Chapter 7

Thou hast each secret of the household, Francis. I dare be sworn thou hast been in the buttery, Steeping thy curious humour in fat ale, And in thy butler's tattle--ay, or chatting With the glib waiting-woman o'er her comfits-- These bear the key to each domestic mystery. OLD PLAY.

Upon the morrow succeeding the scene we have described, the disgraced favourite left the castle; and at breakfast-time the cautious old steward and Mrs. Lilias sat in the apartment of the latter personage, holding grave converse on the important event of the day, sweetened by a small treat of comfits, to which the providence of Mr. Wingate had added a little flask of racy canary.

“He is gone at last,” said the abigail, sipping her glass; “and here is to his good journey.”

“Amen,” answered the steward, gravely; “I wish the poor deserted lad no ill.”

“And he is gone like a wild-duck, as he came,” continued Mrs. Lilias; “no lowering of drawbridges, or pacing along causeways, for him. My master has pushed off in the boat which they call the little Herod, (more shame to them for giving the name of a Christian to wood and iron,) and has rowed himself by himself to the farther side of the loch, and off and away with himself, and left all his finery strewed about his room. I wonder who is to clean his trumpery out after him--though the things are worth lifting, too.”

“Doubtless, Mistress Lilias,” answered the master of the household, “in the which case, I am free to think, they will not long cumber the floor.”

“And now tell me, Master Wingate,” continued the damsel, “do not the very cockles of your heart rejoice at the house being rid of this upstart whelp, that flung us all into shadow?”

“Why, Mistress Lilias,” replied Wingate, “as to rejoicing--those who have lived as long in great families as has been my lot, will be in no hurry to rejoice at any thing. And for Roland Graeme, though he may be a good riddance in the main, yet what says the very sooth proverb, 'Seldom comes a better.'”

“Seldom comes a better, indeed!” echoed Mrs. Lilias. “I say, never can come a worse, or one half so bad. He might have been the ruin of our poor dear mistress,” (here she used her kerchief,) “body and soul, and estate too; for she spent more coin on his apparel than on any four servants about the house.”

“Mistress Lilias,” said the sage steward, “I do opine that our mistress requireth not this pity at your hands, being in all respects competent to take care of her own body, soul, and estate into the bargain.”

“You would not mayhap have said so,” answered the waiting-woman, “had you seen how like Lot's wife she looked when young master took his leave. My mistress is a good lady, and a virtuous, and a well-doing lady, and a well-spoken of--but I would not Sir Halbert had seen her last evening for two and a plack.”

“Oh, foy! foy! foy!” reiterated the steward; “servants should hear and see, and say nothing. Besides that, my lady is utterly devoted to Sir Halbert, as well she may, being, as he is, the most renowned knight in these parts.”

“Well, well,” said the abigail, “I mean no more harm; but they that seek least renown abroad, are most apt to find quiet at home, that's all; and my Lady's lonesome situation is to be considered, that made her fain to take up with the first beggar's brat that a dog brought her out of the loch.”

“And, therefore,” said the steward, “I say, rejoice not too much, or too hastily, Mistress Lilias; for if your Lady wished a favourite to pass away the time, depend upon it, the time will not pass lighter now that he is gone. So she will have another favourite to choose for herself; and be assured, if she wishes such a toy, she will not lack one.”

“And where should she choose one, but among her own tried and faithful servants,” said Mrs. Lilias, “who have broken her bread, and drunk her drink, for so many years? I have known many a lady as high as she is, that never thought either of a friend or favourite beyond their own waiting-woman--always having a proper respect, at the same time, for their old and faithful master of the household, Master Wingate.”

“Truly, Mistress Lilias,” replied the steward, “I do partly see the mark at which you shoot, but I doubt your bolt will fall short. Matters being with our Lady as it likes you to suppose, it will neither be your crimped pinners, Mrs. Lilias, (speaking of them with due respect,) nor my silver hair, or golden chain, that will fill up the void which Roland Graeme must needs leave in our Lady's leisure. There will be a learned young divine with some new doctrine--a learned leech with some new drug--a bold cavalier, who will not be refused the favour of wearing her colours at a running at the ring--a cunning harper that could harp the heart out of woman's breast, as they say Signer David Rizzio did to our poor Queen;--these are the sort of folk who supply the loss of a well-favoured favourite, and not an old steward, or a middle-aged waiting-woman.”

“Well,” replied Lilias, “you have experience, Master Wingate, and truly I would my master would leave off his picking hither and thither, and look better after the affairs of his household. There will be a papestrie among us next, for what should I see among master's clothes but a string of gold beads! I promise you, _aves_ and _credos_ both!--I seized on them like a falcon.”

“I doubt it not, I doubt it not,” said the steward, sagaciously nodding his head; “I have often noticed that the boy had strange observances which savoured of popery, and that he was very jealous to conceal them. But you will find the Catholic under the Presbyterian cloak as often as the knave under the Friar's hood--what then? we are all mortal--Right proper beads they are,” he added, looking attentively at them, “and may weigh four ounces of fine gold.”

“And I will have them melted down presently,” she said, “before they be the misguiding of some poor blinded soul.”

“Very cautious, indeed, Mistress Lilias,” said the steward, nodding his head in assent.

“I will have them made,” said Mrs. Lilias, “into a pair of shoe-buckles; I would not wear the Pope's trinkets, or whatever has once borne the shape of them, one inch above my instep, were they diamonds instead of gold.--But this is what has come of Father Ambrose coming about the castle, as demure as a cat that is about to steal cream.”

“Father Ambrose is our master's brother,” said the steward gravely.

“Very true, Master Wingate,” answered the Dame; “but is that a good reason why he should pervert the king's liege subjects to papistrie?”

“Heaven forbid, Mistress Lilias,” answered the sententious major-domo; “but yet there are worse folk than the Papists.”

“I wonder where they are to be found,” said the waiting-woman, with some asperity; “but I believe, Master Wingate, if one were to speak to you about the devil himself, you would say there were worse people than Satan.”

“Assuredly I might say so,” replied the steward, “supposing that I saw Satan standing at my elbow.”

The waiting-woman started, and having exclaimed, “God bless us!” added, “I wonder, Master Wingate, you can take pleasure in frightening one thus.”

“Nay, Mistress Lilias, I had no such purpose,” was the reply; “but look you here--the Papists are but put down for the present, but who knows how long this word _present_ will last? There are two great Popish earls in the north of England, that abominate the very word reformation; I mean the Northumberland and Westmoreland Earls, men of power enough to shake any throne in Christendom. Then, though our Scottish king be, God bless him, a true Protestant, yet he is but a boy; and here is his mother that was our queen--I trust there is no harm to say, God bless her too--and she is a Catholic; and many begin to think she has had but hard measure, such as the Hamiltons in the west, and some of our Border clans here, and the Gordons in the north, who are all wishing to see a new world; and if such a new world should chance to come up, it is like that the Queen will take back her own crown, and that the mass and the cross will come up, and then down go pulpits, Geneva-gowns, and black silk skull-caps.”

“And have you, Master Jasper Wingate, who have heard the word, and listened unto pure and precious Mr. Henry Warden, have you, I say, the patience to speak, or but to think, of popery coming down on us like a storm, or of the woman Mary again making the royal seat of Scotland a throne of abomination? No marvel that you are so civil to the cowled monk, Father Ambrose, when he comes hither with his downcast eyes that he never raises to my Lady's face, and with his low sweet-toned voice, and his benedicites, and his benisons; and who so ready to take them kindly as Master Wingate?”

“Mistress Lilias,” replied the butler, with an air which was intended to close the debate, “there are reasons for all things. If I received Father Ambrose debonairly, and suffered him to steal a word now and then with this same Roland Graeme, it was not that I cared a brass bodle for his benison or malison either, but only because I respected my master's blood. And who can answer, if Mary come in again, whether he may not be as stout a tree to lean to as ever his brother hath proved to us? For down goes the Earl of Murray when the Queen comes by her own again; and good is his luck if he can keep the head on his own shoulders. And down goes our Knight, with the Earl, his patron; and who so like to mount into his empty saddle as this same Father Ambrose? The Pope of Rome can so soon dispense with his vows, and then we should have Sir Edward the soldier, instead of Ambrose the priest.”

Anger and astonishment kept Mrs. Lilias silent,--while her old friend, in his self-complacent manner, was making known to her his political speculations. At length her resentment found utterance in words of great ire and scorn. “What, Master Wingate! have you eaten my mistress's bread, to say nothing of my master's, so many years, that you could live to think of her being dispossessed of her own Castle of Avenel, by a wretched monk, who is not a drop's blood to her in the way of relation? I, that am but a woman, would try first whether my rock or his cowl was the better metal. Shame on you, Master Wingate! I If I had not held you as so old an acquaintance, this should have gone to my Lady's ears though I had been called pickthank and tale-pyet for my pains, as when I told of Roland Graeme shooting the wild swan.”

Master Wingate was somewhat dismayed at perceiving, that the details which he had given of his far-sighted political views had produced on his hearer rather suspicion of his fidelity, than admiration of his wisdom, and endeavoured, as hastily as possible, to apologize and to explain, although internally extremely offended at the unreasonable view, as he deemed it, which it had pleased Mistress Lilias Bradbourne to take of his expressions; and mentally convinced that her disapprobation of his sentiments arose solely out of the consideration, that though Father Ambrose, supposing him to become the master of the castle, would certainly require the services of a steward, yet those of a waiting-woman would, in the supposed circumstances, be altogether superfluous.

After his explanation had been received as explanations usually are, the two friends separated; Lilias to attend the silver whistle which called her to her mistress's chamber, and the sapient major-domo to the duties of his own department. They parted with less than their usual degree of reverence and regard; for the steward felt that his worldly wisdom was rebuked by the more disinterested attachment of the waiting-woman, and Mistress Lilias Bradbourne was compelled to consider her old friend as something little better than a time-server.

Chapter the Seventh.

When I hae a saxpence under my thumb, Then I get credit in ilka town; But when I am puir they bid me gae by-- Oh, poverty parts good company! OLD SONG.

While the departure of the page afforded subject for the conversation which we have detailed in our last chapter, the late favourite was far advanced on his solitary journey, without well knowing what was its object, or what was likely to be its end. He had rowed the skiff in which he left the castle, to the side of the lake most distant from the village, with the desire of escaping from the notice of the inhabitants. His pride whispered, that he would be in his discarded state, only the subject of their wonder and compassion; and his generosity told him, that any mark of sympathy which his situation should excite, might be unfavourably reported at the castle. A trifling incident convinced him he had little to fear for his friends on the latter score. He was met by a young man some years older than himself, who had on former occasions been but too happy to be permitted to share in his sports in the subordinate character of his assistant. Ralph Fisher approached to greet him, with all the alacrity of an humble friend.

“What, Master Roland, abroad on this side, and without either hawk or hound?”

“Hawk or hound,” said Roland, “I will never perhaps hollo to again. I have been dismissed--that is, I have left the castle.”

Ralph was surprised. “What! you are to pass into the Knight's service, and take the black jack and the lance?”

“Indeed,” replied Roland Graeme, “I am not--I am now leaving the service of Avenel for ever.”

“And whither are you going, then?” said the young peasant.

“Nay, that is a question which it craves time to answer--I have that matter to determine yet,” replied the disgraced favourite.

“Nay, nay,” said Ralph, “I warrant you it is the same to you which way you go--my Lady would not dismiss you till she had put some lining into the pouches of your doublet.”

“Sordid slave!” said Roland Graeme, “dost thou think I would have accepted a boon from one who was giving me over a prey to detraction and to ruin, at the instigation of a canting priest and a meddling serving-woman? The bread that I had bought with such an alms would have choked me at the first mouthful.”

Ralph looked at his quondam friend with an air of wonder not unmixed with contempt. “Well,” he said, at length, “no occasion for passion--each man knows his own stomach best--but, were I on a black moor at this time of day, not knowing whither I was going, I should be glad to have a broad piece or two in my pouch, come by them as I could.--But perhaps you will go with me to my father's--that is, for a night, for to-morrow we expect my uncle Menelaus and all his folk; but, as I said, for one night----”

The cold-blooded limitation of the offered shelter to one night only, and that tendered most unwillingly, offended the pride of the discarded favourite.

“I would rather sleep on the fresh heather, as I have done many a night on less occasion,” said Roland Graeme, “than in the smoky garret of your father, that smells of peat smoke and usquebaugh like a Highlander's plaid.”

“You may choose, my master, if you are so nice,” replied Ralph Fisher; “you may be glad to smell a peat-fire, and usquebaugh too, if you journey long in the fashion you propose. You might have said God-a-mercy for your proffer, though--it is not every one that will put themselves in the way of ill-will by harbouring a discarded serving-man.”

“Ralph,” said Roland Graeme, “I would pray you to remember that I have switched you before now, and this is the same riding-wand which you have tasted.”

Ralph, who was a thickset clownish figure, arrived at his full strength, and conscious of the most complete personal superiority, laughed contemptuously at the threats of the slight-made stripling.

“It may be the same wand,” he said, “but not the same hand; and that is as good rhyme as if it were in a ballad. Look you, my Lady's page that was, when your switch was up, it was no fear of you, but of your betters, that kept mine down--and I wot not what hinders me from clearing old scores with this hazel rung, and showing you it was your Lady's livery-coat which I spared, and not your flesh and blood, Master Roland.”

In the midst of his rage, Roland Graeme was just wise enough to see, that by continuing this altercation, he would subject himself to very rude treatment from the boor, who was so much older and stronger than himself; and while his antagonist, with a sort of jeering laugh of defiance, seemed to provoke the contest, he felt the full bitterness of his own degraded condition, and burst into a passion of tears, which he in vain endeavoured to conceal with both his hands.

Even the rough churl was moved with the distress of his quondam companion.

“Nay, Master Roland,” he said, “I did but as 'twere jest with thee--I would not harm thee, man, were it but for old acquaintance sake. But ever look to a man's inches ere you talk of switching--why, thine arm, man, is but like a spindle compared to mine.--But hark, I hear old Adam Woodcock hollowing to his hawk--Come along, man, we will have a merry afternoon, and go jollily to my father's in spite of the peat-smoke and usquebaugh to boot. Maybe we may put you into some honest way of winning your bread, though it's hard to come by in these broken times.”

The unfortunate page made no answer, nor did he withdraw his hands from his face, and Fisher continued in what he imagined a suitable tone of comfort.

“Why, man, when you were my Lady's minion, men held you proud, and some thought you a Papist, and I wot not what; and so, now that you have no one to bear you out, you must be companionable and hearty, and wait on the minister's examinations, and put these things out of folk's head; and if he says you are in fault, you must jouk your head to the stream; and if a gentleman, or a gentleman's gentleman, give you a rough word, or a light blow, you must only say, thank you for dusting my doublet, or the like, as I have done by you.--But hark to Woodcock's whistle again. Come, and I will teach you all the trick on't as we go on.”

“I thank you,” said Roland Graeme, endeavouring to assume an air of indifference and of superiority; “but I have another path before me, and were it otherwise, I could not tread in yours.”

“Very true, Master Roland,” replied the clown; “and every man knows his own matters best, and so I will not keep you from the path, as you say. Give us a grip of your hand, man, for auld lang syne.--What! not clap palms ere we part?--well, so be it--a wilful man will have his way, and so farewell, and the blessing of the morning to you.”

“Good-morrow--good-morrow,” said Roland, hastily; and the clown walked lightly off, whistling as he went, and glad, apparently, to be rid of an acquaintance, whose claims might be troublesome, and who had no longer the means to be serviceable to him.

Roland Graeme compelled himself to walk on while they were within sight of each other that his former intimate might not augur any vacillation of purpose, or uncertainty of object, from his remaining on the same spot; but the effort was a painful one. He seemed stunned, as it were, and giddy; the earth on which he stood felt as if unsound, and quaking under his feet like the surface of a bog; and he had once or twice nearly fallen, though the path he trode was of firm greensward. He kept resolutely moving forward, in spite of the internal agitation to which these symptoms belonged, until the distant form of his acquaintance disappeared behind the slope of a hill, when his heart failed at once; and, sitting down on the turf, remote from human ken, he gave way to the natural expressions of wounded pride, grief, and fear, and wept with unrestrained profusion and unqualified bitterness.

When the first violent paroxysm of his feelings had subsided, the deserted and friendless youth felt that mental relief which usually follows such discharges of sorrow. The tears continued to chase each other down his cheeks, but they were no longer accompanied by the same sense of desolation; an afflicting yet milder sentiment was awakened in his mind, by the recollection of his benefactress, of the unwearied kindness which had attached her to him, in spite of many acts of provoking petulance, now recollected as offences of a deep dye, which had protected him against the machinations of others, as well as against the consequences of his own folly, and would have continued to do so, had not the excess of his presumption compelled her to withdraw her protection.

“Whatever indignity I have borne,” he said, “has been the just reward of my own ingratitude. And have I done well to accept the hospitality, the more than maternal kindness, of my protectress, yet to detain from her the knowledge of my religion?--but she shall know that a Catholic has as much gratitude as a Puritan--that I have been thoughtless, but not wicked--that in my wildest moments I have loved, respected, and honoured her--and that the orphan boy might indeed be heedless, but was never ungrateful!”

He turned, as these thoughts passed through his mind, and began hastily to retread his footsteps towards the castle. But he checked the first eagerness of his repentant haste, when he reflected on the scorn and contempt with which the family were likely to see the return of the fugitive, humbled, as they must necessarily suppose him, into a supplicant, who requested pardon for his fault, and permission to return to his service. He slackened his pace, but he stood not still.

“I care not,” he resolutely determined; “let them wink, point, nod, sneer, speak of the conceit which is humbled, of the pride which has had a fall--I care not; it is a penance due to my folly, and I will endure it with patience. But if she also, my benefactress, if she also should think me sordid and weak-spirited enough to beg, not for her pardon alone, but for a renewal of the advantages which I derived from her favour--_her_ suspicion of my meanness I cannot--I will not brook.”

He stood still, and his pride rallying with constitutional obstinacy against his more just feeling, urged that he would incur the scorn of the Lady of Avenel, rather than obtain her favour, by following the course which the first ardour of his repentant feelings had dictated to him.

“If I had but some plausible pretext,” he thought, “some ostensible reason for my return, some excuse to allege which might show I came not as a degraded supplicant, or a discarded menial, I might go thither--but as I am, I cannot--my heart would leap from its place and burst.”

As these thoughts swept through his mind, something passed in the air so near him as to dazzle his eyes, and almost to brush the plume in his cap. He looked up--it was the favourite falcon of Sir Halbert, which, flying around his head, seemed to claim his attention, as that of a well-known friend. Roland extended his arm, and gave the accustomed whoop, and the falcon instantly settled on his wrist, and began to prune itself, glancing at the youth from time to time an acute and brilliant beam of its hazel eye, which seemed to ask why he caressed it not with his usual fondness.

“Ah, Diamond!” he said, as if the bird understood him, “thou and I must be strangers henceforward. Many a gallant stoop have I seen thee make, and many a brave heron strike down; but that is all gone and over, and there is no hawking more for me!”

“And why not, Master Roland,” said Adam Woodcock the falconer, who came at that instant from behind a few alder bushes which had concealed him from view, “why should there be no more hawking for you? Why, man, what were our life without our sports?--thou know'st the jolly old song--

“And rather would Allan in dungeon lie, Than live at large where the falcon cannot fly; And Allan would rather lie in Sexton's pound, Than live where he followed not the merry hawk and hound.”