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The Abbot

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"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 Graeme 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, arid 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
waves," pointing, 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 vouchsafed 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 household 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 discipline," said the page, giving way to his restrained passion.
"Lady, I have been too long the vassal of a pantoufle, and the slave
of a silver whistle. You must 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.

"Arise, 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 me--but 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.

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.




Chapter the Sixth.


Thou hast each secret of the household, Francis.
I dare be 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 comfits--
These 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 Herod,
(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 Graeme, 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, and a well-spoken of--but I would not Sir Halbert had seen her
last evening for two and a plack."

"Oh, foy! foy! foy!" 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
waiting-woman--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 Graeme 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
Signer 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 gold.--But 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?"

"Heaven forbid, Mistress Lilias," answered the sententious major-domo;
"but yet there are worse folk than 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 I"
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 arid
then with this same Roland Graeme, 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! I
If I had not held you as so old an acquaintance, this should have gone
to my Lady's ears though I had been called pickthank and tale-pyet for
my pains, as when I told of Roland Graeme 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.




Chapter the Seventh.


When I hae a saxpence under my thumb,
Then I get credit in ilka town;
But when I am puir they bid me gae by--
Oh, 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. He had rowed the skiff in
which he left the castle, to the side of the lake most 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.

"Nay, that is a question which it craves time to answer--I have that
matter 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
passion--each 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 to-morrow we expect my uncle Menelaus and all his folk;
but, as I said, for one night----"

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