The Abbot

“Marry,” replied the culprit, “because I judge that your honour will not think the cold bath necessary for my complaints.”

“A pestilent jade,” said the Doctor, whispering to Roland Graeme; “and I’ll warrant her a good one – her voice is as sweet as sirup. – But, my pretty maiden,” said he, “you show us wonderful little of that countenance of yours – be pleased to throw aside your muffler.”

“I trust your honour will excuse me till we are more private,” answered the maiden; “for I have acquaintance, and I should like ill to be known in the country as the poor girl whom that scurvy knave put his jest upon.”

“Fear nothing for thy good name, my sweet little modicum of candied manna,” replied the Doctor, “for I protest to you, as I am Chamberlain of Lochleven, Kinross, and so forth, that the chaste Susanna herself could not have snuffed that elixir without sternutation, being in truth a curious distillation of rectified acetum, or vinegar of the sun, prepared by mine own hands – Wherefore, as thou sayest thou wilt come to me in private, and express thy contrition for the offence whereof thou hast been guilty, I command that all for the present go forward as if no such interruption of the prescribed course had taken place.”

The damsel curtsied and tripped back to her place. The play proceeded, but it no longer attracted the attention of Roland Graeme.

The voice, the figure, and what the veil permitted to be seen of the neck and tresses of the village damsel, bore so strong a resemblance to those of Catherine Seyton, that he felt like one bewildered in the mazes of a changeful and stupifying dream. The memorable scene of the hostelrie rushed on his recollection, with all its doubtful and marvellous circumstances. Were the tales of enchantment which he had read in romances realized in this extraordinary girl? Could she transport herself from the walled and guarded Castle of Lochleven, moated with its broad lake, (towards which he cast back a look as if to ascertain it was still in existence,) and watched with such scrupulous care as the safety of a nation demanded? – Could she surmount all these obstacles, and make such careless and dangerous use of her liberty, as to engage herself publicly in a quarrel in a village fair? Roland was unable to determine whether the exertions which it must have cost her to gain her freedom or the use to which she had put it, rendered her the most unaccountable creature.

Lost in these meditations, he kept his gaze fixed on the subject of them; and in every casual motion, discovered, or thought he discovered, something which reminded him still more strongly of Catherine Seyton. It occurred to him more than once, indeed, that he might be deceiving himself by exaggerating some casual likeness into absolute identity. But then the meeting at the hostelrie of Saint Michael’s returned to his mind, and it seemed in the highest degree improbable, that, under such various circumstances, mere imagination should twice have found opportunity to play him the selfsame trick. This time, however, he determined to have his doubts resolved, and for this purpose he sate during the rest of the play like a greyhound in the slip, ready to spring upon the hare the instant that she was started. The damsel, whom he watched attentively lest she should escape in the crowd when the spectacle was closed, sate as if perfectly unconscious that she was observed. But the worthy Doctor marked the direction of his eyes, and magnanimously suppressed his own inclination to become the Theseus to this Hippolyta, in deference to the rights of hospitality, which enjoined him to forbear interference with the pleasurable pursuits of his young friend. He passed one or two formal gibes upon the fixed attention which the page paid to the unknown, and upon his own jealousy; adding, however, that if both were to be presented to the patient at once, he had little doubt she would think the younger man the sounder prescription. “I fear me,” he added, “we shall have no news of the knave Auchtermuchty for some time, since the vermin whom I sent after him seem to have proved corbie-messengers. So you have an hour or two on your hands, Master Page; and as the minstrels are beginning to strike up, now the play is ended, why, an you incline for a dance, yonder is the green, and there sits your partner – I trust you will hold me perfect in my diagnostics, since I see with half an eye what disease you are sick of, and have administered a pleasing remedy.

  “Discernit sapiens res (as Chambers hath it) quas    confundit asellus.”

The page hardly heard the end of the learned adage, or the charge which the Chamberlain gave him to be within reach, in case of the wains arriving suddenly, and sooner than expected – so eager he was at once to shake himself free of his learned associate, and to satisfy his curiosity regarding the unknown damsel. Yet in the haste with which he made towards her he found time to reflect, that, in order to secure an opportunity of conversing with her in private, he must not alarm her at first accosting her. He therefore composed his manner and gait, and advancing with becoming self-confidence before three or four country-fellows who were intent on the same design, but knew not so well how to put their request into shape, he acquainted her that he, as the deputy of the venerable Chamberlain, requested the honour of her hand as a partner.

“The venerable Chamberlain,” said the damsel frankly, reaching the page her hand, “does very well to exercise this part of his privilege by deputy; and I suppose the laws of the revels leave me no choice but to accept of his faithful delegate.”

“Provided, fair damsel,” said the page, “his choice of a delegate is not altogether distasteful to you.”

“Of that, fair sir,” replied the maiden, “I will tell you more when we have danced the first measure.”

Catherine Seyton had admirable skill in gestic lore, and was sometimes called on to dance for the amusement of her royal mistress. Roland Graeme had often been a spectator of her skill, and sometimes, at the Queen’s command, Catherine’s partner on such occasions. He was, therefore, perfectly acquainted with Catherine’s mode of dancing; and observed that his present partner, in grace, in agility, in quickness of ear, and precision of execution, exactly resembled her, save that the Scottish jig, which he now danced with her, required a more violent and rapid motion, and more rustic agility, than the stately pavens, lavoltas, and courantoes, which he had seen her execute in the chamber of Queen Mary. The active duties of the dance left him little time for reflection, and none for conversation; but when their pas de deux was finished, amidst the acclamations of the villagers, who had seldom witnessed such an exhibition, he took an opportunity, when they yielded up the green to another couple, to use the privilege of a partner and enter into conversation with the mysterious maiden, whom he still held by the hand.

“Fair partner, may I not crave the name of her who has graced me thus far?”

“You may,” said the maiden; “but it is a question whether I shall answer you.”

“And why?” asked Roland.

“Because nobody gives anything for nothing – and you can tell me nothing in return which I care to hear.”

“Could I not tell you my name and lineage, in exchange for yours?” returned Roland.

“No!” answered the maiden, “for you know little of either.”

“How?” said the page, somewhat angrily.

“Wrath you not for the matter,” said the damsel; “I will show you in an instant that I know more of you than you do of yourself.”

“Indeed,” answered Graeme; “for whom then do you take me?”

“For the wild falcon,” answered she, “whom a dog brought in his mouth to a certain castle, when he was but an unfledged eyas – for the hawk whom men dare not fly, lest he should check at game, and pounce on carrion – whom folk must keep hooded till he has the proper light of his eyes, and can discover good from evil.”

“Well – be it so,” replied Roland Graeme; “I guess at a part of your parable, fair mistress mine – and perhaps I know as much of you as you do of me, and can well dispense with the information which you are so niggard in giving.”

“Prove that,” said the maiden, “and I will give you credit for more penetration than I judged you to be gifted withal.”

“It shall be proved instantly,” said Roland Graeme. “The first letter of your name is S, and the last N.”

“Admirable,” said his partner, “guess on.”

“It pleases you to-day,” continued Roland, “to wear the snood and kirtle, and perhaps you may be seen to-morrow in hat and feather, hose and doublet.”

“In the clout! in the clout! you have hit the very white,” said the damsel, suppressing a great inclination to laugh.

“You can switch men’s eyes out of their heads, as well as the heart out of their bosoms.”

These last words were uttered in a low and tender tone, which, to Roland’s great mortification, and somewhat to his displeasure, was so far from allaying, that it greatly increased, his partner’s disposition to laughter. She could scarce compose herself while she replied, “If you had thought my hand so formidable,” extricating it from his hold, “you would not have grasped it so hard; but I perceive you know me so fully, that there is no occasion to show you my face.”

“Fair Catherine,” said the page, “he were unworthy ever to have seen you, far less to have dwelt so long in the same service, and under the same roof with you, who could mistake your air, your gesture, your step in walking or in dancing, the turn of your neck, the symmetry of your form – none could be so dull as not to recognize you by so many proofs; but for me, I could swear even to that tress of hair that escapes from under your muffler.”

“And to the face, of course, which that muffler covers,” said the maiden, removing her veil, and in an instant endeavouring to replace it. She showed the features of Catherine; but an unusual degree of petulant impatience inflamed them, when, from some awkwardness in her management of the muffler, she was unable again to adjust it with that dexterity which was a principal accomplishment of the coquettes of the time.

“The fiend rive the rag to tatters!” said the damsel, as the veil fluttered about her shoulders, with an accent so earnest and decided, that it made the page start. He looked again at the damsel’s face, but the information which his eyes received, was to the same purport as before. He assisted her to adjust her muffler, and both were for an instant silent. The damsel spoke first, for Roland Graeme was overwhelmed with surprise at the contrarieties which Catherine Seyton seemed to include in her person and character.

“You are surprised,” said the damsel to him, “at what you see and hear – But the times which make females men, are least of all fitted for men to become women; yet you yourself are in danger of such a change.”

“I in danger of becoming effeminate!” said the page.

“Yes, you, for all the boldness of your reply,” said the damsel. “When you should hold fast your religion, because it is assailed on all sides by rebels, traitors, and heretics, you let it glide out of your breast like water grasped in the hand. If you are driven from the faith of your fathers from fear of a traitor, is not that womanish? – If you are cajoled by the cunning arguments of a trumpeter of heresy, or the praises of a puritanic old woman, is not that womanish? – If you are bribed by the hope of spoil and preferment, is not that womanish? – And when you wonder at my venting a threat or an execration, should you not wonder at yourself, who, pretending to a gentle name and aspiring to knighthood, can be at the same time cowardly, silly, and self-interested!”

“I would that a man would bring such a charge,” said the page; “he should see, ere his life was a minute older, whether he had cause to term me coward or no.”

“Beware of such big words,” answered the maiden; “you said but anon that I sometimes wear hose and doublet.”

“But remain still Catharine Seyton, wear what you list,” said the page, endeavouring again to possess himself of her hand.

“You indeed are pleased to call me so,” replied the maiden, evading his intention, “but I have many other names besides.”

“And will you not reply to that,” said the page, “by which you are distinguished beyond every other maiden in Scotland?”

The damsel, unallured by his praises, still kept aloof, and sung with gaiety a verse from an old ballad,

  “Oh, some do call me Jack, sweet love,    And some do call me Gill;  But when I ride to Holyrood,    My name is Wilful Will.”

“Wilful Will” exclaimed the page, impatiently; “say rather Will o’ the Wisp – Jack with the Lantern – for never was such a deceitful or wandering meteor!”

“If I be such,” replied the maiden, “I ask no fools to follow me – If they do so, it is at their own pleasure, and must be on their own proper peril.”

“Nay, but, dearest Catherine,” said Roland Graeme, “be for one instant serious.”

“If you will call me your dearest Catherine, when I have given you so many names to choose upon,” replied the damsel, “I would ask you how, supposing me for two or three hours of my life escaped from yonder tower, you have the cruelty to ask me to be serious during the only merry moments I have seen perhaps for months?”

“Ay, but, fair Catherine, there are moments of deep and true feeling, which are worth ten thousand years of the liveliest mirth; and such was that of yesterday, when you so nearly – ”

“So nearly what?” demanded the damsel, hastily.

“When you approached your lips so near to the sign you had traced on my forehead.”

“Mother of Heaven!” exclaimed she, in a yet fiercer tone, and with a more masculine manner than she had yet exhibited, – “Catherine Seyton approach her lips to a man’s brow, and thou that man! – vassal, thou liest!”

The page stood astonished; but, conceiving he had alarmed the damsel’s delicacy by alluding to the enthusiasm of a moment, and the manner in which she had expressed it, he endeavoured to falter forth an apology. His excuses, though he was unable to give them any regular shape, were accepted by his companion, who had indeed suppressed her indignation after its first explosion – “Speak no more on’t,” she said. “And now let us part; our conversation may attract more notice than is convenient for either of us.”

“Nay, but allow me at least to follow you to some sequestered place.”

“You dare not,” replied the maiden.

“How,” said the youth, “dare not? where is it you dare go, where I dare not follow?”

“You fear a Will o’ the Wisp,” said the damsel; “how would you face a fiery dragon, with an enchantress mounted on its back?”

“Like Sir Eger, Sir Grime, or Sir Greysteil,” said the page; “but be there such toys to be seen here?”

“I go to Mother Nicneven’s,” answered the maid; “and she is witch enough to rein the horned devil, with a red silk thread for a bridle, and a rowan-tree switch for a whip.”

“I will follow you,” said the page.

“Let it be at some distance,” said the maiden.

And wrapping her mantle round her with more success than on her former attempt, she mingled with the throng, and walked towards the village, heedfully followed by Roland Graeme at some distance, and under every precaution which he could use to prevent his purpose from being observed.

Chapter the Twenty-Eighth

  Yes, it is he whose eyes look’d on thy childhood,  And watch’d with trembling hope thy dawn of youth,  That now, with these same eyeballs dimm’d with age,  And dimmer yet with tears, sees thy dishonour.OLD PLAY.

At the entrance of the principal, or indeed, so to speak, the only street in Kinross, the damsel, whose steps were pursued by Roland Graeme, cast a glance behind her, as if to be certain he had not lost trace of her and then plunged down a very narrow lane which ran betwixt two rows of poor and ruinous cottages. She paused for a second at the door of one of those miserable tenements, again cast her eye up the lane towards Roland, then lifted the latch, opened the door, and disappeared from his view.

With whatever haste the page followed her example, the difficulty which he found in discovering the trick of the latch, which did not work quite in the usual manner, and in pushing open the door, which did not yield to his first effort, delayed for a minute or two his entrance into the cottage. A dark and smoky passage led, as usual, betwixt the exterior wall of the house, and the hallan, or clay wall, which served as a partition betwixt it and the interior. At the end of this passage, and through the partition, was a door leading into the ben, or inner chamber of the cottage, and when Roland Graeme’s hand was upon the latch of this door, a female voice pronounced, “Benedictus qui veniat in nomine Domini, damnandus qui in nomine inimici.” On entering the apartment, he perceived the figure which the chamberlain had pointed out to him as Mother Nicneven, seated beside the lowly hearth. But there was no other person in the room. Roland Graeme gazed around in surprise at the disappearance of Catherine Seyton, without paying much regard to the supposed sorceress, until she attracted and riveted his regard by the tone in which she asked him – “What seekest thou here?”

“I seek,” said the page, with much embarrassment; “I seek – ”

But his answer was cut short, when the old woman, drawing her huge gray eyebrows sternly together, with a frown which knitted her brow into a thousand wrinkles, arose, and erecting herself up to her full natural size, tore the kerchief from her head, and seizing Roland by the arm, made two strides across the floor of the apartment to a small window through which the light fell full on her face, and showed the astonished youth the countenance of Magdalen Graeme. – “Yes, Roland,” she said, “thine eyes deceive thee not; they show thee truly the features of her whom thou hast thyself deceived, whose wine thou hast turned into gall, her bread of joyfulness into bitter poison, her hope into the blackest despair – it is she who now demands of thee, what seekest thou here? – She whose heaviest sin towards Heaven hath been, that she loved thee even better than the weal of the whole church, and could not without reluctance surrender thee even in the cause of God – she now asks you, what seekest thou here?”

While she spoke, she kept her broad black eye riveted on the youth’s face, with the expression with which the eagle regards his prey ere he tears it to pieces. Roland felt himself at the moment incapable either of reply or evasion. This extraordinary enthusiast had preserved over him in some measure the ascendency which she had acquired during his childhood; and, besides, he knew the violence of her passions and her impatience of contradiction, and was sensible that almost any reply which he could make, was likely to throw her into an ecstasy of rage. He was therefore silent; and Magdalen Graeme proceeded with increasing enthusiasm in her apostrophe – “Once more, what seek’st thou, false boy? – seek’st thou the honour thou hast renounced, the faith thou hast abandoned, the hopes thou hast destroyed? – Or didst thou seek me, the sole protectress of thy youth, the only parent whom thou hast known, that thou mayest trample on my gray hairs, even as thou hast already trampled on the best wishes of my heart?”

“Pardon me, mother,” said Roland Graeme; “but, in truth and reason, I deserve not your blame. I have been treated amongst you – even by yourself, my revered parent, as well as by others – as one who lacked the common attributes of free-will and human reason, or was at least deemed unfit to exercise them. A land of enchantment have I been led into, and spells have been cast around me – every one has met me in disguise – every one has spoken to me in parables – I have been like one who walks in a weary and bewildering dream; and now you blame me that I have not the sense, and judgment, and steadiness of a waking, and a disenchanted, and a reasonable man, who knows what he is doing, and wherefore he does it. If one must walk with masks and spectres, who waft themselves from place to place as it were in vision rather than reality, it might shake the soundest faith and turn the wisest head. I sought, since I must needs avow my folly, the same Catherine Seyton with whom you made me first acquainted, and whom I most strangely find in this village of Kinross, gayest among the revellers, when I had but just left her in the well-guarded castle of Lochleven, the sad attendant of an imprisoned Queen-I sought her, and in her place I find you, my mother, more strangely disguised than even she is.”

“And what hadst thou to do with Catherine Seyton?” said the matron, sternly; “is this a time or a world to follow maidens, or to dance around a Maypole? When the trumpet summons every true-hearted Scotsman around the standard of the true sovereign, shalt thou be found loitering in a lady’s bower?”

“No, by Heaven, nor imprisoned in the rugged walls of an island castle!” answered Roland Graeme: “I would the blast were to sound even now, for I fear that nothing less loud will dispel the chimerical visions by which I am surrounded.”

“Doubt not that it will be winded,” said the matron, “and that so fearfully loud, that Scotland will never hear the like until the last and loudest blast of all shall announce to mountain and to valley that time is no more. Meanwhile, be thou but brave and constant – Serve God and honour thy sovereign – Abide by thy religion – I cannot – I will not – I dare not ask thee the truth of the terrible surmises I have heard touching thy falling away – perfect not that accursed sacrifice – and yet, even at this late hour, thou mayest be what I have hoped for the son of my dearest hope – what say I? the son of my hope – thou shalt be the hope of Scotland, her boast and her honour! – Even thy wildest and most foolish wishes may perchance be fulfilled – I might blush to mingle meaner motives with the noble guerdon I hold out to thee – It shames me, being such as I am, to mention the idle passions of youth, save with contempt and the purpose of censure. But we must bribe children to wholesome medicine by the offer of cates, and youth to honourable achievement with the promise of pleasure. Mark me, therefore, Roland. The love of Catherine Seyton will follow him only who shall achieve the freedom of her mistress; and believe, it may be one day in thine own power to be that happy lover. Cast, therefore, away doubt and fear, and prepare to do what religion calls for, what thy country demands of thee, what thy duty as a subject and as a servant alike require at your hand; and be assured, even the idlest or wildest wishes of thy heart will be most readily attained by following the call of thy duty.”

As she ceased speaking, a double knock was heard against the inner door. The matron hastily adjusting her muffler, and resuming her chair by the hearth, demanded who was there.

“Salve in nomine sancto,” was answered from without.

“Salvete et vos,” answered Magdalen Graeme.

And a man entered in the ordinary dress of a nobleman’s retainer, wearing at his girdle a sword and buckler – “I sought you,” said he, “my mother, and him whom I see with you.” Then addressing himself to Roland Graeme, he said to him, “Hast thou not a packet from George Douglas?”

“I have,” said the page, suddenly recollecting that which had been committed to his charge in the morning, “but I may not deliver it to any one without some token that they have a right to ask it.”

“You say well,” replied the serving-man, and whispered into his ear, “The packet which I ask is the report to his father – will this token suffice?”

“It will,” replied the page, and taking the packet from his bosom, gave it to the man.

“I will return presently,” said the serving-man, and left the cottage.

Roland had now sufficiently recovered his surprise to accost his relative in turn, and request to know the reason why he found her in so precarious a disguise, and a place so dangerous – “You cannot be ignorant,” he said, “of the hatred that the Lady of Lochleven bears to those of your – that is of our religion – your present disguise lays you open to suspicion of a different kind, but inferring no less hazard; and whether as a Catholic, or as a sorceress, or as a friend to the unfortunate Queen, you are in equal danger, if apprehended within the bounds of the Douglas; and in the chamberlain who administers their authority, you have, for his own reasons, an enemy, and a bitter one.”