Kitabı oku: «The Abbot», sayfa 2
The Lady of Avenel, instantly taking the alarm, called hastily to the attendants to get the boat ready. But this was an affair of some time. The only boat permitted to be used on the lake, was moored within the second cut which intersected the canal, and it was several minutes ere it could be unmoored and got under way. Meantime, the Lady of Avenel, with agonizing anxiety, saw that the efforts that the poor boy made to keep himself afloat, were now exchanged for a faint struggling, which would soon have been over, but for aid equally prompt and unhoped-for. Wolf, who, like some of that large species of greyhound, was a practised water-dog, had marked the object of her anxiety, and, quitting his mistress’s side, had sought the nearest point from which he could with safety plunge into the lake. With the wonderful instinct which these noble animals have so often displayed in the like circumstances, he swam straight to the spot where his assistance was so much wanted, and seizing the child’s under-dress in his mouth, he not only kept him afloat, but towed him towards the causeway. The boat having put off with a couple of men, met the dog half-way, and relieved him of his burden. They landed on the causeway, close by the gates of the castle, with their yet lifeless charge, and were there met by the Lady of Avenel, attended by one or two of her maidens, eagerly waiting to administer assistance to the sufferer.
He was borne into the castle, deposited upon a bed, and every mode of recovery resorted to, which the knowledge of the times, and the skill of Henry Warden, who professed some medical science, could dictate. For some time it was all in vain, and the Lady watched, with unspeakable earnestness, the pallid countenance of the beautiful child. He seemed about ten years old. His dress was of the meanest sort, but his long curled hair, and the noble cast of his features, partook not of that poverty of appearance. The proudest noble in Scotland might have been yet prouder could he have called that child his heir. While, with breathless anxiety, the Lady of Avenel gazed on his well-formed and expressive features, a slight shade of colour returned gradually to the cheek; suspended animation became restored by degrees, the child sighed deeply, opened his eyes, which to the human countenance produces the effect of light upon the natural landscape, stretched his arms towards the Lady, and muttered the word “Mother,” that epithet, of all others, which is dearest to the female ear.
“God, madam,” said the preacher, “has restored the child to your wishes; it must be yours so to bring him up, that he may not one day wish that he had perished in his innocence.”
“It shall be my charge,” said the Lady; and again throwing her arms around the boy, she overwhelmed him with kisses and caresses, so much was she agitated by the terror arising from the danger in which he had been just placed, and by joy at his unexpected deliverance.
“But you are not my mother,” said the boy, recovering his recollection, and endeavouring, though faintly, to escape from the caresses of the Lady of Avenel; “you are not my mother, – alas! I have no mother – only I have dreamt that I had one.”
“I will read the dream for you, my love,” answered the Lady of Avenel; “and I will be myself your mother. Surely God has heard my wishes, and, in his own marvellous manner, hath sent me an object on which my affections may expand themselves.” She looked towards Warden as she spoke. The preacher hesitated what he should reply to a burst of passionate feeling, which, perhaps, seemed to him more enthusiastic than the occasion demanded. In the meanwhile, the large stag-hound, Wolf, which, dripping wet as he was, had followed his mistress into the apartment, and had sat by the bedside, a patient and quiet spectator of all the means used for resuscitation of the being whom he had preserved, now became impatient of remaining any longer unnoticed, and began to whine and fawn upon the Lady with his great rough paws.
“Yes,” she said, “good Wolf, and you shall be remembered also for your day’s work; and I will think the more of you for having preserved the life of a creature so beautiful.”
But Wolf was not quite satisfied with the share of attention which he thus attracted; he persisted in whining and pawing upon his mistress, his caresses rendered still more troublesome by his long shaggy hair being so much and thoroughly wetted, till she desired one of the domestics, with whom he was familiar, to call the animal out of the apartment. Wolf resisted every invitation to this purpose, until his mistress positively commanded him to be gone, in an angry tone; when, turning towards the bed on which the body still lay, half awake to sensation, half drowned in the meanders of fluctuating delirium, he uttered a deep and savage growl, curled up his nose and lips, showing his full range of white and sharpened teeth, which might have matched those of an actual wolf, and then, turning round, sullenly followed the domestic out of the apartment.
“It is singular,” said the Lady, addressing Warden; “the animal is not only so good-natured to all, but so particularly fond of children. What can ail him at the little fellow whose life he has saved?”
“Dogs,” replied the preacher, “are but too like the human race in their foibles, though their instinct be less erring than the reason of poor mortal man when relying upon his own unassisted powers. Jealousy, my good lady, is a passion not unknown to them, and they often evince it, not only with respect to the preferences which they see given by their masters to individuals of their own species, but even when their rivals are children. You have caressed that child much and eagerly, and the dog considers himself as a discarded favourite.”
“It is a strange instinct,” said the Lady; “and from the gravity with which you mention it, my reverend friend, I would almost say that you supposed this singular jealousy of my favourite Wolf, was not only well founded, but justifiable. But perhaps you speak in jest?”
“I seldom jest,” answered the preacher; “life was not lent to us to be expended in that idle mirth which resembles the crackling of thorns under the pot. I would only have you derive, if it so please you, this lesson from what I have said, that the best of our feelings, when indulged to excess, may give pain to others. There is but one in which we may indulge to the utmost limit of vehemence of which our bosom is capable, secure that excess cannot exist in the greatest intensity to which it can be excited – I mean the love of our Maker.”
“Surely,” said the Lady of Avenel, “we are commanded by the same authority to love our neighbour?”
“Ay, madam,” said Warden, “but our love to God is to be unbounded – we are to love him with our whole heart, our whole soul, and our whole strength. The love which the precept commands us to bear to our neighbour, has affixed to it a direct limit and qualification – we are to love our neighbour as ourself; as it is elsewhere explained by the great commandment, that we must do unto him as we would that he should do unto us. Here there is a limit, and a bound, even to the most praiseworthy of our affections, so far as they are turned upon sublunary and terrestrial objects. We are to render to our neighbour, whatever be his rank or degree, that corresponding portion of affection with which we could rationally expect we should ourselves be regarded by those standing in the same relation to us. Hence, neither husband nor wife, neither son nor daughter, neither friend nor relation, are lawfully to be made the objects of our idolatry. The Lord our God is a jealous God, and will not endure that we bestow on the creature that extremity of devotion which He who made us demands as his own share. I say to you, Lady, that even in the fairest, and purest, and most honourable feelings of our nature, there is that original taint of sin which ought to make us pause and hesitate, ere we indulge them to excess.”
“I understand not this, reverend sir,” said the Lady; “nor do I guess what I can have now said or done, to draw down on me an admonition which has something a taste of reproof.”
“Lady,” said Warden, “I crave your pardon, if I have urged aught beyond the limits of my duty. But consider, whether in the sacred promise to be not only a protectress, but a mother, to this poor child, your purpose may meet the wishes of the noble knight your husband. The fondness which you have lavished on the unfortunate, and, I own, most lovely child, has met something like a reproof in the bearing of your household dog. – Displease not your noble husband. Men, as well as animals, are jealous of the affections of those they love.”
“This is too much, reverend sir,” said the Lady of Avenel, greatly offended. “You have been long our guest, and have received from the Knight of Avenel and myself that honour and regard which your character and profession so justly demand. But I am yet to learn that we have at any time authorized your interference in our family arrangements, or placed you as a judge of our conduct towards each other. I pray this may be forborne in future.”
“Lady,” replied the preacher, with the boldness peculiar to the clergy of his persuasion at that time, “when you weary of my admonitions – when I see that my services are no longer acceptable to you, and the noble knight your husband, I shall know that my Master wills me no longer to abide here; and, praying for a continuance of his best blessings on your family I will then, were the season the depth of winter, and the hour midnight, walk out on yonder waste, and travel forth through these wild mountains, as lonely and unaided, though far more helpless, than when I first met your husband in the valley of Glendearg. But while I remain here, I will not see you err from the true path, no, not a hair’s-breadth, without making the old man’s voice and remonstrance heard.”
“Nay, but,” said the Lady, who both loved and respected the good man, though sometimes a little offended at what she conceived to be an exuberant degree of zeal, “we will not part this way, my good friend. Women are quick and hasty in their feelings; but, believe me, my wishes and my purposes towards this child are such as both my husband and you will approve of.” The clergyman bowed, and retreated to his own apartment.
Chapter the Second
How steadfastly he fix’d his eyes on me —
His dark eyes shining through forgotten tears —
Then stretch’d his little arms, and call’d me mother!
What could I do? I took the bantling home —
I could not tell the imp he had no mother.
COUNT BASIL.
When Warden had left the apartment, the Lady of Avenel gave way to the feelings of tenderness which the sight of the boy, his sudden danger, and his recent escape, had inspired; and no longer awed by the sternness, as she deemed it, of the preacher, heaped with caresses the lovely and interesting child. He was now, in some measure, recovered from the consequences of his accident, and received passively, though not without wonder, the tokens of kindness with which he was thus loaded. The face of the lady was strange to him, and her dress different and far more sumptuous than any he remembered. But the boy was naturally of an undaunted temper; and indeed children are generally acute physiognomists, and not only pleased by that which is beautiful in itself, but peculiarly quick in distinguishing and replying to the attentions of those who really love them. If they see a person in company, though a perfect stranger, who is by nature fond of children, the little imps seem to discover it by a sort of free-masonry, while the awkward attempts of those who make advances to them for the purpose of recommending themselves to the parents, usually fail in attracting their reciprocal attention. The little boy, therefore, appeared in some degree sensible of the lady’s caresses, and it was with difficulty she withdrew herself from his pillow, to afford him leisure for necessary repose.
“To whom belongs our little rescued varlet?” was the first question which the Lady of Avenel put to her handmaiden Lilias, when they had retired to the hall.
“To an old woman in the hamlet,” said Lilias, “who is even now come so far as the porter’s lodge to inquire concerning his safety. Is it your pleasure that she be admitted?”
“Is it my pleasure?” said the Lady of Avenel, echoing the question with a strong accent of displeasure and surprise; “can you make any doubt of it? What woman but must pity the agony of the mother, whose heart is throbbing for the safety of a child so lovely!”
“Nay, but, madam,” said Lilias, “this woman is too old to be the mother of the child; I rather think she must be his grandmother, or some more distant relation.”
“Be she who she will, Lilias,” replied the Lady, “she must have an aching heart while the safety of a creature so lovely is uncertain. Go instantly and bring her hither. Besides, I would willingly learn something concerning his birth.”
Lilias left the hall, and presently afterwards returned, ushering in a tall female very poorly dressed, yet with more pretension to decency and cleanliness than was usually combined with such coarse garments. The Lady of Avenel knew her figure the instant she presented herself. It was the fashion of the family, that upon every Sabbath, and on two evenings in the week besides, Henry Warden preached or lectured in the chapel at the castle. The extension of the Protestant faith was, upon principle, as well as in good policy, a primary object with the Knight of Avenel. The inhabitants of the village were therefore invited to attend upon the instructions of Henry Warden, and many of them were speedily won to the doctrine which their master and protector approved. These sermons, homilies, and lectures, had made a great impression on the mind of the Abbot Eustace, or Eustatius, and were a sufficient spur to the severity and sharpness of his controversy with his old fellow-collegiate; and, ere Queen Mary was dethroned, and while the Catholics still had considerable authority in the Border provinces, he more than once threatened to levy his vassals, and assail and level with the earth that stronghold of heresy the Castle of Avenel. But notwithstanding the Abbot’s impotent resentment, and notwithstanding also the disinclination of the country to favour the new religion, Henry Warden proceeded without remission in his labours, and made weekly converts from the faith of Rome to that of the reformed church. Amongst those who gave most earnest and constant attendance on his ministry, was the aged woman, whose form, tall, and otherwise too remarkable to be forgotten, the Lady had of late observed frequently as being conspicuous among the little audience. She had indeed more than once desired to know who that stately-looking woman was, whose appearance was so much above the poverty of her vestments. But the reply had always been, that she was an Englishwoman, who was tarrying for a season at the hamlet, and that no one knew more concerning her. She now asked her after her name and birth.
“Magdalen Graeme is my name,” said the woman; “I come of the Graemes of Heathergill, in Nicol Forest, [Footnote: A district of Cumberland, lying close to the Scottish border.] a people of ancient blood.”
“And what make you,” continued the Lady, “so far distant from your home?”
“I have no home,” said Magdalen Graeme, “it was burnt by your Border-riders – my husband and my son were slain – there is not a drop’s blood left in the veins of any one which is of kin to mine.”
“That is no uncommon fate in these wild times, and in this unsettled land,” said the Lady; “the English hands have been as deeply dyed in our blood as ever those of Scotsmen have been in yours.”
“You have right to say it, Lady,” answered Magdalen Graeme; “for men tell of a time when this castle was not strong enough to save your father’s life, or to afford your mother and her infant a place of refuge. And why ask ye me, then, wherefore I dwell not in mine own home, and with mine own people?”
“It was indeed an idle question,” answered the Lady, “where misery so often makes wanderers; but wherefore take refuge in a hostile country?”
“My neighbours were Popish and mass-mongers,” said the old woman; “it has pleased Heaven to give me a clearer sight of the gospel, and I have tarried here to enjoy the ministry of that worthy man Henry Warden, who, to the praise and comfort of many, teacheth the Evangel in truth and in sincerity.”
“Are you poor?” again demanded the Lady of Avenel.
“You hear me ask alms of no one,” answered the Englishwoman.
Here there was a pause. The manner of the woman was, if not disrespectful, at least much less than gracious; and she appeared to give no encouragement to farther communication. The Lady of Avenel renewed the conversation on a different topic.
“You have heard of the danger in which your boy has been placed?”
“I have, Lady, and how by an especial providence he was rescued from death. May Heaven make him thankful, and me!”
“What relation do you bear to him?”
“I am his grandmother, lady, if it so please you; the only relation he hath left upon earth to take charge of him.”
“The burden of his maintenance must necessarily be grievous to you in your deserted situation?” pursued the Lady.
“I have complained of it to no one,” said Magdalen Graeme, with the same unmoved, dry, and unconcerned tone of voice, in which she had answered all the former questions.
“If,” said the Lady of Avenel, “your grandchild could be received into a noble family, would it not advantage both him and you?”
“Received into a noble family!” said the old woman, drawing herself up, and bending her brows until her forehead was wrinkled into a frown of unusual severity; “and for what purpose, I pray you? – to be my lady’s page, or my lord’s jackman, to eat broken victuals, and contend with other menials for the remnants of the master’s meal? Would you have him to fan the flies from my lady’s face while she sleeps, to carry her train while she walks, to hand her trencher when she feeds, to ride before her on horseback, to walk after her on foot, to sing when she lists, and to be silent when she bids? – a very weathercock, which, though furnished in appearance with wings and plumage, cannot soar into the air – cannot fly from the spot where it is perched, but receives all its impulse, and performs all its revolutions, obedient to the changeful breath of a vain woman? When the eagle of Helvellyn perches on the tower of Lanercost, and turns and changes his place to show how the wind sits, Roland Graeme shall be what you would make him.”
The woman spoke with a rapidity and vehemence which seemed to have in it a touch of insanity; and a sudden sense of the danger to which the child must necessarily be exposed in the charge of such a keeper, increased the Lady’s desire to keep him in the castle if possible.
“You mistake me, dame,” she said, addressing the old woman in a soothing manner; “I do not wish your boy to be in attendance on myself, but upon the good knight my husband. Were he himself the son of a belted earl, he could not better be trained to arms, and all that befits a gentleman, than by the instructions and discipline of Sir Halbert Glendinning.”
“Ay,” answered the old woman, in the same style of bitter irony, “I know the wages of that service; – a curse when the corslet is not sufficiently brightened, – a blow when the girth is not tightly drawn, – to be beaten because the hounds are at fault, – to be reviled because the foray is unsuccessful, – to stain his hands for the master’s bidding in the blood alike of beast and of man, – to be a butcher of harmless deer, a murderer and defacer of God’s own image, not at his own pleasure, but at that of his lord, – to live a brawling ruffian, and a common stabber – exposed to heat, to cold, to want of food, to all the privations of an anchoret, not for the love of God, but for the service of Satan, – to die by the gibbet, or in some obscure skirmish, – to sleep out his brief life in carnal security, and to awake in the eternal fire, which is never quenched.”
“Nay,” said the Lady of Avenel, “but to such unhallowed course of life your grandson will not be here exposed. My husband is just and kind to those who live under his banner; and you yourself well know, that youth have here a strict as well as a good preceptor in the person of our chaplain.”
The old woman appeared to pause.
“You have named,” she said, “the only circumstance which can move me. I must soon onward, the vision has said it – I must not tarry in the same spot – I must on, – I must on, it is my weird. – Swear, then, that you will protect the boy as if he were your own, until I return hither and claim him, and I will consent for a space to part with him. But especially swear, he shall not lack the instruction of the godly man who hath placed the gospel-truth high above those idolatrous shavelings, the monks and friars.”
“Be satisfied, dame,” said the Lady of Avenel; “the boy shall have as much care as if he were born of my own blood. Will you see him now?”
“No,” answered the old woman sternly; “to part is enough. I go forth on my own mission. I will not soften my 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.
