“my arm has been foremost in every strife--my voice has been heard in
every council, nor have the wisest rebuked me. The crafty Lethington,
the deep and dark Morton, have held secret council with me, and Grange
and Lindsay have owned, that in the field I did the devoir of a gallant
knight--but let the emergence be passed when they need my head and hand,
and they only know me as son of the obscure portioner of Glendearg.”
This was a theme which the Lady always dreaded; for the rank conferred
on her husband, the favour in which he was held by the powerful Earl of
Murray, and the high talents by which he vindicated his right to
that rank and that favour, were qualities which rather increased than
diminished the envy which was harboured against Sir Halbert Glendinning
among a proud aristocracy, as a person originally of inferior and
obscure birth, who had risen to his present eminence solely by his
personal merit. The natural firmness of his mind did not enable him to
despise the ideal advantages of a higher pedigree, which were held in
such universal esteem by all with whom he conversed; and so open are
the noblest minds to jealous inconsistencies, that there were moments in
which he felt mortified that his lady should possess those advantages
of birth and high descent which he himself did not enjoy, and regretted
that his importance as the proprietor of Avenel was qualified by his
possessing it only as the husband of the heiress. He was not so unjust
as to permit any unworthy feelings to retain permanent possession of his
mind, but yet they recurred from time to time, and did not escape his
lady's anxious observation.
“Had we been blessed with children,” she was wont on such occasions
to say to herself, “had our blood been united in a son who might have
joined my advantages of descent with my husband's personal worth, these
painful and irksome reflections had not disturbed our union even for a
moment. But the existence of such an heir, in whom our affections, as
well as our pretensions, might have centred, has been denied to us.”
With such mutual feelings, it cannot be wondered that it gave the
Lady pain to hear her husband verging towards this topic of mutual
discontent. On the present, as on other similar occasions, she
endeavoured to divert the knight's thoughts from this painful channel.
“How can you,” she said, “suffer yourself to dwell upon things which
profit nothing? Have you indeed no name to uphold? You, the good and the
brave, the wise in council, and the strong in battle, have you not
to support the reputation your own deeds have won, a reputation more
honourable than mere ancestry can supply? Good men love and honour you,
the wicked fear, and the turbulent obey you; and is it not necessary you
should exert yourself to ensure the endurance of that love, that honour,
and wholesome fear, and that necessary obedience?”
As she thus spoke, the eye of her husband caught from hers courage and
comfort, and it lightened as he took her hand and replied, “It is
most true, my Mary, and I deserve thy rebuke, who forget what I am, in
repining because I am not what I cannot be. I am now what the most famed
ancestors of those I envy were, the mean man raised into eminence by
his own exertions; and sure it is a boast as honourable to have those
capacities which are necessary to the foundation of a family, as to be
descended from one who possessed them some centuries before. The Hay of
Loncarty, who bequeathed his bloody yoke to his lineage,--the 'dark gray
man,' who first founded the house of Douglas, had yet less of ancestry
to boast than I have. For thou knowest, Mary, that my name derives
itself from a line of ancient warriors, although my immediate
forefathers preferred the humble station in which thou didst first
find them; and war and counsel are not less proper to the house of
Glendonwyne, even, in its most remote descendants, than to the proudest
of their baronage.” [Footnote: This was a house of ancient descent and
superior consequence, including persons who fought at Bannockburn and
Otterburn, and closely connected by alliance and friendship with the
great Earls of Douglas. The Knight in this story argues as most Scotsmen
would do in his situation, for all of the same clan are popularly
considered as descended from the same stock, and as having a right to
the ancestral honor of the chief branch. This opinion, though sometimes
ideal, is so strong even at this day of innovation, that it may be
observed as a national difference between my countrymen and the English.
If you ask an Englishman of good birth, whether a person of the same
name be connected with him, he answers (if _in dubio._) “No--he is a
mere namesake.” Ask a similar question of a Scot, (I mean a Scotsman,)
he replies--“He is one of our clan; I daresay there is a relationship,
though I do not know how distant.” The Englishman thinks of
discountenancing a species of rivalry in society; the Scotsman's answer
is grounded on the ancient idea of strengthening the clan.]
He strode across the hall as he spoke; and the Lady smiled internally
to observe how much his mind dwelt upon the prerogatives of birth, and
endeavoured to establish his claims, however remote, to a share in them,
at the very moment when he affected to hold them in contempt. It will
easily be guessed, however, that she permitted no symptom to escape
her that could show she was sensible of the weakness of her husband, a
perspicacity which perhaps his proud spirit could not very easily have
brooked.
As he returned from the extremity of the hall, to which he had stalked
while in the act of vindicating the title of the house of Glendonwyne in
its most remote branches to the full privileges of aristocracy, “Where,”
he said, “is Wolf? I have not seen him since my return, and he was
usually the first to welcome my home-coming.”
“Wolf,” said the Lady, with a slight degree of embarrassment, for which
perhaps, she would have found it difficult to assign any reason even to
herself, “Wolf is chained up for the present. He hath been surly to my
page.”
“Wolf chained up--and Wolf surly to your page!” answered Sir Halbert
Glendinning; “Wolf never was surly to any one; and the chain will either
break his spirit or render him savage--So ho, there--set Wolf free
directly.”
He was obeyed; and the huge dog rushed into the hall, disturbing, by his
unwieldy and boisterous gambols, the whole economy of reels, rocks, and
distaffs, with which the maidens of the household were employed when the
arrival of their lord was a signal to them to withdraw, and extracting
from Lilias, who was summoned to put them again in order, the natural
observation, “That the Laird's pet was as troublesome as the lady's
page.”
“And who is this page, Mary?” said the Knight, his attention again
called to the subject by the observation of the waiting-woman,--“Who
is this page, whom every one seems to weigh in the balance with my
old friend and favourite, Wolf?--When did you aspire to the dignity of
keeping a page, or who is the boy?”
“I trust, my Halbert,” said the Lady, not without a blush, “you will
not think your wife entitled to less attendance than other ladies of her
quality?”
“Nay, Dame Mary,” answered the Knight, “it is enough you desire such
an attendant.--Yet I have never loved to nurse such useless menials--a
lady's page--it may well suit the proud English dames to have a slender
youth to bear their trains from bower to hall, fan them when they
slumber, and touch the lute for them when they please to listen; but our
Scottish matrons were wont to be above such vanities, and our Scottish
youth ought to be bred to the spear and the stirrup.”
“Nay, but, my husband,” said the Lady, “I did but jest when I called
this boy my page; he is in sooth a little orphan whom we saved from
perishing in the lake, and whom I have since kept in the castle out of
charity.--Lilias, bring little Roland hither.”
Roland entered accordingly, and, flying to the Lady's side, took hold
of the plaits of her gown, and then turned round, and gazed with
an attention not unmingled with fear, upon the stately form of the
Knight.--“Roland,” said the Lady, “go kiss the hand of the noble Knight,
and ask him to be thy protector.”--But Roland obeyed not, and, keeping
his station, continued to gaze fixedly and timidly on Sir Halbert
Glendinning.--“Go to the Knight, boy,” said the Lady; “what dost thou
fear, child? Go, kiss Sir Halbert's hand.”
“I will kiss no hand save yours, Lady,” answered the boy.
“Nay, but do as you are commanded, child,” replied the Lady.--“He is
dashed by your presence,” she said, apologizing to her husband; “but is
he not a handsome boy?”
“And so is Wolf,” said Sir Halbert, as he patted his huge four-footed
favourite, “a handsome dog; but he has this double advantage over your
new favourite, that he does what he is commanded, and hears not when he
is praised.”
“Nay, now you are displeased with me,” replied the Lady; “and yet why
should you be so? There is nothing wrong in relieving the distressed
orphan, or in loving that which is in itself lovely and deserving of
affection. But you have seen Mr. Warden at Edinburgh, and he has set you
against the poor boy.”
“My dear Mary,” answered her husband, “Mr. Warden better knows his place
than to presume to interfere either in your affairs or mine. I neither
blame your relieving this boy, nor your kindness for him. But, I think,
considering his birth and prospects, you ought not to treat him with
injudicious fondness, which can only end in rendering him unfit for the
humble situation to which Heaven has designed him.”
“Nay, but, my Halbert, do but look at the boy,” said the Lady, “and see
whether he has not the air of being intended by Heaven for something
nobler than a mere peasant. May he not be designed, as others have been,
to rise out of a humble situation into honour and eminence?”
Thus far had she proceeded, when the consciousness that she was treading
upon delicate ground at once occurred to her, and induced her to take
the most natural, but the worst of all courses in such occasions,
whether in conversation or in an actual bog, namely, that of stopping
suddenly short in the illustration which she had commenced. Her brow
crimsoned, and that of Sir Halbert Glendinning was slightly overcast.
But it was only for an instant; for he was incapable of mistaking his
lady's meaning, or supposing that she meant intentional disrespect to
him.
“Be it as you please, my love,” he replied; “I owe you too much to
contradict you in aught which may render your solitary mode of life
more endurable. Make of this youth what you will, and you have my
full authority for doing so. But remember he is your charge, not
mine--remember he hath limbs to do man's service, a soul and a tongue
to worship God; breed him, therefore, to be true to his country and to
Heaven; and for the rest, dispose of him as you list--it is, and shall
rest, your own matter.”
This conversation decided the fate of Roland Graeme, who from
thence-forward was little noticed by the master of the mansion of
Avenel, but indulged and favoured by its mistress.
This situation led to many important consequences, and, in truth, tended
to bring forth the character of the youth in all its broad lights and
deep shadows. As the Knight himself seemed tacitly to disclaim alike
interest and control over the immediate favourite of his lady, young
Roland was, by circumstances, exempted from the strict discipline to
which, as the retainer of a Scottish man of rank, he would otherwise
have been subjected, according to all the rigour of the age. But the
steward, or master of the household--such was the proud title assumed
by the head domestic of each petty baron--deemed it not advisable to
interfere with the favourite of the Lady, and especially since she had
brought the estate into the present family. Master Jasper Wingate was a
man experienced, as he often boasted, in the ways of great families, and
knew how to keep the steerage even when the wind and tide chanced to be
in contradiction.
This prudent personage winked at much, and avoided giving opportunity
for farther offence, by requesting little of Roland Graeme beyond
the degree of attention which he was himself disposed to pay; rightly
conjecturing, that however lowly the place which the youth might hold in
the favour of the Knight of Avenel, still to make an evil report of
him would make an enemy of the Lady, without securing the favour of her
husband. With these prudential considerations, and doubtless not without
an eye to his own ease and convenience, he taught the boy as much, and
only as much, as he chose to learn, readily admitting whatever apology
it pleased his pupil to allege in excuse for idleness or negligence.
As the other persons in the castle, to whom such tasks were delegated,
readily imitated the prudential conduct of the major-domo, there was
little control used towards Roland Graeme, who, of course, learned no
more than what a very active mind, and a total impatience of absolute
idleness led him to acquire upon his own account, and by dint of his
own exertions. The latter were especially earnest, when the Lady herself
condescended to be his tutress, or to examine his progress.
It followed also from his quality as my Lady's favourite, that Roland
was viewed with no peculiar good-will by the followers of the Knight,
many of whom, of the same age, and apparently similar origin, with the
fortunate page, were subjected to severe observance of the ancient and
rigorous discipline of a feudal retainer. To these, Roland Graeme was
of course an object of envy, and, in consequence, of dislike and
detraction; but the youth possessed qualities which it was impossible
to depreciate. Pride, and a sense of early ambition, did for him what
severity and constant instruction did for others. In truth, the youthful
Roland displayed that early flexibility both of body and mind, which
renders exercise, either mental or bodily, rather matter of sport than
of study; and it seemed as if he acquired accidentally, and by starts,
those accomplishments, which earnest and constant instruction, enforced
by frequent reproof and occasional chastisement, had taught to others.
Such military exercises, such lessons of the period, as he found it
agreeable or convenient to apply to, he learned so perfectly, as
to confound those who were ignorant how often the want of constant
application is compensated by vivacity of talent and ardent enthusiasm.
The lads, therefore, who were more regularly trained to arms, to
horsemanship, and to other necessary exercises of the period, while they
envied Roland Graeme the indulgence or negligence with which he
seemed to be treated, had little reason to boast of their own superior
acquirements; a few hours, with the powerful exertion of a most
energetic will, seemed to do for him more than the regular instruction
of weeks could accomplish for others.
Under these advantages, if, indeed, they were to be termed such,
the character of young Roland began to develope itself. It was bold,
peremptory, decisive, and overbearing; generous, if neither withstood
nor contradicted; vehement and passionate, if censured or opposed. He
seemed to consider himself as attached to no one, and responsible to
no one, except his mistress, and even over her mind he had gradually
acquired that species of ascendancy which indulgence is so apt to
occasion. And although the immediate followers and dependents of Sir
Halbert Glendinning saw his ascendancy with jealousy, and often took
occasion to mortify his vanity, there wanted not those who were willing
to acquire the favour of the Lady of Avenel by humouring and taking part
with the youth whom she protected; for although a favourite, as the poet
assures us, has no friend, he seldom fails to have both followers and
flatterers.
The partisans of Roland Graeme were chiefly to be found amongst the
inhabitants of the little hamlet on the shore of the lake. These
villagers, who were sometimes tempted to compare their own situation
with that of the immediate and constant followers of the Knight, who
attended him on his frequent journeys to Edinburgh and elsewhere,
delighted in considering and representing themselves as more properly
the subjects of the Lady of Avenel than of her husband. It is true, her
wisdom and affection on all occasions discountenanced the distinction
which was here implied; but the villagers persisted in thinking it must
be agreeable to her to enjoy their peculiar and undivided homage, or at
least in acting as if they thought so; and one chief mode by which they
evinced their sentiments, was by the respect they paid to young Roland
Graeme, the favourite attendant of the descendant of their ancient
lords. This was a mode of flattery too pleasing to encounter rebuke or
censure; and the opportunity which it afforded the youth to form, as
it were, a party of his own within the limits of the ancient barony
of Avenel, added not a little to the audacity and decisive tone of a
character, which was by nature bold, impetuous, and incontrollable.
Of the two members of the household who had manifested an early jealousy
of Roland Graeme, the prejudices of Wolf were easily overcome; and in
process of time the noble dog slept with Bran, Luath, and the celebrated
hounds of ancient days. But Mr. Warden, the chaplain, lived, and
retained his dislike to the youth. That good man, single-minded and
benevolent as he really was, entertained rather more than a reasonable
idea of the respect due to him as a minister, and exacted from the
inhabitants of the castle more deference than the haughty young page,
proud of his mistress's favour, and petulant from youth and situation,
was at all times willing to pay. His bold and free demeanour, his
attachment to rich dress and decoration, his inaptitude to receive
instruction, and his hardening himself against rebuke, were
circumstances which induced the good old man, with more haste than
charity, to set the forward page down as a vessel of wrath, and to
presage that the youth nursed that pride and haughtiness of spirit which
goes before ruin and destruction. On the other hand, Roland evinced
at times a marked dislike, and even something like contempt, of
the chaplain. Most of the attendants and followers of Sir Halbert
Glendinning entertained the same charitable thoughts as the reverend
Mr. Warden; but while Roland was favoured by their lady, and endured by
their lord, they saw no policy in making their opinions public.
Roland Graeme was sufficiently sensible of the unpleasant situation in
which he stood; but in the haughtiness of his heart he retorted upon the
other domestics the distant, cold, and sarcastic manner in which they
treated him, assumed an air of superiority which compelled the most
obstinate to obedience, and had the satisfaction at least to be dreaded,
if he was heartily hated.
The chaplain's marked dislike had the effect of recommending him to
the attention of Sir Halbert's brother, Edward, who now, under the
conventual appellation of Father Ambrose, continued to be one of the
few monks who, with the Abbot Eustatius, had, notwithstanding the nearly
total downfall of their faith under the regency of Murray, been still
permitted to linger in the cloisters at Kennaquhair. Respect to Sir
Halbert had prevented their being altogether driven out of the Abbey,
though their order was now in a great measure suppressed, and they were
interdicted the public exercise of their ritual, and only allowed for
their support a small pension out of their once splendid revenues.
Father Ambrose, thus situated, was an occasional, though very rare
visitant, at the Castle of Avenel, and was at such times observed to pay
particular attention to Roland Graeme, who seemed to return it with more
depth of feeling than consisted with his usual habits.
Thus situated, years glided on, during which the Knight of Avenel
continued to act a frequent and important part in the convulsions of his
distracted country; while young Graeme anticipated, both in wishes and
personal accomplishments, the age which should enable him to emerge from
the obscurity of his present situation.
Chapter the Fourth.
Amid their cups that freely flow'd,
Their revelry and mirth,
A youthful lord tax'd Valentine
With base and doubtful birth.
VALENTINE AND ORSON.
When Roland Graeme was a youth about seventeen years of age, he
chanced one summer morning to descend to the mew in which Sir Halbert
Glendinning kept his hawks, in order to superintend the training of an
eyas, or young hawk, which he himself, at the imminent risk of neck and
limbs, had taken from the celebrated eyry in the neighborhood, called
Gledscraig. As he was by no means satisfied with the attention which had
been bestowed on his favourite bird, he was not slack in testifying his
displeasure to the falconer's lad, whose duty it was to have attended
upon it.
“What, ho! sir knave,” exclaimed Roland, “is it thus you feed the
eyas with unwashed meat, as if you were gorging the foul brancher of a
worthless hoodie-crow? by the mass, and thou hast neglected its castings
also for these two days! Think'st thou I ventured my neck to bring the
bird down from the crag, that thou shouldst spoil him by thy neglect?”
And to add force to his remonstrances, he conferred a cuff or two on the
negligent attendant of the hawks, who, shouting rather louder than was
necessary under all the circumstances, brought the master falconer to
his assistance.
Adam Woodcock, the falconer of Avenel, was an Englishman by birth, but
so long in the service of Glendinning, that he had lost much of his
notional attachment in that which he had formed to his master. He was
a favourite in his department, jealous and conceited of his skill, as
masters of the game usually are; for the rest of his character he was
a jester and a parcel poet, (qualities which by no means abated his
natural conceit,) a jolly fellow, who, though a sound Protestant, loved
a flagon of ale better than a long sermon, a stout man of his hands
when need required, true to his master, and a little presuming on his
interest with him.
Adam Woodcock, such as we have described him, by no means relished the
freedom used by young Graeme, in chastising his assistant. “Hey, hey,
my Lady's page,” said he, stepping between his own boy and Roland, “fair
and softly, an it like your gilt jacket--hands off is fair play--if my
boy has done amiss, I can beat him myself, and then you may keep your
hands soft.”
“I will beat him and thee too,” answered Roland, without hesitation, “an
you look not better after your business. See how the bird is cast away
between you. I found the careless lurdane feeding him with unwashed
flesh, and she an eyas.” [Footnote: There is a difference amongst
authorities how long the nestling hawk should be fed with flesh which
has previously been washed.]
“Go to,” said the falconer, “thou art but an eyas thyself, child
Roland.--What knowest thou of feeding? I say that the eyas should have
her meat unwashed, until she becomes a brancher--'twere the ready way
to give her the frounce, to wash her meat sooner, and so knows every one
who knows a gled from a falcon.”
“It is thine own laziness, thou false English blood, that dost nothing
but drink and sleep,” retorted the page, “and leaves that lither lad to
do the work, which he minds as little as thou.”
“And am I so idle then,” said the falconer, “that have three cast of
hawks to look after, at perch and mew, and to fly them in the field
to boot?--and is my Lady's page so busy a man that he must take me
up short?--and am I of false English blood?--I marvel what blood thou
art--neither Englander nor Scot--fish nor flesh--a bastard from the
Debateable Land, without either kith, kin, or ally!--Marry, out upon
thee, foul kite, that would fain be a tercel gentle!”