The Abbot

“I am his grandmother, lady, if it so please you; the only relation he hath left upon earth to take charge of him.”

“The burden of his maintenance must necessarily be grievous to you in your deserted situation?” pursued the Lady.

“I have complained of it to no one,” said Magdalen Graeme, with the same unmoved, dry, and unconcerned tone of voice, in which she had answered all the former questions.

“If,” said the Lady of Avenel, “your grandchild could be received into a noble family, would it not advantage both him and you?”

“Received into a noble family!” said the old woman, drawing herself up, and bending her brows until her forehead was wrinkled into a frown of unusual severity; “and for what purpose, I pray you? – to be my lady’s page, or my lord’s jackman, to eat broken victuals, and contend with other menials for the remnants of the master’s meal? Would you have him to fan the flies from my lady’s face while she sleeps, to carry her train while she walks, to hand her trencher when she feeds, to ride before her on horseback, to walk after her on foot, to sing when she lists, and to be silent when she bids? – a very weathercock, which, though furnished in appearance with wings and plumage, cannot soar into the air – cannot fly from the spot where it is perched, but receives all its impulse, and performs all its revolutions, obedient to the changeful breath of a vain woman? When the eagle of Helvellyn perches on the tower of Lanercost, and turns and changes his place to show how the wind sits, Roland Graeme shall be what you would make him.”

The woman spoke with a rapidity and vehemence which seemed to have in it a touch of insanity; and a sudden sense of the danger to which the child must necessarily be exposed in the charge of such a keeper, increased the Lady’s desire to keep him in the castle if possible.

“You mistake me, dame,” she said, addressing the old woman in a soothing manner; “I do not wish your boy to be in attendance on myself, but upon the good knight my husband. Were he himself the son of a belted earl, he could not better be trained to arms, and all that befits a gentleman, than by the instructions and discipline of Sir Halbert Glendinning.”

“Ay,” answered the old woman, in the same style of bitter irony, “I know the wages of that service; – a curse when the corslet is not sufficiently brightened, – a blow when the girth is not tightly drawn, – to be beaten because the hounds are at fault, – to be reviled because the foray is unsuccessful, – to stain his hands for the master’s bidding in the blood alike of beast and of man, – to be a butcher of harmless deer, a murderer and defacer of God’s own image, not at his own pleasure, but at that of his lord, – to live a brawling ruffian, and a common stabber – exposed to heat, to cold, to want of food, to all the privations of an anchoret, not for the love of God, but for the service of Satan, – to die by the gibbet, or in some obscure skirmish, – to sleep out his brief life in carnal security, and to awake in the eternal fire, which is never quenched.”

“Nay,” said the Lady of Avenel, “but to such unhallowed course of life your grandson will not be here exposed. My husband is just and kind to those who live under his banner; and you yourself well know, that youth have here a strict as well as a good preceptor in the person of our chaplain.”

The old woman appeared to pause.

“You have named,” she said, “the only circumstance which can move me. I must soon onward, the vision has said it – I must not tarry in the same spot – I must on, – I must on, it is my weird. – Swear, then, that you will protect the boy as if he were your own, until I return hither and claim him, and I will consent for a space to part with him. But especially swear, he shall not lack the instruction of the godly man who hath placed the gospel-truth high above those idolatrous shavelings, the monks and friars.”

“Be satisfied, dame,” said the Lady of Avenel; “the boy shall have as much care as if he were born of my own blood. Will you see him now?”

“No,” answered the old woman sternly; “to part is enough. I go forth on my own mission. I will not soften my heart by useless tears and wailings, as one that is not called to a duty.”

“Will you not accept of something to aid you in your pilgrimage?” said the Lady of Avenel, putting into her hands two crowns of the sun. The old woman flung them down on the table.

“Am I of the race of Cain,” she said, “proud Lady, that you offer me gold in exchange for my own flesh and blood?”

“I had no such meaning,” said the Lady, gently; “nor am I the proud woman you term me. Alas! my own fortunes might have taught me humility, even had it not been born with me.”

The old woman seemed somewhat to relax her tone of severity.

“You are of gentle blood,” she said, “else we had not parleyed thus long together. – You are of gentle blood, and to such,” she added, drawing up her tall form as she spoke, “pride is as graceful as is the plume upon the bonnet. But for these pieces of gold, lady, you must needs resume them. I need not money. I am well provided; and I may not care for myself, nor think how, or by whom, I shall be sustained. Farewell, and keep your word. Cause your gates to be opened, and your bridges to be lowered. I will set forward this very night. When I come again, I will demand from you a strict account, for I have left with you the jewel of my life! Sleep will visit me but in snatches, food will not refresh me, rest will not restore my strength, until I see Roland Graeme. Once more, farewell.”

“Make your obeisance, dame,” said Lilias to Magdalen Graeme, as she retired, “make your obeisance to her ladyship, and thank her for her goodness, as is but fitting and right.”

The old woman turned short around on the officious waiting-maid. “Let her make her obeisance to me then, and I will return it. Why should I bend to her? – is it because her kirtle is of silk, and mine of blue lockeram? – Go to, my lady’s waiting-woman. Know that the rank of the man rates that of the wife, and that she who marries a churl’s son, were she a king’s daughter, is but a peasant’s bride.”

Lilias was about to reply in great indignation, but her mistress imposed silence on her, and commanded that the old woman should be safely conducted to the mainland.

“Conduct her safe!” exclaimed the incensed waiting-woman, while Magdalen Graeme left the apartment; “I say, duck her in the loch, and then we will see whether she is witch or not, as every body in the village of Lochside will say and swear. I marvel your ladyship could bear so long with her insolence.” But the commands of the Lady were obeyed, and the old dame, dismissed from the castle, was committed to her fortune. She kept her word, and did not long abide in that place, leaving the hamlet on the very night succeeding the interview, and wandering no one asked whither. The Lady of Avenel inquired under what circumstances she had appeared among them, but could only learn that she was believed to be the widow of some man of consequence among the Graemes who then inhabited the Debateable Land, a name given to a certain portion of territory which was the frequent subject of dispute betwixt Scotland and England – that she had suffered great wrong in some of the frequent forays by which that unfortunate district was wasted, and had been driven from her dwelling-place. She had arrived in the hamlet no one knew for what purpose, and was held by some to be a witch, by others a zealous Protestant, and by others again a Catholic devotee. Her language was mysterious, and her manners repulsive; and all that could be collected from her conversation seemed to imply that she was under the influence either of a spell or of a vow, – there was no saying which, since she talked as one who acted under a powerful and external agency.

Such were the particulars which the Lady’s inquiries were able to collect concerning Magdalen Graeme, being far too meagre and contradictory to authorize any satisfactory deduction. In truth, the miseries of the time, and the various turns of fate incidental to a frontier country, were perpetually chasing from their habitations those who had not the means of defence or protection. These wanderers in the land were too often seen, to excite much attention or sympathy. They received the cold relief which was extorted by general feelings of humanity; a little excited in some breasts, and perhaps rather chilled in others, by the recollection that they who gave the charity to-day might themselves want it to-morrow. Magdalen Graeme, therefore, came and departed like a shadow from the neighbourhood of Avenel Castle.

The boy whom Providence, as she thought, had thus strangely placed under her care, was at once established a favourite with the Lady of the castle. How could it be otherwise? He became the object of those affectionate feelings, which, finding formerly no object on which to expand themselves, had increased the gloom of the castle, and imbittered the solitude of its mistress. To teach him reading and writing as far as her skill went, to attend to his childish comforts, to watch his boyish sports, became the Lady’s favourite amusement. In her circumstances, where the ear only heard the lowing of the cattle from the distant hills, or the heavy step of the warder as he walked upon his post, or the half-envied laugh of her maiden as she turned her wheel, the appearance of the blooming and beautiful boy gave an interest which can hardly be conceived by those who live amid gayer and busier scenes. Young Roland was to the Lady of Avenel what the flower, which occupies the window of some solitary captive, is to the poor wight by whom it is nursed and cultivated, – something which at once excited and repaid her care; and in giving the boy her affection, she felt, as it were, grateful to him for releasing her from the state of dull apathy in which she had usually found herself during the absence of Sir Halbert Glendinning.

But even the charms of this blooming favourite were unable to chase the recurring apprehensions which arose from her husband’s procrastinated return. Soon after Roland Graeme became a resident at the castle, a groom, despatched by Sir Halbert, brought tidings that business still delayed the Knight at the Court of Holyrood. The more distant period which the messenger had assigned for his master’s arrival at length glided away, summer melted into autumn, and autumn was about to give place to winter, and yet he came not.

Chapter the Third

The waning harvest-moon shone broad and bright,
The warder’s horn was heard at dead of night,
And while the portals-wide were flung,
With trampling hoofs the rocky pavement rung.

    LEYDEN.

“And you, too, would be a soldier, Roland?” said the Lady of Avenel to her young charge, while, seated on a stone chair at one end of the battlements, she saw the boy attempt, with a long stick, to mimic the motions of the warder, as he alternately shouldered, or ported, or sloped pike.

“Yes, Lady,” said the boy, – for he was now familiar, and replied to her questions with readiness and alacrity, – “a soldier will I be; for there ne’er was gentleman but who belted him with the brand.”

“Thou a gentleman!” said Lilias, who, as usual, was in attendance; “such a gentleman as I would make of a bean-cod with a rusty knife.”

“Nay, chide him not, Lilias,” said the Lady of Avenel, “for, beshrew me, but I think he comes of gentle blood – see how it musters in his face at your injurious reproof.”

“Had I my will, madam,” answered Lilias, “a good birchen wand should make his colour muster to better purpose still.”

“On my word, Lilias,” said the Lady, “one would think you had received harm from the poor boy – or is he so far on the frosty side of your favour because he enjoys the sunny side of mine?”

“Over heavens forbode, my Lady!” answered Lilias; “I have lived too long with gentles, I praise my stars for it, to fight with either follies or fantasies, whether they relate to beast, bird, or boy.”

Lilias was a favourite in her own class, a spoiled domestic, and often accustomed to take more licence than her mistress was at all times willing to encourage. But what did not please the Lady of Avenel, she did not choose to hear, and thus it was on the present occasion. She resolved to look more close and sharply after the boy, who had hitherto been committed chiefly to the management of Lilias. He must, she thought, be born of gentle blood; it were shame to think otherwise of a form so noble, and features so fair; – the very wildness in which he occasionally indulged, his contempt of danger, and impatience of restraint, had in them something noble; – assuredly the child was born of high rank. Such was her conclusion, and she acted upon it accordingly. The domestics around her, less jealous, or less scrupulous than Lilias, acted as servants usually do, following the bias, and flattering, for their own purposes, the humour of the Lady; and the boy soon took on him those airs of superiority, which the sight of habitual deference seldom fails to inspire. It seemed, in truth, as if to command were his natural sphere, so easily did he use himself to exact and receive compliance with his humours. The chaplain, indeed, might have interposed to check the air of assumption which Roland Graeme so readily indulged, and most probably would have willingly rendered him that favour; but the necessity of adjusting with his brethren some disputed points of church discipline had withdrawn him for some time from the castle, and detained him in a distant part of the kingdom.

Matters stood thus in the castle of Avenel, when a winded bugle sent its shrill and prolonged notes from the shore of the lake, and was replied to cheerily by the signal of the warder. The Lady of Avenel knew the sounds of her husband, and rushed to the window of the apartment in which she was sitting. A band of about thirty spearmen, with a pennon displayed before them, winded along the indented shores of the lake, and approached the causeway. A single horseman rode at the head of the party, his bright arms catching a glance of the October sun as he moved steadily along. Even at that distance, the Lady recognized the lofty plume, bearing the mingled colours of her own liveries and those of Glendonwyne, blended with the holly-branch; and the firm seat and dignified demeanour of the rider, joined to the stately motion of the dark-brown steed, sufficiently announced Halbert Glendinning.

The Lady’s first thought was that of rapturous joy at her husband’s return – her second was connected with a fear which had sometimes intruded itself, that he might not altogether approve the peculiar distinction with which she had treated her orphan ward. In this fear there was implied a consciousness, that the favour she had shown him was excessive; for Halbert Glendinning was at least as gentle and indulgent, as he was firm and rational in the intercourse of his household; and to her in particular, his conduct had ever been most affectionately tender.

Yet she did fear, that, on the present occasion, her conduct might incur Sir Halbert’s censure; and hastily resolving that she would not mention, the anecdote of the boy until the next day, she ordered him to be withdrawn from the apartment by Lilias.

“I will not go with Lilias, madam,” answered the spoiled child, who had more than once carried his point by perseverance, and who, like his betters, delighted in the exercise of such authority, – “I will not go to Lilias’s gousty room – I will stay and see that brave warrior who comes riding so gallantly along the drawbridge.”

“You must not stay, Roland,” said the Lady, more positively than she usually spoke to her little favourite.

“I will,” reiterated the boy, who had already felt his consequence, and the probable chance of success.

“You will, Roland!” answered the Lady, “what manner of word is that? I tell you, you must go.”

“Will,” answered the forward boy, “is a word for a man, and must is no word for a lady.”

“You are saucy, sirrah,” said the Lady – “Lilias, take him with you instantly.”

“I always thought,” said Lilias, smiling, as she seized the reluctant boy by the arm, “that my young master must give place to my old one.”

“And you, too, are malapert, mistress!” said the Lady; “hath the moon changed, that ye all of you thus forget yourselves?”

Lilias made no reply, but led off the boy, who, too proud to offer unavailing resistance, darted at his benefactress a glance, which intimated plainly, how willingly he would have defied her authority, had he possessed the power to make good his point.

The Lady of Avenel was vexed to find how much this trifling circumstance had discomposed her, at the moment when she ought naturally to have been entirely engrossed by her husband’s return. But we do not recover composure by the mere feeling that agitation is mistimed. The glow of displeasure had not left the Lady’s cheek, her ruffled deportment was not yet entirely composed, when her husband, unhelmeted, but still wearing the rest of his arms, entered the apartment. His appearance banished the thoughts of every thing else; she rushed to him, clasped his iron-sheathed frame in her arms, and kissed his martial and manly face with an affection which was at once evident and sincere. The warrior returned her embrace and her caress with the same fondness; for the time which had passed since their union had diminished its romantic ardour, perhaps, but it had rather increased its rational tenderness, and Sir Halbert Glendinning’s long and frequent absences from his castle had prevented affection from degenerating by habit into indifference.