mock abbot being probably of opinion that a tough parchment was hut dry eating,
Langlands was compelled to eat the letters, and swallow the wine, and dismissed by the Abbot of Unreason,
with the comfortable assurance, that if any more such letters should arrive during the continuance of his
oflice, "they should a' glang the same gate," i. e. go the same road.
A similar scene occurs betwixt a suniner of the Bishop of Rochester, and Harpool, the servant of Lord.
Cobliam. in the old play of Sir John Oldcastle, when the former compels the church-officer to eat his citation. The dialogue, which may be found in the note, contains most of the jests which mray be supposed
ppropriate to such an extraordinary occasion: 
* Harpool  Marry, sir, is this process parchment 1
Sumner. Yes, marry is it.
Harpool. And this seal wax?
Sumner..It is so.
Harpool. If this be parchment, and this be wax, eat you this parchment and wax, or I will make parchment of your skin, and beat your brains into wax. Sirrah Sumner, despatch —devour, sirrah, devour.
Sumner. I am my Lord of Rochester's sumner; I carme to do imy office, and thou shalt answer it.
1aurpool. Sirrah. no railing, but ietake thyself to thy teeth. Thou shalt eat no worse than thou bringest
with thee. Thou bringest it-for my lord; and wilt thou bring my lord worse than thou wilt eat thyself I
Sumner. Sir, I brought it not my lord to eat.
Harpool. 0, do you Sir rme now I All's one for that; I'll make you eat it for bringing it.
Sumner. I cannot  at it.
Harpool. Can you not? Shlood, I'll beat you till you have a stomach! (Beats him.)
Sumn1er. Oh, hold, hold, good Mr. Servingman: I will eat it.
Harpool.  Be champing, be chewing, sir, or I will chew you, you rogue. Tough wax is the purest of the
honey.
Sunlner. The purest of the honey?-0 Lord, sir, oh! oh!
Harpool. Feed, feed;'tis wholesome, rogue, wholesome. Cannot you, like an honest sumner, walk with
the devil yourhbrother, to fetch in yolur bailiff's rents, hut you must come to a nobleman's house with process 
If the seal were broad as the lead which covers Rochester Church, thou shouldst eat it.




344                      WAV ERLEY NOVELS.
the voice from without; and, from the laugh which followed, it seemed as
if there was something highly ludicrous couched under this reply.
" I know not, and seek not to know, your meaning," replied the Abbot,
"since it is probably a rude one.  But begone, in the name of God, and
leave his servants in peace. I speak this, as having lawful authority to
command here."
"Open the door," said another rude voice, "and we will try titles with
you, Sir Monk, and show you a superior we must all obey."
" Break open the doors if he dallies any longer," said a third, "and down
with the carrion monks who would bar us of our privilege!"  A  general
shout followed.  "Ay, ay, our privilege! our privilege! down with the doors,
and with the lurdane monks, if they make opposition!"
The knocking was now exchanged for blows with great hammers, to which
the doors, strong as they were, must soon have given way. But the Abbot,
who saw resistance would be in vain, and who did not wish to incense the
assailants by an attempt at offering it, besought silence earnestly, and with
difficulty obtained a hearing.  "My children," said he, "I will save you
from  committing a great sin.  The porter will presently undo the gate-he
is gone to fetch the keys-meantime I pray you to consider with yourselves,
if you are in a state of mind to cross the holy threshold."
" Tillyvally for your papistry!" was answered from without; " we are in
the mood of the monks when they are merriest, and that is when they sup
beef-brewis for lantei-kail.  So, if your porter hath not the gout, let him
come speedily, or we heave away readily.-Said I well, comrades?"
"Bravely said, and it shall be as bravely done," said the multitude; and
had not the keys arrived at that moment, and the porter in hasty terror
performed his office, throwing open the great door, the populace would have
saved him the trouble.  The instant he had done so, the affrighted janitor
fled, like one who has drawn the bolts of a flood-gate, and expects to be
overwhelmed by the rushing inundation.  The monks, with one consent,
had withdrawn themselves behind the Abbot, who alone kept his station,
about three yards from the entrance, showing no signs of fear or perturbation.  His brethren-partly encouraged by his devotion, partly ashamed to
desert him, and partly animated by a sense of duty -remained huddled
close together, at the back of their Superior. There was a loud laugh and
huzza when the doors were opened; but, contrary to what might have been
expected, no crowd of enraged assailants rushed into the church. On the
contrary, there was a cry of "A halt!-a halt -to order, my masters! and
let the two reverend fathers greet each other, as beseems them."
The appearance of the crowd who were thus called to order, was grotesque
in the extreme.  It was composed of men, women, and children, ludicrously
disguised in various habits, and presenting groups equally diversified and
grotesque.  Here one fellow with a horse's head painted before him, and a
tail behind, and the whole covered with a long foot-cloth, which was supposed to hide the body of the animal, ambled, caracoled, pranced, and
plunged, as he performed the celebrated part of the hobby-horse,* so often
Suemner. Oh, I am almost choked-T am almost choked!
Harpool. Who's within there? Will you shame ny lord? Is there no beer in the house? Butler, 1 say.
Enter BUTLER.
Butler. Here, here.
Harpool. Give him beer. Tough old sheep skin's but dry meat.
FirsPt Pat of Sir John Oldcastle, Act TI. Scene 1.
* This exhibition, the play-mare of Scotland, stood high among holyday gambols. It must be carefully
separated from the wooden chargers which furnish out our nurseries. It gives-rise to Hamlet's ejaculation,But oh, but oh, the hobby-horse is forgot!
There is a very comic scene in Beaumont and Fletcher's play of " Woman Pleased," where Hope-on-high
Bombye, a puritan cobbler, refuses to dance with the hobby-horse. There was much difficulty and great
variety in the motions which the hobby-horse was expected to exhibit.
The learned Mr. Douce, who has contributed so much to the illustration of our theatrical antiquities, has
given us a full account of this pageant, and the burlesque horsemanship which it practised.
" The hobby-horse," says Mr. Douce,' was represented by a man equipped with as much pasteboard as was
rufficient to form the head and hinder parts of a horse,'he quadrupedal defects being concealed by a long




THE ABBOT.                                                     345
alluded to in our ancient drama; and which still flourishes on the stage in
the battle that concludes Bayes's tragedy.   To rival the address  and  agility
displayed by this character, another personage advanced in the more formida"
ble character of a huge dragon, with gilded wings, open jaws, and a scarlet
tongue, cloven at the end, which made various efforts to overtake and devour
a lad, dressed as the lovely Sabea, daughter of the King of Egypt, who fled
before him; while a martial Saint George, grotesquely armed with a goblet
for a helmet, and a spit for a lance, ever and anon interfered, and compelled
the monster to relinquish his prey.  A bear, a wolf, and one or two other
wild animals, played their parts with the discretion of Snug the joiner; for
the decided preference which they gave to the use of their hind legs, was
sufficient, without any formal annunciation, to assure the most timorous
spectators that they had to do with habitual bipeds.  There was a group of
outlaws with Robin Hood and Little John at their head —the best repremantle or footcloth that nearly touched the ground. The former, on this occasion, exerted all his skill iln
burlesque'hioisemanship.  In Sympson's play of the Law-lreakers, 1636. a miller personates the lol)!)y-horse,.and heinrl  angry that the Mayor of the city is put in competition with him, exclaims,' Let the mayor play the
hohbb-horse antong his brethren, an lie will; I hope our town-lads cannot want a hobby-lorse. Hlave I practised my reins, my careers. my tprankers, my ambles, my false t.rots. my smootlh lambles, and Canterbury paces,
and shall imaster mayor put me beside Ilie hobbh-horse?  Have I borrowed lhe fore-horse bells, his plumes,
his braveries:  nav. had his mane new shorn and frizzled, and shall the mayor put me beside the hobbyhorse l"-Douce's llustiraions, vol. II. p 468.
* The representation of Robin Hood was the darling Maygame both in England and Scotland, and doubtless
the favourite persontification was often revived, when the Abbot of Unreason, or other pretences of frolic,
gave an unusual degree of license.
The Protestant clergy, who had formerly reaped advantage fiom  the opportunities which these sports
afforded them of directing their own satire and the ridicule of the lower orders against the Catholic church,
%tegan to find that, when these purposes were served, their favourite pastimes deprived then  of tlhe wish to
attend divine worship, and disturbed the frame of mind in which it can be attended to advantage. The celebrated Bisllop Latimer gives a very naive accoutt of the manner'in which, bishop as he was, ie found himself
compelled to give place to Robin Hood and( his followers.
"I came once myselfe riding on a journey homleward from  London, and I sent word over night into the
tosvne that I would preach there in the morning, because it was holiday, and me thought it was a holidayes
wolrke.'The church stoo(d in my way, and I took my horse and my company, and went thither, (I thouighlt I
should have found a great company in the church,) and when I came there the church doore was fast locetd.
1 tarryed there lhalfe an houre and nlore.  At last the key was found, iand one of the parish comes to me
and said,-'Sir, this is a husie day with us, we cannot hear you; it is Robin Hood's day.  Ihe parish are
gone abroad to gather for Robin Hood. I pray you let them  not.' I was faine there to give place to Robin
Hoiod. I ithougrht my rochet should have been regarded, though I were not: but it would not serve, it was
faine to give place to Robin Hood's men. It is no laughing matter, my friends, it is a weeping- matter, a heavie
matter, a heavie natter.  Under the pretence for gathering for Robin HIood, a traytour, and a theif, to put
out a preacher; to have his office lesse esteenled; to preferre Robin Hood hefore the ministration of God's
word; and all this hath come of unpreaching prelites. This realme hath been ill provided for, that it hath
had such corrupt, judgments in it, to prefer Robin Hlood to God's word."-Bishop Latiner's sixth Seremon bejbre
Kisn  Edward.
While the English Protestants thus preferred the outlaw's pageant to the preaching of their excellent
Bishop. the Scottish calvinistic clergy, with the celebhrted John Knox at their head, and backed by theo
authority of the magistrates of Edinburgh, who had of late been chosen exclusively friom this party, found it
impossible to control the rage of the populace, when they attempted to deprive them of the privilege of preselltirn.their pagerant of Robin Hood.
(5611)   Vpon the xxi day of Jlunij, Archibalde Dowglas of Kilspindie, Provest of Edr., David Symmer and
Atdame Fullartoun, baillies of the samyne, causit ane cordinare servant, callit James Gillion, takin of hefoir,
for playing in Edr. with Robene Hude, to wnderly the law, and put him to the knawlege of ane assvize qll
yaij haid electit of yair favoraris, qulia with schort deliberat.ioun condemnit him  to be hangit for ye said
cryme.  And the deaconis of ye craftismen feariln vproare, maid great solistatnis at ye handis of ye said provost and baillies, and als requirit John Knox, minrister, for eschewing of tumult, to superceid ye execution of
him, vnllo ve tyme yai suld advertels my Lord Duke yairof. And yan, if it wes his mynd and will yat he
should he disponit vpoun, ye said deaconis and craftismten soulld convey him yaire; q!lha answerit, yat yai cltld
na way stope ye execut.rioun of justice. Quhlan ye time of ye said pouer mnans hanging approclit, and yat ye
hangmian wes cum to ye jibbat with ve ledder, vpoune ye qlk ye said cordinare should have bele hangit, ane
certaine and rerlanlent craftischilder, quha wes put to ye horle with ye said Gillione, ffor ve said Robene
Hiude's playes, and vyris yair assistaris and favoraris. past to wappinis, and yai brak down ye said jibbat, and
yan cliacit ye said provest, baillies, and Alexr. Gu:thrie, in ye said Alexander's writing buith, and held yamre
yairin; and yairefter past to ye tolbuyt, and becaus the samyny e was steiket, and onnawayes culd get the keyes
thairof, thai brak the said tolbuith dore with foure harberis, per force, (the said provest and baillies luckand
thairon.) and not onlie put thar the said Gillione to fredome and libertie, and bricht him furth of the said
tolbuit, hot alsua the remanoent presonaris being thairintill; and this done, the said craftismen's servands,
with the said condempniit. cordonar, past doun to the Netherhbw, to have past furthl thairat; hot beeaus the
samyne on thair coming thairto wes closet, thai past vp  iagane the Hie streit of the said bourghe to tire Castellhill, and in this menletymrne tlhe saidis provest and baillies, and thair assistaris being in the writing buith
of the said Alexr. Guthrie, past and enterit in the said tolbuyt, and in the said servandes passage vp the Hie
streit. then schote furth thairof at thamne ane dog, and hurt ane servand of the said childer. This being done,
thair wes nathing vthir but the one parlie schuteand out and castand stanes furth of the said tolbuyt. and tlie
vther pairtie schuteand hagbuttis in t.he same agane.  Aund sua the craftisnien's servandis, aboue written,
held and inclosit the said provest and baillies continewallie in the said tolbuyth, frae three houris efternone,
quhill aught houris at even, and na manl of the said town pre.nsit to relieve their said provest and baillies.
And than thai send to the maisters of the Castell, to cats tham if thai mycht stay the said servandis, quha
maid ane maner to do the same, )ot thai could not bring the same to ane finall end, ffor'he said servands
wold on noways stay fia. quhill thai had revengit the hurting of ane of them; and thairefter the constable of
the castell come down thiairfra, and he with the said maisters treatet betwix the said pties in this maner:That the said prlovost and baillies sail remit to tlle said craftischilder, all actioun, cryme, and offens that thai
had corimittit uganes thanle in any tyme bygane; and band and oblast thame never to pursew thei:l thairfor.




346                     WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
sentation exhibited at the time; and no great wonder, since most of thf'
actors were, by profession, the banished men and thieves whom they presented. Other masqueraders there were, of a less marked description. Men
were disguised as women, and women as men -children wore the dress of
aged people, and tottered with crutch-sticks in their hands, furred gowns on
their little backs, and caps on their round heads-while grandsires assumed
the infantine tone as well as the dress of children. Besides these, many
had their faces painted, and wore their shirts over the rest of their dress;
while coloured pasteboard and ribbons furnished out decorations for others.
Those who wanted all these properties, blacked their faces, and turned their
jackets inside out; and thus the transmutation of the whole assembly into
a set of mad grotesque mummers, was at once completed.
The pause which the masqueraders made, waiting apparently for some
person of the highest authority amongst them, gave those within the Abbey
Church full time to observe all these absurdities.  They were at no loss to
comprehend their purpose and meaning.
Few readers can be ignorant, that at an early period, and during the
plenitude of her power, the Church of Rome not only connived at, but even
encouraged, such Saturnalian licenses as the inhabitants of Kennaquhair
and the neighbourhood had now in hand, and that the vulgar, on such occasions, were not only permitted but encouraged by a number of gambols,
sometimes puerile and ludicrous, sometimes immoral and profane, to indemnify themselves for the privations and penances imposed on them at other
seasons. But, of all other topics for burlesque and ridicule, the rites and
ceremonial of the church itself were most fiequently resorted to; and,
strange to say, with the approbation of the clergy themselves.
While the hierarchy flourished in full glory, they do not appear to have
dreaded the consequences of suffering the people to become so irreverently
familiar with things sacred; they then imagined the laity to be much in
the condition of the labourer's horse, which does not submit to the bridle
and the whip with greater reluctance, because, at rare intervals, he is
allowed to frolic at large in his pasture, and fling out his heels in clumsy
gambols at the master who usually drives him. But, when times changed 
when doubt of the Roman Catholic doctrine, and hatred of their priesthood,
had possessed the reformed party, the clergy discovered, too late, that no
small inconvenience arose from the established practice of games and merrymakings, in which they themselves, and all they held most sacred, were made
the subject of ridicule. It then became obvious to duller politicians than
the Romish churchmen, that the same actions have a very different tendency
when done in the spirit of sarcastic insolence and hatred, than when acted
merely in exuberance of rude and uncontrollable spirits. They, therefore,
though of, the latest, endeavoured, where they had any remaining influence,
to discourage the renewal of these indecorous festivities. In this particular,
the Catholic clergy were joined by most of the reformed preachers, who
were more shocked at the profanity and immorality of many of these exhibitions, than disposed to profit by the ridiculous light in which they placed
the Church of Rome and her observances.  But it was long ere these scandalous and immoral sports could be abrogated; -the rude multitude continued attached to their favourite pastimes, and, both in England and
Scotland. the mitre of the Catholic  the rochet of the reformed bishop -
and the cloak and band of the Calvinistic divine- were, in turn, compelled
and als commandit thair maisters to resaue them agane in thair services, as thai did hefoir. And this being
proclamit at the mercat cross, thai scalit, and the said provest and bailies conie furth of the same tolbouyth."
&c. &c. &c.
John Knox, who writes at large upon this tumult, informs us it was inflamed by the deacons of craftes,
who, resenting the superiority assumed over them by the magistrates, would yield no assistance to put down
the tumult. "They will be mnigistrates alone," said the recusant deacons,  e'en let them rule the populace
alone;" and accordingly they passed quietly to take their fiotr-hours peny, and left the magistrates to help
themselves as they could. Many persons were excommunicated for this outrage, and not admitted to ch arch
ordinances till they had made satisfaction.




TIE  ABBOT.                              347
to give place to those jocular personages, the Pope of Fools, the Boy-Bishop,
and the Abbot of Unreason.*
It was the latter personage who now, in full costume, made his approach
to the great door of the church of St. Mary's, accoutred in such a manner
as to form a caricature, or practical parody, on the costume and attendants
)f the real Superior, whom he came to beard on the very day of his installation, in the presence of his clergy, and in the chancel of his church. The
mock dignitary was a stout-made under-sized fellow, whose thick squab
form had been rendered grotesque by a supplemental paunch, well stuffed.
I-e wore a mitre of leather, with the front like a grenadier's cap, adorned
with mock embroidery, and trinkets of tin. This surmounted a visage, the
nose of which was the most prominent feature, being of unusual size, and
at least as richly gemmed as his head-gear.  His robe was of buckram, and
his cope of canvass, curiously painted, and cut into open work. On one
shoulder was fixed the painted figure of an owl; and he bore in the right
hand his pastoral staff, and in the left a small mirror having a handle
to it, thus resembling a celebrated jester, whose adventures, translated into
English, were whilom extremely popular, and which may still be procured
in black letter, for about one sterling pound per leaf.
The attendants of this mock dignitary had their proper dresses and
equipage, bearing the same burlesque resemblance to the officers of the
Convent which their leader did to the Superior.  They followed their
leader in regular procession, and the motley characters, which had waited
his arrival, now crowded into the church in his train, shouting as they
came,-" A hall, a hall! for the venerable Father Iowleglas, the learned
Monk of Misrule, and the Right Reverend Abbot of Unreason!"
The discordant minstrelsy of every kind renewed its din; the boys
shrieked and howled, and the men laughed and hallooed, and the women
giggled and screamed, and the beasts roared, and the dragon wallopped
and hissed, and the hobby-horse neighed, pranced, and capered, and the
rest frisked and frolicked, clashing their hobnailed shoes against the pavement, till it sparkled with the marks of their energetic caprioles.
It was, in fine, a scene of ridiculous confusion, that deafened the ear,
made the eyes giddy, and must have altogether stunned any indifferent
spectator; the monks, whom personal apprehension and a consciousness
that much of the popular enjoyment arose from the ridicule being directed
against them, were, moreover, little comforted by the reflection, that, bold
in their disguise, the mummers who whooped and capered around them,
might, on slight provocation, turn their jest into earnest, or at least proceed
to those practical pleasantries, which at all times arise so naturally out of
the frolicsome and mischievous disposition of the populace.  They looked
to their Abbot amid the tumult, with such looks as landsmen cast upon the
pilot when the storm  is at the highest-looks which express that they are
devoid of all hope arising from their own exertions, and not very confident
in any success likely to attend those of their Palinurus.
The Abbot himself seemed at a stand; he felt no fear, but he was sensible
of the danger of expressing his rising indignation, which he was scarcely
able to suppress. He made a gesture with his hand as if commanding
silence, which was at first only replied to by redoubled shouts, and peals
of wild laughter. When, however, the same motion, and as nearly in the
same manner, had been made by Howleglas, it was immediately obeyed by
his riotous companions, who expected fresh food for mirth in the conversation betwixt the real and mock Abbot, having no small confidence in the
vulgar wit and impudence of their leader. Accordingly, they began to shout,
To it, fathers-to it!"-" Fight monk, fight madcap-Abbot against Abbot
is fair play, and so is reason against unreason, and malice against monkery 1"
* From the interesting novel entitled Anastasius, it seems the same burlesque ceremonies were practised
in the Greek Church.




348                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
" Silence, my mates!" said Howleglas; " cannot two learned Fathers of
the Church hold communion together, but you must come here with your
bear-garden whoop and hollo, as if you were hounding forth a mastiff upon
a mad bull?  I say silence! and let this learned Father and me confer,
touching matters affecting our mutual state and authority."
"My children"-said Father Ambrose.
" My children too, - and happy children they are!" said his burlesque
counterpart; "many a wise child knows not its own father, and it is well
they have two to choose betwixt."
"If thou hast aught in thee, save scoffing and ribaldry," said the real
Abbot, "permit me, for thine own soul's sake, to speak a few words to
these misguided men."
"Aught in me but scoffing, sayest thou?" retorted the Abbot of Unreason;
"why, reverend brother, I have all that becomes mine office at this time
a-day-I have beef, ale, and brandy-wine, with other condiments not worth
mentioning; and for speaking, man-why, speak away, and we will have
turn about, like honest fellows."
During this discussion the wrath of Magdalen Greme had risen to the
uttermost; she approached the Abbot, and placing herself by his side, said
in a low and yet distinct tone-" Wake and arouse thee, Father-the sword
of Saint Peter is in thy hand - strike and avenge Saint Peter's patrimony I
-Bind them in the chains which, being riveted by the church on earth, are
riveted in Heaven "
" Peace, sister i" said the Abbot; " let not their madness destroy our discretion - I pray thee, peace, and let me do mine office. It is the first, peradventure it may be the last time, I shall be called on to discharge it."
"Nay, my holy brother!" said Howleglas, "I rede you, take the holy
sister's advice-never throve convent without woman's counsel."
" Peace, vain man!" said the Abbot; " and you, my brethren —"
"Nay, nay!" said the Abbot of Unreason, "no speaking to the lay
people, until you have conferred with your brother of the cowl. I swear
by bell, book, and candle, that no one of my congregation shall listen to
one word you have to say; so you had as well address yourself to me who
will."
To escape a conference so ludicrous, the Abbot again attempted an appeal
to what respectful feelings might yet remain amongst the inhabitants of the
Halidome, once so devoted to their spiritual Superiors. Alas! the Abbot
of Unreason had only to flourish his mock crosier, and the whooping, the
hallooing, and the dancing, were renewed with a vehemence which would
have defied the lungs of Stentor.
"And now, my mates," said the Abbot of Unreason, "once again dight
your gabs and be hushed-let us see if the Cock of Kennaquhair will fight
or flee the pit."
There was again a dead silence of expectation, of which Father Ambrose
availed himself to address his antagonist, seeing plainly that he could gain
an audience on no other terms. "Wretched man!" said he, "hast thou no
better employment for thy carnal wit, than to employ it in leading these
blind and helpless creatures into the pit of utter darkness?"
"Truly, my brother," replied Howleglas, "I can see little difference
betwixt your employment and mine, save that you make a sermon of a jest,
and I make a jest of a sermon."
" Unhappy being," said the Abbot, "who hast no better subject of pleasantry than that which should make thee tremble-no sounder jest than
thine own sins, and no better objects for laughter than those who can
absolve thee from the guilt of them!"
"Verily, my reverend brother," said the mock Abbot, "what you say
might be true, if, in laughing at hypocrites, I meant to laugh at religion.Oh, it is a precious thing to wear a long dress, with a girdle and a covwl



THE  ABBO-T.                           849
we become a holy pillar of Mother Church, and a boy must not play-at ball
against the walls for fear of breaking a painted window!"
"And will you, my friends," said the Abbot, looking round and speaking
with a vehemence which secured him a tranquil audience for some time -
" will you suffer a profane buffoon, within the very church of God, to insult
his ministers? Many of you -all of you, perhaps - have lived under my
holy predecessors, who were called upon to rule in this church where I am
called upon to suffer. If you have worldly goods, they are their gift; and,
when you scorned not to accept better gifts -the mercy and forgiveness of
the church-were they not ever at your command?-did we not pray while
you were jovial-wake while you slept?"
" Some of the good wives of the IIalidome were wont to say so," said the
Abbot of Unreason; but his jest met in this instance but slight applause,
and Father Ambrose, having gained a moment's attention, hastened to
improve it.
" What!" said he; " and is this grateful - is it seemly-is it honest - to
assail with scorn a few old men, from whose predecessors you hold all, and
whose only wish is to die in peace among these fragments of what was once
the light of the land, and whose daily prayer is, that they may be removed
ere that hour comes when the last spark shall be extinguished, and the land
left in the darkness which it has chosen rather than light? We have not
turned against you the edge of the spiritual sword, to revenge our temporal
persecution; the tempest of your wrath hath despoiled us of land, and
deprived us almost of our daily food, but we have not repaid it with the
thunders of excommunication -we only pray your leave to live and die
within the church which is our own, invoking God, our Lady, and the Holy
Saints to pardon your sins, and our own, undisturbed by scurril buffoonery
and blasphemy."
This speech, so different in tone and termination from that which the
crowd had expected, produced an effect upon their feelings unfavourable to
the prosecution of their frolic. The morris-dancers stood still  the hobbyhorse surceased his capering-pipe and tabor were mute, and "silence, like
a heavy cloud," seemed to descend on the once noisy rabble. Several of
the beasts were obviously moved to compunction; the bear could not restrain
his sobs, and a huge fox was observed to wipe his eyes with his tail. But
in especial the dragon, lately so formidably rampant, now.relaxed the terror
of his claws, uncoiled his tremendous rings, and grumbled out of his fiery
throat in a repentant tone, " By the mass, I thought no harm in exercising
our old pastime, but an I had thought the good Father would have taken it
so to heart, I would as soon have played your devil, as your dragon."
In this momentary pause, the Abbot stood amongst the miscellaneous
and grotesque forms by which he was surrounded, triumphant as Saint
Anthony, in Callot's Temptations; but Howleglas would not so resign his
purpose.
"And how now, my masters!" said he, "is this fair play or no? Have
you not chosen me Abbot of Unreason, and is it lawful for any of you to
listen to common sense to-day?  Was I not formally elected by you in
solemn chapter, held in Luckie Martin's change-house, and will you now
desert me, and give up your old pastime and privilege? Play out the play
-and he that speaks the next word of sense or reason, or bids us think or
consider, or the like of that, which befits not the day., I will have him
solemnly ducked in the mill-dam!"
The rabble, mutable as usual, huzzaed, the pipe and tabor struck up, the
hobby-horse pranced, the beasts roared, and even the repentant dragon
began again to coil up his spires, and prepare himself for fresh gambols.
But the Abbot might still have overcome, by his eloquence and his entreaties, the malicious designs of the revellers, had not Dame Magdalen Gramme
given loose to the indignation which she had long suppressed.
2E




350                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
"Scoffers," she said, "and men of Belial —Blasphemous heretics, and
truculent tyrants     "
"Your patience, my sister, I entreat and I command you!" said the
Abbot; " let me do my duty-disturb me not in mine office!"
But Dame Magdalen continued to thunder forth her threats in the name
of Popes and Councils, and in the name of every Saint, from  St. Michael
downward.
" My comrades!" said the Abbot of Unreason, " this good dame hath not
spoken a single word of reason, and therein may esteem herself free from
the law. But what she spoke was meant for reason, and, therefore, unless
she confesses and avouches all which she has said to be nonsense, it shall
pass for such, so far as to incur our statutes.  Wherefore, holy dame, pilgrim, or abbess, or whatever thou art, be mute with thy mummery or beware
the mill-dam.  We will have neither spiritual nor temporal scolds in our
Diocese of Unieason!"
~ As he spoke thus, he extended his hand towards the old woman, while his
followers shouted, " A doom-a doom!" and prepared to second his purpose,
when lo! it was suddenly frustrated.  Roland Grmsme had witnessed with
indignation the insults offered to his old spiritual preceptor, but yet had wit
enough to reflect he could render him  no assistance, but might well, by
ineffective interference, make matters worse. But when he saw his aged
relative in danger of personal violence, he gave way to the natural impetuosity of his temper, and, stepping forward, struck his poniard into the
body of the Abbot of Unreason, whom  the blow  instantly prostrated on
the pavement.
(CSutrhr tl   ft nif tr ^.
As when in tumults rise the ignoble crowd,
Mad are their motions, and their tongues are loud,
And stones and brands in rattling furies fly,
And all the rustic arms which fury can supplyThen if some grave and pious man appear,
They hush their noise, and lend a listening ear.
DRYDEN'S VIRGIL.
A DREADFUL shout of vengeance was raised by the revellers, whose sport
was thus so fearfully interrupted; but for an instant, the want of weapons
amongst the multitude, as well as the inflamed features and brandished
poniard of Roland Grgeme, kept them  at bay, while the Abbot, horrorstruck at the violence, implored, with uplifted hands, pardon for bloodshed committed within the sanctuary.  Magdalen Greeme alone expressed
triumph in the blow her descendant had dealt to the scoffer, mixed, however, with a wild and anxious expression of terror for her grandson's safety.
"Let him  perish," she said, "in his blasphemy —let him die on the holy
pavement which he has insulted!"
But the rage,of the multitude, the grief of the Abbot, the exultation of
the enthusiastic.Magdalen, were all mistimed and unnecessary.  H-owleglas,
mortally wounded as he was supposed to be, sprung alertly up from the
floor, calling aloud, " A miracle, a miracle, my masters! as brave a miracle
as ever was wrought in the kirk of Kennaquhair.  And I charge you, my
masters, as your lawfully chosen Abbot, that you touch no one without my
somnmand —You, wolf and bear, will guard this pragmatic youth, but with



THE ABBOT..851
out hurting him —And you, reverend brother, will, with your comrades,
withdraw to your cells; for our conference has ended like all conferences,
leaving each of his own mind, as before; and if we fight, both you, and
your brethren, and the Kirk, will have the worst on't-Wherefore, pack up
you pipes and begone."
The hubbub was beginning again to awaken, but still Father Ambrose
hesitated, as uncertain to what path his duty called him, whether to face
out the present storm, or to reserve himself for a better moment.  His
brother of Unreason observed his difficulty, and said, in a tone more natural
and less affected than that with which he had hitherto sustained his character, "We came hither, my good sir, more in mirth than in mischief-our
bark is worse than our bite —and, especially, we mean you no personal
harm   wherefore, draw off while the.play is good; for it is ill whistling
for a hawk when she is once on the soar, and worse to snatch the quarry
from the ban-dog - Let these fellows once begin their brawl, and it will be
too much for madness itself, let alone the Abbot of Unreason, to bring them
back to the lure."
The brethren crowded around Father Ambrosius, and joined in urging
him to give place to the torrent.  The present revel was, they said, an
ancient custom  which his predecessors had permitted, and old Father
Nicholas himself had played the dragon in the days of the Abbot
Ingelram.
" And we now reap the fruit of the seed which they have so unadvisedly
sown," said Ambrosius; "they taught men to make a mock of what is
holy, what wonder that the descendants of scoffers become robbers and
plunderers? But be it as you list, my brethren-move towards the -dortour
— And you, dame, I command you, by the authority which I have over
you, and by your respect for that youth's safety, that you go with us without farther speech-Yet, stay-what are your intentions towards that youth
whom you detain prisoner.?-Wot ye," he continued, addressing Howleglas
in a stern tone of voice, "that he bears the livery of the House of Avenel?
They who fear not the anger of Heaven, may at least dread the wrath of.11man."'
" Cumber not yourself concerning him," answered Howleglas, "we know
right  well who and what he is."
" Let me pray," said the Abbot, in a tone of entreaty, " that you do him
no wrong for the rash deed which he attempted in his imprudent zeal."
" I say, cumber not yourself about it, father," answered IIowleglas, " but
move off with your train, male and female, or I will not undertake to save
yonder she-saint from the ducking-stool-And as for bearing of malice, my
stomach has no room for it; it is," he added, clapping his hand on his
portly belly, "too well bumbasted out with straw and buckram-gramercy
to them  both -they kept out that madcap's dagger as well as a Milan
corslet could have done."
In fact, the home-driven poniard of Roland Grime had lighted upon the
stuffing of the fictitious paunch, which the Abbot of Unreason wore as a
part of his characteristic dress, and it was only the force of the blow which
had prostrated that reverend person on the ground for a moment.
Satisfied in some degree by this man's assurances, and compelled to give
way to superior force, the Abbot Ambrosius retired from the Church at the
head of the monks, and left the court free for the revellers to work their'will. But, wild and wilful as these rioters were, they accompanied the
retreat of the religionists with none of those shouts of contempt and derision
with which they had at first hailed them.  The Abbot's discourse had
affected some of them with remorse, others with shame, and all with a
transient degree of respect. They remained silent until the last monk had
~disappeared through the side-door which communicated with their dwellingplace, and even then it cost some exhortations on the part of Howleglas,




352                      WAVERLEY NOVELS.
some caprioles of the hobby-horse, and some wallops of the dragon, to
rouse once more the rebuked spirit of revelry.
"And how  now, my masters?"  said the Abbot of Unreason; "and
wherefore look on me with such blank Jack-a-Lent visages?  Will you lose
your old pastime for an old wife's tale of saints and purgatory? Why, I
thoeught you would have made all split long since- Come, strike up, tabor
and harp, strike up, fiddle and rebeck-dance and be merry to-day, and let
care come to-morrow.  Bear and wolf, look  to  your prisoner-prance,
hobby - hiss, dragon, and halloo, boys - we grow older every moment we
stand idle, and life is too short to be spent in playing mumchance." 
This pithy exhortation was attended with the effect desired.  They fumigated the Church with burnt wool and feathers instead of incense, put foul
water into the holy-water basins, and celebrated a parody on the Church*service, the mock Abbot officiating at the altar; they sung ludicrous and
indecent parodies, to the tunes of church hymns; they violated whatever
vestments or vessels belonging to the Abbey they could lay their hands
upon; and, playing every freak which the whim  of the moment could suggest to their wild caprice, at length they fell to more lasting deeds of demolition, pulled down and destroyed some carved wood-work, dashed out the
painted windows which had escaped former violence, and in their rigorous
search after sculpture dedicated to idolatry, began to destroy what ornaments yet remained entire upon the tombs, and around the cornices of the
pillars.
The spirit of demolition, like other tastes, increases by indulgence; from
these lighter attempts at mischief, the more tumultuous part of the meeting
began to meditate destruction on a more extended scale-" Let us heave it
down altogether, the old crow's nest," became a general cry among them;
"it has served the Pope and his rooks too long;" and up they struck a
ballad which was then popular among the lower classes.*
"The Paip, that pagan fill of pride,'The Bishop rich, he could not preach
Hatlh blinded us ower lang.             For sporting with the lasses;
For where the blind the blind doth lead,  The silly friar behoved to fleech
No marvel baith gae wrang.               For awmrous as he passes 
Like prince and king,'The curate his creed
He led the rint                          He could not read,Of all iliqiity.                         Shame fi the company!
Sing hai trix, trim-go-trix,            Sing hay trix, trimt-go-trix,
Uinder the greenwood tree.                Under the greenwood tree."
Thundering out this chorus of a notable hunting song, which had been
pressed into the service of some polemical poet, the followers of the Abbot
of Unreason were turning every moment more tumultuous, and getting beyond the management even of that reverend prelate himself, when a knight
in full armour, followed by two or three men-at-arms, entered the church,
and in a stern voice commanded them to forbear their riotous mummery.
His visor was up, but if it had been lowered, the cognizance of the hollybranch  sufficiently distinguished  Sir Halbert Glendinning, who, on  his
homeward road, was passing through the village of Kennaquhair; and
moved, perhaps, by anxiety for his brother's safety, had come directly to
the church on hearing of the uproar.
"What is the meaning of this," he said, "my masters? are ye Christian
men, and the king's subjects, and yet waste and destroy church and chancel
like so many heathens?"
All stood silent, though doubtless there were several disappointed and
surprised at receiving chiding instead of thanks from so zealous a protestant.
* These rude rhymes are taken, with some trifling alterations, from a ballad called Trim-go-trix. It.eccurs in a singular collection, entitled, " A Compendious Book of Godly and Spirittal Songs, collected out
of sundrie parts of the Scripture,with sundry of other hallatis changed out of prophane sanges. for avoyding
of sin and harlotrie, with Augmrentation of sundrie Gude and Godly Ballates. Edinburgh, printed by Andro
Hart.." This curious collection has been reprinted in Mr. John Grahame Dalyell's Scottish Poems of the 16th
entur y F'din. 1801,2 vols.




THE  ABBOT.                            353
The dragon, indeed, did at length take upon him to be spokesman, and
growled from the depth of his painted maw, that they did but sweep Popery
out of the church with the besom of destruction.
" What! my friends," replied Sir Halbert Glendinning, "think you this
mumming and masking has not more of Popery in it than have these stone
walls?  Take the leprosy out of your flesh, before you speak of purifying
stone walls  abate your insolent license, which leads but to idle vanity and
sinful excess; and know, that what you now practise, is one of the profane
and unseemly sports introduced by the priests of Rome themselves, to mislead and to brutify the souls which fell into their net."
" Marry come up-are you there with your bears?" muttered the dragon,
with a draconic sullenness, which was in good keeping with his character,
" we had as good have been Romans still, if we are to have no freedom in
our pastimes!"
"Dost thou reply to me so?" said Halbert Glendinning; "or is there any
pastime in grovelling on the ground there like a gigantic kail-worm? - Get
out of thy painted case, or, by my knighthood, I will treat you like the
beast and reptile you have made yourself."
"Beast and reptile?" retorted the offended dragon, " setting aside your
knighthood, I hold myself as well a born man as thyself."
The Knight made no answer in words, but bestowed two such blows with
the butt of his lance on the petulant dragon, that had not the hoops which
constituted the ribs of the machine been pretty strong, they would hardly
have saved those of the actor from being broken. In all haste the masker
crept out of his disguise, unwilling to abide a third buffet from- the lance
of the enraged Knight. And when the ex-dragon stood on the floor of the
church, he presented to Halbert Glendinning the well-known countenance
of Dan of the Howlet-hirst, an ancient comrade of his own, ere fate had
raised him so high above the rank to which he was born. The clown looked
sulkily upon the Knight, as if to upbraid him for his violence towards an
old acquaintance, and Glendinning's own good-nature reproached him for
the violence he had acted upon him.
" I did wrong to strike thee," he said, "Dan; but in truth, I knew thee
not-thou wert ever a mad fellow-come to Avenel Castle, and we shall see
how my hawks fly."
" And if we show him not falcons that will mount as merrily as rockets,"
said the Abbot of Unreason, "I would your honour laid as hard on my
bones as you did on his even now."
" How now, Sir Knave," said the Knight, "and what has brought you
hither?"
The Abbot, hastily ridding himself of the false nose which mystified his
physiognomy, and the supplementary belly which made up his disguise,
stood before his master in his real character, of Adam Woodcock, the falconer of Avenel.
" How, varlet!" said the Knight; " hast thou dared to come here and disturb the very house my brother was dwelling in?"
"And it was even for that reason, craving your honour's pardon, that I
came hither-for I heard the country was to be up to choose an Abbot of
Unreason, and sure, thought I, I that can sing, dance, leap backwards over
a broadsword, and am as good a fool as ever sought promotion, have all
chance of carrying the office; and if I gain my election, I may stand his
honour's brother in some stead, supposing things fall roughly out at theo
Kirk of Saint Mary's."
" Thou art but a cogging knave," said Sir Halbert, "and well I wot, that
love of ale and brandy, besides the humour of riot and frolic, would draw
thee a mile, when love of my house would not bring thee a yard. But, go
to -carry thy roisterers elsewhere -to the alehouse if they list, and there
ire crowns to pay your charges-make out the day's madness without doing
VoL. V.-23                    2E2




3-54                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
more mischief, and be wise men to-morrow - and hereafter learn to serve a
good cause better than by acting like buffoons or ruffians."
Obedient to his master's mandate, the falconer was collecting his discouraged followers, and whispering into their ears-" Away, away-tace is
Latin for a candle-never mind the good Knight's puritanism-we will play
the frolic out over a stand of double ale in Dame Martin the Brewster's
barn-yard-draw off, harp and tabor-bagpipe and drum-mum till you are
out of the church-yard, then let the welkin ring again-move on, wolf and
bear-keep the hind legs till you cross the kirk-stile, and then show yourselves beasts of mettle —what devil sent him  here to spoil our holiday!
but anger him not, my hearts; his lance is no goose-feather, as Dan's ribs
can tell."
"By my soul," said Dan, "had it been another than my ancient comrade,
I would have made my father's old fox* fly about his ears!"
"IIush! hush! man," replied Adam Woodcock, "not a word that way,
as you value the safety of your bones-what man? we must take a clink as
it passes, so it is not bestowed in downright ill-will."
"But I will take no such thing," said Dan of the Howlet-hirst, suddenly
resisting the efforts of Woodcock, who was dragging him out of the church;
when the quick military eye of Sir Halbert Glendinning detecting Roland
Groeme betwixt his two guards, the Knight exclaimed, " So ho! falconer,Woodcock,-knave, hast thou brought my Lady's page in mine own livery,
to assist at this hopeful revel of thine, with your wolves and bears? Since
you were at such mummings, you might, if you would, have at least saved
the credit of my household, by dressing him up as a jackanapes-bring him
hither, fellows!"
Adam Woodcock was too honest and downright, to permit blame to light
upon the youth, when it was undeserved.  "I swear," he said, "by Saint
Martin of Bullionsft —"
"And what hast thou to do with Saint Martin?"
"Nay, little enough, sir, unless when he sends such rainy days that
we cannot fly a hawk —but I say to your worshipful knighthood, that as I
am a true man    "
" As you are a false varlet, had been the better obtestation."
"Nay, if your knighthood allows me not to speak," said Adam, "I can
hold my tongue-but the boy came not hither by my bidding, for all that."
" But to gratify his own malapert pleasure, I warrant me," said Sir Halbert Glendinning —" Come hither, young springald, and tell me whether
you have your mistress's license to be so far absent from the castle, or to
dishonour my livery by mingling in such a May-game?"
"Sir Italbert Glendinning," answered Roland Grseme with steadiness, "I
have obtained the permission, or rather the commands, of your lady, to
dispose of my time hereafter according to my own pleasure. I have been
a most unwilling spectator of this May-game, since it is your pleasure so to
call it; and I only wear your livery until I can obtain clothes which bear
no such badge of servitude."
"How am I to understand this, young man?" said Sir Halbert Glendinning; " speak plainly, for I am no reader of riddles.-That my lady favoured
thee, I know. What hast thou done to disoblige her, and occasion thy dismissal?"
"Nothing to speak of," said Adam Woodcock, answering for the boy" a foolish quarrel with me, which was more foolishly told over again to my
honoured lady, cost the poor boy his place. For my part, I will say freely,
that I was wrong from beginning to'end, except about the washing of the
eyas's meat. There I stand to it that I was right."
* Faz, An old-fashioned broadsword was often so called.
t TLe Saint Swithin, or weeping Saint of Scotland. If his festival (fourth July) prove wet, forty days of
vain are expected.




THE  ABBOT.                            355
With that, the good-natured falconer repeated to his master the whole history of the squabble which had brought Roland Grseme into disgrace with
his mistress, but in a manner so favourable for the page, that Sir Halbert
could not but suspect his generous motive.
" Thou art a good-natured fellow," he said, " Adam Woodcock."
" As ever had falcon upon fist," said Adam;'" and, for that matter, so is
Master Roland; but, being half a gentleman by his office, his blood is soon
up, and so is mine."
" Well,"' said Sir Halbert, " be it as it will, my lady has acted hastily, for
this was no great matter of offence to discard the lad whom she had trained
up for years; but he, I doubt not, made it worse by his prating- it jumps
well with a purpose, however, which I had in my mind. Draw off these
people, Woodcock, - and you, Roland Groeme, attend me."
The page followed him in silence into the Abbot's house, where, stepping
into the first apartment which he found open, he commanded one of his
attendants to let his brother, Master Edward Glendinning, know that he
desired to speak with him. The men-at-arms went gladly off to join their
comrade, Adam Woodcock, and the jolly crew whom he had assembled at
Dame Martin's, the hostler's wife, and the Page and Knight were left alone
in the apartment.  Sir Halbert Glendinning paced the floor for a moment in
silence and then thus addressed his attendant" Thou mayest have remarked, stripling, that I have but seldom distintinguished thee by much notice; —I see thy colour rises, but do not speak
till thou hearest me out. I say I have never much distinguished thee, not
because I did not see that in thee which I might well have praised, but
because I saw something blameable, which such praises might have made
worse. Thy mistress, dealing according to her pleasure in her own household, as no one had better reason or title, had picked thee from the rest, and
treated thee more like a relation than a domestic; and if thou didst show
some vanity and petulance under such distinction, it were injustice not to
say that thou hast profited both in thy exercises and in thy breeding, and
hast shown many sparkles of a gentle and manly spirit. Moreover, it were
ungenerous, having bred thee up freakish and fiery, to dismiss thee to want
or wandering, for showing that very peevishness and impatience of discipline which arose from thy too delicate nurture. Therefore, and for the
credit of my own household, I am determined to retain thee in my train,
until I can honourably dispose of thee elsewhere, with a fair prospect of
thy going through the world with credit to the house that brought thee up."
If there was something in Sir Halbert Glendinning's speech which flattered Roland's pride, there was also much that, according to his mode of
thinking, was an alloy to the compliment. And yet his conscience instantly
told him that he ought to accept, with grateful deference, the offer which
was made him by the husband of his kind protectress; and his prudence,
however slender, could not but admit he should enter the world under very
different auspices as a retainer of Sir Halbert Glendinning, so famed for
wisdom, courage, and influence, from those under which he might partake
the wanderings, and become an agent in the visionary schemes, for such
they appeared to him, of Magdalen, his relative. Still, a strong reluctance
to re-enter a service from which he had been dismissed with contempt, almost
counterbalanced these considerations.
Sir Halbert looked on the youth with surprise, and resumed-" You seem
to hesitate, young man. Are your own prospects so inviting, that you should
pause ere you accept those which I should offer to you? or, must I remind
you that, although you have offended your benefactress, even to the point
of her dismissing you, yet I am convinced, the knowledge that you have
gone unguided on your own wild way, into a world so disturbed as ours of
Scotland, cannot, in the upshot, but give her sorrow and pain; from which
it is, in gratitude, your duty to preserve her, no less than it is in common




356                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
wisdom your duty to accept my offered protection, for your own sake, where
body and soul are alike endangered, should you refuse it."
Roland Grneme replied in a respectful tone, but at the same time with
some spirit, "I am not ungrateful for such countenance as has been afforded
me by the Lord of Avenel, and I am glad to learn, for the first time, that I
have not had the misfortune to be utterly beneath his observation, as I had
thought-And it is only needful to show me how I can testify my duty
and my gratitude towards my early and constant benefactress with my life's
hazard, and I will gladly peril it."  Ie stopped.
"These are but words, young man," answered Glendinning, " large protestations are often used to supply the place of effectual service. I know
nothing in which the peril of your life can serve the Lady of Avenel; I can
only say, she will be pleased to learn you have adopted some course which
may ensure the safety of your person, and the weal of your soul-What
ails you, that you accept not that safety when it is offered you?"
"My only relative who is alive," answered Roland, " at least the only
relative whom I have ever seen, has rejoined me since I was dismissed fiom
the Castle of Avenel, and I must consult with her whether I can adopt the
line to which you now call me, or whether her increasing infirmities, or the
authority which she is entitled to exercise over me, may not require me to
abide with her."
"Where is this relation?" said Sir Halbert Glendinning.
" In this house," answered the page.
" Go then, and seek her out," said the Knight of Avenel; "more than
meet it is that thou shouldst have her approbation, yet worse than foolish
would she show herself in denying it."
Roland left the apartment to seek for his grandmother; and, as he
retreated, the Abbot entered.
The two brothers met as brothers who loved each other fondly, yet meet
rarely together.  Such indeed was the case.  Their mutual affection
attached them to each other; but in every pursuit, habit or sentiment,
connected with the discords of the times, the friend and counsellor of Murray stood opposed to the Roman Catholic priest; nor, indeed, could they
have held very much society together, without giving cause of offence and
suspicion to their confederates on each side. After a close embrace on the
part of both, and a welcome on that of the Abbot, Sir Halbert Glendinning
expressed his satisfaction that he had come in time to appease the riot raised
by Howleglas and his tumultuous followers.
"And yet," he said," when I look on your garments, brother Edward, I
cannot help thinking there still remains an Abbot of Unreason within the
bounds of the Monastery."
"'And wherefore carp at my garments, brother Halbert?" said the Abbot;
"it is the spiritual armour of my calling, and, as such, beseems me as
well as breastplate and baldric becomes your own bosom."
" Ay, but there were small wisdom, methinks, in putting on armour where
we have no power to fight; it is but a dangerous temerity to defy the foe
whom we cannot resist." 
"For that, my brother, no one can answer," said the Abbot, "until the
battle be fought; and, were it even as you say, methinks a brave man,
though'desperate of victory, would rather desire to fight and fall, than to
resign sword and shield on some mean and dishonourable composition with
his insulting antagonist. But, let not you and I make discord of a theme on
which we cannot agree, but rather stay and partake, though a heretic, of
my admission feast. You need not fear, my brother, that your zeal for
restoring the primitive discipline of the church will, on this occasion, be
offended with the rich profusion of a conventual banquet.  The days of our
old friend Abbot Boniface are over; and the Superior of Saint Mary's has
neither forests nor fishings, woods nor pastures, nor corn-fields;- neither




THE  ABBOT.                              357
flocks nor herds, bucks nor wild-fowl-granaries of wheat, nor storehouses
of oil and wine, of ale and of mead. The refectioner's office is ended; and
such a meal as a hermit in romance can offer to a wandering knight, is all
we have to set before you. But, if you will share it with us, we shall eat it
with a cheerful heart, and thank you, my brother, for your timely protection
against these rude scoffers."
" My dearest brother," said the Knight, " it grieves me deeply I cannot
abide with you; but it would sound ill for us both were one of the reformed
congregation to sit down at your admission feast; and, if I can ever have
the satisfaction of affording you effectual protection, it will be much owing
to my remaining unsuspected of countenancing or approving your religious
rites and ceremonies. It will demand whatever consideration I can acquire
among my own friends, to shelter the bold man, who, contrary to law and
the edicts of parliament, has dared to take up the office of Abbot of Saint
MIary's."
"Trouble not yourself with the task, my brother," replied Father Ambrosius. " I would lay down my dearest blood to know that you defended
the church for the church's sake; but, while you remain unhappily her
enemy, I would not that you endangered your own safety, or diminished
your own comforts, for the sake of my individual protection.-But who
comes hither to disturb the few minutes of fraternal communication which
our evil fate allows us?"
The door of the apartment opened as the Abbot spoke, and Dame Magdalen entered.
"Who is this woman?" said Sir lalbert Glendinning, somewhat sternly,
"and what does she want?"
" That you know me not," said the matron, "signifies little; I come by
your own order, to give my free consent that the stripling, Roland Grmme,
return to your service; and, having said so, I dumber you no longer with
my presence. Peace be with you!" She turned to go away, but was stopped
byinquiries of Sir Halbert Glendinning.
"Who are you? -what are you?- and why do you not await to make
me answer?'
" I was," she replied, " while yet I belonged to the world, a matron of no
vulgar name; now I am Magdalen, a poor, pilgrimer, for the sake of Holy
Kirk."
" Yea," said Sir Halbert, " art thou a Catholic? I thought my dame said
that Roland Grzeme came of reformed kin."
" His father," said the matron, "was a heretic, or rather one who regarded
neither orthodoxy or heresy-neither the temple of the church or of antichrist.  I, too, for the sins of the times make sinners, have seemed to
conform to your unhallowed rites-but I had my dispensation and my
absolution."'"You see, brother," said Sir Halbert, with a smile of meaning towards
his brother, "that we accuse you not altogether without grounds of mental
equivocation."
"My brother, you do us injustice," replied the Abbot; "this woman, as
her bearing may of itself warrant you, is not in her perfect mind. Thanks,
I must needs say, to the persecution of your marauding barons, and of your
latitudinarian clergy."
" I will not dispute the point," said Sir Halbert; "the evils of the time
are unhappily so numerous, that both churches may divide them, and have
enow to spare."  So saying, he leaned from the window of the apartment,
and winded his bugle.
Why do you sound your horn, my brother?" said the Abbot; "we have
spent but few minutes together."
"Alas!" said the elder brother, "and even these few have been sullied
by disagreement. I sound to horse, my brother - the rather that, to avert




858                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
the. consequences of this day's rashness on your part, requires hasty efforts
on mine.-'Dame, you will oblige me by letting your young relative know
that we mount instantly. I intend not that he shall return to Avenel with
me-it would lead to new quarrels betwixt him and my household; at least
to taunts which his proud heart could ill brook, and my wish is to do him
kindness.  ITe shall, therefore, go forward to Edinburgh with one of my
retinue, whom I shall send back to say what has chanced here.-You seem
rejoiced at this?" he added, fixing his eyes keenly on Magdalen Graeme,
who returned his gaze with calm indifference.
"I would rather," she said, "that Roland, a poor and friendless orphan,
were the jest of the world at large, than of the menials at Avenel."
"Fear not, dame-he shall be scorned by neither," answered the Knight..
"It may be," she replied-" it may well be - but I will trust more to
his own bearing than to your countenance."  She left the room as she
spoke.
The Knight looked after her as she departed, but turned instantly to his
brother, and expressing, in the most affectionate terms, his wishes for his
welfare and happiness, craved his leave to depart.  " My knaves," he said,
" are too busy at the ale-stand, to leave their revelry for the empty breath
of a bugle-horn."
"You have freed them from higher restraint, Halbert," answered the
Abbot, " and therein taught them to rebel against your own.": "Fear not that, Edward," exclaimed Halbert, who never gave his brother
his monastic name of Ambrosius; "none obey the command of real duty
so well as those who are free from the observance of slavish bondage."
IHe was turning to depart, when the Abbot said,- " Let us not yet part,
my brother- here comes some light refreshment.  Leave not the house
which I must now call mine, till force expel me from it, until you have at
least broken bread with me."
The poor lay brother, the same who acted as porter, now entered the
apartment, bearing some simple refre.shment, and a flask of wine. " Ie had
found it," he said with officious humility, "by rummaging through every
nook of the cellar."
The Knight filled a small silver cup, and, quaffing it off, asked his brother
to pledge him, observing, the wine was Bacharac, of the first vintage, and
great age.
"Ay," said the poor lay brother, "it came out of the nook which old
brother Nicholas, (may his soul be happy!) was wont to call Abbot Ingelram's corner; and Abbot Ingelram was bred at the Convent of Wurtzburg,
which I understand to be near where that choice wine grows."
"True, my reverend Sir," said Sir Halbert; " and therefore I entreat my
brother and you to pledge me in a cup of this orthodox vintage."
The thin old porter looked with a wishful glance towards the Abbot.
"Do veniam," said his Superior; and the old man seized, with a trembling
hand, a beverage to which he had been long unaccustomed; drained the
cup with protracted delight, as if dwelling on the flavour and perfume, and
set it down with a melancholy smile and shake of the head, as if bidding
adieu in future to such delicious potations. The brothers smiled. But when
Sir Halbert motioned to the Abbot to take up his cup and do him reason,
the Abbot, in turn, shook his head, and replied    " This is no day for the
Abbot of Saint Mary's to eat the fat and drink the sweat.  In water from
our Lady's well," he added, filling a cup with the limpid element, "I wish
you, brother, all happiness, and above all, a true sight of your spiritual
errors."
"And to you, my beloved Edward," replied Glendinning, " I wish. the
free exercise of your own free reason, and the discharge of more important
duties than are connected with the idle name which you have so rashly
assumed."




THE.ABBOT.                                                  3859
The brothers parted with deep regret; and yet, each confident in his
opinion, felt somewhat relieved by the absence of one whom he respected so
much, and with whom he could agree so little.
Soon afterwards the sound of the Knight of Avenel's trumpets was heard,
and the Abbot went to the top of the tower, from whose dismantled battlements he could soon see the horsemen ascending the rising ground in the
direction of the drawbridge. As he gazed, Magdalen Groome came to his
side.
"Thou art come," he said, " to catch the last glimpse of thy grandson,
my sister. Yonder he wends, under the charge of the best knight in Scotland, his faith ever excepted."
"Thou canst bear witness, my father, that it was no wish either of mine
or of Roland's," replied the matron, " which induced the Knight of Avenel,
as he is called, again to entertain my grandson in his household - Heaven,
which confounds the wise with their own wisdom, and the wicked with their
own policy, hath placed him where, for the services of the Church, I would
most wish him to be."
" I know not what you mean, my sister," said the Abbot.
" Reverend father," replied Magdalen, " hast thou never heard that there
are spirits powerful to rend the walls of a castle asunder when once-admitted, which yet cannot enter the house unless they are invited, nay, dragged
over the threshold?*  Twice hath Roland Groeme been thus drawn into the
household of Avenel by those who now hold the title. Let them look to the
issue.
* So saying she left the turret; and the Abbot, after pausing a moment on
her words, which he imputed to the unsettled state of her mind, followed
down the winding stair to celebrate his  admission  to his high office by fast
and prayer instead of revelling and thanksgiving.
"* There is a popular belief respecting evil spirits, that they cannot enter an inhabited house unless invited,
nay. dragged over the threshold. There is an instance of the same superstition in the Tales of the Genii,
where an enchanter is supposed to have intruded himself into the Divan of the Sultan.
"'Thus,' said the illustrious Misuar,'let the enemies of Mahomet be dismayed! but inform  me, 0 ye
sages! under the semlblance of which of your brethren did- that foul enchanter gain admittance here V-e'May the lord of my heart,' answered Balihu, the hermit of the faithful fromr Queda,'triumph over all his
foes! As I travelled on the mountains fiomn Qneda, and saw neither the footsteps of beasts, nor the flight of
birds, behold, I chanced to pass through a cavern, in whose hollow sides I found this accursed sage, to whom
I unsfolded the invitation of the Sultan of India, and we, joining, journeyed towards the Divan; but ere we
entered, he said unto me.''lut thy hand forth, and pull me towards thee into the Divan, calling on the rname
of Mahonet, for the evil spirits are on me, and vex me.' "
I have understood that nmany parts of these fine tales, and in particular that of the Sultan Misnar, were
teken from genuine Oriental sources by the editor, Mr. James Ridley.
But the miost picturesque use of tils popular belief occurs in Coleridge's beautiful and tantalizing fragment
of Christabtel.  Has not our own imaginative poet cause to fear that future ages will desire to summon hlmn
from his place of rest, as Milton longed
"To call him up, who left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold?"'Tlth verses I refer to are when Christabel conducts into her father's castle a mysterious and malevolent being,
altder the guise of a distressed female stranger.' They cross'd the moat, and Christabel                "So free from danger, free from fear,
Took the key that fitted well                        - They crossed the court.;-right glad they wete,
A little door she open'd straight,                     And Christahel devoutly cried
All in the middle of the gate;'To the lady by her side:
The gate that was iron'd within and without,'Praise we the Virgit, all divine,
Where an army in battle array had march'd out.            Who hath rescued thee from this distress.'
Alas, alas!' said Geraldine,
"The lady sank, belike through pain,' I cannot speak from weariness.'
And Christabel with might and main                      So free fromn danger, free fromt fear,
Lifted her up. a weary weight,                         Thev cross'd the court: right glad they were
Over the threshold of the gate:
Then the lady rose ataii,
And moved as she were not il pain.




360                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
Youth! thou wear'st to manhood now,.
Darker lip and darker brow,
Statelier step, more pensive mien,
In thy face and gate are seen:
Thou must now brook midnight watches,
Take thy food and sport by snatches;
For the gambol and the jest,
Thou wert wont to love the best,
Graver follies must thou follow,
But as senseless, false, and hollow.
LIFE, A POEM.
YOUNG Roland Grseme now trotted gaily forward in the train of Sir Halbert Glendinning.  He was relieved from his most galling apprehension, -
the encounter of the scorn and taunt which might possibly hail his immediate return to the Castle of Avenel.  " There will be a change ere they see
me again," he thought to himself; " I shall wear the coat of plate, instead
of the green jerkin, and the steel morion for the bonnet and feather.  They
will be bold that may venture to break a gibe on the man-at-arms for the
follies of the page; and I trust, that ere we return I shall have done something more worthy of note than hallooing a hound after a deer, or scrambling a crag for a kite's nest." He could not, indeed, help marvelling that
his grandmother, with all her religious prejudices, leaning, it would seem,
to the other side, had consented so readily to his re-entering the service of
the I-ouse of Avenel; and yet more, at the mysterious joy with which she
took leave of him at the Abbey.
" Heaven," said the dame, as she kissed her young relation, and bade him
farewell, "works its own work, even by the hands of those of our enemies
who think themselves the strongest and the wisest.  Thou, my child, be
ready to act upon the call of thy religion and country; and remember, each
earthly bond which thou canst form is, compared to the ties which bind
thee to them, like the loose flax to the twisted cable. Thou hast not forgot
the face or form of the damsel Catherine Seyton?"
Roland would have replied in the negative, but the word seemed to stick
in his throat and Magdalen continued her exhortations.
" Thou must not forget her, my son; and here I intrust thee with a token,
which I trust thou wilt speedily find an opportunity of delivering with care
and secrecy into her own hand."
She put here into Roland's hand a very small packet, of which she again
enjoined him to take the strictest care, and to suffer it to be seen by no one
save Catherine Seyton, who, she again (very unnecessarily) reminded him,
was the young lady he had met on the preceding day. She then bestowed
on him her solemn benediction, and bade God speed him.
There was something in her manner and her conduct which implied mystery; but Roland Groeme was not of an age or temper to waste much time
in endeavoring to decipher her meaning. All that was obvious to his perception in the present journey, promised pleasure and novelty. IHe rejoiced
that he was travelling towards Edinburgh, in order to assume the character
of a man, and lay aside that of a boy. Ile was delighted to think that he
would have an opportunity of rejoining Catherine Seyton, whose bright
eyes and lively manners had made so favourable an impression on his
imagination; and, as an experienced, yet high-spirited youth, entering for
thi first time upon active life, his heart bounded at the thought, that he was
about to see all those scenes of courtly splendour and warlike adventures,
of which the followers of Sir Halbert used to boast on their occasional visits




THE  ABBOT.                            301
to Avenel, to the wonderment and envy of those who, like Roland, knew
courts and camps only by hearsay, and were condemned to the solitary
sports and almost monastic seclusion of Avenel, surrounded by its lonely
lake, and embossed among its pathless mountains.  "They shall mention
ny name," he said to himself, "if the risk of my life can purchase me
opportunities of distinction, and Catherine Seyton's saucy eye shall rest
with more respect on the distinguished soldier, than that with which she
laughed to scorn the raw and inexperienced page."-There was wanting but
one accessary to complete the sense of rapturous excitation, and he possessed it by being once more mounted on the back of a fiery and active
horse, instead of plodding along on foot, as had been the case during the
preceding days.
Impelled by the liveliness of his own spirits, which so many circumstances
tended naturally to exalt, Roland Grgeme's voice and his laughter were soon
distinguished amid the trampling of the horses of the retinue, and more
than once attracted the attention of the leader, who remarked with satisfaction, that the youth replied with good-humoured raillery to such of the
train as jested with him on his dismissal and return to the service of the
House of Avenel.
"I thought the holly-branch in your bonnet had been blighted, Master
Roland?" said one of the men-at-arms.
"Only pinched with half an hour's frost; you see it flourishes as green
as ever."
"It is too grave a plant to flourish on so hot a soil as that headpiece of
thine, Master Roland Greme," retorted the other, who was an old equerry
of Sir Halbert Glendinning.
" If it will not flourish alone," said Roland, " I will mix it with the laurel
and the myrtle -and I will carry them so near the sky, that it shall make
amends for their stinted growth."
Thus speaking, he dashed his spurs into his horse's sides, and, checking
him at the same time, compelled him to execute a lofty caracole. Sir Halbert Glendinning looked at the demeanour of his new attendant with that
sort of melancholy pleasure with which those who have long followed the
pursuits of life, and are sensible of their vanity, regard the gay, young, and
buoyant spirits to whom existence, as yet, is only hope and promise.
In the meanwhile, Adam Woodcock, the falconer, stripped of his masquing
habit, and attired, according to his rank and calling, in a green jerkin, with
a hawking-bag on the one side, and a short hanger on the other, a glove on
his left hand which reached half way up his arm, and a bonnet and feather
upon his head, came after the party as fast as his active little galloway-nag
could trot, and immediately entered into parley with Roland Grneme.
"So, my. youngster, you are once more under shadow of the hollybranch?"
" And in case to repay you, my good friend," answered Roland, "your
ten groats of silver."
" Which, but an hour since," said the falconer, "you had nearly paid me
with ten inches of steel. On my faith, it is written in the book of our
destiny, that I must brook yourdagger after all."
"Nay, speak not of that, my good friend," said the youth, "I would
rather have broached my own bosom than yours; but who could have
known you in the mumming dress you wore?"
"Yes," the falconer resumed,-for both as a poet and actor he had his
own professional share of self-conceit,-" I think I was as good a Howleglas
as ever played part at a Shrovetide revelry, and not a much worse Abbot
of Unreason. I defy the Old Enemy to unmask me when I choose to keep
my vizard on. What the devil brought the Knight on us before we had the
game out?  You would have heard me hollo my own new ballad with a
voice should have reached to Berwick. But I pray you, Master Roland, be
2r F




362                 WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
less free of cold steel on slight occasions; since, but for the stuffing of my
reverend doublet, I had only left the kirk to take my place in the kirkyard.
"Nay, spare me that feud," said Roland Grteme, " we shall have no time
to fight it out; for, by our lord's command, I am bound for Edinburgh."
"I know it," said Adam Woodcock, " and even therefore we shall have
time to solder up this rent by the way, for Sir Halbert has appointed me
your companion and guide."
"Ay? and with what purpose?" said the page.
"That," said the falconer, "is a question I cannot answer; but I know,
that be the food of the eyases washed or unwashed, and, indeed, whatever
becomes of perch and mew, I am to go with you to Edinburgh, and see you
safely delivered to the Regent at Holyrood."
"How, to the Regent?" said Roland, in surprise.
"Ay, by my faith, to the Regent," replied Woodcock; "I promise you,
that if you are not to enter his service, at least you are to wait upon him in
the character of a retainer of our Knight of Avenel."
"I know no right," said the youth, "which the Knight of Avenel hath to
transfer my service, supposing that I owe it to himself."
" Hush, hush i" said the falconer; " that is a question I advise no one to
stir in until he has the mountain or the lake, or the march of another
kingdom, which is better than either, betwixt him and his feudal superior."
"But Sir Halbert Glendinning," said the youth, "is not my feudal
superior; nor has he aught of authority    "
" I pray you, my son, to rein your tongue," answered Adam Woodcock;
"my lord's displeasure, if you provoke it, will be worse to appease than my
lady's. The touch of his least finger were heavier than her hardest blow.
And, by my faith, he is a man of steel, as true and as pure, but as hard
and as pitiless. You remember the Cock of Capperlaw, whom he hanged
over his gate for a mere mistake -a poor yoke of oxen taken in Scotland,
when he thought he was taking them in English land? I loved the Cock
of Capperlaw; the Kerrs had not an honester man in their clan, and they
have had men that might have been a pattern to the Border-men that
would not have lifted under twenty cows at once, and would have held
themselves dishonoured if they had taken a drift of sheep, or the like, but
always managed their raids in full credit and honour.-But see, his worship
halts, and we are close by the bridge. Ride up -ride up -we must have
his last instructions."
It was as Adam Woodcock said. In the hollow way descending towards
the bridge, which was still in the guardianship of Peter Bridgeward, ias he
was called, though he was now very old, Sir Halbert Glendinning halted
his retinue, and beckoned to Woodcock and Grueme to advance to the head
of the train.
"Woodcock," said he, "thou knowest to whom thou art to conduct this
youth. And thou, young man, obey discreetly and with diligence the orders
that shall be given thee. Curb thy vain and peevish temper. Be just, true,
and faithful; and there is in thee that which may raise thee many a degree
above thy present station. Neither shalt thou —always supposing thine
efforts to be fair and honest want the protection and countenance of
Avenel."
Leaving them in front of the bridge, the centre tower of which now began
to cast a prolonged shade upon the river, the Knight of Avenel turned to
the left, without crossing the river, and pursued his way towards the chainof hills within whose recesses are situated the Lake and Castle of Avenel.
There remained behind, the falconer, Roland Graeme, and a domestic of
the Knight, of inferior rank, who was left with them to look after their
horses while on the road, to carry their baggage, and to attend to their
convenience.
So soon as the more numerous body of riders had turned off to pursue




THE ABBOT.                               863
their journey westward, those whose route lay across the river, and was
directed towards the north, summoned the Bridgeward, and demanded a
free passage.
" I will not lower the bridge," answered Peter, in a voice querulous with
age and ill-humour.-"Come Papist, come Protestant, ye are all the same.
The Papist threatened us with Purgatory, and fleeched us with pardons —
the Protestant mints at us with his sword, and cuttles us with the liberty
of conscience; but never a one of either says,' Peter, there is your penny.'
I am well tired of all this, and for no man shall the bridge fall that pays
me not ready money; and I would have you know I care as little for
Geneva as for Rome —as little for homilies as for pardons; and the silver
Fennies are the only passports I will hear of."'
"Here is a proper old chuff!" said Woodcock to his companion; then
raising his voice, he exclaimed, "Hark thee, dog-Bridgeward, villain, dost
thou think we have refused thy namesake Peter's pence to Rome, to pay
thine at the bridge of Kennaquhair?  Let thy bridge down instantly to the
followers of the house of Avenel, or by the hand of my father, and that
handled many a bridle rein, for he was a bluff Yorkshireman-I say, by
my father's hand, our Knight will blow thee out of thy solan-goose's nest
there in the middle of the water, with the light falconet which we are
bringing southward from Edinburgh to-morrow."
The Bridgeward heard, and muttered, " A plague on falcon and falconet,
on cannon and demicannon, and all the barking bull-dogs whom they halloo
against stone and lime in these our days! It was a merry time when there
was little besides handy blows, and it may be a flight of arrows that harmed
an ashler wall as little as so many hailstones.  But we must jouk and let
the jaw gang by." Comforting himself in his state of diminished consequence with this pithy old proverb, Peter Bridgeward lowered the drawbridge, and permitted them to pass over.  At the sight of his white hair,
albeit it discovered a visage equally peevish through age and misfortune,
Roland was inclined to give him an alms, but Adam Woodcock prevented
him. "E'en let him pay the penalty of his former churlishness and greed,"
he said; " the wolf, when he has lost his teeth, should be treated no better
than a cur."
Leaving the Bridgeward to lament the alteration of times, which sent
domineering soldiers and feudal retainers to his place of passage, instead
of peaceful pilgrims, and reduced him to become the oppressed, instead of
playing the extortioner, the travellers turned them northward; and Adam
Woodcock, well acquainted with that part of the country, proposed to cut
short a considerable portion of the road, by traversing the little vale of
Glendearg, so famous for the adventures which befell therein during the
earlier part of the Benedictine's manuscript. With these, and with the
thousand commentaries, representations, and misrepresentations, to which
they had given rise, Roland Groeme was, of course, well acquainted; for in
the Castle of Avenel, as well as in other great establishments, the inmates
talked of nothing so often, or with such pleasure, as of the private affairs
of their lord and lady. But while Roland. was viewing with interest these
haunted scenes, in which things were said to have passed beyond the ordinary laws of nature, Adam Woodcock was still regretting in his secret soul
the unfinished revel and the unsung ballad, and kept every now and then
breaking out with some such verses as these:"The Friars of Fail drank berry-brown ale,
The best that e'er was tasted;
The Monks of Melrose made gude kale
On Fridays, when they fasted.
Saint Monance' sister,
The gray priest kist herFiend save the company!
Sing hay trix, trim-gro-lrix,
Under the greenwood tree."
" By my hand, friend Woodcock," said the page, " though X know you




364:                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
for a hardy gospeller, that fear neither saint nor devil, yet, if I were you, I
would not sing your profane songs in this valley of Glendearg, considering
what has happened here before our time."
"A straw for your wandering spirits i" said Adam Woodcock; " I mind
them no more than an earn cares for a string of. wild-geese- they have all
fled since the pulpits were filled with honest men, and the people's ears
with sound doctrine. Nay, I have a touch at them in my ballad, an I had
but had the good luck to have it sung to end;" and again he set off in the
same key:
From haunted spring and grassy ring,
Troop goblin, elf, and fan'y;
And the kelpie must flit from the black bog-pit,
And tile brownie must not tarry;
To Limbo-lake,
Their way they take,
With scarce the pith to flee.
Sing hay trix, trirn-go-trix,
Under the greenwood tree.
I think," he added, "that could Sir Halbert's patience have stretched till
we came that length, he would have had a hearty laugh, and that is what
he seldom enjoys."
"If it be all true that men tell of his early life," said Roland, "he has
less right to laugh at goblins than most men."
" Ay, if it be all true," answered Adam Woodcock; "but who can ensure
us of that? Moreover, these were but tales the monks used to gull us simple
laymen withal; they knew that fairies and hobgoblins brought aves and
paternosters into repute; but, now we have given up worship of images in
wood and stone, methinks it were no time to be afraid of bubbles in the
water, or shadows in the air."
"However," said Roland Grseme, "as the Catholics say they do not
worship wood or stone, but only as emblems of the holy saints, and not as
things holy in themselves    "
"Pshaw! pshaw!" answered the falconer; "a rush for their prating.
They told us another story when these baptized idols of theirs brought
pike-staves and sandalled shoon from all the four winds, and whillied the
old women out of their corn and  their candle ends, and their butter,
bacon, wool, and cheese, and when not so much as a gray groat escaped
tithing."
Roland G-reme had been long taught, by necessity, to consider his form
of religion as a profound secret, and to say nothing whatever in its defence
when assailed, lest he should draw on himself the suspicion of belonging to
the unpopular and exploded church.  HI-e therefore suffered Adam Woodcock to triumph without farther opposition, marvelling in his own mind
whether any of the goblins, formerly such active agents, would avenge his
rude raillery before they left the valley of Glendearg.  But no such consequences followed. They passed the night quietly in a cottage in the glen,
and the next day resumed their route to Edinburgh.




THE ABBOT.                              865
Edina! Scotia's darling seat,
All hail thy palaces and towers,
Where once, beneath a monarch's feet,
Sate legislation's sovereign powers.
BURNS.
"THIS, then, is Edinburgh?" said the youth, as the fellow-travellers arrived
at one of the heights to the southward, which commanded a view of the
great northern capital-" This is that Edinburgh of which we have heard
so much!"
"Even so," said the falconer; "yonder stands Auld Reekie - you may
see the smoke hover over her at twenty miles' distance, as the gosshawk hangs
over a plump of young wild-ducks — ay, yonder is the heart of Scotland,
and each throb that she gives is felt from the edge of Solway to Duncan'sbay-head. See, yonder is the old Castle; and see to the right, on yon rising
ground, that is the Castle of Craigmillar, which I have known a merry place
in my time."
"Was it not there," said the page in a low voice, "that the Queen held
her court?"
" Ay, ay," replied the falconer, " Queen she was then, though you must
not call her so now. Well, they may say what they will-many a true
heart will be sad for Mary Stewart, e'en if all be true men say of her; for
look you, Master Roland - she was the loveliest creature to look upon that
I ever saw with eye, and no lady in the land liked better the fair flight of
a falcon. I was at the great match on Roslin Moor betwixt Bothwellhe was a black sight to her that Bothwell-and the Baron of Roslin, who
could judge a hawk's flight as well as any man in Scotland-a butt of
Rhenish and a ring of gold was the wager, and it was flown as fairly for as
ever was red gold and bright wine. And to see her there on her white
palfrey, that flew as if it scorned to touch more than the heather blossom;
and to hear her voice, as clear and sweet as the mavis's whistle, mix among
our jolly whooping and whistling; and to mark all the nobles dashing
round her; happiest he who got a word or a look-tearing through moss
and hagg, and venturing neck and limb to gain the praise of a bold rider,
and the blink of a bonny Queen's bright eye! -she will see little hawking
where she lies now- ay, ay, pomp and pleasure pass away as speedily as
the wap of a falcon's wing."
"And where is this poor Queen now confined?" said Roland Grmeme,
interested in the fate of a woman whose beauty and grace had made so
strong an impression even on the blunt and careless character of Adam
Woodcock.
"Where is she now imprisoned?" said honest Adam; "why, in some
castle in the north, they say-I know not where, for my part, nor is it worth
while to vex one's sell anent what cannot be mended -An she had guided
her power well whilst she had it, she had not come to so evil a pass. Men
say she must resign her crown to this little baby of a prince, for that they
will trust her with it no longer. Our master has been as busy as his neigh
hours in all this work. If the Queen should come to her own again, Avenel
Castle is like to smoke for it, unless he makes his bargain all the better."
"In a castle in the north Queen Mary is confined?" said the page.
"Why, ay —they say so, at least —In a castle beyond that great river
which comes down yonder, and looks like a river  but it is a branch of the
sea, and as bitter as brine."
2r2




3866                 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"And amongst all her subjects," said the page, with some emotion, "is
there none that will adventure anything for her relief?"
"That is a kittle question," said the falconer; " and if you ask it often,
Master Roland, I am fain to tell you that you will be mewed up yourself in
some of those castles, if they do not prefer twisting your head off, to save
farther trouble with you -Adventure any thing? Lord, why, Murray has
the wind in his poop now, man, and flies so high and strong, that the devil
a wing of them can match him —No, no; there she is, and there she must
lie, till Heaven send her deliverance, or till her son has the management of
all -But Murray will never let her loose again, he knows her too well. —
And hark thee, we are now bound for Holyrood, where thou wilt find plenty
of news, and of courtiers to tell it-But, take my counsel, and keep a calm
sough, as the Scots say-hear every man's counsel, and keep your own.
And if you hap to learn any news you like, leap not up as if you were to
put on armour direct in the cause - Our old Mr. Wingate says - and he
knows court-cattle well-that if you are told old King Coul is come alive
again, you should turn it off with,'And is he in truth?-I heard not of it,'
and should seem no more moved, than if one told you, by way of novelty,
that old King Coul was dead and buried. Wherefore, look well to your
bearing, Master Roland, for, I promise you, you come among a generation
that are keen as a hungry hawk-And never be dagger out of sheath at
every wry word you hear spoken; for you will find as hot blades as yourself, and then will be letting of blood without advice either of leech or
almanack."
" You shall see how staid I will be, and how cautious, my good friend,"
said Graeme; " but, blessed Lady; what goodly house is that which is lying
all in ruins so close to the city? Have they been playing at the Abbot of
Unreason here, and ended the gambol by burning the church?"
" There again now," replied his companion, " you go down the wind like
a wild haggard, that minds neither lure nor beck - that is a question you
should have asked in as low a tone as I shall answer it."
"If I stay here long," said Roland Grinme, "it is like I shall lose the
natural use of my voice-but what are the ruins then?"
"The Kirk of Field," said the falconer, in a low and impressive whisper,
laying at the same time his finger on his lip; "ask no more about itsomebody got foul play, and somebody got the blame of it; and the game
began there which perhaps may not be played out in our time.-Poor Henry
Darnley! to be an ass, he understood somewhat of a hawk; but they sent
him on the wing through the air himself one bright moonlight night."' The memory of this catastrophe was so recent, that the page averted his
eyes with horror from the scathed ruins in which it had taken place; and
the accusations against the Queen, to which it had given rise, came over
his mind-with such strength as to balance the compassion he had begun to
entertain for her present forlorn situation.
It was, indeed, with that agitating state of mind which arises partly from
horror, but more from anxious interest and curiosity, that young Gran-me
found himself actually traversing the scene of those tremendous events, the
report of which had disturbed the most distant solitudes in Scotland, like
the echoes of distant thunder rolling among the mountains.
"Now," he thought, "now or never shall I become a man, and bear my
part in those deeds which the simple inhabitants of our hamlets repeat to
each other, as if they were wrought by beings of a superior order to their
own. I will know now, wherefore the Knight of Avenel carries his crest so
much above those of the neighbouring baronage, and how it is that men,
by valour and wisdom, work their way from the.hoddin-gray coat to the
cloak of scarlet and gold. Men say I have not much wisdom to recommend
me; and if that be true, courage must do it; for I will be a man amongst
living men, or a dead corpse amongst the dead."




THE ABBOT.                               367
From these dreams of ambition he turned his thoughts to those of pleasure, and began to formi many conjectures, when and where he should see
Catherine Seyton, and in what manner their acquaintance was to be renewed.  With such conjectures he was amusing himself, when he found
that they had entered the city, and all other-feelings were suspended in the
sensation of giddy astonishment with which an inhabitant of the country
is affected, when, for the first time, he finds himself in the' streets of a large
and populous city, a unit in the midst of thousands.
The principal street of Edinburgh was then, as now, one of the most
spacious in Europe. The extreme height of the houses, and the variety of
Gothic gables and battlements, and balconies, by which the sky-line on each
side was crowned and terminated, together with the width of the street
itself, might have struck with surprise a more practised eye than that
of young Groeme.  The population, close packed within the walls of the
city, and at this time increased by the number of the lords of the King's
party who had thronged to Edinburgh to wait upon the Regent Murray,
absolutely swarmed like bees on the wide and stately street. Instead of
the shop-windows, which are now calculated for the display of goods, the
traders had their open booths projecting on the street, in which, as in the
fashion of the modern bazaars, all was exposed which they had upon sale.
And though the commodities were not of the richest kinds, yet Greiem
thought he beheld the wealth of the whole world in the various bales of
Flanders cloths, and the specimens of tapestry; and, at other places, the
display of domestic utensils and pieces of plate struck him with wonder.
The sight of cutlers' booths, furnished with swords and poniards, which
were  manufactured in Scotland, and with pieces of defensive armour,
imported from  Flanders, added to his surprise; and, at every step, he
found so much to admire and gaze upon, that Adam Woodcock had no
little difficulty in prevailing on him to advance through such a scene of
enchantment.
The sight of the crowds which filled the streets was equally a subject of
wonder. Here a gay lady, in her muffler, or silken veil, traced her way
delicately, a gentleman-usher making way for her, a page bearing up her
train, and a waiting gentlewoman carrying her Bible, thus intimating that
her purpose was towards the church-There he might see a group of citizens
bending the same way, with their short Flemish cloaks, wide trowsers, and
high-caped doublets, a fashion to which, as well as'to their bonnet and
feather, the Scots were long faithful.  Then, again, came the clergyman
himself, in his black Geneva cloak and band, lending a grave and attentive
ear to the discourse of several persons who accompanied him, and who
were doubtless holding serious converse on the religious subject he was
about to treat of. Nor did there lack passengers of a different class and
appearance.
At every turn, Roland Grmeme might see a gallant ruffle along in tho
inewer or French mode, his doublet slashed, and his points of the same
colours with the lining, his long sword on one side, and his poniard on the
other, behind him a body of stout serving men, proportioned to his estate
and quality, all of whom walked with the air of military retainers, and
were armed with sword and buckler, the latter being a small round shield,
not unlike the Highland target, having a steel spike in the centre.  Two of
these parties, each headed by a person of importance, chanced to meet in
the very centre of the street, or, as it was called, "the crown of the causeway," a post of honour as tenaciously asserted in Scotland, as that of giving
or taking the wall used to be in the more southern part of the island. The
two leaders being of equal rank; and, most probably, either animated by
political dislike, or by recollection of some feudal enmity, marched close up
to each other, without yielding an inch to the right or the left; and neither
showing the least purpose of giving way, they stopped for an instant, and




368                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
then drew their swords. Their followers imitated their example; about a
score of weapons at once flashed in the sun, and there was an immediate
clatter of swords and bucklers, while the followers on either side cried their
master's name; the one shouting " Help, a Leslie! a Leslie!" while the
others answered with shouts of " Seyton! Seyton!" with the additional
punning slogan, " Set on, set on-bear the knaves to the ground!"
If the falconer found difficulty in getting the page to go forward before,
it was now perfectly impossible. He reined up his horse, clapped his
hands, and, delighted with the.fray, cried and shouted as fast as any of
those who were actually engaged in it.
The noise and cries thus arising on the Highgate, as it was called, drew
into the quarrel two or three other parties of gentlemen and their servants,
besides some single passengers, who, hearing a fray betwixt these two distinhuished names, took part in it, either for love or hatred.
The combat became now very sharp, and although the sword-and-buckler
men made more clatter and noise than they did real damage, yet several
good cuts were dealt among them; and those who wore rapiers, a more formidable weapon than the ordinary Scottish swords, gave and received dangerous wounds. Two men were already stretched on the causeway, and
the party of Seyton began to give ground, being much inferior in number
to the other, with which several of the citizens had united themselves, when
young Roland Greeme, beholding their leader, a noble gentleman, fighting
bravely, and hard pressed with numbers, could withhold no longer. "Adam
Woodcock," he said,   an you be a man, draw, and let us take part with
the Seyton."  And, without waiting a reply, or listening to the falconer's
earnest entreaty, that he would leave alone a strife in which he had no
concern, the fiery youth sprung from his horse, drew his short sword, and
shouting like the rest, "A Seyton! a Seyton! Set on! set on!" thrust forward into the throng, and struck down one of those who was pressing
hardest upon the gentleman whose cause he espoused. This sudden reinforcement gave spirit to the weaker party, who began to renew the combat
with much alacrity, when four of the magistrates of the city, distinguished
by their velvet cloaks and gold chains, came up with a guard of halberdiers
and citizens, armed with long weapons, and well accustomed to such service,
thrust boldly forward, and compelled the swordsmen to separate, who immediately retreated in different directions, leaving such of the wounded on
both sides, as had been disabled in the fray, lying on the street.
The falconer, who had been tearing his beard for anger at his comrade's
rashness, now rode up to him with the horse which he had caught by the
bridle, and accosted him with "Master Roland- master goose-master
niad-cap-will it please you to get on horse, and budge? or will you
remain here to be carried to prison, and made to answer for this pretty
day's work?"
The page, who had begun his retreat along with the Seytons, just as if
he had been one of their natural allies, was by this unceremonious application made sensible that he was acting a foolish part; and, obeying Adam
Woodcock with some sense of shame, he sprung actively on horseback, and
upsetting with the shoulder of the animal a city-officer, who was making
towards him, he began to ride smartly down the street, along with his companion, and was quickly out of the reach of the hue and cry. In fact, rencounters of the kind were so common in Edinburgh at that period, that the
disturbance seldom excited much attention after the affray was over, unless
some person of consequence chanced to have fallen, an incident which imposed on his friends the duty of avenging his death on the first convenient
opportunity.  So feeble, indeed, was the arm of the police, that it was not
unusual for such skirmishes to last for hours, where the parties were numerous and well matched. But at this time the Regent, a man of great strength
of character, aware of the mischief which usually arose from such acts of




THE ABBOT.                             369
violence, had prevailed with the magistrates to keep a constant guard on
foot for preventing or separating such affrays as had happened in the present case.
The falconer and his young companion were now riding down the Canongate, and had slackened their pace to avoid attracting attention, the rather
that there seemed to be no appearance of pursuit. Roland hung his head
as one who was conscious his conduct had been none of the wisest, whilst
his companion thus addressed him:
"Will you be pleased to tell me one thing, Master Roland Grweme, and
tbhat is, whether there be a devil incarnate in you or no?'
"Truly, Master Adam Woodcock," answered the page, "I would fain
hope there is not."
" Then," said Adam, " I would fain know by what other influence or in.
stigation you are perpetually at one end or the other of some bloody brawl?
What, I pray, had you to do with these Seytons and Leslies, that you never
heard the names of in your life before?"
"You are out there, my friend," said Roland Groeme, "I have my own
reasons for being a friend to the Seytons."
" They must have been very secret reasons then," answered Adam Woodcock, "for I think I could have wagered, you had never known one of the
name; and I am apt to believe still, that it was your unhallowed passion
for that clashing of cold iron, which has as much charm for you as the
clatter of a brass pan hath for a hive of bees, rather than any care either
for Seyton or for Leslie, that persuaded you to thrust your fool's head into
a quarrel that no ways concerned you. But take this for a warning, my
young master, that if you are to draw sword with every man who draws
sword on the Highgate here, it will be scarce worth your while to sheathe
bilbo again for the rest of your life, since, if I guess rightly, it will scarce
endure on such terms for many hours -all which I leave to your serious
consideration."
"By my word, Adam, I honour your advice; and I promise you, that I
will practise by it-as faithfully as if I were sworn apprentice to you, to the
trade and mystery of bearing myself with all wisdom and safety throughl
the new paths of life that I am about to be engaged in."
" And therein you will do well," said the falconer; " and I do not quarrel
with you, Master Roland, for having a grain over much spirit, because I
know one may bring to the hand a wild hawk which one never can a dunghill hen   and so betwixt two faults you have the best on't. But besides
your peculiar genius for quarrelling and lugging out your side companion,
my dear Master Roland, you have also the gift of peering under every
woman's muffler and screen, as if you expected to find an old acquaintance.
Though were you to spy one, I should be as much surprised at it, well
wotting how few you have seen of these same wild-fowl, as I was at your
taking so deep an interest even now in the Seyton."
"Tush, man! nonsense and folly," answered Roland Grieme, "I but
sought to see what eyes these gentle hawks have got under their hood."
"Ay, but it's a dangerous subject of inquiry," said the falconer; "you
had better hold out your bare wrist for an eagle to perch upon.-Look you,
Master Roland, these pretty wild-geese cannot be hawked at without riskthey have as many divings, boltings, and volleyings, as the most gamesome
quarry that falcon ever flew at-And besides, every woman of them  is
manned with her husband, or her kind friend, or her brother, or her cousin,
or her sworn servant at the least —But you heed me not, Master Roland,
though I know the game so well-your eye is all on that pretty damsel
who trips down the gate before us —by my certes, I will warrant her a
blithe dancer either in reel or revel —a pair of silver morisco Dells would
become these pretty ankles as well as the jesses would suit the fairest
Norway hawk."
VOL. V.  24




870                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
" Thou art a fool, Adam," said the page, " and I care not a button about
the girl or her ankles-But, what the foul fiend, one must look at something!"
"Very true, Master Roland Graeme," said his guide, "but let me pray
you to choose your objects better.  Look you, there is scarce a woman
walks this High-gate with a silk screen or a pearlin muffler, but, as I said
before, she has either gentleman-usher before her, or kinsman, or lover, or
husband, at her elbow, or it may be a brace of stout fellows with sword
and buckler, not so far behind but what they can follow close- But you
heed me no more than a goss-hawk minds a yellow yoldrin."
" Oyes, I do -I do mind you indeed," said Roland Grneme; "but hold
my nag a bit-I will be with you in the exchange of a whistle."  So saying,
and ere Adam Woodcock could finish the sermon which was dying on his
tongue, Roland Groeme, to the falconer's utter astonishment, threw him the
bridle of his jennet, jumped off horseback, and pursued down one of the
closes or narrow lanes, which, opening under a vault, terminate upon the
main-street, the very maiden to whom his friend had accused him of showing so much attention, and who had turned down the pass in question.
" Saint Mary, Saint Magdalen, Saint Benedict, Saint Barnabas!" said
the poor falconer, when he found himself thus suddenly brought to a pause
in the midst of the Canongate, and saw his young charge start off like a
madman in quest of a damsel whom he had never, as Adam supposed, seen
in his life before,-" Saint Satan and Saint Beelzebub-for this would make
one swear saint and devil-what can have come over the lad, with a
wanion! And what shall I do the whilst! - he will have his throat cut,
the poor lad, as sure as I was born at the foot of Roseberry-Topping.
Could I find some one to hold the horses! but they are as sharp here northaway as in canny Yorkshire herself, and quit bridle, quit titt, as we say.
An I could but see one of our folks now, a holly-sprig were worth a gold
tassel; or could I but see one of the Regent's men-but to leave the horses
to a stranger, that I cannot —and to leave the place while the lad is in
jeopardy, that I wonot."
We must leave the falconer, however, in the midst of his distress, and
follow the hot-headed youth who was the cause of his perplexity.
The latter part of Adam Woodcock's sage remonstrance had been in a
great measure lost upon Roland, for whose benefit it was intended; because,
in one of the female forms which tripped along the street, muffled in a veil
of striped silk, like the women of Brussels at this day, his eye had discerned something which closely resembled the exquisite shape and spirited
bearing of Catherine -Seyton.-During all the grave advice which the
falconer was dinning in his ears, his eye continued intent upon so interesting an object of observation; and at length, as the damsel, just about to
dive under one of the arched passages which afforded an outlet to the
Canongate from the houses beneath, (a passage, graced by a projecting
shield of arms, supported by two huge foxes of stone,) had lifted her veil
for the purpose perhaps of descrying who the horseman was who for some
time had eyed her so closely, young Roland saw, under the shade of the
silken plaid, enough of the bright azure eyes, fair locks, and blithe features,
to induce him, like an inexperienced and rash madcap, whose wilful ways
never had been traversed by contradiction, nor much subjected to consideration, to throw the bridle of his horse into Adam Woodcock's hand,
and leave him to play the waiting gentleman, while he dashed down the
paved court after Catherine Seyton-all as aforesaid.
Women's wits are proverbially quick, but apparently those of Catherine
suggested no better expedient than fairly to betake herself to speed of foot,
in hopes of baffling the page's vivacity, by getting safely lodged before he
could discover where. But a youth of eighteen, in pursuit of a mistress,
is not so easily outstripped. Catherine fled across a paved court, decorated




THE ABBOT.                             371
with large Formal vases of stone, in which yews, cypresses, and other evergreens, vegetated in sombre sullenness, and gave a correspondent degree of
solemnity to the high and heavy building in front of which they were placed
as ornaments, aspiring towards a square portion of the blue hemisphere,
corresponding exactly in extent to the quadrangle in which they were
stationed, and all around which rose huge black walls, exhibiting windows
in rows of five stories, with heavy architraves over each, bearing armorial
and religious devices.
Through this court Catherine Seyton flashed like a hunted doe, making
the best use of those pretty legs which had attracted the commendation
even of the reflective and cautious Adam Woodcock. She hastened towards
a large door in the centre of the lower front of the court, pulled the bobbin
till the latch flew up, and ensconced herself in the ancient mansion. But,
if she fled like a doe, Roland Groeme followed with the speed and ardour of
a youthful stag-hound, loosed for the first time on his prey. IIe kept her
in view in spite of her efforts; for it is remarkable what an advantage, in
such a race, the gallant who desires to see, possesses over the maiden who
wishes not to be seen-an advantage which I have known counterbalance a
great start in point of distance. In short, he saw the waving of her screen,
or veil, at one corner, heard the tap of her foot, light as that was, as it
crossed the court, and caught a glimpse of her figure just as she entered
the door of the mansion.
Roland Groeme, inconsiderate and headlong as we have described him,
having no knowledge of real life but from the romances which he had read,
and not an idea of checking himself in the midst of any eager impulse;
possessed, besides, of much courage and readiness, never hesitated for a
moment to approach the door through which the object of his search had
disappeared. He, too, pulled the bobbin, and the latch, though heavy and
massive, answered to the summons, and arose. The page entered with the
same precipitation which had marked his whole proceeding, and found
himself in a large hall, or vestibule, dimly enlightened by latticed casements of painted glass, and rendered yet dimmer through the exclusion of
the sunbeams, owing to the height of the walls of those buildings by. which
the court-yard was enclosed. The walls of the hall were surrounded with
suits of ancient and rusted armour, interchanged with huge and massive
stone scutcheons, bearing double tressures, fleured and counter-fleured,
wheat-sheaves, coronets, and so forth, things to which Roland Graeme gave
not a moment's attention.
In fact, he only deigned to observe the figure of Catherine Seyton, who,
deeming herself safe in the hall, had stopped to take breath after her
course, and was reposing herself for a moment on a large oaken settle
which stood at the upper end of the hall. The noise of Roland's entrance
at once disturbed her; she started up with a faint scream of surprise, and
escaped through one of the several folding-doors which opened into this
apartment as a common centre. This door, which Roland Groeme instantly
approached, opened on a large and well-lighted gallery, at the upper end
of which he could hear several voices, and the noise of hasty steps approaching towards the hall or vestibule. A little recalled to sober thought
by an appearance of serious danger, he was deliberating whether he should
stand fast or retire, when Catherine Seyton re-entered from a side door,
running towards him with as much speed as a few minutes since she had
fled from him.
"Oh, what mischief brought you hither?" she said; "fly -fly, or you
are a dead man,-or stay-they come-flight is impossible-say you came
to ask for Lord Seyton."
She sprung from him and disappeared through the door by which she had
made her second appearance; and, at the same instant, a pair of large folding-doors at the upper end of the gallery flew open with vehemence, and




372                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
six or seven young gentlemen, richly dressed, pressed forward into the apartment, having, for the greater part, their swords drawn.
"Who is it," said one, " dare intrude on us in our own mansion?"
"Cut him to pieces," said another; " let him pay for this day's insolence
and violence -he is some follower of the Rothes."
" No, by Saint Mary," said another; "he is a follower of the arch-fiend
and ennobled clown Halbert Glendinning, who takes the style of Avenelonce a church-vassal, now a pillager of the church."
" It is so," said a fourth; "I know him by the holly-sprig, which is their
cognizance. Secure the door, he must answer for this insolence."
Two of the gallants, hastily drawing their weapons, passed on to the door
by which Roland had entered the hall, and stationed themselves there as if
to prevent his escape. The others advanced on Grgeme, who had just sense
enough to perceive that any attempt at resistance would be alike fruitless
and imprudent. At once, and by various voices, none of which sounded
amicably, the page was required to say who he was, whence he came, his
name, his errand, and who sent him hither. The number of the questions
demanded of him at once, afforded a momentary apology for his remaining
silent, and ere that brief truce had elapsed, a personage entered the hall, at
whose appearance those who had gathered fiercely around Roland, fell back
with respect.
This was a tall man, whose dark hair was already grizzled, though his
high and haughty features retained all the animation of youth. The upper
part of his person was undressed to his Holland shirt, whose ample folds
were stained with blood. But he wore a mantle of crimson, lined with rich
fur, cast around him, which supplied the deficiency of his dress. On his
head he had a crimson velvet bonnet, looped up on one side with a small
golden chain of many links, which, going thrice around the hat, was fastened
by a medal, agreeable to the fashion amongst the grandees of the time.
"Whom have you here, sons and kinsmen," said he, " around whom you
crowd thus roughly? -Know you not that the. shelter of this roof should
secure every one fair treatment, who shall come hither either in fair peace,
or in open and manly hostility?"
"But here, my lord," answered one of the youths, "is a knave who comes
on treacherous espial!"
" I deny the charge!" said Roland Grieme, boldly, "I came to inquire
after my Lord Seyton."
"A likely tale," answered his accusers, "in the mouth of a follower of
Glendinning."
"' Stay, young men," said the Lord Seyton, for it was that nobleman himself, "let me look at this youth -By heaven, it is the very same who came
so boldly to my side not very. many minutes since, when some of my own
knaves bore themselves with more respect to their own worshipful safety
than to mine! Stand back from him, for he well deserves honour and a
friendly welcome at your hands, instead of this rough treatment."
They fell back on all sides, obedient to Lord Seyton's commands, who,
taking Roland Grmeme by the hand, thanked him for his prompt and gallant
assistance, adding, that he nothing doubted, " the same interest which he
had taken in his cause in the affray, brought him hither to inquire after his
hurt."
Roland bowed low in acquiescence.
"Or is there any thing in which I can serve you, to show my sense  f
your ready gallantry?"
But the page, thinking it best to abide by the apology for his visit which
the Lord Seyton had so aptly himself suggested, replied, "that to be assured
of his lordship's safety, had been the only cause of his intrusion. He
judged," he added, "he had seen him receive some hurt in the affray."
"A trifle," said Lord Seyton,; "I had but stripped my doublet, that the




THE ABBOT.                                            873
chirurgeon might put some dressing on the paltry scratch, when these rash
boys interrupted us with their clamour."
Roland  Greeme, making  a low  obeisance, was now  about to depart, for,
relieved from the danger of being treated as a spy, he began next to fear,
that his companion, Adam Woodcock, whom he had so unceremoniously
quitted, would  either bring him  into  some farther dilemma, by venturing
into the hotel in quest of him, or ride off and leave him behind altogether.
But Lord Seyton did not permit him to escape so easily.-" Tarry," he said,
" young man, and let me know thy rank and name. The Seyton. has of late
been more wont to see friends and  followers shrink from  his side, than  to
receive aid from strangers-but a new world may come around, in which he
may have the chance of rewarding his well-wishers."
"My name  is Roland  Greeme, my lord,"  answered  the youth, "a page,
who, for the present, is in the service of Sir IIalbert Glendinning."
" I said  so from  the first," said one of the young men; "my life I will
wager, that this is a shaft out of the heretic's quiver-a stratagem  from  first
to last, to injeer into your confidence some espial of his own. They know
how to teach both boys and women to play the intelligencers."
"That is false, if it be spoken of me," said Roland; "no  man  in  Scotland should teach me such a foul part'"
" I believe thee, boy," said Lord Seyton, " for thy strokes were too fair to
be  dealt upon  an  understanding  with  those  that were  to  receive them.
Credit me, however, I little expected to have help at need from  one of your
master's household; and I would know what moved thee in my quarrel, to
thine own endangering?"
"So  please you, my lord,"  said  Roland, "I think  my  master himself
would not have stood by, and seen an honourable man borne to earth by
odds, if his single arm could help him. Such, at least, is the lesson we were
taught in chivalry, at the Castle of Avenel."
" The good seed hath fallen into good ground, young man," said Seyton;
"but, alas! if thou practise such honourable war in these dishonourable
days, when right is every where borne  down  by mastery, thy life, my poor
boy, will be but a short one."
" Let it be short, so it be honourable," said Roland Graeme; "and permit
me now, my lord, to commend me to your grace, and to take my leave. A
comrade waits with my horse in the street."
"Take this, however, young  man," said Lord, Seyton,* undoing from  his
bonnet the golden chain and medal, " and wear it for my sake."
-George, fifth Lord Seton, was immovably faithful to Queen Mary during all the mutabilities of her fortune.
He was grand mlaster of the household, in whiclh-capacity he had a picture painted of hinself, with his official baton, and the following mnotto:In adversitate, patiens;
iz prosperitate, benevolus.
Hazard, yet forward.
On various parts of his castle he inscribed, as expressing his religious and political creed, the legend,
UN DIEU, UN FOY, UN ROY, UN LOY.
He declined to be promoted to an earldom, which Queen Mary offered him at the same time when she
advanrced her natural brother to be Earl of Mar, antd afterwards of Murray.
On his refusing this honour, Mary wrote, or caused to be written, the following lines in Latin and Fiench: -
Sunt comites, ducesque alii; sunt denique reges;       1 y a des comptes, des roys, des ducs; ainsi
Sethorn dominumn sit satis esse mihi.           C'est assez pour moy d'estre Seigneur de Seton. 
Which may be thus rendered:Earl, duke, or king, he thou that list to be:
Seton, thy lordship is enough for me.
This distich reminds us of the "pride which aped humility," in the motto of the house of Couci:
Je suis ni roy, ni prince aussi;
Je suis le Seigneur de Coucy..After the battle of Langside, Lord Seton was obliged to retire abroad for safety, and was an exile for two
years,during which he was reduced to the necessity of driving a waggon in Flanders for his subsistence. He
rose to favoar in James VI.'s reign. and assuming his paternal property, had himself painted in his waggoner'l
dress, and in the act of driving a wain with four horses, on the north end of a stately gallery at Seton Castle
2 G




874                     WAVERLEY  N 0 rELS.
With no little pride Roland Grweme accepted the gift, which he hastily
fastened around his bonnet, as he had seen gallants wear such an ornament,
and renewing his obeisance to the Baron, left the hall, traversed the court,
and appeared in the street, just as Adam Woodcock, vexed and anxious at
his delay, had determined to leave the horses to their fate, and go in quest
of his youthful comrade.  "Whose barn hast thou broken next?" he exclaimed, greatly relieved by his appearance, although his countenance indicated that he had passed through an agitating scene.
"Ask me no questions," said Roland, leaping gaily on his horse; "but
see how short time it takes to win a chain of gold," pointing to that which
he now wore.
"Now, God forbid that thou hast either stolen it, or reft it by violence,"
said the falconer; "for, otherwise, I wot not how the devil thou couldst
compass it. I have been often here, ay,ofor months at an end, and no one
gave me either chain or medal."
"Thou seest I have got one on shorter acquaintance with the city,"
answered the page, " but set thine honest heart at rest; that which is fairly
won and freely given, is neither reft nor stolen."
" Marry, hang thee, with thy fanfarona* about thy neck!" said the falconer; " I think water will not drown, nor hemp strangle thee. Thou hast
been discarded as my lady's page, to come in again as my lord's squire;
and for following a noble young damsel into some great household, thou
gettest a chain and medal, where another would have had the baton across
his shoulders, if he missed having the dirk in his body.-But here we come
in front of the old Abbey. Bear thy good luck with you when you cross
these paved stones, and, by our Lady, you may brag Scotland."
As he spoke, they checked  their horses, where the huge old vaulted
entrance to the Abbey or Palace of Holyrood crossed the termination of
the street down which they had proceeded.  The court-yard of the palace
opened within this gloomy porch, showing the front of an irregular pile of
monastic buildings, one wing of which is still extant, forming a part of the
modern palace, erected in the days of Charles I.
At the gate of the porch the falconer and page resigned their horses to
the serving-man in attendance; the falconer commanding him with an air
of authority, to carry them  safely to the stables.-" We follow," he said,
"the Knight of Avenel. —We must bear ourselves for what we are here,"
said he in a whisper to Roland, "for every one here is looked on as they
demean themselves; and he that is too modest must to the wall, as the
proverb says; therefore cock thy bonnet, man, and let us brook the causeway bravely."
Assuming, therefore, an air of consequence, corresponding to what he
supposed to be his master's importance and quality, Adam Woodcock led
the way into the court-yard of the Palace of Holyrood.
lie appears to have been fond "f the arts; for there exists a benutiful framily-piece of him in the centre of
his finilyl.  Mr. Pinkertoi, in his Scottish Iconographia, published an enigraving of this curious portrait.  The
original is the property of Lord Somerville. nearly connected with the Seton family, and is at present at his
lordslip's fishing villa of the Pavilion, near Melrose.
* A name given to the gold chains worn by the military men of the period It is of Spanish origin: for the
tushion of wearing these costly ornanents was much followed amongst the conquerers of the New World.




THE  ABBOT.                                875
Cloptnt4 t  oigfnttn 4.
-The sky is clouded, Gaspard,
And the vexed ocean sleeps a troubled sleep,
Beneath a lurid gleam of parting sunshine.
Such slumber hangs o'er discontented lands,
While factions doubt, as yet, if they have strength
To front the open battle.
ALION - A POEM.
THE youthful page paused on the entrance of the court-yard, and implored
his guide to give him a moment's breathing space. " Let me but look around
me, man," said he; "you consider not 1 have never seen such a scene as
this before.-And this is Holyrood -the resort of the gallant and gay, and
the fair, and the wise, and the powerful!"
"Ay, marry, is it!" said Woodcock; "but I wish I could hood thee as.
they do the hawks, for thou starest as wildly as if you sought another fray
or another fanfarona.  I would I had thee safely housed, for thou lookest
wild as a goss-hawk."
It was indeed no common sight to Roland, the vestibule of a palace,
traversed by its various groups,-some radiant with gaiety —some pensive,
and apparently weighed down by affairs concerning the state, or concerning
themselves.  Here the hoary statesman, with his cautious yet commanding
look, his furred cloak and sable pantoufles; there the soldier in buff and
steel, his lrk sword jarring against the pavement, and his whiskered upper
lip and f iu-ning brow, looking an habitual defiance of danger, which
perhaps was not always made good  there again passed my lord's servingman, high of heart, and bloody of hand, humble to his master and his
master's equals, insolent to all others.  To these might be added, the poor
suitor, with his anxious look and depressed mien -the officer, full of his
brief authority, elbowing his betters, and possibly his benefactors, out of
the road-the proud priest, who sought a better benefice-the proud baron,
who sought a grant of church lands -the robber chief, who came to solicit
a pardon for the injuries he had inflicted on his neighbors- the plundered
franklin, who came to seek vengeance for that which he had himself received.
Besides there was the mustering and disposition of guards and soldiers -
the despatching of messengers, and the receiving them-the trampling and
neighing of horses without the gate-the flashing of arms, and rustling of
plumesi and jingling of spurs, within it.  In short, it was that gay and
splendid confusion, in which the eye of youth sees all that is brave and
brilliant, and that of experience much that is doubtful, deceitful, false, and
hollow - hopes that will never be gratified - promises which will never be
fulfilled — pride in the disguise of humility-and insolence in that of frank
and generous bounty.
As, tired of the eager and enraptured attention which the page gave to
a scene so new to him, Adam Woodcock endeavoured to get him  to move
forward, before his exuberance of astonishment should attract the observation of the sharp-witted denizens of the court, the falconer himself became
an object of attention to a gay menial in a dark-green bonnet and feather,
with a cloak of a corresponding colour, laid down, as the phrase then went,
by six broad bars of silver lace, and welted with violet and silver. The
words of recognition burst from both at once.  "What! Adam Woodcock
at court!" and " What! Michael Wing-the-wind-and how runs the hackit
greyhound bitch now?"
"The waur for the wear, like ourselves, Adam - eight years this grass
-no four legs will carry a dog forever; but we keep her for the breed, and




376                  WAVER LEY  NOVELS.
so she'scapes Border doom-But why stind you gazing there? I promise
you my lord has wished for you, and asked for you."
"My Lord of Murray asked for me, and he Regent of the kingdom too!"
said Adam. " I hunger and thirst to pay my duty to my good lord;- but
I fancy his good lordship remembers the day's sport on Carnwath-moor;
and my Drummelzier falcon, that beat the hawks from the Isle of'Man, and
won his lordship a hundred crowns from the Southern baron whom they
called Stanley."
"Nay, not to flatter thee, Adam," said his court-friend, "he remembers
nought of thee, or of thy falcon either. He hath flown many a higher
flight since that, and struck his quarry too. But come, come hither away;
I trust we are to be good comrades on the old score."
" What!" said Adam, " you would have me crush a pot with you; but I
must first dispose of my eyas, where he will neither have girl to chase, nor
lad to draw sword upon."
"Is the youngster such a one?" said Michael.
" Ay, by my hood, he flies at all game," replied Woodcock.
" Then had he better come with us," said Michael Wing-the-wind; "for
we cannot have a proper carouse just now, only I would wet my lips, and
so must you. I want to hear the news from Saint Mary's before you see
my lord, and I will let you know how the wind sits up yonder."
While he thus spoke, he led the way to a side door which opened into
the court; and threading several dark passages with the air of one who
knew the most secret recesses of the palace, conducted them to a small
matted chamber, where he placed bread and cheese and a foaming flagon
of ale before the falconer and his young companion, who immediately did
justice to the latter in a hearty draught, which nearly emptied the measure.
Having drawn his breath, and dashed the froth from his whiskers, he
observed, that his anxiety for the boy had made him deadly dry.
" Mend your draught," said his hospitable friend, again supplying the
flagon fi:om a pitcher which stood beside. "I know the way to the butterybar. And now, mind what I say- this morning the Earl of Morton came
to my lord in a mighty chafe."
" What! they keep the old friendship, then?" said Woodcock.
"Ay, ay, man, what else?" said Michael; "one hand must scratch the
other. But in a mighty chafe was my Lord of Morton, who, to say truth,
looketh on such occasions altogether uncanny, and, as it were, fiendish;
and he says to my lord,- for I was in the chamber taking orders about a
cast of hawks that are to be fetched from Darnoway -they match your
long-winged falcons, friend Adam."
"I will believe that when I see them  fly as high a pitch," replied
Woodcock, this professional observation forming a sort of parenthesis.
"IIowever," said Michael, pursuing his tale, "my Lord of Morton, in a
mighty chafe, asked my Lord Regent whether he was well dealt with-' for
my brother,' said he,'should have had a gift to be Commendator of Kennaquhair, and to have all the temporalities erected into a lordship of regality
for his benefit; and here,' said he,'the false monks have had the insolence
to choose a new Abbot to put his claim in my brother's way; and moreover, the rascality of the neighbourhood have burnt and plundered all that
was left in the Abbey, so that my brother will not have a house to dwell
in, when he hath ousted the lazy hounds of priests.' And my lord, seeing
him chafed, said mildly to him,' These are shrewd tidings, Douglas, but I
trust they be not true; for Halbert Glendinning went southward yesterday,
with a band of spears, and assuredly, had either of these chances happened,
that the monks had presumed to choose an Abbot, or that the Abbey had
been burnt, as you say, he had taken order on the spot for the punishment
of such insolence, and had despatched us a messenger.' And the Earl of
Morton replied -now I pray you, Adam, to notice, that I say this out of




THE ABBOT.                             377
love to you and your lord, and alo for old comradeship, and also because
Sir Halbert hath done me good, and may again - and also because I love
not the Earl of Morton, as indeed more fear than like him-so then it were
a foul deed in you to betray me.-' But,' said the Earl to the Regent,'take
heed, my lord, you trust not this Glendinning too far-he comes of churl's
blood, which was never true to the nobles' —by Saint Andrew, these were
his very words. -' And besides,' he said,'he hath a brother, a monk in
Saint Mary's, and walks all by his guidance, and is making friends on the
Border with Buccleuch and with Ferniehirst,* and will join hand with
them, were there likelihood of a new world.' And my lord answered, like
a free noble lord as he is;' Tush! my Lord of Morton, I will be warrant
for Glendinning's faith; and for his brother, he is a dreamer, that thinks
of nought but book and breviary -and if such hap have chanced as you
tell of, I look to receive from Glendinning the cowl of a hanged monk, and
the head of a riotous churl, by way of sharp and sudden justice.'- And
my Lord of Morton left the place, and, as it seemed to me, somewhat
malecontent.  But since that time, my lord has asked me more than once
whether there has arrived no messenger from the Knight of Avenel. And
all this I have told you, that you may frame your discourse to the best
purpose, for it seems to me that my lord will not be well-pleased, if aught
has happened like what my Lord of Morton said, and if your lord hath
not ta'en strict orders with it."
There was something in this communication which fairly blanked the
bold visage of Adam Woodcock, in spite of the reinforcement which his
natural hardihood had received from the berry-brown ale of Holyrood.
" What was it he said about a churl's head, that grim Lord of Morton?"
said the discontented falconer to his fiiend.
"Nay, it was my Lord Regent, who said that he expected, if the Abbey
was injured, your Knight would send him the head of the ringleader among
the rioters."
" Nay, but is this done like a good Protestant," said Adam Woodcock,
"or a true Lord of the Congregation?  We used to be their white-boys
and darlings when we pulled down the convents in Fife and Perthshire."
"Ay, but that," said Michael, "was when old mother Rome held her
own,' and our great folks were determined she should have no shelter for
her head in Scotland. But, now that the priests are fled in all quarters,
and their houses and lands are given to our grandees, they cannot see that
we are working the work of reformation in destroying the palaces of, zealous
Protestants."
"But I tell you Saint Mary's is not destroyed!' said Woodcock, in increasing agitation; " some trash of painted windows there were brokenthings that no nobleman could have brooked in his house-some stone saints
were brought on their marrow-bones, like old Widdrington at Chevy-Chase;
but as for fire-raising, there wvas not so much as a lighted lunt amongst us,
save the match which the dragon had to light the burning tow withal, which
he was to spit against Saint George; nay, I had caution of that."
"Htow! Adam Woodcock," said his comrade, "I trust thou hadst no
hand in such a fair work?  Look you, Adam, I were loth to terrify you,
and you just come from a journey; but I promise you, Earl Morton hath
brought you down a Maiden from Halifax, you never saw the like of herand she'll clasp you round the neck, and your head will remain in her
arms."
"Pshaw!" answered Adam, " I am too old to have my head turned by
any maiden of them all. I know my Lord of Morton will go as far for a
buxom lass as an yone; but what the devil took him to Halifax all the way?
and if he has got a gamester there, what hath she to do with my head?"
* Both these Border Chieftains were great friends of Quen Mary.
2c02




378                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"Much, much!" answered Michael.  "Herod's daughter, who did such
execution with her foot and ankle, danced not men's heads off more cleanly
than this maiden of Morton.*'Tis an axe, man, - an axe which falls of
itself like a sash window, and never gives the headsmen the trouble to
wield it."
" By my faith, a shrewd device," said Woodcock; "heaven keep us free
on't!"
The page, seeing no end to the conversation betwixt these two old comrades, and anxious from  what he had heard, concerning the fate of tile
Abbot, now interrupted their conference.''Methinks," he said, "Adam Woodcock, thou hadst better deliver thy
master's letter to the Regent; questionless he hath therein stated what has
chanced at Kennaquhair, in the way most advantageous for all concerned."
" The boy is right," said Michael Wing-the-wind, " my lord will be very
impatient."
"The child hath wit enough to keep himself warm," said Adam Woodcock, producing from his hawking-bag his lord's letter, addressed to the
Earl of Murray, "and for that matter so have I.  So, Master Roland, you
will e'en please to present this yourself to the Lord Regent; his presence
will be better graced by a young page than by an old falconer."
" Well said, canny Yorkshire!" replied his fiiend; "and but now you were
so earnest to see our good lord!  Why, wouldst thou put the lad into the
noose that thou mayst slip tether thyself?   or dost thou think the maiden
will clasp his fair young neck more willingly than thy old sunburnt weasand?"
" Go to," answered the falconer; "thy wit towers high an it could strike
the quarry.  I tell thee, the youth has nought to fear-he had nothing to
do with the gambol —a rare gambol it was, Michael, as mad-caps ever
played; and I had made as rare a ballad, if we had had the luck to get it
sung to an end. But mum for that   tace, as I said before, is Latin for a
candle.  Carry the youth to the presence, and I will remain here, with
bridle in hand, ready to strike the spurs up to the rowel-heads, in case the
hawk flies my way.-I will soon put Soltraedge, I trow, betwixt the Regent
and me, if he means me less than fair play."
" Come on then, my lad," said Michael, " since thou must needs take the
spring before canny Yorkshire."  So saying, he led the way through winding passages, closely followed by Roland Groeme, until they arrived at
a large winding stone stair, the steps of which were so long and broad, and
at the same time so low, as to render the ascent uncommonly easy. When
they had ascended about the height of one story, the guide stepped aside,
and pushed open the door of a dark and gloomy antechamber; so dark, indeed, that his youthful companion stumbled, and nearly fell down upon a
low step, which was awkwardly placed on the very threshold.
"Take heed," said Michael Wing-the-wind, in a very low tone of voice,
and first glancing cautiously round to see if any one listened-" Take heed,
my young friend, for those who fall on these boards seldom  rise againSeest thou that," he added, in a still lower voice, pointing to some dark
crimson stains on the floor, on which a ray of light, shot through a small
aperture, and traversing the general gloom of the apartment, fell with
mottled radiance -" Seest thou that, youth? -walk warily, for men have
fallen here before you."
"What mean you?" said the page, his flesh creeping, though he scarce
knew why; " Is it blood?"
"Ay, ay," said the domestic, in the same whispering tone, and dragging
the youth on by the arm-" Blood it is,-but this is no time to question, or
Maiden of Morton —a species of Guillotine which the Regent Morton brought down from Halifax. certainly
at a period considerably later than intimated in the tale. He was himself the first who suffered by the
-engine.




THE ABBOT.                               879
even to look at it. Blood it is, foully and fearfully shed, as foully and fearfully avenged.  The blood," he added, in a still more cautious tone, "of
Seignior.David."
Roland Grneme's heart throbbed when he found himself so unexpectedly
in the scene of Rizzio's slaughter, a catastrophe which had chilled with
horror all even in that rude age, which had been the theme of wonder and
pity through every cottage and castle in Scotland, and had not escaped that
of Avenel. But his guide hurried him forward, permitting no farther ques
tion, and with the manner of one who has already tampered too much with
a dangerous subject. A tap which he made at a low door at one end of the
vestibule, was answered by a huissier or usher, who, opening it cautiously,
received Michael's intimation that a page waited the Regent's leisure, who
brought letters from the Knight of Avenel.
" The Council is breaking up," said the usher; "but give me the packet;
his Grace the Regent will presently see the messenger.'
"The packet," replied the page, "must be delivered into the Regent's
own hands; such were the orders of my master."
The usher looked at him from head to foot, as if surprised at his boldness, and then replied, with some asperity, " Say you so, my young master?
Thou crowest loudly to be but a chicken, and from  a country barn-yard
too."
"Were it a time or place," said Roland, "thou shouldst see I can do
more than crow; but do your duty, and let the Regent know I wait his
pleasure."
" Thou art but a pert knave to tell me of my duty," said the courtier in
office; " but I will find a time to show you you are out of yours; meanwhile,
wait there till you are wanted." So saying, he shut the door in Roland's
face.
Michael Wing-the-wind, who had shrunk from his youthful companion
during this altercation, according to the established maxim of courtiers of
all ranks, and in all ages, now transgressed their prudential line of conduct so far as to come up to him once, more. " Thou art a hopeful young
springald," said he, " and I see right well old Yorkshire had reason in his
caution. Thou hast been five minutes in the court, and hast employed thy
tim;e so well, as to make a powerful and a mortal enemy out of the usher
of the council-chamber. Why, man, you might almost as well have offended
the deputy butler 1"
" I care not what he is," said Roland Groeme; " I will teach whomever I
speak with to speak civilly to me in return. I did not come from Avenel
to be browbeaten in -Iolyrood."
" Bravo, my lad!" said Michael; "it is a fine spirit if you can but holU
it- but see, the door opens."
The usher appeared, and, in a more civil tone of voice and manner, said,
that his Grace the Regent would receive the Knight of Avenel's message;
and accordingly marshalled Roland Graeme the way into the apartment,
from which the Council had been just dismissed, after finishing their consultations.  There was in the room a long oaken table, surrounded by stools
of the same wood, with a large elbow chair, covered with crimson velvet, at
the head. Writing materials and papers were lying there in apparent disorder; and one or two of the privy counsellors who had lingered behind,
assuming their cloaks, bonnets, and swords, and bidding farewell to the
Regent, were departing slowly by a large door, on the opposite side to that
through which the page entered. Apparently the Earl of Murray had
made some jest, for the smiling countenances of the statesmen expressed
that sort of cordial reception which is paid by courtiers to the condescending pleasantries of a prince.
The Regent himself was laughing heartily as he said, "Farewell, my
lords, and hold me remembered to the Cock of the North."




380                   WAVERLEY  NOV.ELS.
Hie then turned slowly round towards Roland-Groeme, and the marks ot
gaiety, real or assumed, disappeared from  his countenance, as completely
as the passing bubbles leave the dark mirror of a still profound lake into
which a traveller has cast a stone; in the course of a minute his noble
features had assumed their natural expression of deep and even melancholy
gravity.
This distinguished statesman, for as such his worst enemies acknowledged
him, possessed all the external dignity, as well as almost all the noble
qualities, which could grace the power that he enjoyed; and had he succeeded to the throne as his legitimate inheritance, it is probable he would
have been recorded as one of Scotland's wisest and greatest kings. But that
he held his authority by the. deposition and imprisonment of his sister and
benefactress, was a crime which those only can excuse who think ambition
an apology for ingratitude.  He was dressed plainly in black velvet, after
the Flemish fashion, and wore in his high-crowned hat a jewelled clasp,
which looped it up on one side, and formed the only ornament of his
apparel. IIe had his poniard by his side, and his sword lay on the council
table.
Such was the personage before whom Roland Grmeme now presented himself, with a feeling of breathless awe, very different from the usual boldness
and vivacity of his temper. In fact, he was, fiom  education and nature,
forward, but not impudent, and was much more easily controlled by the
moral superiority, arising from  the elevated talents and renown of those
with whom he conversed, than by pretensions founded only on rank or
external show. He might have braved with indifference the presence of an
earl, merely distinguished by his belt and coronet; but he felt overawed in
that of the eminent soldier and statesman, the wielder of a nation's power,
and the leader of her armies.-The greatest and wisest are flattered by the
deference of youth -so graceful and becoming in itself; and Murray took,
with much courtesy, the letter from the hands of the abashed and blushing
page, and answered with complaisance to the imperfect and half-muttered
greeting, which he endeavoured to deliver to him on the part of Sir Halbert
of Avenel. He even paused a moment ere he broke the silk with which the
letter was secured, to ask the page his name -so much he was struck with
his very handsome features and form.
"Roland Granme," he said, repeating the words after the hesitating page.
What! of the Grahams of the Lennox?"
"No, my lord," replied Roland; "my parents dwelt in the Debateable
Land."
Murray made no further inquiry, but proceeded to read his dispatches;
during the perusal of which his brow began to assume a stern expression of
displeasure, as that of one who found something which at once surprised and
disturbed him. He sat down on the nearest seat, frowned till his eyebrows
almost met together, read the letter twice over, and was then silent for
several rinutes. At length, raising his head, his eye encountered that of
the usher, who in vain endeavoured to exchange the look of eager and
curious observation with which he had been perusing the Regent's features,
for that open and unnoticing expression of countenance, which, in looking
at all, seems as if it saw and marked nothing- a cast of look which may
be practised with advantage by all those, of whatever degree, who are
admitted to witness the familiar and unguarded hours of their superiors.
Great men are as jealous of their thoughts as the wife of King Candaules
was of her charms, and will as readily punish those who have, however
involuntarily, beheld them in mental deshabille and exposure.
"Leave the apartment, Hyndman," said the Regent, sternly, "and carry
your observation elsewhere. You are too knowing, sir, for your post, which,
by special order, is destined for men of blunter capacity.  So! now you
look more like a fool than you did," — (for Hyndman, as may easily be




THE  ABBOT.                             381
supposed, was not a little disconcerted by this rebuke)  " keep that confused stare, and it may keep your office. Begone, sir!"
The usher departed in dismay, not forgetting to register, amongst his
other causes of dislike to Roland Graeme, that he had been the witness of
this disgraceful chiding. When he had left the apartment, the Regent again
addressed the page.
" Your name, you say, is Armstrong?"
"No," replied Roland, "my name is Graeme, so please you -Roland
Grneme, whose forbears were designated of Heathergill, in the Debateable
Land."
" Ay, I knew it was a name from the Debateable Land. Hast thou any
acquaintance in Edinburgh? "' My lord," replied Roland, willing rather to evade this question than to
answer it directly, for the prudence of being silent with respect to Lord Seyton's adventure immediately struck him, " I have been in Edinburgh scarce
an hour, and that for the first time in my life."
"What! and thou Sir ltalbert Glendinning's page?" said the Regent.
" I was brought up as my Lady's page," said the youth, " and left Avenel
Castle for the first time in my life  at least since my childhood —only
three days since."
"My Lady's page!" repeated the Earl of Murray, as if speaking to himself; " it was strange to send his Lady's page on a matter of such deep concernment —Morton will say it is of a piece with the nomination of his
brother to be Abbot; and yet in some sort an inexperienced youth will best
serve the turn. - What hast thou been taught, young man, in thy doughty
apprenticeship?"
" To hunt, my lord, and to hawk," said Roland Grieme.
"To hunt coneys, and to hawk at ouzels!" said the Regent, smiling;
"for such are the sports of ladies and their followers."
Groeme's cheek reddened deeply as he replied, not without some emphasis,
"To hunt red-deer of the first head, and to strike down herons of the highest
soar, my lord, which, in Lothian speech, may be termed, for aught I know,
coneys and ouzels; —also I can wield a brand and couch a lance, according
to our Border meaning; in inland speech these may be termed water-flags
and bulrushes."
"Thy speech rings like metal," said the Regent, "and I pardon the
sharpness of it for the truth. - Thou knowest, then, what belongs to the
duty of a man-at-arms?"
"So far as exercise can teach it without real service in the field,"
answered Roland Grseme; "but our Knight permitted none of his household to make raids, and I never had the good fortune to see a stricken
field."
" The good fortune!" repeated the Regent, smiling somewhat sorrowfully,
"take my word, young man, war is the only game from which both parties
rise losers."
"Not always, my lord!" answered the page, with his characteristic
audacity, "if fame speaks truth."
"How, sir?" said the Regent, colouring in his turn, and perhaps suspecting an indiscreet allusion to the height which he himself had attained
by the hap of civil war.
"Because, my lord," said Roland Greme, without change of tone, "he
who fights well, must have fame in life, or honour in death; and so war is
a game from which no one can rise a loser."
The Regent smiled and shook his head, when at that moment the door
opened, and the Earl of Morton presented himself.
"I come somewhat hastily," he said, " and I enter unannounced because
my news are of weight-It is as I said; Edward Glendinning is named
Abbot, and —"




882                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
"Hush, my lord!', said the Regent, " I know it, but   "
"And perhaps you knew it before I did, my Lord of Murray," answered
MIorton, his dark red brow growing darker and redder as he spoke.
"Morton," said Murray, "suspect me not-touch not mine honour-I
have to suffer enough from the calumnies of foes, let me not have to contend
with the unjust suspicions of my friends.-We are not alone," said he,
recollecting himself, " or I could tell you more."
Hle led Morton into one of the deep embrasures which the windows
formed in the massive wall, and which afforded a retiring place for their
conversing apart. In this recess, Roland observed them speak together
with much earnestness, Murray appearing to be grave and earnest, and
Morton having a jealous and offended air, which seemed gradually to give
way to the assurances of the Regent.
As their conversation grew more earnest, they became gradually louder
in speech, having perhaps forgotten the presence of the page, the more
readily as his position in the apartment placed him out of sight, so that he
found himself unwillingly privy to more of their discourse than he cared
to hear. For. page though he was, a mean curiosity after the secrets of
others had never been numbered amongst Roland's failings; and moreover,
with all his natural rashness, he could not but doubt the safety of becoming
privy to the secret discourse of these powerful and dreaded men.  Still he
could neither stop his ears, nor with propriety leave the apartment; and
while he thought of some means of signifying his presence, he had already
heard so much, that, to have produced himself suddenly would have been
as awkward, and perhaps as dangerous, as in quiet to abide the end of their
conference. What he overheard, however, was but an imperfect part of
their communication; and although an expert politician, acquainted with
the circumstances of the times, would have had little difficulty in tracing
the meaning, yet Roland Greme could only form very general and vague
conjectures as to the import of their discourse.
"All is prepared," said Murray, " and Lindsay is setting forward - She
must hesitate no longer-thou seest I act by thy counsel, and harden myself
against softer considerations."
" True, my lord," replied Morton, " in what is necessary to gain power,
you do not hesitate, but go boldly to the mark. But are you as careful to
defend and preserve what you have won? -Why this establishment of
domestics around her?-has not your sister men and maidens enough to
tend her, but you must consent to this superfluous and dangerous retinue?"
" For shame, Morton! - a Princess, and my sister, could I do less than
allow her due attendance?"
"Ay," replied Morton, "even thus fly all your shafts-smartly enough
loosened from the bow, and not unskilfully aimed -but a breath of foolish
affection ever crosses in the mid volley, and sways the arrow from  the
mark."
"Say not so, Morton;" replied Murray, "I have both dared and done   -"
"Yes, enough to gain, but not enough to keep- reckon not that she will
think and act thus  you have wounded her deeply, both in pride and in
power- it signifies nought, that you would tent now the wound with unavailing salves - as matters stand with you, you must forfeit the title of an
affectionate brother, to hold that of a bold and determined statesman."
"Morton!" said Murray, with some impatience, "I brook not these
taunts-what I have done I have done-what I must farther do, I must and
will —but I am not made of iron like thee, and I cannot but rememberEnough of this-my purpose holds."
" And I warrant me," said Morton, " the choice of these domestic consolations will rest with    "
Here he whispered names which escaped Roland Groeme's ear. Murray
replied in a similar tone, but so much raised towards the conclusion of the




THE ABBOT.                               383
sentence, that the page heard these words-" And of him I hold myself
secure, by Glendinning's recommendation."
"Ay, which may be as much trustworthy as his late conduct at the Abbey
of Saint Mary's-you have heard that his brother's. election has taken place.
Your favourite Sir Halbert, my Lord of Murray, has as much fraternal
affection as yourself."
"By heaven, Morton, that taunt demanded- an unfriendly answer, but I
pardon it, for your brother also is concerned; but this election shall be
annulled. I tell you, Earl of Morton, while I hold the sword of state in
my royal nephew's name, neither Lord nor Knight in Scotland shall dispute
my authority; and if I bear with insults from my friends, it is only while
I know them to be such, and forgive their follies for their faithfulness."
Morton muttered what seemed to be some excuse, and the Regent answered him in a milder tone, and then subjoined, "Besides, I have another
pledge than Glendinning's recommendation, for this youth's fidelity- his
nearest relative has placed herself in my hands as his security, to be dealt
withal as his doings shall deserve."
"That is something," replied Morton; "but yet in fair love and goodwill, I must still pray you to keep on your guard. The foes are stirring
again, as horse-flies and hornets become busy so soon as the storm-blast is
over. George of Seyton was crossing the causeway this morning with a
score of men at his back, and had a ruffle with my friends of the house of
Leslie -they met at the Tron, and were fighting hard, when the provost,
with his guard of partisans, came in thirdsman, and staved them asunder
with their halberds, as men part dog and bear."
" He hath my order for such interference," said the Regent-" Has any
one been hurt?"
"George of Seyton himself, by black Ralph Leslie — the devil take the
rapier that ran not through from side to side! Ralph has a bloody coxcomb, by a blow from a messan-page whom nobody knew-Dick Seyton of
Windygowl is run through the arm, and two gallants of the Leslies have suffered phlebotomy. This is all the gentle blood which has been spilled in the
revel; but a yeoman or two on both sides have had bones broken and ears
chopped. The ostlere-wives, who are like to be the only losers by their
miscarriage, have dragged the knaves off the street, and are crying a
drunken coronach over them."
"You take it lightly, Douglas," said the Regent; "these broils and feuds
would shame the capital of the great Turk, let alone that of a Christian
and reformed state. But, if I live, this gear shall be amended; and men
shall say, when they read my story, that if it were my cruel hap to rise to
power by the dethronement of a sister, I employed it, when gained, for the
benefit of the commonweal."
" And of your friends," replied Morton; "wherefore I trust for your
instant order annulling the election of this lurdane Abbot, Edward Glendinning."
"You shall be presently satisfied," said the Regent; and stepping forward, he began to call, "So ho, Hyndman!" when suddenly his eye lighted
on Roland Graeme  "By my faith, Douglas," said he, turning to his friend,
"here have been three at counsel!"
" Ay, but only two can keep counsel," said Morton; " the galliard must
be disposed of."
"For shame, Morton — an orphan boy! —Hearken thee, my child —Thou
hast told me some of thy accomplishments - canst thou speak truth?"
"Ay, my lord, when it serves my turn," replied Graeme.
"It shall serve thy turn now," said the Regent; "and falsehood shall be
thy destruction. How much hast thou heard or understood of what we two
have spoken together?"
"But little, my lord," replied Roland Grseme boldly, "which met my




384                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
apprehension, saving that it seemed to me as if in something you doubted
the faith of the Knight of Avenel, under whose roof I was nurtured."
" And what hast thou to say on that point, young man?" continued the
Regent, bending his eyes upon him with a keen and strong expression of
observation.'"'That." said the page, "depends on the quality of those who speak
against his honour whose bread I have long eaten. If they be my inferiors,
I say they lie, and will maintain what I say with my baton; if my equals,
still I say they lie, and will' do battle in the quarrel, if they list, with my
sword; if my superiors"- he paused.
" Proceed boldly," said the Regent- " What if thy superiors said aught
that nearly touched your master's honour?"
"I would say," replied Graeme, " that he did ill to slander the absent, and
that my master was a man who could render an account of his actions to
any one who should manfully demand it of him to his face."
"And it were manfully said," replied the Regent   " what thinkest thou,
my Lord of Morton?"
"I think," replied Morton, " that if the young galliard resemble a certain
ancient friend of ours, as much in the craft of his disposition as he does in
eye and in brow, there may be a wide difference betwixt what he means and
what he speaks."
"And whom meanest thou that he resembles so closely?" said Murray.
"Even the true and trusty Julian Avenel," replied Morton.
But this youth belongs to the Debateable Land," said Murray.
"It may be so; but Julian was an outlaying striker of venison, and made
many a far cast when he had a fair doe in chase."
" Pshaw!" said the Regent, " this is but idle talk - Here, thou Hyndman
- thou curiosity," calling to the usher, who now entered, -" conduct this
youth to his companion -You will both," he said to GrTeme, "keep yourselves in readiness to travel on short notice." -And then motioning to him
courteously to withdraw, he broke up the interview.
( fnfter  t4e  9in     rten tl
It is and is not —'tis the thing T sought for,
Have kneel'd for, pray'd for, risk'd my fame and life for,
And yet it, is not-no more than the shadow
Upon the hard, cold, flat, and polished mirror,
Is the warm, graceful, rounded, living substance
Which it presents in form and lineament.
OLD PLAY.
THE usher, with gravity which ill concealed a jealous scowl, conducted
Roland Grgeme to a lower apartment, where he found his comrade the falconer.  The man of office then briefly acquainted them  that this would be
their residence till his Grace's farther orders; that they were to go to the
pantry, to the buttery, to the cellar, and to the kitchen, at the usual hours,
to receive the allowances becoming their station,-instructions which Adam
Woodcock's old familiarity with the court made him perfectly understand"For your beds," he said, "you must go to the hostelry of Saint Michael's,
in respect the palace is now full of the domestics of the greater nobles."
No sooner was the usher's back turned than Adam exclaimed, with all the
glee of eager curiosity, "And now, Master Roland, the news - the news -
come unbutton thy pouch, and give us thy tidings —What says the Regent?




THE ABBOT.                               385
asks he for Adam Woodcock? —and is all soldered up, or must the Abbot
)f Unreason strap for it?"
"All is well in that quarter," said the page; "and for the rest —But.
hey-day, what! have you taken the chain and medal off from my bonnet?"
" And meet time it was, when yon usher, vinegar-faced rogue that he is,
began to inquire what Popish trangam  you were wearing -By the mass,
the metalswould have been confiscated for conscience-sake, like your other
rattle-trap yonder at Avenel, which Mistress Lilias bears about on her shoes
in the guise of a pair of shoe-buckles - This comes of carrying Popish nicknackets about you."
" The jade!" exclaimed Roland Graeme, " has she melted down my rosary
into buckles for her clumsy hoofs, which will set off such a garnish nearly
as well as a cow's might? -But, hang her, let her keep them - many a
dog's trick have I played old Lilias, for want of having something better to
do, and the buckles will serve for a remembrance. Do you remember the
verjuice I put into the comfits, when old Wingate and she were to breakfast
together on Easter morning?"
"In troth do I, Master Roland-the major-domo's mouth was as crooked
as a hawk's beak for the whole morning afterwards, and any other page in
your room would have tasted the discipline of the porter's lodge for it.
But my Lady's favour stood between your skin and many a jerking - Lord
send you may be the better for her protection in such matters 1"
" I am least grateful for it, Adam! and I am glad you put me in mind
of it."' Well, but the news, my young master," said Woodcock, " spell me the
tidings —what are we to fly at next?-what did the Regent say to you?"
Nothing that I am to repeat again," said Roland Greeme, shaking his
head.
"Why, hey-day," said Adam, "how prudent we are become all of a
sudden! You have advanced rarely in brief space, Master Roland. You
have well nigh had your head broken, and you have gained your gold chain,
and you have made an enemy, Master Usher to wit, with his two legs like
hawks' perches, and you have had audience of the first man in the realm,
and bear as much mystery in your brow, as if you had flown in the courtsky ever since you were hatched. I believe, in my soul, you would run with
a piece of the egg-shell on your head like the curlews, which (I would we
were after them  again) we used to call whaups in the Halidome and its
neighbourhood.  But sit thee down, boy; Adam Woodcock was never the
lad to seek to enter into forbidden secrets-sit thee down, and I will go and
fetch the vivers-I know the butler and the pantler of old."
The good-natured falconer set forth upon his errand, busying himself
about procuring their refreshment; and, during his absence, Roland Grieme
abandoned himself to the strange, complicated, and-yet heart-stirring reflections, to which the events of the morning had given rise. Yesterday he was
of neither mark nor likelihood; a vagrant boy, the attendant on a relative,
of whose sane judgment he himself had not the highest opinion; but now
he had become, he knew not why, or wherefore, or to what extent, the
custodier, as the Scottish phrase went, of some important state secret, in
the safe keeping of which the Regent himself was concerned. It did not
diminish from, but rather added to the interest of a situation so unexpected,
that Roland himself did not perfectly understand wherein he stood committed by the state secrets, in which he had unwittingly become participator.
On the contrary, he" felt like ope who looks on a romantic landscape, of
which he sees the features for the first time, and then obscured with mist
and driving tempest.  The imperfect glimpse which the eye catches of
rocks, trees, and other objects around him, adds double dignity to these
shrouded mountains and darkened abysses, of which the height, depth, and
extent, are left to imagination.
VOL. V. -25                     2 




386                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
But mortals, especially at the well-appetized age which precedes twenty
years, are seldom so much engaged either by real or conjectural subjects
of speculation, but that their earthly wants claim their hour of attention.
And with many a smile did our hero, so the reader may term him if he
will, hail the re-appearance of his friend Adam Woodcock, bearing on one
platter a tremendous portion of boiled beef, and on another a plentiful
allowance of greens, or rather what the Scotch call lang-kale. A groom
followed with bread, salt, and the other means of setting forth a meal; and
when they had both placed on the oaken table what they bore in their
hands, the falconer observed, that since he knew the court, it had got harder
and harder every day to the poor gentlemen and yeoman retainers, but that
now it was an absolute flaying of a flea for the hide and tallow. Such
thronging to the wicket, and such churlish answers, and such bare beefbones, such a shouldering at the buttery-hatch and cellarage, and nought to
be gained beyond small insufficient single ale, or at best with a single straike
of malt to counterbalance a double allowance of water-" By the mass,
though, my young friend," said he, while he saw the food disappearing fast
under Roland's active exertions, "it is not so well to lament for former
times as to take the advantage of the present, else we are like to lose on
both sides."
So saying, Adam Woodcock drew his chair towards the table, unsheathed
his knife, (for every one carried that minister of festive distribution for
himself,) and imitated his, young companion's example, who for the moment
had lost his anxiety for the future in the eager satisfaction of an appetite
sharpened by youth and abstinence.
In truth, they made, though the materials were sufficiently simple, a very
respectable meal, at the expense of the royal allowance; and Adam Woodcock, notwithstanding the deliberate censure which he had passed on the
household beer of the palace, had taken the fourth deep draught of the
black jack ere he remembered him that he had spoken in its dispraise.
Flinging himself jollily and luxuriously back in an old danske elbow-chair,
and looking with careless glee towards the page, extending at the same t;me
his right leg, and stretching the other easily over it, he reminded his companion that he had not yet heard the ballad which he had made for the
Abbot of Unreason's revel. And accordingly he struck merrily up with
"The Pope, that pagan full of pride,
Has blinded us full lang "Roland Gireme, who felt no great delight, as may be supposed, in the
falconer's satire, considering its "subject, began to snatch up his mantle,
and fling it around his shoulders, an action which instantly interrupted the
ditty of Adam Woodcock.
"Where the vengeance are you going now," he said, " thou.restless boy?
- Thou hast quicksilver in the veins of thee to a certainty, and canst no
more abide any douce and sensible communing, than a hoodless hawk
would keep perched on my wrist!"
"Why, Adam," replied the page, " if you must needs know, I am about
to take a walk and look at this fair city. One may as well be still mewed
up in the old castle of the lake, if one is to sit the live-long night between
four walls, and hearken to old ballads."
"It is a new ballad-the Lord help thee 1" replied Adam, "and that one
of the best that ever was matched with a rousing chorus."
"Be it so," said the page, "I will hear it another day, when the rain is
dashing against the windows, and there is neither steed stamping, nor spur
jingling, nor feather waving in the neighbourhood to mar my marking it
well. But, even now, I want to be in the world, and to look about me."
"But the never a stride shall you go without me," said the falconer,
" until the Regent shall take you whole and sound off my hand; and so, if
you will, we may go to the hostelrie of Saint Michael's, and there you will




THE  ABBOT.                            387
see company enough, but through the casement, mark you me; for as to
rambling through the street to seek Seytons and Leslies, and having a dozen
holes drilled in your new jacket with rapier and poniard, I will yield no way
to it."
" To the hostelrie of Saint Michael's, then, with all my heart," said the
page; and they left the palace accordingly, rendered to the sentinels at the
gate, who had now taken their posts for the evening, a strict account of
their names and business, were dismissed through a small wicket of the
close-barred portal, and soon reached the inn or hostelrie of Saint Michael,
which stood in a large court-yard, off the main street, close under the descent
of the Calton-hill. The place, wide, waste, and uncomfortable, resembled
rather an Eastern caravansary, where men found shelter indeed, but were
obliged to supply themselves with every thing else, than one of our modern
inns;
Where not one comfort shall to those be lost,
Who never ask, or never feel, the cost.
But still, to the inexperienced eye of Roland Grseme, the bustle and confusion of this place of public resort, furnished excitement and amusement.
In the large room, into which they had rather found their own way than
been ushered by mine host, travellers and natives of the city entered and
departed, met and greeted, gamed or drank together, forming the strongest
contrast.to the stern and monotonous order and silence with which matters
were conducted in the well-ordered household of the Knight of Avenel,
Altercation of every kind, from brawling to jesting, was going on amongst
the groups around them, and yet the noise and mingled voices seemed to
disturb no one and indeed to be noticed by no others than by those who
composed the group to which the speaker belonged.
The falconer passed through the apartment to a projecting latticed window,
which formed a sort of recess from the room itself; and having here ensconced himself and his companion, he called for some refreshments; and
a tapster, after he had shouted for the twentieth time, accommodated him
with the remains of a cold capon and a neat's tongue, together with a
pewter stoup of weak French vin-de-pays. " Fetch a stoup of brandy-wine,
thou knave-We will be jolly to-night, Master Roland," said he, when he
saw himself thus accommodated, " and let care come to-morrow."
But Roland had eaten too lately to enjoy the good cheer; and feeling his
curiosity much sharper than his appetite, he made it his choice to look out
of the lattice, which overhung a large yard, surrounded'by the stables of
the hostelrie; and fed his eyes on the busy sight beneath, while Adam Woodcock, after he had compared his companion to the " Laird of Macfarlane's
geese, who liked their play better than their meat," disposed of his time
with the aid of cup and trencher, occasionally humming the burden of his
birth-strangled ballad, and beating time to it with his fingers on the little
round table. In this exercise he was frequently interrupted by the exclamations of his companion, as he saw something new in the yard beneath,
to attract and interest him.
It was a busy scene, for the number of gentlemen and nobles who were
now crowded into the city, had filled all spare stables and places of public
reception with their horses and military attendants. There were some
score of yeomen, dressing their own or their masters' horses in the yard,
whistling, singing, laughing, and upbraiding each other, in a style of wit
which the good order of Avenel Castle rendered strange to Roland Grseme's
ears. Others were busy repairing their own arms, or cleaning those of
their masters. One fellow, having just bought a bundle of twenty spears,
was sitting in a corner, employed in painting the white staves, of the
weapons with yellow and vermillion. Other lacqueys led large stag-hounds,
or wolf-dogs, of noble race, carefully muzzled to prevent accidents to passengers. All came and went, mixed together and separated, under the




388                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
delighted eye of the page, whose imagination had not even conceived a
scene so gaily diversified with the objects he had most pleasure in beholding; so that he was perpetually breaking the quiet reverie of honest
Woodcock, and the mental progress which he was making in his ditty, by
exclaiming, "Look here, Adam- look at the bonny bay horse-Saint Anthony, what a gallant forehand he hath got! — and see the goodly gray,
which yonder fellow in the frieze-jacket is dressing as awkwardly as if he
had never touched aught but a cow-I would I were nigh him to teach him
his trade!-And lo you, Adam, the gay Milan armour that the yeoman is
scouring, all steel and silver, like our Knight's prime suit, of which old
Wingate makes such account-And see to yonder pretty wench, Adam,
who comes tripping through them all with her milk-pail — warrant me'she
has had a long walk from the loaning; she has a stammrel waistcoat, like
your favourite Cicely Sunderland, Master Adam!"
"By my hood, lad," answered the falconer, " it is well for thee thou wert
brought up where grace grew. Even in the Castle of Avenel thou wert a
wild-blood enough, but hadst thou been nurtured here, within a flight-sh)ot
of the Court, thou hadst been the veriest crack-hemp of a page that ever
wore feather in thy bonnet or steel by thy side: truly, I wish it may end
well with thee."
"Nay, but leave thy senseless humming and drumming, old Adam, and
come to the window ere thou hast drenched thy senses in the pint-pot there.
See here comes a merry minstrel with his crowd, and a wench with him,
that dances with bells at her ankles; and see, the yeomen and pages leave
their horses and the armour they were cleaning, and gather round, as is
very natural, to hear the music. Come, old Adam, we will thither too."
"You shall call me cutt if I do go down," said Adam; "you are near as
good minstrelsy as the stroller can make, if you had but the grace to listen
to it."
" But the wench in the stammel waistcoat is stopping too, Adam —by
heaven, they are going to dance!  Frieze-jacket wants to dance with
stammel waistcoat, but she is coy and recusant."
Then suddenly changing his tone of levity into one of deep interest and
surprise, he exclaimed, " Queen of Heaven! what is it that I see!" and then
remained silent.
The sage Adam Woodcock, who was in a sort of languid degree amused
with the page's exclamations, even while he professed to despise them, became at length rather desirous to set his tongue once more a-going, that he
might enjoy the superiority afforded by his own intimate familiarity with
all the circumstances which excited in his young companion's mind so
much wonderment.
"Well, then," he said at last, "what is it you do see, Master Roland,
that you have become mute all of a sudden?"
Roland returned no answer.
"I say, Master Roland Graeme," said the falconer, "it is manners in my
country for a man to speak when he is spoken to."
R oland Graeme remained silent.
"The murrain is in the boy," said Adam Woodcock, "he has stared out
his eyes, and talked his tongue to pieces, I think."
The falconer hastily drank off his can of wine, and came to Roland, who
stood like a statue, with his eyes eagerly bent on the court-yard, though
Adam Woodcock was unable to detect amongst the joyous scenes which it
exhibited aught that could deserve such devoted attention.
"The lad is mazed!" said the falconer to himself.
But Roland Gremme had good reasons for his surprise, though they were
Tiot such as he could communicate to his companion.
The touch of the old minstrel's instrument, for he had already begun to
play, had drawn in several auditors from  the street when one entered the




THE AB BO T.                           389.
gate of the yard, whose appearance exclusively arrested the attention of
Roland Grseme. IHe was of his own age, or a good deal younger, and from
his dress and bearing might be of the same rank and calling, having all the
air of coxcombry and pretension, which accorded with a handsome, though
slight and low figure, and an elegant dress, in part hid by a large purple
cloak. As he entered, he cast a glance up towards the windows, and, to his
extreme astonishment, under the purple velvet bonnet and white feather,
Roland recognized the features so deeply impressed on his memory, the
bright and clustered tresses, the laughing full blue eyes, the well-formed
eyebrows, the nose, with the slightest possible inclination to be aquiline, the
ruby lip, of which an arch and half-suppressed smile seemed the habitual
expression -in short, the form and face of Catherine Seyton; in man's
attire, however, and mimicking, as it seemed, not unsuccessfully, the bearing of a youthful but forward page.
"Saint George and Saint Andrew!" exclaimed the amazed Roland Graeme
to himself, "was there ever such an audacious quean! -she seems a little
ashamed of her mummery too, for she holds the lap of her cloak to her face,
and her colour is heightened-but Santa Maria, how she threads the throng,
with as firm and bold a step as if she had never tied petticoat round her
waist!-Holy Saints! she holds up her riding-rod as if she would lay it about
some of their ears, that stand most in her way-by the hand of my father!
she bears herself like the very model of pagehood.-Hey! what! sure she
will not strike frieze-jacket in earnest?" But he was not long left in doubt;
for the lout whom he had before repeatedly noticed, standing in the way of
the bustling page, and maintaining his place with clownish obstinacy or
stupidity, the advanced riding-rod was, without a moment's hesitation,
sharply applied to his shoulders, in a manner which made him spring aside,
rubbing the part of the body which had received so unceremonious a hint
that it was in the way of his betters. The party injured growled forth an
oath or two of indignation, and Roland Groeme began to think of flying down
stairs to the assistance of the translated Catherine; but the laugh of the
yard was against frieze-jacket, which indeed had, in those days, small
chance of fair play in a quarrel with velvet and embroidery; so that the
fellow, who was menial in the inn, slunk back to finish his task of dressing the bonny gray, laughed at by all, but most by the wench in the stammel
waist-coat, his fellow-servant, who, to crown his disgrace, had the cruelty to
cast an applauding smile upon the author of the injury, while, with a freedom more like the milk-maid of the town than she of the plains, she accosted
him with- " Is there any one you want here, my pretty gentleman, that
you seem in such haste?"
"I seek a sprig of a lad," said the seeming gallant, "with a sprig of
holly in his cap, black hair, and black eyes, green jacket, and the air of a
country coxcomb-I have sought him through every close and alley in the
Canongate, the fiend gore him!"
"Why, God-a-mercy, Nun!" muttered Roland Graeme, much bewildered.
" I will inquire him presently out for your fair young worship," said the.
wench of the inn.
"Do," said the gallant squire, " and if you bring me to him, you shall
have a groat to-night, and a kiss on Sunday when you have on a cleaner
kirtle."
" Why, God-a-mercy, Nun!" again muttered Roland, "this is a note
above E La."
In a moment after, the servant entered the room, and ushered in the
object of his surprise.
While the disguised vestal looked with unabashed brow, and bold and
rapid glance of her eye, through the various parties in the large old room,
Roland Groeme, who felt an internal awkward sense of bashful confusion,
which he deemed altogether unworthy of the bold and dashing character to
2n 




390                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
which he aspired, determined not to be browbeaten and put- down by this
singular female, but to meet her with a glance of recognition so sly, sc
penetrating, so expressively humorous, as should show her at once he was
in possession of her secret and master of her fate, and should compel her
to humble herself towards him, at least into the look and manner of
respectful and deprecating observance.
This was extremely well planned; but just as Roland had called up the
knowing glance, the suppressed smile, the shrewd intelligent look, which was
to ensure his triumph, he encountered the bold, firm, and steady gaze of his
brother or sister-page, who, casting on him a falcon glance, and recognizing
him at once as the object of his search, walked up with the most unconcerned look, the most free and undaunted composure, and hailed him with
"'You, Sir Holly-top, I would speak with you."
The steady coolness and assurance with which these words were uttered,
although the voice was the very voice he had heard at the old convent, and
although the features more nearly resembled those of Catharine when seen
close than when viewed from a distance, produced, nevertheless, such a confusion in Roland's mind, that he became uncertain whether he was not still
under a mistake from the beginning; the knowing shrewdness which should
have animated his visage faded into a sheepish bashfulness, and the halfsuppressed but most intelligible smile, became the senseless giggle of one
who laughs to cover his own disorder of ideas.
"Do they understand a Scotch tongue in thy country, Holly-top?" said
this marvellous specimen of metamorphosis.  "I said I would speak with
thee."
" What is your business with my comrade, my young chick of the game?"
said Adam Woodcock, willing to step in to his companion's assistance,
though totally at a loss to account for the sudden disappearance of all
Roland's usual smartness and presence of mind.
"Nothing to you, my old cock of the perch," replied the gallant; "go
mind your hawk's castings. I guess by your bag and your gauntlet that
you are squire of the body to a sort of kites."
He laughed as he spoke, and the laugh reminded Roland so irresistibly
of the hearty fit of risibility, in which Catherine had indulged at his
expense when they first met in the old nunnery, that he could scarce help
exclaiming, "Catherine Seyton, by Heavens!" —He checked the exclamation,
however, and only said, "I think, sir, we two are not totally strangers to
each other."
" We must have met in our dreams then," said the youth; " and my days
are too busy to remember what I think on at nights."
"Or apparently to remember upon one day those whom you may have
seen on the preceding eve," said Roland Graeme.
The/youth in his turn cast on him a look of some surprise, as he replied,' I know no more of what you mean than does the horse I ride on-if there
be offence in your words, you shall find me ready to take it as any lad
in Lothian."
"You know well," said Roland, "though it pleases you to use the language'of a stranger, that with you I have no purpose to quarrel."
"Let me do mine errand, then, and be rid of you," said the page. " Step
hither this way, out of that old leathern fist's hearing."
They walked into the recess of the window, which Rola-nd had left upon
the youth's entrance into the apartment.  The messenger then turned his
back on the company, after casting a hasty and sharp glance around to see
if they were observed. Roland did the same, and the page in the purple
Vmantle thus addressed him, taking at the same time from under his cloak a
short but beautifully wrought sword, with the hilt and ornaments upon the
sheath of silver, massively chased and over-gilded —"I bring you this
weapon from a friend, who gives it you under the solemn condition, that




THE  ABBOT.                            391
you will not unsheath it until you are commandedyby your rightful Sovereign.
For your warmth of temper is known, and the presumption with which you.
intrude yourself into the quarrels of others; and, therefore, this is laid upon
you as a penance by those who wish you well, and whose hand will influence
your destiny for good or for evil. This is what I was charged to tell you.
So if you will give a fair word for a fair sword, and pledge your promise,
with hand and glove, good and well; and if not, I will carry back Caliburn
to those who sent it."
"And may I not ask who these are?" said Roland Graeme, admiring at
the same time the beauty of the weapon thus offered him.
" My commission in no way leads me to answer such a question," said he
of the purple mantle.
"But if I am offended," said Roland, "may I not draw to defend myself?"
" Not this weapon," answered the.sword-bearer; "but you have your own
at command, and, besides, for what do you wear your poniard?"
" For no good," said Adam Woodcock, who had now approached close to
them, " and that I can witness as well as any one."
"Stand back, fellow," said the messenger, "thou hast an intrusive
curious face, that will come by a buffet if it is found where it has no
concern."
"A buffet, my young Master Malapert?" said Adam, drawing back,
however; " best keep down fist, or, by Our Lady, buffet will beget buffet!"
" Be patient, Adam Woodcock," said Roland Greme; " and let me pray
you, fair sir, since by such addition you choose for the present to be addressed,
may I not barely unsheathe this fair weapon, in pure simplicity of desire
to know whether so fair a hilt and scabbard are matched with a befitting
blade?"
"By no manner of means," said the messenger; "at a word, you must
take it under the promise that you never draw it until you receive the commands of your lawful Sovereign, or you must leave it alone."
" Under that condition, and coming from your friendly hand, I accept.of
the sword," said Roland, taking it from his hand; "but credit me, if we
are to work together in any weighty emprise, as I am induced to believe,
some confidence aDnd openness on your part will be necessary to give the
right impulse to my zeal-I press for no more at present, it is enough that
you understand me."
" I understand you!" said the page, exhibiting the appearance of unfeigned
surprise in his turn, - " Renounce me if I do  - here you stand jiggeting,
and sniggling, and looking cunning, as if there were some mighty matter
of intrigue and common understanding betwixt you and me, whom you
never set your eyes on before!"
" What " said Roland Grseme, "will you deny that we have met
before?"
" Marry that I will, in any Christian court," said the other page.
"And will you also deny," said Roland, "that it was recommended to us
to study each other's features well, that in whatever disguise the time might
impose upon us, each should recognize in the other the secret agent of a
mighty work?  Do not you remember, that Sister Magdalen and Dame
Bridget"The messenger here interrupted him, shrugging up his shoulders, with a
look of compassion, "Bridget and Magdalen! why, this is madness and
dreaming! Hlark ye, Master Holly-top, your wits are gone on wool-gather
ing; comfort yourself with a candle, and thatch your brain-sick noddle with
a woollen night-cap, and so God be with you!"
As he concluded this polite parting address, Adam Woodcock, who was
again seated by the table on which stood the now empty can, said to him,
"Will you drink a cup, young man, in the way of courtesy, now you have




392                  WAVERLEY  NOVEIS.
done your errand, and listen to a good song?" and without waiting for an'
answ er, he commenced his ditty," The Pope, that pagan full of pride,
Hath blinded us full lang —"
It is probable that the good wine had made some innovation in the falconer's
brain, otherwise he would have recollected the danger of introducing any
thing like political or polemical pleasantry into a public assemblage at a
time when men's minds were in a state of great irritability. To do him
justice, he perceived his error, and stopped short so soon as he saw that the
word Pope had at once interrupted the separate conversations of the various
parties which were assembled in the apartment; and that many began to
draw themselves up, bridle, look big, and prepare to take part in the impending brawl; while others, more decent and cautious persons, hastily paid
down their lawing, and prepared to leave the place ere bad should come to
worse.
And to worse it was soon likely to come; for no sooner did Woodcock's
ditty reach the ear of the stranger page, than, uplifting his riding-rod, he
exclaimed, " He who speaks irreverently of the Holy Father of the church
in my presence, is the cub of a heretic wolf-bitch, and I will switch him as
I would a mongrel-cur."
"And I will break thy young pate," said Adam, " if thou darest to lift a
finger to me." -And then, in defiance of the young Drawcansir's threats,
with a stout heart and dauntless accent, he again uplifted the stave.
"The Pope, that pagan full of pride,
Hath blinded-"
But Adam was able to proceed no farther, being himself unfortunately
blinded by a stroke of the impatient youth's switch across his eyes. Enraged
at once by the smart and the indignity, the falconer started up, and darkling as he was, for his eyes watered too fast to permit his seeing any thing,
he would soon have been at close grips with his insolent adversary, had not
Roland Grmme, contrary to his nature, played for once the prudent man and
the peacemaker, and thrown himself betwixt them, imploring Woodcock's
patience. " You know not," he said, " with whom you have to do. - And
thou," addressing the messenger, who stood scornfully laughing at Adam's
rage, "get thee gone, whoever thou art; if thou be'st what I guess thee, thou
well knowest there are earnest reasons why thou shouldst."
"Thou hast hit it right for once, Holly-top," said the gallant, "though I
guess you drew your bow at a venture.  Here, host, let this yeoman have
a pottle of wine to wash the smart out of his eyes- and there is a French
crown for him." So saying, he threw the piece of money on the table, and
left the apartment, with a quick yet steady pace, looking firmly at right and
left, as if to defy interruption: and snapping his fingers at two or three
respectable burghers, who, declaring it was a shame that any one should be
suffered to rant and ruffle in defence of the Pope, were labouring to find the
hilts of their swords, which had got for the present unhappily entangled in
the folds of their cloaks.  But, as the adversary was gone ere any'of them
had reached his weapon, they did not think it necessary to unsheath cold
iron, but merely observed to each other, " This is more than masterful violence, to see a poor man stricken in the face just for singing a ballad against
the whore of Babylon! If the Pope's champions are to be bangsters in our
very change-houses, we shall soon have the old shavelings back again."
" The provost should look to it," said another, " and have some five or six
armed with partisans, to come in upon the first whistle, to teach these gallants their lesson.  For, look you, neighbour Lugleather, it is not for decent
householders like ourselves to be brawling with the godless grooms and pert
pages of the nobles, that are bred up to little else save bloodshed and blasphemy."




THE  ABBOT.                            393
"For all that, neighbour," said Lugleather, "I would have curried that
youngster as properly as ever I curried a lamb's hide, had not the hilt of
my bilboo been for the instant beyond my grasp; and before I could turn
my girdle, gone was my master!"
"Ay," said the others, " the devil go with him, and peace abide with usI give my rede, neighbours, that we pay the lawing, and be stepping homeward, like brother and brother; for old Saint Giles's is tolling curfew, and
the street grows dangerous at night."
With that the good burghers adjusted their cloaks, and prepared for their
departure, while he that seemed the briskest of the three, laying his hand
on his Andrea Ferrara, observed, " that they that spoke in the praise of the
Pope on the High-gate of Edinburgh, had best bring the sword of Saint
Peter to defend them." 
While the ill-humour excited by the insolence of the young aristocrat was
thus evaporating in empty menace, Roland Groeme had to control the far
more serious indignation of Adam Woodcock.  "Why, man, it was but a
switch across the mazzard-blow your nose, dry your eyes, and you will see
all the better for it."
" By this light, which I cannot see," said Adam Woodcock, "thou hast
been a false friend to me, young man    neither taking up my rightful quarrel, nor letting me fight it out myself."
"Fy for shame, Adam Woodcock," replied the youth, determined to turn
the tables on him, and become in turn the counsellor of good order and
peaceable demeanour- " I say, fy for shame! - Alas, that you will speak
thus I Here are you sent with me, to prevent my-innocent youth getting
into snares    "
" I wish your innocent youth were cut short with a halter, with all my
heart," said Adam, who began to see which way the admonition tended.
-"And instead of setting before me," continued Roland, "an example
of patience and sobriety becoming the falconer of Sir Halbert Glendinning,
you quaff me off I know not how many flagons of ale, besides a gallon of
wine, and a full measure of strong waters."
" It was but one small pottle," said poor Adam, whom consciousness of
his own indiscretion now reduced to a merely defensive warfare.
"It was enough to pottle you handsomely, however," said the page" And the.n, instead of going to bed to sleep off your liquor, must you sit
singing your roistering songs about popes and pagans, till you have got
your eyes almost switched out of your head; and but for my interference,
whom your drunken ingratitude accuses of deserting you, yon galliard
would have cut your throat, for he was whipping out a whinger as broad as
my hand, and as sharp as a razor-And these are lessons for an inexperienced youth — Oh, Adam! out upon you! out upon you!"
" Marry, amen, and with all my heart," said Adam; " out upon my folly
for expecting any thing but impertinent raillery from a page like thee, that
if he saw his father in a scrape, would laugh at him, instead of lending
him aid."
"Nay, but I will lend you aid," said the page, still laughing, "that is, I
will lend thee aid to thy chamber, good Adam, where thou shalt sleep off
wine and ale, ire and indignation, and awake the next morning with as
much fair wit as nature has blessed thee withal. Only one thing I will
warn thee, good Adam, that henceforth and for ever, when thou railest at
me for being somewhat hot at hand, and rather too prompt to out with
poniard or so, thy admonition shall serve as a prologue to the memorable
adventure of the switching of Saint Michael's."
WVith such condoling expressions he got the crest-fallen falconer to his
bed, and then retired to his own pallet, where it was some time ere he
could fall asleep. If the messenger whom he had seen were really Catherine
Seyton, what a masculine virago and termagant must she be! Sand stored




394                   WAVERLEY  N O VELS.
with what an inimitable command of insolence and assurance!-The brash
on her brow would furbish the fiont of twenty pages; "and I should
know," thought Roland, "what that amounts to —And yet, her features,
her look, her light gait, her laughing eye, the art with which she disposed
the mantle to show no more of her limbs than needs must be seen -I am
glad she had at least that grace left    the voice, the smile -it must have
been Catherine Seyton, or the devil in her likeness! One thing is good, I
have silenced the eternal predications of that ass, Adam Woodcock, who
has set up for being a preacher and a governor over me, so soon as he has
left the hawks' mew behind him."
And with this comfortable reflection, joined to the happy indifference
which youth hath for the events of the morrow, Roland Grame fell fast
asleep.
a   pitr   t       mr m titt.
Now have you reft me from my staff, my guide,,
Who taught my youth, as men teach untamed falcons,
T'o use my strength discreetly-I am reft
Of comrade and of counsel.
OLD PLAY.
IN the-gray of the next morning's dawn, there was a loud knocking at
the gate of the hostelrie; and those without, proclaiming that they came
in the name of the Regent, were instantly admitted. A moment or two
afterwards, Michael Wing-the-wind stood by the bedside of our travellers.
"Up! up!" he said, "there is no slumber where Murray hath work
ado."
Both sleepers sprung up, and began to dress themselves.
"You, old friend," said Wing-the-wind to Adam Woodcock, "must to
horse instantly, with this packet to the Monks of Kennaquhair; and with
this," delivering them as he spoke, "to the Knight of Avenel."
"As much as commanding the monks to annul their election, I'll warrant me, of an Abbot," quoth Adam Woodcock, as he put the packets into
his bag, " and charging my master to see it done-To hawk at one brother
with another, is less than fair play, methinks."
" Fash not thy beard about it, old boy," said Michael, "but betake thee
to the saddle presently; for if these orders are not obeyed, there will be
bare walls at the Kirk of Saint Mary's, and it may be at the Castle of
Avenel to boot; for I heard my Lord of Morton loud with the Regent, and
we are at a pass that we cannot stand with him anent trifles."
"But," said Adam, "touching the Abbot of Unreason- what say they
to that outbreak -An they be shrewishly disposed, I were better pitch the.
packets to Satan,; and take the other side of the Border for my bield."
"Oh, that was passed over as ajest, since there was little harm  done.But, hark thee, Adam," continued his comrade, "if there was a dozen
vacant abbacies in your road, whether of jest or earnest, reason or unreason, draw thou never one of their mitres over thy brows - The time is
not fitting, man! -besides, our Maiden longs to clip the neck of a fat
churchman."
" She shall never sheer mine in that capacity," said the, falconer, while
he knotted the kerchief in two or three double folds around his sunburnt
bull-neck, calling out at the same time, "Master Roland, Master Roland,




THE  ABBOT.                            395
make haste! we must back to perch and mew, and, thank Heaven, more
than our own wit, with our bones whole, and without a stab in the
stomach."
"Nay, but," said Wing-the-wind, " the page goes not back with you; the
Regent has other employment for him."
"Saints and sorrows!" exclaimed the falconer-" Master Roland Greme
to remain here, and I to return to Avenel  -Why, it cannot be - the child
cannot manage himself in this wide world without me, and I question if he
will stoop to any other whistle than mine own; there are times I myself
can hardly bring'him to my lure."
It was at Roland's tongue's end to say something concerning the occasion
they had for using mutually each other's prudence, but the real anxiety
which Adam evinced at parting with him, took away his disposition to such
ungracious raillery. The falconer did not altogether escape, however, for,
in turning his face towards the lattice, his friend Michael caught a glimpse
of it, and exclaimed, "I prithee, Adam Woodcock, what hast thou been
doing with these eyes of thine? They are swelled to the starting from the
socket!"
" Nought in the world," said he, after casting a deprecating glance at
Roland Grseme, "but the effect of sleeping in this d    d truckle without
a pillow."
" Why, Adam Woodcock, thou must be grown strangely dainty," said his
old companion; " I have known thee sleep all night with no better pillow
than a bush of ling, and start up with the sun, as glegg as a falcon; and
now thine eves resemble    "
"Tush, man, what signifies how mine eyes look now?" said Adam —"let
us but roast a crab-apple, pour a pottle of ale on it, and bathe our throats
withal, thou shalt see a change in me."
"And thou wilt be in heart to sing thy jolly ballad about the Pope,"
said his comrade.
" Ay, that I will," replied the falconer, "that is, when we have left this
quiet town five miles behind us, if you will take your hobby and ride so far
on my way."
"Nay, that I may not," said Michael —" I can but stop to partake your
morning draught, and see you fairly to horse- I will see that they saddle
them, and toast the crab for thee, without loss of time."
During his absence the falconer took the page by the hand-" May I never
hood hawk again," said the good-natured fellow, "if I am not as sorry to
part with you as if you were a child of mine own, craving pardon for the
freedom - I cannot tell what makes me love you so much, unless it be for
the reason that I loved the vicious devil of a brown galloway nag whom my
master the Knight called Satan, till Master Warden changed his name to
Seyton; for he said it was over boldness to call a beast after the King of
Darkness    "
" And," said the page, " it was over boldness in him, I trow, to call a
vicious brute after a noble family."
" Well," proceeded Adam, "Seyton or Satan, I loved that nag over every
other horse in the stable - There was no sleeping on his back - he was for
ever fidgeting, bolting, rearing, biting, kicking, and giving you work to do,
and maybe the measure of your back on the heather to the boot of it all.
And I think I love you better than any lad in the castle, for the self-same
qualities."
"Thanks, thanks, kind Adam. I regard myself bound to you for the
good estimation in which you hold me."
"Nay, interrupt me not," said the falconer -" Satan was a good nagBut I say I think I shall call the two eyases after you, the one Roland, and
the other Grseme; and while Adam Woodcock lives, be sure you have a
friend - Iere is to thee, my dear son."




396                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
Roland most heartily returned the grasp of the hand, and Woodcock,
having taken a deep draught, continued his farewell speech.
"There are three things I warn you against, Roland, now that you art
to tread this weary world without my experience to assist you. In the first
place, never draw dagger on slight occasion-every man's doublet is not so
well stuffed as a certain abbot's that you wot of. Secondly, fly not at every
pretty girl, like a merlin at a thrush-ybu will not always win a gold chain
for your labour -and, by the way, here I return to you your fanfarona —
keep it close, it is weighty, and may benefit you at a pinch more ways than
one. Thirdly, and to conclude, as our worthy preacher says, beware of the
pottle-pot- it has drenched the judgment of wiser men than you. I could
bring some instances of it, but I dare say it needeth not; for if. you should
forget your own mishaps, you will scarce fail to remember mine -And so
farewell, my dear son."
Roland returned his good wishes, and failed not to send his humble duty
to his kind Lady, charging the falconer, at the same time, to express his
regret that he should have offended her, and his determination so to bear
him in the world that she would not be ashamed of the generous protection
she had afforded him.
The falconer embraced his young friend, mounted his stout, round-made,
trotting-nag, which the serving-man, who had attended him, held ready at
the door, and took the road to the southward. A sullen and heavy sound
echoed from the horse's feet, as if indicating the sorrow of the good-natured
rider. Every hoof-tread seemed to tap upon Roland's heart as he heard his
comrade withdraw with so little of his usual alert activity, and felt that he
was once more alone in the world.
He was roused from his reverie by Michael Wing-the-wind, who reminded
him that it was necessary they should instantly return to the palace, as my
Lord Regent went to the Sessions early in the morning.  They went thither
accordingly, and Wing-the-wind, a favourite old domestic, who was admitted
nearer to the Regent's person and privacy, than many whose posts were
more ostensible, soon introduced Grome into a small matted chamber, where
he had an audience of the present head of the troubled State of Scotland.
The Earl of Murray was clad in a sad-coloured morning-gown, with a cap
and slippers of the same cloth, but, even in this easy d6shabille, held his
sheathed rapier in his hand, a precaution which he adopted when receiving
strangers, rather in compliance with the earnest remonstrances of his friends
and partisans, than from any personal apprehensions of his own. Ile answered with a silent nod the respectful obeisance of the page, and took one
or two turns through the small apartment in silence, fixing his keen eye on
Roland, as if he wished to penetrate into his very soul. At length he broke
silence.
" Your name is, I think, Julian Greme?"
" Roland Grieme, my lord, not Julian," replied the page.
" Right - I was misled by some trick of my memory - Roland Grsme,
from the Debateable Land. - Roland, thou knowest the duties which belong
to a lady's service?"
"I should know them, my lord," replied Roland, "having been bred so
near the person of my Lady of Avenel; but I trust never more to practise
them, as the Knight hath promised~"
"Be silent, young man," said the Regent, "I am  to speak, and you to
hear and obey. It is necessary that, for some space at least, you shall
again enter into the service of a lady, who, in rank, hath no equal in Scotland; and this service accomplished, I give thee my word as Knight and
Prince, that it shall open to you a course of ambition, such as may well
gratify the aspiring wishes of one whom circumstances entitle to entertain
much higher views than thou. I will take thee into my household and near
to my person, or, at your own choice, I will give you the command of a foot



THE ABBOT.                             397
oompany-either is a preferment which the proudest laird in the land
might be glad to ensure for a second son."
"May I presume! to ask, my lord," said Roland, observing the Earl
paused for a reply, "to whom my poor services are in the first place destined?"
"You will]be told hereafter," said the Regent; and then, as if overcoming
some internal reluctance to speak farther himself, he added, "or why
should I not myself tell you, that you are about to enter into the service of
a most illustrious — most unhappy lady - into the service of Mary of
Scotland."
"Of the Queen, my lord!" said the page, unable to suppress his surprise.
" Of her who was the Queen!" said Murray, with a singular mixture of
displeasure and embarrassment in his tone of voice. " You must be aware,
young man, that her son reigns in her stead."
He sighed from an emotion, partly natural, perhaps, and partly assumed.
"And am I to attend upon her Grace in her place of imprisonment, my
lord?" again demanded the page, with a straightforward and hardy simplicity, which somewhat disconcerted the sage and powerful statesman.
" She is not imprisoned," answered Murray, angrily; "God forbid she
should - she is only sequestered from state affairs, and from the business
of the public, until the world be so effectually settled, that she may enjoy
her natural and uncontrolled freedom, without her royal disposition being
exposed to the practices of wicked and designing men. It is for this pur-pose," he added, "that while she is to be furnished, as right is, with such
attendance as may befit her present secluded state, it becomes necessary
that those placed around her, are persons on whose prudence I can have
reliance. You see, therefore, you are at once called on to discharge an
office most honourable in itself, and so to discharge it that you may make a
friend of the Regent of Scotland. Thou art, I have been told, a singularly
apprehensive youth; and I perceive by thy look, that thou dost already
understand what I would say on this matter. In this schedule your particular points of duty are set down at length -but the sum required'of you
is fidelity - I mean fidelity to myself and to the state. You are, therefore,
to watch every attempt which is made,,or inclination displayed, to open any
communication with any of the lords who have become banders in the west
- with Hamilton, Seyton, with Fleming, or the like. It is true that my
gracious sister, reflecting upon the ill chances that have happened to the state
of this poor kingdom, from evil counsellors who have abused her royal
nature in time past, hath determined to sequestrate herself from state affairs
in future. But it is our duty, as acting for and in the name of our infant
nephew, to guard against the evils which may arise from any mutation or
vacillation in her royal resolutions. Wherefore, it will be thy duty to watch,
and report to our lady mother, whose guest our sister is for the present,
whatever may infer a disposition to withdraw her person from the place of
security in which she is lodged, or to open communication with those without. If, however, your observation should detect any thing of weight, and
which may exceed mere suspicion, fail not to send notice by an especial
messenger to me directly, and this ring shall be thy warrant to order horse
and men on such service.-And now begone. If there be half the wit in
thy head that there is apprehension in thy look, thou fully comprehendest
all that I would say - Serve me faithfully, and sure as I am belted earl, thy
reward shall be great."
Roland Greme made an obeisance, and was about to depart.
The Earl signed to him to remain. " I have trusted thee deeply," he said,
" young man, for thou art the only one of her suite who has been sent to
her by my own reconfnendation. Ier gentlewomen are of her own nomination - it were too hard to have barred her that privilege, though some these
were who reckoned it inconsistent with sure policy. Thou art ycung and
21




398                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
handsome.- Mingle in their follies, and see they cover not deeper designs
under the appearance of female levity -if they do mine, do thou countermine. For the rest, bear all decorum and respect to the person of thy mistress - she is a princess, though a most unhappy one, and hath been a
queen! though now, alas! no longer such! Pay, therefore, to her all
honour and respect, consistent with thy fidelity to the King and meand now, farewell. - Yet stay-you travel with Lord Lindesay, a man
of the old world, rough and honest, though untaught; see that thou offend
him not, for he is not patient of raillery, and thou, I have heard, art
a crack-halter."  This he said with a smile, then added, "I could have
wished the Lord Lindesay's mission had been intrusted to some other and
more gentle noble."
"And wherefore should you wish that, my lord?" said Morton, who even
then entered the apartment; "the council have decided for the best - we
have had but too many. proofs of this lady's stubbornness of mind, and the
oak that resists the sharp steel axe, must be riven with the rugged iron
wedge. - And this is to be her page? - My Lord Regent hath doubtless
instructed you, young man, how you shall guide yourself. in these matters;
I will add but a little hint on my part. You are going to the castle of a
Douglas, where treachery never thrives-the first moment of suspicion
will be the last of your life. My kinsman, William Douglas, understands
no raillery, and if he once have cause to think you false, you will waver in
the wind from the castle battlements ere the sun set upon his anger.-And
is the lady to have an almoner withal?"
"Occasionally, Douglas," said the Regent; "it were hard to deny the
spiritual consolation which she thinks essential to her salvation."
" You are ever too soft hearted, my lord - What! a false priest to communicate her lamentations, not only to our unfriends in Scotland, but to
the Guises, to Rome, to Spain, and I know not where!"
"Fear not," said the Regent, " we will take such order that no treachery
shall happen."
"Look to it then," said Morton; "you know my mind respecting the
wench you have consented she shall receive as a waiting-woman - one of a
family, which, of all others, has ever been devoted to her, and inimical to
us. IHad we not been wary, she would have been purveyed of a page as
much to her purpose as her waiting-damsel. I hear a rumour that an old
mad Romish pilgrimer, who passes for at least half a saint among them,
was emiployed to find a fit subject."
"We have escaped that danger at least," said Murray, " and converted it
into a point of advantage, by sending this boy of Glendinning's -and for
her waiting-damsel,, you cannot grudge her one poor maiden instead of her
four noble Marys and all their silken train?"
" I care not so much for the waiting-maiden," said Morton, " but I cannot
brook the almoner-I think priests of all persuasions are much like each
other --  ere is John Knox, who made such a noble puller-down, is ambitious of becoming a setter-up, and a founder of schools and colleges out of
the Abbey lands, and bishops' rents, and other spoils of Rome, which the
nobility of Scotland have won with their sword and bow, and with which
he would endow new hives to sing the old drone."
"John is a man of God," said the Regent, "and his scheme is a devout
imagination."
The sedate smile with which this was spoken, left it impossible to conjecture whether the words were meant in approbation, or in derision, of the
plan of the Scottish Reformer. Turning then to Roland Graeme, as if he
thought he had been long enough a witness of this conversation, he bade
him get him presently to horse, since my Lord of Lindesay was already
mounted. The page made his reverence, and left the apartment.
Guided by Michael Wing-the-wind, he found his horse ready saddled and




THE  ABBOT.                            399
prepared for the journey, in front of the palace porch, where hovered about
a score of men-at-arms, whose leader showed no small symptoms of surly
impatience.
" Is this the jackanape page for whom we have waited thus long?" said
he to Wing-the-wind. - " And my Lord Ruthven will reach the castle long
before us."
Michael assented, and added, that the boy had been detained by the
Regent to receive some parting instructions. The leader made an inarticulate sound in his throat, expressive of sullen acquiescence, and calling to
one of his domestic attendants, "Edward," said he, "take the gallant into
your charge, and let him speak with no one else."
He then addressed, by the title of Sir Robert, an elderly and respectablelooking gentleman, the only one of the party who seemed above the rank
of a retainer or domestic, and observed, that they must get to horse with all
speed.
During this discourse, and while they were riding slowly along the street
of the suburb, Roland had time to examine more accurately the looks and
figure of the Baron, who was at their head.
Lord Lindesay of the Byres was rather touched than stricken with years.
His upright stature and strong limbs, still showed him fully equal to all
the exertions and fatigues of war.  His thick eyebrows, now partially
grizzled, lowered over large eyes full of dark fire, which seemed yet darker
from the uncommon depth at which they were set in his head. His features,
naturally strong and harsh, had their sternness exaggerated by one or two
scars received in battle. These features, naturally calculated to express
the harsher passions, were shaded by an open steel cap, with a projecting
front, but having no visor, over the gorget of which fell the black and
grizzled beard of the grim old Baron, and totally hid the lower part of his
face. The rest of his dress was a loose buff-coat, which had once been lined
with silk and adorned with embroidery, but which seemed much stained
with travel, and damaged with cuts, received probably in battle. It covered
a corslet, which had once been of polished steel, fairly gilded, but was now
somewhat injured with rust. A sword of antique make and uncommon.
size, framed to be wielded with both hands, a kind of weapon which was
then beginning to go out of use, hung from his neck in a baldrick, and
was so disposed as to traverse his whole person, the huge hilt appearing
over his left shoulder, and the point reaching well-nigh to the right heel,
and jarring against his spur as he walked. This unwieldy weapon could
only be unsheathed by pulling the handle over the left shoulder-for no
human arm was long enough to draw it in the usual manner. The whole
equipment was that of a rude warrior, negligent of his exterior even to misanthropical sullenness; and the short, harsh, haughty tone, which he used
towards his attendants, belonged to the same unpolished character.
The personage who rode with Lord Lindesay, at the head of the party,
was an absolute contrast to him, in manner, form, and features. His thin
and silky hair was already white, though he seemed not above forty-five or
fifty years old. His tone of voice was soft and insinuating-his form thin,
spare, and bent by an habitual stoop - his pale cheek was expressive of
shrewdness and intelligence -his eye was quick though placid, and his
whole demeanour mild and conciliatory. He rode an ambling nag, such as
were used by ladies, clergymen, or others of peaceful professions -wore a
riding habit of black velvet, with a cap and feather of the same hue, fastened
up by a golden medal-and for show, and as a mark of rank rather than for
use, carried a walking-sword, (as the short light rapiers were called,) without
any other arms, offensive or defensive.
The party had now quitted the town, and proceeded, at a steady trot,
towards the west.-As they prosecuted their journey, Roland Grveme would
gladly have learned something of its purpose and tendency, but the coun



400                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
tenance of the personage next to whom he had been placed in the train,
discouraged all approach to familiarity. The Baron himself did not look
more grim and inaccessible than his feudal retainer, whose grisly beard
fell over his mouth like the portcullis before the gate of a castle, as if for
the purpose of preventing the escape of any word, of which absolute necessity did not demand the utterance. The rest of the train seemed under the
same taciturn influence, and journeyed on without a word being exchanged
amongst them-more like a troop of Carthusian friars than a party of military retainers. Roland Graeme was surprised at this extremity of discipline;
for even in the household of the Knight of Avenel, though somewhat distinguished for the accuracy with which decorum was enforced, a journey was
a period of license, during which jest and song, and every thing within the
limits of becoming mirth and pastime were freely permitted. This unusual
silence was, however, so far acceptable, that it gave him time to bring any
shadow of judgment which he possessed to council on his own situation and
prospects, which would have appeared to any reasonable person in the
highest degree dangerous and perplexing.
It was quite evident that he had, through various circumstances not under
his own control, formed contradictory connexions with both the contending
factions, by whose strife the kingdom was distracted, without being properly
an adherent of either. It seemed also clear, that the same situation in the
household of the deposed Queen, to which he was now promoted by the
influence of the Regent, had been destined to him by his enthusiastic grandmother, Magdalen Graeme; for on this subject, the words which Morton had
dropped had been a ray of light; yet it was no less clear that these two
persons, the one the declared enemy, the other the enthusiastic votary, of
the Catholic religion,- the one at the head of the King's new government,
the other, who regarded that government as a criminal usurpation -must
have required and expected very different services from the individual whom
they had thus united in recommending. It required very little reflection to
foresee that these contradictory claims on his services might speedily place
him in a situation where his honour as well as his life might be endangered.
But it was not in Roland Groeme's nature to anticipate evil before it came,
or to prepare to combat difficulties before they arrived.  "I will see this
beautiful and unfortunate Mary Stewart," said he, " of whom we have heard
so much, and then there will be time enough to determine whether I will be
kingsman or queensman. None of them  can say I have given word or
promise to either of their factions; for they have led me up and down like
a blind Billy, without giving me any light into what I was to do. But it
was lucky that grim Douglas came into the Regent's closet this morning,
otherwise I had never got free of him without plighting my troth to do all
the Earl would have me, which seemed, after all, but foul play to the poor
imprisoned lady, to place her page as an espial on her."
Skipping thus lightly over a matter of such consequence, the thoughts of
the hare-brained boy went a wool-gathering after more agreeable topics.
Now he admired the Gothic towers of Barnbougle, rising from  the seabeaten rock, and overlooking one of the most glorious landscapes in Scotland   and now he began to consider what notable sport for the hounds
and the hawks must be afforded by the variegated ground over which they
travelled- and now he compared the steady and dull trot at which they
were then prosecuting their journey, with the delight of sweeping over hill
and dale in pursuit of his favourite sports. As, under the influence of these
joyous recollections, he gave his horse the spur, and made him execute a
gambade, he instantly incurred the censure of his grave neighbour, who
hinted to him to keep the pace, and move quietly and in order, unless he
wished such notice to be taken of his eccentric movements as was likely to
be very displeasing to him.
The rebuke and the restraint under which the youth now found himself,




THE ABBOT.                             401
Drought back to his recollection his late good-humoured and accommodating
associate and guiae, Adam Woodcock; and from that topic his imagination
made a short flight to Avenel Castle, to the quiet and unconfined life of its
inhabitants, the goodness of his early protectress, not forgetting the denizens of its stables, kennels, and hawk-mews. In a brief space, all these
subjects of meditation gave way to the resemblance of that riddle of
womankind, Catherine Seyton, who appeared before the eye. of his mindnow in her female form, now in her male attire-now in both at once-like
some strange dream, which presents to us the same individual under two
different characters at the same instant.* Her mysterious present also
recurred to his recollection-the sword which he now wore at his side, and
which he was not to draw save by command of his legitimate Sovereign!
But the key of this mystery he judged he was likely to find in the issue of
his present journey.
With such thoughts passing through his mind, Roland Grneme accompanied the party of Lord Lindesay to the Queen's-Ferry, which they passed
In vessels that lay in readiness for them. They encountered no adventure
whatever in their passage, excepting one horse being lamed in getting into
the boat, an accident very common on such occasions, until a few years
ago, when the ferry was completely regulated. What was more peculiarly
characteristic of the olden age, was the discharge of a culverin at the party
from the battlements of the old castle of Rosythe, on the north side of the
Ferry, the lord of which happened to have some public or private quarrel
with the Lord Lindesay, and took this mode of expressing his resentment.
The insult, however, as it was harmless, remained unnoticed and unavenged, nor did any thing else occur worth notice until the band had come
where Lochleven spread its magnificent sheet of waters to the beams of a
bright summer's sun.
The ancient castle, which occupies an island nearly in the centre of the
lake, recalled to the page that of Avenel, in which he had been nurtured.
But the lake was much larger, and adorned with several islets besides that
on which the fortress was situated; and instead of being embosomed in
hills like that of Avenel, had upon the southern side only a splendid mountainous screen, being the descent of one of the Lomond hills, and on the
other was surrounded by the extensive and fertile plain of Kinross. Roland
Grieme looked with some degree of dismay on the water-girdled fortress,
which then, as now, consisted only of one large donjon-keep, surrounded
with a court-yard, with two round flanking-towers at the angles, which
contained within its circuit some other buildings of inferior importance. A
few old trees, clustered together near the castle, gave some relief to the air
of desolate seclusion; but yet the page, while he gazed upon a building so
sequestrated, could not but feel for the situation of a captive Princess
doomed to dwell there, as well as for his own. " I must have been born,"
he thought, "under the star that presides over ladies and lakes of water,
for I cannot by any means escape from the service of the one, or from
dwelling in the other. But if they allow me not the fair freedom of my
sport and exercise, they shall find it as hard to confine a wild-drake, as a
youth who can swim like one."
The band had now reached the edge of the water, and one of the party
advancing displayed Lord Lindesay's pennon, waving it repeatedly to and
fro, while that Baron himself blew a clamorous blast on his bugle. A
banner was presently displayed from the roof of the castle in reply to these
signals, and one or two figures were seen busied as if unmooring a boat
which lay close to the islet.
" It will be some time ere they can reach us with the boat," said the companion of Lord Lindesay; "should we not do well to proceed to the town,
and array ourselves in some better order, ere we appear before-"
"You may do as you list, Sir Robert," replied Lindesay, "I have neither
VOL. V.- 26                    212




402                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
time nor temper to waste on such vanities.  She has cost me many a hard
ride, and must not now take offence at the threadbare cloak and soiled
doublet that I am arrayed in. It is the livery to which she has brought all
Scotland."
"Do not speak so harshly," said Sir Robert; "if she hath done wrong,
she hath dearly abied it; and in losing all real power, one would not
deprive her of the little external homage due at once to a lady and a
princess."
"I say to you once more, Sir Robert Melville," replied Lindesay, "do as
you will-for me, I am now too old to dink myself as a gallant to grace the
bower of dames."
"The bower of dames, my lord!" said Melville, looking at the rude old
tower-" is it yon dark and grated castle, the prison of a captive Queen, to
which you give so gay a name?'
I"Name it as you list," replied Lindesay; "had the Regent desired to
send an envoy capable to speak to a captive Queen, there are many gallants
in his court who would have courted the occasion to make speeches out of
Amadis of Gaul, or the Mirror of Knighthood. But when he sent blunt old
Lindesay, he knew he would speak to a misguided woman, as her former
misdoings and her present state render necessary. I sought not this employment-it has been thrust upon me; and I will not cumber myself with
more form in the discharge of it, than needs must be tacked to such an
occupation."
So saying, Lord Lindesay threw himself from horseback, and wrapping
his riding-cloak around him, lay down at lazy length upon the sward, to
await the arrival of the boat, which was now seen rowing from the castle
towards the shore. Sir Robert Melville, who had also dismounted, walked
at short turns to and fro upon the bank, his arms crossed on his breast,
often looking to the castle, and displaying in his countenance a mixture of
sorrow and of anxiety. The rest of the party sate like statues on horseback,
without moving so much as the points of their lances, which they held
upright in the air.
As soon as the boat approached a rude quay or landing-place, near to
which they had stationed themselves, Lord Lindesay started up from his
recumbent posture, and asked the person who steered, why he had not
brought a larger boat with him to transport his retinue.
"So please you," replied the boatman, "because it is the order of our
lady, that we bring not to the castle more than four persons."
"Thy lady is a wise woman," said Lindesay, "to suspect me of treachery!
-Or, had I intended it, what was to hinder us from throwing you and your
comrades into the lake, and filling the boat with my own fellows?"
The steersman, on hearing hlis, made a hasty signal to his men to back
their oars, and hold off from the shore which they were approaching.
" Why, thou ass," said Lindesay, " thou didst not think that I meant thy
fool's head serious harm?  Hark thee, friend-with fewer than three
servants I will go no whither-Sir Robert Melville will require at least the
attendance of one domestic; and it will be at your peril and your lady's to
refuse us admission, come hither as we are, on matters of great national
concern."
The steersman answered with firmness, but with great civility of expression, that his orders were positive to bring no more than four into the island,
but he offered to row back to obtain a revisal of his orders.
"Do so, my friend," said Sir Robert Melville, after he had in vain endeavoured to persuade his stubborn companion to consent to a temporary
abatement of his train, "row back to the castle, sith it will be no better,
and obtain thy lady's orders to transport the Lord Lindesay, myself, and
our retinue hither."
"And hearken," said Lord Lindesay, "take with you this page, who




THE  ABBOT.                              408:r mes as an attendant on your lady's guest.- Dismount, sirrah," said he,
addressing Roland, "and embark with them in that boat."
"And what is to become of my horse?" said Grseme; " I am answerable
for him to my master."
" I will relieve you of the charge," said Lindesay; " thou wilt have little
enough to do with horse, saddle, or bridle, for ten years to come — Thou
m3ayst take the halter an thou wilt -it may stand thee in a turn."
" If I thought so," said Roland- but he was interrupted by Sir Robert
Melville, who said to him good-humouredly, "Dispute it not, young friend
- resistance can do no good, but may well run thee into danger."
Roland Graeme felt the justice of what he said, and, though neither
delighted with the matter or manner of Lindesay's address, deemed it best
to submit to necessity, and to embark without farther remonstrance. The
men plied their oars. The quay, with the party of horse stationed near it,
receded from the page's eyes-the castle and the islet seemed to draw near
in the same proportion, and in a brief space he landed under the shadow of
a huge old tree which overhung the landing place. The steersman and
Graeme leaped ashore; the boatmen remained lying on their oars ready for
farther service.
6laptr t t  gmrntq-$irXst.
Could valour aught avail or people's love,
France had not wept Navarre's brave Henry slain;
If wit or beauty could compassion move,
The rose of Scotland had not wept in vain.
Elegy in a Royal Mausoleum.-LEWIs.
AT the gate of the court-yard of Lochleven appeared the stately form of
the Lady Lochleven, a female whose early charms had captivated James
V., by whom she became mother of the celebrated Regent Murray. As she
was of noble birth (being a daughter of the house of Mar) and of great
beauty, her intimacy with James did not prevent her being afterwards
sought in honourable marriage by many gall-r'ts of the time, among whom
she had preferred Sir William Douglas of Lochleven. But well has it been
said'' Our pleasant vices
Are made the whips to scourge us"The station which the Lady of Lochleven now held as the wife of a man of
high rank and interest, and the mother of a lawful family, did not prevent
her nourishing a painful sense of degradation, even while she was proud of
the talents, the power, and the station of her son, now prime ruler of the
state, but still a pledge of her illicit intercourse.  " Had James done to
her," she said, in her secret heart, "the justice he owed her, she had seen
in her son, as a source of unmixed delight and of unchastened pride, the
lawful monarch of Scotland, and one of the ablest who ever swayed the
sceptre. The House of Mar, not inferior in antiquity or grandeur to that
of Drummond, would then have also boasted a Queen among its daughters,
and escaped the stain attached to female frailty, even when it has a royal
lover for its apology. While such feelings preyed on a bosom naturally
proud and severe, they had a corresponding effect on her countenance,
where, with the remains of great beauty, were mingled traits of inward dis
content and peevish melancholy. It perhaps contributed to increase this
habitual temperament, that the Lady Lochleven had adopted uncommonly
rigid and severe views of religion, imitating in her ideas of reformed faith




404                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
the very worst errors of the Catholics, in limiting the benefit of the gospel
to those who profess their own speculative tenets.
In every respect, the unfortunate Queen Mary, now the compulsory
guest, or rather prisoner, of this sullen lady, was obnoxious to her hostess.
Lady Lochleven disliked her as the daughter of Mary of Guise, the legal
possessor of those rights over James's heart and hand, of which she conceived herself to have been injuriously deprived; and yet more so as the
professor of a religion which she detested worse than Paganism.
Such was the dame, who, with stately mien, and sharp yet handsome
features, shrouded by her black velvet coif, interrogated the domestic who
steered her barge to the shore, what had become of Lindesay and Sir
Robert Melville. The man related what had passed, and she smiled scornfully as she replied, "Fools must be flattered, not foughten with. -Row
back-make thy excuse as thou canst — say Lord Ruthven hath already
reached this castle, and that he is impatient for Lord Lindesay's presence.
Away with thee, Randal-yet stay-what galopin is that thou hast brought
hither?"
"So please you, my lady, he is the page who is to wait upon-"
"Ay, the new male minion," said the Lady Lochleven; "the female
attendant arrived yesterday. I shall have a well-ordered house with this
lady and her retinue; but I trust they will soon find some others' to undertake such a charge. Begone, Randal-and you" (to Roland Graeme)
"follow me to the garden."
She led the way with a slow and stately step to the small garden, which,
enclosed by a stone wall ornamented with statues, and an artificial fountain
in the centre, extended its dull parterres on the side of the court-yard,
with which it communicated by a low and arched portal. Within the
narrow circuit of its formal and limited walks, Mary Stewart was now
learning to perform the weary part of a prisoner, which, with little interval,
she was doomed to sustain during the remainder of her life. She was
followed in her slow and melancholy exercise by two female attendants;
but in the first glance which Roland Graeme bestowed upon one so illustrious by birth, so distinguished by her beauty, accomplishments, and
misfortunes, he was sensible of the presence of no other than the unhappy
Queen of Scotland.
Her face, her form, have been so deeply impressed upon the imagination,
that even at the distance of nearly three centuries, it is unnecessary to
remind the most ignorant and uninformed reader of the striking traits
which characterize that remarkable countenance, which seems at once to
combine our ideas of the majestic, the pleasing, and the brilliant, leaving
us to doubt whether they express most happily the queen, the beauty, or
the accomplished woman. Who is there, that, at the very mention of Mary
Stewart's name, has not her countenance before him, familiar as that of the
mistress of his youth, or the favourite daughter of his advanced age?
Even those who feel themselves compelled to believe all, or much, of what
her enemies laid to her charge, cannot think without a sigh upon a countenance expressive of anything rather than the foul crimes with which she
was charged when living, and which still continue to shade, if not to
blacken, her memory. That brow, so truly open and regal-those eyebrows, so regularly graceful, which yet were saved from the charge of
regular insipidity by the beautiful effect of the hazel eyes which they overarched, and which seem to utter a thousand histories -the nose, with all
its Grecian precision of outline-the mouth, so well proportioned, so sweetly
formed, as if designed to speak nothing but what was delightful to hear -
the dimpled chin-the stately swan-like neck, form a countenance, the like
of which we know not to have existed in any other character moving in
that class of life, where the actresses as well as the actors command general
and undivided attention. It is in vain to say that the portraits which exist




THE ABBOT.                             405
of this remarkable woman are not like each other; for, amidst their discrepancy, each possesses general features which the eye at once acknowledges as peculiar to the vision which our imagination has raised while we
read her history for the first time, and which has been impressed upon it
by the numerous prints and pictures which we have seen. Indeed we
cannot look on the worst of them, however deficient in point of execution,
without saying that it is meant for Queen Mary; and no small instance it
is of the power of beauty, that her charms should have remained the subject not merely of admiration, but of warm  and chivalrous interest, after
the lapse of such a length of time. We know that by far the most acute
of those who, in latter days, have adopted the unfavourable view of Mary's
character, longed, like the executioner before his dreadful task was performed, to kiss the fair hand of her on whom he was about to perform so
horrible a duty.
Dressed, then, in a deep mourning robe, and with all those charms of
face, shape, and manner, with which faithful tradition has made each reader
familiar, Mary Stewart advanced to meet the Lady of Lochleven, who, on
her part, endeavoured to conceal dislike and apprehension under the appearance of respectful indifference. The truth was, that she had experienced repeatedly the Queen's superiority in that species, of disguised
yet cutting sarcasm, with which women can successfully avenge themselves,
for real and substantial injuries. It may be well doubted, whether this
talent was not as fatal to its possessor as the many others enjoyed by that
highly gifted, but most unhappy female; for, while it often afforded her a
momentary triumph over her keepers, it failed not to exasperate their resentment;. and the satire and sarcasm in which she had indulged were
frequently retaliated by the deep and bitter hardships which they had the
power of inflicting. It is well known that her death was at length hastened
by a letter which she wrote to Queen Elizabeth, in which she treated her
jealous rival, and the Countess of Shrewsbury, with the keenest irony and
ridicule.
As the ladies met together, the Queen said, bending her head at the same
time, in return to the obeisance of the Lady Lochleven, " We are this day
fortunate —we enjoy the company of our amiable hostess at an unusual
hour, and during a period which we have hitherto been permitted to give
to our private exercise. But our good hostess knows well she has at all
times access to our presence, and need not observe the useless ceremony of
requiring our permission."
" I am sorry my presence is deemed an intrusion by your Grace," said
the Lady of Lochleven.  "I came but to announce the arrival of an addition to your train," motioning with her hand towards Roland Grseme;
"a circumstance to which ladies are seldom indifferent."
"Oh! I crave your ladyship's pardon; and am bent to the earth with
obligations for the kindness of my nobles -or my sovereigns, shall I call
them?-who have permitted me such a respectable addition to my personal
retinue."
"They have indeed studied, Madam," said the Lady of Lochleven, "to
show their kindness towards your Grace-something at the risk perhaps of
sound policy, and I trust their doings will not be misconstrued."
"Impossible!" said the Queen; " the bounty which permits the daughter
of so many kings, and who yet is Queen of the realm, the attendance of
two waiting-women and a boy, is a grace which Mary Stewart can never
sufficiently acknowledge. Why! my train will be equal to that of anycountry dame in this your kingdom of Fife, saving but the lack of a gentleman-usher, and a pair or two of blue-coated serving-men. But I must not
forget, in my selfish joy, the additional trouble and charges to which this
magnificent augmentation of our train will put our kind hostess, and the
whole house of Lochleven. It is this prudent anxiety, I am aware, which




406                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
clouds your brows, my worthy lady. But be of good cheer; the crown cf
Scotland has many a fair manor, and your affectionate son, and my no less
affectionate brother, will endow the good knight your husband with the
best of them, ere Mary should be dismissed from this hospitable castle
from your ladyship's lack of means to support the charges."
"The Douglasses of Lochleven, madam," answered the lady, "have
known for ages how to discharge their duty to the State, without looking
for reward, even when the task was both irksome and dangerous."
"Nay! but, my dear Lochleven," said the Queen, "you are over scrupulous-I pray you accept of a goodly manor; what should support the Queen
of Scotland in this her princely court, saving her own crown-lands —and
who should minister to the wants of a mother, save an affectionate son like
the Earl of Murray, who possesses so wonderfully both the power and
inclination?-Or said you it was the danger of the task which clouded your
smooth and hospitable brow? —No doubt, a page is a formidable addition
to my body-guard of females; and I bethink me it must have been for that
reason that my Lord of Lindesay refused even now to venture within the
reach of a force so formidable, without being attended by a competent
retinue."
The Lady Lochleven started, and looked something surprised; and Mary
suddenly changing her manner from the smooth ironical affectation of mildness to an accent of austere command, and drawing up at the same time
her fine person, said, with the full majesty of her rank, "Yes! Lady of
Lochleven; I know that Ruthven is already in the castle, and that Lindesay
waits on the bank the return of your barge to bring him hither along with
Sir Robert Melville. For what purpose do these nobles come -and why
am I not in ordinary decency apprised of their arrival?"
"Their purpose, madam," replied the Lady of Lochleven, " they must
themselves explain -but a formal annunciation were needless, where your
Grace hath attendants who can play the espial so well."'Alas! poor Fleming," said the Queen, turning to the elder of the female
attendants, "thou wilt be tried, condemned, and gibbeted, for a spy in the
garrison, because thou didst chance to cross the great hall while my good
Lady of Lochleven was parleying at the full pitch of her voice with her
pilot Randal. Put black wool in thy ears, girl, as you value the wearing of
them longer. Remember, in the Castle of Lochleven, ears and tongues are
matters not of use, but for show merely. Our good hostess can hear, as
well as speak, for us all. We excuse your fatther attendance, my lady
hostess," she said, once more addressing the object of her resentment, " and
retire to prepare for an interview with our rebel lords. We will use the
ante-chamber of our sleeping apartment as our hall of audience. You,
young man," she proceeded, addressing Roland Graeme, and at once softening the ironical sharpness of her manner into good-humoured raillery, " you,
who are all our male attendance, from our Lord High Chamberlain down to
our least galopin, follow us to prepare our court."
She turned, and walked slowly towards the castle. The Lady of Lochleven folded her arms, and smiled in bitter resentment, as she watched her
retiring steps.                                          /
"The whole male attendance!" she muttered, repeating the Queen's last
words, "and well for thee had it been had thy train never been larger;"
then turning to Roland, in whose way she had stood while making this
pause, she made room for him to pass, saying at the same time, "Art thou
already eaves-dropping? follow thy mistress, minion, and, if thou wilt, tell
her what I have now said."
Roland Graeme hastened after his royal mistress and her attendants, who
-had just entered a postern-gate communicating betwixt the castle and the
small garden. They ascended a winding-stair as high as the second story,
which was in a great measure occupied by a suite of three rooms, opening




THE ABBOT.                             40T
into each other, and assigned as the dwelling of the captive Princess. The
outermost was a small hall or ante-room, within which opened a large
parlour, and from that again the Queen's bedroom. Another small apartment, which opened into the same parlour, contained the beds of the gentlewomen in waiting.
Roland Groeme stopped, as became his station, in the outermost of these
apartments, there to await such orders as might be communicated to him.
From the grated window of the room he saw Lindesay, Melville, and their
followers disembark; and observed that they were met at the castle gate by a
third noble, to whom Lindesay exclaimed, in his loud harsh voice, "My
Lord of Ruthven, you have the start of us i"
At this instant, the page's attention was called to a burst of hysterical
sobs from the inner apartment, and to the hurried ejaculations of the
terrified females, which led him almost instantly to hasten to their assistance.
When he entered, he saw that the Queen had thrown herself into the large
chair which stood nearest the door, and was sobbing for breath in a strong
fit of hysterical affection. The elder female supported her in her arms,
while the younger bathed her face with water and with tears alternately.
"Hasten, young man " said the elder lady, in alarm, "fly - call in
assistance -she is swooning!"
But the Queen ejaculated in a faint and broken voice, " Stir not, I charge
you! - call no one to witness - I am better - I shall recover instantly."
And, indeed, with an effort which seemed like that of one struggling for
life, she sate up in her chair, and endeavoured to resume her composure,
while her features yet trembled with the violent emotion of body and mind
which she had undergone. "I am ashamed of my weakness, girls," she
said, taking the hands of her attendants; " but it is over -and I am Mary
Stewart once more. The savage tone of that man's voice    my knowledge
of his insolence- the name which he named - the purpose for which they
come-may excuse a moment's weakness, and it shall be a moment's only.'
She snatched from her head the curch or cap, which had been disordered
during her hysterical agony, shook down the thick clustered tresses of dark
brown which had been before veiled under it- and, drawing her slender
fingers across the labyrinth which they formed, she arose from the chair,
and stood like the inspired image of a Grecian prophetess in a mood which
partook at once of sorrow and pride, of smiles and of tears.  " We are ill
appointed," she said, "to meet our rebel subjects; but, as far as we may,
we will strive to present ourselves as becomes their Queen. Follow me, my
maidens," she said; "what says thy favourite song, my Fleming?'My maids, come to my dressing-bower,
And deck ny nut-brown hair;
Where'er ye laid a plait before,
Look ye lay ten times mair.'
Alas!" she added, when she had repeated with a smile these lines of an old
ballad, "violence has already robbed me of the ordinary decorations of my
rank; and the few that nature gave me have been destroyed by sorrow and
by fear." Yet while she spoke thus, she again let her slender fingers stray
through the wilderness of the beautiful tresses which veiled her kingly neck
and swelling bosom, as if, in her agony of mind, she had not altogether lost
the consciousness of her unrivalled charms.  Roland Grseme, on whose
youth, inexperience, and ardent sense of what was dignified and lovely, the
demeanour of so fair and high-born a lady wrought like the charm of a
magician, stood rooted to the spot with surprise and interest, longing to
hazard his life in a quarrel so fair as that which Mary Stewart's must needs
be. She had been bred in France   she was possessed of the most distinguished beauty  she had reigned a Queen and a Scottish Queen, to whom
knowledge of character was as essential as the use of vital air. In all these
capacities, Mary was, of all women on the earth, most alert at perceiving
and using the advantages which her charms gave her over almost all who




408                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
came within the sphere of their influence. She cast on Roland a glancewhich might have melted a heart of stone. " My poor boy," she said, with
a feeling partly real, partly politic, "thou art a stranger to us-sent to this
doleful captivity from the society of some tender mother, or sister, or maiden,
with whom you had freedom to tread a gay measure round the Maypole. I
grieve for you; but you are the only male in my limited household-wilt
thou obey my orders?"
"To the death, madam," said Graeme, in a determined tone.
"Then keep the door of mine apartment," said the Queen; "keep it till
they offer actual violence, or till we shall be fitly arrayed to receive these
intrusive visiters."
" I will defend it till they pass over my body," said Roland Graeme; any
hesitation which he had felt concerning the line of conduct he ought to
pursue being completely swept away by the impulse of the moment.
"Not so, my good youth," answered Mary; "not so, I command. If I
have one faithful subject beside me, much need, God wot, I have to care for
his safety. Resist them but till they are put to the shame of using actual
violence, and then give way, I charge you. Remember my commands."
And, with a smile expressive at once of favour and of authority, she turned
from him, and, followed by her attendants, entered the bedroom.
The youngest paused for half a second ere she followed her companion,
and made a signal to Roland Greme with her hand. He had been already
long aware that this was Catherine Seyton —a circumstance-which could
not much surprise a youth of quick intellects, who recollected the sort of
mysterious discourse which had passed betwixt the two matrons at the
deserted nunnery, and on which his meeting with Catherine in this place
seemed to cast so much light. Yet such was the engrossing effect of Mary's
presence, that it surmounted for the moment even the feelings of a youthful
lover;, and it was not until Catherine Seyton had disappeared, that Roland
began to consider in what relation they were to stand to each other. " She
held up her hand to me in a commanding manner," he thought; "perhaps
she wanted to confirm my purpose for the execution of the Queen's commands; for I think she could scarce purpose to scare me with the sort of
discipline which she administered to the groom in the frieze-jacket, and to
poor Adam Woodcock. But we will see to that anon; meantime, let us do
justice to the trust reposed in us by this unhappy Queen. I think my Lord
of Murray will himself own that it is the duty of a faithful page to defend
his lady against intrusion on her privacy."
Accordingly, he stepped to the little vestibule, made fast, with lock and
bar, the door which opened from thence to the large staircase, and.then sat
himself down to attend the result. IHe had not long to wait -a rude and
strong hand first essayed to lift the latch, then pushed and shook the door
with violence, and, when it resisted his attempt to open it, exclaimed,
"Undo the door there, you within!"
" Why, and at whose command," said the page, " am I to undo the door
of the apartments of the Queen of Scotland?"
Another vain attempt, which made hinge and bolt jingle,showed that the
impatient applicant without would willingly have entered altogether regardless of his challenge; but at length an answer was returned.
" Undo the door, on your peril - the Lord Lindesay comes to speak with
the Lady Mary of Scotland."
"The Lord Lindesay, as a Scottish noble," answered the page, "must
await his Sovereign's leisure."
An earnest altercation ensued amongst those without, in which Roland
distinguished the remarkable harsh voice of Lindesay in reply to Sir Robert
Melville, who appeared to have been using some soothing language-" No I
no I no! I tell thee, no! I will place a petard against the door rather than
be baulked by a profligate woman, and bearded by an insolent footboy."




THE ABBOT.                              409
"Yet, at least," said Melville, "let me try fair means in the first instance.
Violence to a lady would stain your scutcheon for ever. Or await till my
Lord Ruthven comes."
"I will await no longer," said Lindesay; "it is high time the business
were done, and we on our return to the council. But thou mayest try thy
fair play, as thou callest it, while I cause my train to prepare the petard.
I came hither provided with as good gunpowder as blew up the Kirk of
Field."
"For God's sake, be patient," said Melville; and, approaching the door,
he said, as speaking to those within, "Let the Queen know, that I, her
faithful servant, Robert Melville, do entreat her, for her own sake, and to
prevent worse consequences, that she will undo the door, and admit Lord
Lindesay, who brings a mission from the Council of State."
" I will do your errand to the Queen," said the page, " and report to you
her answer."
He went to the door of the bedchamber, and tapping against it gently, it
was opened by the elderly lady, to whom he communicated his errand,
and returned with directions from the Queen to admit Sir Robert Melville
and Lord Lindesay. Roland Grseme returned to the vestibule, and opened
the door accordingly, into which the Lord Lindesay strode, with the air of a
soldier who has fought his way into a conquered fortress; while Melville,
deeply dejected, followed him more slowly.
"I draw you to witness, and to record," said the page to this last, "that,
save for the especial commands of the Queen, I would have made good the
entrance, with my best strength, and my best blood, against all Scotland."
"Be silent, young man," said Melville, in a tone of grave rebuke;
"add not brands to fire -this is no time to make a flourish of thy boyish
chivalry."
"She has not appeared even yet," said Lindesay, who had now reached
the midst of the parlour or audience-room; "how call you this trifling?"
"Patience, my lord," replied Sir Robert, "time presses not- and Lord
Ruthven hath not as yet descended."
At this moment the door of the inner apartment opened, and Queen Mary
presented herself, advancing with an air of peculiar grace and majesty, and
seeming totally unruffled, either by the visit, or by the rude manner in
which it had been enforced. Her dress was a robe of black velvet; a small
ruff, open in front, gave a full view of her beautifully formed chin and neck,
but veiled the bosom. On her head she wore a small cap of lace, and a
transparent white veil hung from her shoulders over the long black robe, in
large loose folds, so that it could be drawn at pleasure over the face and
person. She wore a cross of gold around her neck, and had her rosary of
gold and-ebony hanging from her girdle. She was closely followed by her
two ladies, who remained standing behind her during the conference. Even.
Lord Lindesay, though the rudest noble of that rude age, was surprised into
something like respect by the unconcerned and majestic mien of her, whom
he had expected to find frantic with impotent passion, or dissolved in useless
and vain sorrow, or overwhelmed with the fears likely in such a situation to
assail fallen royalty.
" We fear we have detained you, my Lord of Lindesay," said the Queen,
while she curtsied with dignity in answer to his reluctant obeisance;' but
a female does not willingly receive her visiters without some minutes spent
at the toilette. Men, my lord, are less dependant on such ceremonies."
Lord Lindesay, casting his eye down on his own travel-stained and disordered dress, muttered something of a hasty journey, and the Queen paid
her greeting to Sir Robert Melville with courtesy, and even, as it seemed,
with kindness. There was then a dead pause, during which Lindesay looked
towards the door, as if expecting with impatience the colleague of their
embassy. The Queen alone was entirely unembarrassed, and, as if to break
2 I




410                 WAVEiRLEY  NOVELS.
the silence, she addressed Lord Lindesay, with a glance at the large and
cumbrous sword which he wore, as already mentioned, hanging from his
neck.
"You have there a trusty and a weighty travelling companion, my lord.
I trust you expected to meet with no enemy here, against whom such a
formidable weapon could be necessary? it is, methinks, somewhat a singular
ornament for a court, though I am, as I well need to be, too much of a
Stuart to fear a sword."
"It is not the first time, madam," replied Lindesay, bringing round the
weapon so as to rest its point on the ground, and leaning one hand on th3
huge cross-handle, "it is not the first time that this weapon has intruded
itself into the presence of the House of Stewart."
"Possibly, my lord," replied the Queen, " it may have done service to my
ancestors    Your ancestors were men of loyalty."
"Ay, madam," replied he, " service it hath done; but such as kings love
neither to acknowledge nor to reward. It was the service which the knife
renders to the tree when trimming it to the quick, and depriving it of
the superfluous growth of rank and unfruitful suckers, which rob it of
nourishment."
"You talk riddles, my lord," said Mary; "I will hope the explanation
carries nothing insulting with it."
"You shall judge, madam," answered Lindesay. " With this good sword
was Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, girded on the memorable day when
he acquired the name of Bell-the-Cat, for dragging from the presence of
your great grandfather, the third James of the race, a crew of minions,
flatterers, and favourites whom he hanged over the bridge of Lauder, as a
warning to such reptiles how they approach a Scottish throne. With this
same weapon, the same inflexible champion of Scottish honour and nobility
slew at one blow Spens of Kilspindie, a courtier of your grandfather, James
the fourth, who had dared to speak lightly of him in the royal presence.
They fought near the brook of Fala; and Bell-the-Cat, with this blade,
sheared through the thigh of his opponent, and lopped the limb as easily as
a shepherd's boy slices a twig from a sapling."
"My lord," replied the Queen, reddening, "my nerves are too good to be
alarmed even by this terrible history  May I ask how a blade so illustrious
passed from the House of Douglas to that of Lindesay?-Methinks it should
have been preserved as a consecrated relic, by a family who have held all
that they could do against their king, to be done in favour of their country."
"Nay, madam," said Melville, anxiously interfering, "ask not that
question of Lord Lindesay - And you, my lord, for shame- for decencyforbear to reply to it."
"It is time that this lady should hear the truth," replied Lindesay.
" And be assured," said the Queen, " that she will be moved to anger by
none that you can tell her, my lord. There are cases in which just scorn
has always the mastery over just anger."
"Then know," said Lindesay, " that upon the field of Carberry-hill, when
that false and infamous traitor and murderer, James, sometime Earl of
Bothwell, and nicknamed Duke of Orkney, offered to do personal battle with
any of the associated nobles who came to drag him to justice, I accepted his
challenge, and was by the noble Earl of Morton gifted with his good sword
that I might therewith fight it out- Ah! so help me Heaven, had his
presumption been one grain more, or his cowardice one grain less, I should
have done such work with this good steel on his traitorous corpse, that the
hounds and carrion-crows should have found their morsels daintily carved
to their use!"
The Queen's courage well-nigh gave way at the mention of Bothwell's
name - a name connected with such a train of guilt, shame, and disaster.
But the prolonged boast of Lindesay gave her time to rally herself, and to




THE  ABBOT.                             411
answer with an appearance of cold contempt-" It is easy to slay an enemy
who enters not the lists. But had Mary Stewart inherited her father's sword
as well as his sceptre, the boldest of her rebels should not upon that day have
complained that they had no one to cope withal. Your lordship will forgive
me if I abridge this conference. A brief description of a bloody fight is long
enough to satisfy a lady's curiosity; and unless my Lord of Lindesay has.
something more important to tell us than of the deeds which old Bell-theCat achieved, and how he would himself have emulated them, had time and
tide permitted, we will retire to our private apartment, and you, Fleming,
shall finish reading to us yonder little treatise Des Rodomontades Espagnolles."
" Tarry, madam," said Lindesay, his complexion reddening in his turn,
"I know your quick wit too well of old to have sought an interview that
you might sharpen its edge at the expense of my honour. Lord Ruthven
and myself, with Sir Robert Melville as a concurrent, come to your Grace
on the part of the Secret Council, to tender to you what much concerns the
safety of your own life and the welfare of the State."
" The Secret Council?" said the Queen; "by what powers can it subsist
or act, while I, from whom it holds its character, am here detained under
unjust restraint?  But it matters not -what concerns the welfare of Scotland shall be acceptable to Mary Stewart, come from whatever quarter it
will —and for what concerns her own life, she has lived long enough to be
weary of it, even at the age of twenty-five. -Where is your colleague, my
lord? - why tarries he?"
"He comes, madam," said Melville, and Lord Ruthven entered at the
instant, holding in his hand a packet. As the Queen returned his salutation. she became deadly pale, but instantly recovered herself by dint of
strong and sudden resolution, just as the noble, whose appearance seemed
to excite such emotions in her bosom, entered the apartment in company
with George Douglas, the youngest son of the Knight of Lochleven, who,
during the absence of his father and brethren, acted as Seneschal of the
Castle, under the direction of the elder Lady Lochleven, his father's mother.
I0afpter   it^    ntunta-HfrnnnL
I give this heavy weight from off my head,
And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand;
With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
With mine own hand I give away my crown,
With fTine own tongue deny my sacred state,
With mine own breath release all duteous oaths.
RICHARmD II.
LORD RUTTVEN had the look and bearing which became a soldier and a
statesman, and the martial cast of his form and features procured him the
popular epithet of Greysteil, by which he was distinguished by his intimates,
after the hero of a metrical romance then generally known. His dress,
which was a buff-coat embroidered, had a half-military character, but ex.
hibited nothing of the sordid negligence which distinguished that of Lindesay. But the son of an ill-fated sire, and the father of a yet more unfortunate family, bore in his look that cast of inauspicious melancholy, by
which the physiognomists of that time pretended to distinguish those who
were predestined to a violent and unhappy death.
The terror which the presence of this nobleman impressed on the Queen's




412                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
mind, airse from the active share he had borne in the slaughter of David
Rizzio; his father having presided at the perpetration of that abominable
crime, although so weak from long and wasting illness, that he could not
endure the weight of his armour, having arisen fiom a sick-bed to commit
a murder in the presence of his Sovereign. On that occasion his son also
had attended and taken an active part. It was little to be wondered at, that
the Queen, considering her condition when such a deed of horror was acted
in her presence, should retain an instinctive terror for the principal actors
in the murder.  She returned, however, with grace the salutation of Lord
Ruthven, and extended her hand to George Douglas, who kneeled, and kissed
it with respect; the first mark of a subject's homage which Roland Grome
had seen any of them render to the captive Sovereign.  She returned his
greeting in silence, and there was a brief pause, during which the steward
of the castle, a man of a sad brow and a severe eye, placed, under George
Douglas's directions, a table and writing materials; and the page, obedient
to his mistress's dumb signal, advanced a large chair to the side on which
the Queen stood, the table thus forming a sort of bar which divided the
Queen and her personal followers from her unwelcome visiters. The steward
then withdrew after a low reverence. When he had closed the door behind
him, the Queen broke silence-" With your favour, my lords, I will sit-my
walks are not indeed extensive enough at present to fatigue me greatly, yet
I find repose something more necessary than usual."
She sat down accordingly, and, shading her cheek with her beautiful
hand, looked keenly and impressively at each of the nobles in turn.  Mary
Fleming applied her kerchief to her eyes, and Catherine Seyton and Roland
Grmme exchanged a glance, which showed that both were too deeply engrossed with sentiments of interest and commiseration for their royal mistress, to think of any thing which regarded themselves.
"I wait the purpose of your mission, my lords," said the Queen, after she
had been seated for about a minute without a word being spoken,-" I wait
your-message from those you call the Secret Council.-I trust it is a petition
of pardon, and a desire that I will resume my rightful throne, without using
with due severity my right of punishing those who have dispossessed me
of it."
"  Madam," replied Ruthven, " it is painful for us to speak harsh truths
to a Princess who has long ruled us. But we come to offer, not to implore,
pardon. In a word, madam, we have to propose to you on the part of the
Secret Council, that you sign these deeds, which will contribute greatly to
the pacification of the State, the advancement of God's word, and the welfare of your own future life."
"Am  I expected to take these fair words on trust, my lord? or may I
hear the contents of these reconciling papers, ere I am asked to sign them?"
"Unquestionably, madam; it is our purpose and wish, you should read
what you are required to sign," replied Ruthven.
"Required?" replied the Queen,.with some emphasis; "but the phrase
suits well the matter-read, my lord."
The Lord Ruthven proceeded to read a formal instrument, running in the
Queen's name, and setting forth that she had been called, at an early age,
to the administration of the crown and realm of Scotland, and had toiled
diligently therein, until she was in body and spirit so wearied out and disgusted, that she was unable any longer to endure the travail and pain of
State affairs; and that since God had blessed her with a fair and hopeful
son, she was desirous-to ensure to him, even while she yet lived, his succession to the crown, which was his by right of hereditary descent.  " Wherefore," the instrument proceeded, "we, of the motherly affection we bear to
our said son, have renounced and demitted, and by these our letters of free
good-will, renounce and demit, the Crown, government, and guiding of the
realm of Scotland, in favour of our said son, that he may succeed to us as




THE ABBOT.                             413
native Prince thereof, as much as if we had been removed by disease, and
not by our own proper act. And that this demission of our royal authority
may have the more full and solemn effect, and none pretend ignorance, we
give, grant, and commit, full and free and plain power to our trusty cousins,
Lord Lindesay of the Byres, and William Lord Ruthven, to appear in our
name before as many of the nobility, clergy, and burgesses, as may be assembled at Stirling, and there, in our name and behalf, publicly, and in
their presence, to renounce the Crown, guidance, and government of this
our kingdom of Scotland."
The Queen here broke in with an air of extreme surprise. "How is this,
my lords?" she said: "Are my ears turned rebels, that they deceive me
with sounds so extraordinary? -And yet it is no wonder that, having conversed so long with rebellion, they should now force its language upon my
understanding.  Say I am mistaken, my lords —say, for the honour of
yourselves and the Scottish nobility, that my right trusty cousins of Lindesay and Ruthven, two barons of warlike fame and ancient line, have not
sought the prison-house of their kind mistress for such a purpose as these
words seem to, imply.  Say, for the sake of honour and loyalty, that my
ears have deceived me."
" No, madam," said Ruthven gravely, " your ears do not deceive you-they
deceived you when they were closed against the preachers of the evangele, and
the honest advice of your faithful subjects; and when they were ever open to
flattery of pickthanks and traitors, foreign cubiculars and domestic minions.
The land may no longer brook the rule of one who cannot rule herself;
wherefore, I pray you to comply with the last remaining wish of your subjects and counsellors, and spare yourself and us the farther agitation of
matter so painful."
" And is this all my loving subjects require of me, my lord?" said Mary,
in a tone of bitter irony.  " Do they really stint themselves to the easy boon
that I should yield up the crown, which is mine by birthright, to an infant
which is scarcely more than a year old -fling down my sceptre, and take
up a distaff —Oh no! it is too little for them  to ask —That other roll of
parchment contains something harder to be complied with, and which may
more highly task my readiness to comply with the petitions of my lieges."
" This parchment," answered Ruthven, in the same tone of inflexible gravity, and unfolding the instrument as he spoke, " is one by which your grace
constitutes your nearest in blood, and the most honourable and trustworthy
of your subjects, James, Earl of Murray, Regent of the kingdom during
the minority of the young King. He already holds the appointment from
the Secret Council.
The Queen gave a sort of shriek, and, clapping her hands together,
exclaimed, "Comes the arrow out of his quiver?  out of my brother's
bow? - Alas! I looked for his- return from France as my sole, at least my
readiest, chance of deliverance. -And yet, when I heard he had assumed
the government, I guessed he would shame to wield it in my name."
"I must pray your answer, madam," said Lord Ruthven, "to the demand
of the Council."
"The demand of the Council 1" said the Queen; "say rather the demand
of a set of robbers, impatient to divide the spoil they have seized. To such
a demand, and sent by the mouth of a traitor, whose scalp, but for my
womanish mercy, should long since have stood on the city gates, Mary of
Scotland has no answer."
"I trust, madam," said Lord Ruthven, " my being unacceptable to your
presence will not add to your obduracy of resolution. It may become you
to remember that the death of the minion, Rizzio, cost the house of Ruthven
its head and leader. My father, more worthy than a whole province of such
vile'sycophants, died in exile, and broken-hearted."
The Queen clasped her hands on her face, and, resting her arms onthe
2K2




414                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
table, stooped down.her head and wept so bitterly, that the tears were seen
to find their way in streams between the white and slender fingers with
which she endeavoured to conceal them.
" My lords," said Sir Robert Melville, "this is too much rigour. Under
your lordship's favour, we came hither, not to revive old griefs, but to find
the mode of avoiding new ones."
"Sir Robert Melville," said Ruthven, "we best know for what purpose
we were delegated hither, and wherefore you were somewhat unnecessarily
sent to attend us."
"Nay, by my hand," said Lord Lindesay, "I know not why we were
cumbered with the good knight, unless he comes in place of the lump of
sugar which pothicars put into their wholesome but bitter medicaments, to
please a froward child -a needless labour, inethinks, where men have the
means-to make them swallow the physic otherwise."
"Nay, my lords," said Melville, "ye best know your own secret instructions. I conceive I shall best obey mine in striving to mediate between her
Grace and you."
"Be silent, Sir Robert Melville," said the Queen, arising, and her face
still glowingwith agitation as she spoke. "My kerchief, Fleming-I shame
that traitors should have power to move me thus. - Tell me, proud lords,"
she added, wiping away the tears as she spoke, "by what earthly warrant
can liege subjects pretend to challenge the rights of an anointed Sovereign
- to throw off the allegiance they have vowed, and to take away the crown
from the head on which Divine warrant hath placed it?"
" Madam," said Ruthven, "I will deal plainly with you. Your reign,
from the dismal field of Pinkie-cleugh, when you were a babe in the cradle,
till now that ye stand a grown dame before us, hath been such a tragedy of
-losses, disasters, civil dissensions, and foreign wars, that the like is not to
be found in our chronicles. The French and English have, with.one consent, made Scotland the battle-field on which to fight out their own ancient
quarrel. -For ourselves every man's hand hath been against his brother,
nor hath a year passed over without rebellion and slaughter, exile of nobles,
and oppressing of the commons. We may endure it no longer, and therefore, as a prince, to whom God hath refused the gift of hearkening to wise
counsel, and on whose dealings and projects no blessing hath ever descended,
we pray you to give way to other rule and governance of the land, that a
remnant may yet be saved to this distracted realm."
" My lord," said Mary, "it seems to me that you fling on my unhappy
and devoted head those evils, which, with far more justice, I may impute to
your own turbulent, wild, and untameable dispositions - the frantic violence
with which you, the Magnates of Scotland, enter into feuds against each
other, sticking at no cruelty to'gratify your wrath, taking deep revenge for
the slightest offences, and setting at defiance those wise laws which your
ancestors made for stanching of such cruelty, rebelling against the lawful authority, and bearing yourselves as if there were no king in the land;
or rather as if each were king in his own premises. And now you throw
the blame on me - on me, whose life has been embittered - whose sleep
has been-broken -whose happiness has been wrecked by your dissensions.
Have I not myself been obliged to traverse wilds and mountains, at the head
of a few faithful followers, to maintain peace and put down oppression?
Have I not worn harness on my person, and carried pistols at my saddle;
fain to lay aside the softness of a woman, and the dignity of a Queen, that
I might show an example to my followers?"
"We grant, madam," said Lindesay, " that the affrays occasioned by your
misgovernment, may sometimes have startled you in the midst'of a masque
or galliard; or it may be that such may have interrupted the idolatry of the
mass, or the jesuitical counsels of some French ambassador. But'the
longest and severest journey which your Grace has taken in my memory,




THE ABBOT.                             415
was from  Ilawick to Hermitage Castle; and whether it was for the weal of
the state, or for your own honour, rests with your Grace's conscience."
The Queen turned to him with inexpressible sweetness of tone and manner, and that engaging look which Heaven had assigned her, as if to show
that the choicest arts to win men's affections may be given in vain. " Lindesay," she said, "you spoke not to me in this stern tone, and with such
scurril taunt, yon fair summer evening, when you and I shot at the butts
against the Earl of Mar and Mary Livingstone, and won of them the evening's collation, in the privy garden of Saint Andrews.  The Master of Lindesay was then my friend, and vowed to be my soldier. How I have offended
the Lord of Lindesay I know not, unless honours have changed manners."
Ilardhearted as he was, Lindesay seemed struck with this unexpected
appeal, but almost instantly replied, "Madam, it is well known that your
Grace could in those days make fools of whomever approached you. I
pretend not to have been wiser than others. But gayer men and- better
courtiers soon jostled aside my rude homage, and I think your Grace cannot
but remember times, when my awkward attempts to take the manners that
pleased you, were the sport of the court-popinjays, the Marys and the
f'renchwomen."
"My lord, I grieve if I have offended you through idle gaiety," said the
Queen; "and can but say it was most unwittingly done. You are fully
revenged; for through gaiety," she said with a sigh, "will I never offend
any one more."
" Our time is wasting, madam," said Lord Ruthven; "I must pray your
decision on this weighty matter which I have submitted to you."
"  What, my lord!" said the Queen, "upon the instant, and without a
moment's time to deliberate? -Can the Council, as they term themselves,
expect this of me?"
"Madam," replied Ruthven, "the Council hold the opinion, that since
the fatal term which passed betwixt the night of King Henry's murder and
the day of Carberry-hill, youi Grace should have held you prepared for the
measure now proposed, as the easiest escape from your numerous dangers
and difficulties."
" Great God t" exclaimed the Queen; " and is it as a boon that you propose to me, what every Christian king ought to regard as a loss of honour
equal to the loss of life  -You take from me my crown, my power, my
subjects, my wealth, my state. What, in the name of every saint, can you
offer, or do yoli offer, in requital of my compliance?"
"We give you pardon," answered Ruthven, sternly -"we give you space
and means to spend your remaining life in penitence and seclusion -we
give you time to make your peace with Heaven, and to receive the pure
Gospel, which you have ever rejected and persecuted."
The Queen turned pale at the menace which this speech, as well as the
rough and inflexible tones of the speaker, seemed distinctly to infer-" And
if I do not comply with your request so fiercely urged, my lord, what then
follows?"
She said this in a voice in which female and natural fear was contending
with the feelings of insulted dignity. -There was a pause, as if no one
cared to return to the question a distinct answer. At length Ruthven
spoke: " There is little need to tell to your Grace, who are well read both
in the laws and in the chronicles of the realm, that murder and adultery
are crimes for which ere now queens themselves have suffered death."
"And where, my lord, or how, found you an accusation so horrible,
against her who stands before you?" said Queen Mary. "The foul and
odious calumnies which have poisoned the general mind of Scotland, and
have placed me a helpless prisoner in your hands, are surely no proof of
guilt?"
" We need look for no farther proof," replied the stern Lord Ruthven,




416                  WAVE RLEY  NOVELS.
"than the shameless marriage betwixt the widow of the murdered and the
leader of the band of murderers! -They that joined hands in the fated
month of May, had already united hearts and counsel in the deed which
preceded that marriage but a few brief weeks."
"My lord, my lord!" said the Queen, eagerly, "remember well there
were more consents than mine to that fatal union, that most unhappy act
of a most unhappy life. The evil steps adopted by sovereigns are often
the suggestion of bad counsellors; but these counsellors are worse than
fiends who tempt and betray, if they themselves are the first to call their
unfortunate princes to answer for the consequences of their own advice. 
Heard ye never of a bond by the nobles, my lords, recommending that illfated union to the ill-fated Mary?  Methinks, were it carefully examined,
we should see that the names of Morton and of Lindesay, and of Ruthven,
may be found-in that bond, which pressed me to marry that unhappy man.
-Ah! stout and loyal Lord Herries, who never knew guile or dishonour,
you bent your noble knee to me in vain, to warn me of my danger, and
wert vet the first to draw thy good sword in my cause when I suffered for
neglecting thy counsel! Faithful knight and true noble, what a difference
betwixt thee and those counsellors of evil, who now threaten my life for
having fallen into the snares they spread for me!"
"Madam," said Ruthven, "we know that you are an orator; and perhaps for that reason the Council has sent hither men, whose converse hath
been more with the wars, than with the language of the schools or the
cabals of state. We but desire to know if, on assurance of life and honour,
ye will demit the rule of this kingdom of Scotland?"
" And what warrant have I," said the Queen, " that ye will keep treaty
with me, if I should barter my kingly estate for seclusion, and leave to
weep in secret?"
"Our honour and our word, madam," answered Ruthven.
"They are too slight and unsolid pledges, my lord," said the Queen;
"add at least a handful of thistle-down to give them  weight in the
balance."
"Away, Ruthven," said Lindesay; " she was ever deaf to counsel, save
of slaves and sycophants; let her remain by her refusal, and abide by it!"
" Stay, my lord," said Sir Robert Melville, "or rather permit me to have
but a few minutes' private audience with her Grace. If my presence with
you could avail aught, it must be as a mediator —do not, I conjure you,
leave the castle, or break off the conference, until I bring you word how
her Grace shall finally stand disposed."
"'We will remain in the hall," said Lindesay, "for half an hour's space;
but in despising our words and our pledge of honour, she has touched the
honour of my name -let her look herself to the course she has to pursue.
If the half hour should pass away without her determining to comply with
the demands of the nation, her career will be brief enough."
With little ceremony the two nobles left the apartment, traversed the
vestibule, and descended the winding-stairs, the clash of Lindesay's huge
sword being heard as it rang against each step in his descent. George
Douglas followed them, after exchanging with Melville a gesture of surprise and sympathy.
As soon as they were gone, the Queen, giving way to grief, fear, and
agitation, threw herself into the seat, wrung her hands, and seemed to
abandon herself to despair. Her female attendants, weeping themselves,
endeavoured yet to pray her to be composed, and Sir Robert Melville,
kneeling at her feet, made the same entreaty. After giving way to a
passionate burst of sorrow, she at length said to Melville, " Kneel not to
me, Melville-mock me not with the homage of the person, when the heart
is far away-Why stay you behind with the deposed, the condemned? her.
who has but few hours perchance to live? You have been favoured as well




THE  ABBOT.                            417
as the rest; why do you continue the empty show of gratitude and thankfulness any longer than they?"
"Madam," said Sir Robert Melville, "so help me Heaven at my need,
my heart is as true to you as when you were in your highest place."
" True to me! true to me!" repeated the Queen, with some scorn; " tush,
Melville, what signifies the truth which walks hand in hand with my
enemies' falsehood?-thy hand and thy sword have never been so well
acquainted that I can trust thee in aught where manhood is required-Oh,
Seyton, for thy bold father, who is both wise, true, and valiant!"
Roland Groeme could withstand no longer his earnest desire to offer his
services to a princess so distressed and so beautiful.  "If one sword," he
said, " madam, can do any thing to back the wisdom of this grave counsellor, or to defend your rightful cause, here is my weapon, and here is my
hand ready to draw and use it." And raising his sword with one hand, he
laid the other upon the hilt.
As he thus held up the weapon, Catherine Seyton exclaimed, " Methinks
I see a token from  my father, madam;" and immediately crossing the
apartment, she took Roland Groeme by the skirt of the cloak, and asked
him earnestly whence he had that sword.
The page answered with surprise, " Methinks this is no presence in which
to jest- Surely, damsel, you yourself best know whence and how I obtained the weapon."
" Is this a time for folly?" said Catherine Seyton; "unsheathe the sword
instantly!"
" If the Queen commands me," said the youth, looking towards his royal
mistress.
"For shame, maiden!" said the Queen; "wouldst thou instigate the poor
boy to enter into useless strife with the two most approved soldiers in
Scotland?"                      -
" In your Grace's cause," replied the page, "I will venture my life upon
them!"  And as he spoke, he drew his weapon partly from the sheath, and
a piece of parchment, rolled around the blade, fell out and dropped on the
floor. Catherine Seyton caught it up with eager haste.
" It is my father's hland-writing," she said, "and doubtless conveys his
best duteous advice to your Majesty; I know that it was prepared to be sent
in this weapon, but I expected another messenger."
"By my faith, fair one," thought Roland, " and if you knew not that I
had such a secret missive about me, I was yet more ignorant."
The Queen cast her eye upon the scroll, and remained a few minutes
wrapped in deep thought. " Sir Robert Melville," she at length said, " this
scroll advises me to submit myself to necessity, and to subscribe the deeds
these hard men have brought with them, as one who gives way to the natural
fear inspired by the threats of rebels and murderers. You, Sir Robert, are
a wise man, and Seyton is both sagacious and brave.  Neither, I think,
would mislead me in this matter."
" Madam," said Melville, "if I have not the strength of body of the Lord
Herries or Seyton, I will yield to neither in zeal for your Majesty's service.
I cannot fight for you like these lords, but neither of them is more willing
to die for your service."
"I believe it, my old and faithful counsellor," said the Queen, "and
believe me, Melville, I did thee but a moment's injustice. Read what my
Lord Seyton hath written to us, and give us thy best counsel."
He glanced over the parchment, and instantly replied,  " Oh! my dear
and royal mistress, only treason itself could give you other advice than Lord
Seyton has here expressed. He, Herries, Huntly, the English ambassador
Throgmorton, and others, your friends, are all alike of opinion, that whatever
deeds or instruments you execute within these walls, must lose all force and
effect, as extorted from your Grace by duresse, by sufferance of present evil,
VOL. V.-27




418                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
and foar of men, and harm to ensue on your refusal. Yield, therefore, to
the tide, and be assured, that in subscribing what parchments they present
to you, you bind yourself to nothing, since your act of signature wants that
which alone can make it valid, the free will of the granter."
"Ay, so says my Lord Seyton," replied Mary; "yet methinks, for the
daughter of so long a line of sovereigns to resign her birthright, because
rebels press upon her with threats, argues little of royalty, and will read ill
for the fame of Mary in future chronicles. Tush! Sir Robert Melville, the
traitors may use black threats and bold words, but they will not dare to put
their hands forth on our person."
"Alas I madam, they have already dared so far and incurred such peril
by the lengths which they have gone, that they are but one step from the
worst and uttermost."
" Surely," said the Queen, her fears again predominating, " Scottish nobles
would not lend themselves to assassinate a helpless woman?": "Bethink you, madam," he replied, "what horrid spectacles have been
seen in our day; and what act is so dark, that some Scottish hand has not
been found to dare it? Lord Lindesay, besides his natural sullenness and
hardness of temper, is the near kinsman of Henry Darnley, and Ruthven
has his own deep and dangerous plans.  The Council, besides, speak of
proofs by writ and word, of a casket with letters - of I know not what."
"Ah! good Melville," answered the Queen, "were I as sure of the evenhanded integrity of my judges, as of my own innocence    and yet    "
"Oh! pause, madam," said Melville; "even innocence must sometimes
for a season stoop to injurious blame. Besides, you are here —
He looked round, and paused.
" Speak out, Melville," said the Queen, " never one approached my person
who wished to work me evil; and even this poor page, whom I have to-day
seen for the first time in my life, I can trust safely with your communication."
"Nay, madam," answered Melville, "in such emergence, and he being
the bearer of Lord Seyton's message, I will venture to say, before him and
these fair ladies, whose truth and fidelity I dispute not-I say I will venture
to say, that there are other modes besides that of open trial, by which
deposed sovereigns often die; and that, as Machiavel saith, there is but one
step betwixt a king's prison and his grave."
"Oh! were it but swift and easy for the body," said the unfortunate
Princess, " were it but a safe and happy change for the soul, the woman
lives not that would take the step so soon as I    But, alas! Melville, when
we think of death, a thousand sins, which we have trod as worms beneath
our feet, rise up against us as flaming serpents. Most injuriously do they
accuse me of aiding Darnley's death; yet, blessed Lady! I afforded too open
occasion for the suspicion - I espoused Bothwell."
"Think not of that now, madam," said Melville, " think rather of the
immediate mode of saving yourself and son. Comply with the present
unreasonable demands, and trust that better times will shortly arrive."
"Madam," said Roland Groeme, "if it pleases you that I should do so, I
will presently swim through the lake, if they refuse me other conveyance to
the shore; I will go to the courts successively of England, France, and
Spain, and will show you have subscribed these vile instruments from no
stronger impulse than the fear of death, and I will do battle against their
that say otherwise."
The Queen turned her round, and with one of those sweet smiles which,
during the era of life's romance, overpay every risk, held her hand towards
Roland, but without speaking a word. He kneeled reverently, and kissed
it, and Melville again resumed his plea.
"Madam," he said, "time presses, and you must not let those boats,
which.1 see they are even now preparing, put forth on the lake. Here are




TH-E  ABBOT.                           419
enough of witnesses - your ladies - this bold youth - myself, when it can
serve your cause effectually, for I would not hastily stand committed in this
matter -but even without me here is evidence enough to show, that you
have yielded to the demands of the Council through force and fear, but from
no sincere and unconstrained assent. Their boats are already manned for
their return - oh! permit your old servant to recall them."
"Melville," said the Queen, "thou art an ancient courtier  when didst
thou ever know a Sovereign Prince recall to his presence subjects who had
parted from him on such terms as those on which these envoys of the
Council left us, and who yet were recalled without submission or apology? —
Let it cost me both life and crown, I will not again command them to my
presence."
"Alas! madam, that empty form should make a barrier! If I rightly
understand, you are not unwilling to listen to real and advantageous
counsel —but your scruple is saved- I hear them returning to ask your
final resolution. Oh! take the advice of the noble Seyton, and you may
once more command those who now usurp a triumph over you. But hush!
I hear them in the vestibule."
As he concluded speaking, George Douglas opened the door of the apartment, and marshalled in the two noble envoys.
" We come,- madam," said the Lord Ruthven, "to request your answer to
the proposal of the Council."
"Your final answer," said Lord Lindesay; "for with a refusal you must
couple the certainty that you have precipitated your fate, and renounced the
last opportunity of making peace with God, and ensuring your longer abode
in the world."
" My lords," said Mary, with inexpressible grace and dignity, " the evils
we cannot resist we must submit to-I will subscribe these parchments with
such' liberty of choice as my condition permits me. Were I on yonder
shore, with a fleet jennet and ten good and loyal knights around me, I would
subscribe my sentence of eternal condemnation as soon as the resignation
of my throne. But here, in the Castle of Lochleven, with deep water around
me-and you, my lords, beside me,-I have no freedom of choice.-Give me
the pen, Melville, and bear witness to what I do, and why I do it.""It is our hope your Grace will not suppose yourself compelled by any
apprehensions from us," said the Lord Ruthven, "to execute what must be
your own voluntary deed."
The Queen had already stooped towards the table, and placed the parchment before her, with the pen between her fingers, ready for the important
act of signature. But when Lord Ruthven had done speaking, she looked
up, stopped short, and threw down the pen. "If," she said, "I am expected
to declare I give away my crown of free will, or otherwise than because I
am compelled to renounce it by the threat of worse evils to myself and my
-subjects, I will not put my name to such an untruth -not to gain full possession of England, France, and Scotland!-all once my own, in possession,
or by right."
"Beware, madam," said Lindesay, and, snatching hold of the Queen's
arm with his own gauntleted hand, he pressed it, in the rudeness of his
passion, more closely, perhaps, than he was himself aware of, -" beware
how you contend with those who are the stronger, and have the mastery of
your fate!"
He held his grasp on her arm, bending his eyes on her with a stern and
intimidating look, till both Ruthven and Melville cried shame; and Douglas,
who had hitherto remained in a state of apparent apathy, had made a stride
from the door, as if to interfere. The rude Baron then quitted his holdi disguising the confusion which he really felt at having indulged his passion to
such extent, under a sullen and contemptuous smile.
The Queen immediately began, with an expression of pain, to bare the




420  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
arm  which he had grasped, by drawing  up the sleeve  of her gown, and  it
appeared that his gripe had left the purple marks of his iron fingers upon
her flesh-" My lord," she said, "as a knight and  gentleman, you might
have spared my frail arm  so severe a proof that you have the greater strength
on your side, and are resolved to use it-But I thank you for it-it is the
most decisive token of the terms on which this day's business is to rest.-I
draw  you to witness, both lords and ladies," she said, " showing the marks
of the grasp on her arm, "that I subscribe these instruments in  obedience
to the sign manual of my Lord of Lindesay, which you may see imprinted
on mine arm."*
Lindesay would have spoken, but was restrained by his colleague Ruthven,
who said to him, "Peace, my lord.  Let the Lady Mary of Scotland ascribe
her signature to what she will, it is our business to procure it, and carry it
to the Council. Should there be debate hereafter on the manner in which it
was adhibited, there will be time enough for it."
Lindesay  was silent accordingly, only  muttering  within  his beard, "I
meant not to hurt her; but I think women's flesh be as tender as new-fallen
snow."
The Queen meanwhile subscribed the rolls of parchment with a hasty indifference, as if they had been  matters of slight consequence, or of mere
formality.  When she had performed this painful task, she arose, and, having
curtsied to the lords, was about to withdraw to her chamber. Ruthven and
Sir Robert Melville made, the first a formal reverence, the second an obeisance, in which his desire to acknowledge his sympathy was obviously
checked by the fear of appearing in the eyes of his colleagues too  partial
to his former mistress.   But Lindesay  stood  motionless, even when  they
were preparing to withdraw. At length, as if moved by a sudden impulse,
he walked round the table which  had hitherto  been  betwixt them  and the
Queen, kneeled on one knee, took her hand, kissed it, let it fall, and arose" Lady," he said, "thou art a noble creature, even though thou hast abused
God's choicest gifts. I pay that devotion to thy manliness of spirit, which
I would not have paid to the power thou hast long undeservedly wielded —
kneel to Mary Stewart, not to the Queen."
"The Queen and Mary Stewart pity thee  alike, Lindesay," said Mary"alike thee pity, and they forgive  thee.   An  honoured  soldier hadst thou
been by a king's side-leagued with rebels, what art thou but a good blade
in the hands of a ruffian? -Farewell, my Lord Ruthven, the smoother but
the deeper traitor.-Farewell, Melville-Mayest thou find masters that can
understand state policy better, and have the means to reward it more richly,
than Mary Stewart. - Farewell, George of Douglas - make your respected
grand-dame  comprehend  that we would  be alone  for the remainder of the
day -  God wot, we have need to collect our thoughts."
All bowed and withdrew; but scarce had they entered the vestibule, ere
Ruthven and Lindesay were at variance.  " Chide not with  me, Ruthven,"
* The details of this remarkable event are, as given in the preceding chapter, imaginary; hut the outline'of the events is historical. Sir Robert Lindesay, brother to the author of the Memoirs, was at first intrusted
with the delicate commission of persuading the imprisoned queen to resign her crown. As he flatly refused
to interfere, they determined to send the Lord Lindesay, one of the rudest and most violent of their own faction,- with instructions, first to use fair persuasions, and if these did not succeed, to enter into hor-derterms
Knox associates Lord Ruthven with Lindesay in this alarming commission. He was the son of that Lori
Ruthveu who was prime agent in the murder of Rizzio; and little mercy was to be expected from his conjunction with Lindesay.
The employment of such rude tools argued a resolution on the part of those who had the Queen's person
in their power, to proceed to the utmost extremities, should they find Mary obstinate. To avoid this pressing
danger, Sir Robert Melville was despatched by them to Lochleven, carrying with him, concealed in the scahbard of his sword, letters to the Queen from the Earl of Athole, Maitland of Lethington, and even firom
Throgmorton, the English Ambassador, who was then favourable to the unfortunate Mary, conjuring her to
yield to the necessity of the times, and to subscribe such deeds as Lindesay should lay before her, without
teing startled by their tenor: and assuring her that her doing so. in the state of captivity inder which she
was placed, would neither, in law, honour, nor conscience, be binding upon her when she should obtain ier
liberty. Submitting by the advice of one part of her subjects to the menace of the others, and learning that
Lindesay was arrived in a boasting, that is, threatening humour, the Queen, " with some reluctancy, and1 with 
tears," saith Knox, subscribed one deed resigning her crown to her infant son, and another establishing the
Earl of MIurray regent. It seems agreed lby historians that Lindesay behaved with great brutality on the
occasion. The deeds were signed 24th July, 1567.




THE ABBOT.                               421
Lindusay was heard to say, in answer to something more indistinctly urged
by his colleague - " Chide not with me, for I will not brook it! You put
the hangman's office on me in this matter, and even the very hangman hath
leave to ask some pardon of those on whom he does his office. I would I
had as deep cause to be this lady's friend as I have to be her enemy-thou
shouldst see if I spared limb and life in her quarrel."
"Thou art a sweet minion," said Ruthven, " to fight a lady's quarrel, and
all for a brent brow and a tear in the eye! Such toys have been out of thy
thoughts this many a year."
"Do me right, Ruthven," said Lindesay.  "You are like a polished
corslet of steel; it shines more gaudily, but it is not a whit softer-nay, it
is five times harder than a Glasgow breastplate of hammered iron. Enough.
We know each other."
They descended the stairs, were heard to summon their boats, and the
Queen signed to Roland Groeme to retire to the vestibule, and leave her with
her female attendants.,lin   tr           ^rniqt-'girh.
Give me a morsel on the greensward rather,
Coarse as you will the cooking-Let the fresh spring
Bubble beside my napkin-and the free birds
Twittering and chirping, hop from bough to bough,
To claim the crumbs I leave for perquisitesYour prison feasts I like not.
THE WOODSMAN, A DRAMA.
A RECESS in the vestibule was enlightened by a small window, at which
Roland Graeme stationed himself to mark the departure of the lords.  He
could see their followers mustering on horseback under their respective
banners - the western sun glancing on tleir corslets and steel-caps as they
moved to and fro, mounted or dismounted, at intervals.  On the narrow
space betwixt the castle and the water, the Lords Ruthven and Lindesay
were already moving slowly to their boats, accompanied by the Lady of
Lochleven, her grandson, and their principal attendants.  They took a
ceremonious leave of each other, as Roland could discern by their gestures,
and the boats put off from their landing-place; the boatmen stretched to
their oars, and they speedily diminished upon the eye of the idle gazer, who
had no better employment than to watch their motions. Such seemed also
the occupation of the Lady Lochleven and George Douglas, who, returning
from the landing-place, looked frequently back to the boats, and at length
stopped as if to observe their progress under the window at which Roland
Grseme was stationed.- As they gazed on the lake, he could hear the lady
distinctly say, "And she has bent her mind to save her life at the expense
of her kingdom?"
"Her life, madam 1" replied her son; " I know not who would dare to
attempt it in the castle of my father. Had I dreamt that it was with such
purpose that Lindesay insisted on bringing his followers hither, neither he
nor they should have passed the iron gate of Lochleven castle."
"I speak not of private slaughter, my son, but of open trial, condemnation, and execution; for with such she has been threatened, and to such
threats she has given way. Had she not more of the false Gusian blood
than of the royal race of Scotland in her veins, she had bidden them defiance to their teeth — But it is all of the same complexion, and meanness is
2L




422                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
the natural companion of profligacy.-I am  discharged, forsooth, from
intruding on her gracious presence this evening. Go thou, my son, and
render the usual service of the meal to this unqueened Queen."
"So please you, lady mother," said Douglas, "I care not greatly to
approach her presence."
"Thou art right, my son; and therefore I trust thy prudence, even
because I have noted thy caution. She is like an isle on the ccean, surrounded with shelves and quicksands; its verdure fair and inviting to the
eye, but the wreck of many a goodly vessel which hath approached it too
rashly. But for thee, my son, I fear nought; and we may not, with our
honour, suffer her to eat without the attendance of one of us. She may die
by. the judgment of Heaven, or the fiend may have power over her in her
despair; and then we would be touched in honour to show that in our
house, and at our table, she had had all fair play and fitting usagfe."
Here. Roland was interrupted by a smart tap on the shoulders, reminding
him sharply of Adam Woodcock's adventure of the preceding evening. He
turned round, almost expecting to see the page of Saint Michael's hostelry.
He saw, indeed, Catherine Seyton; but she was in female attire, differing,
no doubt, a great deal in shape and materials from that which she had worn
when they first met, and becoming her -birth as the daughter of a great
baron, and her rank as the attendant on a princess. " So, fair page," said
she, "eaves-dropping is one of your page-like qualities, I presume."
"Fair sister," answered Roland, in the same tone, "if some friends of
mine be as well acquainted with the rest of our mystery as they are with
the arts of swearing, swaggering, and switching, they need ask no page in
Christendom for farther insight into his vocation."." Unless that pretty speech infer that you have yourself had the discipline
of the switch since we last met, the probability whereof I nothing doubt, I
profess, fair page, I am at a loss to conjecture your meaning. But there is
no time to debate it now- they come with the evening meal. Be pleased,
Sir Page, to do your duty."
Four servants entered bearing dishes, preceded by the same stern old
steward whom Roland had already seen, and followed by George Douglas,
already mentioned as the grandson of the Lady of Lochleven, and who,
acting as seneschal, represented, upon this occasion, his father, the Lord of
the Castle. He entered with his arms folded on his bosom, and his looks
bent on the ground. With the assistance of Roland Greme, a table was
suitably covered in the next or middle apartment, on which the domestics
placed their burdens with great reverence, the steward and Douglas bending
low when they had seen the table properly adorned, as if their royal prisoner
had sat at the board in question. The door opened, and Douglas, raising
his eyes hastily, cast them again on the earth, when he perceived it was only
the Lady Mary Fleming who entered.
" Her Grace," she said, " will not eat to-night."
"Let us hope she may be otherwise persuaded," said Douglas; "meanwhile, madam, please to see our duty performed."
A servant presented bread and salt on a silver plate, and the old steward
carved for Douglas a small morsel in succession from each of the dishes
presented, which he tasted, as was then the custom at the tables of princes,
to which death was often suspected to find its way in the disguise of food.
" The Queen will not then come forth to-night?" said Douglas.
" She has so determined," replied the lady.
"Our farther attendance then is unnecessary -we leave you to your
supper, fair ladies, and wish you good even."
He retired slowly as he came, and with the same air of deep dejection,
and was followed by the attendants belonging to the castle. The two ladies
sate down to their meal, and Roland Grseme, with ready alacrity, prepared
to wait upon them. Catherine Seyton whispered to her companion, who




THE  ABBOT.                            423
replied with the question spoken.in a low tone, but looking at the page -
" Is he of gentle blood and well nurtured?
The answer which she received seemed satisfactory, for she said to Roland,
"Sit down, young gentleman, and eat with your sisters in captivity."
" Permit me rather to perform my duty in attending them," said Roland,
anxious to show he was possessed of the high tone of deference prescribed
]by the rules of chivalry towards the fair sex, and especially to dames and
maidens of quality.
"You will find, Sir Page," said Catherine, "you will have little time
allowed you for your meal; waste it not in ceremony, or you may rue your
politeness ere to-morrow morning."
"Your speech is too free, maiden," said the elder lady; "the modesty of
the youth may teach you more fitting fashions towards one whom to-day
you have seen for the first time."
Catherine Seyton cast down her eyes, but not till she had given a single
glance of inexpressible archness towards Roland, whom her more grave
companion now addressed in a tone of protection.
" Regard her not, young gentleman - she knows little of the world, save
the forms of a country nunnery -take thy place at the board-end, and
refresh thyself after thy journey."
Roland Graeme obeyed willingly, as it was the first food he had that day
tasted; for Lindesay and his followers seemed regardless of human wants.
Yet, notwithstanding the sharpness of his appetite, a natural gallantry of
disposition, the desire of showing himself a well-nurtured gentleman, in all
courtesies towards the fair sex, and, for aught I know, the pleasure of
assisting Catherine Seyton, kept his attention awake, during the meal, to
all those nameless acts of duty and service which gallants of that age were
accustomed to render. He carved with neatness and decorum, and selected
duly whatever was most delicate to place before the ladies. Ere they could
form a wish, he sprung from the table, ready to comply with it- poured
wine-tempered it with water-removed the exchanged trenchers, and
performed the whole honours of the table, with an air at once of cheerful
diligence, profound respect, and graceful promptitude.
When he observed that they had finished eating, he hastened to offer to
the elder lady the silver ewer, basin, and napkin, with the ceremony and
gravity which he would have used towards Mary herself. He next, with
the same decorum, having supplied the basin with fair water, presented it
to Catherine Seyton. Apparently; she was determined to disturb his selfpossession, if possible; for, while in the act of bathing her hands, she contrived, as it were by accident, to flirt some drops of water upon the face of
the assiduous assistant. But if such was her mischievous purpose she was
completely disappointed; for Roland Grseme, internally piquing himself on
his self-command, neither laughed nor was discomposed; and all that the
maiden gained by her frolic was a severe rebuke from her companion, taxing her with mal-address and indecorum. Catherine replied not, but sat
pouting, something in the humour of a spoilt child, who watches the opportunity of wreaking upon some one or other its resentment for a deserved
reprimand.
The Lady Mary Fleming, in the meanwhile, was naturally well pleased
with the exact and reverent observance of the page, and said to Catherine,
after a favourable glance at Roland Grome, - " You might well say,
Catherine, our companion in captivity was well born and gentle nurtured.
I would not make him vain by my praise, but his services enable us to dispense with those which George Douglas condescends not to afford us, save
when the Queen is herself in presence."
"Umph! I think hardly," answered Catherine. " George Douglas is one
of the most handsome gallants in Scotland, and'tis pleasure to see him even
still, when the gloom of Lochleven Castle has shed the same melancholy




424                  WAVERLEY NOVELS
over him, that it has done over every thing else. When he was at HIolyrood
who would have said the young sprightly George Douglas would have beeL
contented to play the locksman here in Lochleven, with no gayer amusement
than that of turning the key on two or three helpless women?  a strange
office for a Knight of the Bleeding Heart -why does he not leave it to his
father or his brothers?"
"Perhaps, like us, he has no choice," answered the Lady Fleming. "But,
Catherine, thou hast used thy brief space at court well, to remember what
George Douglas was then."
" I used mine eyes, which I suppose was what I was designed to do, and
they were worth using there. When I was at the nunnery, they were very
useless appurtenances; and now I am at Lochleven, they are good for
nothing, save to look over that eternal work of embroidery."
" You speak thus, when you have been but a few brief hours amongst us
-was this the maiden who would live and die in a dungeon, might she but
have permission to wait on her gracious Queen?"
"Nay, if you chide in earnest, my jest is ended," said Catherine Seyton.
" I would not yield in attachment to my poor god-mother, to the gravest
dame that ever had wise saws upon her tongue, and a double-starched ruff
around her throat - you know I would not, Dame Mary Fleming, and it is.putting shame on me to say otherwise."
" She will challenge the other court lady," thought Roland Graeme; "she
will to a certainty fling down her glove, and if Dame Mary Fleming hath
but the soul to lift it, we may have a combat in the lists!" —but the answer
of Lady Mary Fleming was such as turns away wrath.
"Thou art a good child," she said, "my Catherine, and a faithful; but
Heaven pity him who shall have one day a creature so-beautiful to delight
him, and a thing so mischievous to torment him-thou art fit to drive
twenty husbands stark mad."
" Nay," said Catherine, resuming the full career of her careless goodhumour, "he must be half-witted beforehand, that gives me such an opportunity. But I am glad you are not angry with me in sincerity," casting
herself as she spoke into the arms of her friend, and continuing, with a tone
of apologetic fondness, while she kissed her on either side of the face; "you
know, my dear Fleming, that I have to contend with both my father's lofty
pride, and with my mother's high spirit -God bless them! they have left
me these good qualities, having small portion to give besides, as times go
- and so I am wilful and saucy; but let me remain only a week in this
castle, and oh, my dear Fleming, my spirit will be as chastised and humble
as thine own."
Dame Mary Fleming's sense of dignity, and love of form, could not resist
this affectionate appeal. She kissed Catherine Seyton in her turn affectionately; while, answering the last part of her speech, she said, " Now Our
Lady forbid, dear Catherine, that you should lose aught that is beseeming
of what becomes so well your light heart and lively humour. Keep but
your sharp wit on this side of madness, and it cannot but be a blessing to
us. But let me go, mad wench - I hear her Grace touch her silver call."
And, extricating herself from Catherine's grasp, she went towards the door
of Queen Mary's apartment, from which was heard the low tone of a silver
whistle, which, now only used by the boatswains in the-navy, was then, for
want of bells, the ordinary mode by which ladies, even of the very highest
rank, summoned their domestics. When she had made two or three steps
towards the door, however, she turned back, and advancing to the young
couple whom she left together, she said, in a very serious though a low tone,
"I trust it is impossible that we can, any of us, or in any circumstances,
forget, that, few as we are, we form the household of the Queen of Scotland;
and that,'in her calamity, all boyish mirth and childish jesting can only
serve to give a great triumph to her enemies, who have already found their




THE  ABBOT.                            425
account in objecting to her the lightness of every idle folly, that the young
and the gay practised in her court."  So saying, she left the apartment.
Catherine Seyton seemed much struck with this remonstrance-She
suffered herself to drop into the seat which she had quitted when she went
to embrace Dame Mary Fleming, and for some time rested her brow upon
her hands; while Roland Graeme looked at her earnestly, with a mixture
of emotions which perhaps he himself could neither have analysed nor
explained. As she raised her face slowly from the posture to which a
momentary feeling of self-rebuke had depressed it, her eyes encountered
those of Roland, and became gradually animated with their usual spirit of
malicious drollery, which not unnaturally excited a similar expression in
those of the equally volatile page. They sat for the space of two minutes,
each looking at the other with great seriousness on their features, and
much mirth in their eyes, uhtil at length Catherine was the first to break
silence.
" May I pray you, fair sir," she began, very demurely, "to tell me what
you see in my face to arouse looks so extremely sagacious and knowing as
those with which it is your worship's pleasure to honour me? It would
seem as if there were some wonderful confidence and intimacy betwixt us,
fair sir, if one is to judge from your extremely cunning looks; and so help
me, Our Lady, as I never saw you but twice in my life before."
"And where were those happy occasions," said Roland, "if I may be
bold enough to ask the question?"
"At the nunnery of St. Catherine's," said the damsel, "in the first
instance; and, in the second, during five minutes of a certain raid or foray
which it was your pleasure to make into the lodging of my lord and father,
Lord Seyton, from which, to my surprise, as probably to your own, you
returned with a token of friendship and favour, instead of broken bones,
which were the more probable reward of your intrusion, considering the
prompt ire of the house of Seyton. I am deeply mortified," she added,
ironically, "that your recollection should require refreshment on a subject
so important; and that my memory should be stronger than yours'on such
an occasion, is truly humiliating."
"Your own memory is not so exactly correct, fair mistress," answered
the page, " seeing you have forgotten meeting the third, in the hostelrie of
St. Michael's, when it pleased you to lay your switch across the face of my
comrade, in order, I warrant, to show that, in the house of Seyton, neither
the prompt ire of its descendants, nor the use of the doublet and hose, are
subject to Salique law, or confined to the use of the males."
"Fair sir," answered Catherine, looking at him with great steadiness,
and some surprise, " unless your fair wits have forsaken you, I am at a loss
what to conjecture of your meaning."
"By my troth, fair mistress," answered Roland, "and were I as wise a
warlock as Michael Scott, I could scarce riddle the dream you read me.
Did I not see you last night in the hostelrie of St. Michael's? —Did you not
bring me this sword, with command not to draw it save at the command of
my native and rightful Sovereign? And have I not done as you required
me? Or is the sword a piece of lath-my word a bulrush-my memory a
dream - and my eyes good for nought - espials which corbies might pick
out of my head?"
"And if your eyes serve you not more truly on other occasions than in
your vision of St. Michael," said Catherine, "I know not, the pain apart,
that the corbies would do you any great injury in the deprivation-But
hark, the bell -hush, for God's sake, we are interrupted.-"
The damsel was right; for no sooner had the dull toll of the castle bell
begun to resound through the vaulted apartment, than the door of the
vestibule flew open, and the steward, with his severe countenance, his gold
chain, and his white rod, entered the apartment, followed by the same train
2L2




426                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
of domestics who had placed the dinner on the table, and who now, with
the same ceremonious formality, began to remove it.
The steward remained motionless as some old picture, while the domestics
did their office; and when it was accomplished, every thing removed from
the table, and the board itself taken from its tressels and disposed against
the wall, he said aloud, without addressing any one in particular, and
somewhat in the tone of a herald reading a proclamation, " My noble lady,
Dame Margaret Erskine, by marriage Douglas, lets the Lady Mary of
Scotland and her attendants to wit, that a servant of the true evangele, her
reverend chaplain, will to-night, as usual, expound, lecture, and catechise,
according to the forms of the congregation of gospellers.'
"Hark you, my friend, Mr. Dryfesdale," said Catherine, "I understand
this announcement is a nightly form of yours. Now, I pray you to remark,
that the Lady Fleming and I- for I trust your insolent invitation concerns
us only- have chosen Saint Peter's pathway to Heaven, so I see no one
whom your godly exhortation, catechise, or lecture, can benefit, excepting
this poor page, who, being in Satan's hand as well as yourself, had better
worship with you than remain to cumber our better-advised devotions."
The page was well-nigh giving a round denial to the assertions which this
speech implied, when, remembering what had passed betwixt him'and the
Regent, and seeing Catherine's finger raised in a monitory fashion, he felt
himself, as on former occasions at the Castle of Avenel, obliged to submit
to the task of dissimulation, and followed Dryfesdale down to the castle
chapel, where he assisted in the devotions of the evening.
The chaplain was named Elias Henderson.  He was a man in the prime
of life, and possessed of good natural parts, carefully improved by the best
education which those times afforded.  To these qualities were added a
faculty of close and terse reasoning; and, at intervals, a flow of happy
illustration and natural eloquence.  The religious faith of Roland Grenme,
as we have already had opportunity to observe, rested on no secure basis,
but was entertained rather in obedience to his grandmother's behests, and
his secret desire to contradict the chaplain of Avenel Castle, than from any
fixed or steady reliance which he placed on the Romish creed. His ideas
had been of late considerably enlarged by the scenes he had passed through;
and feeling that there was shame in not understanding something of those
political disputes betwixt the professors of the ancient and the reformed
faith, he listened with more attention than it had hitherto been in his nature
to yield on such occasions, to an animated discussion of some of the principal points of difference betwixt the churches.  So passed away the first day
in the Castle of Lochleven; and those which followed it were, for some
time, of a very monotonous and uniform tenor.
lapirr ilr'm utlIt-furt.'Tis a weary life thisVaults overhead, and grates and bars around me,
And my sad hours spent with as sad companions,
Whose thoughts are brooding o'er their own mischances,
Far, far too deeply to take part in mine.
THE WOODSMAN.
TnE course of life to which Mary and her little retinue were doomed, was
in the last degree secluded and lonely, varied only as the weather permitted
or rendered impossible the Queen's usual walk in the garden or on the battlements. The greater part of the morning she wrought with her ladies




THE ABBOT.                             427
at those pieces of needlework, many of which still remain proofs of her indefatigable application. At such hours the page was permitted the freedom
of the castle and islet; nay, he was sometimes invited to attend George
Douglas when he went a-sporting upon the lake, or on its margin; opportunities of diversion which were only clouded by the remarkable mnelancholy
which always seemed to brood on that gentleman's brow, and to mark his
whole demeanour, -a sadness so profound, that Roland never observed
himi to smile, or to speak any word unconnected with the immediate object
of their exercise.
The most pleasant part of Roland's day, was the occasional space which
he was permitted to pass in personal attendance on the Queen and her
ladies, together with the regular dinner-time, which he always spent with
Dame Mary Fleming and Catharine Seyton. At these -periods, he had fre.
quent occasion to admire the lively spirit and inventive imagination of the
latter damsel, who was unwearied in her contrivances to amuse her mistress,
and to banish, for a time at least, the melancholy which preyed on her
bosom. She danced, she sung, she recited tales of ancient and modern
times, with that heartfelt exertion of talent, of which the pleasure lies not
in the vanity of displaying it to others, but in the enthusiastic consciousness
that we possess it ourselves. And yet these high accomplishments were
mixed with an air of rusticity and harebrained vivacity, which seemed
rather to belong to some village maid, the coquette of the ring around the
Ma'ypole, than to the high-bred descendant of an ancient baron. A touch
of audacity altogether short of effrontery, and far less approaching to vulgarity, gave as it were a wildness to all that she did; and Mary, while
defending her from some of the occasional censures of her grave companion,
compared her to a trained singing-bird escaped from a cage, which practises
in all the luxuriance of freedom, and in full possession of the greenwood
bough, the airs which it had learned during its earlier captivity.
The moments which the page was permitted to pass in the presence of
this fascinating creature, danced so rapidly away, that, brief as they were,
they compensated the weary dulness of all the rest of the day. The space of
indulgence, however, was always brief, nor were any private interviews
betwixt him and Catharine permitted, or even possible. Whether it were
some special precaution respecting the Queen's household, or whether it
were her general ideas of propriety, Dame Fleming seemed particularly
attentive to prevent the young people from holding any separate correspondence together, and bestowed, for Catharine's sole benefit in this matter, the
full stock of prudence and experience which she had acquired, when mother
of the Queen's maidens of honour, and by which she had gained their hearty
hatred. Casual meetings, however, could not be prevented, unless Catherine
had been more desirous of shunning, or Roland Graeme less anxious in
watching for them. A smile, a gibe, a sarcasm, disarmed of its severity
by the arch look with which it was accompanied, was all that time permitted
to pass between them  on such occasions. But such passing interviews
neither afforded means nor opportunity to renew the discussion of the circumstances attending their earlier acquaintance, nor to permit Roland to
investigate more accurately the mysterious apparition of the page in the purple velvet cloak at the hostelrie of Saint Michael's.
The winter months slipped heavily away, and spring was already advanced,
when Roland Groeme observed a gradual change in the manners of his
fellow-prisoners. Having no business of his own to attend to, and being,
like those of his age, education, and degree, sufficiently curious concerning
what passed around, he began by degrees to suspect, and finally to be convinced, that there was something in agitation among his companions in
captivity, to which they did not desire that he should be privy. Nay, he
became almost certain that, by some means unintelligible to him, Queen
Mary held correspondence beyond the walls and waters which surrounded




128                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
her prison-house, and that she nourished some secret hope of deliverance oi
escape. In the conversations betwixt her and her attendants, at which he
was necessarily present, the Queen could not always avoid showing that she
was acquainted with the events which were passing abroad in the world,
and which he only heard through her report. He observed that she wrote
more and worked less than had been her former custom, and that, as if
desirous to lull suspicion asleep, she changed her manner towards the Lady
Lochleven into one more gracious, and which seemed to express a resigned
submission to her lot. " They think I am blind," he said to himself, "and
that I am unfit to be trusted because I am so young, or it may be because I
was sent hither by the Regent. Well! -be it so - they may be glad to
confide in me in the long run.; and Catherine Seyton, for as saucy as she is,
may find me as safe a confidant as that sullen Douglas, whom she is always
running after. It may be they are angry with me for listening to Master
Elias Henderson; but it was their own fault for sending me there, and if
the man speaks truth and good sense, and preaches only the word of God,
he is as likely to be right as either Pope or Councils."
It is probable that in this last conjecture, Roland Graeme had hit upon the
real cause why the ladies had not intrusted him with their councils. He
had of late had several conferences with Henderson on the subject of religion, and had given him to understand that he stood in need of his instructions, although he had not thought there was either prudence or necessity
for confessing that hitherto he had held the tenets of the Church of
Rome.
Elias Henderson, a keen propagator of the reformed faith, had sought the
seclusion of Lochleven Castle, with the express purpose and expectation of
making converts from Rome amongst the domestics of the dethroned Queen,
and confirming the faith' of those who already held the Protestant doctrines.
Perhaps his hopes soared a little higher, and he might nourish some
expectation of a proselyte more distinguished in the person of the deposed
Queen.  But the pertinacity with which she and her female attendants
refused to see or listen to him, rendered such hope, if he nourished it,
altogether abortive.
The opportunity, therefore, of enlarging the religious information of
Roland Gr'eme, and bringing him to a more due sense of his duties to
Heaven, was hailed by the good man as a door opened by Providence for the
salvation of a sinner. He dreamed not, indeed, that he was converting a
Papist, but such was the ignorance which Roland displayed upon some
material points of the reformed doctrine, that Master Henderson, while
praising his docility to the Lady Lochleven and her grandson, seldom failed
to add, that his venerable brother, Henry Warden, must be now decayed in
strength and in mind, since he found a catechumen of his flock so illgrounded in the principles of his belief. For this, indeed, Roland Graeme
thought it was unnecessary to assign the true reason, which was his having
made it a point of honour to forget all that Henry Warden taught him, as
soon as he was no longer compelled to read it over as a lesson acquired by
rote. The lessons of his new instructor, if not more impressively delivered,
were received by a more willing ear, and a more awakened understanding,
and the solitude of Lochleven Castle was favourable to graver thoughts than
the page had hitherto entertained. He wavered yet, indeed, as one who was
almost persuaded; but his attention to the chaplain's instructions procured
him favour even with the stern old dame herself; and he was once or
twice, but under great precaution, permitted to go to the neighbouring village
of Kinross, situated on the mainland, to execute some ordinary commission
of his unfortunate mistress.
For some time Roland Groeme might be considered as standing neuter
betwixt the two parties who inhabited the water-girdled Tower of Lochleven; but, as he rose in the opinion of the Lady of the Castle and her




THE ABBOT.                             429
chaplain, he perceived, with great grief, that he lost ground in that of Mary
and her female allies.
He came gradually to be sensible that he was regarded as a spy upon
their discourse, and that, instead of the ease with which they had formerly
conversed in his presence, without suppressing any of the natural feelings
of anger, of sorrow, or mirth, which the chance topic of the moment, happened to call forth, their talk was now guardedly restricted to the most
indifferent subjects, and a studied reserve observed even in their mode of
treating these. This obvious want of confidence was accompanied with a
correspondent change in their personal demeanor towards the unfortunate
page. The Queen, who had at first treated him with marked courtesy, now
scarce spoke to him, save to convey some necessary command for her
service. The Lady Fleming restricted her notice to the most dry and distant
expressions of civility, and Catherine Seyton became bitter in her pleasantries, and shy, cross, and pettish, in any intercourse they had together.
What was yet more provoking, he saw, or thought he saw, marks of intelligence betwixt George Douglas and the beautiful Catherine Seyton; and,
sharpened by jealousy,-he wrought himself almost into a certainty, that the
looks which they exchanged, conveyed matters of deep and serious import.
" No wonder," he thought, " if, courted by the son of a proud and powerful
baron, she can no longer spare a word or look to the poor fortuneless
page."
In a word, Roland Grmeme's situation became truly disagreeable, and his.
heart naturally enough rebelled against the injustice of this treatment,
which deprived him of the only comfort which he had received for submitting to a confinement in other respects irksome. He accused Queen Mary
and Catherine Seyton (for concerning the opinion of Dame Fleming he was
indifferent) of inconsistency in being displeased with him on account of the
natural consequences of an order of their own. Why did they send him to
hear this overpowering preacher?  The Abbot Ambrosius, he recollected,
understood the weakness of their Popish cause better, when he enjoined him
to repeat within his own mind, aves, and credos, and paters, all the while old
Henry Warden preached or lectured, that so he might secure himself against
lending even a momentary ear to his heretical doctrine. " But I will endure
this life no longer," said he to himself, manfully; " do they suppose I would
betray my mistress, because I see cause to doubt of her religion? — that
~would be a serving, as they say, the devil for God's sake. I will forth into
the world —he that serves fair ladies, may at least expect kind looks and
kind words; and I bear not the mind of a gentleman, to submit to cold
treatment and suspicion, and a life-long captivity besides. I will speak to
George Douglas to-morrow when we go out a-fishing."
A sleepless night was spent in agitating this magnanimous resolution,
and he arose in the morning not perfectly decided in his own mind whether
he should abide by it or not. It happened that he was summoned by the
Queen at an unusual hour, and just as he was about to go out with George
Douglas. He went to attend her commands in the garden; but as he had
his angling-rod in his hand, the circumstance announced his previous intention, and the Queen, turning to the Lady Fleming, said, " Catherine must
devise some other amusement for us, ma bonnie amnie; our discreet page has
already made his party for the day's pleasure."
"I said from the beginning," answered the Lady Fleming, "that your
Grace ought not to rely on being favoured with the company of a youth who
has so many Huguenot acquaintances, and has the means of amusing
himself far more agreeably than with us."
"I wish," said Catherine, her animated features reddening with mortification, " that his friends would sail away with him for good, and bring us
in return a page (if such a thing can be found) faithful to his Queen and to
his religion.'




430                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"One part of your wishes may be granted, madam," said Roland Graeme,
unable any longer to restrain his sense of the treatment which he received
on all sides; and he was about to add, "I heartily wish you a companion
in my room,, if such can be found, who is capable of enduring women's
caprices without going distracted."  Luckily, he recollected the remorse
which he had felt at having given way to the vivacity of his temper upon a
similar occasion; and, closing his lips, imprisoned, until it died on his
tongue, a reproach so misbecoming the presence of majesty.
" Why do you remain there," said the Queen, " as if you were rooted to
the parterre?"
" I but attend your Grace's commands," said the page.
" I have none to give you  Begone, sir!"
As he left the garden to go to the boat, he distinctly heard Mary upbraid
one of her attendants in these words:-" You see to what you have exposed
us!"
This brief scene at once determined Roland Groeme's resolution to quit
the castle, if it were possible, and to impart his resolution to George Douglas
without loss of time. That gentleman, in his usual mood of silence, sate in
the stern of the little skiff which they used on such occasions, trimming his
fishing-tackle, and, from time to time, indicating by signs to Grneme, who
pulled the oars, which way he should row. When they were a furlong or
two from the castle, Roland rested on the oars, and addressed his companion
somewhat abruptly,-" I have something of importance to say to you, under
your pleasure, fair sir."
The pensive melancholy of Douglas's countenance at once gave way to the
eager, keen, and startled look of one who expects to hear something of deep
and alarming import.
"I am wearied to the very death of this Castle of Lochleven," continued
Roland.
"Is that all?" said Douglas; "I know none of its inhabitants who are
much better pleased with it."
" Ay, but I am neither a native of the house, nor a prisoner in it, and so
I may reasonably desire to leave it."
"You might desire to quit it with equal reason," answered Douglas, "if
you were both the one and the other."
" But," said Roland Graeme, " I am not only tired of living in Lochleven
Castle, but I am determined to quit it."
" That is a resolution more easily taken than executed," replied Douglas.
" Not if yourself, sir, and your Lady Mother, choose to consent," answered
the page.
"You mistake the matter, Roland," said Douglas; "you will find that
the consent of two other persons is equally essential-that of the Lady Mary
your mistress, and that of my uncle the Regent, who placed you about her
person, and who will not think it proper that she should change her
attendants so soon."
"And must I then remain whether I will or no?" demanded the page,
somewhat appalled at a view of the subject, which would have occurred
sooner to a person of more experience.
"At least," said George Douglas, " you must will to remain till my uncle
consents to dismiss you."
"Frankly," said the page, "and speaking to you as a gentleman who is
incapable of betraying me. I will confess, that if I thought myself a prisoner
here, neither walls nor water should confine me long."
"Frankly," said Douglas, "I could not much blame you for the attempt;
yet, for all that, my father, or uncle, or the earl, or any of my brothers, or
in short any of the king's lords into whose hands you fell, would in such a
Pase hang you like a dog, or like a sentinel who deserts his post; and I
promise you that you will hardly escape them. But row towards Saint




THE ABBOT.                             431
Serf's island-there is a breeze from the west, and we shall have sport,
keeping to windward of the isle, where the ripple is strongest. We will
speak more of what you have mentioned when we have had an hour's
sport."
Their fishing was successful, though never did two anglers pursue even
that silent and unsocial pleasure with less of verbal intercourse.
When their time was expired, Douglas took the oars in his turn, and by
his order Roland Graeme steered the boat, directing her course upon the
landing-place at the castle. But he also stopped in the midst of his course,
and, looking around him, said to Grseme, "There is a thing which I could
mention to thee; but it is so deep a secret, that even here, surrounded as
we are by sea and sky, without the possibility of a listener, I cannot prevail
on myself to speak it out."
"Better leave it unspoken, sir," answered Roland Grgeme, "if you doubt
the honour of him who alone can hear it."
" I doubt not your honour," replied George Douglas; " but you are young,
imprudent, and changeful."
" Young," said Roland, "I am, and it may be imprudent-but who hath
informed you that I am changeful?"
"One that knows you, perhaps, better than you know yourself," replied
Douglas.
"I suppose you mean Catherine Seyton," said the page, his heart rising
as he spoke; "but she is herself fifty times more variable in her humour
than the very water which we are floating upon."
"My young acquaintance," said Douglas, " I pray you to remember that
Catherine Seyton is a lady of blood and birth, and must not be lightly
spoken of."
" Master George of Douglas," said Groeme, " as that speech seemed to be
made under the warrant of something like a threat, I pray you to observe,
that I value not the threat at the estimation of a fin of one of these dead
trouts; and, moreover, I would have you to know that the champion who
undertakes the defence of every lady of blood and birth, whom men accuse
of change of faith and of fashion, is like to have enough of work on his
hands."
"Go to," said the Seneschal, but in a tone of good-humour, "thou art a
foolish boy, unfit to deal with any matter more serious than the casting of
a net, or the flying of a hawk."
"If your secret concern Catherine Seyton," said the page, "I care not
for it, and so you may tell her if you will. I wot she can shape you opportunity to speak with her, as she has ere now."
The flush which passed over Douglas's face, made the page aware that he
had alighted on a truth, when he was, in fact, speaking at random; and the
feeling that he had done so, was like striking a dagger into his own heart.
Ils companion, without farther answer, resumed the oars, and pulled lustily
till they arrived at the island and the castle. The servants received the
produce of their spoil, and the two fishers, turning from each other in
silence, went each to his several apartment.
Roland Graeme had spent about an hour in grumbling against Catherine
Seyton, the Queen, the Regent, and the whole house of Lochleven, with
George Douglas at the head of it, when the time approached that his duty
called him to attend the meal of Queen Mary. As he arranged his dress
for this purpose, he grudged the trouble, which, on similar occasions, he
used, with boyish foppery, to consider as one of the most important duties
of his day; and when he went to take his place behind the chair of the
Queen, it was with an air of offended dignity, which could not escape her
observation, and probably appeared to her ridiculous enough, for she whispered something in French to her ladies, at which the lady Fleming laughed,
and Catherine appeared half diverted and half disconcerted. This pleasantry,




432                 WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
of which the subject was concealed from him, the unfortunate page received,
of course, as a new offence; and called an additional degree of sullen dignity into his mien, which might have exposed him to farther raillery, but
that Mary appeared disposed to make allowance for and compassionate his
feelings.
With the peculiar tact and delicacy which no woman possessed in greater
perfection, she began to soothe by degrees the vexed spirit of her magnanimous attendant. The excellence of the fish which he had taken in his
expedition, the high flavour and beautiful red colour of the trouts, which
have long given distinction to the lake, led her first to express her thanks
to her attendant for s6 agreeable an addition to her table, especially upon a
jour dejeune; and then brought on inquiries into the place where the fish
had been taken, their size, their peculiarities, the times when they were in
season, and a comparison between the Lochleven trouts and those which are
found in the lakes and rivers of the south of Scotland. The ill humour of
Roland Graeme was never of an obstinate character. It rolled away like
mist before the sun, and he was easily engaged in a keen and animated
dissertation about Lochleven trout, and sea trout, and river trout, and bull
trout, and char, which never rise to a fly, and par, which some suppose
infant salmon, and herlings, which frequent the Nith, and vendisses, which
are only found in the Castle-Loch of Lochmaben; and he was hurrying on
with the eager impetuosity and enthusiasm of a young sportsman, when he
observed that the smile with which the Queen at first listened to him died
languidly away, and that, in spite of her efforts to suppress them, tears rose
to. her eyes. He stopped suddenly short, and, distressed in his turn, asked,
"If he had the misfortune unwittingly to give displeasure to her Grace?"
"No, my poor boy," replied the Queen; "but as you numbered up the
lakes and rivers of my kingdom, imagination cheated me, as it will do,
and snatched me from these dreary walls away to the romantic streams of
Nithsdale, and the royal towers of Lochmaben.-O land, which my fathers
have so long ruled! of the pleasures which you extend so freely, your
Queen is now deprived, and the poorest beggar, who may wander free from
one landward town to another, would scorn to change fates with Mary of
Scotland!"
"Your highness," said the Lady Fleming, "will do well to withdraw."
"Come with me, then, Fleming," said the Queen, "I would not burden
hearts so young as these are, with the sight of my sorrows."
She accompanied these words with a look of melancholy compassion
towards Roland and Catherine, who were now left alone together in the
apartment.
The page found his situation not a little embarrassing; for, as every
reader has experienced who may have chanced to be in such a situation, it
is extremely difficult to maintain the full dignity of an offended person in the
presence of a beautiful girl, whatever reason we may have for being angry
with her. Catherine Seyton, on her part, sate still like a lingering ghost,
which, conscious of the awe which its presence imposes, is charitably disposed to give the poor confused mortal whom it visits, time to recover his
senses, and comply with the grand rule of demonology by speaking first.
But as Roland seemed in no hurry to avail himself of her condescension,
she carried it a step farther, and herself opened the conversation.
"I pray you, fair sir, if it may be permitted me to disturb your august
reverie by a question so simple,- what may have become of your rosary?"
"It is lost, madam -lost some time since," said Roland, partly embarrassed and partly indignant.
"And may I ask farther, sir," said Catherine, "why you have not
replaced it with another?-I have half a mind," she said, taking from her
pocket a string of ebony beads adorned with gold, "to bestow one upon
you, to keep for my sake, just to remind you of former acquaintance."




THE ABBOT.                             483
There was a little tremulous accent in the tone with which these words
were delivered, which at once put to flight Roland Groeme's resentment, and
brought him to Catherine's side; but she instantly resumed the bold and
firm accent which was more familiar to her.'I did not bid you, she said,
"come and sit so close by me; for the acquaintance that I spoke of, has
been stiff and cold, dead and buried, for this many a day."
"Now I-eaven forbid V' said the page, "it has only slept, and now that
you desire it should awake, fair Catherine, believe me that a pledge of your
returning favour-" 
"Nay, nay," said Catherine, withholding the rosary, towards which, as
he spoke, he extended his hand, "I have changed my mind on better reflection. What should a heretic do with these holy beads, that have been
blessed by the father of the church himself?"
Roland winced grievously, for he saw plainly which way the discourse
was now likely to tend; and felt that it must at all events be embarrassing.
"Nay, but," he said, "it was as a token of your own regard that you offered,them."
"Ay, fair sir, but that regard attended the faithful subject, the loyal and
pious Catholic, the individual who was so solemnly devoted at the same time
with myself to the same grand duty; which, you must now understand; was
to serve the church and Queen. To such a person, if you ever heard of him,
was my regard due, and not to him who associates with heretics, and is
about to become a renegado."
" I should. scarce believe, fair mistress," said Roland, indignantly, "that
the vane of your favour turned only to a Catholic wind, considering that it
points so plainly to George Douglas, who, I think, is both kingsman and
Protestant."
" Think better of George Douglas," said Catherine, "than to believe —and then checking herself, as if she had spoken too much, she went on,
"I assure you, fair Master Roland, that all who wish you well are sorry
for you."
"Their number is very few, I believe," answered Roland, "and their
sorrow, if they feel any, not deeper than ten minutes' time will cure."
" They are more numerous, and think more deeply concerning you, than
you seem to be aware," answered Catherine.  "But perhaps they think
wrong-You are the best judge in your own affairs; and if you prefer gold
and church-lands to honour and loyalty, and the faith of your fathers, why
should you be hampered in conscience more than others?"
"May Heaven bear witness for me," said Roland, "that if I entertain
any difference of opinion-that is, if I nourish any doubts in point of religion, they have been adopted on the conviction of my own mind, and the
suggestion of my own conscience!"
"Ay, ay, your conscience -your conscience!" repeated she with satiric
emphasis; "your conscience is the scape-goat; I warrant it an able oneit will bear the burden of one of the best manors of the Abbey of Saint
Mary of Kennaquhair, lately forfeited to our noble Lord the King, by the
Abbot and community thereof, for the high crime of fidelity to their religious vows, and now to be granted by the High and Mighty Traitor, and so
forth, James Earl of Murray, to the good squire of dames Roland Grseme,
for his loyal and faithful service as under-espial, and deputy-turnkey, for
securing the person of his lawful sovereign, Queen Mary."
"You misconstrue me cruelly," said the page; "yes, Catherine, most
cruelly- God knows I would protect this poor lady at the risk of my life,
or with my life; but what can I do-what can any one do for her?"
" Much may be done - enough may be done - all may be done - if men
will be but true and honourable, as Scottish men were in the days of Bruce
and Wallace. Oh, Roland, from what an enterprise you are now withdrawing your heart and hand, through mere fickleness and coldness of spirit'"
VOL. V.  282 




434                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
"How can I withdraw," said Roland, "from  an enterprise which has
never been communicated to me?-.Has the Queen, or have you, or has any
one, communicated with me upon any thing for her service which I have
refused?  Or have you not, all of you, held me at such distance from your.
counsels, as if I were the most faithless spy since the days of Ganelon?"*
"And who," said Catherine Seyton, " would trust the sworn friend, and
pupil, and companion, of the heretic preacher Henderson? ay-a proper
tutor you have chosen, instead of the excellent Ambrosius, who is now
turned out of house and homestead, if indeed he is not languishing in a
dungeon, for withstanding the tyranny of Morton, to whose brother the
temporalities of that noble house of God have been gifted away by the
Regent."
"Is it possible?" said the page; " and is the excellent Father Ambrose
in such distress?"
"He would account the news of your falling away from the faith of your
fathers," answered Catherine, "a worse mishap than aught that tyranny
can inflict on himself."
" But why," said Roland, very much moved, "why should you suppose
that-that-that it is with me as you say?"
"Do you yourself deny it?" replied Catherine; " do you not admit that
you have drunk the poison which you should have dashed from your lips?
-Do you deny that it now ferments in your veins, if it has not altogether
corrupted the springs of life?-Do you deny that you have your doubts, as
you proudly term them, respecting what popes and councils have declared
it unlawful to doubt of? —Is not your faith wavering, if not overthrown?Does not the heretic preacher boast his conquest?-Does not the heretic
woman of this prison-house hold up thy example to others?-Do not the
Queen and the Lady Fleming believe in thy falling away?-And is there
any except one-yes, I will speak it out, and think as lightly as you please
of my good-will-is there one except myself that holds even a lingering
hope that you may yet prove what we once all believed of you?"
" I know not," said our poor page, much embarrassed by the view which
was thus presented to him of the conduct he was expected to pursue, and by
a person in whom he was not the less interested that, though long a resident in Lochleven Castle, with no object so likely to attract his undivided
attention, no lengthened interview had taken place since they had first met,
-" I know not what you expect of me, or fear from me. I was sent hither
to attend Queen Mary, and to her I acknowledge the duty of a servant
through life and death. If any one had expected service of another kind, I
was not the party to render it. I neither avow nor disclaim the doctrines
of the reformed church.-Will you have the truth?-It seems to me that the
profligacy of the Catholic clergy has brought this judgment on their own
heads, and, for aught I know, it may be for their reformation. But, for
betraying this unhappy Queen, God knows I am guiltless of the thought.
Did I even believe worse of her, than as her servant I wish-as her subject
I dare to do-I would not betray her-far from it-I would aid her in aught
which could tend to a fair trial of her cause."
"Enough! enough!" answered Catherine, clasping her hands together;
"then thou wilt not desert us if any means are presented, by which, placing
our Royal Mistress at freedom, this case may be honestly tried betwixt her
and her rebellious subjects?"
" Nay - but, fair Catherine," replied the page, " hear but what the Lord
of Murray said when he sent me hither."" Hear but what the devil said," replied the maiden, "rather than what
a false subject, a false brother, a false counsellor, a false friend, said! A
man raised from a petty pensioner on the crown's bounty, to be the coun* Gan, Gano, or Ganelon of Mayence, is, in the Romances on the subject of Charlemagne and his Paladin,
always represented as the traitor by whom the Christian champions are,betrayed.




THE ABBOT.                               435
sellor of maLjesty, and the prime distributor of the bounties of the state; -
one with whom rank, fortune, title, consequence, and power, all grew up
like a mushroom, by the mere warm  good-will of the sister, whom, in
requital, he hath mewed up in this place of melancholy seclusion -whom,
in farther requital, he has deposed, and whom, if he dared, he would murder!
"I think not so ill of the Earl of Murray," said Roland Grseme; " and
sooth to speak," he added, with a smile, "it would require some bribe to
make me embrace, with firm and desperate resolution, either one side or the
other."
"Nay, if that is all," replied Catherine Seyton, in a tone of enthusiasm,
"you shall be guerdoned with prayers from oppressed subjects -from dispossessed clergy -from insulted nobles   with immortal praise by future
ages - with eager gratitude by the present - with fame on earth, and with
felicity in heaven! Your country will thank you-your Queen will be
deb tor to you- you will achieve at once the highest from the lowest degree
in chivalry - all men will honour, all women will love you - and I, sworn
with you so early to the accomplishment of Queen Mary's freedom, willyes, I will -love you better than - ever sister loved brother!
" Say on -say on!" whispered Roland, kneeling on one knee, and taking
her hand, which, in the warmth of exhortation, Catherine held towards him.
" Nay," said she, pausing, " I have already said too much- far too much,
if I prevail not with you- tfar too little if I do. But I prevail," she continued, seeing that the countenance of the youth she addressed returned the
enthusiasm  of her own-"I prevail; or rather the good cause prevails
through its own strength-thus I devote thee to it."  And as she spoke she
approached her finger to the brow of the astonished youth, and, without
touching it, signed the cross over his forehead —stooped her face towards
him, and seemed to kiss the empty space in which she had traced the symbol; then starting up, and extricating herself from his grasp, darted into
the Queen's apartment.
Roland Graeme remained as the enthusiastic maiden had left him, kneeling
on one knee, with breath withheld, and with eyes fixed upon the space which
the fairy form of Catherine Seyton had so lately occupied. If his thoughts
were not of unmixed delight, they at least partook of that thrilling and
intoxicating, though mingled sense of pain and pleasure, the most overpowering which life offers in its blended cup. He rose and retired slowly;
and although the chaplain Mr. Henderson preached on that evening his best
sermon against the errors of Popery, I would not engage that he was followed accurately through the train of his reasoning by the young proselyte,
with a view to whose especial benefit he had handled the subject.
D   frr  t!r  gmn  tq-YiftD.
And when love's torch hath set the heart in flame,
Comes Seignor Reason with his saws and cautions,
Giving such aid as the old gray-beard Sexton,
Who from the church-vault drags the crazy engine,
To ply its dribbling ineffectual streamlet
Against a conflagration.
OLD PLAY.
IN a musing mood, Roland  rsemme upon the ensuing morning betook
himself to the battlements of the Castle, as a spot where he might indulge
the course of his thick-coming fancies with least chance of interruption.




436                 WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
DBut his place )f retirement was in the present case ill chosen, for he was
presently joined by Mr. Elias Henderson.
" I sought you, young man," said the preacher, "having to speak of something which concerns you nearly."
The page had no pretence for avoiding the conference which the chaplain
thus offered, though he felt that it might prove an embarrassing one.
"In teaching thee, as far as my feeble knowledge hath permitted, thy
duty towards (od," said the chaplain, "there are particulars of your duty
towards man, upon which I was unwilling long or much to insist.  You are
here in the service of a lady, honourable as touching her birth, deserving
of all compassion as respects her misfortunes, and garnished with even but
too many of those outward'qualities which win men's regard and affection.
Have you ever considered your regard to this Lady Mary of Scotland, in its
true light and bearing?"
"I trust, reverend sir," replied Roland Graeme, "that I am well aware
of the duties a servant in my condition owes to his royal mistress, especially
in her lowly and distressed condition."
"True," answered the preacher; "but it is even that honest feeling which
may, in the Lady Mary's case, carry thee into great crime and treachery."
" How so, reverend sir?" replied the page; "I profess I understand you.
not."
"I speak to you not of the crimes of this ill-advised lady," said the
preacher; "they are not subjects for the ears of her sworn servant.  But it
is enough to say, that this unhappy person hath rejected more offers of grace,
and more hopes of glory, than ever were held out to earthly princes; and
that she is now, her day of favour being passed, sequestered in this lonely
castle,foi the common weal of the people of Scotland, and it may be for the''benefit of her own soul."
"Reverend sir," said Roland, somewhat impatiently, "I am but too well
aware that my unfortunate mistress is imprisoned, since I have the misfortune to share in her restraint myself-of which, to speak sooth, I am heartily
weary."
"It is even of that which I am about to speak," said the chaplain, mildly
but, first, my good Roland, look forth on the pleasant prospect of yonder
cultivated plain. You see, where the smoke arises, yonder village standing
half hidden by the trees, and you know it to be the dwelling-place of peace
and industry. From  space to space, each by the side of its own stream;
you see the gray towers of barons, with cottages interspersed; and you
know that they also, with their household, are now living in unity; the
lance hung upon the wall, and the sword resting in its sheath. You see;
too, more than one fair church, where the pure-waters of life are offered to
the thirsty, and where the hungry are refreshed with spiritual food.-What
would he deserve, who should bring fire and slaughter into so fair and happy
a scene -who should bare the swords of the gentry and turn them against
each other-who should give tower and cottage to the flames, and slake the
embers with the blood of the indwellers?   What would he deserve who
should lift up again that ancient Dagon of Superstition, whom the worthies
of the time have beaten down, and who should once more make the churches
of God the high places of Baal?"
"You have limned a frightful picture, reverend sir," said Roland Groeme;
"yet I guess not whom you would charge with the purpose of effecting
a change so horrible."
"God forbid,' replied the preacher, "that' I should say to thee, Thou art
the man.- Yet beware, Roland Gra3me, that thou, in serving thy mistress,
hold fast the still higher service which thou owest to the peace of thy
country, and the prosperity of her inhabitants; else, Roland Grieme, thou
mayest be the very man upon whose head will fall the curses and assured
punishment due to such work. If thou art won by the song of these sirens




THE ABBOT.                            437
to aid tlat unhappy lady's escape from this place of penitence and security,
it is over with the peace of Scotland's cottages, and with the prosperity of
her palaces -and the babe unborn shall curse the name of the man who
gave inlet to the disorder which will follow the war betwixt the mother and
the son."
"I know of no such plan, reverend sir," answered the page, "and therefore can aid none such. -My duty towards the Queen has been simply that
of an attendant; it is a task, of which, at times, I would willingly have been
freed; nevertheless."
"It is to prepare thee for the enjoyment of something more of liberty,"
said the preacher, "that I have endeavoured to impress upon you the deep
responsibility under which your office must be discharged. George Douglas
hath told the Lady Lochleven that you are weary of this service, and my
intercession hath partly determined her good ladyship, that, as your discharge cannot be granted, you shall, instead, be employed in certain commissions on the mainland, which have hitherto been discharged by other
persons of confidence. Wherefore, come with me to the lady, for even
to-day such duty will be imposed on you."
"I trust you will hold me excused, reverend sir," said the page, who felt
that an increase of confidence on the part of the Lady of the Castle and her
family would render his situation in a moral view doubly embarrassing,
"one cannot serve two masters-and I much fear that my mistress will not
hold me excused for taking employment under another."
"Fear not that," said the preacher; "her consent shall be asked and
obtained. I fear she will yield it but too easily, as hoping to avail herself
of your agency to maintain correspondence with her friends, as those falsely
call themselves, who would make her name the watchword for civil war."
" And thus," said the page, " I shall be exposed to suspicion on all sides;
for my mistress will consider me as a spy placed on her by her enemies,
seeing me so far trusted by them; and the Lady Lochleven will never cease
to suspect the possibility of my betraying her, because circumstances put it
into my power to do so-I would rather remain as I am."
There followed a pause of one or two minutes, during which Henderson
looked steadily in Roland's countenance, as if desirous to ascertain whether
there was not more in the answer than the precise words seemed to imply.
He failed in this point, however; for Roland, bred a page from childhood,
knew how to assume a sullen pettish cast of countenance, well enough calculated to hide all internal emotions.
"'I understand thee not, Roland," said the preacher, "or rather thou
thinkest on this matter more deeply than I apprehended to be in thy nature,
Methought, the delight of going on shore with thy bow, or thy gun, or thy
angling-rod, would have borne away all other feelings."
" And so it would," replied Roland, who perceived the danger of suffering
Henderson's half-raised suspicions to become fully awake,-" I would have
thought of nothing but the gun and the oar, and the wild water-fowl that
tempt me by sailing among the sedges yonder so far out of flight-shot, had
you not spoken of my going on shore as what was to occasion burning
of town and tower, the downfall of the evangele, and the upsetting of the
mass."
" Follow me, then," said Henderson, " and we will seek the Lady Lochleven."
They found her at breakfast with her grandson George Douglas.-" Peace
be with your ladyship i" said the preacher, bowing to his patroness; "Roland
Grmeme awaits your order."
"Young man," said the lady, "our chaplain hath warranted for thy
fidelity, and we are determined to give you certain errands to do for us
in our town of Kinross."
* Not by my advice," said Douglas, coldly.
2M2




438                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"I said not that it was," answered the lady, something sharply.  "The
mother of thy father may, I'should think, be old enough to judge for herself
in a matter so simple. - Thou' wilt take the skiff, Roland, and two of my
people, whom Dryfesdale or Randal will order out, and fetch off certain
stuff of plate and hangings, which should last night be lodged at Kinross
by the wains from Edinburgh."
"And give this packet," said George Douglas,,"to a servant of ours,
whom you will find in waiting there. - It is the report to my father," he
added, looking towards his grandmother, who acquiesced by bending her
head.
"I have already mentioned to Master Henderson," said Roland Grreme,
"that as my duty requires my attendance on the Queen, her Grace's permission for my journey ought to be obtained before I can undertake your
commission."
"Look to it, my son," said the old lady, "the scruple of the youth is
honourable."
" Craving your pardon, madam, I have no wish to force myself on her
presence thus early," said Douglas, in an indifferent tone; " it might displease her, and were no way agreeable to me."
"And I," said the Lady Lochleven, "although her temper hath been
more gentle of late, have no will to undergo, without necessity, the rancour
of her wit."
"Under your permission, madam," said the chaplain, "I will myself
render your request to the Queen. During my long residence in this house
she hath not deigned to see me in private, or to hear my doctrine; yet so
may Heaven prosper my labours, as love for her soul, and desire to bring
her into the right path, was my chief desire for coming hither."
"Take care, Master Henderson," said Douglas, in a tone which seemed
almost sarcastic, "lest you rush hastily on an adventure to which you halve
no vocation -you are learned, and know the adage, Ne accesseris in consilium nisi vocatus.-Who hath required this at your hand?"
" The Master to whose service I am called," answered the preacher, looking upward,-" He who hath commanded me to be earnest in season and
out of season."' Your acquaintance hath not been much, I think, with courts or princes,"
continued the young Esquire.
" No, sir," replied Henderson, "but like my Master Knox, I see nothing
frightful in the fair face of a pretty lady."
"My son," said'the Lady of Lochleven, "quench not the good man's zeal
-let him do the errand to this unhappy Princess."
" With more willingness'than I would do it myself," said George Douglas.
Yet something in his manner appeared to contradict his words.
The minister went accordingly, followed by Roland Groeme, and, demanding an audience of the imprisoned Princess, was admitted. He found her
with her ladies engaged in the daily task of embroidery. The Queen
received him with that courtesy, which,' in ordinary cases, she used towards
all who approached her, and the clergyman, in opening his commission, was
obviously somewhat more embarrassed than he had expected'to be.  " The
good Lady of Lochleven - may it please your Grace    "
He made a short pause, during which Mary said, with a smile, "My
Grace would, in truth, be well pleased, were the Lady Lochleven our good
lady - But go on - what is the will of the good Lady of Lochleven?"
"She desires, madam," said the chaplain, "that your Grace will permit
this young gentleman, your page, Roland Grmeme, to pass to Kinross, to look
after some household stuff and hangings, sent hither'for the better furnish.
ing your Grace's apartments."
"The Lady of Lochleven," said the Queen, " uses needless ceremony, in
requesting our permission for that which stands within her own pleasure.




THE  ABBOT.                            439
We well know that this young gentleman's attendance on us had not been
so long permitted, were he not thought to be more at the command of that
good lady than at ours.-But we cheerfully yield consent that he shall go on
her errand-with our will we would doom no living creature to the captivity
which we ourselves must suffer."
"Ay, madam," answered the preacher, "and it is doubtless natural for
humanity to quarrel with its prison-house. Yet there have been those, who
have found, that time spent in the house of temporal captivity may be so
employed as to redeem us from spiritual slavery."
"I apprehend your meaning, sir," replied the Queen, " but I have heard
your apostle-I have heard Master John Knox; and were I to be perverted,
I would willingly resign to the ablest and most powerful of heresiarchs, the
poor honour he might acquire by overcoming my faith and my hope."
"Madam," said the preacher, "it is not to the talents or skill of the
husbandman that God gives the increase - the words which were offered in
vain by him whom you justly call our apostle, during the bustle and gaiety
of a court, may yet find better acceptance during the leisure for reflection
which this place affords. God knows, lady, that I speak in singleness of heart,
as one who would as soon compare himself to the immortal angels, as to the
holy man whom you have named. Yet would you but condescend to apply
to their noblest use, those talents and that learning which all allow you to,
be possessed of- would you afford us but the slightest'hope that you would
hear and regard what can be urged against the blinded superstition and
idolatry in which you are brought up, sure am I, that the most powerfullygifted of my brethren, that even John Knox himself, would hasten hither,
and account the rescue of your single soul from  the nets of Romish
error    "
"I am obliged to you and to them for their charity," said Mary; " but
as I have at present but one presence-chamber, I would reluctantly see it
converted into a Huguenot synod."
"At least, madam, be not thus obstinately blinded in your errors! Hear
one who has hungered and thirsted, watched and prayed, to undertake the
good work of your conversion, and who would be content to die the instant
that a work so advantageous for yourself and so beneficial to Scotland were
accomplished-Yes, lady, could I but shake the remaining pillar of the
heathen temple in this land - and that permit me to term your faith in the
delusions of Rome - I could be content to die overwhelmed in the ruins!"
"I will not insult your zeal, sir," replied Mary, " by saying you are more
likely to make sport for the Philistines than to overwhelm them -your
charity claims my thanks, for it is warmly expressed and may be truly purposed - But believe as well of me as I am willing to do of you, and think
that I may be as anxious to recall you to the ancient and only road, as you
are to teach me your new by-ways to paradise."
"Then, madam, if such be your generous purpose," said Henderson,
eagerly, "what hinders that we should dedicate some part of that time,
unhappily now too much at your Grace's disposal, to discuss a question so
veighty? You, by report of all men, are both learned and witty; and I,
though without such advantages, am strong in my cause as in a tower of
defence. Why should we not spend some space in endeavouring to discover which of us hath the wrong side in this important matter?"
"Nay," said Queen Mary, "I never alleged my force was strong enough
to accept of a combat en champ clos, with a scholar and a polemic. Besides,
the match is not equal. You, sir, might retire when you felt the battle go
against you, while I am tied to the stake, and have no permission to say the
debate wearies me.   I would be alone."
She curtsied low to him as she uttered these words; and Henderson,,
whose zeal was indeed ardent, but did not extend to the neglect of delicacy,
bowed in return, and prepared to withdraw.




440                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"I would,'" he said, "that my earnest wish, my most zealous prayer
could procure to your Grace any blessing or comfort, but especially that in
which alone blessing or comfort is, as easily as the slightest intimation of
your wish will remove me from your presence."
He was in the act of departing, when Mary said to him with much
courtesy, " Do me no injury in your thoughts, good sir; it may be, that if
my time here be protracted longer-as surely I hope it will not, trusting
that either my rebel subjects will repent of their disloyalty, or that my
faithful lieges will obtain the upper hand -but if my time be here: pro-,
tracted, it may be I shall have no displeasure in hearing one who seems so
reasonable and compassionate as yourself, and I may hazard your contempt
by endeavouring to recollect and repeat the reasons which schoolmen and
councils give for the faith that is in me, - although I fear that, God help
me! my Latin has deserted me with my other possessions. This must,
however, be for another day. Meanwhile, sir, let the Lady of Lochleven
employ my page as she lists -I will not afford suspicion by speaking a
word to him before he goes.    Roland Grmeme, my friend, lose not an opportunity of amusing thyself- dance, sing, run, and leap - all may be done
merrily on the mainland; but he must have more than quicksilver in his
veins who would frolic here."
" Alas! madam," said the preacher, "to what is it you exhort the youth,
while time passes, and eternity summons?  Can our salvation be insured
by idle mirth, or our good work wrought out without. fear and trembling?'"
"I cannot fear or tremble," replied the Queen; " to Mary Stewart such
emotions are unknown. But if weeping and sorrow on my part will atone
for the boy's enjoying an hour of boyish pleasure, be assured the penance
shall be duly paid."
"Nay, but, gracious lady," said the preacher, "in this you greatly err;
-our tears and our sorrows are all too little for our own faults and follies,
nor can we transfer them, as your church falsely teaches, to the benefit of
others."
"May, I pray you, sir," answered the Queen, "with as little offence as
such a prayer may import, to transfer yourself elsewhere? We are sick at
heart, and may not now be, disposed with farther controversy   and thou,
Roland, take this little purse;" (then, turning to the divine, she said, showing its contents,) " Look, reverend sir, -it contains only these two or three
gold testoons, a coin which, though bearing my own poor features, I have
ever found more active against me than on my side, just as my subjects take
arms against me, with my own name for their summons and signal.-Take
this purse, that thou mayest want no means of amusement. Fail not-fail
not to bring me back news from  Kinross; only let it be such as, without
suspicion or offence, may be told in the presence of this reverend gentleman,
or of the good Lady Lochleven herself."
The last hint was too irresistible to be withstood; and Henderson withdrew,
half mortified, half pleased, with his reception; for Mary, from long habit,
and the address which was natural to her, had learned, in an extraordinary
degree, the art of evading discourse which was disagreeable to her feelings
or prejudices, without affronting those by whom it was proffered.
Roland Grweme retired with the chaplain, at a signal from his lady; but
it did not escape him, that as he left the room, stepping backwards, and
making the deep obeisance due to royalty, Catherine Seyton held up her
slender forefinger, with a gesture which he alone could witness, and which
seemed to say, "Remember what has passed betwixt us."
The young page had now his last charge from the Lady of Lochleven.
"There are revels," she said, "this day at the village - my son's authority
is, as yet, unable to prevent these continued workings of the ancient leaven
of folly which the Romish priests have kneaded into the very souls of the
Scottish peasantry. I do not command thee to abstain from them -that




THE  ABBOT.                             441
would be only to lay a snare for thy folly, or to teach thee falsehood; but
enjoy these vanities with moderation, and mark themas something thou
must soon learn to renounce and contemn. Our chamberlain at Kinross,
Luke Lundin,-Doctor, as he foolishly calleth himself, -will acquaint thee
what is to be done in the matter about which thou goest.  Remember thou
art trusted -show thyself, therefore, worthy of trust."
When we recollect that Roland Groeme was not yet nineteen, and that he
had spent his whole life in the solitary Castle of Avenel, excepting the few
hours he had passed in Edinburgh, and his late residence at Lochleven, (the
latter period having very little served to enlarge his acquaintance with the
gay world,) we cannot wonder that his heart beat high with hope and
curiosity, at the prospect of partaking the sport even of a country wake.
He hastened to his little cabin, and turned over the wardrobe with which
(in every respect becoming his station) he had been supplied from Edinburgh, probably by order of the Earl of Murray. By the Queen's command he
had hitherto waited upon her in mourning, or at least in sad-coloured raiment.
iHer condition, she said, admitted of nothing more gay. But now he selected
the gayest dress his wardrobe afforded; composed of scarlet slashed with
black satin, the royal colours of Scotland - combed his long curled hair 
disposed his chain and medal round a beaver hat of the newest block; and
with the gay falchion which had reached him in so mysterious a manner,
hung by his side in an embroidered belt, his apparel, added to his natural
frank mien and handsome figure, formed a most commendable and pleasing
specimen of the young gallant of the period.. He sought to make his parting reverence to the Queen and her ladies, but old Dryfesdale hurried him
to the boat.
"We will have no private audiences," he said, "my master; since you
are to be trusted with somewhat, we will try at least to save thee from the
temptation of opportunity. God help thee, child," he added, with a glance
of contempt at his gay clothes, "an the bear-ward be yonder from Saint
Andrews, have a care thou go not near him."
"And wherefore, I pray you?" said Roland.
"Lest he take thee for one of his runaway jackanapes," answered the
steward, smiling sourly.
" I wear not my clothes at thy cost," said Roland indignantly.
"Nor at thine own either, my son," replied the steward, "else would thy
garb more nearly resemble thy merit and thy station."
Roland GrTeme suppressed with difficulty the repartee which arose to his
lips, and, wrapping his scarlet mantle around him, threw himself into the
boat, which two rowers, themselves urged by curiosity to see the revels,
pulled stoutly towards the west end of the lake. As they put off, Roland
thought he could discover the face of Catherine Seyton, though carefully
withdrawn from observation, peeping from a loophole to view his departure.
He pulled off his hat, and held it up as a token that he saw and wished her
adieu. A white kerchief waved for a second across the window, and for the
rest of the little voyage, the thoughts of Catherine Seyton disputed ground
in his breast with the expectations excited by the approaching revel. As
they drew nearer and nearer the shore, the sounds of mirth and music, the
laugh, the halloo, and the shout, came thicker upon the ear, and in a trice
the boat was moored, and Roland Graeme hastened in quest of the chamberlain, that, being informed what time he had at hisown disposal, he might
lay it out to the best advantage.




442                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
64fftrr tg?'Wp2t4-lirt0.
Room for the master of the ring, ye swains,
Divide your crowded ranks-bheore him march
The rural minstrelsy, the rattling drum,
The clamorous war-pipe, and far-echoing horn.
Rural Sports.- SOMERVILLE.
No long space intervened ere Roland Grseme was able to discover among
the crowd of revellers, who gambolled upon the open space which extends
betwixt the village and the lake, a person of so great importance as Dr.
Luke Lundin, upon whom devolved officially the charge of representing the
lord of the land, and who was attended for support of his authority by a
piper, a drummer, and four sturdy clowns armed with rusty halberds, garnished with party-coloured ribbons; myrmidons who, early as the day was,
had already broken more than one head in the awful names of the Laird of
Lochleven and his chamberlain.*
As soon as this dignitary was informed that the castle skiff had arrived,
with a gallant, dressed like a lord's son at the least, who desired presently
to speak to him, he adjusted his ruff and his black coat, turned round his
girdle till the garnished hilt of his long rapier became visible, and walked
with due solemnity towards the beach. Solemn indeed he was entitled to
be, even on less important occasions, for he had been bred to the venerable'
study of medicine, as those acquainted with the science very soon discovered from  the aphorisms which ornamented his discourse.  His success
had not been equal to his pretensions; but as he was a native of the neighbouring kingdom of Fife, and bore distant relation to, or dependence upon,
the ancient family of Lundin of that Ilk, who were bound in close friendship with the house of Lochleven, he had, through their interest, got planted
comfortably enough in his present station upon the banks of that beautiful
lake.  The profits of his chamberlainship being moderate, especially in
those unsettled times, he had eked it out a little with some practice in his
original profession; and it was said that the inhabitants of the village and
barony of Kinross were not more effectually thirled (which may be translated enthralled) to the baron's mill, than they were to the medical monopoly of the chamberlain. Wo betide the family of the rich boor, who presumed to depart this life without a passport from  Dr. Luke Lundin! for if
his representatives had aught to settle with the baron, as it seldom happened
otherwise, they were sure to find a cold friend in the chamberlain.  He was
considerate enough, however, gratuitously to help the poor out of their ailments, and sometimes out of all their other distresses at the same time.
Formal, in a double proportion, both as a physician and as a person in
office, and proud of the scraps of learning which rendered his language
almost universally unintelligible, Dr. Luke Lundin approached the beach,
and hailed the page as he advanced towards him. —" The freshness of the
morning upon you, fair sir-You are sent, I warrant me, to see if we obserxe
here the regimen which her good ladyship hath prescribed, for eschewing all
* At Scottish fairs, the bailie, or magistrate, deputed by the lord in whose name the meeing is held, attends
the fair with his guard, decides trifling disputes, and punishes on the spot any petty'elinquencies. His
attendants are usually armed with halberds, and sometimes, at least, escorted by miusic. Thus, in the "Life
and Death of Habbie Simpson," we are told of that famous minstrel,"At fairs he play'd before the spear-men,
And gaily graithed in their gear-men;Steel bonnets, jacks, and swords shone clear then,
Like ony bead;
Now wha shall play before sic weir-men,
Since Habbie's dead 




THE ABBOT.                              443
superstitious observances and idle anilities in these our revels. I am aware
that her good ladyship would willingly have altogether abolished and abrogated them-But as I had the honour to quote to her from the works of the
learned Hercules of Saxony, omnis curatio est vel canonica vel coacta,-that
is, fair sir, (for silk and velvet have seldom their Latin ad unguem,) every
cure must.be wrought either by art and induction of rule, or by constraint;
and the wise physician chooseth the former. Which argument her ladyship
being pleased to allow well of, I have made it my business so to blend
instruction and caution with delight-fiat mixtio, as we say -that I can
answer that the vulgar mind will be defecated and purged of anile and
Popish fooleries by the medicament adhibited, so that the prince vice being
cleansed, Master Henderson, or any other able pastor, may at will throw in
tonics, and effectuate a perfect moral cure, tuto, cite, jucunde."
"I have no charge, Dr. Lundin," replied the page"Call me not doctor," said the chamberlain, "since I have laid aside my
furred gown and bonnet, and retired me into this temporality of chamberlainship."
"Oh, sir," said the page, who was no stranger by report to the character
of this original, "the cowl makes not the monk, neither the cord the friarwe have all heard of the cures wrought by Dr. Lundin."
"Toys, young sir-trifles," answered the leech with grave disclamation
of superior skill; "the hit-or-miss practice of a poor retired gentleman, in a
short cloak and doublet-Marry, Heaven-sent its blessing-and this I must
say, better fashioned mediciners have brought fewer patients throughlunga roba corta scienzia, saith the Italian - ha, fair sir, you have the
language?"
Roland Graeme did not think it necessary to expound to this learned Theban whether he understood him or no; but, leaving that matter uncertain,
he told him he came in quest of certain packages which should have arrived
at Kinross, and been placed under the chamberlain's charge the evening
before.
"Body o' me!" said Doctor Lundin, "I fear our common carrier, John
Auchtermuchty, hath met with some mischance, that he came not up last
night with his wains-bad land this to journey in, my master; and the fool
will travel by night too, although, (besides all maladies from your tussis to
your yestis, which walk abroad in the night-air,) he may well fall in with
half a dozen swash-bucklers, who will ease him at once of his baggage and
his earthly complaints. I must send forth to inquire after him, since he
hath stuff of the honourable household on hand-and, by our Lady, he hath
stuff of mine too-certain drugs sent me from the city for composition of my
alexipharmics-this gear must be looked to.-Hodge," said he, addressing
one of his redoubted body-guard, "do thou and Toby Telford take the
mickle brown aver and the black cut-tailed mare, and make out towards the
Kerry-craigs, and see what tidings you can have of Auchtermuchty and his
wains-I trust it is only the medicine of the pottle-pot, (being the only medicamentum which the beast useth,) which hath caused him to tarry on the
road.  Take the ribbons from your halberds, ye knaves, and get on your
jacks, plate-sleeves, and knapskulls, that your presence may work some
terror if you meet with opposers."  He then added, turning to Roland
Graeme, " I warrant me, we shall have news of the wains in brief season.
Meantime it will please you to look upon the sports; but first to enter my
poor lodging and take your morning's cup. For what saith the school of
Salerno?
Poculum, mane haustum,
Restaurat naturam exhaustam."
"Your learning is too profound for me," replied the page; "and so
would your draught be likewise, I fear."
"Not a whit, fair sir - a cordial cup of sack, impregnated with worm



444                  WAVERLEY-NOVELS.
wood, is the best anti-pestilential draught; and, to speak truth, the pestilential miasmata are now very rife in the atmosphere. We live in a
happy time, young man," continued he, in a tone.of grave irony, "and
have many blessings unknown to our.fathers- Here are two sovereigns in
the land, a regnant and a claimant-that is enough of one good thing-but
if any one wants more, he may find a king in every peel-house in the
country; so if we lack government, it is not for want of governors. Then
have we a civil war to phlebotomize us every year, and to prevent our
population from starving for want of food- and for the same purpose we
have the Plague proposing us a visit, the best of all recipes for thinning a
land, and converting younger brothers into elder ones. Well, each man in
his vocation. You young fellows of the sword desire to wrestle, fence, or
so forth, with some expert adversary; and for my part, I love to match
myself for life or.death against that same Plague."
As they proceeded up the street of the little village towards the Doctor's
lodgings, his attention was successively occupied by the various personages
whom he met, and pointed out to the notice of his companion.
"Do you see that fellow with the red bonnet, the blue jerkin, and the
great rough baton in his hand?-I believe that clown hath the strength of
a tower —he has lived fifty years in the world, and never encouraged the
liberal sciences by buying one penny-worth of medicaments.-But see you
that man with the faczes hippocratica?" said he, pointing out a thin peasant,
with swelled legs, and a most cadaverous countenance; "that I call one of
the worthiest men in.the barony-he breakfasts, luncheons, dines, and sups
by my advice, and not without my medicine; and, for his own single part,
will go farther to clear out a moderate stock of pharmaceutics, than half
the country besides.-How do you, my honest friend?" said he to the party
in question, with a tone of condolence.
"Very weakly, sir, since I took the electuary," answered the patient;
"it neighboured ill with the two spoonfuls of pease-porridge and the kirnmilk."
"Pease-porridge and kirnmilk! Have you been under medicine these
ten years, and keep your diet so ill?-the next morning take the electuary
by itself, and touch nothing for six hours."'  The poor object bowed, and
limped off.
The next whom the Doctor deigned to take notice of, was a lame fellow,
by whom  the honour was altogether undeserved, for at sight of the
mediciner, he began to shuffle away in the crowd as fast as his infirmities
would permit.
"There is an ungrateful hound for you," said Doctor Lundin; "I cured
him of the gout in his feet, and now he talks of the chargeableness of
medicine, and makes the first use of his restored legs to fly from  his
physician. His podagra hath become a chiragra, as honest Martial hath it
— the gout has got into his fingers, and he cannot draw his purse. Old
saying and true,
Preemia cum poscit medicus, Sathan est.
We are angels when we come to cure-devils when we ask payment-but I
will administer a purgation to his purse I warrant him. There is his
brother too, a sordid chuff.-So ho, there! Saunders Darlet! you have been
ill, I hear?"
"Just got the turn, as I was thinking to send to your honour, and I am
brawly now again-it was nae great thing that ailed me."
"Hark you, sirrah," said the Doctor, "I trust you remember you are
owing to the laird four stones of barleymeal, and a bow of oats; and I
would have you send no more such kain-fowls as you sent last season, that
looked as wretchedly as patients just dismissed from a plague-hospital; and
there is hard money owing besides."'




THE: ABBOT.                            445
" I was thinking, sir;" said the man, more Scotico, that is, returning no
direct answer on the subject on which he was addressed, "my best way
would be to come down to your honour, and take your advice yet, in case
my trouble should come back."
"Do so, then, knave," replied Lundin, "and remember what Ecclesiasticus
saith-' Give place to the physician —let him not go from thee, for thou hast'
need of him.'"
His exhortation was interrupted by an apparition, which seemed to
strike the doctor with as much horror and surprise, as his own visage inflicted upon sundry of those persons whom he had addressed.
The figure which produced this effect on the Esculapius of the village,
was that of a tall old woman, who wore a high-crowned hat and muffler.
The first of these habiliments added apparently to her stature, and the
other served to conceal the lower part of her face, and as the hat itself was
slouched, little could be seen besides two brown cheek-bones, and the eyes
of swarthy fire, that gleamed from under two shaggy gray eyebrows. She
was dressed in a long dark-coloured robe of unusual fashion, bordered at
the skirts, and on the stomacher, with a sort of white trimming resembling
the Jewish phylacteries, on which were wrought the characters of some
unknown language.  She held in her hand a walking staff of black
ebony.
"By the soul of Celsus," said Doctor Luke Lundin, "it' is old Mother
Nicneven herself- she hathl come to beard me within mine own bounds,
and in the very execution of mine office! Have at thy coat, Old Woman,
as the song says —Hob Anster, let her presently be seized and committed to
the tolbooth; and if there are any zealous. brethren here who would give
the hag her deserts, and duck her, as a witch, in the loch, I pray let them
in no way be hindered."
But the myrmidons of-Dr. Lundin showed in this case no alacrity to do
his bidding. HIob Anster even ventured to remonstrate in the name of
himself and his brethren. " To be sure he was to do his honour's bidding;
and for a' that folks said about the skill and witcheries of Mother Nicneven,
he would put his trust in God, and his hand on her collar,-without dreadour.
But she was no common spaewife, this Mother Nicneven, like Jean Jopp
that lived in the Brierie-baulk. She had lords and lairds that would ruffle.
for her. There was Moncrieff of Tippermalloch, that was Popish, and the
laird of Carslogie, a kend Queen's man, were in the fair, with wha kend
how mony swords and bucklers at their back; and they would be sure to
make a break-out if the officers meddled with the auld Popish witch-wife,
who was sae weel friended; mair especially as the laird's best men, such
as were not in the castle, were in Edinburgh with him, and he doubted his
honour the Doctor would find ower few to make a good backing, if blades
were bare."
The doctor listened unwillingly to this prudential counsel, and was only
comforted by the faithful promise of his satellite, that "the old woman
should," as he expressed it, "be ta'en canny the next time she trespassed
on the bounds."
"And in that event," said the Doctor to his companion, "fire and fagot
shall be the best of her welcome."
This he spoke in hearing of the dame herself, who even then, and in
passing the Doctor, shot towards him from under her gray eyebrows a look
of the most insulting and contemptuous superiority.
" This way," continued the physician, "this way," marshalling his guest
into his lodging,-" take care you stumble not- over a retort, for it is hazardous for the ignorant to walk in the ways of art."
The page found'all reason for the caution; for-besides stuffed birds, and
lizards, and snakes bottled up, and bundles of simples made up, and other
parcels spread out to dry, and all the confusion, not to mention the iaingled
2N




446                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
and sickening smells, incidental to a druggist's stock in trade, he had.also
to avoid heaps of charcoal crucibles, bolt-heads, stoves, and the other furniture of a chemical laboratory.
Amongst his other philosophical qualities, Doctor Lundin failed not to be
a confused sloven, and his old dame housekeeper, whose life, as she said,
was spent in "redding him up," had trotted off to the mart of gaiety with
other and younger folks. Much chattering and jangling therefore there was
among jars, and bottles, and vials, ere the Doctor produced the salutiferous
potion which he recommended so strongly, and a search equally long and
noisy followed, among broken cans and cracked pipkins, ere he could bring
forth a cup out of which to drink it. Both matters being at length achieved,
the Doctor set the example to his guest, by quaffing off a cup of the cordial,
and smacking his lips with approbation as it descended his gullet.-Roland,
in turn, submitted to swallow the potion which his host so earnestly recommended, but which he found so insufferably bitter, that he became eager to
escape from the laboratory in search of a draught of fair water to expel the
taste. In spite of his efforts, he was nevertheless detained by the garrulity
of his host, till he gave him some account of Mother Nicneven.
"I care not to speak of her," said the Doctor, "in the open air, and
among the throng of people; not for fright, like yon cowardly dog Anster,
but because I would give no occasion for a fray, having no leisure to look to
stabs, slashes, and broken bones. Men call the old hag a prophetess-I do
scarce believe she could foretell when a brood of chickens will chip the shell
-Men say she reads the heavens-my black bitch knows as much of them
when she sits baying the moon-Men pretend the ancient wretch is a sorceress, a witch, and what not-Inter nos, I will never contradict a rumour
which may bring her to the stake which she so justly deserves; but neither
will I believe that the tales of witches which they din into our ears are
aught but knavery, cozenage, and old women's fables."
"In the name of Heaven, what is she then," said the page, "that you
make such a stir about her?"
" She is one of those cursed old women," replied the Doctor, "who take
currently and impudently upon themselves to act as advisers and curers of
the sick, on the strength of some trash of herbs, some rhyme of spells, some
julap or diet, drink or cordial."
"Nay, go no farther," said the page; "if they brew cordials, evil be their
lot and all their partakers!"
"You say well, young man," said Dr. Lundin; "for mine own part, I
know no such pests to the commonwealth as these old incarnate devils, who
haunt the chambers of the brain-sick patients, that are mad enough to
suffer them  to interfe:  e with, disturb, and let, the regular process of a
learned and artificial cure, with their sirups, and their julaps, and diascordium, and mithridate, and my Lady What-shall-call'um's powder, and
worthy Dame Trashem's pill; and thus make widows and orphans, and
cheat the regular and well-studied physician, in order to get the name of
wise women and skeely neighbours, and so forth. But no more on'tMother Nicneven* and I will meet one day, and she shall know there is
danger in dealing with the Doctor."
" It is a true word, and many have found it," said the page; " but under
your favour, I would fain walk abroad for a little, and see these sports."
"It is well moved," said the Doctor, "and I too should be showing myself abroad. Moreover the play waits us, young man-to-day, totus mundus
agit histrionenm."-And they sallied forth accordingly into the mirthful
scene.
*This was the name given to the grand Mother Witch, the very Hecate of Scottish popular superstition.
Her name was bestowed, in one or two instances, upon sorceresses, who were held to resemble her by their
%uperior skill in " Hell's black grammar."




THE  ABBOT.                              447
XCla  te    ts  tmntt-ltnelnti.
See on yon verdant lawn, the gathering crowd
Thickens amain; the buxom nymphs advance,
Usher'd by jolly clowns; distinctions cease,
Lost in the common joy, and the bold slave
Leans on his wealthy master unreproved.
Rutral Games.-SoMERvILLE.
THE re-appearance of the dignified Chamberlain on the street of the viliage was eagerly hailed by the revellers, as a pledge that the play, or
dramatic representation, which had been postponed owing to his absence,
was now full surely to commence.  Any thing like an approach to this
most interesting of all amusements, was of recent origin in Scotland, and
engaged public attention in proportion. All other sports were discontinued.
The dance around the Maypole was arrested -the ring broken up and dispersed, while the dancers, each leading his partner by the hand, tripped off
to the silvan theatre.  A truce was in like manner achieved betwixt a huge
brown bear and certain mastiffs, who were tugging and pulling at his
shaggy coat, under the mediation of the bear-ward and half a dozen
butchers and yeomen, who, by dint of staving and tailing, as it was technically termed, separated the unfortunate animals, whose fury had for an
hour past been their chief amusement.  The itinerant minstrel found himself deserted by the audience he had collected, even in the most interesting
passage of the romance which he recited, and just as he was sending about
his boy, with bonnet in hand, to collect their oblations.  He indignantly
stopped short in the midst of Rosewal and Lilian, and, replacing his threestringed fiddle, or rebeck, in its leathern case, followed the crowd, with no
good-will, to the exhibition which had superseded his own. The juggler
had ceased his exertions of emitting flame and smoke, and was content to
respire in the manner of ordinary mortals, rather than to play gratuitously
the part of a fiery dragon. In short, all other sports were suspended, so
eagerly did the revellers throng towards the place of representation.
They would err greatly, who should regulate their ideas of this dramatic
exhibition upon those derived from a modern theatre.; for the rude shows
of Thespis were far less different from those exhibited by Euripides on the
stage of Athens, with all its magnificent decorations and pomp of dresses
and of scenery. In the present case, there were no scenes, no stage, no
machinery, no pit, box, and gallery, no box-lobby; and, what might in poor
Scotland be some consolation for other negations, there was no taking of
money at the door.  As in the devices of the magnanimous Bottom, theactors had a greensward plot for a stage, and a hawthorn bush for a greenroom and tiring-house; the spectators being accommodated with seats on the
artificial bank which had been raised around three-fourths of the playground, the remainder being left open for the entrance and exit of the performers. Here sate the uncritical audience, the Chamberlain in the centre,
as the person highest in office, all alive to enjoyment and admiration, and
all-therefore dead to criticism.
The characters which appeared and disappeared before the amused and
interested audience, were those which fill the earlier stage in all nationsold men, cheated by their wives and daughters, pillaged by their sons, and
imposed on by their domestics, a braggadocia captain, a knavish pardoner
or qusestionary, a country bumpkin and a wanton city dame. Amid all
these, and more acceptable than almost the whole put together, was the alllicensed fool, the Gracioso of the Spanish drama, who, with his cap fashioned
into the resemblance of a coxcomb, and his bauble, a truncheon terminated
by a carved figure wearing a fool's cap, in his hand, went, came, and




448                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
returned, mingling in every scene of the piece, and interrupting the business, without having, any share himself in the action, and ever and anot
transferring his gibes from the actors on the stage to the audience who sate
around, prompt to applaud the whole.
The wit of the piece, which was not of the most polished kind, was
chiefly directed against the superstitious practices of the Catholic religion;
and the stage artillery had on this occasion been levelled by no less a person than Doctor Lundin, who had not only commanded the manager of the
entertainment to select one of the numerous satires which had been written
against the Papists, (several of which were cast in a dramatic form,) but
had even, like the Prince of Denmark, caused them to insert, or according
to his own phrase, to infuse here and there, a few pleasantries of his own
penning, on the same inexhaustible subject, hoping thereby to mollify the
rigour of the Lady of Lochleven towards pastimes of this description.  He
failed not to jog Roland's elbow, who was sitting in state behind him, and
recommend to his particular attention those favourite passages. As for the
page, to whom the very idea of such an exhibition, simple as it was, was
entirely new, he beheld it with the undiminished and ecstatic delight with
which men of all ranks look for the first time on dramatic representation,
and laughed, shouted, and clapped his hands as the performance proceeded.
An incident at length took place, which effectually broke off his interest in
the business of the scene.
One of the principal personages in the comic part of the drama was, as
we have already said, a qumestionary or pardoner, one of those itinerants
who hawked about from place to place relics, real or pretended, with which
he excited the devotion at once, and the charity of the populace, and generally deceived both the one and the other. The hypocrisy, impudence, and
profligacy of these clerical wanderers, had made them the subject of satire
from the time of Chaucer down to that of Heywood.  Their present representative failed not to follow the same line of humour, exhibiting pig's
bones for relics, and boasting the virtues of small tin crosses, which had
been shaken in the holy porringer at Loretto, and of cockleshells, which
had been brought from the shrine of Saint James of Compostella, all which
he disposed of to the devout Catholics at nearly as high a price as antiquaries are now willing to pay for baubles of similar intrinsic value. At
length the pardoner pulled from his scrip a small phial of clear water, of
which he vaunted the quality in the following verses:Listneth. gode people, everiche one    Was wont to wash her bodie and lirn
For inl the hlode of Babylone,         Miickle vertue hath that strene,
Far eastward I wot it lyetlh,          As ye shall se er that ye pas,
And is the first londe the sonne espieth,  Ernsample by this little glasl'her, as he cometh fro out the s6;    Through night6s cold and dayds hote
In this ilk londe, as thinketh me,     Hiderward I have it brought;
Right as holie legendes tell,          Hath a wife made slip or side,
Srlottreth from a roke a well,          Or a maiden stepp'd aside,
And falleth into are bath of ston,     Putteth this water under her nese,
Where chaste Susanne, in times long gon,  Wold she nold she, she shall snesce.
The jest, as the reader skilful in the antique language of the drama muet
at once perceive, turned on the same pivot as in the old minstrel tales of
the Drinking Horn of King Arthur, and the Mantle made Amiss.  But the
audience were neither learned nor critical enough to challenge its want of
originality. The potent relic was, after such grimace and buffoonery-as
befitted the subject, presented successively to each of the female personages
of the drama, not one of whom  sustained the supposed test of discretion;
but, to the infinite delight of the audience, sneezed much louder and longer
than perhaps they themselves had counted on.  The jest seemed at last
worn threadbare, and the pardoner was passing on to some new pleasantry,
when the jester or clown of the drama, possessing himself secretly of the
phial which contained the wondrous liquor, applied it suddenly to the nose
of a young woman, who, with her black silk muffler, or screen drawn over
her face, was sitting in the foremost rank of the spectators, intent apparently




THE ABBOT.                               449
upon the business of the stage. The contents of the phial, well calculated
to sustain the credit of the pardoner's legend, set the damsel a-sneezing violently, an admission of frailty which was received with shouts of rapture
by the audience.  These were soon, however, renewed at the expense of the
jester himself, when the insulted maiden extricated, ere the paroxysm was
well over, one hand from the folds of her mantle, and bestowed on the wag
a buffet, which made him reel fully his own length from the pardoner, and
then acknowledge the favour by instant prostration.
No one pities a jester overcome in his vocation, and the clown met with
little sympathy, when, rising from the ground, and whimpering forth his
complaints of harsh treatment, he invoked the assistance and sympathy of
the audience. But the Chamberlain, feeling his own dignity insulted,
ordered two of his halberdiers to bring the culprit before him. When these
official persons first approached the virago, she threw herself into an attitude
of firm defiance, as if determined to resist their authority; and from the
sample of strength and spirit which she had already displayed, they showed
no alacrity at executing their commission. But on half a minute's reflection, the damsel changed totally her attitude and manner, folded her cloak
around her arms in modest and maiden-like fashion, and walked of her own
accord to the presence of the great man, followed and guarded by the two
manful satellites. As she moved across the vacant space, and more especially as she stood at the footstool of the Doctor's judgment-seat, the maiden
discovered that lightness and elasticity of step, and natural grace of manner,
which connoisseurs in female beauty know  to be seldom  divided from
it.  Moreover, her neat russet-coloured jacket, and short petticoat of the
same colour, displayed a handsome form and a pretty leg. Her features
were concealed by the screen; but the Doctor, whose gravity did not prevent his pretensions to be a connoisseur of the school we have hinted at, saw
enough to judge favourably of the piece by the sample.
Ie began, however, with considerable austerity of manner.-" And how
now, saucy quean!" said the medical man of office; " what have you to say
why I should not order you to be ducked in the loch, for lifting your hand
to the man in ny presence?"
" Marry," replied the culprit, "because I judge that your honour will not
think the cold bath necessary for my complaints."
" A pestilent jade," said the Doctor, whispering to Roland Grmeme; "and
I'll warrant her a good one-her voice is as sweet as sirup.-But, my pretty
maiden," said he, "you show us wonderful little of that countenance of
yours - be pleased to throw aside your muffler."
"I trust your honour will excuse me till we are more private," answered
the maiden; "for I have acquaintance, and I should like ill to be known in
the country as the poor girl whom that scurvy knave put his jest upon."
"Fear nothing for thy good name, my sweet little modicum  of candied
manna," replied the Doctor, "for I protest to you, as I am Chamberlain of
Lochleven, Kinross, and so forth, that the chaste Susanna herself could not
have snuffed that elixir without sternutation, being in truth a curious distillation of rectified acetum, or vinegar of the sun, prepared by mine own
hands —Wherefore, as thou sayest thou wilt come to me in private, and
express thy contrition for the offence whereof thou hast been guilty, I command that all for the present go forward as if no such interruption of the
prescribed course had taken place."
The damsel curtsied and tripped back to her place. The play proceeded,
but it no longer attracted the attention of Roland Grarme,
The voice, the figure, and what the veil permitted to be seen of the neck
and tresses of the village damsel, bore so strong a resemblance to those of
Catherine Seyton, that he felt like one bewildered in the mazes of a changeful and stupifying dream. The memorable scene of the hostelrie rushed on
his recollection, with all its doubtful and marvellous circumstances.  Were
VoL. V.-29                      2N2




450                  WAVERLEY NOVELS,
the tales of enchantment which he had read in romances realized in this
extraordinary girl?  Could she transport herself from  the walled and
guarded Castle of Lochleven, moated with its broad lake, (towards which
he cast back a look as if to ascertain it was still in existence,) and watched
with such scrupulous care as the safety of a nation demanded?-Could she
surmount all these obstacles, and make such careless and dangerous use of
her liberty, as to engage herself publicly in a quarrel in a village fair?
Roland was unable to determine whether the exertions which it must have
cost her to gain her freedom, or the use to which she had put it, rendered
her the most unaccountable creature.
Lost in these meditations, he kept his gaze fixed on the subject of them;
and in every casual motion, discovered, or thought he discovered, something which reminded him  still more strongly of Catherine Seyton, It
occurred to him more than once, indeed, that he might be deceiving himself by exaggerating some casual likeness into absolute identity. But then
the meeting at the hostelrie of Saint Michael's returned to his mind, and it
seemed in the highest degree improbable, that, under such various circumstances, mere imagination should twice have found opportunity to play him
the self-same trick. This time, however, he determined to have his doubts
resolved, and for this purpose he sate during the rest of the play like a greyhound in the slip, ready to spring upon the hare the instant that she was
started. The damsel, whom he watched attentively lest she should escape
in the crowd when the spectacle was closed, sate as if perfectly unconscious
that she was observed. But the worthy Doctor marked the direction of his
eyes, and magnanimously suppressed his own inclination to become the
Theseus to this Hippolyta, in deference to the rights of hospitality, which
enjoined him  to forbear interference with the pleasurable pursuits of his
young friend. He passed one or two formal gibes upon the fixed attention
which the page paid to the unknown, and upon his own jealousy; adding,
however, that if both were to be presented to the patient at once, he had
little doubt she would think the younger man the sounder prescription.
"I fear me," he added, "we shall have no news of the knave Auchtermuchty
for some time, since the vermin whom I sent after him seem to have proved
corbie-messengers.  So you have an hour or two on your hands, Master
Page; and as the minstrels are beginning to strike up, now the play is
ended, why, an you incline for a dance, yonder is the green, and there sits
your partner —  trust you will hold me perfect in my diagnostics, since I
see with half an eye what disease you are sick of, and have administered a
pleasing remedy.'Discernit sfapiens res (as Chambers hath it) quas confundi asellts."
The page hardly heard the end of the learned adage, or the charge which
the Chamberlain gave him to be within reach, in case of the wains arriving
suddenly, and sooner than expected-so eager he was at once to shalk
himself free of his learned associate, and to satisfy his curiosity regarding:
the unknown damsel. Yet in the haste with which he made towards her
he found time to reflect, that, in order to secure an opportunity of conversing with her in private, he must not alarm  her at first accosting her.
He therefore composed his manner and gait, and advancing with becoming
self-confidence before three or four country-fellows who were intent on the
same design, but knew not so well how to put their request into shape, he
acquainted her that he, as the deputy of the venerable Chamberlain,
requested the honour of her hand as a partner.
"The venerable Chamberlain," said the damsel frankly, reaching the
page her hand, "does very well to exercise this part of his privilege by
deputy; and I suppose the laws of the revels leave me no choice but to
accept of his faithful delegate."
" Provided, fair damsel," said the page, "' his choice of a delegate is not
altogether distasteful to you."




T1E  ABBOT.                            451
"Of that, fair sir," replied the maiden, "I will tell you moie when we
have danced the first measure."
Catherine Seyton had admirable skill in gestic lore, and was sometimes
called on to dance for the amusement of her royal mistress. Roland Grieme
had often been a spectator of her skill, and sometimes, at the Queen's command, Catherine's partner on such occasions. He was, therefore, perfectly
acquainted with Catherine's mode of.dancing; and observed that his present
partner, in grace, in agility, in quickness of ear, and precision of execution,
exactly resembled her, save that the Scottish jig, which he now danced with
her, required a more violent and rapid motion, and more rustic agility, than
the stately pavens, lavoltas, and courantoes, which he had seen her execute
in the chamber of Queen Mary. The active duties of the dance left him
little time for reflection, and none for conversation; but when their pas de
deux was finished, amidst the acclamations of the villagers, who had seldom
witnessed such an exhibition, he took an opportunity, when they yielded
up the green to another couple, to use the privilege of a partner and enter
into conversation with the mysterious maiden, whom he still held by the
hand.
"Fair partner, may I not crave the name of her who has graced me
thus far?"
"You may," said the maiden; "but it is a question whether I shall
answer you."
" And why?" asked Roland.
"Because nobody gives anything for nothing - and you can tell me
nothing in return which I care to hear."
"Could I not tell you my name and lineage, in exchange.for yours?"
returned Roland.
" No!" answered the maiden, " for you know little of either."
" How?" said the page, somewhat angrily.
" Wrath you not for the matter," said the damsel; " I will show you iiI
an instant that I know more of you than you do of yourself."
" Indeed," answered Grieme; "for whom then do you take me?"
" For the wild falcon," answered she, " whom a dog brought in his mnouth
to a certain castle, when he was but an unfledged eyas-for the hawk
whom men dare not fly, lest he should check at game, and pounce on carrion
- whom folk must keep hooded till he has the proper light of his eyes, and
can discover good from evil."
"Well- be it so," replied Roland Graeme; "I guess at a part of your
parable, fair mistress mine -and perhaps I know as much of you as you
do of me, and can well dispense with the information which you are so niggard in giving."
" Prove that," said the maiden, "and I will give you credit for more penetration than I judged you to be gifted withal."
"It shall be proved instantly," said Roland Grieme. " The first letter of
your name is S, and the last N."
"Admirable," said his partner, "guess on."
"It pleases you to-day," continued Roland, "to wear the snood and
kirtle, and perhaps you may be seen to-morrow in hat and feather, hose
and doublet."
" In the clout! in the clout! you have hit the very white," said the damsel,
suppressing a great inclination to laugh.
"You can switch men's eyes out of their heads, as well as the heart out
of their bosoms."
These last words were uttered in a low and tender tone, which, to Roland's
great mortification, and somewhat to his displeasure, was so far from allaying, that it greatly increased, his partner's disposition to laughter. She
could scarce compose herself while she replied, "If you had thought my
hand so formidable," extricating it from his hold, "you would not hare




452                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
grasped it so hard; but I perceive you know me so fully, that there i no
occasion to show you. my face."
"Fair Catherine," said the page, "he were unworthy ever to have seen
you, far less to have dwelt so long in the same service, and under the same
roof with you, who could mistake your air, your gesture, your step in walking or in dancing, the turn of your neck, the symmetry of your form -
none could be so dull as not to recognize you by so many proofs; but for
me, I could swear even to that tress of hair that escapes from under your
muffler."
" And to the face, of course, which that muffler covers," said the maiden,
removing her veil, and in an instant endeavouring to replace it. She showed
the features of Catherine; but an unusual degree of petulant impatience
inflamed them, when, from  some awkwardness in her management of the
muffler, she was unable again to adjust it with that dexterity which was a
principal accomplishment of the coquettes of the time.
" The fiend rive the rag to tatters!" said the damsel, as the veil fluttered
about her shoulders, with an accent so earnest and decided, that it made the
page start. He looked again at the damsel's face, but the information which
his eyes received, was to the same purport as before.  He assisted her to
adjust her muffler, and both were for an instant silent.  The damsel spoke
first, for Roland Groeme was overwhelmed with surprise at the contrarieties
which Catherine Seyton seemed to include in her person and character.
" You are surprised," said the damsel to him, "at what you see and hear
-But the times which make females men, are least of all fitted for men to
become women; yet you yourself are in danger of such a change."
" I in danger of becoming effeminate!" said the page.
" Yes, you, for all the boldness of your reply," said the damsel. "When
you should hold fast your religion, because it is assailed on all sides by
rebels, traitors, and heretics, you let it glide out of your breast like water
grasped in the hand.  If you are driven from the faith of your fathers from
fear of a traitor, is not that womanish?-If you are cajoled by the cunning
arguments of a trumpeter of heresy, or the praises of a puritanic old woman,
is not that womanish? -If you are bribed by the hope of spoil and preferment, is not that womanish?-And*when you wonder at my venting a
threat or an execration, should you not wonder at yourself, who, pretending
to a gentle name and aspiring to knighthood, can be at the same time
cowardly, silly, and self-interested!"
"I would that a man would bring such a charge," said the page; "he
should see, ere his life was a minute older, whether he had cause to term
me coward or no."
"Beware of such big words," answered the maiden; " you said but anon
that I sometimes wear hose and doublet."
"But remain still Catharine Seyton, wear what you list," said the page,
endeavouring again to possess himself of her hand.
" You indeed are pleased to call me so," replied the maiden, evading his
intention, "but I have many other names besides."
"And will you not reply to that," said the page, " by which you are distinguished beyond every other maiden in Scotland?"
The damsel, unallured by his praises, still kept aloof, and sung with
gaiety a verse from an old ballad,
"Oh, some do call me Jack. sweet love,
And some do call me Gill:
But when I ride to Holyrood,
My name is Wilful Will."'Wilful Will!" exclaimed the page, impatiently; "say rather Will o'
the Wisp-Jack with the Lantern- for never was such a deceitful or wandering meteor!"
" If I be such," replied the maiden, " I ask no fools to follow me-If they
dt so, it is at their own pleasure, and must be on their own proper peril."




THE ABBOT.                                453
"Nay, but, dearest Catherine," said Roland Grisme, "be for one instant
serious."
"If you will call me your dearest Catherine, when I have given you so
many names to cnoose upon," replied the damsel, "I would ask you how,
supposing me for two or three hours of my life escaped from yondei tower,
you have the cruelty to ask me to be serious during the only merry onments
I have seen perhaps for months?"
"Ay, but, fair Catherine, there are moments of deep and true feeling,
which are worth ten thousand years of the liveliest mirth; and such was
that of yesterday, when you so nearly    "
"So nearly what?" demanded the damsel, hastily.
"When you approached your lips so near to the sign you had traced on
my forehead."
"Mother of Ieaven!" exclaimed she, in a yet fiercer tone, and with a
more masculine manner than she had yet exhibited, — " Catherine Seyton
approach her lips to a man's brow, and thou that man!-vassal, thou liest!"
The page stood astonished; but, conceiving he had alarmed the damsel's
delicacy by alluding to the enthusiasm  of a moment, and the manner in
which she had expressed it, he endeavoured to falter forth an apology. Ilis
excuses, though he was unable to give them any regular shape, were accepted
by his companion, who had indeed suppressed her indignation after its first
explosion - " Speak no more on't," she said.  " And now let us part; our
conversation may attract mlore notice than is convenient for either of us."
" Nay, but allow me at least to follow you to some sequestered place."
"You dare not," replied the maiden.
" IIow," said the youth, " dare not? where is it you dare go, where I dare
not follow?"
" You fear a Will o' the Wisp," said the damsel; " how would you face a
fiery dragon, with an enchantress mounted on its back?"
"Like Sir Eger, Sir Grime, or Sir Greysteil," said the page; "but bo
there such toys to be seen here?"
"I go to Mother Nicneven's," answered the maid;  "and she is witch
enough to rein the horned devil, with a red silk thread for a bridle, and a
iowan-tree switch for a whip."
"I will follow you," said the page.
"Let it be at some distance," said the maiden.
And wrapping her mantle round her with more success than on her'former attempt, she mingled with the throng, and walked towards the
village, heedfully followed by Roland Grmine at some distance, and under
every precaution which he could use to prevent his purpose from being
observed.
6ljaUtr  \t l       m Cr tI - ig1\t0l,
Yes, it is lie whose eyes look'd on thy childhood,
And watch'd with tremnling hope thy dawn of youth,
That now, with these same eyeballs dinini'd witl age,
And dimmer yet with tears, sees thy dishonour.
OLD PLAY.
AT the entrance of the principal, or indeed, so to speak, the only street
in Kinross, the damsel, whose steps were pursued by Roland Graeme, cast
a glance behind her, as if to be certain he had not lost tra-ce of her and




454                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
then plunged down a very narrow lane which ran betwixt two rows of poor
and ruinous cottages. She paused for a second at the door of one of those
miserable tenements, again cast her eye up the lane towards Roland, then
lifted the latch, opened the door, and disappeared from his view.
With whatever haste the page followed her example, the difficulty which
he found in discovering the trick of the latch, which did not work quite
in the usual' manner, and in pushing open the door, which did not yield to
his first effort, delayed for a minute or two his entrance into the cottage.
A dark and smoky passage led, as usual, betwixt the exterior wall of the
house, and the hallan, or clay wall, which served as a partition betwixt it
and the interior. At the end of this passage, and through the partition,
was a door leading into the ben, or inner chamber of the cottage, and when
Roland Grome's hand was upon the latch of this door, a female voice pronounced, "Benedictus qui veniat in nomine Domini, damnandus qui in nomine
inimici."  On entering the apartment, he perceived the figure which the
chamberlain had pointed out to him as Mother Nicneven, seated beside the
lowly hearth. But there was no other person in the room. Roland Grmme
gazed around in surprise at the disappearance of Catherine Seyton, without
paying much regard to the supposed sorceress, until she attracted and
riveted his regard by the tone in which she asked him - "What seekest
thou here?"
" I seek," said the page, with much embarrassment; "I seek    "
But his answer was cut short, when the old woman, drawing her huge
gray eyebrows sternly together, with a frown which knitted her brow into
a thousand wrinkles, arose, and erecting herself up to her full natural size,
tore the kerchief from her head, and seizing Roland by the arm, made two
strides across the floor of the apartment to a small window through which
the light fell full on her face, and showed the astonished youth the countenance of Magdalen Greme. —" Yes, Roland," she said, " thine eyes deceive
thee not; they show thee truly the features of her whom thou' hast thyself
deceived, whose wine thou hast turned into gall, her bread of joyfulness
into bitter poison, her hope into the blackest despair -it is she who now
demands of thee, what seekest thou here?-She whose heaviest sin towards
Heaven hath been, that she loved thee even better than the weal of the
whole church, and could not without reluctance surrender thee even in the
cause of God -she now asks you, what seekest thou here?"
While she spoke, she kept her broad black eye riveted on the youth's face,
with the expression with which the eagle regards his prey ere he tears it to
pieces.  Roland felt himself at the moment incapable either of reply or
evasion. This extraordinary enthusiast had preserved over him in some
measure the ascendency which she had acquired during his childhood; and,
besides, he knew the violence of her passions and her impatience of contradiction, and was sensible that almost any reply which he could make, was
likely to throw her into an ecstasy of rage.  IHe was therefore silent; and
Magdalen Grmme proceeded with increasing enthusiasm in her apostrophe
" Once more, what seek'st thou, false boy?-seek'st thou the honour thou
hast renounced, the faith thou hast abandoned, the hopes thou hast
destroyed? -Or didst thou seek me, the sole protectress of thy youth, the
only parent whom thou hast known, that thou mayest trample on my gray
hairs, even as thou hast already trampled on the best wishes of my heart?"
"Pardon me, mother," said Roland Grreme; "but, in truth and reason, I
deserve not your blame.  I have been treated amongst you- even by
yourself, my revered parent, as well as by others —as one who lacked the
common attributes of free-will and human reason, or was at least deemed
unfit to exercise them. A land of enchantment have I been led into, and
spells have been cast around me-every one has met me in disguise-every
one has spoken to me in parables- I have been like one who walks in a
weary and bewildering dream; and now you blame me that I have not the




THE ABBOT.                             455
sense, and judgment, and steadiness of a waking, and a disenchanted, and
a reasonable man, who knows what he is doing, and wherefore he does it,
If one must walk with masks and spectres, who waft themselves from place
to place as it were in vision rather than reality, it might shake the soundest
faith and turn the wisest head. I sought, since I must needs avow my folly,
the same Catherine Seyton with whom you made me first acquainted, and
whom I most strangely.find in this village of Kinross, gayest among the
revellers, when I had but just left her in the well-guarded castle of Lochleven, the sad attendant of an imprisoned Queen-I sought her, and in her
place I find you, my mother, more strangely disguised than even she is."
"And what hadst thou to do with Catherine Seyton?" said the matron,
sternly; " is this a time or a world to follow maidens, or todance around a
Maypole? When the trumpet summons every true-hearted Scotsman around
the standard of the true sovereign, shalt thou be found loitering in a lady's
bower?"
" No, by Heaven, nor imprisoned in the rugged walls of an island castle!"
answered Roland Greeme: "I would the blast were to sound even now,
for I fear that nothing less loud will dispel the chimerical visions by which
I am surrounded."
"Doubt not that it will be winded," said the matron, "and that so
fearfully loud, that Scotland will never hear the like until the last and
loudest blast of all shall announce to mountain and to valley that time is no
more. Meanwhile, be thou but brave and constant Serve God and honour
thy sovereign -Abide by thy religion- I cannot-I will not-I dare not
ask thee the truth of the terrible surmises I have heard touching thy falling
away- perfect not that accursed sacrifice   and yet, even at this late hour,
thou mayest be what I have hoped for the son of my dearest hope    what
say I? the son of my hope- thou shalt be the hope of Scotland, her boast
and her honour!-Even thy wildest and most foolish wishes may perchance
be fulfilled-I might blush to mingle meaner motives with the noble guerdon I hold out to thee-It shames me, being such as I am, to mention the
idle passions of youth, save with contempt and the purpose of censure.
But we must bribe children to wholesome medicine by the offer of cates, and
youth to honourable achievement with the promise of pleasure. Mark me,
therefore, Roland. The love of Catherine Seyton will follow him only who
shall achieve the freedom of her mistress; and believe, it may be one day in
thine own power to be that happy lover. Cast, therefore, away doubt and
fear, and prepare to do what religion calls for, what thy country demands
of thee, what thy duty as a subject and as a servant alike require at your
hand; and be assured, even the idlest or wildest wishes of thy heart will be
most readily attained by following the call of thy duty."
As she ceased speaking, a double knock was heard against the inner
door. The matron hastily adjusting her muffler, and resuming her chair by
the hearth, demanded who was there.
" Salve in nomine sancto," was answered from without.
"Salvete et vos," answered Magdalen Greme.
And a man entered in the ordinary dress of a nobleman's retainer, wearing at his girdle a sword and buckler -" I sought you," said he, "my
mother, and him whom I see with you."  Then addressing himself to Roland
Graeme, he said to him, " Hast thou not a packet from George Douglas?"
"I have," said the page, suddenly recollecting that which had been committed to his charge in the morning, " but I may not deliver it to any one
without some token that they have a right to ask it."
"You say well," replied the serving-man, and whispered into his ear,
"The packet which I ask is the report to his father-will this token
suffice?"
"It will," replied the page, and taking the packet from his bosom, gave
it to the man.




456                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
" I will return presently," said the serving-man, and left the cottage.
Roland had now sufficiently recovered his surprise to accost his relative in
turn, and request to know the reason why he found her in so precarious a:
disguise, and a place so dangerous -" You cannot be ignorant," he said,
"of the hatred that the Lady of Lochleven bears to those of your- that is'
of our religion - your present disguise lays you open to suspicion of a
different kind, but inferring no less hazard; and whether as a Catholic, or
as a sorceress, or as a friend to the unfortunate Queen, you are in equal:
danger, if apprehended within the bounds of the Douglas; and in the
chamberlain who administers their authority, you have, for his own reasons,:
an enemy, and a bitter one."
"I know it," said the matron, her eyes kindling with triumph; "I know
that, vain of his school-sraft, and carnal wisdom, Luke Lundin views with
jealousy and hatred the blessings which the saints have conferred on myprayers, and on the holy relics, before the touch, nay, before the bare
presence of which, disease and death have so often been known to retreat.
-I know he would rend and tear me; but there is a chain and a muzzle on
the ban dog that shall restrain his fury, and the Master's servant shall not
be offended by him until the Master's work is wrought. When that hour
comes, let the shadows of the evening descend on me in thunder and in
tempest; the time shall be welcome that relieves my eyes from seeing guilt,
and my ears from listening to blasphemy. Do thou but be constant-play
thy part as I have played and will play mine, and my release shall be like
that of a blessed martyr whose ascent to heaven angels hail with psalm and
song, while earth pursues him with hiss and with execration."
As she concluded, the serving-man again entered the cottage, and said,
"All is well! the time holds for to-morrow night."
"What time? what holds?" exclaimed Roland Graeme; "I trust I have
given the Douglas's packet to no wrong -"
"Content yourself, young  man," answered the serving-man; "thou hast
my word and token."
" I know not if the token be right," said the page; " and I care not much
for the word of a stranger."
"What," said the matron, "although thou mayest have given a packet
delivered to thy charge by one of the Queen's rebels into the hand of a loyal
subject -there were no great mistake in that, thou hot-brained boy!"
" By Saint Andrew, there were foul mistake, though," answered the page;
" it is the very spirit of my duty, in this first stage of chivalry, to be faithful to my trust; and had the devil given me a message to discharge, I would
not (so I had plighted my faith to the contrary) betray his counsel to an
angel of light."
" Now, by the love I once bore thee," said the matron, " I could slay thee
with mine own hand, when I hear thee talk of a dearer faith being due to
rebels and heretics, than thou owest to thy church and thy prince!"
"Be patient, my good sister," said the serving-man; "I will give him
such reasons as shall counterbalance the scruples which beset him — the
spirit is honourable, though now it may be mistimed and misplaced.- Follow me, young man."
"Ere I go to call this stranger to a reckoning," said the page to the
matron, "is there nothing I can do for your comfort and safety?"
" Nothing," she replied, " nothing, save what will lead more to thine own
honour  -the saints who have protected me thus far, will lend me succour
as I need it. Tread the path of glory that is before thee, and only think of
me as the creature on earth who will be most delighted to hear of thy fame.
- Follow the stranger - he hath tidings for you that you little expect."
The stranger remained on the threshold as if waiting for Roland, and as
soon as he saw him put himself in motion, he moved on before at a quick
pace. Diving still deeper down the lane, Roland perceived that it was now:




THE  ABBOT.                            457
bordered by bu;ldings upon the one side only, and that the other was fenced
by a high old wall, over which some trees extended their branches. Descending a good way farther, they came to a small door in the wall. Roland's
guide paused, looked around an instant to see if any one were within sight,
then taking a key from his pocket, opened the door and entered, making a
sign to Roland Grreme to follow him. IIe did so, and the stranger locked
the door carefully on the inside. During this operation the page had a
moment to look around, and perceived that he was in a small orchard very
trimly kept.
The stranger led him through an alley or two, shaded by trees loaded
with summer-fruit, into a'pleached arbour, where, taking the turf-seat which
was on the one side, he motioned to Roland to occupy that which was opposite to him, and, after a momentary silence, opened the conversation as
follows: "You have asked a better warrant than the word of a mere stranger, to satisfy you that I have the authority of George of Douglas for
possessing myself of the packet intrusted to your charge."
"It is precisely the point on which I demand reckoning of you," said
Roland. "I fear I have acted hastily; if so, I must redeem my error as I
best may."
"You hold me then as a perfect stranger?" said the man. " Look at my
face more attentively, and see if the features do not resemble those of a man
much known to you formerly."
Roland gazed attentively; but the ideas recalled to his mind were so
inconsistent with the mean and servile dress of the person before him, that
he did not venture to express the opinion which he was irresistibly induced
to form.
"Yes, my son," said the stranger, observing his embarrassment, "you do
indeed see before you the unfortunate Father Ambrosius, who once accounted
his ministry crowned in your preservation from the snares of heresy, but
who is now condemned to lament thee as a castaway!"
Roland Grome's kindness of heart was at least equal to his vivacity of
temper —he could not bear to see his ancient and honoured master and
spiritual guide in a situation which inferred a change of fortune so melancholy, but throwing himself at his feet, grasped his knees and wept aloud.
" What mean these tears, my son?" said the Abbot; "if they are shed
for your own sins and follies, surely they are gracious showers, and may
avail thee much   but weep not, if they fall on my account. You indeed
see the Superior of the community of Saint Mary's in the dress of a poor
sworder, who gives his master the use of his blade and buckler, and, if
needful, of his life, for a coarse livery coat and four marks by the year.
But such a garb suits the time, and, in the period of the church militant,
as well becomes her prelates, as staff, mitre, and crosier, in the days of the
church's triumph.
"By what fate," said the page-"and yet why," added he, checking
himself, "need I ask?  Catherine Seyton in some sort prepared me for
this. But that the change should be so absolute  the destruction so complete!"
"Yes, my son," said.the Abbot Ambrosius, "thine own eyes beheld, in
my unworthy elevation to the Abbot's stall, the last especial act of holy
solemnity which shall be seen in the church of Saint Mary's, until it shall
please Heaven to turn back the captivity of the church. For the present,
the shepherd is smitten -ay, well-nigh to the earth —the flock are scattered, and the shrines of saints and martyrs, and pious benefactors to the
church, are given to the owls of night, and the satyrs of the desert."
" And your brother, the Knight of Avenel -could he do nothing for your
protection?"
" He himself hath fallen under the suspicion of the ruling powers," said
the Abbot, "who are as unjust to their friends as they are cruel to their
20




458                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
enemies. I could not grieve at it, did I hope it might estrange him from his
cause; but I know the soul of Halbert, and I-rather fear it will drive him
to prove his fidelity to their unhappy cause, by some deed which may be yet
more destructive to the church, and more offensive to Heaven. Enough of
this; and now to the business of our meeting.-I trust you will hold it
sufficient if I pass my word to you that the packet of which you were lately
the bearer, was designed for my hands by George of Douglas?"
"Then," said the page, "is George of Douglas — "
"A true friend to his Queen, Roland; and will soon, I trust, have his
eyes opened to the errors of his (miscalled) church."
"But what is he to his father, and what to the Lady of Lochleven, who
has been as a mother to him?" said the page impatiently.
" The best friend to both, in time and through eternity," said the Abbot,
"if he shall prove the happy instrument for redeeming the evil they have
wrought, and are still working."
"Still," said the page, "I like not that good service which begins in
breach of trust."
" I blame not thy scruples, my son," said the Abbot; " but the time which
has wrenched asunder the allegiance of Christians to the church, and of
subjects to their king, has dissolved all the lesser bonds of society; and, in
such days, mere human ties must no more restrain our progress, than the
brambles and briers which catch hold of his garments, should delay the
path of a pilgrim who travels to pay his vows."
" But, my father,"-said the youth, and then stopt short in a hesitating
manner.
"Speak on, my son," said the Abbot; " speak without fear."
"Let me not offend you then," said Roland, " when I say, that it is even
this which our adversaries charge against us; when they say that, shaping
the means according to the end, we are willing to commit great moral evil
in order that we may work out eventual good."
"The heretics have played their usual arts on you, my son," said the
Abbot; " they would willingly deprive us of the power of acting wisely and
secretly, though their possession of superior force forbids our contending
with them  on terms of equality. They have reduced us to a state of
exhausted weakness, and now would fain proscribe the means by which
weakness, through all the range of nature, supplies the lack of strength and
defends itself against its potent enemies. As well might the hound say to
the hare, use not these wily turns to escape me, but contend with me in
pitched battle, as the armed and powerful heretic demand of the downtrodden and oppressed Catholic to lay aside the wisdom of the serpent, by
which alone they may again hope to raise up the Jerusalem over which they
weep, and which it is their duty to rebuild —But more of this hereafter.
And now, my son, I command thee on thy faith to tell me truly and particularly what has chanced to thee since we parted, and what is the present
state of thy conscience. Thy relation, our sister Magdalen, is a woman of
excellent gifts, blessed with a zeal which neither doubt nor danger can
quench; but'yet it is not a zeal altogether according to knowledge; wherefore,
my son, I would willingly be myself thy interrogator, and thy counsellor,
in these days of darkness and stratagem."
With the respect which he owed to his first instructor, Roland Grnrme
went rapidly through the events which the reader is acquainted with; and
while he disguised not from the prelate the impression which had been made
on his mind by the arguments of the preacher Henderson, he accidentally
and almost involuntarily gave his Father Confessor to understand the
influence which Catherine Seyton had acquired over his mind.
"It is with joy I discover, my dearest son," replied the Abbot, " that I
have arrived in time to arrest thee on the verge of the precipice to which
thou wert approaching.  These doubts of which you complain, are the




THE  ABBOT.                               459
weeds which naturally grow up in a strong soil, and require the careful
hand of the husbandman to eradicate them.  Thou must study a little
volume, which I will impart to thee in fitting time, in which, by Our Lady's
grace, I have placed in somewhat a clearer light than heretofore, the points
debated betwixt us and these heretics, who sow among the wheat the same
tares which were formerly privily mingled with the good seed by the Albigenses and the Lollards. But it is not by reason alone that you must hope
to conquer these insinuations of the enemy: It is sometimes by timely
resistance, but oftener by timely flight. You must shut your ears against
the arguments of the heresiarch, when circumstances permit you not to
withdraw  the foot from  his company.  Anchor your thoughts upon the
service of Our Lady, while he is expending in vain his heretical sophistry.
Are you unable to maintain your attention on heavenly objects-think rather
on thine own earthly pleasures, than tempt Providence and the Saints by
giving an attentive ear to the erring doctrine-think of thy hawk, thy
hound, thine angling rod, thy sword and buckler-think even of Catherine
Seyton, rather than give thy soul to the lessons of the tempter.  Alas! my
son, believe not that, worn out with woes, and bent more by affliction than
by years, I have forgotten the effect of beauty over the heart of youth.
Even in the watches of the night, broken by thoughts of an imprisoned
Queen, a distracted kingdom, a church laid waste and ruinous, come other
thoughts than these suggest, and feelings which belonged to an earlier and
happier course of life. Be it so-we must bear our load as we may: and
not in vain are these passions implanted in our breast, since, as now in thy
case, they may come in aid of resolutions founded upon higher grounds.
Yet beware, my son-this Catherine Seyton is the daughter of one of Scotland's proudest, as well- as most worthy barons; and thy state may not
suffer thee, as yet, to aspire so high. But thus it is-Heaven works its
purposes through human folly; and Douglas's ambitious affection, as well
as thine, shall contribute alike to the desired end."
"How, my father," said the page, " my suspicions are then true! —Douglas
loves    "'
" He does; and with a love as much misplaced as thine own; but beware
of him-cross him not-thwart him not."
"Let him not cross or thwart me," said the page; "for I will not yield
him an inch of way, had he in his body the soul of every Douglas that has
lived since the time of the Dark Gray Man."*
"Nay, have patience, idle boy, and reflect that your suit can never interfere with his.-But a truce with these vanities, and let us better employ the
little space which still remains to us to spend together.  To thy knees, my
son, and resume the long-interrupted duty of confession, that, happen what
may, the hour may find in thee a faithful Catholic, relieved from the guilt
of his sins by authority of the Holy Church. Could I but tell thee, Roland,
the joy with which I see thee once more put thy knee to its best and fittest
use! Quid dicis, mi fili?"
" Culpas meas," answered the youth; and according to the ritual of the
Catholic Church, he confessed and received absolution, to which was annexed
the condition of performing certain enjoined penances.
When this religious ceremony was ended, an old man, in the dress of a
peasant of the better order, approached the arbour, and greeted the Abbot.
-" I have waited the conclusion of your devotions," he said, "to tell you
the youth is sought after by the chamberlain, and it were well he should
appear without delay.  Holy Saint Francis, if the halberdiers were to seek
him here, they might sorely wrong my garden-plot-they are in office, and
By an ancient, though improbable tradition, the Douglasses are said to have derivedc their name from a
champion who had greatly distinguished himself in an action. When the kIing demrrnded by whom the battle
had been won. the attendants are said to have answered, "Sholto Douglas, sir;" which is said to roean,
X Yonder dark gray man." But the name is undoubtedly territorial, and taken from D juglaa river and valea




460                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
reck not where they tread, were each step on jessamine and clovegilly
flowers."
"We will speed him forth, my brother," said the Abbot; "but alas! ii
it possible that such trifles should live in your mind at a crisis so awful as
that which is now impending?"
"Reverend father," answered the proprietor of the garden, for such he
was, "how oft shall I pray you to keep your high counsel for high minds
like your own?  What have you required of me, that I have not granted
unresistingly, though with an aching heart?"
"I would require of you to be yourself, my brother," said the Abbot
Ambrosius; " to remember what you were, and to what your early vows
have bound you."
"I tell thee, Father Ambrosius," replied the gardener, "the patience of
the best saint that ever said pater-noster, would be exhausted by the trials
to which you have put mine-What I have been, it skills not to speak at
present-no one knows better than yourself, father, what I renounced, in
hopes to find ease and quiet during the remainder of my days-and no one better knows how my retreat has been invaded, my fruit-trees broken, my flowerbeds trodden down, my quiet frightened away, and my very sleep driven
from my bed, since ever this poor Queen, God bless her, hath been sent to
Lochleven.-I blame her not; being a prisoner, it is natural she should
wish to get out from so vile a hold, where there is scarcely any place even
for a tolerable garden, and where the water-mists, as I am told, blight all
the early blossoms-I say, I cannot blame her for endeavouring for her
freedom; but why I should be drawn into the scheme-why my harmless
arbours, that I planted with my own hands, should become places of privy
conspiracy-why my little quay, which I built for my own fishing boat,
should have become a haven for secret embarkations-in short, why I
should be dragged into matters where both heading and hanging are like to
be the issue, I profess to you, reverend father, I am totally ignorant."
"My brother," answered the Abbot, "you are wise, and ought to
know'
"I am not-I am not- -I am not wise," replied the horticulturist,
pettishly, and stopping his ears with his fingers-" I was never called wise
but when men wanted to engage me in some action of notorious folly."
"But, my good brother," said the Abbot"I am not good neither," said the peevish gardener; "I am neither good
nor wise - Had I been wise, you would not have been admitted here; and
were I good, methinks I should send you elsewhere to hatch plots for
destroying the quiet of the country. What signifies disputing about queen
or king, when men may sit at peace - sub umbra vitis sui? and so would I
do, after the precept of Holy Writ, were I, as you term me, wise or good.
But such as I am, my neck is in the yoke, and you make me draw what
weight you list.-Follow me, youngster. This reverend father, who makes
in his jackman's dress nearly as reverend a figure as I myself, will agree
with me in one thing at least, and that is, that you have been long enough
here."
"Follow the good father, Roland," said the Abbot, "and remember my
words - a day is approaching that will try the temper of all true Scotsmen
-may thy heart prove faithful as the steel of thy blade!"
The page bowed in silence, and they parted; the gardener, notwithstanding his advanced age, walking on before him very briskly, and muttering as
he went, partly to himself, partly to his companion, after the manner of old
men of weakened intellects    " When I was great," thus ran his maundering, "and had my mule and my ambling palfrey at command, I warrant
you I could have as well flown through the air as have walked at this pace.
Ihad my gout and my rheumatics, and an hundred things besides, that
hung fetters on my heels; and now, thanks to Our Lady, and honest labour,




THE ABBOT.                              461
I can walk with any good man of my age in the kingdom of Fife-Fy upon
it, that experience should be so long in coming!"
As he was thus muttering, his eye fell upon the branch of a pear-tree
which drooped down for want of support, and at once forgetting his haste,
the old man stopped and set seriously about binding it up. Roland Groeme
had both readiness, neatness of hand, and good nature in abundance; he
immediately lent his aid, and in a minute or two the bough was supported,
and tied up in a way perfectly satisfactory to the old man, who looked at it
with great complaisance.  " They are bergamots," he said, " and if you will
come ashore in autumn, you shall taste of them -the like are not in Lochleven Castle - the garden there is a poor pin-fold, and the gardener, Hugh
Houkham, hath little skill of his craft —so come ashore, Master Page, in
autumn, when you would eat pears. But what am I thinking of- ere that
time come, they may have given thee sour pears for plums. Take an old
man's advice, youth, one who hath seen many days, and sat in higher
places than thou canst hope for - bend thy sword into a pruning-hook, and
make a dibble of thy dagger-thy days shall be the longer, and thy health
the better for it,- and come to aid me in my garden, and I will teach thee
the real French fashion of imping, which the Southron call graffing. Do
this, and do it without loss of time, for there is a whirlwind coming over
the land, and only those shall escape who lie too much beneath the storm to
have their boughs broken by it."
So saying, he dismissed Roland Grseme, through a different door from
that by which he had entered, signed a cross, and pronounced a benedicito
as they parted, and then, still muttering to himself, retired into the garden,
and locked the door on the inside.
a:; tar  tt  Cmntq-YintD.
Pray God she prove not masculine ere long!
KING HENRY VI.
DISMISSED from the old man's garden, Roland Groeme found that a grassy
paddock, in which sauntered two cows, the property of the gardener, still
separated him from the village. He paced through it, lost in meditation
upon the words of the Abbot. Father Ambrosius had, with success enough,
exerted over him that powerful influence which the guardians and instructors of our childhood possess over our more mature youth. And yet, when
Roland looked back upon what the father had said, he could not but suspect
that he had rather sought to evade entering into the controversy betwixt
the churches, than to repel the objections and satisfy the doubts which the
lectures of Henderson had excited.  "For this he had no time," said the
page to himself, " neither have I now calmness and learning sufficient to
judge upon points of such magnitude. Besides, it were base to quit my
faith while the wind of fortune sets against it, unless I were so placed, that
my conversion, should it take place, were free as light from the imputation
of self-interest. I was bred a Catholic - bred in the faith of Bruce and
Wallace -I will hold that faith till time and reason shall convince me that
it errs. I will serve this poor Queen as a subject should serve an imprisoned
and wronged sovereign - they who placed me in her service have to blame
themselves-who sent me hither, a gentleman trained in the paths of loyalty
and honour, when they should have sought out some truckling, cogging,
double-dealing knave, who would have been at once the observant page of
2t2




462                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
the Queen, and the obsequious spy of her enemies.  Since I must choose
betwixt aiding and betraying her, I will decide as becomes her servant and
her subject; but Catherine Seyton-Catherine Seyton, beloved by Douglas)
and holding me on or off as the intervals of her leisure or caprice will
permit-how shall I deal with the coquette?-By heaven, when I next have
an opportunity, she shall render me some reason for her conduct, or I will
break with her for ever!"
As he formed this doughty resolution, he crossed the stile which led out of
the little enclosure, and was almost immediately greeted by Dr. Luke Lundin.
"a! my most excellent young friend," said the Doctor, "from whence
come you? - but I note the place. - Yes, neighbour Blinkhoolie's garden
is a pleasant rendezvous, and you are of the age when lads look after a
bonny lass with one eye, and a dainty plum with another. But hey! you
look subtriste and melancholic - I fear the maiden has proved cruel, or the
plums unripe; and surely I think neighbour Blinkhoolie's damsons can
scarcely have been well preserved throughout the winter -he spares the
saccharine juice on his confects. But courage, man, there are more Kates
in Kinross; and for the immature fruit, a glass of my double distilled
aqua mirabilis-probatum est."
The page darted an ireful glance at the facetious physician; but presently
recollecting that the name Kate, which had provoked his displeasure, was
probably but introduced for the sake of alliteration, he suppressed his
wrath, and only asked if the wains had been heard of?
"Why, I have been. seeking for you this hour, to tell you that the stuff
is in your boat, and that the boat waits your pleasure. Auchtermuchty
had only fallen into company with an idle knave like himself, and a stoup
of aquavitae between them. Your boatmen lie on their oars, and there have
already been lmade two wefts from the warder's turret to intimate that those
in the castle are impatient for your return. Yet there is time for you to
take a slight repast; and, as your friend and physician, I hold it unfit you
should face the water-breeze with an empty stomach."
Roland Graeme had nothing for it but to return, with such cheer as he
might, to the place where his boat was moored on the beach, and resisted
all offer of refreshment, although the Doctor promised that he should prelude the collation with a gentle appetizer —a decoction of herbs, gathered
and distilled by himself. Indeed, as Roland had not forgotten the contents
of his morning cup, it is possible that the recollection induced him to stand
firm in his refusal of all food, to which such an unpalatable preface was
the preliminary. As they passed towards the boat, (for the ceremonious
politeness of the worthy Chamberlain would not permit the page to go
thither without attendance,) Roland Graeme, amidst a group who seemed to
be assembled around a party of wandering musicians, distinguished, as he
thought, the dress of Catherine Seyton. He shook himself clear from his
attendant, and at one spring was in the midst of the crowd, and at the side
of the damsel. " Catherine," he whispered, "is it well for you to be still
here? - will you not return to the castle?"
"To the devil with your Catherines and your castles!" answered the
maiden, snappishly; " have you not had time enough already to get rid of
your follies? Begone! I desire not your farther company, and there will
be danger in thrusting it upon me."
"Nay   but if there be danger, fairest Catherine," replied Roland;
"why will you not allow me to stay and share it with you?"
"Intruding fool," said the maiden, " the danger is all on thine own side
-the risk in, in plain terms, that I strike thee on the mouth with the hilt
of my dagger."  So saying, she turned haughtily from him, and moved
through the crowd, who gave way in some astonishment at the masculine
activity with which she forced her way among them.
As Roland, though much irritated, prepared to follow, he was grappled




THE  ABBOT.                            463
on the other side by Doctor Luke Lundin, who reminded him of the loaded
boat, of the two wefts, or signals with the flag, which had been made from
the tower, of the danger of the cold breeze to an empty stomach, and of
the vanity of spending more time upon coy wenches and sour plums.
Roland was thus, in a manner, dragged back to his boat, and obliged to
lanch her forth upon his return to Lochleven Castle.
That little voyage was speedily accomplished, and the page was greeted
at the landing-place by the severe and caustic welcome of old Dryfesdale.
"So, young gallant, you are come at last, after a delay of six hours, and
after two signals from the castle? But, I warrant, some idle junketing hath
occupied you too deeply to think of your service or your duty. Where is,
the note of the plate and household stuff?- Pray Heaven it hath not been
diminished under the sleeveless care of so young a gad-about!"
"Diminished under my care, Sir Steward!" retorted the page angrily;
"say so in earnest, and by Heaven your gray hair shall hardly protect your
saucy tongue!"
"A truce with your swaggering, young esquire," returned the steward;
" we have bolts and dungeons for brawlers. Go to my lady, and swagger
before her, if thou darest - she will give thee proper cause of offence, for
she has waited for thee long and impatiently."
"And where then is the Lady of Lochleven?" said the page; " for I con3eive it is of her thou speakest."
" Ay - of whom else?" replied Dryfesdale; "or who besides the Lady
of Lochleven hath a right to command in this castle?"
"The Lady of Lochleven is thy mistress," said Roland Grseme; "but
mine is the Queen of Scotland."
The steward looked at him fixedly for a moment, with an air in which
suspicion and dislike were ill concealed by an affectation of contempt.
"The bragging cock-chicken," he said, "will betray himself by his rash
crowing. I have marked thy altered manner in the chapel of late — ay,
and your changing of glances at meal-time with a certain idle damsel, who,
like thyself, laughs at all gravity and goodness. There is something about
you, my master, which should be looked to. But, if you would knoiw
whether the Lady of Lochleven, or that other lady, hath a right to command thy service, thou wilt find them together in the Lady Mary's anteroom."
Roland hastened thither, not unwilling to escape from the ill-natured
penetration of the old man, and marvelling at the same time what peculiarity could have occasioned the Lady of Lochleven's being in the Queen's
apartment at this time of the afternoon, so much contrary to her usual
wont. His acuteness instantly penetrated the meaning. " She wishes," he:
concluded, "to see the meeting betwixt the Queen and me on my return,
that she may form a guess whether there is any private intelligence orunderstanding betwixt us- I must be guarded."
With this resolution he entered the parlour, where the Queen, seated in
her chair, with the Lady Fleming leaning upon the back of it, had already
kept the Lady of Lochleven standing in her presence for the space of nearly
an hour, to the manifest increase of her very visible bad humour. Roland;
Grasme, on entering the apartment, made a deep obeisance to the Queen,
and another to the Lady, and then stood still as if to await their farther.
question. Speaking almost together, the Lady Lochleven said, " So, young
man, you are returned at- length?"
And then stopped indignantly short, while the Queen went on without
regarding her -" Roland, you are welcome home to us- you have proved
the true dove and not the raven-Yet I am sure I could have forgiven you,
if, once dismissed from this water-circled ark of ours, you had never again
returned to us. I trust you have brought back an olive-branch, for our
kind and worthy hostess has chafed herself much on account of your long




464                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
absence, and we never needed more some symbol of peace and reconciliation."
"I grieve I should have been detained, madam," answered the page;
"but from the delay of the person intrusted with the matters for which I
was sent, I did not receive them till late in the day."
" See you there now," said the Queen to the Lady Lochleven; "we could
not persuade you, our dearest hostess, that your household goods were in
all safe keeping and surety. True it is, that we can excuse your anxiety,
considering that these august apartments are so scantily furnished, that fw.o.
have not been able to offer you even the relief of a stool during the long
time you have afforded us the pleasure of your society."
" The will, madam," said the lady, " the will to offer such accommodation
was more wanting than the means."
"What!" said the Queen, looking round, and affecting surprise, " there
are then stools in this apartment - one, two - no less than four, including
the broken one-a royal garniture!-We observed them not-will it please
your ladyship to sit?"
"No, madam, I will soon relieve you of my presence," replied the Lady
Lochleven; "and while with you, my aged limbs can still better brook
fatigue, than my mind stoop to accept of constrained courtesy."
"Nay, Lady of Lochleven, if you take it so deeply," said the Queen,
rising and motioning to her own vacant chair, " I would rather you assumed
my seat-you are not the first of your family who has done so."
The Lady of Lochleven curtsied a negative, but seemed with much difficulty to suppress the angry answer which rose to her lips.
During this sharp conversation, the page's attention had been almost entirely occupied by the entrance of Catherine Seyton, who came from the
inner apartment, in the usual dress in which she attended upon the Queen,
and with nothing in her manner which marked either the hurry or confusion incident to a hasty change of disguise, or the conscious fear of detection
in a perilous enterprise. Roland Groame ventured to make her an obeisance
as she entered, but she returned it with an air of the utmost indifference,
which, in his opinion, was extremely inconsistent with the circumstances in
which they stood towards each other.-" Surely," he thought, " she cannot
in reason expect to bully me out of the belief due to mine own eyes, as she
tried to do concerning the apparition in the hostelry of Saint Michael's-I
will try if I cannot make her feel that this will be but a vain task, and that
confidence in me is the wiser and safer course to pursue."
These thoughts had passed rapidly through his mind, when the Queen,
having finished her altercation with the Lady of the castle, again addressed
him - " What of the revels at Kinross, Roland Grenme? Methought they
were gay, if I may judge from  some faint sounds of mirth and distant
music, which found their way so far as these grated windows, and. died
when they entered them, as all that is mirthful must -But thou lookest as
sad as if thou hadst come from a conventicle of the Huguenots!"
"And so perchance he hath, madam," replied the Lady of Lochleven, at
whom this side-shaft was lanched.  "I trust, amid yonder idle fooleries,
there wanted not some pouring forth of doctrine to a better purpose than
that vain mirth, which, blazing and vanishing like the crackling of dry
thorns, leaves to the fools who love it nothing but dust and ashes."
" Mary Fleming," said the Queen, turning round and drawing her mantle
about her, "I would that we had the chimney-grate supplied with a fagot
or two of these same thorns which the Lady of Lochleven describes so well.
Methinks the damp air from the lake, which stagnates in these vaulted
rooms, renders them deadly cold."
"Your Grace's pleasure shall be obeyed," said the Lady of Lochleven;
"yet may I presume to remind you that we are now in summer?"
" I thank you for the information, my good lady," said the Queen; "for




THE ABBOT.                              465
prisoners l:etter learn their calender from the mouth of their jailor, than
from any change they themselves feel in the seasons.  Once more, Roland
Groeme, what of the revels?"
"They were gay, madam," said the page, "but of the usual sort, and
little worth your Highness's ear."
" Oh, you know not," said the Queen, " how very indulgent my ear has
become to all that speaks of freedom and the pleasures of the free. Methinks I would rather have seen the gay villagers dance their ring round
the Maypole, than have witnessed the most stately masques within the precincts of a palace. The absence of stone-wall —the sense that the green
turf is under the foot which may tread it free and unrestrained, is worth all
that art or splendour can add to more courtly revels."
"I trust," said the Lady Lochleven, addressing the page in her turn,
"there were amongst these follies none of the riots or disturbances to which
they so naturally lead?"
Roland gave a slight glance to Catherine Seyton, as if to bespeak her attention, as he replied,-" I witnessed no offence, madam, worthy of marking
- none indeed of any kind, save that a bold damsel made her hand somewhat too familiar with the cheek of a player-man, and ran some hazard of
being ducked in the lake."
As he uttered these words he cast a hasty glance at Catherine; but she
sustained, with the utmost serenity of manner and countenance, the hint
which he had deemed could not have been thrown out before her without
exciting some fear and confusion.
" I will cumber your Grace no longer with my presence," said the Lady
Lochleven, "unless you have aught to command me."
"Nought, our good hostess," answered the Queen, "unless it be to pray
you, that on another occasion you deem it not needful to postpone your
better employment to wait so long upon us."
"May it please you," added the Lady Lochleven, "to'command this
your gentleman to attend us, that I may receive some account of these
matters which have been sent hither for your Grace's use?"
" We may not refuse what you are pleased to require, madam," answered
the Queen. " Go with the lady, Roland, if our commands be indeed necessary to thy doing so. We will hear to-morrow the history of thy Kinruss
pleasures.  For this night we dismiss thy attendance.'
Roland Greeme went with the Lady of Lochleven, who failed not to ask
him many questions concerning what had passed at the sports, to which he
rendered such answers as were most likely to lull asleep any suspicions
which she might entertain of his disposition to favour Queen Mary, taking
especial care to avoid all allusion to the apparition of Magdalen Groeme,
and of the Abbot Ambrosius. At length, after undergoing a long and somewhat close examination, he was dismissed with such expressions, as, coming
from the reserved and stern Lady of Lochleven, might seem to express a
degree of favour and countenance.
His first care was to obtain some refreshment, which was more cheerfully
afforded him by a good-natured pantler than by Dryfesdale, who was, on
this occasion, much disposed to abide by the fashion of Pudding-burn
House, where
They who came not the first call,
Gat no more meat till the next meal.
When Roland Groeme had finished his repast, having his dismissal from
the Queen for the evening, and being little inclined for such society as the
castle afforded, he stole into the garden, in which he had permission to
spend his leisure time, when it pleased him. In this place, the ingenuity
of the contriver and disposer of the walks had exerted itself to make the
most of little space, and by screens,'both of stone ornamented with rudo
VOL. V.  30




466                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
sculpture, and hedges of living green, had endeavoured to give as much intricacy and variety as the confined limits of the garden would admit.
Here the young man walked sadly, considering the events of the day, and
comparing what had dropped from the Abbot with what he had himself
noticed of the demeanour of George Douglas.  "It must be so," was the
painful but inevitable conclusion at which he arrived.  "It must be I y his
aid that she is thus enabled, like a phantom, to transport herself from place
to place, and to appear at pleasure on the mainland or on the islet.-It must
be so," he repeated once more; "with him she holds a close, secret, and
intimate correspondence, altogether inconsistent with the eye of favour
which she.has sometimes cast upon me, and destructive to the hopes which
she must have known these glances have necessarily inspired."  And yet
(for love will hope where reason despairs) the thought rushed on his mind,
that it was possible she only encouraged Douglas's passion so far as might
serve her mistress's interest, and that she was of too frank, noble, and
candid a nature, to hold out to himself hopes which she meant not to fulfil.
Lost in these various conjectures, he seated himself upon a bank of turf
which commanded a view of the lake on the one side, and on the other of
that front of the castle along which the Queen's apartments were situated.
The sun had now for some time set, and the twilight of May was rapidly
fading into a serene night. On the lake, the expanded water rose and fell,
with the slightest and softest influence of a southern breeze, which scarcely
dimpled the surface over which it passed. In the distance was still seen
the dim outline of the island of Saint Serf, once visited by-many a sandalled
pilgrim, as the blessed spot trodden by a man of God —now neglected or
violated, as the refuge of lazy priests, who had with justice been compelled
to give place to the sheep and the heifers of a Protestant baron.
As Roland gazed on the dark speck, amid the lighter blue of the waters
which surrounded it, the mazes of polemical discussion again stretched
themselves before the eye of the mind. Had these men justly suffered their
exile as licentious drones, the robbers, at once, and disgrace, of the busy
hive? or had the hand of avarice and rapine expelled from the temple, not
the ribalds who polluted, but the faithful priests who served the shrine in
honour and fidelity?  The arguments of Henderson, in this contemplative
hour, rose with double force before him, and could scarcely be parried by
the appeal which the Abbot Ambrosius had made from  his understanding
to his feelings, - an appeal which he had felt more forcibly amid the bustle
of stirring life, than now when his reflections were more undisturbed. It
required an effort to divert his mind from this embarrassing topic; and he
found that he best succeeded by turning his eyes to the front of the tower,
watching where a twinkling light still streamed from  the casement of
Catherine Seyton's apartment, obscured by times for a moment as- the
shadow of the fair inhabitant passed betwixt the taper and the window.
At length the light was removed or extinguished, and that object of speculation was also withdrawn from the eyes of the meditative lover. Dare I
confess the fact, without injuring his character for ever as a hero of romance?
These eyes gradually became heavy; speculative doubts on the subject of
religious controversy, and anxious conjectures concerning the state of his
mistress's affections, became confusedly blended together in his musings;
the fatigues of a busy day prevailed over the harassing subjects of contemplation which occupied his mind, and he fell fast asleep.
Sound were his slumbers, until they were suddenly dispelled by the iron
tongue of the castle-bell, which sent its deep and sullen sounds wide over
the bosom of the lake, and awakened the echoes of Bennarty, the hill which
descends steeply on its southern bank. Roland started up, for this bell was
always tolled at ten o'clock, as the signal for locking the castle gates, and
placing the keys under the charge of the seneschal. He therefore hastened
to the wicket by which the garden communicated with the building, and




THE ABBOT.                              467
had the mortification, just as he reached it, to hear the bolt leave its sheath
with a discordant crash, and enter the stone groove of the door-lintel.
" Hold, hold," cried the page, "and let me in ere you lock the wicket."
The voice of Dryfesdale replied from within, in his usual tone of em.bit
tered sullenness, " The hour is passed, fair master-you like not the inside
of these walls —even make it a complete holiday, and spend the night as
well as the day out of bounds."
"Open the door," exclaimed the indignant page, "or by Saint Giles I
will make thy gold chain smoke for it!"
" Make no alarm here," retorted the impenetrable Dryfesdale, " but keep
thy sinful oaths and silly threats for those that regard them - I do mine
office, and carry the keys to the seneschal. - Adieu, my young master! the
cool night air will advantage your hot blood."
The steward was right in what he said; for the cooling breeze was very
necessary to appease the feverish fit of anger which Roland experienced,
nor did the remedy succeed for some time. At length, after some hasty
turns made through the garden, exhausting his passion in vain vows of
vengeance, Roland Greeme began to be sensible that his situation ought
rather to be held as matter of laughter than of serious resentment. To one
bred a sportsman, a night spent in the open air had in it little of hardship,
and the poor malice of the steward seemed more worthy of his contempt
than his anger.  " I would to God," he said, "that the grim old man may
always have contented himself with such sportive revenge. He often looks
as he were capable of doing us a darker turn." Returning, therefore, to the
turf-seat which he had formerly occupied, and which was partially sheltered
by a trim fence of green holly, he drew his mantle around him, stretched
himself at length on the verdant settle, and endeavoured to resume that sleep
which the castle bell had interrupted to so little purpose.
Sleep, like other earthly blessings, is niggard of its favours when most
courted. The more Roland invoked her aid, the farther she fled from his
eyelids. He had been completely awakened, first, by the sounds of the bell,
and then by his own aroused vivacity of temper, and he found it difficult
again to compose himself to slumber. At length, when his mind was wearied
out with a maze of unpleasing meditation, he succeeded in coaxing himself
into a broken slumber.  This was again dispelled by the voices of two per,
sons who were walking in the garden, the sound of whose conversation, after
mingling for some time in the page's dreams, at.length succeeded in awaking him thoroughly. He raised himself from his reclining posture in the
utmost astonishment, which the circumstance of hearing two persons at that
late hour conversing on the outside of the watchfully guarded Castle of
Lochleven, was so well calculated to excite. His first thought was of supernatural beings; his next, upon some attempt on the part of Queen Mary's
friends and followers; his last was, that George of Douglas, possessed of
the keys, and having the means of ingress and egress at pleasure, was availing himself of his office to hold a rendezvous with Catherine Seyton in the
castle garden. He was confirmed in this opinion by the tone of the voiho,
which asked in a low whisper, "whether all was ready?"




468                   WAVE RLEY  NOVELLS.
(rijaptet  tat ^T rttiM.
In some breasts passion lies conceal'd and silent,
Like war's swart powder in a castle vault,
Until occasion, like the linstock, lights it:
Then comes at once the lightning and the thunder,
And distant echoes tell that all is rent asunder.
OLD PLAY.
BROLANI) GRAiME, availing himself of a breach in the holly screen, and of
the assistance of the full moon, which was now arisen, had a perfect opportunity, himself unobserved, to reconnoitre the persons and the motions of.
those by whom  his rest had been thus unexpectedly disturbed; and his
observations confirmed his jealous apprehensions.  They stood together in
close and earnest conversation within four yards of the place of his retreat,
and he could easily recognize the tall form and deep voice of Douglas, and
the no less remarkable dress and tone of the page at the hostelry of Saint
Michael's.
" I have been at the door of the page's apartment," said Douglas, "but
he is not there, or he will not answer.  It is fast bolted on the inside, as is
the custom, and we cannot pass through it-and what his silence may bode
I know not."
" You have trusted him too far," said the other; " a feather-headed coxcomb, upon whose changeable mind and hot brain there is no making an
abiding impression."
" It was not I who was willing to trust him," said Douglas, "but I was
assured he would prove friendly when called upon-for _ "  Here he
spoke so low that Roland lost the tenor of his words, which was the more
provoking, as he was fully aware that he was himself the subject of their
conversation.
"s Nay," replied the stranger, more aloud, "I have on my side put him off
with fair words, which make fools vain-but now, if you distrust him at the
push, deal with him with your dagger, and so make open passage."
" That were too rash," said Douglas; "and besides, as I told you, the
door of his apartment is shut and bolted.  I will essay again to waken him."
Greeme instantly comprehended, that the ladies, having been somehow
made aware of his being in the garden, had secured the door of the outer
room in which he usually slept, as a sort of sentinel upon that only access
to the Queen's apartments.  But then, how came Catherine Seyton to be
abroad, if the Queen and the other lady were still within their chambers,
and the access to them locked and bolted?-" I will be instantly at the bottom of these mysteries," he said, "and then thank Mistress Catherine, if
this be really she, for the kind use which she exhorted Douglas to make of
his dagger-they seek me, as I comprehend, and they shall not seek me in
vain."
Douglas had by this time re-entered the castle by the wicket, which was
now open.  The stranger stood alone in the garden walk, his arms folded
on his breast, and his eyes cast impatiently up to the moon, as if accusing
her of betraying him  by the magnificence of her lustre.  In a moment
Roland Groeme stood before him-"A goodly night," he said, "Mistress
Catherine, for a young lady to stray forth in disguise, and to meet with men
in an orchard!"
"Hush!" said the stranger page, "hush, thou foolish patch, and tell us
in a word if thou art friend or foe."
" Iow should I be friend to one who deceives me by fair words, and who
would have Douglas deal with me with his poniard?" replied Roland.




THE  ABBOT.                            469;
"The fiend receive George of Douglas and thee too, thou born madcap
and sworn marplot!" said the other; "we shall be discovered, and then
death is the word."
"Catherine," said the page, " you have dealt falsely and cruelly with me,
and the moment of explanation is now come-neither it nor you shall escape
me."
"Madman!" said the stranger, "I am neither Kate nor Catherine - the
moon shines bright enough surely to know the hart from the hind."
"That shift shall not serve you, fair mistress," said the page, laying hold
on the lap of the stranger's cloak; "this time, at least, I will know with
whom I deal."
"Unhand me," said she, endeavouring to extricate herself from his grasp;
and in a tone where anger seemed to contend with a desire to laugh, " use
you so little discretion towards a daughter of Seyton?"
But as Roland, encouraged perhaps by her risibility to suppose his violence was not unpardonably offensive, kept hold on her mantle, she said, in
a sterner tone of unmixed resentment,-" Madman! let me go I - there is
life and death in this moment-I would not willingly hurt thee, and yet
beware!"
As she spoke she made a sudden effort to escape, and, in doing so, a pistol,
which she carried in her hand or about her person, went off.
This warlike sound instantly awakened the well-warded castle. The
warder blew his horn, and began to toll the castle bell, crying out at the
same time, "Fie, treason! treason! cry all! cry all!"
The apparition of Catherine Seyton, which the page had let loose in the
first moment of astonishment, vanished in darkness; but the plash of oars
was heard, and, in a second or two, five or six harquebuses and a falconet
were fired from the battlements of the castle successively, as if levelled at
some object on the water. Confounded with these incidents, no way for
Catherine's protection (supposing her to be in the boat which he had heard
put from the shore) occurred to Roland, save to have recourse to George of
Douglas. He hastened for this purpose towards the apartment of the Queen,
whence'he heard loud voices and much trampling of feet. When he entered, he found himself added to a confused and astonished group, which,
assembled in that apartment, stood gazing upon each other. At the upper
end of the room stood the Queen, equipped as for a journey, and attended
not only by the Lady Fleming, but by the omnipresent Catherine Seyton,
dressed in the habit of her own sex, and bearing in her hand the casket in
which Mary kept such jewels as she had been permitted to retain. At the
other end of the hall was the Lady of Lochleven, hastily dressed, as one
startled from slumber by the sudden alarm, and surrounded by domestics,
some bearing torches, others holding naked swords, partisans, pistols, or
such other weapons as they had caught up in the hurry of a night alarm.
Betwixt these two parties stood George of Douglas, his arms folded on his
breast, his eyes bent on the ground, like a criminal who knows not how to
deny, yet continues unwilling to avow, the guilt in which he has been
detected.
" Speak. George of Douglas," said the Lady of Lochleven; " speak, and
clear the horrid suspicion which rests on thy name.  Say,'A Douglas was
never faithless to his trust, and I am a Douglas.' Say this, my dearest son,
and it is all I ask thee to say to clear thy name, even under such a foul
charge. Say it was but the wile of these unhappy women, and this false
boy, which plotted an escape so fatal to Scotland — so destructive to thy
father's house."
"Madam," said old Dryfesdale the steward, "this much do I say f)r this
silly page, that he could not be accessary to unlocking the doors, since I
myself this night bolted him out of the castle. Whoever limned this nightpiece, the lad's share in it seems to have been small"
2P




470                  WAVERLEY  N-OVELS.
"Thou liest, Dryfesdale," said the Lady, " and wouldst throw the blame
on thy master's house, to save the worthless life of a gipsy boy."
" His death were more desirable to me than his life," answered the steward,
sullenly; " but the truth is the truth."
At these words Douglas raised his head, drew up his figure to its full
height, and spoke boldly and sedately, as one whose resolution was taken.
"Let no life be endangered for me. I alone -"
"Douglas," said the Queen, interrupting him, "art thou mad?  Speak
not, I charge you."' Madam," he replied, bowing with the deepest respect, "gladly would
I obey your commands, but they must have a victim, and let it be the
true one.-Yes, madam," he continued, addressing the Lady of Lochleven, " I alone am guilty in this matter. If the word of a Douglas has
yet any weight with you, believe me that this boy is innocent; and on your
conscience I charge you, do him no wrong; nor let the Queen suffer hardship for embracing the opportunity of freedom which sincere loyalty-which
a sentiment yet deeper —offered to her acceptance. Yes! I had planned the
escape of the most beautiful, the most persecuted of women; and far from
regretting that I, for a while, deceived the malice of her enemies, I glory in
it, and am most willing to yield up life itself in her cause."
"Now may God have compassion on my age," said the Lady of Lochleven, " and enable me to bear this load of affliction! O Princess, born in
a luckless hour, when will you cease to be the instrument of seduction and
of ruin to all who approach you? 0 ancient house of Lochleven, famed so
long for birth and honour, evil was the hour which brought the deceiver
under thy roof!
"Say not so, madam," replied her grandson; "the old honours of the
Douglas line will be outshone, when one of its descendants dies for the most
injured of queens -for the most lovely of women."'
"Douglas," said the Queen, "must I at this moment  ay, even at this
moment, when I may lose a faithful subject for ever, chide thee for forgetting what is due to me as thy Queen?"
"Wretched boy," said the distracted Lady of Lochleven, " hast thou fallen
even thus far into the snare of this Moabitish woman?-hast thou bartered
thy name, thy allegiance, thy knightly oath, thy duty to thy parents, thy
country, and thy God, for a feigned tear, or a sickly smile, from lips which
flattered the infirm Francis-lured to death the idiot Darnley-read luscious
poetry with the minion Chastelar-mingled in the lays of love which were
sung by the beggar Rizzio -and which were joined in rapture to those of
the foul and licentious Bothwell?"
"Blaspheme not, madam!" said Douglas;  " nor you, fair Queen, and
virtuous as fair, chide at this moment the presumption of thy vassal! -
Think not that the mere devotion of a subject could have moved me to the
part I have been performing.  Well you deserve that each of your lieges
should die for you; but I have done more - have done that to which love
alone could compel a Douglas-I have dissembled. Farewell, then, -Queen
of all hearts, and Empress of that of Douglas!-When you are freed from
this vile bondage -as freed you shall be, if justice remains in Heaven -
and when you load with honours and titles the happy man who shall deliver
you, cast one thought on him whose heart would have despised eveiy rewlard
for a kiss of your hand-cast one thought on his fidelity, and drop one tear
on his grave." And throwing himself at her feet, he. seized her hand, and
pressed it to his lips.
" This before my face!" exclaimed the Lady of Lochleven -" wilt thou
court thy adulterous paramour before the eyes of a parent? - Tear them
asunder, and put him under strict ward!  Seize him, upon your lives!"
she added, seeing that her attendants looked at each other with hesitation.




THE ABBOT.                              471
"They are doubtful," said Mary.  "Save thyself, Douglas, I command
thee i"
He started up from the floor, and only exclaiming, "My life or death are
yours, and at your disposal!" -drew his sword, and broke through those
who stood betwixt him and the door. The enthusiasm of his onset was too
sudden and, too lively to have been opposed by any thing short of the most
decided opposition; and as he was both loved and feared by his father's
vassals, none of them would offer him actual injury.
The Lady of Lochleven stood astonished at his sudden escape-" Am I
surrounded," she said, "by traitors? Upon him, villains! - pursue, stab,
cut him down!"
"He cannot leave the island, madam," said Dryfesdale, interfering; "I
have the key of the boat-chain."    -
But two or three voices of those who pursued from curiosity, or command
of their mistress, exclaimed from below, that he had cast himself into the
lake.
"Brave Douglas still!" exclaimed the Queen-" Oh, true and noble heart,
that prefers death to imprisonment!"
" Fire upon him!" said the Lady of Lochleven; " if there be here a true
servant of his father, let him shoot the runagate dead, and let the lake cover
our shame!"
The report of a gun or two was heard, but they were probably shot rather
to obey the Lady, than with any purpose of hitting the mark; and Randal
immediately entering, said that Master George had been taken up by a boat
from the castle, which lay at a little distance.
" Man a barge, and pursue them i" said the Lady.
"It were quite vain," said Randal; " by this time they are half way to
shore, and a cloud has come over the moon."
" And has the traitor then escaped?" said the Lady, pressing her hands
against her forehead with a gesture of despair; "the honour of our house
is for ever gone, and all will be deemed accomplices in this base treachery."
"Lady of Lochleven," said Mary, advancing towards her, " you have this
night cut off my fairest hopes-You have turned my expected freedom into
bondage, and dashed away the cup of joy in the very instant I was advancing it to my lips-and yet I feel for your sorrow the pity that you deny to
mine - Gladly would I comfort you if I might; but as I may not, I would
at least part from you in charity."
" Away, proud woman!" said the Lady; " who ever knew so well as thou
to deal' the deepest wounds under the pretence of kindness and courtesy?
-Who, since the great traitor, could ever so betray with a kiss?"
"Lady Douglas of Lochleven," said the Queen, "in this moment thou
canst not offend me- no, not even by thy coarse and unwomanly language,
held to me in the presence of menials and armed retainers.  I have this
night owed so much to one member of the house of Lochleven, as to cancel
whatever its mistress can do or say in the wildness of her passion."'We are bounden to you, Princess," said Lady Lochleven, putting a
strong constraint on herself, and passing from her tone of violence to that
of bitter irony; " our poor house hath been but seldom graced with royal
smiles, and will hardly, with my choice, exchange their rough honesty for
such court-honour as Mary of Scotland has now to bestow."
"They," replied Mary, "who knew so well how to take, may think
themselves excused from the obligation implied in receiving. And that I
have now little to offer, is the fault of the Douglasses and their allies."
"Fear nothing, madam," replied the Lady of Lochleven, in the same
bitter tone, "you retain an exchequer which neither your own prodigality
can drain, nor your offended country deprive you of. While you have fair
words and delusive smiles at command, you need no other bribes to lure
youth to folly."




472                   WAV.ERLEY NOVELS.
The Queen cast not an ungratified glance on a large mirror, which,
hanging on one side of the apartment, and illuminated by the torch-light,
reflected her beautiful face and person. "Our hostess grows complaisant,"
she said, "my Fleming; we had not thought that grief and captivity had
left us so well stored with that sort of wealth which ladies prize most
dearly."
"' Your Grace will drive this severe woman frantic," said Fleming, in a
low tone.  " On my knees I implore you to remember she is already dreadfully offended, and that we are in her power."
" I will not spare her, Fleming," answered the Queen; " it is against my
nature.  She returned my honest sympathy with insult and abuse, and I
will gall her in return, - if her words are too blunt for answer, let her use
her poniard if she dare!"
"The Lady Lochleven," said the Lady Fleming aloud, " would surely do
well now to withdraw, and to leave her Grace to repose."
"Ay," replied the Lady, " or to leave her Grace, and her Grace's minions,
to think what silly fly they may next wrap their meshes about. My eldest
son is a widower-were he not more worthy the flattering hopes with which
you have seduced his brother? — True, the yoke of marriage has been
already thrice fitted on -but the church of Rome calls it a sacrament, and
its votaries may deem it one in which they cannot too often participate."
" And the votaries of the church of Geneva," replied Mary, colouring with
indignation, "as they deem marriage no sacrament, are said at times to
dispense with the holy ceremony."-Then, as if afraid of the consequences
of this home allusion to the errors of Lady Lochleven's early life, the Queen
added, " Come, my Fleming, we grace her too much by this altercation; we
will to our sleeping apartment. If she would disturb us again to-night, she
must cause the door to be forced." So saying, she retired to her bed-room,
followed by her two women.
Lady Lochleven, stunned as it were by this last sarcasm, and not the less
deeply incensed that she had drawn it upon herself, remained like a statue
on the spot which she had occupied when she received an affront so flagrant.
Dryfesdale and Randal endeavoured to rouse her to recollection bl questions.
" What is your honourable Ladyship's pleasure in the premises?"
" Shall we not double the sentinels, and place one upon the boats and
another in the garden?" said Randal.
"Would you that despatches were sent to Sir William at Edinburgh, to
acquaint him with what has happened?" demanded Dryfesdale; " and ought
~not the place of Kinross to be alarmed, lest there be force upon the shores
of the lake?"
"lDo all as thou wilt," said the Lady, collecting herself, and about to
depart.  " Thou hast the name of a good soldier, Dryfesdale, take all
precautions. - Sacred  eaven! that I should be thus openly insulted!
"Would it be your pleasure," said Dryfesdale, hesitating, "that this
person- this Lady -be more severely restrained?"' No, vassal!" answered the Lady, indignantly, "my revenge stoops not
to so low a gratification. But I will have more worthy vengeance, or the
tomb of my ancestors shall cover my shame!"
"And you shall have it, madam," replied Dryfesdale-" ere two suns go
down, you shall term yourself amply revenged."
The Lady made no answer-perhaps did not hear his words, as she
presently left the apartment. By the command of Dryfesdale, the rest of
the attendants were dismissed,'some to do the duty of guard, others to their
repose. The steward himself remained after they had all departed; and
Roland Grmme, who was alone in the apartment, was surprised to see the
old soldier advance towards him with an air of greater cordiality than he
had ever before assumed to him, but which sat ill on his scowling features.




THE ABBOT.                               473
" Youth," he said, " I have done thee some wrong - it is thine own fault,
for thy behaviour hath seemed as light to me as the feather thou wearest in
thy hat; and surely thy fantastic apparel, and idle humour of mirth and
folly, have made me construe thee something harshly; But I saw this night
from  my casement, (as I looked out to see how thou hadst disposed of
thyself in the garden,) I saw, I say, the true efforts which thou didst make
to detain the companion of the perfidy of him who is no longer worthy to
be called by his father's name, but must be cut off from his house like a
rotten branch. I was just about to come to thy assistance when the pistol
went off; and the warder (a false knave, whom I suspect to be bribed for
the nonce) saw himself forced to give the alarm, which, perchance, till then
he had wilfully withheld. To atone, therefore, for my injustice towards
you, I would willingly render you a courtesy, if you would accept of it from
my hands."
"May I first crave to know what it is?" replied the page.
"Simply to carry the news of this discovery to Holyrood, where thou
mayest do thyself much grace, as well with the Earl of Morton and the
Regent himself, as with Sir William  Douglas, seeing thou hast seen the
matter from end to end, and borne faithful part therein. The making thine
own fortune will be thus lodged in thine own hand, when I trust thou wilt
estrange thyself from foolish vanities, and learn to walk in this world as
one who thinks upon the next."
" Sir Steward," said Roland Grgeme, "I thank you for your courtesy, but
I may not do your errand.  I pass that I am the Queen's sworn servant, and
may not be of counsel against her.  But, setting this apart, methinks it
were a bad road to Sir William of Lochleven's favour, to be the first totell
him of his son's defection - neither would the Regent be over well pleased
to hear the infidelity of his vassal, nor Morton to learn the falsehood of his
kinsman."
" Um!" said the steward, making that inarticulate sound which expresses
surprise mingled with displeasure. " Nay, then, even fly where ye list; for,
gi(<ly-pated as ye may be, you know how to bear you in the world."
" I will show you my esteem  is less selfish than ye think for," said the
page; " for I hold truth and mirth to be better than gravity and cunningay, and in the end to be a match for them.-You never loved me less, Sir
Steward, than you do at this moment. I know you will give me no, real
confidence, and I am resolved to accept no false protestations as current
coin. Resume your old course - suspect me as much and watch me as
closely as you will, I bid you defiance - you have met with your match."
"By Heaven, young man," said the steward, with a look of bitter
malignity, "if thou darest to attempt any treachery towards the House of
Lochleven, thy head shall blacken in the sun from the warder's turret!"
"He cannot commit treachery who refuses trust," said the page; "and
for my head, it stands as securely on my shoulders, as on any turret that
ever mason built."
"Farewell, thou prating and speckled pie," said Dryfesdale, "that art so
vain of thine idle tongue and variegated coat! Beware trap and limetwig."
" And fare thee well, thou hoarse old raven," answered the page; "thy
solemn flight, sable hue, and deep croak, are no charms against bird-bolt
or hail-shot, and that thou mayst find -it is open war betwixt us, each for
the cause of our mistress, and God show the right!"
"Amen, and defend his own people!" said the steward.  "I will let my
mistress know what addition thou hast made to this mess of traitors. Good
night, Monsieur Featherpate."
" Good-night, Seignior Sowersby," replied the page; and, when the old
man departed, he betook himself to rest.
2P2




474                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
^liintt tat Cirtt-iir^f
Poison'd -ill fare! -dead, forsook, cast off! -
KING JOHN.
HOWEVER weary Roland Graeme might be of the Castle of Lochleven -
however much he might wish that the plan for Mary's escape had been
perfected, I question if he ever awoke with more pleasing feelings than on
the morning after George Douglas's plan for accomplishing her deliverance
had been frustrated. In the first place, he had the clearest conviction that
he had misunderstood the innuendo of the Abbot, and that the affections of
Douglas were fixed, not on Catherine Seyton, but on the Queen; and in the
second place, from the sort of explanation which had taken place betwixt
the steward and him, he felt himself at liberty, without any breach of
honour towards the family of Lochleven, to contribute his best aid to any
scheme which should in future be formed for the Queen's escape; and, independently of the good-will which he himself had to the enterprise, he
knew he could find no surer road to the favour of Catherine Seyton. He
now sought but an opportunity to inform her that he had dedicated himself
to this task, and fortune was propitious in affording him one which was
unusually favourable.
At the ordinary hour of breakfast, it was introduced by the steward with
his usual forms, who, as soon as it was placed on the board in the inner
apartment, said to Roland Graeme, with a glance of sarcastic import, "I
leave you, my young sir, to do the office of sewer- it has been too long
rendered to the Lady Mary by one belonging to the house of Douglas."
"Were it the prime and principal who ever bore the name," said Roland,
"the office were an honour to him."
The steward departed without replying to this bravade, otherwise than
by a dark look of scorn. Greeme, thus left alone, busied himself as one
engaged in a labour of love, to imitate, as well as he could, the grace and
courtesy with which George of Douglas was wont to render his ceremonial
service at meals to the Queen of Scotland. There was more than youthful
vanity-there was a generous devotion in the feeling with which he took up
the task, as a brave soldier assumes the place of a comrade who has fallen
in the front of battle. "I am now," he said, "their only champion: and,.
come weal, come wo, I will be, to the best of my skill and power, as
faithful, as trustworthy, as brave, as any Douglas of them all could have
been."
At this moment Catherine Seyton entered alone, contrary to her custom;
and not less contrary to her custom, she entered with her kerchief at het
eyes. Roland Grseme approached her with beating heart and with dofvw
cast eyes, and asked her, in a low and hesitating voice, whether the Queen
were well?
"Can you suppose it?" said Catherine.  " Think you her heart and body
are framed of steel and iron, to endure the cruel disappointment of yester
even, and the infamous taunts of yonder puritanic hag?-Would to God
that I were a man, to aid her more effectually!"
" If those who carry pistols, and batons, and poniards," said the page,
"are not men, they are at least Amazons; and that is as formidable.
"You are welcome to the flash of your wit, sir," replied the damsel; "I
am neither in spirits to enjoy, nor to reply to it."
"Well, then," said the page, "list to me in all serious truth. And, first,
kt me say, that the gear last night had been smoother, had you taken me
iito your counsels."




THE  ABBOT.                            475
"And so we meant; but who could have guessed that Master Page should
choose to pass all night in the garden, like some moon-stricken knight in a
Spanish romance-instead of being in his bed-room, when Douglas came to
nold communication with him on our project."
" And why," said the page, " defer to so late a moment so important a
confidence?"
" Because your communications with Henderson, and-with pardon-the
natural impetuosity and fickleness of your disposition, made us dread to
entrust you with a secret of such consequence, till the last moment."
"And why at the last moment?" said the page, offended at this frank
avowal; "why at that, or any other moment, since I had the misfortune to
incur so much suspicion?"
"Nay - now you are angry again," said Catherine; " and to serve you
aright I should break off this talk; but I will be magnanimous, and answer
your question. Know, then, our reason for trusting you was twofold. In
the first place, we could scarce avoid it, since you slept in the room through
which we had to pass. In the second place —"
"Nay," said the page, "you may dispense with a second reason, when
the first makes your confidence in me a case of necessity."
"Good now, hold thy peace," said Catherine.  "In the second place, as
I said before, there is one foolish person among us, who believes that
Roland Grgeme's heart is warm, though his head is giddy-that his blood is
pure, though it boils too hastily-and that his faith and honour are true as
the load-star, though his tongue sometimes is far less than discreet."
This avowal Catherine repeated in a low tone, with her eye fixed on the
floor, as if she shunned the glance of Roland while she suffered it to escape
her lips -" And this single friend," exclaimed the youth in rapture; "this
only one who would do justice to the poor Roland Grieme, and whose own
generous heart taught her to distinguish between follies of the brain and
faults of the heart-Will you not tell me, dearest Catherine, to whom I owe
my most grateful, my most heartfelt thanks?"
" Nay," said Catherine, with her eyes still fixed on the ground, "if your
owvn heart tell you not-"
"Dearest Catherine!" said the page, seizing upon her hand, and kneeling
on one knee.
"If your own heart, I say, tell you not," said Catherine, gently disengaging her hand, "it is very ungrateful; for since the maternal kindness
of the Lady Fleming    "
The page started on his feet. "By Heaven, Catherine, your tongue
wears as many disguises as your person! But you only mock me, cruel
girl. You know the Lady Fleming has no more regard for any one, than
hath the forlorn princess who is wrought into yonder piece of old figured
court tapestry."
"It may be so," said Catherine Seyton, "but you should not speak so
loud."
" Pshaw!" answered the page, but at the same time lowering his voice,
4' she cares for no one but herself and the Queen. And you know, besides,
there is no one of you whose opinion I value, if I have not your own. No
-not that of Queen Mary herself."
" The more shame for you, if it be so," said Catherine, with great composure.
"Nay, but, fair Catherine," said the page, "why will you thus damp my
ardour, when I am devoting myself, body and soul, to the cause of your
mistress?"
"It is because in doing so," said Catherine, "you debase a cause so
noble, by naming along with it any lower or more selfish motive. Believe
me," she said, with kindling eyes, and while the blood mantled on her
cheek, "they think vilely and falsely of women — I mean of those who




476                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
deserve the name-who deem that they love the gratification of their
vanity, or the mean purpose of engrossing a lover's admiration and affection,
better than they love the virtue and honour of the man they may be brought
to prefer. He that serves his religion, his prince, and his country, with
ardour and devotion, need not plead his cause with the commonplace rant
of romantic passion- the woman whom he honours with his love becomes
his debtor, and her corresponding affection is engaged to repay his glorious
toil."
"You hold a glorious prize for such toil," said the youth, bending his
eyes on her with enthusiasm.
"Only a heart which knows how to value it," said Catherine. " He that
should free this injured Princess from these dungeons, and set her at liberty
among her loyal and warlike nobles, whose hearts are burning to welcome
her-where is the maiden in Scotland whom the love of such a hero would
not honour, were she sprung from the blood royal of the land, and he the
offspring of the poorest cottager that ever held a plough?"
" I am determined," said Roland, " to take the adventure. Tell me first,
however, fair Catherine, and speak it as if you were confessing to the priest
— this poor Queen, I know she is unhappy -but, Catherine, do you hold
her innocent? She is accused of murder."
" Do I hold the lamb guilty, because it is assailed by the wolf?" answered
Catherine; "do I hold yonder sun polluted, because an earth-damp sullies
his beams?"
The page sighed and looked down. " Would my conviction were as deep
as thine! But one thing is clear, that in this captivity she hath wrongShe rendered herself up, on a capitulation, and the terms have been refused
her-I will embrace her quarrel to the death!"
"Will you —will you, indeed?" said Catherine, taking his hand in her
turn.  "Oh, be but firm in mind, as thou art bold in deed and quick in
resolution; keep but thy plighted faith, and after ages shall honour thee as
the saviour of Scotland!"
"But when I have toiled successfully to win that Leah, Honour, thou
wilt not, my Catherine," said the page, "condemn me to a new term of
service for that Rachel, Love?"
"Of that," said Catherine, again extricating her hand from his grasp,
"we shall have full time to speak; but Honour is the-elder sister, and
must be won the first."
" I may not win her," answered the page; "but I will venture fairly for
her, and man can do no more. And know, fair Catherine, -for you shall
see the very secret thought of my heart,-that not Honour only-not only
that other and fairer sister, whom you frown on me for so much as mentioning -but the stern commands of duty also, compel me to aid the Queen's
deliverance."
"Indeed!" said Catherine; "you were wont to have doubts on that
matter."
"Ay, but her life was not then threatened," replied Roland.
"And is it now more endangered than heretofore?" asked Catherine
Seyton, in anxious terror.
"Be not alarmed," said the page; "but you heard the terms on which
your royal mistress parted with the Lady of Lochleven?"
"Too well - but too well," said Catherine; " alas! that she cannot rule
her princely resentment, and refrain from encounters like these!"
"That hath passed betwixt them," said Roland, "for which woman never
forgives woman. I saw the Lady's brow turn pale, and then black, when,
before all the menzie, and in her moment of power, the Queen humbled her
to the dust by taxing her with her shame. And I heard the oath of deadly
resentment and revenge which she muttered in the ear of one, who by his
aiswer will, I judge, be but too ready an executioner of her will."




THE  ABBOT.                            477
"You terrify me," said Catherine.
"Do not so take it —call up the masculine part of your spirit -we will
counteract and defeat her plans, be they dangerous as they may. Why do
you look upoti me thus, and weep?"
"Alas!" said Catherine, "because you stand.there before me a living and
breathing man, in all the adventurous glow and enterprise of youth, yet
still possessing the frolic spirits of childhood -there you stand, full alike,of generous enterprise and childish recklessness; and if to-day, or to-morrow, or some such brief space, you lie a mangled and lifeless corpse upon
the floor of these hateful dungeons, who but Catherine Seyton will be the
cause of your brave and gay career being broken short as you start from the
goal?  Alas! she whom you have chosen to twine your wreath, may too
probably have to work your shroud!"
"And be it so, Catherine," said the page, in the full glow of youthful
enthusiasm; "and do thou work my shroud! and if thou grace it with such
tears as fall now at the thought, it will honour my remains more than an
earl's mantle would my living body. But shame on this faintness of heart!
the time craves a firmer mood-Be a woman, Catherine, or rather be a man
-thou carst be a man if thou wilt."
Catherine dried her tears, and endeavoured to smile.
"You must not ask me," she said, " about that which so much disturbs
your mind; you shall know all in time-nay, you should know all now, but
that    Hush! here comes the Queen."
Mary entered from her apartment, paler than usual, and apparently
exhausted by a sleepless night, and by the painful thoughts which had ill
supplied the place of repose; yet the languor of her looks was so far from
impairing her beauty, that it only substituted the frail delicacy of the lovely
woman for the majestic grace of the Queen. Contrary to her wont, her
toilette had been very hastily despatched, and her hair, which was usually
dressed by Lady Fleming with great care, escaping from beneath the headtire, which had been hastily adjusted, fell in long and luxuriant tresses of
Nature's own curling, over a neck and bosom which were somewhat less
carefully veiled than usual.
As she stepped over the threshold of her apartment, Catherine, hastily
drying her tears, ran to meet her royal mistress, and having first kneeled at
her feet, and kissed her hand, instantly rose, and placing herself on the
other side of the Queen, seemed anxious to divide with the Lady Fleming
the honour of supporting and assisting her.  The page, on his part, advanced and put in order the chair of state, which she usually occupied, and
having placed the cushion and footstool for her accommodation, stepped back,
and stood ready for service in the place usually occupied by his predecessor,
the young Seneschal. Mary's eye rested an instant on him, and could not
but remark the change of persons. Hers was not the female heart which
could refuse compassion, at least, to a gallant youth who had suffered in
her cause, although he had been guided in his enterprise by a too presumptuous passion; and the words "Poor Douglas!" escaped from her lips,
perhaps unconsciously, as she leant herself back in her chair, and put the
kerchief to her eyes.
"Yes, gracious madam," said Catherine, assuming a cheerful manner, in
order to cheer her sovereign, "our gallant Knight is indeed banished-the
adventure was not reserved for him; but he has left behind him a youthful
Esquire, as much devoted to your Grace's service, and who, by me, makes
you tender of his hand and sword."
" If they may in aught avail your Grace," said Roland Grieme, bowing
profoundly.
"Alas!" said the Queen, "what needs this, Catherine?-why prepare
new victims to be involved in, and overwhelmed by, my cruel fortune?were we not better cease to struggle, and ourselves sink in the tide without




478                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
farther resistance, than thus-drag into destruction with us every generous
heart which makes an effort in our favour?-I have had but too much of
plot and intrigue around me, since I was stretched an orphan child in my
very cradle, while contending nobles strove which should rule in the name
of the unconscious innocent.  Surely time it were that all this busy and
most dangerous coil should end. Let me call my prison a convent, and my
seclusion a voluntary sequestration of myself from  the world and its
ways."
"Speak not thus, madam, before your faithful servants," said Catherine,
"to discourage their zeal at once, and to break their hearts.  Daughter of
Kings, be not in this hour so unkingly- Come, Roland, and let us, the
youngest of her followers, show ourselves worthy of her cause-let us kneel
before her footstool, and implore her to be her own magnanimous self."
And leading Roland Graeme to the Queen's seat, they both kneeled down
before her. Mary raised herself in her chair, and sat erect, while, extending one hand to be kissed by the page, she arranged with the other the
clustering locks which shaded the bold yet lovely brow of the high-spirited
Catherine.
"Alas,! mamignone," she said, for so in fondness she often called her
young attendant; "that you should thus desperately mix with my unhappy
fate the fortune of your young lives I -Are they not a lovely couple, my
Fleming? and is it not heart-rending to think that I must be their ruin?"
"Not so," said Roland Graeme, "it is we, gracious Sovereign, who will
be your deliverers."
"Ex oribus parvulorum!" said the Queen, looking upward; "if it is by
the mouth of these children that Heaven calls me to resume the stately
thoughts which become my birth and my rights, thou wilt grant them thy
protection, and to me the power of rewarding their zeal!"-Then turning to
Fleming, she instantly added,-" Thou knowest, my friend, whether to
make those who have served me happy, was not ever Mary's favourite
pastime. When I have been rebuked by the stern preachers of the Calvinistic heresy-when I have seen the fierce countenances of my nobles averted
from me, has it not been because I mixed in the harmless pleasures of the
young and gay, and rather for the sake of their happiness than my own,
have mingled in the masque, the song, or the dance, with the youth of my
household?  Well, I repent not of it-though Knox termed it sin, and
Morton degradation - I was happy, because I saw happiness around me;
and woe betide the wretched jealousy that can extract guilt out of the overflowings of an unguarded gaiety! —Fleming, if we are restored to our throne,
shall we not have one blithesome day at a blithesome bridal, of which we
must now name neither the bride nor the bridegroom? but that bridegroom
shall have the barony of Blairgowrie, a fair gift even for a Queen to give,
and that bride's chaplet shall be twined with the fairest pearls that ever
were found in the depths of Lochlomond; and thou thyself, Mary Fleming,
-the best dresser of tires that ever busked the tresses of a Queen, and who
would scorn to touch those of any woman of lower rank,-thou thyself
shalt, for my love, twine them into the bride's tresses.-Look, my Fleming,
suppose them such clustered locks as those of our Catherine, they would
not put shame upon thy skill."
So saying, she passed her hand fondly over the head of her youthful
favourite, while her more aged attendant replied despondently, "Alas I
madam, your thoughts stray far from home."
" They do, my Fleming," said the Queen: "but is it well or kind in you
to call them back?-God knows, they have kept the perch this night but too
closely-Come, I will recall the gay vision, were it but to punish them. Yes,
at that blithesome bridal, Mary herself shall forget the weight of sorrows,
and the toil of state, and herself once more lead a measure. —  At whose
wedding was it that we last danced, my-Fleming? I think care has troubled




THE  ABBOT.                            479
my memory - yet something of it I should remember - canst thou not aid
me?-I know thou canst."
"Alas  madam," replied the lady -
"What!" said Mary, "wilt thou not help us so far? this is a peevish
adherence to thine own graver opinion, which holds our talk as folly.'But
thou art court-bred, and wilt well understand me when I say, the Queen
commands Lady Fleming to tell her where she led the last branle."
With a face deadly pale, and a mien as if she were about to sink into the
earth, the court-bred dame, no longer daring to. refuse obedience, faltered
out-" Gracious Lady-if my memory err not-it was at a masque in Holyrood-at the marriage of Sebastian."
The unhappy Queen, who had hitherto listened with a melancholy smile,
provoked by the reluctance with which the Lady Fleming brought out her
story, at this ill-fated word interrupted her with a shriek so wild and loud
that the vaulted apartment rang, and both Roland and Catherine sprung to
their feet in the utmost terror and alarm. Meantime, Mary seemed, by the
train of horrible ideas thus suddenly excited, surprised not only beyond
self-command, but for the moment beyond the verge of reason.
" Traitress!" she said to the Lady Fleming, "thou wouldst slay thy sovereign-Call my French guards-a moi! a moi! mes Franpais!-I am beset
with traitors in mine own palace-they have murdered my husband-Rescue! rescue for the Queen of Scotland I"  She started up from her chairher features, late so exquisitely lovely in their paleness, now inflamed with
the fury of frenzy, and resembling those of a Bellona.  "We will take the
field ourself," she said; "warn the city - warn Lothian and Fife - saddle
our Spanish barb, and bid French Paris see our petronel be charged!-Better to die at the head of our brave Scotsmen, like our grandfather at Flodden,
than of a broken heart, like our ill-starred father!"
"Be patient-be composed, dearest Sovereign," said Catherine: and then
addressing Lady Fleming angrily, she added, " How could you say aught
that reminded her of her husband?"
The word reached the ear of the unhappy Princess, who caught it up,
speaking with great rapidity. "Husband!-what husband?-Not his most
Christian Majesty-he is ill at ease-he cannot mount on horseback.-Not
him of the Lennox-but it was the Duke of Orkney thou wouldst say."
" For God's love, madam, be patient!" said the Lady Fleming.
But the Queen's excited imagination could by no entreaty be diverted
from its course. "Bid him come hither to our aid," she said, " and bring
with him his lambs, as he calls them-Bowton, Hay of Talla, Black Ormiston, and his kinsman Hob -Fie! how swart they are, and how they smell
of sulphur! What! closeted with Morton? Nay, if the Douglas and the
Hepburn hatch the complot together, the bird, when it breaks the shell, will
scare Scotland. Will it not, my Fleming?"
"She grows wilder and wilder," said Fleming; "we have too many
hearers for these strange words."
" Roland," said Catherine, "in the name of God, begone! You cannot
aid us here-Leave us to deal with her alone-Away-away!"
She thrust him to the door of the anteroom; yet even when he had entered that apartment, and shut the door, he could still hear the Queen talk'in a loud and determined tone, as if giving forth orders, until at length the
voice died away in a feeble and continued lamentation.
At this crisis Catherine entered the anteroom.  "Be not too anxious,"
she said, "the crisis is now over; but keep the door fast-let no one enter
until she is more composed."
"In the name of God, what does this mean?" said the page; "or what
was there in the Lady Fleming's words to excite so wild a transport?"
"Oh, the Lady Fleming, the Lady Fleming," said Catherine, repeating
the words impatiently; "the Lady Fleming is a fool-she loves her mistress,




480                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
yet knows so little how to express her love, that were the Queen to ask her
for very poison, she would deem it a point of duty not to resist her commands. I could have torn her starched head-tire from her formal headThe Queen should have as soon had the heart out of my body, as the word
Sebastian out of my lips - That that piece of weaved tapestry should be a
woman, and yet not have wit enough to tell a lie!"
"And what was this story of Sebastian?" said the page. "By Heaven,
Catherine, you are all riddles alike 1"
"You are as great a fool as Fleming," returned the impatient maiden;
" know ye not, that on the night of Henry Darnley's murder, and at the
blowing up of the Kirk of Field, the Queen's absence was owing to her
attending on a masque at IIolyrood, given by her to grace the marriage of
this same Sebastian, who, himself a favoured servant, married one of her
female attendants, who was near to her person?"
"' By Saint Giles," said the page, " I wonder not at her passion, but only
marvel by what forgetfulness it was that she could urge the Lady Fleming
with such a question."
" I cannot account for it," said Catherine; " but it seems as if great and
violent grief and horror sometimes obscure the memory, and spread a cloud
like that of an exploding cannon, over the circumstances with which they:lae accomlpanied. But I may not stay here, where I came not to moralize
with your wisdom, but simply to cool my resentment against that unwise
Lady Fleming, which I think hath now somewhat abated, so that I shall
endure her presence without any desire to damage either her curch or vasquinc. Meanwhile, keep fast that door-I would not for my life that any
of these heretics saw her in the unhappy state, which, brought on her as it
has been l)y the success of their own diabolical plottings, they would not
stick to call, in their snuffling cant, the judgment of Providence."
She left the apartment just as the latch of the outward door was raised
from without. But the bolt which Roland had drawn on the inside, resisted
the efforts of the person desirous to enter.  "Who is there?" said Graeme
aloud.
".It is I," replied the harsh and yet slow voice of the steward Dryfesdale.
"You cannot enter now," returned the youth.
"And wherefore?" demanded Dryfesdale, "seeing I come but to do my
duty, and inquire what mean the shrieks from the apartment of the Moabitish woman.  Wherefore, I say, since such is mine errand, can I not
enter?'
" Simply," replied the youth, "because the bolt is drawn, and I have no
fancy to undo it. I have the right side of the door to-day, as you had last
night."
" Thou art ill-advised, thou malapert boy," replied the steward, " to speak
to me in such fashion; but I shall inform my Lady of thine insolence."
" The insolence," said the page, "is meant for thee only, in fair guerdon
of thy discourtesy to me. For thy Lady's information, I have answer more
courteous-you may say that the Queen is ill at ease, and desires to be disturbed neither by visits nor messages."
"I conjure you, in the name of God," said the old man, with more solemnity in his tone than he had hitherto used, "to let me know if her malady
really gains power on her!"
"She will have no aid at your hand, or at your Lady's-wherefore,
begone, and trouble us no more-we neither want, nor will accept of, aid at
your hands."
With this positive reply, the steward, grumbling and dissatisfied, returned
down stairs.




:THE  ABBOT.                             481
It is the curse of kings to be attended
By slaves, who take their humours for a warrant
To break into the bloody house of life,
And on the winking of authority
To understand a law.
KING JOHN.
TnE Lady of Lochleven sat alone in her chamber, endeavouring with
sincere but imperfect zeal, to fix her eyes and her attention on the blacklettered Bible which lay before her, bound in velvet and embroidery, and
adorned with massive silver clasps and knosps. But she found her utmost
efforts unable to withdraw her mind from the resentful recollection of what
had last night passed betwixt her and the Queen, in which the latter had
with such bitter taunt reminded her of her early and long-repented transgression.
" TWhv," she said, "should I resent so deeply that another reproaches
me with that which I have never ceased to make matter of blushing to myself? and yet, why should this woman, who reaps  at least, has reapedthe fruits of my folly, and has jostled my son aside from the throne, why
should she, in the face of all my domestics, and of her own, dare to upbraid
me with my shame?  Is she not in my power?  Does she not fear me?
Ha! wily tempter, I will wrestle with thee strongly, and with better suggestions than my own evil heart can supply i"
She again took up the sacred volume, and was endeavouring to fix her
attention on its contents, when she was disturbed by a tap at the door of
the room.  It opened at her command, and the steward Dryfesdale entered,
and stood before her with a gloomy and perturbed expression on his brow.
"'What has chanced, Dryfesdale, that thou lookest thus?" said his mistress
-" Have there been evil tidings of my son, or of my grandchildren?"
"No, Lady," replied Dryfesdale, "but you were deeply insulted last night,
and I fear me- thou art as deeply avenged this morning-Where is the chaplain?"
"What mean you by hints so dark, and a question so sudden?  The
chaplain, as you well know, is absent at Perth upon an assembly of the
brethren."
" I care not," answered the steward; " he is but a priest of Baal."
"Dryfesdale," said the Lady, sternly, "what meanest thou?  I have ever
heard, that in the Low Countries thou didst herd with the Anabaptist
preachers, those boars which tear up the vintage.- But the ministry which
suits me and my house must content my retainers."
"I would I had good ghostly counsel, though," replied the steward, not
attending to his mistress's rebuke, and seeming to speak to himself. "This
woman of Moab-"'
"Speak of her with reverence," said the Lady; "she is a king's daughter."
"Be it so," replied Dryfesdale; " she goes where there is little difference
betwixt her and a beggar's child-Mary of Scotland is dying."
"Dying, and in my castle!" said the Lady, starting up in alarm; "of
what disease, or by what accident?"
" Bear patience, Lady.'The ministry was mine."
"Thine, villain and traitor!-how didst thou dare- "
"I heard you insulted, Lady-I heard you demand vengeance-I promised
you should have it, and I now bring tidings of it."
"Dryfesdale, I trust thou ravest?" said the Lady.
"I rave not," replied the steward.  "That which was written of me a
VOL. V.  31                      2 




482                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
million of years ere I saw the light, must be executed by me. She hath
that in her veins that, I fear me, will soon stop the springs of life."
" Cruel villain," exclaimed the Lady, " thou hast not poisoned her?"
"And if I had," said Dryfesdale, "what does it so greatly merit? Men
bane vermin-why not rid them of their enemies so? in Italy they will do
it for a cruizuedor."
"Cowardly ruffian, begone from my sight!"
"Think better of my zeal, Lady," said the steward, "and judge not
without looking around you. Lindesay, Ruthven, and your kinsman Morton, poniarded Rizzio, and yet you now see no blood on their embroidery
-the Lord Semple stabbed the Lord of Sanquhar- does his bonnet sit a
jot more awry on his brow?  What noble lives in Scotland who has not
had a share, for policy or revenge, in some such dealing? —and who imputes it to them?  Be not cheated with names-a dagger or a draught
work to the same end, and are little unlike- a glass phial imprisons the
one, and a leathern sheath the other —one deals with the brain, the other
sluices the blood -Yet, I say not I gave aught to this lady."
"What dost thou mean by thus dallying with me?" said the Lady; "as
thou wouldst save thy neck from the rope it merits, tell me the whole truth
of this story-thou hast long been known a dangerous man."
" Ay, in my master's service I can be cold and sharp as my sword. Be
it known to you, that when last on shore, I consulted with a woman of skill
and power, called Nicneven, of whom the country has rung for some brief
time past. Fools asked her for charms to make them beloved, misers for
means to increase their store; some demanded to know the future-an idle
wish, since it cannot be altered; others would have an explanation of the
past —idler still, since it cannot be recalled. I heard their queries with
scorn, and demanded the means of avenging myself of a deadly enemy, for
I grow old, and may trust no longer to Bilboa blade. She gave me a packet
-' Mix that,' said she,'with any liquid, and thy vengeance is complete. "
"Villain! and you mixed it with the food of this imprisoned Lady, to
the dishonour of thy master's house?"
"To redeem the insulted honour of my naster's house, I mixed the contents of the packet with the jar of succory-water: They seldom fail to drain
it, and the woman loves it over all."
"It was a work of hell," said the Lady Lochleven, "both the asking and
the granting. - Away, wretched man, let us see if aid be yet too late!"
"They will not admit us, madam, save we enter by force   I have been
twice at the door, but can obtain no entrance."
"We will beat it level with the ground, if needful -And, hold - summon Randal hither instantly. -Randal, here is a foul and evil chance
befallen —send off a boat instantly to Kinross, the Chamberlain Luke
Lundin is said to have skill- Fetch off, too, that foul witch Nicneven; she
shall first counteract her own spell, and then be burned to ashes in the
island of Saint Serf. Away, away -Tell them to hoist sail and ply oar, as
ever they would have good of the Douglas's hand!"
"Mother Nicneven will not.be lightly found, or fetched hither on these
conditions," answered Dryfesdale.
"Then grant her full assurance of safety - Look to it, for thine own life
must answer for this lady's recovery."
"I might have guessed that," said Dryfesdale, sullenly; "but it is my
comfort I have avenged mine own cause, as well as yours. She hath scoffed
and scripped at me, and encouraged her saucy minion of a page to ridicule
my stiff gait and slow speech. I felt it borne in upon me that I was to be
avenged on them."
"Go to the western turret," said the Lady, "and remain there in ward
until we see how this gear will terminate. I know thy resolved disposition
- thou wilt not attempt escape."




THE ABBOT.                             483
"Not were the walls of the turret of egg-shells, and the lake sheeted with
ice," said Dryfesdale.  "I am well taught, and strong in belief, that man
does nought of himself; he is but the foam on the billow, which rises, bubbles, and bursts, not by its own effort, but by the mightier impulse of fate
which urges him. Yet, Lady, if I may advise, amid this zeal for the life of
the Jezebel of Scotland, forget not what is due to thine own honour, and
keep the matter secret as you may."
So saying, the gloomy fatalist turned from her, and stalked off with sullen
composure to the place of confinement allotted to him.
His lady caught at his last hint, and only expressed her fear that the
prisoner had partaken of some unwholesome food, and was dangerously ill.
The castle was soon alarmed and in confusion. Randal was dispatched to
the shore to fetch off Lundin, with such remedies as could counteract poison;
and with farther instructions to bring mother Nicneven, if she could be
found, with full power to pledge the Lady of Lochleven's word for her
safety.
Meanwhile the Lady of Lochleven herself held parley at the door of the
Queen's apartment, and in vain urged the page to undo it.
"Foolish boy!" she said, "thine own life and thy Lady's are at stakeOpen, I say, or we will cause the door to be broken down."
"I may not open the door without my royal mistress's orders," answered
Roland; "she has been very ill, and now she slumbers —if you wake her
by using violence, let the consequence be on you and your followers."
"Was ever woman in a strait so fearful!" exclaimed the Lady of Lochleven -" At least, thou rash boy, beware that no one tastes the food, but
especially the jar of succory-water."
She then hastened to the turret, where Dryfesda-le had composedly resigned
himself to imprisonment. She found him reading, and demanded of him,
" Was thy fell potion of speedy operation?"
"Slow," answered the steward.  " The hag asked me which I chose —I
told her I loved a slow and sure revenge.' Revenge,' said I,' is the highestflavoured draught which man tastes upon earth, and he should sip it by
little and little - not drain it up greedily at once."'
" Against whom, unhappy man, couldst thou nourish so fell a revenge?"
" I had many objects, but the chief was that insolent page."
" The boy! - thou inhuman man I" exclaimed the lady; " what could he
do to deserve thy malice?"
"He rose in your favour, and you graced him with your commissionsthat was one thing. He rose in that of George Douglas's also —that was
another. He was the favourite of the Calvinistic Henderson, who hated me
because my spirit disowns a separated priesthood. The Moabitish Queen
held him dear -winds from each opposing point blew in his favour —the
old servitor of your house was held lightly among ye- above all, from the
first time I saw his face, I longed to destroy him."
"What fiend have I nurtured in my house!" replied the Lady. "May
God forgive me the sin of having given thee food and raiment!"
"You might not choose, Lady," answered the steward. "Long ere this
castle was builded -ay, long ere the islet which sustains it reared its head
above the blue water, I was destined to be your faithful slave, and you
to be my ungrateful mistress. Remember you not when I plunged amid
the victorious French, in the time of this lady's mother, and brought off
your husband, when those who had hung at the same breasts with him dared
not attempt the rescue? -Remember how I plunged into the lake when
your grandson's skiff was overtaken by the tempest, boarded, and steered
her safe to the land. Lady — the servant of a Scottish baron is he who
regards not his own life, or that of any other, save his master. And, for
the death of the woman, I had tried the potion on her sooner, had not Master
George been her taster. tHer death-would it not be the happiest news that




484                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
Scotland ever heard?  Is she not of the bloody Guisian stock, whose sword
was so often red with the blood of God's saints?  Is she not the daughter
of the wretched tyrant James, whom Heaven cast down from his kingdom,
and his pride, even as the king of Babylon was smitten?"
"Peace, villain i" said the Lady - a thousand varied recollections thronging on her mind at the mention of her royal lover's name; "Peace, and
disturb not the ashes of the dead-of the royal, of the unhappy dead.
Read thy Bible; and may God grant thee to avail thyself better of its contents than thou hast yet done!"  She departed hastily, and as she reached
the next apartment, the tears rose in her eyes so hastily, that she was compelled to stop and use her kerchief to dry them. " I expected not this," she
said, "no more than to have drawn water from the dry flint, or sap from a
withered tree.  I saw with a dry eye the apostacy and shame of George
Douglas, the hope of my son's house - the child of my love; and yet I now
weep for him who has so long lain in his grave-for him to whom I owe it
that his daughter can make a scoffing and a jest of my name! But she is
his daughter-my heart, hardened against her for so many causes, relents
when a glance of her eye places her father unexpectedly before me -and
as often her likeness to that true daughter of the house of Guise, her detested
mother, has again confirmed my resolution.  But she must not -must not
die in my house, and by so foul a practice.  Thank God, the operation of
the potion is slow, and may be counteracted. I will to her apartment once
more. But oh! that hardened villain, whose fidelity we held in such esteem,
and had such high proof of! What miracle can unite so much wickedness
and so much truth in one bosom!"
The Lady of Lochleven was not aware how far minds of a certain gloomy
and determined cast by nature, may be warped by a keen sense of petty
injuries and insults, combining with the love of gain, and sense of selfinterest, and amalgamated with the crude, wild, and indigested fanatical
opinions which this man had gathered among the crazy sectaries of Germany; or how far the doctrines of fatalism, which he had embraced so
decidedly, sear the human conscience, by representing our actions as the
result of inevitable necessity.
During her visit to the prisoner, Roland had communicated to Catherine
the tenor of the conversation he had had with her at the door of the apartment. The quick intelligence of that lively maiden instantly comprehended
the outline of what was believed to have happened, but her prejudices
hurried her beyond the truth.
"They meant to have poisoned us," she exclaimed in horror,." and there
stands the fatal liquor which should have done the deed!-Ay, as soon as
Douglas ceased to be our taster, our food was likely to be fatally seasoned.
Thou, Roland, who shouldst have made the essay, wert readily doomed to
die with us. Oh, dearest Lady Fleming, pardon, pardon, for the injuries I
said to you in my anger-your words were prompted by Heaven to save our
lives, and especially that of the injured Queen. But what have we now to
do? that old crocodile of the lake will be presently back to shed her hypocritical tears over our dying agonies.-Lady Fleming, what shall we do?"
"Our Lady help us in our need!" she replied; "how should I tell?unless we were to.make our plaint to the Regent."
"Make our plaint to the devil," said Catherine impatiently, "and accuse
his dam  at the foot of his burning throne!-The Queen still sleeps —we
must gain time.  The poisoning hag must not know her scheme has miscarried; the old envenomed spider has but too many ways of mending her
broken web. The jar of succory-water," said she-" Roland, if thou be'st
a man, help me-empty the jar on the chimney or from the window-make
such waste among the viands as if we had made our usual meal, and leave
the fragments on cup and porringer, but taste nothing as thou lovest thy
life. I will sit by the Queen, and tell her at her waking, in what a fearful




TIE ABBOT.                              485
pas we stand. Her sharp wit and ready spirit will teach us what is best
to be done. Meanwhile, till farther notice, observe, Roland, that the Queen
is in a state of torpor-that Lady Fleming is indisposed-that character"
(speaking in a lower tone) " will suit her best, and save her wits some labour
in vain. I am not so much indisposed, thou understandest."
"And I?" said the page"You?" replied Catherine, "you are quite well-who thinks it worth
while to poison puppy-dogs or pages?"
" Does this levity become the time?" asked the page.
"It does, it does," answered Catherine Seyton; "if the Queen approves,
I see plainly how this disconcerted attempt may do us good service."
She went to work while she spoke, eagerly assisted by Roland. The
breakfast table soon displayed the appearance as if the meal had been eaten
as usual; and the ladies retired as softly as possible into the Queen's
sleeping apartment. At a new summons of the Lady Lochleven, the page
undid the door, and admitted her into the anteroom, asking her pardon for
having withstood her, alleging in excuse, that the Queen had fallen into a
heavy slumber since she had broken her fast.
" She has eaten and drunken, then?" said the Lady of Lochleven.
" Surely," replied the page, "according to her Grace's ordinary custom,
unless upon the fasts of the church."
" The jar," she said, hastily examining it, " it is empty-drank the Lady
Mary the whole of this water?"
" A large part, madam; and I heard the Lady Catherine Seyton jestingly
upbraid the Lady Mary Fleming with having taken more than a just share
of what remained, so that but little fell to her own lot."
"And are they well in health?" said the Lady of Lochleven.
"Lady Fleming," said the page, " complains of lethargy, and looks duller
than usual; and the Lady Catherine of Seyton feels her head somewhat
more giddy than is her wont."
He raised his voice a little as he said these words, to apprise the ladies
of the part assigned to each of them, and not, perhaps, without the wish
of conveying to the ears of Catherine the page-like jest which lurked in the
allotment.
"I will enter the Queen's bedchamber," said the Lady of Lochleven; "my
business is express."
As she advanced to the door, the voice of Catherine Seyton was heard
from within-" No one can enter here-the Queen sleeps."
"I will not be controlled, young lady," replied the Lady of Lochleven;
"there is, I wot, no inner bar, and I will enter in your despite."
" There is, indeed, no inner bar," answered Catherine, firmly, "but there
are the staples where that bar should be; and into those staples have I
thrust mine arm, like an ancestress of your own, when, better employed
than the Douglasses of our days, she thus defended the bedchamber of her
sovereign against murderers. Try your force, then, and see whether a Seyton
cannot rival in courage a maiden of the house of Douglas."
" I dare not attempt the pass at such risk," said the Lady of Lochleven:
"Strange, that this Princess, with all that justly attaches to her as blameworthy, should preserve such empire over the minds of her attendants.Damsel, I give thee my honour that I come for the Queen's safety and
advantage. Awaken her, if thou lovest her, and pray her leave that I may
enter-I will retire from the door the whilst."
"Thou wilt not awaken the Queen?" said the Lady Fleming.
"What choice have we?" said the ready-witted maiden, "unless you
deem it better to wait till the Lady Lochleven herself plays lady of the
bedchamber. Her fit of patience will not last long, and the Queen must be
prepared to meet her."
"But thou wilt bring back her Grace's fit by thus disturbing her."
2q2




486                   WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
"IHeaven forbid!" replied Catherine; "but if so, it must pass for an
effect of the poison. I hope better things, and that the Queen will be able
when she wakes to form  her own judgment in this terrible crisis.  Meanwhile, do thou, dear Lady Fleming, practise to look as dull and heavy as
the alertness of thy spirit will permit."
Catherine kneeled by the side of the Queen's bed, and, kissing her hand
repeatedly, succeeded at last in awakening without alarming her. She
seemed surprised to find that she was ready dressed, but sate up in her bed,
and appeared so perfectly composed, that Catherine Seyton, without farther
preamble, judged it safe to inform her of the predicament in which they
were placed. Mary turned pale, and crossed herself again and again, when
she heard the imminent danger in which she had stood.  But, like the
Ulysses of Homer,
-Hardly waking yet,
Sprung in her mind the momentary wit,
and she at once understood her situation, with the dangers and advantages
that attended it.
" We cannot do better," she said, after her hasty conference with Catherine, pressing her at the same time to her bosom, and kissing her forehead;
" we cannot do better than to follow the scheme so happily devised by thy
quick wit and bold affection. Undo the door to the Lady Lochleven-She
shall meet her match in art, though not in perfidy. Fleming, draw close
the curtain, and get thee behind it-thou art a better tire-woman than an
actress; do but breathe heavily, and, if thou wilt, groan slightly, and it
will top thy part.  Hark! they come. Now, Catherine of Medicis, may thy
spirit inspire me, for a cold northern brain is too blunt for this scene!"
Ushered by Catherine Seyton, and stepping as light as she could, the
Lady Lochleven was shown into the twilight apartment, and conducted to
the side of the couch, where Mary, pallid and exhausted from a sleepless
night, and the subsequent agitation of the morning, lay extended so listlessly
as might well confirm the worst fears of her hostess.
"Now, God forgive us our sins!" said the Lady of Lochleven, forgetting
her pride) and throwing herself on her knees by the side of the bed; "It
is too true-she is murdered!"
"Who is in the chamber?" said Mary, as if awaking from a heavy sleep.
"Seyton, Fleming, where are you? I heard a strange voice. Who waits?
-Call Courcelles."
"Alas! her memory is at Holyrood, though her body is at Lochleven.Forgive, madam," continued the Lady, "if I call your attention-to me - I
am  Margaret Erskine, of the house of Mar, by marriage Lady Douglas of
Lochleven."
"Oh, our gentle hostess," answered the Queen, " who hath such care of
our lodgings and of our diet-We cumber you too much and too long, good
Lady of Lochleven; but we now trust your task of hospitality is well-nigh
ended."
"Her words go like a knife through my heart," said the Lady of Lochleven-" With a breaking heart, I pray your Grace to tell me what is your
ailment, that aid may be had, if there be yet time."
"Nay, my ailment," replied the Queen, "is nothing worth telling, or
worth a leech's notice  my limbs feel heavy- my heart feels cold - a prisoner's limbs and heart are rarely otherwise-fresh air, methinks, and freedom, would soon revive me; but as the Estates have ordered it, death alone
can break my prison-doors."
" Were it possible, madam," said the Lady, "that your liberty could restore your perfect health, I would myself encounter the resentment of tho
Regent- of my son, Sir William - of my whole friends, rather than you
should meet your fate in this castle."
"Alas! madam," said the -Lady Fleming, who conceived the time prDpi




THE  ABBOT.                              487
tious to show that her own address had been held too lightly of; "it is but
trying what good freedom  may work upon us; for myself, I think a free
walk on the greensward would do me much good at heart."
The Lady of Lochleven rose from the bedside, and darted a penetrating
look at the elder valetudinary. "Are you so evil-disposed, Lady Fleming?"
"Evil-disposed indeed, madam," replied the court dame, " and more especially since breakfast."
"Help! help!" exclaimed Catherine, anxious to break off a conversation
which boded her schemes no good; "help! I say, help! the Queen is about
to pass away. Aid her, Lady Lochleven, if you be a woman 1"
The Lady hastened to support the Queen's head, who, turning her eyes
towards her with an air of great languor, exclaimed, " Thanks, my dearest
Lady of Lochleven -notwithstanding some passages of late, I have never
misconstrued or misdoubted your affection to our house. It was proved, as
I have heard, before I was born."
The Lady Lochleven sprung from the floor, on which she had again knelt,
and, having paced the apartment in great disorder, flung open the lattice,
as ifto get air.
"Now, Our Lady forgive me!" said Catherine to herself.  " How deep
must the love of sarcasm be implanted in the breasts of us women, since
the Queen, with all her sense, will risk ruin rather than rein in her wit!"
She then adventured, stooping over the Queen's person, to press her arm
with her hand, saying, at the same time, " For God's sake, madam, restrain
yourself!"
" Thou art too forward, maiden," said the Queen; but immediately added,
in a low whisper, " Forgive me, Catherine; but when I felt the hag's murderous hands busy about my head and neck, I felt such disgust and hatred,
that I must have said something, or died. But I will be schooled to better
behaviou —only see that thou let her not touch me."
"Now, God be praised!" said the Lady Lochleven, withdrawing her head
from the window, "the boat comes as fast as sail and oar can send wood
through water. It brings the leech and a female-certainly, from the appearance, the very person I was in quest of. Were she but well out of this
castle, with our honour safe, I would that she were on the top of the wildest
mountain in Norway; or I would I had been there myself, ere I had undertaken this trust."
While she thus expressed herself, standing apart at one window, Roland
Grreme, from the other, watched the boat bursting through the waters of
the lake, which glided from its side in ripple and in foam. He, too, became
sensible, that at the stee'n was seated the medical Chamberlain, clad in his
black velvet cloak; and that his own relative, Magdalen Grime, in her assumed character of Mother Nicneven, stood in the bow, her hands clasped
together, and pointed towards the castle, and her attitude, even at that distance, expressing enthusiastic eagerness to arrive at the landing-place.
They arrived there accordingly, and while the supposed witch was detained
in a room beneath, the physician was ushered to the Queen's apartment,
which he entered with all due professional solemnity.  Catherine had, in
the meanwhile, fallen back from the Queen's bed, and taken an opportunity
to whisper to Roland, " Methinks, from the information of the threadbare
velvet cloak and the solemn beard, there would be little trouble in haltering
yonder ass. But thy grandmother, Roland —thy grandmother's zeal will
ruin us, if she get not a hint to dissemble."
Roland, without reply, glided towards the door of the apartment, crossed
the parlour, and safely entered the antechamber; but when he attempted to
pass farther, the word "Back! Back!" echoed from one to the other, by
two men armed with carabines, convinced him that the Lady of Lochleven's
suspicions had not, even in the midst of her alarms, been so far lulled to
sleep as to omit the precaution of stationing sentinels on her prisoners. Ilo




488                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
was compelled, therefore, to return to the parlour, or audience-chamber, in
which he found the Lady of the castle in conference with her learned leech.
" A truce with your cant phrase and your solemn foppery, Lundin," in
such terms she accosted the man of art, " and let me know instantly, if
thou canst tell, whether this lady hath swallowed aught that is less than
wholesome?"
"Nay, but, good lady  honoured patroness-to whom I am alike bondsman in my medical and official capacity, deal reasonably with me. If this,
mine illustrious patient, will not answer a question, saving with sighs and.moans-if that other honourable lady will do nought but yawn in my face
when I inquire after the diagnostics-and if that other young damsel, who
I profess is a comely maiden    "
"Talk not to me of comeliness or of damsels," said the Lady of Lochleven, "I say, are they evil-disposed?-In one word, man, have they taken
poison, ay or no?"
"Poisons, madam," said the learned leech," are of various sorts. There
is your animal poison, as the lepus marinus, as mentioned by Dioscorides
and Galen -there are mineral and semi-mineral poisons, as those compounded of sublimate regulus of antimony, vitriol, and the arsenical salts
-there are your poisons from herbs and vegetables, as the aqua cymbalarie,
opium, aconitum, cantharides, and the like-there are also-"
"Now, out upon thee for a learned fool! and I myself am no better for
expecting an oracle from such a log," said the Lady.
" Nay, but if your ladyship will have patience-if I knew what food they
have partaken of, or could see but the remnants of what they have last eaten
-for as to the external and internal symptoms, I can discover nought like;
for, as Galen saith in his second book de Antidolis-"
"Away, fool!" said the Lady; " send me that hag hither; she shall
avouch what it was that she hath given to the wretch Dryfesdale, or the
pilniewinks and thumbikins shall wrench it out of her finger joints 1"
"Art hath no enemy unless the ignorant," said the mortified Doctor;
veiling, however, his remark under the Latin version, and stepping apart
into a corner to watch the result.
In a minute or two Magdalen Grseme entered the apartment, dressed as
we have described her at the revel, but with her muffler thrown back, and
all affectation of disguise. She was attended by two guards, of whose
presence she did not seem even to be conscious, and who followed her with
an air of embarrassment and timidity, which was probably owing to their
belief in her supernatural power, coupled with the effect produced by her
bold and undaunted demeanour.  She confronted the Lady of Lochleven,
who seemed to endure with high disdain the confidence of her air and
manner.
" Wretched woman!" said the Lady, after essaying for a moment to bear
her down, before she addressed her, by the stately severity of her look,
" what was that powder which thou didst give to a servant of this house,
by name Jasper Dryfesdale, that he might work out with it some slow and
secret vengeance? - Confess its nature and properties, or, by the honour
of Douglas, I give thee to fire and stake before the sun is lower!"
"Alas 1" said Magdalen Grseme in reply, "and when became a Douglas
or a Douglas's man so unfurnished in his revenge, that he should seek them
at the hands of a poor and solitary woman? The towers in which your
captives pine away into unpitied graves, yet stand fast on their foundation
— the crimes wrought in them have not yet burst their vaults asunder -
your men have still their cross-bows, pistolets, and daggers - why need you
seek to herbs or charms for the execution of your revenges?"
"Hear me, foul hag," said the Lady Lochleven,  "but what avails
speaking to thee? — Bring Dryfesdale hither, and let them be confronted
together."




THE ABBOT.                               489
"You may spare your retainers the labour," replied Magdalen Grmme,
"'[ came not here to be confronted with a base groom, nor to answer the
interrogatories of James's heretical leman-I came to speak with the Queen
of Scotland - Give place there!"
And while the Lady Lochleven stood confounded at her boldness, and at
the reproach she had cast upon her, Magdalen Graeme strode past her into
the bedchamber of the Queen, and, kneeling on the floor, made a salutation
as if, in the Oriental fashion, she meant to touch the earth with her forehead.
"Hail, Princess!" she said, " hail, daughter of many a King, but graced
above them all in that thou art called to suffer for the true faith - hail to
thee, the pure gold of whose crown has been tried in the seven-times heated
furnace of affliction - hear the comfort which God and Our Lady send thee
by the mouth of thy unworthy servant.-But first"-and stooping her head
she crossed herself repeatedly, and, still upon her knees, appeared to be
rapidly reciting some formula of devotion.
"Seize her, and drag her to the massy-more!  to the deepest dungeon
with the sorceress, whose master, the Devil, could alone have inspired her
with boldness enough to insult the mother of Douglas in his own castle 1"
Thus spoke the incensed Lady of Lochleven, but the physician presumed
to interpose.
" I pray of you, honoured madam, she be permitted to take her course
without interruption. Peradventure we shall learn something concerning
the nostrum she hath ventured, contrary to law and the rules of art, to
adhibit to these ladies, through the medium of the steward Dryfesdale."
"For a fool," replied the Lady of Lochleven, " thou hast counselled wisely
-I will bridle my resentment till their conference be over."
"God forbid, honoured Lady," said Doctor Lundin, " that you should suppress it longer-nothing may more endanger the frame of your honoured
body; and truly, if there be witchcraft in this matter, it is held by the
vulgar, and even by solid authors on Demonology, that three scruples of
the ashes of the witch, when she hath been well and carefully burned at a
stake, is a grand Catholicon in such matter, even as they prescribe crinis
canis rabidi, a hair of the dog that bit the patient, in cases of hydrophobia.
I warrant neither treatment,-being out of the regular practice of the schools;
but, in the present case, there can be little harm in trying the conclusion
upon this old necromancer and quacksalver -fat experimentum (as we say)
in corpore vili."
"Peace, fool!" said the Lady, " she is about to speak."
At that moment Magdalen Grneme arose from her knees, and turned her
countenance on the Queen, at the same time advancing her foot, extending
her arm, and assuming the mien and attitude of a Sibyl in frenzy. As her
gray hair floated back from beneath her coif, and her eye gleamed fire from
under its shaggy eyebrow, the effect of her expressive though emaciated
features, was heightened by an enthusiasm approaching to insanity, and
her appearance struck with awe all who were present.  Her eyes for a time
glanced wildly around as if seeking for something to aid her in collecting
her powers of expression, and her lips had a nervous and quivering motion,
as those of one who would fain speak, yet rejects as inadequate the worde
which present themselves. Mary herself caught the infection as if by a sort
of magnetic influence, and raising herself from her bed, without being able
to withdraw her eyes from those of Magdalen, waited as if for the oracle of
a Pythoness.  Shewaited not long, for no sooner had the enthusiast collected herself, than her gaze became instantly steady, her features assumed
a determined energy, and when she began to speak, the words flowed from
her with a profuse fluency, which might have passed for inspiration, and
which, perhaps, she herself mistook for such.
"Arise," she said, "Queen of France and of England! Arise, Lioness




490                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
of Scotland, and be not dismayed though the nets of the hunters have
encircled thee! Stoop not to feign with the false ones, whom  thou shall
soon meet in the field. The issue of battle is with the God of armies, but
by battle thy cause shall be tried. Lay aside, then, the arts of lower mortals,
and assume those which become a Queen! True defender of the only true
faith, the armoury of heaven is open to thee! Faithful daughter of the
Church, take the keys of St. Peter, to bind and to loose! - Royal Princess
of the land, take the sword of St. Paul, to smite and to shear! There is
darkness in thy destiny; —but not in these towers, not under the rule of
their haughty mistress, shall that destiny be closed.- In other lands the
lioness may crouch to the power of the tigress, but not in her own - not in
Scotland shall the Queen of Scotland long remain captive- nor is the fate
of the royal Stuart in the hands of the traitor Douglas. Let the Lady of
Lochleven double her bolts and deepen her dungeons, they shall not retain
thee —each element shall give thee its assistance ere thou shalt continue
captive —the land shall lend its earthquakes, the water its waves, the air
its tempests, the fire its devouring flames, to desolate this house, rather than
it shall continue the place of thy captivity. - Hear this, and tremble, all ye
who fight against the light, for she says it, to whom it hath been assured!"
She was silent, and the astonished physician said, " If there was ever an
Energumene, or possessed demoniac, in our days, there is a devil speaking
with that woman's tongue!"
"Practice," said the Lady of Lochleven, recovering her surprise; "here
is all practice and imposture —To the dungeon with her!"
"Lady of Lochleven," said Mary, arising from her bed, and coming forward with her wonted dignity, " ere you make arrest on any one in our
presence, hear me but one word. I have done you some wrong - I believed
you privy to the murderous purpose of your vassal, and I deceived you in
suffering you to believe it had taken effect. I did you wrong, Lady of Lochleven, for I perceive your purpose to aid me was sincere. We tasted not
of the liquid, nor are we now sick, save that we languish for our freedom."
"It is avowed like Mary of Scotland," said Magdalen Greme; "and
know, besides, that had the Queen drained the drought to the dregs, it was
harmless as the water from a sainted spring. Trow ye, proud woman," she
added, addressing herself to the Lady of Lochleven, "that I - I - would
have been the wretch to put poison into the hands of a servant or vassal of
the house of Lochleven, knowing whom that house contained? as soon would
I have furnished drug to slay my own daughter!"
" Am I thus bearded in mine own castle?" said the Lady; " to the dungeon with her! - she shall abye what is due to the vender of poisons and
practiser of witchcraft."
"Yet hear me for an instant, Lady of Lochleven," said Mary; "and do
you," to Magdalen, "be silent at my comnand.-Your steward, lady, has
by confession attempted my life, and those of my household, and this woman
hath done her best to save them, by furnishing him with what was harmless, in place of the fatal drugs which he expected. Methinks I propose to
you but a fair exchange when I say I forgive your vassal with all my heart,
and leave vengeance to God, and to his conscience, so that you also forgive
the boldness of this woman in your presence; for we trust you do not hold
it as a crime, that she substituted an innocent beverage for the mortal
poison which was to have drenched our cup."
" Heaven forfend, madam," said the Lady, " that I should account that a
crime which saved the house of Douglas from a foul breach of honour and
hospitality! We have written to our son touching our vassal's delict, and
he must abide his doom, which will most likely be death. Touching this
woman, her trade is damnable by Scripture, and is mortally punished by
the wise laws of our ancestry-she also must abide her doom."
"And have I then," said the Queen, " no claim on the house of Lochleven




THE  ABBOT.                            491
for the wrong I have so nearly suffered within their walls? I ask but in
requital, the life of a frail and aged woman, whose brain, as yourself may
judge, seems somewhat affected by years and suffering."
"If the Lady Mary," replied the inflexible Lady of Lochleven, " hath
been menaced with wrong in the house of Douglas, it may be regarded as
some compensation, that her complots have cost that house the exile of a
valued son."
"Plead no more for me, my gracious Sovereign," said Magdalen Graeme,
"nor abase yourself to ask so much as a gray hair of my head at her hands.
I knew the risk at which I served my Church and my Queen, and was ever
prompt to pay my poor life as the ransom. It is a comfort to think, that in
slaying me, or in restraining my freedom, or even in injuring that single
gray hair, the house, whose honour she boasts so highly, will have filled
up the measure of their shame by the breach of their solemn written assurance of safety." - And taking from her bosom a paper, she handed it to
the Queen.
"It is a solemn assurance of safety in life and limb," said Queen Mary,
"with space to come and go, under the hand and seal of the Chamberlain
of Kinross, granted to Magdalen Graeme, commonly called Mother Nicncven,
in consideration of her consenting to put herself, for the space of twentyfour hours, if required, within the iron gate of the Castle of Lochleven."
"Knave!" said the Lady, turning to the Chamberlain, " how dared you
grant her such a protection?"
"It was by your Ladyship's orders, transmitted by Randal, as he can
bear witness," replied Doctor Lundin; "nay, I am only like the pharmacopolist, who compounds the drugs after the order of the mediciner."
"I remember- I remember," answered the Lady; "but I meant the
assurance only to be used in case, by residing in another jurisdiction, she
could not have been apprehended under our warrant."' Nevertheless," said the Queen, "the Lady of Lochleven is bound by the
action of her deputy in granting the assurance."
" Madam," replied the Lady, "the house of Douglas have never broken
their safe-conduct, and never will —too. deeply did they suffer by such a
breach of trust, exercised on themselves, when your Grace's ancestor, the
second James, in defiance of the rights of hospitality, and of his own written
assurance of safety, poniarded the brave Earl of Douglas with his own
hand, and within two yards of the social board, at which he had just before
sat the King of Scotland's honoured guest."
"Methinks," said the Queen, carelessly, " in consideration of so very
recent and enormous a tragedy, which I think only chanced some six-score
years agone, the Douglasses should have shown themselves less tenacious
of the company of their sovereigns, than you, Lady of Lochleven, seem to
be of mine."
" Let Randal," said the Lady, " take the hag back to Kinross, and set her
at full liberty, discharging her from our bounds in future, on peril of her
head.    And let your wisdom," to the Chamberlain, "keep her company.
And fear not for your character, though I send you in such company; for,
granting her to be a witch, it would be a waste of fagots to burn you for a
wizard."
T.e crest-fallen Chamberlain was preparing to depart; but Magdalen
Graeme, collecting herself, was about to reply, when the Queen interposed,
saying, "Good mother, we heartily thank you for your unfeigned zeal
towards our person, and pray you, as our liege-woman, that you abstain
from whatever may lead you into personal danger; and, farther, it is our
will that you depart without a word of farther parley with any one in this
castle. For thy present guerdon, take this small reliquary - it was given
to us by our uncle the Cardinal, and hath had the benediction of the
Holy Father himself; - and now depart in peace and in silence. - For you,




492                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
learned sir," continued the Queen, advancing to the Doctor. who madb his
reverence in a manner doubly embarrassed by the awe of the Queen's presence, which made him fear to do too little, and by the apprehension of his
lady's displeasure, in case he should chance to do too much -"for you,
learned sir, as it was not your fault, though surely our own good fortune,
that we did not need your skill at this time, it would not become us, however circumstanced, to suffer our leech to leave us without such. guerdon as
we can offer."
With these words, and with the grace which never forsook her, though,
in the present case, there might lurk under it a little gentle ridicule, she
offered a small embroidered purse to the Chamberlain, who, with extended
hand and arched back, his learned face stooping until a physiognomist
might have practised the metoposcopical science upon it, as seen from
behind betwixt his gambadoes, was about to accept of the professional
recompense offered by so fair as well as illustrious a hand. But the Lady
interposed, and, regarding the Chamberlain, said aloud, " No servant of our
house, without instantly relinquishing that character, and incurring withal
our highest displeasure, shall dare receive any gratuity at the hand of the
Lady Mary."
Sadly and slowly the Chamberlain raised his depressed stature into the
perpendicular attitude, and left the apartment dejectedly, followed by Magdalen Greme, after, with mute but expressive gesture, she had kissed the
reliquary with which the Queen had presented her, and, raising her clasped
hands and uplifted eyes towards Heaven, had seemed to entreat a benediction upon the royal dame.  As she left the castle, and went towards the
quay where the boat lay, Roland Grome, anxious to communicate with
her if possible, threw himself in her way, and might have succeeded in
exchanging a few words with her, as she was guarded only by the dejected
Chamberlain and his halberdiers, but she seemed to have taken, in its most
strict and literal acceptation, the command to be silent which she had
received from the Queen; for, to the repeated signs of her grandson, she
only replied by laying her finger on her lip.  Dr. Lundin was not so
reserved.  Regret for the handsome gratuity, and for the compulsory task
of self-denial imposed on him, had grieved the spirit of that worthy officer
and learned mediciner — "Even thus, my friend," said he, squeezing the
page's hand as he bade him  farewell, "is merit rewarded.  I came to cure
this unhappy Lady —and I profess she well deserves the trouble, for, say
what they will of her, she hath a most winning manner, a sweet voice, a
gracious smile, and a most majestic wave of her hand.  If she was not
poisoned, say, my dear Master Roland, was that fault of mine, I being
ready to cure her if she had? - and now I am denied the permission to
accept my well-earned honorarium - 0 Galen! 0 Hippocrates! is the graduate's cap and doctor's scarlet brought to this pass!  Frustrafatigamus
remediis cegros!"
Hie wiped his eyes, stepped on the gunwale, and the boat pushed off from
the shore, and went merrily across the lake, which was dimpled by the
summer wind.*
A romancer, to use a Scottish phrase, wants but a hair to make a tether of. The whole detail of the
steward's supposed conspiracy against the life of Mary, is grounded upon an expression in one of her letters,
which affirms, that Jasper Dryfesdale, one of the Laird of Lochleven's servants, had threatened to murder
William Douglas, (for his share in the Queen's escape,) and averred that he would plant a'dagger in Mlary.'
own heart.-CHALMERBs Life of Queen Mary, vol. i. p. 278.




TIHEB ABBOT.                             493
aptitr   t       ~ irt trg^ lirh.
Death distant? —No, alas! he's ever with us,
And shakes the dart at us in all our actings:
He lurks within our cup, while we're in health;
Sits by our sick-bed, mocks our medicines;
We cannot walk, or sit, or ride, or travel,
But Death is by to seize us when he lists.
THE SPANISH FATHER.
FROM the agitating scene in the Queen's presence-chamber, the,Lady of
Lochleven retreated to her own apartment, and ordered the steward to be
called before her.
"Have they not disarmed thee, Dryfesdale?" she said, on seeing him
enter, accoutred, as usual, with sword and dagger.
" No!" replied the old man; " how should they? - Your ladyship, when
you commanded me to ward, said nought of laying down my arms; and, I
think none of your menials, without your order, or your son's, dare approach Jasper Dryfesdale for such a purpose. - Shall I now give up my
sword to you?- it is worth little now, for it has fought for your house till
it is worn down to old iron, like the pantler's old chipping knife."
"You have attempted a deadly crime -poison under trust."
" Under trust?-hem!-I know not what your ladyship thinks of it, but
the world without thinks the trust was given you even for that very end;
and you would have been well off had it been so ended as I proposed, and
you neither the worse nor the wiser."
"Wretch!" exclaimed the lady, "and fool as well as villain, who could
not even execute the crime he had planned 1"
"I bid as fair for it as man could," replied Dryfesdale; "I went to a
woman-a witch and a Papist-If I found not poison, it was because it was
otherwise predestined. I tried fair for it; but the half-done job may be
clouted, if you will."
" Villain! I am even now about to send off an express messenger to my
son, to take order how thou shouldst be disposed of. Prepare thyself for
death, if thou canst."
" He that looks on death, Lady," answered Dryfesdale, " as that which
he may not shun, and which has its own fixed and certain hour, is ever prepared for it. He that is hanged in May will eat no flaunes* in midsummer
— so there is the moan made for the old serving-man. But whom, pray I,
send you on so fair an errand?"
"There will be no lack of messengers," answered his mistress.
"By my hand, but there will," replied the old man; "your castle is but
poorly manned, considering the watches that you must keep, having this
charge-There is the warder, and two others, whom you discarded for tampering with Master George; then for the warder's tower, the bailie, the
donjon —five men mount each guard, and the rest must sleep for the most
part in their clothes.  To send away another man, were to harass the sentinels to death-unthrifty misuse for a household. To take in new soldiers
were dangerous, the charge requiring tried men. I see but one thing for it
— I will do your errand to Sir William Douglas myself."
" That were indeed a resource! —And on what day within twenty years
would it be done?" said the Lady.
"Even with the speed of man and horse," said Dryfesdale; " for though
I care not much about the latter days of an old serving-man's life, yet I
* Pancakes.
2 R.




494                 WAVEALEY NOVELS.
would like to know as soon as may be, whether my neck is mine own or the
hangman's."
" Holdest thou thy own life so lightly?" said the Lady.
"Else I had reckoned more of that of others," said the predestinarian"What is death?-it is but ceasing to live-And what is living?-a weary
return of light and darkness, sleeping and waking, being hungered and
eating. Your dead man needs neither candle nor can, neither fire nor
feather-bed; and the joiner's chest serves him for an eternal frieze-jerkin."
"Wretched man! believest thou not that after death comes the judgment?"
" Lady," answered Dryfesdale, "as my mistress, I may not dispute your
words; but, as spiritually speaking, you are still but a burner of bricks in
Egypt, ignorant of the freedom of the saints; for, as was well shown to me
by that gifted man, Nicolaus Scheefferbach, who was martyred by the bloody
Bishop of Munster, he cannot sin who doth but execute that which is pre-destined, since    "
"Silence!" said the Lady, interrupting him,-" Answer me not with thy
bold and presumptuous blasphemy, but hear me. Thou hast been long the
servant of our house    "
"The born servant of the Douglas - they have had the best of me - I
served them since I left Lockerbie: I was then ten years old, and you may
soon add the threescore to it."
" Thy foul attempt has miscarried, so thou art guilty only in intention.
It were a deserved deed to hang thee on the warder's tower; and yet in thy
present mind, it were but giving a soul to Satan. I take thine offer, thenGo hence- here is my packet - I will add to it but a line, to desire him to
send me a faithful servant or two to complete the garrison.  Let my son
deal with you as he will. If thou art wise, thou wilt make for Lockerbie
so soon as thy foot touches dry land, and let the packet find another bearer;
at all rates, look it miscarries not."
"Nay, madam," replied he-" I was born, as I said, the Douglas's servant, and I will be no corbie-messenger in mine old age -your message to
your son shall be done as truly by me as if it concerned another man's neck.
I take my leave of your honour."
The Lady issued her commands, and the old man was ferried over to the
shore, to proceed on his extraordinary pilgrimage.  It is necessary the
reader should accompany him on his journey, which Providence had determined should not be of long duration.
On arriving at the village, the steward, although his disgrace had transpired, was readily accommodated with a horse, by the Chamberlain's authority; and the roads being by no means esteemed safe, he associated himself
with Auchtermuchty, the common carrier, in order to travel in his company
to Edinburgh.
The worthy waggoner, according to the established customs of all carriers, stage-coachmen, and other persons in public authority, from the earliest days to the present, never wanted good reasons for stopping upon the
road, as often as he would; and the place which had most captivation for
him as a resting-place was a change-house, as it was termed, not very distant from a romantic dell, well known by the name of Keirie Craigs.  Attractions of a kind very different from those which arrested the progress
of John Auchtermuchty and his wains, still continue to hover round this
romantic spot, and none has visited its vicinity without a desire to remain
long and to return soon.
Arrived near his favourite lowff, not all the authority of Dryfesdale
(much diminished indeed by the rumours of his disgrace) could prevail on
the carrier, obstinate as the brutes which he drove, to pass on without his
accustomed halt, for which the distance he had travelled furnished little or
no pretence. Old Keltie, the landlord, who had bestowed his name on a




THE~ ABBOT.                            495
bridge in the neighbourhood of his quondam dwelling, received the carrier
with his usual festive cordiality, and adjourned with him into the house,
under pretence of important business, which, I believe, consisted in their
emptying together a mutchkin stoup of usquebaugh. While the worthy
host and his guest were thus employed, the discarded steward, with a double
portion of moroseness in his gesture and look, walked discontentedly into
the kitchen of the place, which was occupied but by one guest. The stranger
was a slight figure, scarce above the age of boyhood, and in the dress of a
page, but bearing an air of haughty aristocratic boldness and even insolence
in his look and manner, that might have made Dryfesdale conclude he had
pretensions to superior rank, had not his experience taught him how frequently these airs of superiority were assumed by the domestics and military retainers of the Scottish nobility. -" The pilgrim's morning to you,
old sir," said the youth; "you come, as I think, from Lochleven CastleWhat news of our bonny Queen? -a fairer dove was never pent up in so
wretched a dovecot."
" They that speak of Lochleven, and of those whom its walls contain,"
answered Dryfesdale, " speak of what concerns the Douglas; and they who
speak of what concerns the Douglas, do it at their peril."
"Do you speak from fear of them, old man, or would you make a quarrel
for them? —I should have deemed your age might have cooled your
blood."
" Never, while there are empty-pated coxcombs at each corner to keep it
warm."
"The sight of thy gray hairs keeps mine cold," said the boy, who had
risen up and now sat down again.
" It is well for thee, or I had cooled it with this holly-rod," replied the
steward. " I think thou be'st one of those swash-bucklers, who brawl in
alehouses and taverns; and who, if words were pikes, and oaths were
Andrew Ferraras, would soon place the religion of Babylon in the land once
more, and the woman of Moab upon the throne."
"Now, by Saint Bennet of Seyton," said the youth, " I will strike thee
on the face, thou foul-mouthed old railing heretic 1"
" Saint Bennet of Seyton," echoed the steward; "a proper warrant is
Saint Bennet's, and for a proper nest of wolf-birds like the Seytons!-I will
arrest thee as a traitor to King James and the good Regent.    Ho! John
Auchtermuchty, raise aid against the King's traitor!"
So saying, he laid his hand on the youth's collar, and drew his sword.
John Auchtermuchty looked in, but, seeing the naked weapon, ran faster
out than he entered. Keltie, the landlord, stood by and helped neither
party, only exclaiming, " Gentlemen! gentlemen! for the love of Heaven I"
and so forth. A  struggle ensued, in which the young man, chafed at
Dryfesdale's boldness, and unable, with the ease he expected, to extricate
himself from the old man's determined grasp, drew his dagger, and with
the speed of light, dealt him three wounds in the breast and body, the least
of which was mortal. The old man sunk on the ground with a deep groan,
and the host set up a piteous exclamation of surprise.
"Peace, ye brawling hound i" said the wounded steward; " are daggerstabs and dying men such rarities in Scotland, that you should cry as if the
house were falling? -Youth, I do not forgive thee,, for there is nought
betwixt us to forgive. Thou hast done what I have done to more than one
And I suffer what I have seen them  suffer-it was all ordained to be
thus and not otherwise. But if thou wouldst do me right, thou wilt send
this packet safely to the hands of Sir William'Douglas; and see that my
memory suffer not, as if I would have loitered on mine errand for fear of
my life."
The youth, whose passion had subsided the instant he had done the deed,
listened with sympathy and.attention, when another person, muffled in his




496                  WAVERLEY  NOV ELS.
cloak, entered the apartment, and exclaimed-" Good God! Dryfesdale, and
expiring!"
"Ay, and Dryfesdale would that he had been dead," answered the
wounded man, "rather than that his ears had heard the words of the only
Douglas that ever was false -but yet it is better as it is. Good my murderer, and the rest of you, stand back a little, and let me speak with this
unhappy apostate. - Kneel down by me, Master George - You have heard
that I failed in my attempt to take away that Moabitish stumbling-block
and her retinue-I gave them that which I thought would have removed the
temptation out of thy path - and this, though I had other reasons to show
to thy mother and others, I did chiefly purpose for love of thee."
"For the love of me, base poisoner!" answered Douglas, "wouldst thou
have committed so horrible, so unprovoked a murder, and mentioned my
name with it?"
" And wherefore not, George of Douglas?" answered Dryfesdale. " Breath
is now scarce with me, but I would spend my last gasp on this argument.
Ilast thou not, despite the honour thou owest to thy parents, the faith that
is due to thy religion, the truth that is due to thy king, been so carried
away by the charms of this beautiful sorceress, that thou wouldst have
helped her to escape from her prison-house, and lent her thine arm again to
ascend the throne, which she had made a place of abomination?-Nay, stir
not from me-my hand, though fast stiffening, has yet force enough to hold
thee-What dost thou aim at?-to wed this witch of Scotland?-I warrant
thee, thou mayest succeed — her heart and hand have been oft won at a
cheaper rate, than thou, fool that thou art, would think thyself happy to
pay. But, should a servant of thy father's house have seen thee embrace
the fate of the idiot Darnley, or of the villain Bothwell —the fate of the
murdered fool, or of the living pirate - while an ounce of ratsbane would
have saved thee?"
"Think on God, Dryfesdale," said George Douglas, " and leave the utterance of those horrors-Repent, if thou canst-if not, at least be silent.Seyton, aid me to support this dying wretch, that he may compose himself
to better thoughts, if it be possible."
" Seyton!" answered the dying man; " Seyton! Is it by a Seyton's hand
that I fall at last? - There is something of retribution in that-since the
house had nigh lost a sister by my deed."  Fixing his fading eyes on the
youth, he added, "He hath her very features and presence! - Stoop down,
youth, and let me see thee closer — I would know thee when we meet in
yonder world, for homicides will herd together there, and I have been one."
He pulled Seyton's face, in spite of some resistance, closer to his own, looked
at him fixedly, and added, " Thou hast begun young-thy career will be the
briefer- ay, thou wilt be met with, and that anon - a young plant never
throve that was watered with an old man's blood.-Yet why blame I thee?
Strange turns of fate," he muttered, ceasing to address Seyton; " I designed
what I could not do, and he has done what he did not perchance design. —
Wondrous, that our will should ever oppose itself to the strong and uncontrollable tide of destiny - that we should strive with the stream when we
might drift with the current! My brain will serve me to question it no farther —I would Schoefferbach were here-yet why?-I am on a course which
the vessel can hold without a pilot. - Farewell, George of Douglas -- I die
true to thy father's house."  He fell into convulsions at these words, and
shortly after expired.
Seyton and Douglas stood looking on the dying man, and when the scene
was closed, the former was the first to speak. " As I live, Douglas, I meant
not this, and am. sorry; but he laid hands on me, and compelled me to
defend my freedom, as I best might, with my dagger. If he were ten times
thy friend and follower, I can but say that I am sorry."
" I blame thee not, Seyton," said Douglas, ".though I lament the chance.




THE ABBOT.                               497
There is an overruling destiny above us, though not in the sense in which
it was viewed by that wretched man, who, beguiled by some foreign mystagogue, used the awful word as the ready apology for whatever he chose to
do - we must examine the packet."
They withdrew into an inner room, and remained deep in consultation,
until they were disturbed by the entrance of Keltie, who, with an embarrassed countenance, asked Master George Douglas's pleasure respecting the
disposal of the body. "Your honour knows," he added, "that I make my
bread by living men, not by dead corpses; and old Mr. Dryfesdale, who was
but a sorry customer while he was alive, occupies my public room  now
that he is deceased, and can neither call for ale nor brandy."
"Tie a stone round his neck," said Seyton, " and when the sun is down,
have him to the Loch of Ore, heave him in, and let him alone for finding
out the bottom."
" Under your favour, sir," said George Douglas, "it shall not be so. -
Keltie, thou art a true fellow to me, and thy having been so shall advantage
thee.  Send or take the body to the chapel at Scotland's wall, or to the
church of Ballanry, and tell what tale thou wilt of his having fallen in a
brawl with some unruly guests of thine.  Auchtermuchty knows nought
else, nor are the times so peaceful as to admit close-looking into such
accounts."
" Nay, let him tell the truth," said Seyton, "so far as it harms not our
scheme. - Say that Henry Seyton met with him, my good fellow;-I care
not a brass bodle for the feud."
" A feud with the Douglas was ever to be feared, however," said George,
displeasure mingling with his natural deep gravity of manner.
" Not when the best of the name is on my side," replied Seyton.
" Alas! Henry, if thou meanest me, I am but half a Douglas in this
emprize —half head, half heart, and half hand.- But I will think on one
who can never be forgotten, and be all, or more, than any of my ancestors
was ever. - Keltie, say it was Henry Seyton did the deed; but beware, not
a word of me! — Let Auchtermuchty carry this packet" (which he had resealed with his own signet) "to my father at Edinburgh; and here is to
pay for the funeral expenses, and thy loss of custom."
"And the washing of the floor," said the landlord, " which will be an
extraordinary job; for blood they say, will scarcely ever cleanse out."
"But as for your plan," said George of Douglas, addressing Seyton, as
if in continuation of what they had been before treating of, "it has a good
face; but, under your favour, you are yourself too hot and too young,
besides other reasons which are much against your playing the part you
propose."
" We will consult the Father Abbot upon it," said the youth.  "Do you
ride to Kinross to-night?"
" Ay- so I purpose," answered Douglas; "the night will be dark, and
suits a muffled man. —Keltie, I forgot, there should be a stone laid on that
man's grave, recording his name, and his only merit, which was being a
faithful servant to the Douglas."'
"What religion was the man of?" said Seyton; "he used words, which
make me fear I have sent Satan a subject before his time."
"I can tell you little of that," said George Douglas; "he was noted for
disliking both Rome and Geneva, and spoke of lights he had learned among
the fierce sectaries of Lower Germany-an evil doctrine it was, if we judge
by the fruits.  God keep us from  presumptuously judging of Heaven's
secrets!"
Generally, a disguised man; originally one who wears the cloak or mantle muffled round the lower part
of the face to conceal his countenance. I have on an ancient piece of iron the representation of a robble
thus accoutred, elndeavouring to make his way into a house, and opposed by a mastiff, to whonl he in vain
offers food. The motto is spernit donafides. It is part of a fire-grate said to have belonged to Archbishop
Sharpe.
VOL. V.-32                       2R2




498                    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
" Amio!" said the young Seyton, " and from meeting any encounter this
evening."
"It is not thy wont to pray so," said George Douglas.
"No! I leave that to you," replied the youth, " when you are seized with
scruples of engaging with your father's vassals. But I would fain have
this old man's blood off these hands of mine ere I shed more - I will confess to the Abbot to-night, and I trust to have light penance for ridding the
earth of such a miscreant.  All I sorrow for is, that he was not a score of
years younger - He drew steel first, however, that is one comfort."
c   laptnr  tle'   irHi-fuartlJ.
Ay, Pedro,-Come you here with mask and lantern,
Ladder of ropes and other moonshine toolsWhy, youngster, thou mayst cheat the old Duenna,
Flatter the waiting-woman, bribe the valet;
But know, that I her father play the Gryphon,
Tameless and sleepless, proof to fraud or bribe,
And guard the hidden treasure of her beauty.
THE SPANISH FATHER.
THE tenor of our tale carries us back to the Castle of Lochleven, where
we take up the order of events on the same remarkable day on which
Dryfesdale had been dismissed from the castle. It was past noon, the usual
hour of dinner, yet no preparations seemed made for the Queen's entertainment.  Mary herself had retired into her own apartment, where she
was closely engaged in writing.  Her attendants were together in the presence-chamber, and much disposed to speculate on the delay of the dinner;
for it may be recollected that their breakfast had been interrupted.  "I
believe in my conscience," said the page, "that having found the poisoning
scheme miscarry, by having gone to the wrong merchant for their deadly
wares, they are now about to try how f.amine will work upon us."
Lady Fleming was somewhat alarmed at this surmise, but comforted herself by observing that the chimney of the kitchen had reeked that whole
day in a manner which contradicted the supposition. -  Catherine Seyton
presently exclaimed, " They were bearing the dishes across the court, marshalled by the Lady Lochleven herself, dressed out in her highest and stiffest
ruff, with her partlet and sleeves of cyprus, and her huge old-fashioned
farthingale of crimson velvet."
" I believe on my word," said the page, approaching the window also, " it
was in that very farthingale that she captivated the heart of gentle King
Jamie, which procured our poor Queen her precious bargain of a brother."
" That may hardly be, Master Roland," answered the Lady Fleming, who
was a great recorder of the changes of fashion, " since the farthingales came
first in when the Queen Regent went to Saint Andrews, after the battle of
Pinkie, and were then called Vertugardins       "
She would have proceeded farther in this important discussion, but was
interrupted by the entrance of the Lady of Lochleven, who preceded the
servants bearing the dishes, and formally discharged the duty of tasting
each of them.  Lady Fleming regretted, in courtly phrase, that the Lady
of Lochleven should have undertaken so troublesome an office."
"After the strange incident of this day, madam," said the Lady, "it it
necessary for my honour and that of my son, that I partake whatever is
offered to my involuntary guest.  Please to inform  the Lady Mary that I
attend her commands."




THE  ABBOT.                            499
" ier Majesty," replied Lady Fleming, with due emphasis on the word,
"shall be informed that the Lady Lochleven waits."
Mary appeared instantly, and addressed her hostess with courtesy, which
even approached to something more cordial. "This is nobly done, Lady
Lochleven," she said; " for though we ourselves apprehend no danger under
your roof, our ladies have been much alarmed by this morning's chance,
and our meal will be the more cheerful for your presence and assurance.
Please you to sit down."
The Lady Lochleven obeyed the Queen's commands, and Roland performed the office of carver and attendant as usual. But, notwithstanding
what the Queen had said, the meal was silent and unsocial; and every effort
which Mary made to excite some conversation, died away under the solemn
and chill replies of the Lady of Lochleven. At length it became plain that
the Queen, who had considered these advances as a condescension on her
part. and who piqued herself justly on her powers of pleasing, became
offended at the repulsive conduct of her hostess. After looking with a significant glance at Lady Fleming and Catherine, she slightly shrugged her
shoulders, and remained silent.. A pause ensued, at the end of which the
Lady Douglas spoke:-" I perceive, madam, I am a check on the mirth of
this fair company. I pray you to excuse me-I am a widow-alone here in
a most perilous charge-deserted by my grandson-betrayed by my servant
--  am little worthy of the grace you do me in offering me a seat at your
table, where I am aware that wit and pastime are usually expected from
the guests."
"If the Lady Lochleven is serious," said the Queen, "we wonder by
what simplicity she expects our present meals to be seasoned with mirth.
If she is a widow, she lives honoured and uncontrolled, at the head of her
late husband's household. But I know at least of one widowed woman
in the world, before whom the words desertion and betrayal ought never to
be mentioned, since no one has been made so bitterly acquainted with their
import."
"I meant not, madam, to remind you of your misfortunes, by the mention of mine," answered the Lady Lochleven, and there was again a deep
silence.
Mary at length addressed Lady Fleming. "We can commit no deadly
sins here, ma bonne, where we are so well warded and looked to; but if we
could, this Carthusian silence might be useful as a kind of penance. If
thou hast adjusted my wimple amiss, my Fleming, or if Catherine hath
made a wry stitch in her broidery, when she was thinking of something,
else than her work, or if Roland Gromme hath missed a wild-duck on the
wing, and broke a quarrel-pane* of glass in the turret window, as chanced
to him a week since, now is the time to think on your sins and to repent of
them."
" Madam, I speak with all reverence," said the Lady Lochleven; "but I
am old, and claim the privilege of age. Methinks your followers might find
fitter subjects for repentance than the trifles you mention, and so mentiononce more, I crave your pardon -as if you jested with sin and repentance
both."
" You have been our taster, Lady Lochleven," said the Queen," I perceive
you would eke out your duty with that of our Father Confessor  and since
you choose that our conversation should be serious, may I ask you why the
Regent's promise - since your son so styles himself- has not been kept to
me in that respect? From time to time this promise has been renewed, and
as constantly broken. Methinks those who pretend themselves to. so much
gravity and sanctity, should not debar from others the religious succours
which their consciences require."
*Diamond-shaped; literally, formed like the head of a quarrel, or arrow for the crossbow




500                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
"Madam, the Earl of Murray was indeed weak enough," said the Lady
Lochleven, "to give so far way to your unhappy prejudices, and a religioner
of the Pope presented himself on his part at our town of Kinross. But the
Douglass is Lord of his owh castle, and will not permit his threshold to be
darkened, no not for a single moment, by an emissary belonging to the
Bishop of Rome."
" Methinks it were well, then," said Mary, " that my Lord Regent would
send me where there is less scruple and more charity."
"In this, madam," answered the Lady Lochleven, "you mistake the
nature both of charity and of religion. Charity giveth to those who are in
delirium the medicaments which may avail their health, but refuses those
enticing cates and liquors which please the palate, but augment the
disease."
"This your charity, Lady Lochleven, is pure cruelty, under the hypocritical disguise of friendly care. I am oppressed amongst you as if you meant
the destruction both of my body and soul; but I-eaven will not endure such
iniquity for ever, and they who are the most active agents in it may speedily
expect their reward."
At this moment Randal entered the apartment, with a look so much
perturbed, that the Lady Fleming uttered a faint scream, the Queen was
obviously startled, and the Lady of Lochleven, though too bold and proud
to evince any marked signs of alarm, asked hastily what was the matter?
"Dryfesdale has been slain, madam," was the reply; "murdered as soon
as he gained the dry land by young Master Ienry Seyton."
It was now Catherine's turn to start and grow pale-" Has the murderer
of the Douglas's vassal escaped?" was the Lady's hasty question.
" There was none to challenge him but old Keltie, and the carrier Aucltermuchty," replied Randal; "unlikely men to stay one of the frackest*
youths in Scotland of his years, and who was sure to have friends and
partakers at no great distance."
"Was the deed completed?" said the Lady.
"Done, and done thoroughly," said Randal; " a Seyton seldom strikes
twice-But the body was not despoiled, and your honour's packet goes
forward to Edinburgh by Auchtermuchty, who leaves Keltie-Bridge early
to-morrow- marry, he has drunk two bottles of aquavitxe to put the fright
out of his head, and now sleeps them off beside his cart-avers."t
There was a pause when this fatal tale was told. The Queen and Lady
Douglas looked on each other, as if each thought how she could best turn
the incident to her own advantage in the controversy, which was continually
kept alive betwixt them -Catherine Seyton kept her kerchief at her eyes
and wept.
"You see, madam, the bloody maxims and practice of the deluded
Papists," said Lady Lochleven.
"Nay, madam," replied the Queen, "say rather you see the deserved
judgment of Heaven upon a Calvinistical poisoner."
"Dryfesdale was not of the Church of Geneva, or of Scotland," said the
Lady of Lochleven, hastily.
"He was a heretic, however," replied Mary; "there is but one true and
unerring guide; the others lead alike into error."
" Well, madam, I trust it will reconcile you to your retreat, that this deed
shovws the temper of those who might wish you at liberty. Blood-thirsty
tyrants, and cruel men-quellers are they all, from the Clan-Ranald and ClanTosach in the north, to the Ferniherst and Buccleuch in the south —the
murdering Seytons in the east, and    "
" Methinks, madam, you forget that I am a Seyton?" said Catherine,
withdrawing her kerchief from her face, which was now coloured with
indignation.
* Boldest-most forward.            t Cart-horses.




THE  ABBOT.                             501
"If I had forgot it, fair mistress, your forward bearing would have
reminded me," said Lady Lochleven.
" If my brother has slain the villain that would have poisoned his
Sovereign, and his sister," said Catherine, " I am only so far sorry that he
should have spared the hangman his proper task.  For aught farther, had
it been the best Douglas in the land, he would have been honoured in falling
by the Seyton's sword."
v  " Farewell, gay mistress," said the Lady of Lochleven, rising to withdraw;
"it is such maidens as you, who make giddy-fashioned revellers and deadly
brawlers. Boys must needs rise, forsooth, in the grace of some sprightly
damsel, who thinks to dance through life as through a French galliard."
She then made her reverence to the Queen, and added, " Do you also, madam,
fare you well, till curfew time, when I will make, perchance, more bold than
welcome in attending upon your supper board.-Come with me, Rlandal, and
tell me more of this cruel fact."
"'Tis an extraordinary chance," said the Queen, when she had departed;
"and, villain as he was, I would this man had been spared time for repentance. We will cause something to be done for his soul, if we ever
attain our liberty, and the Church will permit such grace to a heretic.-But,
tell me, Catherine, ma mign6ne - this brother of thine, who is sofrack, as
the fellow called him, bears he the same wonderful likeness to thee as
formerly?"
" If your Grace means in temper, you know whether I am sofrack as the
serving-man spoke him."
" Nay, thou art prompt enough in all reasonable conscience," replied the
Queen; "but thou art my own darling notwithstanding-But I meant, is
this thy twin-brother as like thee in form and features as formerly? I
remember thy dear mother alleged it as a reason for destining thee to the
veil, that, were ye both to go at large, thou wouldst surely get the credit of
some of thy brother's mad pranks."
"I believe, madam," said Catherine, "there are some unusually simple"
people even yet, who can hardly distinguish betwixt us, especially when, for
diversion's sake, my brother hath taken a female dress," and as she spoke,
she gave a quick glance at Roland Grnemle, to whom this conversation conveyed a ray of light, welcome as ever streamed into the dungeon of a captive
through the door which opened to give him freedom.
"lHe must be a handsome cavalier this brother of thine, if he be so like
you," replied Mary.  " lie was in France, I think, for these late years, so
that I saw him not at IHolyrood."
" His looks, madam, have never been much found fault with," answered
Catherine Seyton; "but I would he had less of that angry and heady spirit
which evil times have encouraged amongst our young nobles. God knows,
I grudge not his life in your Grace's quarrel; and love him for the willingness with which he labours for your rescue. But wherefore should he brawl
with an old ruffianly serving-man, and stain at once his name with such a
broil, and his hands with the blood of an old and ignoble wretch?"
"Nay, be patient, Catherine; I will not have thee traduce my gallant
young knight. With Henry for my knight, and Roland Grseme for my
trusty squire, methinks I am like a princess of-romance, who may shortly
set at defiance the dungeons and the weapons of all wicked sorcerers.-But
my head aches with the agitation of the day.  Take me La Mer Des
Histoires, and resume where we left off on Wednesday.-Our Lady help thy
head, girl, or rather may she help thy heart!-I asked thee for the Sea of
Histories, and thou hast brought La Cronique d'Amour."
Once embarked upon the Sea of Histories, the Queen continued her labours with her needle, while Lady Fleming and Catherine read to her alternately for two hours.
As to Roland Graeme, it is probable that he continued in secret intent




502                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
upon the Chronicle of Love, notwithstanding the censure which the Queen
seemed to pass upon that branch of study. He now remembered a thousand
circumstances of voice and manner, which, had his own prepossession been
less, must surely have discriminated the brother from the sister; and he
felt ashamed, that, having as it were by heart every particular of Catherine's
gestures, words, and manners, he should have thought her, notwithstanding
her spirits and levity, capable of assuming the bold step, loud tones, and
forward assurance, which accorded well enough with her brother's hasty
and masculine character.  He endeavoured repeatedly to catch a glance of
Catherine's eye, that he might judge how she was disposed to look upon him
since he had made the discovery, but he was unsuccessful; for Catherine,
when she was not reading herself, seemed to take so much interest in the
exploits of the Teutonic knights against the Heathens of Esthonia and
Livonia, that he could not surprise her eye even -for a second. But when,
closing the book, the Queen commanded their attendance in the garden,
Mary, perhaps of set purpose, (for Roland's anxiety could not escape so
practised an observer,) afforded him a favourable opportunity of accosting
his mistress.  The Queen commanded them  to a little distance, while she
engaged Lady Fleming in a particular and private conversation; the subject
whereof we learn, from another, authority, to have been the comparative
excellence of the high standing ruff and the falling band. Roland must
have been duller, and more sheepish than ever was youthful lover, if he had
not endeavoured to avail himself of this opportunity.
" I have been longing this whole evening to ask of you, fair Catherine,"
said the page, "how foolish and unapprehensive you must have thought me,
in being capable to mistake betwixt your brother and you?"
"The circumstance does indeed little honour to my rustic manners," said
Catherine, "since those of a wild young man were so readily mistaken for
mine. But I shall grow wiser in time; and with that view I am determined
not to think of your follies, but to correct my own."
"It will be the lighter subject of meditation of the two," said Roland.
" I know not that," said Catherine, very gravely; "I fear we have been
both unpardonably foolish."
" I have been mad," said Roland, "unpardonably mad. But you, lovely
Catherine    "
"I," said Catherine, in the same tone of unusual gravity, "have too long:
suffered you to use such expressions towards me-I fear I can permit it no
longer, and I blame myself for the pain it may give you."
"And what can have happened so suddenly to change our relation to
each other, or alter, with such sudden cruelty, your whole deportment to
me?"
" I can hardly tell," replied Catherine, " unless it is that the events of the.
day have'impressed on my mind the necessity of our observing more distance to each other.  A chance similar to that which betrayed to you the
existence of my brother, may make known to Henry the terms you have
used to me; and, alas! his whole conduct, as well as his deed this day,
makes me too justly apprehensive of the consequences."
" Fear nothing for that, fair Catherine," answered the page; " I am well
able to protect myself against risks of that nature."
"That is to say," replied she, " that you would fight with my twin-brother to show your regard for his sister? I have heard the Queen say, in her
sad hours, that men are, in love or in hate, the most selfish animals of creation; and your carelessness in this matter looks very like it. But be not so
much abashed —you are no worse than others."
"You do me injustice, Catherine," replied the page, "I thought but of
being threatened with a sword, and did not remember in whose hand your
fancy had placed it. If your brother stood before me, with his drawn
weapon in his hand, so like as he is to you in word, person, and favour, he




THITI  ABBOT.                           603
might shed my life' blood ere I could find in my heart to resist him to his
inj ury."
"Alas!" said she, "it is not my brother alone. But you remember only
the singular circumstances in which we have met in equality, and I may
say in intimacy. You think not, that whenever I re-enter my father's house,
there is a gulf between us you may not pass, but with peril of your life. —
Your only known relative is of wild and singular habits, of a hostile and
broken clan * —the rest of your lineage unknown-forgive me that I speak
what is the undeniable truth."
"Love, my beautiful Catherine, despises genealogies," answered Roland
Graeme.
" Love may, but so will not the Lord Seyton," rejoined the damsel.
"The Queen, thy mistress and mine, she will intercede. Oh! drive me
not from you at the moment I thought myself most happy!-and if I shall
aid her deliverance, said not yourself that you and she would become my
debtors?"
" All Scotland will become your debtors," said Catherine; "but for the
active effects you might hope from our gratitude, you must remember I am
wholly subjected to my father; and the poor Queen is, for a long time, more
likely to be dependant on the pleasure of the nobles of her party, than
possessed of power to control them."
" Be it so," replied Roland; " my deeds shall control prejudice itself-it
is a bustling world, and I will have my share. The Knight of Avenel, high
as he now stands, rose from as obscure an origin as mine."
"Ay!" said Catherine, "there spoke the doughty knight of romance,
that will cut his way to the imprisoned princess, through fiends and fiery
dragons!"
" But if I can set the princess at large, and procure her the freedom of
her own choice," said the page, "where, dearest Catherine, will that choice
alight?"
"Release the princess from  duresse, and she will tell you," said the
damsel; and breaking off the conversation abruptly, she joined the Queen
so suddenly, that Mary exclaimed, half aloud"No more tidings of evil import —no dissension, I trust, in my limited
household?"-Then looking on Catherine's blushing cheek, and Roland's
expanded brow and glancing eye-"No-no," she said, "I see all is wellMa petite nzignzne, go to my apartment and fetch me down-let me see-ay,
fetch my pomander box."
And having thus disposed of her attendant in the manner best qualified
to hide her confusion, the Queen added, speaking apart to Roland, "I should
at least have two grateful subjects of Catherine and you; for what sovereign
but Mary would aid true love so willingly?-Ay, you lay your hand on
your sword —your petiteflamberge a rien there-Well, short time will show
if all the good be true that is protested to us-I hear them toll curfew from
Kinross.  To our chamber —this old dame hath promised to be with us
again at our evening meal. Were it not for the hope of speedy deliverance,
her presence would drive me distracted.'But I will be patient."
"I profess," said Catherine, who just then entered, "I would I could be
Henry, with al- a man's privileges, for one moment-I long to throw my
plate at that confect of pride and formality, and ill-nature."
The Lady Fleming reprimanded her young companion for this explosion
of impatience; the Queen laughed, and they went to the presence-chamber,
where almost immediately entered supper, and the Lady of the castle. The
Queen, strong in her prudent resolutions, endured her presence with great
fortitude and equanimity, until her patience was disturbed by a new form,
which had hitherto made no part of the ceremonial of the castle. When
* A boken clan was one who had no chief able to find security for theirgood behaviour-a clan of outlaws;
and the Graines of the Debateable Land were in that condition.




504.                 WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
the other attendant had'retired, Randal entered, bearing the keys of the
castle fastened upon a chain, and, announcing that the watch was set, and
the gates locked, delivered the keys with all reverence to the Lady of
Lochleven.
The Queen and her ladies exchanged with each other a look of disappointment, anger, and vexation; and Mary said aloud, "We cannot regret the
smallness of our court, when we see our hostess discharge in person so many
of its offices. In addition to her charges of principal steward of our household and grand almoner, she has to-night done duty as captain of our
guard."
" And will continue to do so in future, madam," answered the Lady Lochleven, with much gravity; "the history of Scotland may teach me how ill
the duty is performed, which is done by an accredited deputy —We have
heard, madam, of favourites of later date, and as little merit, as Oliver Sinclair."*
" Oh, madam," replied the Queen, "my father had his female as well as
his male favourites - there were the Ladies Sandilands and Olifaunt,t and
some others, methinks; but their names cannot survive in the memory of
so grave a person as you."
The Lady Lochleven looked as if she could have slain the Queen on the
spot, but commanded her temper and retired from the apartment, bearing
in her hand the ponderous bunch of keys.
" Now God be praised for that woman's youthful frailty!" said the Queen.
"Had she not that weak point in her character, I might waste my words on
her in vain - But that stain is the very reverse of what is said of the witch's
mark-I can make her feel there, though she is otherwise insensible all
over.  But how say you, girls - here is a new difficulty.- How are these
keys to be come by? - there is no deceiving or bribing this dragon, I trow."
"May I crave to know," said Roland, "whether, if your Grace were
beyond the walls of the castle, you could find means of conveyance to the
firm land, and protection when you are there?"
"Trust us for that, Roland," said the Queen; "for to that point our
scheme is indifferent well laid."
" Then if your Grace will permit me to speak my mind, I think I could
be of some use in this matter."
" As how, my good youth?-speak on," said the Queen, "and fearlessly."
"My patron the Knight of Avenel used to compel the youth educated in
his household to learn the use of axe and hammer, and working in wood
and iron - he used to speak of old northern champions, who forged their
own weapons, and of the Highland Captain, Donald nan Ord, or Donald of
the Hammer, whom he himself knew, and who used to work at the anvil
with a sledge-hammer in each hand. Some said he praised this art, because
he was himself of churl's blood. However, I gained some practice in it, as
the Lady Catherine Seyton partly knows; for since we were here, I wrought
her a silver brooch."
" Ay," replied Catharine, "but you should tell her Grace that your workmanship was so indifferent that it broke to pieces next day, and I flung it
away."
"Believe her not, Roland," said the Queen; "she wept when it was
broken, and put the fragments into her bosom. But for your scheme 
could your skill avail to forge a second set of keys?"
"No, madam, because I know not the wards. But I am convinced I could
make a set so like that hateful bunch which the Lady bore off even now,
that could they be exchanged against them by any means, she would never
dream she was possessed of the wrong."
A favourite, and said to be an unworthy one, of James V.
t The names of these ladies, and a third frail favourite of James, are preserved in an epigram too gaillard
O)r quotation.




THE  ABBOT.                              505
"And the good dame, thank Heaven, is somewhat blird," said the Queen;
"but then for a forge, my boy, and the means of labouring unobserved?"
"The armourer's forge, at which I used sometimes to work with him, is
the round vault at the. bottom of the turret -he was dismissed with the
warder for being supposed too much attached to George Douglas. The people are accustomed to see me work there, and I warrant I shall find some
excuse that will pass current with them for putting bellows and anvil to
work."
"The scheme has a promising face," said the Queen; " about it, my lad,
with all speed, and beware the nature of your work is not discovered."
"Nay, I will take the liberty to draw the bolt against chance visiters, so
that I will have time to put away what I am working upon, before I undo
the door."
" Will not that of itself attract suspicion, in a place where it is so current
already?" said Catherine.
" Not a whit," replied Roland; " Gregory the armourer, and every good
hammerman, locks himself in when he is about some master piece of craft.
Besides, something must be risked."
"Part we then to-night," said the Queen, "and God bless you my children I - If Mary's head ever rises above water, you shall all rise along with
her."
f  apftr tft,i0rt4-fift).
It is a time of danger, not of revel,
When churchmen turn to masquers.
SPANIM FATHER.
THE enterprise of Roland Grseme appeared to prosper. A trinket or two,
of which the work did not surpass the substance, (for the materials were
silver, supplied by the Queen,) were judiciously presented to those most
likely to be inquisitive into the labours of the forge and anvil, which they
thus were induced to reckon profitable to others and harmless in itself.
Openly, the page was seen working about such trifles. In private, he forged
a number of keys resembling so nearly in weight and in form those which
were presented every evening to'the Lady Lochleven, that, on a slight
inspection, it would have been difficult to perceive the difference. He brought
them  to the dark rusty colour by the use of salt and water; and, in the
triumph of his art, presented them at length to Queen Mary in her presencechamber, about an hour before the tolling of the curfew. She looked at
them with pleasure, but at the same time with doubt.-" I allow," she said,
"that the Lady Lochleven's eyes, which are not of the clearest, may be well
deceived, could we pass those keys on her in place of the real implements
of her tyranny. But how is this to be done, and which of my little court
dare attempt this tour de jongleur with any chance of success?  Could we
but engage her in some earnest matter of argument-but those which I hold
with her, always have been of a kind which make her grasp her keys the
faster, as if she said to herself-Here I hold what sets me above your taunts
and reproaches-And even for her liberty, Mary Stuart could not stoop to
speak the proud heretic fair.-What shall we do?  Shall Lady Fleming try
her eloquence in describing the last new head-tire from Paris?-alas i the
good dame has not changed the fashion of her head-gear since Pinkie-field,
for aught that I know.  Shall my mignone Catherine sing to her one of
2s




506       -    WAVERLEY NOVELS.
those touching airs, which draw the very souls out of me and Roland
Grmeme?-Alas! Dame Margaret Douglas would rather hear a Huguenot
psalm of Clement Marrot, sung to the tune of Reveillez vous, belle endormie.
-Cousins and liege counsellors, what is to be done, for our wits are really
astray in this matter?-Must our man-at-arms and the champion of our
body, Roland Grome, manfully assault the old lady, and take the keys from
her par voie du fait?"
"Nay! with your Grace's permission," said Roland, "I do not doubt
being able to manage the matter with more discretion; for though, in your
Grace's service, I do not fear  -"
"A host of old women," interrupted Catherine, " each armed with rock
and spindle, yet he has no fancy for pikes and partisans, which might rise
at the cry of Help! a Douglas, a Douglas!"
" They that do not fear fair ladies' tongues," continued the page, "need
dread nothing else.-But, gracious Liege, I am well-nigh satisfied that I
could pass the exchange of these keys on the Lady Lochleven; but I dread
the sentinel who is now planted nightly in the garden, which, by necessity,
we must traverse.'
"Our last advices from our friends on the shore have promised us assistance in that matter," replied the Queen.
" And is your Grace well assured of the fidelity and watchfulness of those
without?"
" For their fidelity, I will answer with my life, and for their vigilance, I
will answer with my life-I will give thee instant proof, my faithful Roland,
that they are ingenuous and trusty as thyself. Come hither-Nay, Catherine, attend us; we carry not so deft a page into our private chamber alone.
Make fast the door of the parlour, Fleming, and warn us if you hear the
least step-or stay, go thou to the door, Catherine," (in a whisper, "thy
ears and thy wits are both sharper.)-Good Fleming, attend us thyself"(and again she whispered, " her reverend presence will be as safe a watch
on Roland as thine can-so be not jealous, mignone."')
Thus speaking, they were lighted by the Lady Fleming into the Queen's
bedroom, a small apartment enlightened by a projecting window. 
"Look from that window, Roland," she said; "see you amongst the
several lights which begin to kindle, and to glimmer palely through the
gray of the evening from the village of Kinross-seest thou, I say, one solitary spark apart from the others, and nearer it seems to the verge of the
water?-It is no brighter at this distance than the torch of the poor glowworm, and yet, my good youth, that light is more dear to Mary Stuart, than
every star that twinkles in the blue vault of heaven. By that signal, I
know that more than one true heart is plotting my deliverance; and without
that consciousness, and the hope of freedom it gives me, I had long since
stooped to my fate, and died of a broken heart. Plan after plan has been
formed and abandoned, but still the light glimmers; and while it glimmers,
my hope lives.-Oh! how many evenings have I sat musing in despair over
our ruined schemes, and scarce hoping that I should again see that blessed
signal; when it has suddenly kindled, and, like the lights of Saint Elmo in
a tempest, brought hope and consolation, where there was only dejection
and despair!"
"If I mistake not," answered Roland, " the candle shines from the house
of Blinkhoolie, the mail-gardener."
"Thou hast a good eye," said the Queen; "it is there where my trusty
lieges-God and the saints pour blessings on them!- hold consultation for
my deliverance. The voice of a wretched captive would die on these blue
waters, long ere it could mingle in their councils; and yet I can hold communication-I will confide the whole to thee-I am about to ask those faithful friends if the moment for the great attempt is nigh.-Place the lamp in
the window, Fleming."




THE ABBOT.                               507
Sht, obeyed, and immediately withdrew it. No sooner had she done so,
tLan the light in the cottage of the gardener disappeared.
"Now count," said Queen Mary, " for my heart beats so thick that I cannot count myself."
The Lady Fleming began deliberately to count one, two, three, and when
she had arrived at ten, the light on the shore showed its pale twinkle.
"Now, our Lady be praised!" said the Queen; "it was but two nights
since, that the absence of the light remained while I could tell thirty. The
hour of deliverance approaches.  May God bless those who labour in it with
such truth to me! - alas! with such hazard to themselves- and bless you,
too, my children! - Come, we must to the audience-chamber again. Our
absence might excite suspicion, should they serve supper."
They returned to the presence-chamber, and the evening concluded as
usual.
The next morning, at dinner-time, an unusual incident occurred. While
Lady Douglas of Lochleven performed her daily duty of assistant and taster
at the Queen's table, she was told a man-at-arms had arrived, recommended
by her son, but without any letter or other token than what he brought by
word of mouth.
"Hath he given you that token?" demanded the Lady.
" He reserved it, as I think, for your Ladyship's ear," replied Randal.
" Ie doth well," said the Lady; " tell him to wait in the hall-But nowith your permission, madam," (to the Queen) " let him attend me here."
"Since you are pleased to receive your domestics in my presence," said
the Queen, "I cannot choose'~
" My infirmities must plead my excuse, madam," replied the Lady; " the
life I must lead here ill suits with the years which have passed over my
head, and compels me to waive ceremonial."
" Oh, my good Lady," replied the Queen, "I would there were nought in
this your castle more strongly compulsive than the cobweb chains of ceremony; but bolts and bars are harder matters to contend with."
As she spoke' the person announced by Randal entered the room, and
Roland Groeme at once recognized in him the Abbot Ambrosius.
" What is your name, good fellow?" said the Lady.
"Edward Glendinning," answered the Abbot, with a suitable reverence.
Art thou of the blood of the Knight of Avenel'" said the Lady of Lochleven.
" Ay, madam, and that nearly," replied the pretended soldier.
" It is likely enough," said the Lady, "for the Knight is the son of his
own good works, and has risen from obscure lineage to his present high
rank in the Estate -But he is of sure truth and approved worth, and his
kinsman is welcome to us. You hold, unquestionably, the true faith?"
" Do not doubt of it, madam," said the disguised churchman.
" Hast thou a token to me from Sir William Douglas?9. said the Lady.
"I have, madam," replied he; "but it must be said in private."
"Thou art right," said the Lady, moving towards the recess of a window;
"say in what does it consist?"
" In the words of an old bard," replied the Abbot.
"Repeat them," answered the Lady; and he uttered, in a low tone, the
lines from anold poem, called The Iowlet,"0 Douglas! Douglas!
Tender and true."
"Trusty Sir John Holland!"* said the Lady Douglas, apostrophizing the
poet, " a kinder heart never inspired a rhyme, and the Douglas's honour was
ever on thy heart-string!'We receive you among our followers, GlendinSir John Holland's poem of the Howlet is known to collectors by the beautiful edition presented So the
Barniutyne Club, by Mr. David Laing.




508                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
ning-But, Randal, see that he keep the outer ward only, till we shall hear
more touching hinm from our son.-Thou fearest not the night air, Glendinning?"
"In the cause of the Lady before whom I stand, I fear nothing, madam,"
answered the disguised Abbot.
"Our garrison, then, is stronger by one trustworthy soldier," said the
matron-" Go to the buttery, and let them make much of thee."
When the Lady Lochleven had retired, the Queen said to Roland Grneme,
who was now almost constantly in her company, "I spy comfort in that
stranger's countenance; I know not why it should be so, but I am well persuaded he is a friend."
"Your Grace's penetration does not deceive you," answered the page;
and he informed her that the Abbot of St. Mary's himself played the part
of the newly arrived soldier.
"'The Queen crossed herself and looked upwards. "Unworthy sinner
that I am," she said, "that for my sake a man so holy, and so high in spiritual office, should wear the garb of a base sworder, and run the risk of
dying the death of a traitor!"
" -leaven will protect its own servant, madam," said Catherine Seyton;
" his aid would bring a blessing on our undertaking, were it not already
blest for its own sake."
"What I admire in my spiritual father," said Roland, "was the steady
front with which he looked on me, without giving the least sign of former
acquaintance. I did not think the like was possible, since I have ceased to
believe that Henry was the same person with Catherine."
"But marked you not how astuciously the good father," said the Queen,
eluded the questions of the woman Lochleven, telling her the very truth,
which yet she received not as such?"
Roland thought in his heart, that when the truth was spoken for the purpose of deceiving, it was little better than a lie in disguise. But it was no
time to agitate such questions of conscience.
"And now for the signal from the shore" exclaimed Catherine; "my
bosom tells me we shall see this night two lights instead of one gleam from
that garden of Eden-And then, Roland, do you play your part manfully,
and we will dance on the greensward like midnight fairies!"
Catherine's conjecture misgave not, nor deceived her. In the evening two
beams twinkled from the cottage, instead of one; and the page heard, with
beating heart, that the new retainer was ordered to stand sentinel on the
outside of the castle. When he intimated this news to the Queen, she held
her hand out to him -he knelt, and when he raised it to his lips in all
dutiful homage, he found it was damp and cold as marble. "For GQd's
sake, madam, droop not now,-sink not now!"
"Call upon our Lady, my Liege," said the Lady Fleming-" call upon
your tutelar saint."
" Call the spirits of the hundred kings you are descended from," exclaimed
the page; "in this hour of need, the resolution of a monarch were worth
the aid of a hundred saints."
"Oh! Roland Graeme," said Mary, in a tone of deep despondency, " be
true to me - many have been" false to me. Alas! I have not always been
true to myself. My mind misgives me that I shall die in bondage, and that
this bold attempt will cost all our lives. It was foretold me by a soothsayer
in France, that I should die in prison, and by a violent death, and here
comes the hour-Oh, would to God it found me prepared!"
"Madam," said Catherine Seyton, " remember you are a Queen. Better
we all diedin bravely attempting to gain our freedom, than remained hero
to be poisoned, as mei rid them of the noxious vermin that haunt old
houses."
"You are right, Catherine," said the Queen; "and Mary will bear her




THE  ABBOT.                             509
like herself.  But alas! your young and buoyant spirit can ill spell the
causes which have broken mine. Forgive me, my children, and farewell
for a while-I will prepare both mind and body for this awful venture."
They separated, till again called together by the tolling of the curfew.
The Queen appeared grave, but firm and resolved: the Lady Fleming, with
the art of an experienced courtier, knew perfectly how to disguise her
inward tremors; Catherine's eye was fired, as if with the boldness of the
project, and the half smile which dwelt upon her beautiful mouth seemed
to contemn all the risk and all the consequences of discovery; Roland, who
felt how much success depended on his own address and boldness, summoned together his whole presence of mind, and if he found his spirits flag
for a moment, cast his-eye upon Catherine, whom he thought he had never
seen look so beautiful.-" I may be foiled," he thought, "but with this
reward in prospect, they must bring the devil to aid them  ere they cross
me."  Thus resolved, he stood like a greyhound in the slips, with hand,
heart, and eye intent upon making and seizing opportunity for the execution of their project.
The keys had, with the wonted ceremonial, been presented to the Lady
Lochleven.  She stood with her back to the casement, which, like that of
the Queen's apartment, commanded a view of Kinross, with the church,
which stands at some distance from the town, and nearer to the lake, then
connected with the town by straggling cottages. With her back to this
casement, then, and her face to the table, on which the keys lay for an
instant while she tasted the various dishes which were placed there, stood
the Lady of Lochleven, more provokingly intent than usual  so at least it
seemed to her prisoners- upon the huge and heavy bunch of iron, the implements of their restraint. Just when, having finished her ceremony as
taster of the Queen's table, she was about to take up the keys, the page,
who stood beside her, and had handed her the dishes in succession, looked
sideways to the churchyard, and exclaimed he saw corpse-candles in the
churchyard.  The Lady of Lochleven was not without a touch, though a
slight one, of the superstitions of the time; the fate of her sons made her
alive to omens, and a corpse-light, as it was called, in the family burialplace boded death.  She turned her head towards the casement -saw a
distant glimmering -forgot her charge for one second, and in that second
were lost the whole fruits of her former vigilance. The page held the
forged keys under his cloak, and with great dexterity exchanged them for
the real ones. His utmost address could not prevent a slight clash as he
took up the latter bunch.  "Who touches the keys?" said the Lady; and
while the page answered that the sleeve of his cloak had stirred them, she
looked round, possessed herself of the bunch which now occupied the place
of the genuine keys, and again turned to gaze on the supposed corpsecandles.
"I hold these gleams," she said, after a moment's consideration, "to
come, not from the churchyard, but from the hut of the old gardener Blinkhoolie. I wonder what thrift that churl drives, that of late he hath ever
had light in his house till the night grew deep. I thought him an industrious, peaceful man —If he turns resetter of idle companions and nightwalkers, the place must be rid of him."
" He may work his baskets perchance," said the page, desirous to stop
the train of her suspicion.
"Or nets, may he not?" answered the Lady.
" Ay, madam," said Roland, "for trout and salmon."
"Or for fools and knaves," replied the Lady: "but this shall be.looked
after to-morrow. - I wish your Grace and your company a good evening. -
Randal, attend us."  And Randal, who waited in the antechamber after
having surrendered his bunch of keys, gave his escort to his mistress as
usual, while, leaving the Queen's apartments, she retired to her own,
2s2




510                      WAVERLEY NOVELS.
" To-morrow," said the page, rubbing his hands with glee as he repeated
the Lady's last words, "fools look to-morrow, and wise folk use to-night. -
May  I pray you, my gracious Liege, to retire for one half hour, until
all the castle is composed to rest?   I must go and rub with oil these
blessed implements of our freedom.  Courage and constancy, and all will
go well, provided our friends on the shore fail not to send the boat you
spoke of."
"Fear them not," said Catherine, " they are true as steel-  if our dear
mistress do but maintain her noble and royal courage." *
"Doubt not me, Catherine," replied the Queen; "a while since I was
overborne, but I have recalled the spirit of my earlier and more sprightly
days, when I used to accompany my armed nobles, and wish to be myself a
man, to know what life it was to be in the fields with sword and buckler,
jack, and knapscap."
"Oh, the lark lives not a gayer life, nor sings a lighter and gayer song
than the merry soldier," answered Catherine.  "Your Grace shall be in
the midst of them soon, and the look of such a liege Sovereign will make
each of your host worth three in the hour of need: -but I must to my
task."
"We have but brief time," said Queen Mary; " one of the two lights in
the cottage is extinguished-that shows the boat is put off."
" They will row very slow," said the page, " or kent where depth permits,
to avoid noise. - To our several tasks - I will communicate with the good
Father."
At the dead hour of midnight, when all was silent in the castle, the pago
put the key into the lock of the wicket which opened into the garden, and
which was at the bottom of a staircase which descended from the Queen's
apartment.  "Now, turn smooth and softly, thou good bolt," said he, "if
ever oil softened rust!" and his precautions had been so effectual, that the
bolt revolved with little or no sound of resistance. IHe ventured not to cross
the threshold, but exchanging a word with the disguised Abbot, asked if
the boat were ready?
"This half hour," said the sentinel.  "She lies beneath the wall, too
close under the islet to be seen by the warder, but I fear she will hardly
escape his notice in putting off again."
" The darkness," said the page, " and our profound silence, may take her
off unobserved, as she came in.  Hildebrand has the watch on the towera heavy-headed knave, who holds a can of ale to be the best headpiece upon
a night-watch.  He sleeps, for a wager."
"Then bring the Queen," said the Abbot, "and'I will call Henry Seyton to assist them to the boat."
On tiptoe, with noiseless step and suppressed breath, trembling at every
rustle of their own apparel, one after another the fair prisoners glided down
the winding stair, under the guidance of Roland Groeme, and were received
at the wicket-gate by Henry Seyton  and the churchman.   The former
seemed instantly to take upon himself the whole direction of the enterprise.
" My Lord Abbot," he said, " give my sister your arm -  I will conduct the
Queen-and that youth will have the honour to guide Lady Fleming."
This was no'time to dispute the arrangement, although it was not that
* In the dangerous expedition to Aberdeenshire, Randolph, the English Ambassador, gives Cecil the follow.
ing account of Queen Mary's demeanour:" In all those garbulles, I assure your honour, I never saw the Queen merrier.-never dismayed; nor never
thought I that stomache to be in her that I find. She repented nothing but, when the Lords and others, at
Inverness, came in the morning from the watches, that she was not a man, to know what life it was to lye all
iightin the fields, or to walk upon the causeway with a jack and a knaps-cap, a Glasgow buckler, and a
broadsword.R"-RANDOLPH to CECIL, September 18, 1562.
The writer of the above letter seems to have felt the same impression which Catherine Seyton, in the text,.
considered as proper to the Queen's presence among her armed subjects.
" lhough we neither thought nor looked for other than on that day to have fought or never-what desperate
blkws woul] not have been given, when every man should have fought in the sight of so noble a Queen, and
so nany fair ladies, our enemies to have taken them from us, and we to save our honours, not to be reft of
tihei, yourl onour can easily judge."-The same to the same, September 24, 1562




TH t  AB  O T.                         511
hhich Roland Graeme would have chosen. Catherine Seyton, who well knew
the garden path, tripped on before like a sylph, rather leading the Abbot
than receiving assistance -the Queen, her native spirit prevailing over
female fear, and a thousand painful reflections, moved steadily forward, by
the assistance of Henry Seyton- while the Lady Fleming, encumbered
with her fears and her helplessness Roland Graeme, who followed in the
rear, and who bore under the other arm a packet of necessaries belonging
to the Queen. The door of the garden, which communicated with the shore
of the islet, yielded to one of the keys of which Roland had possessed himself, although rot until he had tried several, - a moment of anxious terror
and expectation. The ladies were then partly led, partly carried, to the
side of the lake, where a boat with six rowers attended them, the men
couched along the bottom to secure them from observation. Henry Seyton
placed the Queen in the stern; the Abbot offered to assist Catherine, but
she was seated by the Queen's side before he could utter his proffer of help;
and Roland Grmeme was just lifting Lady Fleming over the boat-side, when
a thought suddenly occurred to him, and exclaiming, "Forgotten, forgotten!
wait for me but one half-minute," he replaced on the shore the helpless Lady
of the bed-chamber, threw the Queen's packet into the boat, and sped back
through the garden with the noiseless speed of a bird on the wing.
"By Heaven, he is false at last!" said Seyton; "I ever feared it!"
" He is as true," said Catherine, " as Heaven itself, and that I will maintain."
"Be silent, minion," said her brother, "for shame, if not for fearFellows, put off, and row for your lives!"
" Help me, help me on board!" said the deserted Lady Fleming, and
that louder than prudence warranted.
"Put off —put off 1" cried Ienry Seyton; "leave all behind, so the Queen
is safe."
"Will you permit this, madam?" said Catherine, imploringly; "you
leave your deliverer to death."
" Iwill not," said the Queen.-" Seyton I command you to stay atevery risk."
" Pardon me, madam, if I disobey," said the intractable young man; and
with one hand lifting in Lady Fleming, he began himself to push off the boat.
She was two fathoms' length from the shore, and the rowers were getting
her head round, when Roland Grame, arriving, bounded from the beach,
and attained the boat, overturning Seyton, on whom he lighted. The youth
swore a deep but suppressed oath, and stopping Graeme as he stepped
towards the stern, said, " Your place is not with high-born dames - keep
at the head and trim the vessel -Now give way —give way- Row, for
God and the Queen!"
The rowers obeyed, and began to pull vigorously.
"Why did ye not muffle the oars?" said Roland Groeme; "the dash must
awaken the sentinel- Row, lads, and get out of reach of shot; for had not
old Hildebrand, the warder, supped upon poppy-porridge, this whispering
must have waked him."
"It was all thine own delay," said Seyton; "thou shalt reckon with me
hereafter for-that and other matters."
But Roland's apprehension was verified too instantly to permit him to
reply. The sentinel, whose slumbering had withstood the whispering, was
alarmed by the dash of the oars. His challenge was instantly heard.  " A
boat -a boat! - bring to, or I shoot!"  And, as they continued to ply
their oars, he called aloud, " Treason! treason!" rung the bell of the castle,
and discharged his harquebuss at the boat. The ladies crowded on each
other like startled wild foul, at the flash and report of the piece, while the
men urged the rowers to the utmost speed. They heard more than one ball
whiz along the surface of the lake, at no great distance from their little bark;
and from the lights, which glanced like meteors from window to window, it
was evident the whole castle was alarmed, and their escape discovered.




512                               WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"Pull!" again exclaimed Seyton; "stretch to your oars, or I will spur
you to the task with my dagger    they will launch a boat immediately."
"That is cared for," said Roland; "I locked gate and wicket on them
when I went back, and no boat will stir from the island this night, if doors
of good oak and bolts of iron can keep men within stone-walls.-And now
I resign my office of porter of Lochleven, and give the keys to the Kelpie's
keeping."
As the heavy keys plunged in the lake, the Abbot, who till then had
been repeating his prayers, exclaimed, " Now, bless thee, my son! for thy.
ready prudence puts shame on us all."*
" I knew," said Mary, drawing her breath more freely, as they were now
out of reach of the musketry- "I knew my squire's truth, promptitude,
and sagacity. -   must have him my dear friends with my no less true
knights, Douglas and Seyton - but where, then, is Douglas?"
"Here, madam," answered the deep and melancholy voice of the boatman who sat next her, and who acted as steersman.
" Alas! was it you who stretched your body before me," said the Queen,
"when the balls were raining around us?"
" Believe you," said he, in a low  tone, "that Douglas would have
resigned to any one the chance of protecting his Queen's life with his
own?"
The dialogue was here interrupted by a shot or two from  one of those
small pieces  of artillery  called  falconets, then  used  in  defending  castles.
The shot was too vague to have any effect, but the broader flash, the deeper
sound, the louder return which was made by the midnight echoes of Bennarty, terrified and imposed silence on the liberated prisoners. The boat
was alongside of a rude quay or landing-place, running out from a garden
It is well known that the escape of Queen Mary from  Lonhleven was effected by George Douglas, the
youngest brother of Sir William Douglas, the lord of tire castle; but the miinute circlumstances of the event
have been a good deal confused, owing to two iagents having been concerned in it who bohre the same name.
It has been always supposed that George Douglas was induced to alet MGary's escape by the armbitions hope
that, t)y such service, he mighlt merit her hand. But his purpose was discovered by his brother Sir William,
and he was expelled from  the castle. He continued, not.witllstanding. to Iover in the neighbourhood, and
maintain a correspondence with the royal prisoner andt o hers in tile fortress
If we believe the English ambassador Drury, the Qule;n was grateful to George Douglas, and even proposed
a marriage with him; a scheme which could hardly be serious, since she was still the wife of Bothwell, but
which, if suggested at all, might he with a purpose of gratifving the Regent Alurray's ambition, and propitiating his favour; since he was, it must be remembered, the brother uterine of George Douglas, for whom such
high honour was said to be desitned.
The proposal, if seriously made, was treated as inadmissible, and MAary again resumed her purpose ofescape.
Her failure in her first attempt has somie nicturiesque parliculirs, which mighrt have been advantageously
introduced in fictitious narrative. Drury seinds C(ecil tile following account of the matter:"But after, upon the 25th of the last, (Aptil lS57,) she ilerprised al escape, and was the rather near effect,
throuogl. her accustoiedl long iyyin in bed all the imorningr. Thlie tmatiner of it wsas this: there corret h in to her tile
laundress earlv as otlier limes before she was wantel, aiid the iQueen accorlding to stch a secret practice pitteth oil her the hood of the laundress, and so withl the f ardel of clothes aind the muffler upon haerface, p:asseth
out and enterelh the boat to pass the Loch; which. aftoer some space, one of them that roweed said merrily,' Let us see what manner of dame this is,' and tlerewith offered to ptll down her muffier, which to defend,
she put up her hands, which they spied to be very fuir and white; wherewith they entered into suspiciton
whtom she was, beginning to wonder at her enterprise.  Whereat she was little dlisiaryed, but charged them,
upon danger of their lives, to row ther over to the shore. which they nothing regarded, but eftsoons rowed her
back again, promising her it should be secreted, and especially from the lord of the house, under whose guard
she  lyeth. It seeineth she knew her refuge, ard where to have found it if she had once landed; for there
(lid, and yet do linger, at a little village called Kinross, hard at the Loch side, the same George D1)oglas, one
Sempel and one Betonl, the which two ywere sometimre her trusty servanits. and, as yet appeareth. they nind
her no less affection." -Bishop Keith's lislory oJf the Affairos of Chiurch and Sl   Slat i  Scolad, p. 490.
Notwithstanding this disappointmnent, little spoke of by historians,  Mary renewed her atterlmpts to escape.
There was in the Castle of Loclhleven a lad. named William Douglas, some relation probably of tlhe baron,
and about eighteen years old. This youth proved as accessible to Queen Mary's pravers and promises, as was
the brother of his patron, George Douglas, from whom this William must be carefully kept distinct.  It was
young Willlia  who played the part commronly assigned to his superior, George, stealing the keys of the castle
from the table on which they lay, while his lord was at supper.  He let the Queen and a waiting  woman out
of the apartment where they were secured, and out of the tower itself, embarlked with them in a small skiff,
and rowed them to the shore. To prevent instant pursuit, he, for precaution's sale, locked tire iron grited
door of the tower, and threw the keys into the lake. They found George Douglas anrd the Queen's servant,
Beton, waiting for them, and Lord Seyton and James Taminllton of Orbeiston irn attendance, at the head of a
party of faithful followers, with whom they fled to Niddrie Castle, and from thence to Hamilton.
In narrating this romantic story, bothl history and tradition confuse the two Douglasses together, and confer
on George the successful execution of the escape front the castle, the merit of which belongs, in reality, to
the boy called William, or, more frequently, the Little Douglas, either from  his youth or his slight stature.
Thle reader will observe, that in the romance, the part of the Little Douglas has been assigned to Roland
(;Grame. In another case, it would be tedious to point out in a work of artusement such minute points of historical fact; but the general interest taken in the fate of Queen Mary, renders every thing of consequence
which coniects itself with her misfortunes




T H E ABBOT.                           513
of considerable extent, ere any of them again attempted to speak. They
landed, and while the Abbot returned thanks aloud to HIeaven, which hbad
thus far favoured their enterprise, Douglas enjoyed the best reward of his
desperate undertaking, in conducting the Queen to the house of the gardener. Yet, not unmindful of Roland Grgeme even in that moment of
terror and exhaustion, Mary expressly commanded Seyton to give his assistance to Fleming, while Catherine voluntarily, and without bidding, took
the arm of the page. Seyton presently resigned Lady Fleming to the care
of the Abbot, alleging, he must look after their horses; and his attendants,
disencumbering themselves of their boat-cloaks, hastened to assist him.
While Mary spent in the gardener's cottage the few minutes which were
necessary to prepare the steeds for their departure, she perceived, in a corner, the old man to whom the garden belonged, and called him to approach.
He came as it were with reluctance.
" How, brother," said the Abbot, " so slow to welcome thy royal Queen
and mistress to liberty and to her kingdom!"
The old man, thus admonished, came forward, and, in good terms of
speech, gave her Grace joy of her deliverance. The Queen returned him
thanks in the most gracious manner, and added, "It will remain to us to
offer some immediate reward for your fidelity, for we wot well your house
has been long the refuge in which our trusty servants have met to concert
measures for our freedom."  So saying, she offered gold, and added, " We
will consider your services more fully hereafter."
"Kneel, brother," said the Abbot, "kneel instantly, and thank her
Grace's kindness."
" Good brother, that wert once a few steps under me, and art still many
years younger," replied the gardener, pettishly, " let me do mine acknowledgments in my own way. Queens have knelt to me ere now, and in truth
my knees are too old and stiff to bend even to this lovely-faced lady; May
it please your Grace, if your Grace's servants have occupied my house, so
that I could not call it mine own -if they have trodden down my flowers
in the zeal of their midnight comings and goings, and destroyed the hope
of the fruit season, by bringing their war-horses into my garden, I do but
crave of your Grace in requital, that you will choose your residence as far
from me as possible. I am an old man who would willingly creep to my
grave as easily as I can, in peace, good-will, and quiet labour."
"I promise you fairly, good man," said the Queen, "I will not make
yonder castle my residence again, if I can help it. But let me press on you
this money-it will make some amends for the havoc we have made in your
little garden and orchard."
" I thank your Grace, but it will make me not the least amends," said
the old man. "The ruined labours of a whole year are not so easily
replaced to him who has perchance but that one year to live; and besides,
they tell me I must leave this place and become a wanderer in mine old
age -I that have nothing on earth saving these fruit-trees, and a few old
parchments and family secrets not worth knowing. As for gold, if I had
loved it, I might have remained Lord Abbot of St. Mary's- and yet, I wot
not-for, if Abbot Boniface be but the poor peasant Blinkhoolie, his successor, the Abbot Ambrosius, is still transmuted for the worse into the
guise of a sword-and-buckler-man."
" Is this indeed the Abbot Boniface of whom I have heard?" said the
Queen. " It is indeed I who should have bent the knee for your blessing,
good Father.'
" Bend no knee to me, Lady I The blessing of an old man, who is no
longer an Abbot, go with you over dale and down -I hear the trampling
of your horses."
" Farewell, Father," said the Queen. " When we are once more seated at
EHolyrood, we will neither forget thee nor thine injured garden."
Vol. V.-33




514                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"Forget us both," said the Ex-Abbot Boniface, " and may God be with
you!"
As they hurried out of the house, they heard the old man talking and
muttering to himself, as he hastily.drew bolt and bar behind them.
"The revenge of the Douglasses will reach the poor old man," said the
Queen.  "God help me, I ruin every one whom I approach!"
" iis safety is cared for," said Seyton; " he must not remain here, but
will be privately conducted to a place of greater security. But I would
your Grace were in the saddle. - To horse! to horse!"
The party of Seyton and of Douglas were increased to about ten by those
attendants who had remained with the horses.  The Queen and her ladies,
with all the rest who came from  the boat, were instantly mounted; and
holding aloof from the village, which was already alarmed by the firing from
the castle, with Douglas acting as their guide, they soon reached the open
ground and began to ride as fast as was consistent with keeping together
in good order.
Isapfnr  tllP   W0Xity-kir     xt- 
He mounted himself on a coal-black steed,
And her on a freckled gray,
With a bugelet horn hung down from his side,
And roundly they rode away.
OLD BALLAD.
THE influence of the free air, the rushing of the horses over high and
low, the ringing of the bridles, the excitation at once arising from a sense
of freedom  and of rapid motion, gradually dispelled the confused and
dejected sort of stupefaction by which Queen Mary was at first overwhelmed.
She could not at last conceal the change of her feelings to the person who
rode at her rein, and who she doubted not was the Father Ambrosius; for
Seyton, with all the heady impetuosity of a youth, proud, and justly so, of
his first successful adventure, assumed all the bustle and importance of commander of the little party, which escorted, in the language of the time, the
Fortune of Scotland.  He now led the van, now checked his bounding steed
till the rear had come up, exhorted the leaders to keep a steady, though
rapid pace, and commanded those who were hindmost of the party to use
their spurs, and allow no"interval to take place in their line of march; and
anon he was beside the Queen, or her ladies, inquiring how they brooked
the hasty journey, and whether they had any commands for him. But
while Seyton thus busied himself in the general cause with some advantage
to the regular order of the march, and a good deal of personal ostentation,
the horseman who rode beside the Queen gave her his full and undivided
attention, as if he had been waiting upon some superior being. When the
road was rugged and dangerous, he abandoned almost entirely the care of
his own horse, and kept his hand constantly upon the Queen's bridle; if a
river or larger brook traversed their course, his left arm retained her in the
saddle, while his right held her palfrey's rein.
"I had not thought, reverend Father," said the Queen, when they reached
the other bank, " that the convent bred such good horsemen."-The person
she addressed sighed, but made no other answer.-" I know not how it is,"
said Queen Mary, "but either the sense of freedom, or the pleasure of my
favourite exercise, from which I have been so long debarred, or both combined, seem to have given wings to me-no fish ever shot through the water,
no bird through the air, with the hurried feeling of liberty and rapture with.




THE  ABBOT.                            515
thich I sweep through this night-wind, and over these wolds. Nay, such
is the magic of feeling myself once morein the saddle, that I could almost
swear I am at this moment mounted on my own favourite Rosabelle, who
was never matched in Scotland for swiftness, for ease of motion, and for
sureness of foot."
" And if the horse which bears so dear a burden could speak," answered
the deep voice of the melancholy George of Douglas, " would she not reply,
who but Rosabelle ought at such an emergence as this to serve her beloved
mistress, or who but Douglas ought to hold her bridle-rein?"
Queen Mary started; she foresaw at once all the evils like to arise to herself and him from the deep enthusiastic passion of this youth; but her
feelings as a woman, grateful at once and compassionate, prevented her
assuming the dignity of a Queen, and she endeavoured to continue the conversation in an indifferent tone.
"Methought," she said, " I heard that, at the division of my spoils, Rosabelle had become the property of Lord Morton's paramour and ladye-love
Alice."
"The noble palfrey had indeed been destined to so base a lot," answered
Douglas; " she was kept under four keys, and under the charge of a numerous crew of grooms and domestics-but Queen Mary needed Rosabelle, and
Rosabelle is here."
"And was it well, Douglas," said Queen Mary, "when such fearful risks
of various kinds must needs be encountered, that you should augment their
perils to yourself for a subject of so little moment as a palfrey?"
"Do you call that of little moment," answered Douglas, "which has afforded you a moment's pleasure? - Did you not start with joy when I first
said you were mounted on Rosabelle?-And to purchase you that'pleasure,
though it were to last no longer than the flash of lightning doth, would not
Douglas have risked his life a thousand times?"
"Oh, peace, Douglas, peace," said the Queen, "this is unfitting language;
and, besides, I would speak," said she, recollecting herself, "with the
Abbot of Saint Mary's —Nay, Douglas, I will not let you quit my rein in
displeasure."
"Displeasure, lady!" answered Douglas: "alas! sorrow is all that I can
feel for your well-warranted contempt-I should be as soon displeased with
Heaven for refusing the wildest wish which mortal can form."
"Abide by my rein, however," said Mary, "there is room for my Lord
Abbot on the other side; and, besides, I doubt if his assistance wvould be so
useful to Rosabelle and me as yours has been, should the road again
require it."
The Abbot came up on the other side, and she immediately opened a conversation with him on the topic of the state of parties, and the plan fittest
for her to pursue in consequence of her deliverance. In this conversation
Douglas took little share, and never but when directly applied to by the
Queen, while, as before, his attention seemed entirely engrossed by the
care of Mary's personal safety. She learned, however, she had a new
obligation to him, since, by his contrivance, the Abbot, whom he had furnished with the family pass-word, was introduced into the castle as one of
the garrison.
Long before daybreak they ended their hasty and perilous journey before
the gates of Niddrie, a castle in West Lothian, belonging to Lord Seyton.
When the Queen was about to alight, Henry Seyton, preventing Douglas,
received her in his arms, and, kneeling down, prayed her Majesty to enter
the house of his father, her faithful servant.
"Your Grace," he added, "may repose yourself here in perfect safetyit is already garrisoned with good men for your protection; and I have
sent a post to my father, whose instant arrival, at the head of five hundred
men, may be looked for. Do not dismay yourself, therefore, should your




561                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
sleep be broken by the trampling of horse; but only think that here are
some scores more of the saucy Seytons come to attend you.'
" And by better friends than the Saucy Seytons, a Scottish Queen cannot
be guarded," replied Mary.  "Rosabelle went fleet as the summer breeze,
and well-nigh as easy; but it is long since I have been a traveller, and I
feel that repose will be welcome. - Catherine, ma mignone, you must sleep
in my apartment to-night, and bid me welcome to your noble father's
castle. — Thanks, thanks to all my kind deliverers   thanks, and a good
night is all I can now offer; but if I climb once more to the upper side of
Fortune's wheel, I will not have her bandage. Mary Stewart will keep
her eyes open, and distinguish her friends.- Seyton, I need scarcely recommend the venerable Abbot, the Douglas, and my page, to your honour
able care and hospitality."
Henry Seyton bowed, and Catherine and Lady Fleming attended the
Queen to her apartment; where, acknowledging to them that she should
have found it difficult in that moment to keep her promise of holding her
eyes open, she resigned herself to repose, and awakened not till the morning was advanced.
Mary's first feeling when she awoke, was the doubt of her freedom; and
the impulse prompted her to start from bed, and hastily throwing her
mantle over her shoulders, to look out at the casement of her apartment.
Oh, sight of joy! instead of the crystal sheet of Lochleven, unaltered save
by the influence of the wind, a landscape of wood and moorland lay before
her, and the park around the castle was occupied by the troops of her most
faithful and most favourite nobles.
"Rise, rise, Catherine," cried the enraptured Princess; "arise and come
hither - here are swords and spears in true hands, and glittering armour
on loyal breasts. Here are banners, my girl, floating in the wind, as lightly
as summer clouds -Great God! what pleasure to my weary eyes to trace
their devices- thine own brave father's —the princely Hamilton's —the
faithful Fleming's - See - see - they have caught a glimpse of me, and
throng towards the window 1"
She flung the casement open, and with her bare head, from which the
tresses flew back loose and dishevelled, her fair arm slenderly veiled by her
mantle, returned by motion and sign the exulting shouts of the warriors,
which echoed for many a furlong around. When the first burst of ecstatic
joy was over, she recollected how lightly she was dressed, and, putting her
hands to her face, which was covered with blushes at the recollection, with-:drew abruptly from the window. The cause of her retreat was easily conjectured, and increased the general enthusiasm for a Princess, who had
forgotten her rank in her haste to acknowledge the services of her subjects.
The unadorned beauties of the lovely woman, too, moved the military
spectators more than the highest display of her regal state might; and
what might have seemed too free in her mode of appearing before them,
was more than atoned for by the enthusiasm  of the moment, and by the
delicacy evinced in her hasty retreat. Often as the shouts died away, as
often were they renewed, till wood and hill rung again; and many a'deep
path was made that morning on the cross of the sword, that the hand should
not part with the weapon, till Mary Stewart was restored to her rights.'But what are promises, what the hopes of mortals?  In ten days, these,gallant and devoted votaries were slain, were captives, or had fled.
Mary flung herself into the nearest seat, and still blushing, yet half
*.smiling, exclaimed, " Ma mign6ne, what will they think of me?- to show
myself to them with my bare feethastily thrust into the slippers-only this,loose mantle about me-my hair loose on my shoulders-my arms and neck:so bare.-Oh, the best they can suppose is, that her abode in yonder dungeon
has turned their Queen's brain! But my rebel subjects saw me exposed
-when I was in the depth of affliction, why should I hold colder ceremony




TI-E  ABBOT.                           517
with these faithful and loyal men?- Call Fleming, however — I trust she
has not forgotten the little mail with my apparel-We must be as brave as
wFc can, mign6ne."
" Nay, madam, our good Lady Fleming was in no case to remember any
thing."
"You jest, Catherine," said the Queen, somewhat offended; "it is not in
her nature surely, to forget her duty so far as to leave us without a change
of apparel?"
"Roland Greeme, madam, took care of that," answered Catherine; "for
he threw the mail, with your highness's clothes and jewels, into the boat,
ere he ran back to lock the gate -I never saw so awkward a page as that
youth-the packet well-nigh fell on my head."
"He shall make thy heart amends, my girl," said Queen Mary, laughing,
"for that and all other offences given. But call Fleming, and let us put
ourselves into apparel to, meet our faithful lords."
Such had been the preparations, and such was the skill of Lady Fleming, that the Queen appeared before her assembled nobles in such attire as
became, though it could not enhance, her natural dignity. With the most
winning courtesy, she expressed to each individual her grateful thanks,
and dignified not only every noble, but many of the lesser barons by her
particular attention.
"And whither now, my lords?" she said; "what way do your counsels
determine for us?"
" To Draphane Castle," replied Lord Arbroath, "if your Majesty is so
pleased; and thence to Dunbarton, to place your Grace's person in safety,.
after which we long to prove if these traitors will abide us in the field."
"And when do we journey?"
"We propose," said Lord Seyton, "if your Grace's fatigue will permit,
to take horse after the morning's meal."
" Your pleasure, my Lords, is mine," replied the Queen; "we will rule our
journey by your wisdom now, and hope hereafter to have the advantage of
governing by it our kingdom.-You will permit my ladies and me, my good
lords, to break our fasts along with you — We must be half soldiers ourselves, and set state apart."
Low bowed many a helmeted head at this gracious proffer, when the Queen,
glancing her eyes through the assembled leaders, missed both Douglas and
Roland Graeme, and inquired for them in a whisper to Catherine Seyton.
"They are in yonder oratory, madam, sad enough," replied Catherine;
and the Queen observed that her favourite's eyes were red with weeping.
" This must not be," said the Queen. "Keep the company amused - I
will seek them, and introduce them myself."
She went into the oratory, where the first she met was George Douglas,
standing, or rather reclining, in the recess of a window, his back rested
against the wall, and his arms folded on his breast. At the sight of the
Queen he started, and his countenance showed, for an instant, an expression
of intense delight, which was instantly exchanged for his usual deep melancholy.
"What means this?" she said; " Douglas, why does the first deviser and
bold executor of the happy scheme for our freedom, shun the company of
his fellow-nobles, and of the Sovereign whom he has obliged?"
" Madam," replied Douglas, " those whom you grace with your presence
bring followers to aid your cause, wealth to support your state, - can offer
you halls in which to feast, and impregnable castles for your defence. I
am a houseless and landless man- disinherited by my mother, and laid
under her malediction -disowned by my name and kindred-who bring
nothing to your standard but a single sword, and the poor life of its owner."
"Do you mean to upbraid me, Douglas," replied the Queen, " by showing
what you have lost for my sake?"
2T




518                  WAVERLEY  NOV-ELS.
"God forbid, madam!" interrupted the young man, eagerly; "were it to
do again, and had I ten times as much rank and wealth, and twenty times
as many friends to lose, my losses would be overpaid by the first step you
made, as a free. princess, upon the soil of your native kingdom."
"And what. then ails you, that you will not rejoice with those who rejoice
upon the same joyful occasion?" said the Queen.
" Madam," replied the youth, "though exheridated and disowned, I amn
yet a Douglas: with most of yonder nobles my family have been in feud
for ages-a cold reception amongst them were an insult, and a kind one yet
more humiliating."
"For shame, Douglas," replied the Queen, "shake off this unmanly
gloom! -I can make thee match for the best of them in title and fortune,
and, believe me, I will.-Go then amongst them, I command you."
"That word," said Douglas, "is enough - I go. This only let me say,
that not for wealth or title would I have done that which I have doneMary Stewart will not, and the Queen cannot, reward me."
So saying, he left the oratory, mingled with the nobles, and placed himself at the bottom of the table. The Queen looked after him, and put her
kerchief to her eyes.
"Now, Our Lady pity me," she said, " for no sooner are my prison cares
ended, than those which beset me as a woman and a Queen again thicken
around me.-Happy Elizabeth! to whom political interest is every thing, and
whose heart never betrays thy head.-And now must I seek this other boy,
if I would prevent daggers-drawing betwixt him and the young Seyton."
Roland' Grreme was in the same oratory, but at such a distance from
Douglas, that he could not overhear what passed betwixt the Queen and
him. I-Ie also was moody and thoughtful, but cleared his brow at the
Queen's question, "How now, Roland? you are negligent in your attendance this morning. Are you so much overcome with your night's ride?"." Not so, gracious madam," answered Graeme; " but I am told the page
of Lochleven is not the page of Niddrie Castle; and so Master Henry Seyton hath in a manner been pleased to supersede my attendance."
" Now, Heaven forgive me," said the Queen, "how  soon these cockchickens begin to spar!-with children and boys, at least, I may be a queen.
~-I will have you friends.- Some one send me Ienry Seyton hither." As
she spoke the last words aloud, the youth whom she had named entered the
apartment.  "Come hither," she said, "Henry Seyton — I will have you
give your hand to this youth, who so well aided in the plan of my escape."
"Willingly, madam," answered Seyton, "so that the youth will grant
me, as a boon, that he touch not the hand of another Seytoh whom he
knows of. My hand has passed current for hers with him before nowand to win my friendship, he must give up thoughts of my sister's love."
" Henry Seyton," said the Queen, " does it become you to add any condition to my command?"
I" Madam," said Ienry, " I am the servant of your Grace's throne, son
to the most loyal man in Scotland. Our goods, our castles, our blood, are
yours: Our honour is in our own keeping. I. could say more, but "
" Nay, speak on, rude boy," said the Queen; "what avails it that I amt
released,from Lochleven, if I am thus enthralled under the yoke of my
pretended deliverers, and prevented from doing justice to one who has deserved as well of me as yourself?"'
"Be not in this distemperature for me, sovereign Lady," said Roland;
"this young gentleman, being the faithful servant of your Grace, and the
brother of Catherine Seyton, bears that about him which will charm down
my passion at the hottest."
"I warn thee once more," said Ienry Seyton, haughtily, " that you make,
no speech which may infer that the daughter of Lord Seyton can be aught
to thee beyond what she is to every churl's blood in Scotland."




THE  ABBOT.                            519
The Queen was again about to' interfere, for Roland's complexion rose,
and it became somewhat questionable how long his love for Catherine would
suppress the natural fire of his temper. But the interposition of another
person, hitherto unseen, prevented Mary's interference. There was in the
oratory a separate shrine, enclosed with a high screen of pierced oak,
within which was placed an image of Saint Bennet, of peculiar sanctity.
From this recess, in which she had been probably engaged in her devotions,
issued suddenly Magdalen Grseme, and addressed Henry Seyton, in reply
to his last offensive expressions-" And of what clay, then, are they moulded
these Seytons, that the blood of the Greemes may not aspire to mingle with
theirs? Know, proud boy, that when I call this youth my daughter's child,
I affirm his descent from Malise Earl of Strathern, called Malise with the
Bright Brand; and I trow the blood of your house springs from no higher
source."
"Good mother," said Seyton, "methinks your sanctity should make you
superiol to these worldly vanities; and indeed it seems to have rendered
you somewhat oblivious touching them, since, to be of gentle descent, the
father's name and lineage must be as well qualified as the mother's."
"And if I say he comes of the blood of Avenel by the father's side," replied Magdalen Groeme, " name I not blood as richly coloured as thine own?"
" Of Avenel?" said the Queen; " is my page descended of Avenel?"
"Ay, gracious Princess, and the last male heir of that ancient houseJulian Avenel was his father, who fell in battle against the Southron."
" I have heard the tale of sorrow," said the Queen; " it was thy daughter,
then, who followed that unfortunate baron to the field, and died on his body?
Alas! how many ways does woman's affection find to work out her own
misery! The tale has oft been told and sung in hall and bower-And thou,
Roland, art that child of misfortune, who was left among the dead and
dying? Henry Seyton, he is thine equal in blood and birth."
" Scarcely so," said Henry Seyton, "even were he legitimate; but if the
tale be told and sung aright, Julian Avenel was a false knight, and his
leman a frail and credulous maiden."
"Now, by Heaven, thou liest!" said Roland Graeme, and laid his hand
on his sword. The entrance'of Lord Seyton, however, prevented violence.
"Save me, my lord," said the Queen, " and separate these wild and untamed spirits."
" How, Henry," said the Baron, "are my castle, and the Queen's presence, no checks on thine insoleice and impetuosity?-And with whom art
thou brawling? - unless my eyes spell that token false, it is with the very
youth who aided me so gallantly in the skirmish with the Leslies -Let me
look, fair youth, at the medal which thou wearest in thy cap. By Saint
Bennet, it is the same! -IHenry, I command thee to forbear him, as thou
lovest my blessing "
"And as you honour my command," said the Queen; "good service hath
he done me."
"Ay, madam," replied young Seyton, "as when he carried the billet
enclosed in the sword-sheath to Lochleven - marry, the good youth knew
no more than a pack-horse what he was carrying."
" But I who dedicated him to this great work," said Magdalen Groame"I, by whose advice and agency this just heir hath been unloosed fromn her
thraldom -I, who spared not the last remaining hope of a falling house in
this great action  1I, at least, knew and counselled; and what merit may
be mine, let the reward, most gracious Queen, descend upon this youth.
My ministry here is ended; you are free-a sovereign Princess, at the head
of a gallant army, surrounded by valiant barons- My service could avail
you no farther, but might well prejudice you; your fortune now rests upon
men's hearts and men's swords —May they prove as trusty as the faith of
women "




520                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"You will not leave us, mother," said the Queen —" you whose practices
in our favour were so powerful, who dared so many dangers, and wore so
many disguises, to blind our enemies and to confirm our friends-you will
not leave us in the dawn of our reviving fortunes, ere we have time to know
and to thank you?"
"You cannot know her," answered Magdalen Grgeme, "who knows not
herself-there are times, when, in this woman's frame of mine, there is the
strength of him of Gath -in this overtoiled brain, the wisdom of the most
sage counsellor-and again the mist is on me, and my strength is weakness,
my wisdom folly. I have spoken before princes and cardinals — ay, noble
Princess, even before the princes of thine own house of Lorraine; and I
know not whence the words of persuasion came which flowed from my lips,
and were drunk in by their ears.-And now, even when I most need words
of persuasion, there is something which chokes my voice, and robs me of
utterance."
" If there be aught in my power to do thee pleasure," said the Queen,
"the barely naming it shall avail as well as all thine eloquence."
"Sovereign Lady," replied the enthusiast, " it shames ime that at this
high moment something of human frailty should cling to one, whose vows
the saints have heard, whose labours in the rightful cause HIeaven has prospered. But it will be thus while the living spirit is shrined in the clay of
mortality -I will yield to the folly," she said, weeping as she spoke, "and
it shall be the last." Then seizing Roland's hand, she led him to the
Queen's feet, kneeling herself upon one knee, and causing him to kneel on
both.  "Mighty Princess," she said, "look on this flower-it was found by
a kindly stranger on a bloody field of battle, and long it was ere my anxious
eyes saw, and my arms pressed, all that was left of my only daughter. For
your sake, and for that of the holy faith we both profess, I could leave this
plant, while it was yet tender, to the nurture of strangers-ay, of enemies,
by whom, perchance, his blood would have been poured forth as wine, had
the heretic Glendinning known that he had in his house the heir of Julian
Avenel. Since then I have seen him only in a few hours of doubt and
dread, and now I part with the child of my love-for ever-for ever!-Oh,
for every weary step I have made in your rightful cause, in this and in
foreign lands, give protection to the child whom I must no more call mine!"
"I swear to you, mother," said the Queen, deeply affected, "that, for
your sake and his own, his happiness and fortunes shall be our charge!"
" I thank you, daughter of princes," said Magdalen, and pressed her lips,
first to the Queen's hand, then to the brow of her grandson. " And now,"
she said, drying her tears, and rising with dignity, "Earth has had its own,
and Heaven claims the rest. - Lioness of Scotland, go forth and conquer i
and if the prayers of a devoted votaress can avail thee, they will rise in
many a land, and from many a distant shrine. I will glide like a ghost
from land to land, from temple to temple; and where the very name of my
country is unknown, the priests shall ask who is the Queen of that distant
northern land, for whom the aged pilgrim was so fervent in prayer. Farewell! Honour be thine, and earthly prosperity, if it be the will of God -
if not, may the penance thou shalt do here ensure thee happiness hereafter!
-Let no one speak or follow me-my resolution is taken-my vow cannot
be cancelled."
She glided from their presence as she spoke, and her last look was upon
her beloved grandchild. He would have risen and followed, but the Queen
and Lord Seyton interfered.
"Press not on her now," said Lord Seyton, "if you would not lose her
for ever. Many a time have we seen- the sainted mother, and often at the
most needful moment; but to press on her privacy, or to thwart her purpose,
is a crime which she cannot pardon. I trust we shall yet see her at her
need —a holy woman she is for certain, and dedicated wholly to prayer and




THE ABBOT.                               521
penance; and hence the heretics hold her as one distracted, while true
Catholics deem her a saint."
"Let me then hope," said the Queen, " that you, my lord, will aid me in
the execution of her last request."
" What! in the protection of my young second?-cheerfully-that is, in
all that your majesty can think it fitting to ask of me. -Henry, give thy
hand upon the instant to Roland Avenel, for so I presume he must now be
called."
" And shall be Lord of the Barony," said the Queen, "if God prosper
our rightful arms."
"It can only be to restore it to my kind protectress, who now holds it,"
said young Avenel.  "I would rather be landless, all my life, than she lost
at rood of ground by me."
"Nay," said the Queen, looking to Lord Seyton, "his mind matches his
birth -Henry, thou hast not yet given thy hand."
" It is his," said Henry, giving it with some appearance of courtesy, but
whispering Roland at the same time, — "For all this, thou hast not my
sister's."
" May it please your Grace," said Lord Seyton, " now that these passages
are over, to honour our poor meal. Time it were that our banners were
reflected in the Clyde. We must to horse with as little delay as may be."
&Ilpher tot b&trHt-inet$f^
Ay, sir —our ancient crown, in these wild times,
Oft stood upon a cast-the gamester's ducat,
So often staked, and lost, and then regain'd,
Scarce knew so many hazards.
THE SPANISH FATHER.
IT is not our object to enter into the historical part of the reign of the
ill-fated Mary, or to recount how, during the week which succeeded her
flight from Lochleven, her partisans mustered around her with their followers, forming a gallant army, amounting to six thousand men. So much
light has been lately thrown on the most minute details of the period, by
Mr. Chalmers, in his valuable history of Queen Mary, that the reader may
be safely referred to it for the fullest information which ancient records
afford concerning that interesting time. It is sufficient for our purpose to
say, that while Mary's head-quarters were at Hamilton, the Regent and his
adherents had, in the King's name, assembled a host at Glasgow, inferior
indeed to that of the Queen in numbers, but formidable from the military
talents of Murray, Morton, the Laird of Grange, and others, who had been
trained from their youth in foreign and domestic wars.
In these circumstances, it was the obvious policy of Queen Mary to avoid
a conflict, secure that were her person once in safety, the number of her
adherents must daily increase; whereas, the forces of those opposed to her
must, as had frequently happened in the previous history of her reign, have
diminished, and their spirits become broken. And so evident was this to
her counsellors, that they resolved their first step should be to place the
Queen in the strong castle of Dunbarton, there to await the course of events,
the arrival of succours from France, and the levies which were made by
her adherents in every province of Scotland. -Accordingly, orders were
given, that all men should be on horseback or on foot, apparelled in thei2T2




522                  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.
armour, and ready to follow the Queen's standard in array of battle, tho
avowed determination being to escort her to the Castle of Dunbarton in
defiance of her enemies.
The muster was made upon Hamilton-Moor, and the march commenced
in all the pomp of feudal times.  Military music sounded, banners and
pennons waved, armour glittered far and wide, and spears glanced and
twinkled like stars in a frosty sky. The gallant spectacle of warlike
parade was on this occasion dignified by the presence of the Queen herself,
who, with a fair retinue of ladies and- household attendants, and a special
guard of gentlemen, amongst whom young Seyton and Roland were distinguished, gave grace at once and confidence to the army, which spread its
ample files before, around, and behind her.  Many churchmen also joined
the cavalcade, most of whom did not scruple to assume arms, and declare
their intention of wielding them in defence of Mary and the Catholic faith.
Not so the Abbot of Saint Mary's. Roland had not seen this prelate since
the night of their escape from Lochleven, and he now beheld him, robed in
the dress of his order, assume his station near the Queen's person. Roland
hastened to pull off his basnet, and beseech the Abbot's blessing.
"Thou hast it, my son!" said the priest; "I see thee now under thy true
name, and in thy rightful garb. The helmet with the holly branch befits
your brows well-I have long waited for the hour thou shouldst assume it."
" Then you knew of my descent, my good father!" said Roland.
" I did so, but it was under seal of confession from thy grandmother;
nor was I at liberty to tell the secret, till she herself should make it known."
"Her reason for such secrecy, my father?" said Roland Avenel.
" Fear, perchance of my brother-a mistaken fear, for Halbert would not,
to ensure himself a kingdom, have offered wrong to an orphan; besides
that, your title, in quiet times, even had your father done your mother that
justice which I well hope he did, could not have competed with that of my
brother's wife, the child of Julian's elder brother."
" They need fear no competition from me," said Avenel.  " Scotland is
wide enough, and there are many manors to win, without plundering my
benefactor. But prove to me, my reverend father, that my father was just
to my mother  show me that I may call myself a legitimate Avenel, and
make me your bounden slave for ever."
"4Ay," replied the Abbot, "I. hear the Seytons hold thee cheap for that
stain on thy shield. Something, however, I have learnt from the late Abbot
Boniface, which, if it prove sooth, may redeem that reproach."
"Tell me that blessed news," said Roland, "and the future service of
my life "2
"Rash boy!" said the Abbot, "I should but madden thine impatient
temper, by exciting hopes that may never be fulfilled- and is this a time
for them?  Think on what perilous march we are bound, and if thou hast
a sin unconfessed, neglect not the only leisure which Heaven may perJhanpe
afford thee for confession and absolution."
"There will be time enough for both, I trust, when we reach Dunbaitcn,'I
answered the page.
"Ay," said the Abbot, "thou crowest as loudly as the rest -but we are
not yet at Dunbarton, and there is a lion in the path."
" Mean you Murray, Morton, and-the other rebels at Glasgow, my reverend father?  Tush! they dare not look on the royal banner."
"Even so," replied the Abbot, " speak many of those who are older, and
should be wiser, than thou. -I have returned from the southern shires,
where I left many a chief of name arming in the Queen's interest -I left
the lords here wise and considerate men- I find them madmen on my
return-they are willing, for mere pride and vain-glory, to brave the enemy,
and to carry the Queen, as it were in triumph, past the walls of Glasgow,
and under the beards of the adverse army. —Seldom does. Heaven smile on




THE ABBOT.                              523
such mistimed confidence. We shall be encountered, and that to the purpose "
"And so much the better," replied Roland; "the field of battle was my
cradle."
"Beware it be not thy dying bed," said the Abbot.  " But what avails ib
whispering to young wolves the dangers of the chase?  You will know,
perchance, ere this day is out, what yonder men are, whom you hold in
rash contempt."
" Why, what are they?" said Henry Seyton, who now joined them: "have
they sinews of wire, and flesh of iron? —Will lead pierce and steel cut
them?-If so, reverend father, we have little to fear."
"They are evil men," said the Abbot, "but the trade of war demands
no saints.-Murray and Morton are known to be the best generals in Scotland. No one ever saw Lindesay's or Ruthven's back-Kirkaldy of Grange
was named by the Constable Montmorency the first soldier in Europe-My
brother, too good a name for such a cause, has been far and wide known for
a soldier."
"The better, the better!" said Seyton, triumphantly; "we shall have all
these traitors of rank and name in a fair field before us. Our cause is the
best, our numbers are the strongest, our hearts and limbs match theirsSaint Bennet, and set on!"
The Abbot made no reply, but seemed lost in reflection; and his anxiety
in some measure communicated itself to Roland Avenel, who ever, as their
line of march led over a ridge or an eminence, cast an anxious look towards
the towers of Glasgow, as if he expected to see symptoms of the enemy
issuing forth.  It was not that he feared the fight, but the issue was of such
deep import to his country, and to himself, that the natural fire of his spirit
burned with a less lively, though with a more intense glow. Love, honour,
fame, fortune, all seemed to depend on the issue of one field, rashly hazarded
perhaps, but now likely to become unavoidable and decisive.
When, at length, their march came to be nearly parallel with the city of
Glasgow, Roland became sensible that the high. grounds before them were
already in part occupied by a force, showing, like their own, the royal banner of Scotland, and on the point of being supported by columns of infantry and squadrons of horse, which the city gates had poured forth, and
which hastily advanced to sustain those troops who already possessed the
ground in front of the Queen's forces.  Horseman after horseman galloped
in from the advanced guard, with tidings that Murray had taken the field
with his whole army; that his object was to intercept the Queen's march,
and his purpose unquestionable to hazard a battle. It was now that the
tempers of men were subjected to a sudden and a severe trial; and that
those who had too presumptuously concluded that they would pass without
combat, were something disconcerted, when, at once, and with little time
to deliberate, they found themselves placed in fiont of a resolute enemy.Their chiefs immediately assembled around the Queen, and held a hasty
council of war. Mary's quivering lip confessed the fear which she endea-,oured to conceal under a bold and dignified demeanour. But her efforts
were overcome by painful recollections of the disastrous issue of her last
appearance in arms at Carberry-hill; and when she meant to have asked
them their advice for ordering the battle, she involuntarily inquired whether
there were no means of escaping without an engagement?
"Escaping?" answered the Lord Seyton; "when I stand as one to ten of
your Highness's enemies, I may think of escape -but never while I stand
waith three to two!"
"Battle! battle!" exclaimed the assembled lords; "we will drive the
rebels from their vantage ground, as the hound turns the hare on the hill
side." 
"Methinks, my noble lords," said the Abbot, "it were as well to prevent




524                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
his gaining that advantage. - Our road lies through yonder hamlet on the
brow, and whichever party hath the luck to possess it, with its little gardens and enclosures, will attain a post of great defence."'
" The reverend father is right," said the Queen. " Oh, haste thee, Seyton,
haste, and get thither before them-they are marching like the wind."
Seyton bowed low, and turned his horse's head.- "Your Highness
honours me," he said; "I will instantly press forward, and seize the pass."
"Not before me, my lord, whose charge is the command of the vanguard," said the Lord of Arbroath.
" Before you, or any Hamilton in Scotland," said the Seyton, " having
the Queen's command - Follow me, gentlemen, my vassals and kinsmenSaint Bennet, and set on!"
"And follow me," said Arbroath, "my noble kinsmen, and brave mentenants, we will see which will first reach the post of danger. For God
and Queen Mary!"
"Ill-omened haste, and most unhappy strife," said the Abbot, who saw
them and their followers rush hastily and emulously to ascend the height
without waiting till their men were placed in order. -" And you, gentlemen," he continued, addressing Roland and Seyton, who were each about
to follow those who hastened thus disorderly to the conflict, " will you leave
the Queen's person unguarded?"
"Oh, leave me not, gentlemen!" said the Queen -" Roland and Seyton,
do not leave me-there are enough of arms to strike in this fell combatwithdraw not those to whom I trust for my safety."
" We may not leave her Grace," said Roland, looking at Seyton, and
turning his horse.
"I ever looked when thou wouldst find out that," rejoined the fiery
youth.
Roland made no answer, but bit his lip till the blood came, and spurring
his horse up to the side of Catherine Seyton's palfrey, he whispered in a
low voice, "I never thought to have done aught to deserve you; but this
day I have heard myself upbraided with cowardice, and my sword remained
still sheathed, and all for the love of you."
"There is madness among us all," said the damsel; "my father, my
brother, and you, are all alike bereft of reason. Ye should think only of
this poor Queen, and you are all inspired by your own absurd jealousiesThe monk is the only soldier and man of sense amongst you all. -My lord
Abbot," she cried aloud, "were it not better we should draw to the westward, and wait the event that God shall send us, instead of remaining here
in the highway, endangering the Queen's person, and cumbering the troops
in their advance?"
"You say well, my daughter," replied the Abbot; "had we but one to
guide us where the Queen's person may be in safety - Our nobles hurry to
the conflict, without casting a thought on the very cause of the war."
"Follow me," said a knight, or man-at-arms, well mounted, and attired
completely in black armour, but having the visor of his helmet closed, and
bearing no crest on his helmet, or device upon his shield.
"We will follow no stranger," said the Abbot, "without some warrant
of his truth."
"I am a stranger and in your hands," said the horseman; "if you wish
to know more of me, the Queen herself will be your warrant."
The Queen had remained fixed to the spot, as if disabled by fear, yet mechanically smiling, bowing, and waving her hand, as banners were lowered
and spears depressed before her, while, emulating the strife betwixt Seyton
and Arbroath, band on band pressed forward their march towards the
enemy. Scarce, however, had the black rider whispered something in her
ear, than she assented to what he said; and when he spoke aloud, and with
ua air of command, "Gentlemen, it is the Queen's pleasure that you should




THE  ABBOT.                             525.
follow  me," Mary uttered, with  something  like  eagerness, the word
" Yes."
All were in motion in an instant; for the black horseman, throwing off a
sort of apathy of manner, which his first appearance indicated, spurred his
horse to and fro, making him take such active bounds and short turns, as
showed the rider master of the animal; and getting the Queen's little retinue
in some order for marching, he led them to the left, directing his course
towards a castle, which, crowning a gentle yet commanding eminence, presented an extensive view over the country beneath, and in -particular, commanded a view of those heights which both armies hastened to occupy, and
which it was now apparent must almost instantly be the scene of struggle
and dispute.
"Yonder towers," said the Abbot, questioning the sable horseman, "to
whom do they belong? -  and are they in the hands of friends?"
"They are untenanted," replied the stranger, "or, at least, they have no
hostile inmates.-But urge these youths, Sir Abbot, to make more haste -
this is but an evil time to satisfy their idle curiosity, by peering out upon
the battle in which they are to take no share."
"The worse luck mine," said Henry Seyton, who overheard him -"I
would rather be under my father's banner at this moment than be made
Chamberlain of Ilolyrood, for this my present duty of peaceful ward well
and patiently discharged."
" Your place under your father's banner will shortly be right dangerous,"
said Roland Avenel, who, pressing his horse towards the westward, had still
his look reverted to the armies; "for I see yonder body of cavalry, which
presses from  the eastward, will reach the village ere Lord Seyton can
gain it."
" They are but cavalry," said Seyton, looking attentively; " they cannot
hold the village without shot of harquebuss."
"Look more closely," said Roland; "you will see that each of these
horseman who advance so rapidly from Glasgow, carries a footman behind
him."
" Now, by Heaven, he speaks well!" said the black cavalier; " one of you
two must go carry the news to Lord Seyton and Lord Arbroath, that they
hasten not their horsemen on before the foot, but advance more regularly."
" Be that my errand," said Roland, "for I first marked the stratagem of
the enemy."
"But, by your leave," said Seyton, "yonder is my father's banner
engaged, and it best becomes me to go to the rescue."
"I will stand by the Queen's decision," said Roland Avenel.
"What new appeal?  what new quarrel?" said Queen Mary- "Are
there not in-yonder dark host enemies enough to Mary Stewart, but must
her very friends turn enemies to each other?"
" Nay, madam," said Roland, " the young master of Seyton and I did but
dispute who should leave your person to do a most needful message to the
host. He thought his rank entitled him, and I deemed that the person.of
least consequence, being myself, were better perlled    "
"Not so," said the Queen; " if one must leave me, be it Seyton."
henry Seyton bowed till the white plumes on his helmet mixed with the
flowing mane of his gallant war-horse, then placed himself firm in the
saddle, shook his lance aloft with an air of triumph and determination, and
striking his horse with the spurs, made towards his father's banner, which
was still advancing up the hill, and dashed his steed over every obstacle
that occurred in his headlong path.
"My brother! my father!" exclaimed Catherine, with an expression of
agonized apprehension-" they are in the midst of peril, and I in safety!"
"Would to God," said Roland, "that I were with them, and could
ransom every drop of their blood by two of mine!"




526                   WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"l)o I not know thou dost wish it?" said Catherine-" Can a woman say
to a man what I have well-nigh said to thee, and yet think that he could
harbour fear or faintness of heart? -There is that in yon distant sound
of approaching battle that pleases me even while it affrights me. I would
I were a man, that I might feel that stern delight, without the mixture of
terror 1"
" Ride up, ride up, Lady Catherine Seyton," cried the Abbot, as they still
swept on at a rapid pace, and were now close beneath the walls of the castle
-" ide up, and aid Lady Fleming to support the Queen -she gives way
more and more."
They halted and lifted Mary from the saddle, and were about to support
her towards the castle, when she said faintly, "Not there-not there-these
walls will I never enter more!"
"Be a Queen; madam," said the Abbot, "and forget that you are a
woman."
" Oh, I must forget much, much more," answered the unfortunate Mary,
in an under tone, "ere I can look with steady eyes on these well-known
scenes i —I must forget the days which I spent here as the bride of the lost
-the murdered -"
"This is the Castle of Crookstone," said the Lady Fleming, "in which
the Queen held her first court after she was married to Darnley."
" Heaven," said the Abbot, " thy hand is upon us!-Bear yet up, madam
-your foes are the foes of Holy Church, and God will this day decide
whether Scotland shall be Catholic or heretic."
A heavy and continued fire of cannon and musketry, bore a tremendous
burden to his words, and seemed far more than they to recall the spirits of
the Queen.
"To yonder tree," she said, pointing to a yew-tree which grew on a small
mount close to the castle; "I know it well — from thence you may see a
prospect wide as from the peaks of Schehallion."
And freeing herself from  her assistants, she walked with a determined,
yet somewhat wild step, up to the stem of the noble yew. The Abbot,
Catherine, and Roland Avenel followed her, while Lady Fleming kept back
the inferior persons of her train. The black horseman also followed the
Queen, waiting on her as closely as the shadow upon the light, but ever
remaining at the distance of two or three yards-he folded his arms on his
bosom, turned his back to the battle, and seemed solely occupied by gazing
on Mary, through the bars of his closed visor. The Queen regarded him
not, but fixed her eyes upon the spreading yew."
"Ay, fair and stately tree," she said, as if at the sight of it she had been
rapt away from the present scene, and had overcome the horror which had
oppressed her at the first, approach to Crookstone, " there thou standest, gay
and goodly as ever, though thou hearest the sounds of war, instead of the
vows of love. All is gone since I last greeted thee - love and lover-vows
and vower - king and kingdom. - How goes the field, my Lord Abbot? -
with us, I trust- yet what but evil can Mary's eyes witness from  this
spot?"
Her attendants eagerly bent their eyes on the field of battle, but could
discover nothing more than that it was obstinately contested. The small
enclosures and cottage gardens in the village, of which they had a full and
commanding view, and which shortly before lay, with their lines of sycamore and ash-trees, so still and quiet in the mild light of a May sun, were
now each converted into a line of fire, canopied by smoke; and the sustained
and constant report of the musketry and cannon, mingled with the shouts
of meeting combatants, showed that as yet neither party had given ground.
" Many a soul finds its final departure to heaven or hell, in these awful
thunders," said the Abbot; " let those that believe in the Ioly Church, join
me in crisons for victory in this dreadful combat."




THE ABBOT.                              527
"Not here   not here," said the unfortunate Queen; " pray not here,
father, or pray in silence - my mind is too much torn between the past and
the present, to dare to approach the heavenly throne -Or, if we will pray,
be it for one whose fondest affections have been her greatest crimes, and
who has ceased to be a queen, only because she was a deceived and a
tender-hearted woman."
" Were it not well," said Roland, " that I rode somewhat nearer the hosts,
and saw the fate of the day?"
"Do so, in the name of God," said the Abbot; "for if our friends are.
scattered, our flight must be hasty-but beware thou approach not too nigh
the conflict; there is more than thine own life depends on thy safe return."
"Oh, go not too nigh," said Catherine; "but fail not to see how the
Seytons fight, and how they bear themselves."
" Fear nothing, I will be on my guard," said Roland Avenel; and without
waiting farther answer, rode towards the scene of conflict, keeping, as he
rode, the higher and unenclosed ground, and ever looking cautiously around
him, for fear of involving himself in some hostile party. As he approached,
the shots rung sharp and more sharply on his ear, the shouts came wilder
and wilder, and he felt that thick beating of the heart, that mixture of
natural apprehension, intense curiosity, and anxiety for the dubious event,
which even the bravest experience when they approach alone to a scene of
interest and of danger.
At length he drew so close, that from a bank, screened by bushes and
underwood, he could distinctly see where the struggle was most keenly
maintained. This was in a hollow way, leading to the village, up which
the Queen's vanguard had marched, with more hasty courage than well-advised conduct, for the purpose of possessing themselves of that post of
advantage.  They found their scheme anticipated, and the hedges and
enclosures already occupied by the enemy, led by the celebrated Kirkaldy
of Grange and the Earl of Morton; and not small was the loss which they
sustained while struggling forward to come to close with the men-at-arms
on the other side. But, as the Queen's followers were chiefly noblemen and
barons, with their kinsmen and followers, they had pressed onward, con
temning obstacles and danger, and had, when Roland arrived on the ground,
met hand to hand at the gorge of the pass with the Regent's vanguard, and
endeavoured to bear them out of the village at the spear-point; while their
foes, equally determined to keep the advantage which they had attained,
struggled with the like obstinacy to drive back the assailants.
Both parties were on foot, and armed in proof; so that, when the long
lances of the front ranks were fixed in each other's shields, corslets, and
breastplates, the struggle resembled that of two bulls, who fixing their"
frontlets hard against each other, remain in that posture for hours, until
the superior strength or obstinacy of the one compels the other to take to
flight, or bears him down to the earth. Thus locked together in the deadly
struggle, which swayed slowly to and fro, as one or other party gained the
advantage, those who fell were trampled on. alike by friends and foes; those
whose weapons were broken, retired from the front rank, and had their place
supplied by others; while the rearward ranks, unable otherwise.to share in
the combat, fired their pistols, and hurled their daggers, and the points
and truncheons of the broken weapons, like javelins against the enemy.'"God and the Queen!" resounded from the one party; "God and the
King!" thundered from the other; while, in the name of their sovereign,
fellow-subjects on both sides shed each other's blood, and, in the name of
their Creator, defaced his image. Amid the tumult was often heard the.
voices of the captains, shouting their commands; of leaders and chiefs,
crying their gathering words; of groans and shrieks from the falling and
the dying.
The strife had lasted nearly an hour.  The strength of both parties




528                   WAVEIRLEY  NOVELS.
seemed exhausted; but their rage was unabated, and their obstinacy unsubdued, when Roland, who turned eye and ear to all around him, saw a column
of infantry, headed by a few horsemen, wheel round the base of the bank
where he had stationed himself, and, levelling their long lances, attack the
Queen's vanguard, closely engaged as they were in conflict on their front.
The very first- glance showed him that the leader who directed this movement was the Knight of Avenel, his ancient master; and the next convinced
him, that its effects would be decisive.  The result of the attack of fresh
and unbroken forces upon the flank of those already wearied with a long
and obstinate struggle, was, indeed, instantaneous.
The column of the assailants, which had hitherto shown one dark, dense,
and united line of helmets, surmounted with plumage, was at once broken
and hurled in confusion down the hill, which they had so long endeavoured
to gain. In vain were the leaders heard calling upon their followers to
stand to the combat, and seen personally resisting when all resistance was
evidently vain. They were slain, or felled to the earth, or hurried backwards by the mingled tide of flight and pursuit.  What were Roland's
feelings on beholding the rout, and feeling that all that remained for him
was to turn bridle, and endeavour to ensure the safety of the Queen's person!
Yet, keen as his grief and shame might be, they were both forgotten, when,
almost close beneath the bank which he occupied, he saw Henry Seyton
forced away from his own party in the tumult, covered with dust and blood,
and defending himself desperately against several of the enemy who had
gathered around him, attracted by his gay armour. Roland paused not a
moment, but pushing his steed down the bank, leaped him  amongst the
hostile party, dealt three or four blows amongst them, which struck down
two, and made the rest stand aloof; then reaching Seyton his hand, he
exhorted him to seize fast on his horse's mane.
"We live or die together this day," said he; " keep but fast hold till we
are out of the press, and then my horse is yours."
Seyton heard and exerted his remaining strength, and, by their joint
efforts, Roland brought him out of danger, and behind the spot from whence
he had witnessed the disastrous conclusion of the fight.  But no sooner
were they undei -shelter of the trees, than Seyton let go his hold, and, in
spite of Roland's efforts to support him, fell at length on the turf. "Trouble
yourself no more with me," he said; " this is my first and my last battle
— and I have already seen too much to wish to see the close. Hasten to.
saire the Queen-and commend me to Catherine-she will never more be
mnistaken for me nor I for her-the last sword-stroke has made an eternal
distinction."
"Let me aid you to mount my horse," said Roland, eagerly, " and you
may yet be saved-I can find my own way on foot-turn but my horse's
\ead westward, and he will carry you fleet and easy as the wind."
"  will never mount steed more," said the youth; " farewell-I love thee
better dying, than ever I thought to have done while in life-I would that
old man's blood were not on my hand!-Sancte Benedicte, ora pro m,-~
Stand not to look on a dying man, but haste to save the Queen!"
These words were spoken with the last effort of his voice, and scarce were;hey uttered ere the speaker was no more.  They recalled Roland to a sense
3f the duty which he had well-nigh forgotten, but they did not reach his
ears only.
"The Queen   where is the Queen?" said Halbert Glendinning, who,
followed by two or three horsemen, appeared at this instant. Roland made
po answer, but, turning his horse, and confiding in his speed, gave him at
once rein and spur, and rode over height and hollow towards the Castle of
Crookstone. More heavily armed, and mounted upon a horse of less speed,
Sir Halbert Glendinning followed with couched lance, calling out as he rode,
" Sir, with the holly-branch, halt, and show your right to bear that badge



THE  ABBOT.                            529
fly not thus cowardly, nor dishonour the cognizance thou deservest not to
wear!-Halt, sir coward, or by Heaven, I will strike thee with my lance on
the back, and slay thee like a dastard-I am the Knight of Avenel-I am
Halbert Glendinning."
But Roland, who had no purpose of encountering his old master, and
who, besides, knew the Queen's safety depended on his making the best
speed he could, answered not a word to the defiances and reproaches which
Sir Halbert continued to throw out against him; but making the best use
of his spurs, rode yet harder than before, and had gained about a hundred
yards upon his pursuer, when, coming near to the yew-tree where he had
left the Queen, he saw them already getting to horse, and cried out as loud
as he could, "Foes! foes! -Ride for it, fair ladies-Brave gentlemen, do
your devoir to protect them!"
So saying, he wheeled his horse, and avoiding the shock of Sir Halbert
Glendinning, charged one of that Knight's followers, who was nearly on a
line with him, so rudely with his lance, that he overthrew horse and man.
He then drew his sword and attacked the second, while the black man-atarms, throwing himself in the way of Glendinning, they rushed on each
other so fiercely, that both horses were overthrown, and the riders lay rolling
on the plain. Neither was able to arise, for the black horseman was pierced
through with Glendinning's lance, and the Knight of Avenel, oppressed
with the weight of his own horse and sorely bruised besides, seemed in little
better plight than he whom he had mortally wounded.
"Yield thee, Sir Knight of Avenel, rescue or no rescue," said Roland, who
had put a second antagonist out of condition to combat, and hastened to prevent Glendinning from renewing the conflict.
"I may not choose but yield," said Sir Halbert, "since I can no longer
fight; but it shames me to speak such a word to a coward like thee i"
"Call me not coward," said Roland, lifting his visor, and helping his
prisoner to rise, " since but for old kindness at thy hands, and yet more at
thy lady's, I had met thee as a brave man should."
"The favourite page of my wife!" said Sir Halbert, astonished; "Ah!
wretched boy, I have heard of thy treason at Lochleven."
" Reproach him not, my brotheri" said the Abbot, "he was but an agent
in the hands of Heaven."
"To horse, to horse!" said Catherine Seyton; " mount and begone, or we
are all lost. I see our gallant army flying for many a league —To horse,
my Lord Abbot —To horse, Roland —my gracious Liege, to horse! Ere
this, we should have ridden many a mile."
" Look on these features," said Mary, pointing to the dying knight, who
had been unhelmed by some compassionate hand; "look there, and tell me
if she who ruins all who love her, ought to fly a foot farther to save her
wretched life!"
The reader must have long anticipated the discovery which the Qpeen's
feelings had made before her eyes confirmed it. It was the features of the
unhappy George Douglas, on which death was stamping his mark.
"Look  look at him well," said the Queen, "thus has it been with all
who loved Mary Stewart! —The royalty of Francis, the wit of Chastelar,
the power and gallantry of the gay Gordon, the melody of Rizzio, the portly
form and youthful grace of Darnley, the bold address and courtly manners
of Bothwell - and now the deep-devoted passion of the noble Douglasnought could save them! - they looked on the wretched Mary, and to have
loved her was crime enough to deserve early death! No sooner had the
victim formed a kind thought of me, than the poisoned cup, the axe andblock, the dagger, the mine, were ready to punish them for casting away
affection on such a wretch as I am!-Importune me not —I will fly no
farther  I can die but once, and I will die here."
While she spoke, her tears fell fast on the face of the dying man, who
VOL. V.-34                       2u




530                            WAVERLEY NOVELS.
continued to fix his eyes on her with an eagerness of passion, which death
itself could hardly subdue. - " Mourn not for me," he said faintly, "but
care for your own safety -I die in mine armour as a Douglas should, and
I die pitied by Mary Stewart!"
He expired with these words, and without withdrawing his eyes from her
face; and the Queen, whose heart was of that soft'and gentle mould, which
in domestic life, and with a more suitable partner than Darnley, might have
made her happy, remained weeping by the dead-man, until recalled to herself by the Abbot, who found it necessary to use a style of unusual remonstrance.   " We also, madam," he said, " we, your Grace's devoted followers,
have  friends  and  relatives  to  weep  for.   I  leave  a  brother in  imminent
jeopardy- the husband of the Lady Fleming - the father and brothers of
the Lady Catherine, are all in yonder <bloody field, slain, it is to be feared,
or prisoners. We forget the fate of our nearest and dearest, to wait on our
Queen, and she is too much occupied with her own sorrows to give one
thought to ours."
"I deserve not your reproach, father," said the Queen, checking her
tears; "but I am docile to it - where must we go - what must we do?"
"We must fly, and that instantly," said the Abbot; "whither is not so
easily answered, but we may dispute it upon the road - Lift her to her saddle, and set forward."*
* I am informed in the most polite manner, by D. MacVean, Esq. of Glasgow, that I have been incorrect in
my locality, in giving an account of the battle of Langside. Crookstone Castle, he observes, lies four miles
west from the field of battle, and rather in the rear of Murray's army. The real place from which Mary saw
the rout of her last army, was Cathcart Castle, which, being a mile and a half east from Langside, was situated in the rear of the Queen's own army. I was led astray in the present case, by the authority of my
deceased friend, James Grahame the excellent and amiable author of the Sabbath, in his drama on the subject
of Queen Mary; and by a traditionary report of Mary having seen the battle from the Castle of Crookstone,
which seemed so much to increase the interest of the scene, that I have been unwilling to make, in this
particular instance, the fiction give way to the fact, which last is undoubtedly in favour of Mr. MacVean's
system. -
It is singular how tradition, which is sometimes a sure guide to truth, is, in other cases, prone to mislead
us. In the celebrated field of battle at Killiecrankie, the traveller is struck with one of those rugged pillars
of rough stone, which indicate the scenes of ancient conflict. A friend of the author, well acquainted with
the circumstances of the battle, was standing near this large stone, and looking on the scene around, when a
highland shepherd hurried down from the hill to offer his services as cicerone, and proceeded to inform him,
that Dundee was slain at that stone, which was raised to his memory. "Fie, Donald," answered my friend,
"how can you tell such a story to a stranger? I am sure you know well enough that Dundee was killed at
a considerable distance from this place, near the house of Fascally, and that this stone was here long before
the battle, in 1688."-" Oich! oich!" said Donald, no way abashed, "and your honour's in the right, and I see
you ken a' about it. And he wasna killed on the spot neither, but lived till the next morning; but a' the Saxon
gentlemen like best to hear he was killed at the great stane." It is on the same principle of pleasing myreaders, that I retain Crookstone Castle instead of Cathcart.
If, however, the author has taken a liberty in removing the actual field of battle somewhat to the eastward,
he has been tolerably strict in adhering to the incidents of the engagement, as will appear from a comparison
of events in the novel, with the following account from an old writer.
"The Regent was out on foot and all his company, except the Laird of Grange, Alexander Hume of Manderston, and some borderers to the number of two hundred. The Laird of Grange had already viewed the
ground, and with all imaginable diligence caused every horseman to take behind him a footman of the
Regent's, to guard behind them, and rode with speed to the head of Langside-hill, and set down the footffen
with their culverings at the head of a straight lane, where there were some cottage houses and yards of great
advantage. Which soldiers with their continual shot killed divers of the vaunt guard, led by the Haniltons,
who, courageously and fiercely ascending up the hill, were already out of breath, when the Regent's vaunt
guard joined with them   Where the worthy Lord Hune fouglt on foot with his pike in his hand very manfully, assisted by the Laird of Cessford, his brother-in-law, who helped him up again when he was strucen
to the ground by many strokes upon his face, through the throwing pistols at him  after they had been discharged. He was also wounded with staves, and had many strokes of spears through his legs; for he and
Grange, at the joining, cried to let their adversaries first lay down their spears, to bear up theirs; which
spears were so thick fixed in the others' jacks, that some of the pistols and great staves that were thrown by
them which were behind, might be seen lying upon the spears.
"Upon the Queen's side the Earl of Argyle commanded the battle, and the Lord of Arbroth the vaunt guard.
But the Regent committed to the Laird of Grange the special care, as being an experimented captain, to
oversee every danger, and to ride to'every wing, to encourage and make help where greatest need was. He
perceived, at the first joining, the right wing of the Regent's vaunt guard put back and like to fly, whereof
the greatest part were commons of the barony of Renfirew; whereupon he rode to them, and told them that
their enemy was already turning their backs, requesting them  to stay and debate till he should bring
them fresh men forth of the battle. Whither at full speed he did ride alone, and told the Regent that
the enemy were shaken and flying away behind the little village, and desired a few number of fresh men to
go with him. Where he found enough willing, as the Lord Lindesay, the Laird of Lochleven, Sir James Balfour, and all the Regent's servants, who followed him with diligence, and reinforced that wing which was
beginning. to fly; which fresh men with their loose weapons struck the enemies in their flank and faces, which
forced them incontinent to give place and turn back after long fighting and pushing others to and fro with
their spears. There were not many horsemen to pursue after them, and the Regent cried to save and not to
kill, and Grange was:never cruel, so that there were few slain and taken. And the only slaughter was at
the first rencounter by the shot of the soldiers, which Grange had planted at the lane head behind some
dikes."
It is remarkable that, while passing through the small town of Renfrew, some partisans, adherents of the
House of Lennox, attempting to arrest Queen Mary and her attendants, were obliged to make way for her
anot without slaughter.




THE ABBOT.                              531
They set off accordingly —Roland lingered a moment to command the
attendants of the Knight of Avenel to convey their master to the Castle of
Crookstone, and to say that he demanded from him no other condition of
liberty, than his word, that he and his followers would keep secret the direction in which the Queen fled. As he turned his rein to depart, the honest
countenance of Adam Woodcock stared upon him with an expression of
surprise, which, at another time, would have excited his hearty mirth. He
had been one of the followers who had experienced the weight of Roland's
arm, and they now knew each other, Roland having put up his visor, and
the good yeoman having thrown away his barret-cap, with the iron bars in
front, that he might the more readily assist his master. Into this barretcap, as it lay on the ground, Roland forgot not to drop a few gold pieces,
(fruits of the Queen's liberality,) and with a signal of kind recollection and
enduring friendship, he departed at full gallop to overtake the Queen, the
dust raised by her train being already far down the hill.
"It is not fairy-money," said honest Adam, weighing and handling the
gold - -And it was Master Roland himself, that is a certain thing-the
same open hand, and, by our Lady!" (shrugging his shoulders)-"the
same ready fist!-My Lady will hear of this gladly, for she mourns for him
as if he were her son. And to see how gay he is! But these light lads
are as sure to be uppermost as the froth to be on the top of the quart-potYour man of solid parts remains ever a falconer." So saying, he went to
aid his comrades, who had now come up in greater numbers, to carry his
master into the Castle of Crookstone.
(laptr {8? W\Xrt4-6ig at0.
My native land, good night!
Y a bitter tear was shed, during the hasty flight of Queen Mary, over
MANY a bitter tear was shed, during the hasty flight of Queen Mary, over
fallen hopes, future prospects, and slaughtered friends. The deaths of the
brave Douglas, and of the fiery but gallant young Seyton, seemed to affect
the Queen as much as the fall from the throne, on which she had so nearly
been again seated. Catherine Seyton devoured in secret her own grief,
anxious to support the broken spirits of her mistress;and the Abbot, bending his troubled thoughts upon futurity, endeavoured in vain to form some
plan which had a shadow of hope. The spirit of young Roland —for'he
also mingled in the hasty debates held by the companions of the Queen's
flight-continued unchecked and unbroken.
"Your Majesty," he said, "has lost a battle-Your ancestor, Bruce, lost
seven successively, ere he sat triumphant on the Scottish throne, and proclaimed with the voice of a victor, in the field of Bannockburn, the independence of his country. Are not these heaths, which we may traverse at
will, better than the locked, guarded, and lake-moated Castle of Lochleven?
- We are free -in that one word there is comfort for all our losses."
He struck a bold note, but the heart of Mary made no response.
"Better," she said, "I had still been in Lochleven, than seen the slaughter made by rebels among the subjects who offered themselves. to death for
my sake. Speak not to me of farther efforts - they would only cost the
lives of you, the friends who recommend them! I would not again undergo
what I felt, when I saw from yonder mount the swords of the fell horsemen
of Morton raging among the faithful Seytons and Hamiltons, for their




532                 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
loyalty to their Queen - I would not again feel what I felt when Douglass
life-blood stained my mantle for his love to Mary Stewart — not to be empress of all that Britain's seas enclose. Find for me some place where I
can hide my unhappy head, which brings destruction on all who love it-it
is the last favour that Mary asks of her faithful followers."
In this dejected mood, but still pursuing her flight with unabated rapidity,
the unfortunate Mary, after having been joined by Lord Herries and a few
followers, at length halted, for the first time, at the Abbey of Dundrennan,
nearly sixty miles distant from the field of battle. In this remote quarter
of Galloway, the Reformation not having yet been strictly enforced against
the monks, a few still lingered in their cells unmolested; and the Prior,
with tears and reverence, received the fugitive Queen at the gate of his
convent.
"I bring you ruin, my good father," said the Queen, as she was lifted
from her palfrey.
" I is welcome," said the Prior, "if it comes in the train of duty."
Placed on the ground, and supported by her ladies, the Queen looked for
an instant at her palfrey, which, jaded and drooping its head, seemed as if
it mourned the distresses of its mistress.
"Good Roland," said the Queen, whispering, "let Rosabelle be cared for
ask thy heart, and it will tell thee why I make this trifling request even
in this awful hour."
She was conducted to her apartment, and in the hurried consultation of
her attendants, the fatal resolution of the retreat to England was finally
adopted. In the morning it received her approbation, and a messenger
was despatched to the English warden, to pray him for safe-conduct and
hospitality, on the part of the Queen of Scotland. On the next day the
Abbot Ambrose walked in the garden of the Abbey with Roland, to whom
he expressed his disapprobation of the course pursued. "It is madness
and ruin," he said; "better commit herself to the savage Highlanders or
wild Bordermen, than to the faith of Elizabeth. A woman to a rival
woman -a presumptive successor to the keeping of a jealous and childless
Queen!-Roland, Herries is true and loyal, but his counsel has ruined his
mistress."
" Ay, ruin follows us every where," said an old man, with a spade in his
hand, and dressed like a lay-brother, of whose presence, in the vehemence
of his exclamation, the Abbot had not been aware  "Gaze not on me with
such wonder!-I am he who was the Abbot Boniface at Kennaquhair, who
was the gardener Blinkhoolie at Lochleven, hunted round to the place in
which I served my noviciate, and now ye are come to rouse me up again!
-A weary life I have had for one to whom peace was ever the dearest
blessing!"
"We will soon rid you of our company, good father," said the Abbot;
" and the Queen will, I fear, trouble your retreat no more."
"Nay, you said as much before," said the querulous old man, " and yet
I was put forth from Kinross, and pillaged by troopers on the road.-They
took from me the certificate that you wot of- that of the Baron -ay, he
was a moss-trooper like themselves-You asked me of it, and I could never
find it, but they found it-it showed the marriage of-of-my memory fails
me -Now see how men differ! Father Nicholas would have told you an
hundred tales of the Abbot Ingelram, on whose soul God have mercy!
He was, I warrant you, fourscore and six, and I am not more than-let me
see    "
"Was not Avenel the name you seek, my good father?" said Roland, impatiently, yet moderating his tone for fear of alarming or offending the
infirm old man.
"Ay, right - Avenel, Julian Avenel - You are perfect in the name - I
kept all the special confessions, judging it held with my vow to do so -




THE  ABBOT.                            533'
could not find it when my successor, Ambrosius, spoke on't -but the
troopers found it, and the Knight who commanded the party struck his.
breast, till the target clattered like an empty watering-can."
"Saint Mary!" said the Abbot, "in whom could such a paper excite
such interest!  What was the appearance of the knight, his arms, his
colours?"
" Ye distract me with your questions-I dared hardly look at him-they
charged me with bearing letters for the Queen, and searched my mailThis was all along of your doings at Lochleven.'
"I trust in God," said the Abbot to Roland, who stood beside him,
shivering and trembling with impatience, "the paper has fallen into the
hands of my brother-I heard he had been with his followers on the scout
betwixt Stirling and Glasgow. - Bore not the Knight a holly-bough on his
helmct? -Canst thou not remember?"
"Oh, remember-remember," said the old man pettishly; "count as
many years as I do, if your plots will let you, and see what, and how much,
you remember. -Why, I scarce remember the pear-mains which I graffed
here with my own hands some fifty years since."
At this moment a bugle sounded loudly from the beach.
"It is the death-blast to Queen Mary's royalty," said Ambrosius; "the
English warden's answer has been received, favourable doubtless, for when
was the door of the trap closed against the prey which it was set for?Droop not, Roland-this matter shall be sifted to the bottom-but we must
not now leave the Queen-follow me —let us do our duty, and trust the
issue with God —Farewell, good Father - I will visit thee again soon."
He was about to leave the garden, followed by Roland, with half-reluctant
steps. The Ex-Abbot resumed his spade.
" I could be sorry for these men," he said, " ay, and for that poor Queen,
but what avail earthly sorrows to a man of fourscore? -and it is a rare
dropping morning for the early colewort."
"He is stricken with age," said Ambrosius, as he dragged Roland down
to the sea-beach; "we must let him take his time to collect himself —nothing now can be thought on but the fate of the Queen."
They soon arrived where she stood, surrounded by her little train, and by
her side the sheriff of Cumberland, a gentleman of the house of Lowther,
richly dressed and accompanied by soldiers. The aspect of the Queen exhibited a singular mixture of alacrity and reluctance to depart. Her language and gestures spoke hope and consolation to her attendants, and she
seemed desirous to persuade even herself that the step she adopted was
secure, and that the assurance she had received of kind reception was altogether satisfactory; but her quivering lip, and unsettled eye, betrayed at
once her anguish at departing from Scotland, and her fears of confiding
herself to the doubtful faith of England.
"Welcome, my Lord Abbot," she said, speaking to Ambrosius, "and
you, Roland Avenel, we have joyful news for you-our loving sister's officer
proffers us, in her name, a safe asylum from the rebels who have driven us
from our home - only it grieves me we must here part from you for a short
space."
" Part from us, madam!" said the Abbot. "Is your welcome in England,
then, to commence with the abridgment of your train, and dismissal of
your counsellors?"
"Take it not thus, good Father," said Mary; "the Warden and the
Sheriff, faithful servants of our Royal Sister, deem it necessary to obey her
instructions in the present case, even to the letter, and can only take upon
them to admit me with my female attendants. An express will instantly
be despatched from London, assigning me a place of residence; and I will
speedily send to all of you whenever my Court shall be formed."
"Your Court formed in England! and while Elizabeth lives and reigns?"'2u2




534                  WAVERLEY NOVELS.
said the Abbot  "that will be when we shall see two suns in one
heaven 1"
"Do not think so," replied the Queen; "we are well assured of our
sister's good faith. Elizabeth loves fame-and not all that she has won by
her power and her wisdom will equal that which she will acquire by extending her hospitality to a distressed sister  - not all that she may hereafter do of good, wise, and great, would blot out the reproach of abusing
our confidence.-Farewell, my page-now my knight-farewell for a brief
season. I will dry the tears of Catherine, or I will weep with her till
neither of us can weep longer."  She held out her hand to Roland, who
flinging himself on his knees, kissed it with much emotion. He was about
to render the same homage to Catherine, when the Queen, assuming an air
of sprightliness, said, "Her lips, thou foolish boy! and, Catherine, coy it
not  these English gentlemen should see, that, even in our cold clime,
Beauty knows how to reward Bravery and Fidelity!"
"We are not now to learn the.force of Scottish beauty, or the mettle of
Scottish valour," said the Sheriff of Cumberland, courteously-" I would
it were in my power to bid these attendants upon her who is herself the
mistress of Scottish beauty, as welcome to England as my poor cares would
make them. But our Queen's orders are positive in case of such an emergence, and they must not be disputed by her subject.-May I remind your
Majesty that the tide ebbs fast?"
The Sheriff took the Queen's hand, and she had already placed her foot
on the gangway, by which she was to enter the skiff, when the Abbot,
starting from a trance of grief and astonishment at the words of the Sheriff,
rushed into the water, and seized upon her mantle.
"She foresaw it! - She foresaw it!"-he exclaimed-" she foresaw your.
flight into her realm; and, foreseeing it, gave orders you should be thus
received. Blinded, deceived, doomed Princess! your fate is sealed when
you quit this strand. —Queen of Scotland, thou shalt not leave thine heritage i" he continued, holding a still firmer grasp upon her mantle; "true
men shall turn rebels to thy will, that they may save thee from captivity or
death. Fear not the bills and bows whom that gay man has at his beckwe will withstand him by force. Oh, for the arm of my warlike brother!
— Roland Avenel, draw thy sword."
The Queen stood irresolute and frightened; one foot upon the plank, the
other on the sand of her native shore, which she was quitting for ever.
" What needs this violence, Sir Priest?" said the Sheriff of Cumberland;
"I came hither at your Queen's command, to do her service; and I will
depart at her least order, if she rejects such aid as I can offer. No marvel
is it if our Queen's wisdom foresaw that such chance as this might happen
amidst the turmoils of your unsettled State; and, while willing to afford
fair hospitality to her Royal Sister, deemed it wise to prohibit the entrance
of a broken army of her followers into the English frontier."
"You hear," said Queen Mary, gently unloosing her robe from the
Abbot's grasp, "that we exercise full liberty of choice in leaving this
shore; and, questionless, the choice will remain free to us in going to
France, or returning to our own dominions, as we shall determine-Besides,
it is too late-Your blessing, Father, and God speed thee!"
"May He have mercy on thee, Princess, and speed thee also!" said the
Abbot, retreating. "But my soul tells me I look on thee for the last time!"
The sails were hoisted, the oars were plied, the vessel went freshly on her
way through the firth, which divides the shores of Cumberland from those
of Galloway; but not till the vessel diminished to the size of a child's
frigate, did the doubtful, and dejected, and dismissed followers of the Queen
cease to linger on the sands; and long, long could they discern the kerchief
of Mary, as she waved the oft-repeated signal of adieu to her faithful adhe.
rens, and to the shores of Scotland.




T HIE  ABBOT.                           535'
IF good tidings of a private nature could have consoled Roland for parting
with his mistress, and for the distresses of his sovereign, he received such
comfort some days subsequent to the Queen's leaving Dundrennan. A
breathless post-no other than Adam Woodcock-brought despatches from
Sir Halbert Glendinning to the Abbot, whom he found with Roland, still
residing at Dundrennan, and in vain torturing Boniface with fresh interrogations. The packet bore an earnest invitation to his brother to make
Avenel Castle for a time his residence.  "The clemency of the Regent,"
said the writer, "has extended pardon both to Roland and to you, upon
condition of your remaining a time under my wardship. And I have that
to communicate respecting the parentage of Roland, which not only you
will willingly listen to, but which will be also found to afford me, as the
husband of his nearest relative, some interest in the future course of his
life."
The Abbot read this letter, and paused, as if considering what were best
for him to do. Meanwhile, Woodcock took Roland side, and addressed him
as follows:-" Now, look, Mr. Roland, that you do not let any papestrie
nonsense lure either the priest or you from the right quarry. See you, you
ever bore yourself as a bit of a gentleman. Read that, and thank God that
threw old Abbot Boniface in our way, as two of the Seyton's men were
conveying him towards Dundrennan here.-We searched him for intelligence concerning that fair exploit of yours at Lochleven, that has cost many
a man his life, and me a set of sore bones-and we found what is better for
your purpose than ours."
The paper which he gave, was, indeed, an attestation by Father Philip,
subscribing himself unworthy Sacristan, and brother of the House of Saint
Mary's, stating, "that under a vow of secrecy he had united, in the holy'
sacrament of marriage, Julian Avenel and Catherine Graeme; but that
Julian having repented of his union, he, Father Philip, had been sinfully
prevailed on by him to conceal and disguise the same, according to a complot devised betwixt him and the said Julian Avenel, whereby the poor
damsel was induced to believe that the ceremony had been performed by one
not in holy orders, and having no authority to that effect. Which sinful concealment the undersigned conceived to be the cause why he was abandoned
to the misguiding of a water-fiend, whereby he had been under a spell,
which obliged him to answer every question, even touching the most solemn
matters, with idle snatches of old songs, besides being sorely afflicted with
rheumatic pains ever after. Wherefore he had deposited this testificate and
confession with the day and date of the said marriage, with his lawful
superior Boniface, Abbot of Saint Mary's, sub sigillo cortfessionis."
It appeared by a letter from Julian, folded carefully up with the certificate, that the Abbot Boniface had, in effect, bestirred himself in the affair,
and obtained from the Baron a promise to avow his marriage; but the
death of both Julian and his injured bride, together with the Abbot's resignation, his ignorance of the fate of their unhappy offspring, and above all,
the good father's listless and inactive disposition, had suffered the matter to
become totally forgotten, until it was recalled by some accidental conversation with the Abbot Ambrosius concerning the fortunes of the Avenel
family. At the request of his successor, the quondam Abbot made search
for it; but as he would receive no assistance in looking among the few,
records of spiritual experiences and important confessions, which he had
conscientiously treasured, it might have remained for ever hidden amongst
them, but for the more active researches of Sir Halbert Glendinning.
"So that you are like to be heir of Avenel at last, Master Roland, after
my lord and lady have gone to their place," said Adam; " and as I have
but one boon to ask, I trust you will not nick me with nay."
"Not if it be in my power to say yes, my trusty friend."
" Why then, I must needs, if I live to see that day, keep on feeding the




536'                          WAVERLEY NOVELS..
eyases with unwashed flesh," said Woodcock sturdily, as if doubting the
reception that his request might meet with.
"Thou  shalt feed  them  with what you  list for me," said Roland, laughing; " I am not many months older than when I left the Castle, but I trust
I have gathered wit enough to cross no man of skill in his own vocation."
"Then I would not change places with the King's falconer," said Adam
Woodcock, " nor with the Queen's neither-but they say she will be mewed
up  and  never need  one. -  I see  it grieves you  to  think  of it, and I could
grieve for company; but what help for it?- Fortune will fly her own flight,
let a man hollo himself hoarse."
The Abbot and Roland journeyed to Avenel, where the former was tenderly received by his brother, while the lady wept for joy to find that in her
favourite  orphan  she  had  protected  the  sole surviving branch of her own
family. Sir Ilalbert Glendinning and his household were not a little surprised at the change which a brief acquaintance with the world had produced  in  their former inmate, and rejoiced  to.find, in  the  pettish, spoiled,
and presuming page, a modest and unassuming young man, too much
acquainted with  his-own  expectations  and character, to be hot or petulant
in demanding the consideration which was readily and voluntarily yielded
to him.   The old Major Domo Wingate was the first to  sing his praises, to
which Mistress Lilias bore a loud echo, always hoping that God would teach
him the true gospel.
To the true  gospel the  heart of Roland  had  secretly long  inclined, and
the departure of the good Abbot for France, with the purpose of entering
into some house of his order in that kingdom, removed his chief objection
to renouncing the Catholic faith. Another might have existed in the dutywhich he owed to Magdalen Groeme, both by birth and from  gratitude.
But he learned, ere he had been long a resident in Avenel, that his grand-.
mother had died at Cologne, in the performance of a penance too severe for
her age, which she had taken upon herself in behalf of the Queen and
Church of Scotland, as soon  as she  heard of the defeat at Langside.   The
zeal of the Abbot Ambrosius was more regulated; but he retired into the
Scottish convent of-, and so lived there, that the fraternity were inclined
to claim  for him  the  honours of canonization.   But he  guessed  their purpose, and prayed them, on his death-bed, to do no honours to the body of
one as sinful as themselves; but to send his body and his heart to be buried
in Avenel burial-aisle, in the monastery of Saint Mary's, that the last Abbot
of that celebrated house of devotion might sleep among its ruins.*
* This was not the explanation of the incident of searching for the heart, mentioned in the introduction to
the tale, which the author originally intended. It was designed to refer to the heart of Robert Bruce. It is
generally known that that great monarch, being on his death-bed, bequeathed to the good Lord James of
Douglas, the task of carrying his heart to the Holy Land. to fulfil in a certain degree his own desire to pert-fol
a crusade.. Upon Douglas's death, fighting against the Moors in Spain, a sort of military hors d'euvre to wlich
he could have pleaded no regular call of duty, his followers brought back the Bruce's heart, and deposited it
in the Abbey church of Melrose, the Kennaquhair of the tale.
This Abbey has been always particularly favotred by the Bruce. We have alleady seen his extreme anxiety.
that each of the reverend brethren should be daily supplied with a service of boiled almonds, rice and milk,
pease, or the like, to be called the King's mess, and that without the ordinary service of their table being
either disturbed in quantity or quality. But this was not the only mark of the benignity of good King Robert
towards the monks of Melrose, since, by a charter of the date 29th May, 1326, he conferred on the Abbot of
Melrose the sum of two thousand pounds sterling, for rebuilding the church of St. Mary's, ruined by the
English; and there is little or no doubt that the principal part of the remains which now display such exquisite specimens of Gothic architecture, at its very purest period, had their origin in this munificent donation.
The money was to be paid out of crown lands, estates forfeited to the King, and other property or demesnes
of the crown.
A very curious letter written to hisson about three weeks before his death, has been pointed out to me by
niy friend Mr. Thomas Thomson, Deputy-Register for Scotland. It enlarges so much on the love of the royal
writer to the community of Melrose, that it is well worthy of being inserted in a work connected in some
degree with Scottish History.
LITERA DOMINI REGIS ROBERTI AD FILIUM SUUM DAVD.
"Robertus dei gratia Rex Scottorum, David precordiallssimo filio suo, ac ceteris successoribus suis; Saluo
tem, et sic ejus precepta tenere, ut cum sua benedictione possint regnare. Fili carissime, dine censeri videtur filus, qui, paternos in bonis mores imitans, piamn ejus nititur exequi voluntatem; nec proprie sibi sumit
nomlen heredis, qui salubribus predecessoris affectibus non adherit: Cupientes igitur, ut piam affectionem et
scinceranm delectionem, quam erga monasterium de Melros, ubi cor nostrum ex speciali devotione disposuimus
tumulandum, et erga Religiosos ibidem Deo servientes,ipsorum vita sanctissima nos ad hoc excitante, conrepimus; Tu ceterique successores mei pia scinceritate prosequammi, ut, ex vestre dilectionis affectu dictis
Religiosis nostri causa post mortem nostram ostenso, ipsi pro nobis ad orandun fervencius et forcius aliimen



THE ABBOT.                                                  537
Long before that period arrived, Roland Avenel was wedded to Catherine
Seyton, who, after two years' residence with her unhappy mistress, was dismissed upon her being subjected to closer restraint than had been at first
exercised.  She returned to her father's house, and as Roland was acknowledged for the successor and lawful heir of the ancient house of Avenel,
greatly increased as the estate was by the providence of Sir Halbert Glendinning, there occurred no objections to the match on the part of her family.
Her mother was recently dead when she first entered the convent; and her
father, in the unsettled times which followed Queen Mary's flight to England, was not averse to an alliance with a youth, who, himself loyal to
Queen Mary, still held some influence, through means of Sir Halbert Glendinning, with the party in power.
Roland and Catherine, therefore, were united, spite of their differing
faiths; and the White Lady, whose apparition had been infrequent when
the house of Avenel seemed verging to extinction, was seen to sport by her
haunted well, with a zone of gold around her bosom as broad as the baldrick of an Earl.
tur: Vobis precipimus quantum possumus, instanter supplicamus, et ex toto corde injungimus, Quatinus assiglacionibus quas eisdem viris Religiosis et fabrica Ecclesie sue de novo fecimlus ac eciam omnllibus aliis
donacionibus nostris, ipsos libere gaudere permittatis, Easdem potius si necesse fuerit augmentantes quain
diminuentes, ipsorum peticiones auribus benevolis admittentes, ac ipsos contra suos invasores et emulos pia
defensione protegentes. Hanc autem exhortacionemn supplicacionem  et preceptum tu, fili. ceterique successores nostri, prestanti animo complere curetis, si nostranl benedictionern habere velitis, una cuni benedic.tioile
filii summi Regis, qui filiosdocuit patrum voluntates in bono perficere, asserens in munduln se venisse non ut
suam voluntatenm aceret sed paternain. In testlmoniunl aute-n nostre devotionis erga locum predicturn sic a
nobis dilectum et electum concepte, presentem literam Religiosis predictis dimittimus, nostris successoribus
in posterum ostendendam. Data apud Cardros, undecimo die MIaij, Anno Regni nostri vibesimo quirto."
If this charter be altogether genuine, and there is no appearance of forgery, it gives rise to a curious doubt
in Scottish History. The. letter announces that the King had already destined his heart to be deposited at
Melrose. The resolution to send it to Palestine, under the charge of Douglas, must have been adopted betwixt
11th May 1329, the date of the letter, and 7th June of the same year, when the Bruce died; or else we must
suppose that the commission of Douglas extended not only to taking the Bruce's heart to Palestine, hut to
bring it safe back to its final place of deposit in the Abbey of Melrose.
It would not be worth inquiring by what caprice the author was induced to throw the incident of the
Bruce's heart entirely out of the story, save merely to say, that he found himself unable to fill up the canvass.t  had sketched, and indisposed to prosecute the management of the supernatural msachinery with which his
plan, when it was first rough-hewn, was connected and combined.IND OF THE ABBOT.