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

“Repeat them,” answered the Lady; and he uttered, in a low tone, the lines from an old poem, called The Howlet,— “O Douglas! Douglas! Tender and true.”

“Trusty Sir John Holland!” [Footnote: Sir John Holland's poem of the Howlet is known to collectors by the beautiful edition presented to the Bannatyne Club, by Mr. David Laing.] said the Lady Douglas, apostrophizing the poet, “a kinder heart never inspired a rhyme, and the Douglas's honour was ever on thy heart-string! We receive you among our followers, Glendinning—But, Randal, see that he keep the outer ward only, till we shall hear more touching him from our son.—Thou fearest not the night air. Glendinning?”

“In the cause of the Lady before whom I stand, I fear nothing, madam,” answered the disguised Abbot.

“Our garrison, then, is stronger by one trustworthy soldier,” said the matron—“Go to the buttery, and let them make much of thee.”

When the Lady Lochleven had retired, the Queen said to Roland Graeme, who was now almost constantly in her company, “I spy comfort in that stranger's countenance; I know not why it should be so, but I am well persuaded he is a friend.”

“Your Grace's penetration does not deceive you,” answered the page; and he informed her that the Abbot of St. Mary's himself played the part of the newly arrived soldier.

The Queen crossed herself and looked upwards. “Unworthy sinner that I am,” she said, “that for my sake a man so holy, and so high in spiritual office, should wear the garb of a base sworder, and run the risk of dying the death of a traitor!”

“Heaven will protect its own servant, madam,” said Catherine Seyton; “his aid would bring a blessing on our undertaking, were it not already blest for its own sake.”

“What I admire in my spiritual father,” said Roland, “was the steady front with which he looked on me, without giving the least sign of former acquaintance. I did not think the like was possible, since I have ceased to believe that Henry was the same person with Catherine.”

“But marked you not how astuciously the good father,” said the Queen, “eluded the questions of the woman Lochleven, telling her the very truth, which yet she received not as such?”

Roland thought in his heart, that when the truth was spoken for the purpose of deceiving, it was little better than a lie in disguise. But it was no time to agitate such questions of conscience.

“And now for the signal from the shore,” exclaimed Catherine; “my bosom tells me we shall see this night two lights instead of one gleam from that garden of Eden—And then, Roland, do you play your part manfully, and we will dance on the greensward like midnight fairies!”

Catherine's conjecture misgave not, nor deceived her. In the evening two beams twinkled from the cottage, instead of one; and the page heard, with beating heart, that the new retainer was ordered to stand sentinel on the outside of the castle. When he intimated this news to the Queen, she held her hand out to him—he knelt, and when he raised it to his lips in all dutiful homage, he found it was damp and cold as marble. “For God's sake, madam, droop not now,—sink not now!”

“Call upon our Lady, my Liege,” said the Lady Fleming—“call upon your tutelar saint.”

“Call the spirits of the hundred kings you are descended from,” exclaimed the page; “in this hour of need, the resolution of a monarch were worth the aid of a hundred saints.”

“Oh! Roland Graeme,” said Mary, in a tone of deep despondency, “be true to me—many have been false to me. Alas! I have not always been true to myself. My mind misgives me that I shall die in bondage, and that this bold attempt will cost all our lives. It was foretold me by a soothsayer in France, that I should die in prison, and by a violent death, and here comes the hour—Oh, would to God it found me prepared!”

“Madam,” said Catherine Seyton, “remember you are a Queen. Better we all died in bravely attempting to gain our freedom, than remained here to be poisoned, as men rid them of the noxious vermin that haunt old houses.”

“You are right, Catherine,” said the Queen; “and Mary will bear her like herself. But alas! your young and buoyant spirit can ill spell the causes which have broken mine. Forgive me, my children, and farewell for a while—I will prepare both mind and body for this awful venture.”

They separated, till again called together by the tolling of the curfew. The Queen appeared grave, but firm and resolved; the Lady Fleming, with the art of an experienced courtier, knew perfectly how to disguise her inward tremors; Catherine's eye was fired, as if with the boldness of the project, and the half smile which dwelt upon her beautiful mouth seemed to contemn all the risk and all the consequences of discovery; Roland, who felt how much success depended on his own address and boldness, summoned together his whole presence of mind, and if he found his spirits flag for a moment, cast his eye upon Catherine, whom he thought he had never seen look so beautiful.—“I may be foiled,” he thought, “but with this reward in prospect, they must bring the devil to aid them ere they cross me.” Thus resolved, he stood like a greyhound in the slips, with hand, heart, and eye intent upon making and seizing opportunity for the execution of their project.

The keys had, with the wonted ceremonial, been presented to the Lady Lochleven. She stood with her back to the casement, which, like that of the Queen's apartment, commanded a view of Kinross, with the church, which stands at some distance from the town, and nearer to the lake, then connected with the town by straggling cottages. With her back to this casement, then, and her face to the table, on which the keys lay for an instant while she tasted the various dishes which were placed there, stood the Lady of Lochleven, more provokingly intent than usual—so at least it seemed to her prisoners—upon the huge and heavy bunch of iron, the implements of their restraint. Just when, having finished her ceremony as taster of the Queen's table, she was about to take up the keys, the page, who stood beside her, and had handed her the dishes in succession, looked sideways to the churchyard, and exclaimed he saw corpse-candles in the churchyard. The Lady of Lochleven was not without a touch, though a slight one, of the superstitions of the time; the fate of her sons made her alive to omens, and a corpse-light, as it was called, in the family burial-place boded death. She turned her head towards the casement—saw a distant glimmering—forgot her charge for one second, and in that second were lost the whole fruits of her former vigilance. The page held the forged keys under his cloak, and with great dexterity exchanged them for the real ones. His utmost address could not prevent a slight clash as he took up the latter bunch. “Who touches the keys?” said the Lady; and while the page answered that the sleeve of his cloak had stirred them, she looked round, possessed herself of the bunch which now occupied the place of the genuine keys, and again turned to gaze on the supposed corpse-candles.

“I hold these gleams,” she said, after a moment's consideration, “to come, not from the churchyard, but from the hut of the old gardener Blinkhoolie.