The Abbot, Walter Scott [best novels to read for beginners txt] 📗

first makes your confidence in me a case of necessity.”

“Good now, hold thy peace,” said Catherine. “In the second place, as I said before, there is one foolish person among us, who believes that Roland Graeme's heart is warm, though his head is giddy—that his blood is pure, though it boils too hastily—and that his faith and honour are true as the load-star, though his tongue sometimes is far less than discreet.”

This avowal Catherine repeated in a low tone, with her eye fixed on the floor, as if she shunned the glance of Roland while she suffered it to escape her lips—“And this single friend,” exclaimed the youth in rapture; “this only one who would do justice to the poor Roland Graeme, and whose own generous heart taught her to distinguish between follies of the brain and faults of the heart—Will you not tell me, dearest Catherine, to whom I owe my most grateful, my most heartfelt thanks?”

“Nay,” said Catherine, with her eyes still fixed on the ground, “if your own heart tell you not——”

“Dearest Catherine!” said the page, seizing upon her hand, and kneeling on one knee.

“If your own heart, I say, tell you not,” said Catherine, gently disengaging her hand, “it is very ungrateful; for since the maternal kindness of the Lady Fleming——”

The page started on his feet. “By Heaven, Catherine, your tongue wears as many disguises as your person! But you only mock me, cruel girl. You know the Lady Fleming has no more regard for any one, than hath the forlorn princess who is wrought into yonder piece of old figured court tapestry.”

“It may be so,” said Catherine Seyton, “but you should not speak so loud.”

“Pshaw!” answered the page, but at the same time lowering his voice, “she cares for no one but herself and the Queen. And you know, besides, there is no one of you whose opinion I value, if I have not your own. No—not that of Queen Mary herself.”

“The more shame for you, if it be so,” said Catherine, with great composure.

“Nay, but, fair Catherine,” said the page, “why will you thus damp my ardour, when I am devoting myself, body and soul, to the cause of your mistress?”

“It is because in doing so,” said Catherine, “you debase a cause so noble, by naming along with it any lower or more selfish motive. Believe me,” she said, with kindling eyes, and while the blood mantled on her cheek, “they think vilely and falsely of women—I mean of those who deserve the name—who deem that they love the gratification of their vanity, or the mean purpose of engrossing a lover's admiration and affection, better than they love the virtue and honour of the man they may be brought to prefer. He that serves his religion, his prince, and his country, with ardour and devotion, need not plead his cause with the commonplace rant of romantic passion—the woman whom he honours with his love becomes his debtor, and her corresponding affection is engaged to repay his glorious toil.”

“You hold a glorious prize for such toil,” said the youth, bending his eyes on her with enthusiasm.

“Only a heart which knows how to value it,” said Catherine. “He that should free this injured Princess from these dungeons, and set her at liberty among her loyal and warlike nobles, whose hearts are burning to welcome her—where is the maiden in Scotland whom the love of such a hero would not honour, were she sprung from the blood royal of the land, and he the offspring of the poorest cottager that ever held a plough?”

“I am determined,” said Roland, “to take the adventure. Tell me first, however, fair Catherine, and speak it as if you were confessing to the priest—this poor Queen, I know she is unhappy—but, Catherine, do you hold her innocent? She is accused of murder.”

“Do I hold the lamb guilty, because it is assailed by the wolf?” answered Catherine; “do I hold yonder sun polluted, because an earth-damp sullies his beams?”

The page sighed and looked down. “Would my conviction were as deep as thine! But one thing is clear, that in this captivity she hath wrong—She rendered herself up, on a capitulation, and the terms have been refused her—I will embrace her quarrel to the death!”

“Will you—will you, indeed?” said Catherine, taking his hand in her turn. “Oh, be but firm in mind, as thou art bold in deed and quick in resolution; keep but thy plighted faith, and after ages shall honour thee as the saviour of Scotland!”

“But when I have toiled successfully to win that Leah, Honour, thou wilt not, my Catherine,” said the page, “condemn me to a new term of service for that Rachel, Love?”

“Of that,” said Catherine, again extricating her hand from his grasp, “we shall have full time to speak; but Honour is the elder sister, and must be won the first.”

“I may not win her,” answered the page; “but I will venture fairly for her, and man can do no more. And know, fair Catherine,—for you shall see the very secret thought of my heart,—that not Honour only—not only that other and fairer sister, whom you frown on me for so much as mentioning—but the stern commands of duty also, compel me to aid the Queen's deliverance.”

“Indeed!” said Catherine; “you were wont to have doubts on that matter.”

“Ay, but her life was not then threatened,” replied Roland.

“And is it now more endangered than heretofore?” asked Catherine Seyton, in anxious terror.

“Be not alarmed,” said the page; “but you heard the terms on which your royal mistress parted with the Lady of Lochleven?”

“Too well—but too well,” said Catherine; “alas! that she cannot rule her princely resentment, and refrain from encounters like these!”

“That hath passed betwixt them,” said Roland, “for which woman never forgives woman. I saw the Lady's brow turn pale, and then black, when, before all the menzie, and in her moment of power, the Queen humbled her to the dust by taxing her with her shame. And I heard the oath of deadly resentment and revenge which she muttered in the ear of one, who by his answer will, I judge, be but too ready an executioner of her will.”

“You terrify me,” said Catherine.

“Do not so take it—call up the masculine part of your spirit—we will counteract and defeat her plans, be they dangerous as they may. Why do you look upon me thus, and weep?”

“Alas!” said Catherine, “because you stand there before me a living and breathing man, in all the adventurous glow and enterprise of youth, yet still possessing the frolic spirits of childhood—there you stand, full alike of generous enterprise and childish recklessness; and if to-day, or to-morrow, or some such brief space, you lie a mangled and lifeless corpse upon the floor of these hateful dungeons, who but Catherine Seyton will be the cause of your brave and gay career being broken short as you start from the goal? Alas! she whom you have chosen to twine your wreath, may too probably have to work your shroud!”