resisting the efforts of Woodcock, who was dragging him out of the
church; when the quick military eye of Sir Halbert Glendinning detecting
Roland Graeme betwixt his two guards, the Knight exclaimed, “So ho!
falconer,--Woodcock,--knave, hast thou brought my Lady's page in mine
own livery, to assist at this hopeful revel of thine, with your wolves
and bears? Since you were at such mummings, you might, if you would,
have at least saved the credit of my household, by dressing him up as a
jackanapes--bring him hither, fellows!”
Adam Woodcock was too honest and downright, to permit blame to light
upon the youth, when it was undeserved. “I swear,” he said, “by Saint
Martin of Bullions--” [Footnote: The Saint Swithin, or weeping Saint of
Scotland. If his festival (fourth July) prove wet, forty days of rain
are expected.]
“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 worshipful 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 Woodcock, 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 washing
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 Woodcock.”
“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, Woodcock,--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 Woodcock, and the jolly crew whom he had assembled 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 title, 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 gratitude, 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 gratitude 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 entitled 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 shield 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 fishings, 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 hither 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 cumber 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 latitudinarian 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.”
He was turning to depart, when the Abbot said,--“Let us not yet part, my
brother--here comes some light refreshment. Leave not the house which I
must now call mine, till force expel me from it, until you have at least
broken bread with me.”
The poor lay brother, the same who acted as porter, now entered the
apartment, bearing some simple refreshment, and a flask of wine. “He had
found it,” he said with officious humility, “by rummaging through every
nook of the cellar.”
The Knight filled a small silver cup, and, quaffing it off, asked his
brother to pledge him, observing, the wine was Bacharac, of the first
vintage, and great age.
“Ay,” said the poor lay brother, “it came out of the nook which old
brother Nicholas, (may his soul be happy!) was wont to call Abbot
Ingelram's corner; and Abbot Ingelram was bred at the Convent of
Wurtzburg, which I understand to be near where that choice wine grows.”
“True, my reverend sir,” said Sir Halbert; “and therefore I entreat my
brother and you to pledge me in a cup of this orthodox vintage.”
The thin old porter looked with a wishful glance towards the Abbot. “_Do
veniam_,” said his Superior; and the old man seized, with a trembling
hand, a beverage to which he had been long unaccustomed; drained the cup
with protracted delight, as if dwelling on the flavour and perfume, and
set it down with a melancholy smile and shake of the head, as if bidding
adieu in future to such delicious potations. The brothers smiled. But
when Sir Halbert motioned to the Abbot to take up his cup and do him
reason, the Abbot, in turn, shook his head, and replied--“This is no
day for the Abbot of Saint Mary's to eat the fat and drink the sweat.
In water from our Lady's well,” he added, filling a cup with the limpid
element, “I wish you, brother, all happiness, and above all, a true
sight of your spiritual errors.”
“And to you, my beloved Edward,” replied Glendinning, “I wish the free
exercise of your own free reason, and the discharge of more important
duties than are connected with the idle name which you have so rashly
assumed.”
The brothers parted with deep regret; and yet, each confident in his
opinion, felt somewhat relieved by the absence of one whom he respected
so much, and with whom he could agree so little.
Soon afterwards the sound of the Knight of Avenel's trumpets was heard,
and the Abbot went to the top of the tower, from whose dismantled
battlements he could soon see the horsemen ascending the rising ground
in the direction of the drawbridge. As he gazed, Magdalen Graeme came to
his side.
“Thou art come,” he said, “to catch the last glimpse of thy grandson,
my sister. Yonder he wends, under the charge of the best knight in
Scotland, his faith ever excepted.”
“Thou canst bear witness, my father, that it was no wish either of
mine or of Roland's,” replied the matron, “which induced the Knight
of Avenel, as he is called, again to entertain my grandson in his
household--Heaven, which confounds the wise with their own wisdom,
and the wicked with their own policy, hath placed him where, for the
services of the Church, I would most wish him to be.”
“I know not what you mean, my sister,” said the Abbot.
“Reverend father,” replied Magdalen, “hast thou never heard that there
are spirits powerful to rend the walls of a castle asunder when once
admitted, which yet cannot enter the house unless they are invited, nay,
dragged over the threshold?
[Footnote: There is a popular belief respecting evil spirits, that they
cannot enter an inhabited house unless invited, nay, dragged over the
threshold. There is an instance of the same superstition in the Tales of
the Genii, where an enchanter is supposed to have intruded himself into
the Divan of the Sultan.
“'Thus,' said the illustrious Misnar, 'let the enemies of Mahomet be
dismayed! but inform me, O ye sages! under the semblance of which of
your brethren did that foul enchanter gain admittance here?'--'May the
lord of my heart,' answered Balihu, the hermit of the faithful from
Queda, 'triumph over all his foes! As I travelled on the mountains from
Queda, and saw neither the footsteps of beasts, nor the flight of birds,
behold, I chanced to pass through a cavern, in whose hollow sides I
found this accursed sage, to whom I unfolded the invitation of the
Sultan of India, and we, joining, journeyed towards the Divan; but ere
we entered, he said unto me. 'Put thy hand forth, and pull me towards
thee into the Divan, calling on the name of Mahomet, for the evil
spirits are on me and vex me.'”
I have understood that many parts of these fine tales, and in particular
that of the Sultan Misnar, were taken from genuine Oriental sources by
the editor, Mr. James Ridley.
But the most picturesque use of this popular belief occurs in
Coleridge's beautiful and tantalizing fragment of Christabel. Has not
our own imaginative poet cause to fear that future ages will desire to
summon him from his place of rest, as Milton longed
“To call him up, who left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold?”
The verses I refer to are when Christabel conducts into her father's
castle a mysterious and malevolent being, under the guise of a
distressed female stranger.
'They cross'd the moat, and Christabel
Took the key that fitted well;
A little door she open'd straight,
All in the middle of the gate;
The gate that was iron'd within and without,
Where an army in battle array had march'd out.
“The lady sank, belike through pain,
And Christabel with might and main
Lifted her up, a weary weight,
Over the threshold of the gate:
Then the lady rose again,
And moved as she were not in pain.
“So free from danger, free from fear,
They cross'd the court;--right glad they were,
And Christabel devoutly cried
To the lady by her side:
'Praise we the Virgin, all divine,
Who hath rescued thee from this distress.'
'Alas, alas!' said Geraldine,
'I cannot speak from weariness.'
So free from danger, free from fear,
They cross'd the court: right glad they were
]
Twice hath Roland Graeme been thus drawn into the household of Avenel by
those who now hold the title. Let them look to the issue.”
So saying she left the turret; and the Abbot, after pausing a moment on
her words, which he imputed to the unsettled state of her mind, followed
down the winding stair to celebrate his admission to his high office by
fast and prayer instead of revelling and thanksgiving.
Chapter the Sixteenth.
Youth! thou wear'st to manhood now,
Darker lip and darker brow,
Statelier step, more pensive mien,
In thy face and gate are seen:
Thou must now brook midnight watches,
Take thy food and sport by snatches;
For the gambol and the jest,
Thou wert wont to love the best,
Graver follies must thou follow,
But as senseless, false, and hollow.
LIFE, A POEM.
Young Roland Graeme now trotted gaily forward in the train of
Sir Halbert Glendinning. He was relieved from his most galling
apprehension,--the encounter of the scorn and taunt which might possibly
hail his immediate return to the Castle of Avenel. “There will be a
change ere they see me again,” he thought to himself; “I shall wear the
coat of plate, instead of the green jerkin, and the steel morion for the
bonnet and feather. They will be bold that may venture to break a gibe
on the man-at-arms for the follies of the page; and I trust, that ere we
return I shall have done something more worthy of note than hallooing
a hound after a deer, or scrambling a crag for a kite's nest.” He
could not, indeed, help marvelling that his grandmother, with all her
religious prejudices, leaning, it would seem, to the other side, had
consented so readily to his re-entering the service of the House of
Avenel; and yet more, at the mysterious joy with which she took leave of
him at the Abbey.
“Heaven,” said the dame, as she kissed her young relation, and bade him
farewell, “works its own work, even by the hands of those of our enemies
who think themselves the strongest and the wisest. Thou, my child, be
ready to act upon the call of thy religion and country; and remember,
each earthly bond which thou canst form is, compared to the ties which
bind thee to them, like the loose flax to the twisted cable. Thou hast
not forgot the face or form of the damsel Catherine Seyton?”
Roland would have replied in the negative, but the word seemed to stick
in his throat and Magdalen continued her exhortations.
“Thou must not forget her, my son; and here I intrust thee with a token,
which I trust thou wilt speedily find an opportunity of delivering with
care and secrecy into her own hand.”
She put here into Roland's hand a very small packet, of which she again
enjoined him to take the strictest care, and to suffer it to be seen
by no one save Catherine Seyton, who, she again (very unnecessarily)
reminded him, was the young lady he had met on the preceding day. She
then bestowed on him her solemn benediction, and bade God speed him.