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The Abbot

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"Better leave it unspoken, sir," answered Roland Graeme, "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 Graeme, "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. His 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, 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 so agreeable an
addition to her table, especially upon a _jour de jeune_; 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 yon, to keep for my sake, just to remind you of former
acquaintance."

There was a little tremulous accent in the tone with which these words
were delivered, which at once put to flight Roland Graeme'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 Heaven forbid!" 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
one--it 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 Graeme, 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!"

"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?" [Footnote: Gan, Gano, or Ganelon of Mayence, is in the
Romances on the subject of Charlemagne and his Paladins, always
represented as the traitor by whom the Christian champions are
betrayed.]

"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 counsellor of majesty, 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 Graeme; "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 debtor 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, will--yes, 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--far 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 over-powering 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.




Chapter the Twenty-Fifth.


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 Graeme 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. But his place of 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 God," 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, for 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
Graeme; "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 Graeme, 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 Graeme, 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 to aid that 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."

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