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The Abbot

S >> Sir Walter Scott >> The Abbot




"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 Graeme 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 Graeme?
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
prisoners better learn their calender from the mouth of their jailor,
than from any change they themselves feel in the seasons.--Once more,
Roland Graeme, 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
Kinross pleasures. For this night we dismiss thy attendance."

Roland Graeme 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 Graeme, 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 Graeme 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 rude 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 by
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 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 embittered 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 Graeme 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 persons 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 Lochloven, 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 voice, which asked in a
low whisper, "whether all was ready?"




Chapter the Thirtieth.


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.

Roland Graeme, 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
cox-comb, 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.

"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."

Graeme 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 Graeme 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."

"How 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 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!--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 for 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 night-piece, the lad's share in it seems to have been small."

"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? O 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 every reward 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.

"They are doubtful," said Mary. "Save thyself, Douglas, I command
thee!"

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