The Abbot. Вальтер Скотт

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СКАЧАТЬ heart by useless tears and wailings, as one that is not called to a duty.”

      “Will you not accept of something to aid you in your pilgrimage?” said the Lady of Avenel, putting into her hands two crowns of the sun. The old woman flung them down on the table.

      “Am I of the race of Cain,” she said, “proud Lady, that you offer me gold in exchange for my own flesh and blood?”

      “I had no such meaning,” said the Lady, gently; “nor am I the proud woman you term me. Alas! my own fortunes might have taught me humility, even had it not been born with me.”

      The old woman seemed somewhat to relax her tone of severity.

      “You are of gentle blood,” she said, “else we had not parleyed thus long together. – You are of gentle blood, and to such,” she added, drawing up her tall form as she spoke, “pride is as graceful as is the plume upon the bonnet. But for these pieces of gold, lady, you must needs resume them. I need not money. I am well provided; and I may not care for myself, nor think how, or by whom, I shall be sustained. Farewell, and keep your word. Cause your gates to be opened, and your bridges to be lowered. I will set forward this very night. When I come again, I will demand from you a strict account, for I have left with you the jewel of my life! Sleep will visit me but in snatches, food will not refresh me, rest will not restore my strength, until I see Roland Graeme. Once more, farewell.”

      “Make your obeisance, dame,” said Lilias to Magdalen Graeme, as she retired, “make your obeisance to her ladyship, and thank her for her goodness, as is but fitting and right.”

      The old woman turned short around on the officious waiting-maid. “Let her make her obeisance to me then, and I will return it. Why should I bend to her? – is it because her kirtle is of silk, and mine of blue lockeram? – Go to, my lady’s waiting-woman. Know that the rank of the man rates that of the wife, and that she who marries a churl’s son, were she a king’s daughter, is but a peasant’s bride.”

      Lilias was about to reply in great indignation, but her mistress imposed silence on her, and commanded that the old woman should be safely conducted to the mainland.

      “Conduct her safe!” exclaimed the incensed waiting-woman, while Magdalen Graeme left the apartment; “I say, duck her in the loch, and then we will see whether she is witch or not, as every body in the village of Lochside will say and swear. I marvel your ladyship could bear so long with her insolence.” But the commands of the Lady were obeyed, and the old dame, dismissed from the castle, was committed to her fortune. She kept her word, and did not long abide in that place, leaving the hamlet on the very night succeeding the interview, and wandering no one asked whither. The Lady of Avenel inquired under what circumstances she had appeared among them, but could only learn that she was believed to be the widow of some man of consequence among the Graemes who then inhabited the Debateable Land, a name given to a certain portion of territory which was the frequent subject of dispute betwixt Scotland and England – that she had suffered great wrong in some of the frequent forays by which that unfortunate district was wasted, and had been driven from her dwelling-place. She had arrived in the hamlet no one knew for what purpose, and was held by some to be a witch, by others a zealous Protestant, and by others again a Catholic devotee. Her language was mysterious, and her manners repulsive; and all that could be collected from her conversation seemed to imply that she was under the influence either of a spell or of a vow, – there was no saying which, since she talked as one who acted under a powerful and external agency.

      Such were the particulars which the Lady’s inquiries were able to collect concerning Magdalen Graeme, being far too meagre and contradictory to authorize any satisfactory deduction. In truth, the miseries of the time, and the various turns of fate incidental to a frontier country, were perpetually chasing from their habitations those who had not the means of defence or protection. These wanderers in the land were too often seen, to excite much attention or sympathy. They received the cold relief which was extorted by general feelings of humanity; a little excited in some breasts, and perhaps rather chilled in others, by the recollection that they who gave the charity to-day might themselves want it to-morrow. Magdalen Graeme, therefore, came and departed like a shadow from the neighbourhood of Avenel Castle.

      The boy whom Providence, as she thought, had thus strangely placed under her care, was at once established a favourite with the Lady of the castle. How could it be otherwise? He became the object of those affectionate feelings, which, finding formerly no object on which to expand themselves, had increased the gloom of the castle, and imbittered the solitude of its mistress. To teach him reading and writing as far as her skill went, to attend to his childish comforts, to watch his boyish sports, became the Lady’s favourite amusement. In her circumstances, where the ear only heard the lowing of the cattle from the distant hills, or the heavy step of the warder as he walked upon his post, or the half-envied laugh of her maiden as she turned her wheel, the appearance of the blooming and beautiful boy gave an interest which can hardly be conceived by those who live amid gayer and busier scenes. Young Roland was to the Lady of Avenel what the flower, which occupies the window of some solitary captive, is to the poor wight by whom it is nursed and cultivated, – something which at once excited and repaid her care; and in giving the boy her affection, she felt, as it were, grateful to him for releasing her from the state of dull apathy in which she had usually found herself during the absence of Sir Halbert Glendinning.

      But even the charms of this blooming favourite were unable to chase the recurring apprehensions which arose from her husband’s procrastinated return. Soon after Roland Graeme became a resident at the castle, a groom, despatched by Sir Halbert, brought tidings that business still delayed the Knight at the Court of Holyrood. The more distant period which the messenger had assigned for his master’s arrival at length glided away, summer melted into autumn, and autumn was about to give place to winter, and yet he came not.

      Chapter the Third

      The waning harvest-moon shone broad and bright,

      The warder’s horn was heard at dead of night,

      And while the portals-wide were flung,

      With trampling hoofs the rocky pavement rung.

LEYDEN.

      “And you, too, would be a soldier, Roland?” said the Lady of Avenel to her young charge, while, seated on a stone chair at one end of the battlements, she saw the boy attempt, with a long stick, to mimic the motions of the warder, as he alternately shouldered, or ported, or sloped pike.

      “Yes, Lady,” said the boy, – for he was now familiar, and replied to her questions with readiness and alacrity, – “a soldier will I be; for there ne’er was gentleman but who belted him with the brand.”

      “Thou a gentleman!” said Lilias, who, as usual, was in attendance; “such a gentleman as I would make of a bean-cod with a rusty knife.”

      “Nay, chide him not, Lilias,” said the Lady of Avenel, “for, beshrew me, but I think he comes of gentle blood – see how it musters in his face at your injurious reproof.”

      “Had I my will, madam,” answered Lilias, “a good birchen wand should make his colour muster to better purpose still.”

      “On my word, Lilias,” said the Lady, “one would think you had received harm from the poor boy – or is he so far on the frosty side of your favour because he enjoys the sunny side of mine?”

      “Over heavens forbode, my Lady!” answered Lilias; “I have lived too long with gentles, I praise my stars for it, to fight with either follies or fantasies, whether they relate to beast, bird, or boy.”

      Lilias was a favourite in her own class, a spoiled domestic, and often accustomed to take more licence than her mistress was at all СКАЧАТЬ