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The Abbot

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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 Graeme, "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 Graeme 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."

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 Graeme 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 her--and that the orphan boy might indeed be heedless, but
was never ungrateful!"

He turned, as these thoughts passed through his mind, and began
hastily to retread his footsteps towards the castle. But he checked
the first eagerness 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 fall--I 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."

He 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 Halbert,
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 large where the falcon cannot fly;
And Allan would rather lie in Sexton's pound,
Than live where he 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."

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 Lady'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
Graeme, "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, [Footnote: This same hag, like every thing
belonging to falconry, was esteemed an honourable distinction, and
worn often by the nobility and gentry. One of the Sommervilles of
Camnethan was called _Sir John with the red bag_, because it was
his wont to wear his hawking pouch covered with satin of that colour.]
and so forth; but wot you what it is lined with, Master Roland?"

"With leather, to be sure," replied Roland, somewhat surprised at the
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 office--"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 Graeme to pursue his journey
alone.




Chapter the Eight.


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.

The 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.

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 Graeme 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 had
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, 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 Graeme
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.

[Footnote: I may here observe, that this is entirely an ideal scene.
Saint Cuthbert, a person of established sanctity, 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 for 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 might have actually
swum. 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 impossible, either by the Saint, or by
some pious votary in his behalf, for on the following morning the
stone sarcophargus was found broken in two fragments.

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