THE ABBOT'S HOUSE.
Now gleams the moon on Arthur's mighty crest,
That dweller in the air abrupt and lone;
Hush'd is Edina in her nightly rest,
But hark! there comes a sweet and solemn tone,
The lingering strains that welled in ages gone.
The mind of Sir Patrick Gray was oppressed by vague doubts and
apprehensions of--he knew not what. That the earl and countess were
colder to him than when last they met he was painfully conscious by
their absurdly haughty bearing, by the increased timidity of Murielle,
and the undisguised petulance of her kinsman, perhaps her lover, the
young Lord David.
Gray's love for Murielle was now no secret to the earl's powerful
family, but being a poor younger son of the baron of Foulis, it was, as
he bitterly knew, a matter of jest among the Douglases; for his whole
inheritance were his sword and spurs, which he had won at the battle of
Piperden, where the English, under Henry, earl of Northumberland, were
defeated by the Scots under William Douglas, earl of Angus.
Moreover, Sir Patrick, by education, habit, and thought, was a staunch
and loyal adherent of the young king, James II., as he had been of his
father, who was so barbarously murdered at Perth; and thus, inspired
by love and doubt, hope and fear, presuming upon the friendship of the
abbot of Tongland, with whom he could "count kindred," through the
MacLellans of Bombie, he presented himself at his mansion in the dusk,
and was immediately ushered into the hall, or chamber of dais, where,
as supper was over, a brilliant group, or rather several groups, were
assembled.
The house of the abbot of Tongland (a wealthy monastery on the banks
of the Dee, founded during the reign of David I., by Fergus, lord of
Galloway, on his wedding the daughter of Henry, king of England,) was
a quaint edifice, one portion of which had crow-stepped gables, and
the other a battlement with singularly grotesque gurgoils, through the
gaping mouths of which the rain had been disgorged upon the passers-by
for centuries. An arch and great oak gate, furnished with a giant risp
or tirling-pin of iron, guarded by six loopholes of warlike aspect,
gave access to the house and its gardens, which sloped south towards
the craigs of Salisbury.
The usual quiet and seclusion of the abbot's mansion were changed on
this night for bustle, noise, and light; a crowd of pages, grooms,
lacqueys, and armed men led saddled horses to and fro, or loitered
about the entrance, while flakes of ruddy light fell through the deep
windows of the chamber of dais upon the green shrubbery and the few
flowers which still lingered since the last days of autumn.
This chamber was a veritable hall, such as might have graced a baron's
castle. It had many niches or ambres of carved stone, a vast gothic
fireplace, to the clustered pillars of which the fire-irons were
_chained_ in the old Scottish fashion, to prevent their being too
readily used in brawls, and on the lintel was inscribed, in antique
letters, the legend,--
Laus et honor Deo.
On the hearth a fire of coal and oak-roots from the Figgate-muir was
blazing cheerily.
In this chamber, the lordly abbot had feasted four years before the
papal legate, Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, bishop of Trieste, afterwards
Pope Pius II., and it was on that occasion that the latter so wittily
remarked, with an irreverent wink to the abbot of Melrose, "that if
there was a great reason for prohibiting the marriage of priests, there
was a much greater for _permitting_ it."
The doors were oak carved with legends and monograms; the floor
also was of oak, roughly dressed with the hatchet and secured with
broad-headed nails, all the bright heads of which were visible, as it
was not carpetted, but only strewn with fresh rushes from the Hunter's
Bog. The walls were comfortably wainscotted up to where the vaulted
roof rose in the form of an arch, and there the stone-work was covered
by distorted figures, representing old legends connected with the abbey
of Tongland.
The sleek and portly abbot was seated near the fire in a lofty chair,
the back of which bore a carved mitre, and he was conversing easily and
pleasantly with all his guests in turn, for he was a benign and amiable
old prelate with a bald head, a rubicund and somewhat unmeaning visage,
and twinkling eyes half hidden by wrinkles and fat.
Two chairs of state opposite were occupied by the earl and countess of
Douglas. On tabourettes near them were seated Murielle and a group of
ladies. Several gentlemen all richly dressed were loitering near them,
for they were conversing gaily and variously employed--at chess, or the
game of Troy; and on the silks, velvets, jewels, and cloth of gold and
silver, of which their costumes were composed, the glow of the fire
fell brightly, together with the light of twenty great candles, which
flared in sconces of brass hung round the walls on tenter-hooks.
The stomacher of the countess-duchess was entirely covered with native
pearls, for those found in the Scottish streams were held to be of
great value. Among the costly jewels lost by Henry V., when his camp
was plundered at Agincourt, Rymer mentions _una perula Scotiæ_; and
only a few years before the date of our story, James I presented to
Æneas Sylvius, the Roman legate, _one_, which is now in the papal crown.
Before her sweet face, pretty Murielle was manoeuvring her fan, quite
as skilfully as any of her countrywomen might do at the present day;
and through the sticks of it, her merry and soft violet eyes peeped
from time to time at a handsome and soldier-like man, who wore a
crimson velvet pourpoint, with a steel gorget, a gold belt, and hanging
sleeves of yellow silk. He was Sir Patrick Gray, the captain of the
guard. While talking gravely of "the growing heresies of John Huss and
Paul Crawer," he seemed to be entirely occupied with the countess of
Ormond, before whom he knelt on one knee, and for whom he was winding
and unwinding several balls of brightly coloured silk and golden
thread, which she was using while embroidering a missal cover, for
the ladies of those days were never idle; but in his abstraction, or
pre-occupation with Murielle, he made many a provoking knot, which the
little white fingers of the lovely countess required all their cunning
to unravel.
His love for Murielle had brought him hither uninvited; and he felt
(like his kinsman, MacLellan) that he was among the enemies of the
king his master, and of the government; while the coldness with which
the boy-noble and the girl-countess treated him filled his heart with
sorrow and anger.
The scraps of conversation he heard all savoured of hostility to James
and to his ministers, with dark hints of daring and ulterior political
projects, as yet undeveloped and apparently obscure.
He was aware that Earl James of Abercorn, Earl Hugh of Ormond, Sir
Malcolm Fleming, Sir Alan Lauder, and other kinsmen of the Douglases
viewed him with undisguised aversion; and while he continued to play
with the balls of thread, and utter pleasant commonplaces to the ladies
near, those four personages were standing aloof in a corner, leaning on
their swords, which were somewhere about five feet long, "nursing their
wrath to keep it warm," and wishing they had the captain of the king's
guard on a solitary hill-side, or even in the street without.
"And this Livingstone--I beg pardon, _Sir_ Alexander Livingstone, Laird
of Callender--a mere baron," he heard the earl of Douglas say to the
abbot; "by what warrant or right is such a man as _he_ regent of the
realm?"
"I have heard your noble father ask the same question often, with the
same tone--ay, and with the same sombre gloom in his eye, my lord,"
replied the abbot evasively.
"Well--know you by what right?" reiterated the young noble bitterly,
giving vent to the hatred his dead father had carefully and unceasingly
inspired and fostered.
"Is it hereditary?" asked the abbot gently.
"Assuredly not."
"Then how came Livingstone to have the regency?"
"'Twas given by parliament and the nation."
"Hence his _right_," said the abbot, smiling at obtaining the very
reply he wished; but the petulant young earl rasped the rowels of his
gold spurs furiously on the hearth, for these quiet answers from the
"keeper of his conscience" galled and fretted him.
"Well, the time is come for the nobles, the barons, and others to
reconsider that too-hastily given right," said the countess; "for what
is he, or what is this Lord Chancellor, that earls and chiefs are to
veil their bonnets in their presence?"
The abbot, who dreaded the violence of the young countess more than
the temper of her husband (who was not exactly a lamb), was prudently
silent; but she was determined to force an answer from him, and said
bluntly, "Speak, abbot, you are silent!"
"Pardon me, lady, I was thinking of Plutarch. Know you what he said?"
"How should I know, Lord Abbot," said Margaret, while her black eyes
sparkled with annoyance; "was he a heretic like Paul Crawer, or a
magician like Michael Scott, with an urchin or prickly hedgehog for a
familiar?"
"Why ask you all this?" "Because the name sounds cabalistic to a
Scottish ear," said Margaret, crossing and fanning herself.
"He was a scholar--and yet an unfortunate pagan, for he knew not of St.
Nicholas, the patron of scholars."
"But _what_ said he?"
"That '_love and hatred corrupt the truth of everything_,' and he
thought profoundly, madam, for verily they do. Yet if our holy father
at Rome will but listen to my prayer, ere long hatred and evil shall
exist on earth no more; but all men shall live and die in peace and
goodwill one with another--even unto the end of time."
The young earl smiled disdainfully, and relapsed into gloomy silence,
for he knew that his father confessor referred to a strange project
which he had long cherished, and concerning which he had seriously
pestered the late Roman Legate, Æneas Sylvius--that the Pope Eugene
IV., as head of the Church and "vicegerent of heaven upon earth," would
intercede for the fallen angel, to have him forgiven and received once
more into divine favour, to the sublime end that all evil in the world
would henceforth cease; for the good old clergyman, in his largeness of
heart, like his poetic countryman in after years, felt that he could
even forgive the devil, when he thought
Auld Nickey Ben,
Maybe ye'll tak a thocht and mend.
But poor Pope Eugene was too much bothered and embroiled by the
untractable council of Basle, to attend at that time to the mighty
crotchets of the abbot of Tongland.
"Patience yet awhile, my son," said the benevolent abbot, crossing
to the young earl and caressing his curly black hair; "when I have
the Master of Evil forgiven, and restored to the place from whence he
fell, the lusts of the flesh will be effectually prevented from warring
against the spirit of grace. _Sit nomen Domini benedictum!_"
But the earl remained obstinately silent, with his dark eyes fixed on
the fire, as if the gloomy future might be traced amid its glowing
embers.
His kinsman, John of Abercorn, smiled coldly, for by _his_ secret
connivance many said this visit to the court had been planned; while
the grim and turbulent lairds of Biggar and the Bass grasped their
long swords with an air that seemed to say, the peaceful and holy
days of the abbot's hopes were yet a long way off, and that the devil
was likely, as he has ever done, to poke his nose for a long time in
Scottish affairs; but a sad and sombre frown was in their eyes, for
this journey of their chief to Edinburgh had been undertaken in direct
opposition to all their entreaties, advice, and forebodings.