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

welcome on that of the Abbot, Sir Halbert Glendinning expressed his satisfaction that he had come in time to appease the riot raised by Howleglas and his tumultuous followers.

“And yet,” he said, “when I look on your garments, brother Edward, I cannot help thinking there still remains an Abbot of Unreason within the bounds of the Monastery.”

“And wherefore carp at my garments, brother Halbert?” said the Abbot; “it is the spiritual armour of my calling, and, as such, beseems me as well as breastplate and baldric becomes your own bosom.”

“Ay, but there were small wisdom, methinks, in putting on armour where we have no power to fight; it is but a dangerous temerity to defy the foe whom we cannot resist.”

“For that, my brother, no one can answer,” said the Abbot, “until the battle be fought; and, were it even as you say, methinks a brave man, though desperate of victory, would rather desire to fight and fall, than to resign sword and shield on some mean and dishonourable composition with his insulting antagonist. But, let not you and I make discord of a theme on which we cannot agree, but rather stay and partake, though a heretic, of my admission feast. You need not fear, my brother, that your zeal for restoring the primitive discipline of the church will, on this occasion, be offended with the rich profusion of a conventual banquet. The days of our old friend Abbot Boniface are over; and the Superior of Saint Mary's has neither forests nor fishings, woods nor pastures, nor corn-fields;—neither flocks nor herds, bucks nor wild-fowl—granaries of wheat, nor storehouses of oil and wine, of ale and of mead. The refectioner's office is ended; and such a meal as a hermit in romance can offer to a wandering knight, is all we have to set before you. But, if you will share it with us, we shall eat it with a cheerful heart, and thank you, my brother, for your timely protection against these rude scoffers.”

“My dearest brother,” said the Knight, “it grieves me deeply I cannot abide with you; but it would sound ill for us both were one of the reformed congregation to sit down at your admission feast; and, if I can ever have the satisfaction of affording you effectual protection, it will be much owing to my remaining unsuspected of countenancing or approving your religious rites and ceremonies. It will demand whatever consideration I can acquire among my own friends, to shelter the bold man, who, contrary to law and the edicts of parliament, has dared to take up the office of Abbot of Saint Mary's.”

“Trouble not yourself with the task, my brother,” replied Father Ambrosius. “I would lay down my dearest blood to know that you defended the church for the church's sake; but, while you remain unhappily her enemy, I would not that you endangered your own safety, or diminished your own comforts, for the sake of my individual protection.—But who comes hither to disturb the few minutes of fraternal communication which our evil fate allows us?”

The door of the apartment opened as the Abbot spoke, and Dame Magdalen entered.

“Who is this woman?” said Sir Halbert Glendinning, somewhat sternly, “and what does she want?”

“That you know me not,” said the matron, “signifies little; I come by your own order, to give my free consent that the stripling, Roland Graeme, return to your service; and, having said so, I cumber you no longer with my presence. Peace be with you!” She turned to go away, but was stopped by inquiries of Sir Halbert Glendinning.

“Who are you?—what are you?—and why do you not await to make me answer?”

“I was,” she replied, “while yet I belonged to the world, a matron of no vulgar name; now I am Magdalen, a poor pilgrimer, for the sake of Holy Kirk.”

“Yea,” said Sir Halbert, “art thou a Catholic? I thought my dame said that Roland Graeme came of reformed kin.'

“His father,” said the matron, “was a heretic, or rather one who regarded neither orthodoxy or heresy—neither the temple of the church or of antichrist. I, too, for the sins of the times make sinners, have seemed to conform to your unhallowed rites—but I had my dispensation and my absolution.”

“You see, brother,” said Sir Halbert, with a smile of meaning towards his brother, “that we accuse you not altogether without grounds of mental equivocation.”

“My brother, you do us injustice,” replied the Abbot; “this woman, as her bearing may of itself warrant you, is not in her perfect mind. Thanks, I must needs say, to the persecution of your marauding barons, and of your latitudinarian clergy.”

“I will not dispute the point,” said Sir Halbert; “the evils of the time are unhappily so numerous, that both churches may divide them, and have enow to spare.” So saying, he leaned from the window of the apartment, and winded his bugle.

“Why do you sound your horn, my brother?” said the Abbot; “we have spent but few minutes together.”

“Alas!” said the elder brother, “and even these few have been sullied by disagreement. I sound to horse, my brother—the rather that, to avert the consequences of this day's rashness on your part, requires hasty efforts on mine.—Dame, you will oblige me by letting your young relative know that we mount instantly. I intend not that he shall return to Avenel with me—it would lead to new quarrels betwixt him and my household; at least to taunts which his proud heart could ill brook, and my wish is to do him kindness. He shall, therefore, go forward to Edinburgh with one of my retinue, whom I shall send back to say what has chanced here.—You seem rejoiced at this?” he added, fixing his eyes keenly on Magdalen Graeme, who returned his gaze with calm indifference.

“I would rather,” she said, “that Roland, a poor and friendless orphan, were the jest of the world at large, than of the menials at Avenel.”

“Fear not, dame—he shall be scorned by neither,” answered the Knight.

“It may be,” she replied—“it may well be—but I will trust more to his own bearing than to your countenance.” She left the room as she spoke.

The Knight looked after her as she departed, but turned instantly to his brother, and expressing, in the most affectionate terms, his wishes for his welfare and happiness, craved his leave to depart. “My knaves,” he said, “are too busy at the ale-stand, to leave their revelry for the empty breath of a bugle-horn.”

“You have freed them from higher restraint, Halbert,” answered the Abbot, “and therein taught them to rebel against your own.”

“Fear not that, Edward,” exclaimed Halbert, who never gave his brother his monastic name of Ambrosius; “none obey the command of real duty so well as those who are free from the observance of slavish bondage.”

He was turning to depart, when the Abbot said,—“Let us not yet part, my brother—here comes some light refreshment. Leave not the house which I must now call mine, till force expel me from it, until you have at least broken bread with me.”

The poor lay brother, the same who acted as porter, now entered the