Part 8 (2/2)
”And what hast thou to do with Saint Martin?”
”Nay, little enough, sir, unless when he sends such rainy days that we cannot fly a hawk--but I say to your wors.h.i.+pful knighthood, that as I am, a true man----”
”As you are a false varlet, had been the better obtestation.”
”Nay, if your knighthood allows me not to speak,” said Adam, ”I can hold my tongue--but the boy came not hither by my bidding, for all that.”
”But to gratify his own malapert pleasure, I warrant me,” said Sir Halbert Glendinning--”Come hither, young springald, and tell me whether you have your mistress's license to be so far absent from the castle, or to dishonour my livery by mingling in such a May-game?”
”Sir Halbert Glendinning,” answered Roland Graeme with steadiness, ”I have obtained the permission, or rather the commands, of your lady, to dispose of my time hereafter according to my own pleasure. I have been a most unwilling spectator of this May-game, since it is your pleasure so to call it; and I only wear your livery until I can obtain clothes which bear no such badge of servitude.”
”How am I to understand this, young man?” said Sir Halbert Glendinning; ”speak plainly, for I am no reader of riddles.--That my lady favoured thee, I know. What hast thou done to disoblige her, and occasion thy dismissal?”
”Nothing to speak of,” said Adam Woodc.o.c.k, answering for the boy--”a foolish quarrel with me, which was more foolishly told over again to my honoured lady, cost the poor boy his place. For my part, I will say freely, that I was wrong from beginning to end, except about the was.h.i.+ng of the eyas's meat. There I stand to it that I was right.”
With that, the good-natured falconer repeated to his master the whole history of the squabble which had brought Roland Graeme into disgrace with his mistress, but in a manner so favourable for the page, that Sir Halbert could not but suspect his generous motive.
”Thou art a good-natured fellow,” he said, ”Adam Woodc.o.c.k.”
”As ever had falcon upon fist,” said Adam; ”and, for that matter, so is Master Roland; but, being half a gentleman by his office, his blood is soon up, and so is mine.”
”Well,” said Sir Halbert, ”be it as it will, my lady has acted hastily, for this was no great matter of offence to discard the lad whom she had trained up for years; but he, I doubt not, made it worse by his prating--it jumps well with a purpose, however, which I had in my mind. Draw off these people, Woodc.o.c.k,--and you, Roland Graeme, attend me.”
The page followed him in silence into the Abbot's house, where, stepping into the first apartment which he found open, he commanded one of his attendants to let his brother, Master Edward Glendinning, know that he desired to speak with him. The men-at-arms went gladly off to join their comrade, Adam Woodc.o.c.k, and the jolly crew whom he had a.s.sembled at Dame Martin's, the hostler's wife, and the Page and Knight were left alone in the apartment. Sir Halbert Glendinning paced the floor for a moment in silence and then thus addressed his attendant-- ”Thou mayest have remarked, stripling, that I have but seldom distinguished thee by much notice;--I see thy colour rises, but do not speak till thou nearest me out. I say I have never much distinguished thee, not because I did not see that in thee which I might well have praised, but because I saw something blameable, which such praises might have made worse. Thy mistress, dealing according to her pleasure in her own household, as no one had better reason or t.i.tle, had picked thee from the rest, and treated thee more like a relation than a domestic; and if thou didst show some vanity and petulance under such distinction, it were injustice not to say that thou hast profited both in thy exercises and in thy breeding, and hast shown many sparkles of a gentle and manly spirit. Moreover, it were ungenerous, having bred thee up freakish and fiery, to dismiss thee to want or wandering, for showing that very peevishness and impatience of discipline which arose from thy too delicate nurture. Therefore, and for the credit of my own household, I am determined to retain thee in my train, until I can honourably dispose of thee elsewhere, with a fair prospect of thy going through the world with credit to the house that brought thee up.”
If there was something in Sir Halbert Glendinning's speech which flattered Roland's pride, there was also much that, according to his mode of thinking, was an alloy to the compliment. And yet his conscience instantly told him that he ought to accept, with grateful deference, the offer which was made him by the husband of his kind protectress; and his prudence, however slender, could not but admit he should enter the world under very different auspices as a retainer of Sir Halbert Glendinning, so famed for wisdom, courage, and influence, from those under which he might partake the wanderings, and become an agent in the visionary schemes, for such they appeared to him, of Magdalen, his relative. Still, a strong reluctance to re-enter a service from which he had been dismissed with contempt, almost counterbalanced these considerations.
Sir Halbert looked on the youth with surprise, and resumed--”You seem to hesitate, young man. Are your own prospects so inviting, that you should pause ere you accept those which I should offer to you? or, must I remind you that, although you have offended your benefactress, even to the point of her dismissing you, yet I am convinced, the knowledge that you have gone unguided on your own wild way, into a world so disturbed as ours of Scotland, cannot, in the upshot, but give her sorrow and pain; from which it is, in grat.i.tude, your duty to preserve her, no less than it is in common wisdom your duty to accept my offered protection, for your own sake, where body and soul are alike endangered, should you refuse it.”
Roland Graeme replied in a respectful tone, but at the same time with some spirit, ”I am not ungrateful for such countenance as has been afforded me by the Lord of Avenel, and I am glad to learn, for the first time, that I have not had the misfortune to be utterly beneath his observation, as I had thought--And it is only needful to show me how I can testify my duty and my grat.i.tude towards my early and constant benefactress with my life's hazard, and I will gladly peril it.” He stopped.
”These are but words, young man,” answered Glendinning, ”large protestations are often used to supply the place of effectual service. I know nothing in which the peril of your life can serve the Lady of Avenel; I can only say, she will be pleased to learn you have adopted some course which may ensure the safety of your person, and the weal of your soul--What ails you, that you accept not that safety when it is offered you?”
”My only relative who is alive,” answered Roland, ”at least the only relative whom I have ever seen, has rejoined me since I was dismissed from the Castle of Avenel, and I must consult with her whether I can adopt the line to which you now call me, or whether her increasing infirmities, or the authority which she is ent.i.tled to exercise over me, may not require me to abide with her.”
”Where is this relation?” said Sir Halbert Glendinning.
”In this house,” answered the page.
”Go then, and seek her out,” said the Knight of Avenel; ”more than meet it is that thou shouldst have her approbation, yet worse than foolish would she show herself in denying it.”
Roland left the apartment to seek for his grandmother; and, as he retreated, the Abbot entered.
The two brothers met as brothers who loved each other fondly, yet meet rarely together. Such indeed was the case. Their mutual affection attached them to each other; but in every pursuit, habit or sentiment, connected with the discords of the times, the friend and counsellor of Murray stood opposed to the Roman Catholic priest; nor, indeed, could they have held very much society together, without giving cause of offence and suspicion to their confederates on each side. After a close embrace on the part of both, and a welcome on that of the Abbot, Sir Halbert Glendinning expressed his satisfaction that he had come in time to appease the riot raised by Howleglas and his tumultuous followers.
”And yet,” he said, ”when I look on your garments, brother Edward, I cannot help thinking there still remains an Abbot of Unreason within the bounds of the Monastery.”
”And wherefore carp at my garments, brother Halbert?” said the Abbot; ”it is the spiritual armour of my calling, and, as such, beseems me as well as breastplate and baldric becomes your own bosom.”
”Ay, but there were small wisdom, methinks, in putting on armour where we have no power to fight; it is but a dangerous temerity to defy the foe whom we cannot resist.”
”For that, my brother, no one can answer,” said the Abbot, ”until the battle be fought; and, were it even as you say, methinks a brave man, though desperate of victory, would rather desire to fight and fall, than to resign sword and s.h.i.+eld on some mean and dishonourable composition with his insulting antagonist. But, let not you and I make discord of a theme on which we cannot agree, but rather stay and partake, though a heretic, of my admission feast. You need not fear, my brother, that your zeal for restoring the primitive discipline of the church will, on this occasion, be offended with the rich profusion of a conventual banquet. The days of our old friend Abbot Boniface are over; and the Superior of Saint Mary's has neither forests nor fis.h.i.+ngs, woods nor pastures, nor corn-fields;--neither flocks nor herds, bucks nor wild-fowl--granaries of wheat, nor storehouses of oil and wine, of ale and of mead. The refectioner's office is ended; and such a meal as a hermit in romance can offer to a wandering knight, is all we have to set before you. But, if you will share it with us, we shall eat it with a cheerful heart, and thank you, my brother, for your timely protection against these rude scoffers.”
”My dearest brother,” said the Knight, ”it grieves me deeply I cannot abide with you; but it would sound ill for us both were one of the reformed congregation to sit down at your admission feast; and, if I can ever have the satisfaction of affording you effectual protection, it will be much owing to my remaining unsuspected of countenancing or approving your religious rites and ceremonies. It will demand whatever consideration I can acquire among my own friends, to shelter the bold man, who, contrary to law and the edicts of parliament, has dared to take up the office of Abbot of Saint Mary's.”
”Trouble not yourself with the task, my brother,” replied Father Ambrosius. ”I would lay down my dearest blood to know that you defended the church for the church's sake; but, while you remain unhappily her enemy, I would not that you endangered your own safety, or diminished your own comforts, for the sake of my individual protection.--But who comes. .h.i.ther to disturb the few minutes of fraternal communication which our evil fate allows us?”
The door of the apartment opened as the Abbot spoke, and Dame Magdalen entered.
”Who is this woman?” said Sir Halbert Glendinning, somewhat sternly, ”and what does she want?”
”That you know me not,” said the matron, ”signifies little; I come by your own order, to give my free consent that the stripling, Roland Graeme, return to your service; and, having said so, I c.u.mber you no longer with my presence. Peace be with you!” She turned to go away, but was stopped by inquiries of Sir Halbert Glendinning.
”Who are you?--what are you?--and why do you not await to make me answer?”
”I was,” she replied, ”while yet I belonged to the world, a matron of no vulgar name; now I am Magdalen, a poor pilgrimer, for the sake of Holy Kirk.”
”Yea,” said Sir Halbert, ”art thou a Catholic? I thought my dame said that Roland Graeme came of reformed kin.'
”His father,” said the matron, ”was a heretic, or rather one who regarded neither orthodoxy or heresy--neither the temple of the church or of antichrist. I, too, for the sins of the times make sinners, have seemed to conform to your unhallowed rites--but I had my dispensation and my absolution.”
”You see, brother,” said Sir Halbert, with a smile of meaning towards his brother, ”that we accuse you not altogether without grounds of mental equivocation.”
”My brother, you do us injustice,” replied the Abbot; ”this woman, as her bearing may of itself warrant you, is not in her perfect mind. Thanks, I must needs say, to the persecution of your marauding barons, and of your lat.i.tudinarian clergy.”
”I will not dispute the point,” said Sir Halbert; ”the evils of the time are unhappily so numerous, that both churches may divide them, and have enow to spare.” So saying, he leaned from the window of the apartment, and winded his bugle.
”Why do you sound your horn, my brother?” said the Abbot; ”we have spent but few minutes together.”
”Alas!” said the elder brother, ”and even these few have been sullied by disagreement. I sound to horse, my brother--the rather that, to avert the consequences of this day's rashness on your part, requires hasty efforts on mine.--Dame, you will oblige me by letting your young relative know that we mount instantly. I intend not that he shall return to Avenel with me--it would lead to new quarrels betwixt him and my household; at least to taunts which his proud heart could ill brook, and my wish is to do him kindness. He shall, therefore, go forward to Edinburgh with one of my retinue, whom I shall send back to say what has chanced here.--You seem rejoiced at this?” he added, fixing his eyes keenly on Magdalen Graeme, who returned his gaze with calm indifference.
”I would rather,” she said, ”that Roland, a poor and friendless orphan, were the jest of the world at large, than of the menials at Avenel.”
”Fear not, dame--he shall be scorned by neither,” answered the Knight.
”It may be,” she replied--”it may well be--but I will trust more to his own bearing than to your countenance.” She left the room as she spoke.
The Knight looked after her as she departed, but turned instantly to his brother, and expressing, in the most affectionate terms, his wishes for his welfare and happiness, craved his leave to depart. ”My knaves,” he said, ”are too busy at the ale-stand, to leave their revelry for the empty breath of a bugle-horn.”
”You have freed them from higher restraint, Halbert,” answered the Abbot, ”and therein taught them to rebel against your own.”
”Fear not that, Edward,” exclaimed Halbert, who never gave his brother his monastic name of Ambrosius; ”none obey the command of real duty so well as those who are free from the observance of slavish bondage.”
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