"And Dame Bridget is your grandmother?"
The sudden cloud passed away like that which crosses for an instant the summer sun, and she answered with her usual lively expression, "Worse by twenty degrees--Dame Bridget is my maiden aunt."
"Over gods forbode!" said Roland--"Alas! that you have such a tale to tell! and what horror comes next?"
"Your own history, exactly. I was taken upon trial for service--"
"And turned off for pinching the duenna, or affronting my lady's waiting-woman?"
"Nay, our history varies there," said the damsel--"Our mistress broke up house, or had her house broke up, which is the same thing, and I am a free woman of the forest."
"And I am as glad of it as if any one had lined my doublet with cloth of gold," said the youth.
"I thank you for your mirth," said she, "but the matter is not likely to concern you."
"Nay, but go on," said the page, "for you will be presently interrupted; the two good dames have been soaring yonder on the balcony, like two old hooded crows, and their croak grows hoarser as night comes on; they will wing to roost presently.--This mistress of yours, fair gentlewoman, who was she, in God's name?"
"Oh, she has a fair name in the world," replied Catherine Seyton. "Few ladies kept a fairer house, or held more gentlewomen in her household; my aunt Bridget was one of her housekeepers. We never saw our mistress's blessed face, to be sure, but we heard enough of her; were up early and down late, and were kept to long prayers and light food."
"Out upon the penurious old beldam!" said the page.
"For Heaven's sake, blaspheme not!" said the girl, with an expression of fear.--"God pardon us both! I meant no harm. I speak of our blessed Saint Catherine of Sienna!--may God forgive me that I spoke so lightly, and made you do a great sin and a great blasphemy. This was her nunnery, in which there were twelve nuns and an abbess. My aunt was the abbess, till the heretics turned all adrift."
"And where are your companions?" asked the youth.
"With the last year's snow," answered the maiden; "east, north, south, and west--some to France, some to Flanders, some, I fear, into the world and its pleasures. We have got permission to remain, or rather our remaining has been connived at, for my aunt has great relations among the Kerrs, and they have threatened a death-feud if any one touches us; and bow and spear are the best warrant in these times."
"Nay, then, you sit under a sure shadow," said the youth; "and I suppose you wept yourself blind when Saint Catherine broke up housekeeping before you had taken arles [Footnote: Anglice-- Earnest-money] in her service?"
"Hush! for Heaven's sake," said the damsel, crossing herself; "no more of that! but I have not quite cried my eyes out," said she, turning them upon him, and instantly again bending them upon her work. It was one of those glances which would require the threefold plate of brass around the heart, more than it is needed by the mariners, to whom Horace recommends it. Our youthful page had no defence whatever to offer.
"What say you, Catherine," he said, "if we two, thus strangely turned out of service at the same time, should give our two most venerable duennas the torch to hold, while we walk a merry measure with each other over the floor of this weary world?"
"A goodly proposal, truly," said Catherine, "and worthy the mad-cap brain of a discarded page!--And what shifts does your worship propose we should live by?--by singing ballads, cutting purses, or swaggering on the highway? for there, I think, you would find your most productive exchequer."
"Choose, you proud peat!" said the page, drawing off in huge disdain at the calm and unembarrassed ridicule with which his wild proposal was received. And as he spoke the words, the casement was again darkened by the forms of the matrons--it opened, and admitted Magdalen Graeme and the Mother Abbess, so we must now style her, into the apartment.
Chapter the
Twelfth.
Nay, hear me, brother--I am elder, wiser, And holier than thou--And age, and wisdom, And holiness, have peremptory claims, And will be listen'd to. OLD PLAY.
When the matrons re-entered, and put an end to the conversation--which we have detailed in the last chapter, Dame Magdalen Graeme thus addressed her grandson and his pretty companion: "Have you spoke together, my children?--Have you become known to each other as fellow-travellers on the same dark and dubious road, whom chance hath brought together, and who study to learn the tempers and dispositions of those by whom their perils are to be shared?"
It was seldom the light-hearted Catharine could suppress a jest, so that she often spoke when she would have acted more wisely in holding her peace.
"Your grandson admires the journey which you propose so very greatly, that he was even now preparing for setting out upon it instantly."
"This is to be too forward, Roland," said the dame, addressing him, "as yesterday you were over slack--the just mean lies in obedience, which both waits for the signal to start, and obeys it when given.--But once again, my children, have you so perused each other's countenances, that when you meet, in whatever disguise the times may impose upon you, you may recognize each in the other the secret agent of the mighty work in which you are to be leagued?--Look at each other, know each line and lineament of each other's countenance. Learn to distinguish by the step, by the sound of the voice, by the motion of the hand, by the glance of the eye, the partner whom Heaven hath sent to aid in working its will.--Wilt thou know that maiden, whensoever, or wheresoever you shall again meet her, my Roland Graeme?"
As readily as truly did Roland answer in the affirmative. "And thou, my daughter, wilt thou again remember the features of this youth?"
"Truly, mother," replied Catherine Seyton, "I have not seen so many men of late, that I should immediately forget your grandson, though I mark not much about him that is deserving of especial remembrance."
"Join hands, then, my children," said Magdalen Graeme; but, in saying so, was interrupted by her companion, whose conventual prejudices had been gradually giving her more and more uneasiness, and who could remain acquiescent no longer.
"Nay, my good sister, you forget," said she to Magdalen, "Catharine is the betrothed bride of Heaven--these intimacies cannot be."
"It is in the cause of Heaven that I command them to embrace," said Magdalen, with the full force of her powerful voice; "the end, sister, sanctifies the means we must use."
"They call me Lady Abbess, or Mother at the least, who address me," said Dame Bridget, drawing herself up, as if offended at her friend's authoritative manner--"the Lady of Heathergill forgets that she speaks to the Abbess of Saint Catherine."
"When I was what you call me," said Magdalen, "you indeed were the Abbess of Saint Catherine, but both names are now gone, with all the rank that the world and that the church gave to them; and we are now, to the eye of human judgment, two poor, despised, oppressed women, dragging our dishonoured old age to a humble grave. But what are we in the eye of Heaven?--Ministers, sent forth to work his will,--in whose weakness the strength of the church shall be manifested-before whom shall be humbled the wisdom of Murray, and the dark strength of Morton,--And to such wouldst thou apply the narrow rules of thy cloistered seclusion?--or, hast thou forgotten the order which I showed thee from thy Superior, subjecting thee to me in these matters?"