affected; though it might be doubted whether the feelings of triumph,
excited by the disgraceful retreat of the favourite page, did not
greatly qualify in the minds of many the exhortations of the preacher
to charity and to humility. And, in fact, the expression of their
countenances much resembled the satisfied triumphant air of a set of
children, who, having just seen a companion punished for a fault in
which they had no share, con their task with double glee, both because
they themselves are out of the scrape, and because the culprit is in it.
With very different feelings did the Lady of Avenel seek her own
apartment. She felt angry at Warden having made a domestic matter,
in which she took a personal interest, the subject of such public
discussion. But this she knew the good man claimed as a branch of his
Christian liberty as a preacher, and also that it was vindicated by the
universal custom of his brethren. But the self-willed conduct of her
protegé afforded her yet deeper concern. That he had broken through in
so remarkable a degree, not only the respect due to her presence, but
that which was paid to religious admonition in those days with such
peculiar reverence, argued a spirit as untameable as his enemies had
represented him to possess. And yet so far as he had been under her own
eye, she had seen no more of that fiery spirit than appeared to her to
become his years and his vivacity. This opinion might be founded in
some degree on partiality; in some degree, too, it might be owing to the
kindness and indulgence which she had always extended to him; but still
she thought it impossible that she could be totally mistaken in the
estimate she had formed of his character. The extreme of violence is
scarce consistent with a course of continued hypocrisy, (although Lilias
charitably hinted, that in some instances they were happily united,) and
there fore she could not exactly trust the report of others against her
own experience and observation. The thoughts of this orphan boy clung
to her heartstrings with a fondness for which she herself was unable to
account. He seemed to have been sent to her by Heaven, to fill up those
intervals of languor and vacuity which deprived her of much enjoyment.
Perhaps he was not less dear to her, because she well saw that he was
a favourite with no one else, and because she felt, that to give him up
was to afford the judgment of her husband and others a triumph over
her own; a circumstance not quite indifferent to the best of spouses of
either sex.
In short, the Lady of Avenel formed the internal resolution, that she
would not desert her page while her page could be rationally protected;
and, with a view of ascertaining how far this might be done, she caused
him to be summoned to her presence.
Chapter the Fifth.
--In the wild storm,
The seaman hews his mast down, and the merchant
Heaves to the billows wares he once deem'd precious;
So prince and peer, 'mid popular contentions,
Cast off their favourites.
OLD PLAY.
It was some time ere Roland Graeme appeared. The messenger (his old
friend Lilias) had at first attempted to open the door of his little
apartment with the charitable purpose, doubtless, of enjoying the
confusion, and marking the demeanour of the culprit. But an oblong bit
of iron, ycleped a bolt, was passed across the door on the inside, and
prevented her benign intentions. Lilias knocked and called at intervals.
“Roland--Roland Graeme--_Master_ Roland Graeme” (an emphasis on the word
Master,) “will you be pleased to undo the door?--What ails you?--are
you at your prayers in private, to complete the devotion which you left
unfinished in public?--Surely we must have a screened seat for you in
the chapel, that your gentility may be free from the eyes of common
folks!” Still no whisper was heard in reply. “Well, master Roland,” said
the waiting-maid, “I must tell my mistress, that if she would have an
answer, she must either come herself, or send those on errand to you who
can beat the door down.”
“What says your Lady?” answered the page from within.
“Marry, open the door, and you shall hear,” answered the waiting-maid.
“I trow it becomes my Lady's message to be listened to face to face; and
I will not for your idle pleasure, whistle it through a key-hole.”
“Your mistress's name,” said the page, opening the door, “is too fair a
cover for your impertinence--What says my Lady?”
“That you will be pleased to come to her directly, in the
withdrawing-room,” answered Lilias. “I presume she has some directions
for you concerning the forms to be observed in leaving chapel in
future.”
“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, and 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!” 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 and
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.”