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

It was some time ere Roland Graeme appeared. The messenger (his old friend Lilias) had at first attempted to open the door of his little apartment with the charitable purpose, doubtless, of enjoying the confusion, and marking the demeanour of the culprit. But an oblong bit of iron, ycleped a bolt, was passed across the door on the inside, and prevented her benign intentions. Lilias knocked and called at intervals. “Roland—Roland Graeme—Master Roland Graeme” (an emphasis on the word Master,) “will you be pleased to undo the door?—What ails you?—are you at your prayers in private, to complete the devotion which you left unfinished in public?—Surely we must have a screened seat for you in the chapel, that your gentility may be free from the eyes of common folks!” Still no whisper was heard in reply. “Well, master Roland,” said the waiting-maid, “I must tell my mistress, that if she would have an answer, she must either come herself, or send those on errand to you who can beat the door down.”

“What says your Lady?” answered the page from within.

“Marry, open the door, and you shall hear,” answered the waiting-maid. “I trow it becomes my Lady's message to be listened to face to face; and I will not for your idle pleasure, whistle it through a key-hole.”

“Your mistress's name,” said the page, opening the door, “is too fair a cover for your impertinence—What says my Lady?”

“That you will be pleased to come to her directly, in the withdrawing-room,” answered Lilias. “I presume she has some directions for you concerning the forms to be observed in leaving chapel in future.”

“Say to my Lady, that I will directly wait on her,” answered the page; and returning into his apartment, he once more locked the door in the face of the waiting-maid.

“Rare courtesy!” muttered Lilias; and, returning to her mistress, acquainted her that Roland Graeme would wait on her when it suited his convenience.

“What, is that his addition, or your own phrase, Lilias?” said the Lady, coolly.

“Nay, madam,” replied the attendant, not directly answering the question, “he looked as if he could have said much more impertinent things than that, if I had been willing to hear them.—But here he comes to answer for himself.”

Roland Graeme entered the apartment with a loftier mien, and somewhat a higher colour than his wont; there was embarrassment in his manner, but it was neither that of fear nor of penitence.

“Young man,” said the Lady, “what trow you I am to think of your conduct this day?”

“If it has offended you, madam, I am deeply grieved,” replied the youth.

“To have offended me alone,” replied the Lady, “were but little—You have been guilty of conduct which will highly offend your master—of violence to your fellow-servants, and of disrespect to God himself, in the person of his ambassador.”

“Permit me again to reply,” said the page, “that if I have offended my only mistress, friend, and benefactress, it includes the sum of my guilt, and deserves the sum of my penitence—Sir Halbert Glendinning calls me not servant, nor do I call him master—he is not entitled to blame me for chastising an insolent groom—nor do I fear the wrath of Heaven for treating with scorn the unauthorized interference of a meddling preacher.”

The Lady of Avenel had before this seen symptoms in her favourite of boyish petulance, and of impatience of censure or reproof. But his present demeanour was of a graver and more determined character, and she was for a moment at a loss how she should treat the youth, who seemed to have at once assumed the character not only of a man, but of a bold and determined one. She paused an instant, and then assuming the dignity which was natural to her, she said, “Is it to me, Roland, that you hold this language? Is it for the purpose of making me repent the favour I have shown you, that you declare yourself independent both of an earthly and a Heavenly master? Have you forgotten what you were, and to what the loss of my protection would speedily again reduce you?”

“Lady,” said the page, “I have forgot nothing, I remember but too much. I know, that but for you, I should have perished in yon blue waves,” pointing, as he spoke, to the lake, which was seen through the window, agitated by the western wind. “Your goodness has gone farther, madam—you have protected me against the malice of others, and against my own folly. You are free, if you are willing, to abandon the orphan you have reared. You have left nothing undone by him, and he complains of nothing. And yet, Lady, do not think I have been ungrateful—I have endured something on my part, which I would have borne for the sake of no one but my benefactress.”

“For my sake!” said the Lady; “and what is it that I can have subjected you to endure, which can be remembered with other feelings than those of thanks and gratitude?”

“You are too just, madam, to require me to be thankful for the cold neglect with which your husband has uniformly treated me—neglect not unmingled with fixed aversion.