The most effectual means he could devise was this show of good
fellowship and neighbourly friendship,--under colour of which he made
his annual cruise through the barony--numbered every corn-stack, and
computed its contents by the boll, so that he could give a shrewd hint
afterwards whether or not the grist came to the right mill.

Dame Elspeth, like her compeers, was obliged to take these domiciliary
visits in the sense of politeness; but in her case they had not
occurred since her husband's death, probably because the Tower of
Glendearg was distant, and there was but a trifling quantity of arable
or _infield_ land attached to it. This year there had been, upon
some speculation of old Martin's, several bolls sown in the
exit-field, which, the season being fine, had ripened remarkably well.
Perhaps this circumstance occasioned the honest Miller's including
Glendearg, on this occasion, in his annual round Dame Glendinning
received with pleasure a visit which she used formerly only to endure
with patience; and she had changed her view of the matter chiefly, if
not entirely, because Hob had brought with him his daughter Mysie, of
whose features she could give so slight an account, but whose dress
she had described so accurately to the Sub-Prior.

Hitherto this girl had been an object of very trifling consideration
in the eyes of the good widow; but the Sub-Prior's particular and
somewhat mysterious inquiries had set her brains to work on the
subject of Mysie of the Mill; and she had here asked a broad question,
and there she had thrown out an innuendo, and there again she had
gradually led on to a conversation on the subject of poor Mysie. And
from all inquiries and investigations she had collected, that Mysie
was a dark-eyed, laughter-loving wench, with cherry-cheeks, and a skin
as white as her father's finest bolted flour, out of which was made
the Abbot's own wastel-bread. For her temper, she sung and laughed
from morning to night; and for her fortune, a material article,
besides that which the Miller might have amassed by means of his
proverbial golden thumb, Mysie was to inherit a good handsome lump of
land, with a prospect of the mill and mill-acres descending to her
husband on an easy lease, if a fair word were spoken in season to the
Abbot, and to the Prior, and to the Sub-Prior, and to the Sacristan,
and so forth.

By turning and again turning these advantages over in her own mind,
Elspeth at length came to be of opinion, that the only way to save her
son Halbert from a life of "spur, spear, and snaffle," as they called
that of the border-riders, from the dint of a cloth-yard shaft, or the
loop of an inch-cord, was, that he should marry and settle, and that
Mysie Happer should be his destined bride.

As if to her wish, Hob Miller arrived on his strong-built mare,
bearing on a pillion behind him the lovely Mysie, with cheeks like a
peony-rose, (if Dame Glendinning had ever seen one,) spirits all
afloat with rustic coquetry, and a profusion of hair as black as
ebony. The _beau-ideal_ which Dame Glendinning had been bodying
forth in her imagination, became unexpectedly realized in the buxom
form of Mysie Happer, whom, in the course of half an hour, she settled
upon as the maiden who was to fix the restless and untutored Halbert.
True, Mysie, as the dame soon saw, was like to love dancing round a
May-pole as well as managing a domestic establishment, and Halbert was
like to break more heads than he would grind stacks of corn. But then
a miller should always be of manly make, and has been described so
since the days of Chaucer and James I. [Footnote: The verse we have
chosen for a motto, is from a poem imputed to James I. of Scotland. As
for the Miller who figures among the Canterbury pilgrims, besides his
sword and buckler, he boasted other attributes, all of which, but
especially the last, show that he relied more on the strength of the
outside than that of the inside of his skull.

  The miller was a stout carl for the nones,
  Full big he was of brawn, and eke of bones;
  That proved well, for wheresoe'r he cam,
  At wrestling he wold bear away the ram;
  He was short shoulder'd, broad, a thick gnar;
  There n'as no door that he n'old heave of bar,
  Or break it at a running with his head, &c. ]

Indeed, to be able to outdo and bully the whole _Sucken_, (once
more we use this barbarous phrase,) in all athletic exercises, was one
way to render easy the collection of dues which men would have
disputed with a less formidable champion.  Then, as to the
deficiencies of the miller's wife, the dame was of opinion that they
might be supplied by the activity of the miller's mother. "I will keep
house for the young folk myself, for the tower is grown very lonely,"
thought Dame Glendinning, "and to live near the kirk will be mair
comfortable in my auld age--and then Edward may agree with his brother
about the feu, more especially as he is a favourite with the
Sub-Prior, and then he may live in the auld tower like his worthy
father before him--and wha kens but Mary Avenel, high-blood as she is,
may e'en draw in her stool to the chimney-nook, and sit down here for
good and a'?--It's true she has no tocher, but the like of her for
beauty and sense ne'er crossed my een; and I have kend every wench in
the Halidome of St.  Mary's--ay, and their mothers that bore them--ay,
she is a sweet and a lovely creature as ever tied snood over brown
hair--ay, and then, though her uncle keeps her out of her ain for the
present time, yet it is to be thought the gray-goose shaft will find a
hole in his coat of proof, as, God help us! it has done in many a
better man's--And, moreover, if they should stand on their pedigree
and gentle race, Edward might say to them, that is, to her gentle kith
and kin, 'whilk o' ye was her best friend, when she came down the glen
to Glendearg in a misty evening, on a beast mair like a cuddie than
aught else?'--And if they tax him with churl's blood, Edward might
say, that, forby the old proverb, how

  Gentle deed
  Makes gentle bleid;

yet, moreover, there comes no churl's blood from Glendinning or Brydone;
for, says Edward--"

The hoarse voice of the Miller at this moment recalled the dame from
her reverie, and compelled her to remember that if she meant to
realize her airy castle, she must begin by laying the foundation in
civility to her guest and his daughter, whom she was at that moment
most strangely neglecting, though her whole plan turned on
conciliating their favour and good opinion, and that, in fact, while
arranging matters for so intimate a union with her company, she was
suffering them to sit unnoticed, and in their riding gear, as if about
to resume their journey. "And so I say, dame," concluded the Miller,
(for she had not marked the beginning of his speech,) "an ye be so
busied with your housekep, or ought else, why, Mysie and I will trot
our way down the glen again to Johnnie Broxmouth's, who pressed us
right kindly to bide with him."

Starting at once from her dream of marriages and intermarriages,
mills, mill-lands, and baronies, Dame Elspeth felt for a moment like
the milk-maid in the fable, when she overset the pitcher, on the
contents of which so many golden dreams were founded. But the
foundation of Dame Glendinning's hopes was only tottering, not
overthrown, and she hastened to restore its equilibrium. Instead of
attempting to account for her absence of mind and want of attention to
her guests, which she might have found something difficult, she
assumed the offensive, like an able general when he finds it
necessary, by a bold attack, to disguise his weakness.

A loud exclamation she made, and a passionate complaint she set up
against the unkindness of her old friend, who could for an instant
doubt the heartiness of her welcome to him and to his hopeful
daughter; and then to think of his going back to Johnny Broxmouth's,
when the auld tower stood where it did, and had room in it for a
friend or two in the worst of times--and he too a neighbour that his
umquhile gossip Simon, blessed be his cast, used to think the best
friend he had in the Halidome! And on she went, urging her complaint
with so much seriousness, that she had well-nigh imposed on herself as
well as upon Hob Miller, who had no mind to take any thing in dudgeon;
and as it suited his plans to pass the night at Glendearg, would have
been equally contented to do so even had his reception been less
vehemently hospitable.

To all Elspeth's expostulations on the unkindness of his proposal to
leave her dwelling, he answered composedly, "Nay, dame, what could I
tell? ye might have had other grist to grind, for ye looked as if ye
scarce saw us--or what know I? ye might bear in mind the words Martin
and I had about the last barley ye sawed--for I ken dry multures
[Footnote: Dry multures were a fine, or compensation in money, for not
grinding at the mill of the thirl. It was, and is, accounted a
vexatious exaction.] will sometimes stick in the throat. A man seeks
but his awn, and yet folk shall hold him for both miller and miller's
man, that is millar and knave, [Footnote: The under miller is, in the
language of thirlage, called the knave, which, indeed, signified
originally his lad. (_Knabe_--German,) but by degrees came to be
taken in a worse sense. In the old translation of the Bible, Paul is
made to term himself the knave of our Saviour. The allowance of meal
taken by the miller's servant was called knave-ship.] all the country
over."

"Alas, that you will say so, neighbour Hob," said Dame Elspeth, "or
that Martin should have had any words with you about the mill-dues! I
will chide him roundly for it, I promise you, on the faith of a true
widow.  You know full well that a lone woman is sore put upon by her
servants."

"Nay, dame," said the miller, unbuckling the broad belt which made
fast his cloak, and served, at the same time, to suspend by his side a
swinging Andrea Ferrara, "bear no grudge at Martin, for I bear none--I
take it on me as a thing of mine office, to maintain my right of
multure, lock, and gowpen.  [Note: The multure was the regular
exaction for grinding the meal. The _lock_, signifying a small
quantity, and the _gowpen_, a handful, were additional
perquisites demanded by the miller, and submitted to or resisted by
the _Suckener_ as circumstances permitted. These and other petty
dues were called in general the _Sequels_.] And reason good, for
as the old song says,

  I live by my mill. God bless her,
   She's parent, child, and wife.

The poor old slut, I am beholden to her for my living, and bound to
stand by her, as I say to my mill knaves, in right and in wrong. And
so should every honest fellow stand by his bread-winner.--And so,
Mysie, ye may doff your cloak since our neighbour is so kindly glad to
see us--why, I think, we are as blithe to see her--not one in the
Halidome pays their multures more duly, sequels, arriage, and
carriage, and mill-services, used and wont."

With that the Miller hung his ample cloak without farther ceremony
upon a huge pair of stag's antlers, which adorned at once the naked
walls of the tower, and served for what we vulgarly call cloak-pins.

In the meantime Dame Elspeth assisted to disembarrass the damsel whom
she destined for her future daughter-in-law, of her hood, mantle, and
the rest of her riding gear, giving her to appear as beseemed the
buxom daughter of the wealthy Miller, gay and goodly, in a white
kirtle, the seams of which were embroidered with green silken lace or
fringe, entwined with some silver thread. An anxious glance did
Elspoth cast upon the good-humoured face, which was now more fully
shown to her, and was only obscured by a quantity of raven black hair,
which the maid of the mill had restrained by a snood of green silk,
embroidered with silver, corresponding to the trimmings of her kirtle.
The countenance itself was exceedingly comely--the eyes black, large,
and roguishly good-humoured--the mouth was small--the lips well
formed, though somewhat full--the teeth were pearly white--and the
chin had a very seducing dimple in it. The form belonging to this
joyous face was full and round, and firm and fair. It might become
coarse and masculine some years hence, which is the common fault of
Scottish beauty; but in Mysie's sixteenth year she had the shape of a
Hebe. The anxious Elspeth, with all her maternal partiality, could not
help admitting within herself, that a better man than Halbert might go
farther and fare worse.  She looked a little giddy, and Halbert was
not nineteen; still it was time he should be settled, for to that
point the dame always returned; and here was an excellent opportunity.

The simple cunning of Dame Elspeth now exhausted itself in
commendations of her fair guest, from the snood, as they say, to the
single-soled shoe.  Mysie listened and blushed with pleasure for the
first five minutes; but ere ten had elapsed, she began to view the old
lady's compliments rather as subjects of mirth than of vanity, and was
much more disposed to laugh at than to be flattered with them, for
Nature had mingled the good-humour with which she had endowed the
damsel with no small portion of shrewdness.  Even Hob himself began to
tire of hearing his daughter's praises, and broke in with, "Ay, ay,
she is a clever quean enough; and, were she five years older, she
shall lay a loaded sack on an _aver_ [Note: _Aver_--properly
a horse of labour.] with e'er a lass in the Halidome. But I have been
looking for your two sons, dame. Men say downby that Halbert's turned
a wild springald, and that we may have word of him from Westmoreland
one moonlight night or another."

"God forbid, my good neighbour; God, in his mercy, forbid!" said Dame
Glendinning, earnestly; for it was touching the very key-note of her
apprehensions, to hint any probability that Halbert might become one
of the marauders so common in the age and country. But, fearful of
having betrayed too much alarm on this subject, she immediately added,
"That though, since the last rout at Pinkiecleuch, she had been all of
a tremble when a gun or a spear was named, or when men spoke of
fighting; yet, thanks to God and our Lady, her sons were like to live
and die honest and peaceful tenants to the Abbey, as their father
might have done, but for that awful hosting which he went forth to
with mony a brave man that never returned."

"Ye need not tell me of it, dame," said the Miller, "since I was there
myself, and made two pair of legs (and these were not mine, but my
mare's,) worth one pair of hands. I judged how it would be, when I saw
our host break ranks, with rushing on through that broken ploughed
field, and so as they had made a pricker of me, I e'en pricked off
with myself while the play was good."

"Ay, ay, neighbour," said the dame, "ye were aye a wise and a wary
man; if my Simon had had your wit, he might have been here to speak
about it this day; but he was aye cracking of his good blood and his
high kindred, and less would not serve him than to bide the bang to
the last, with the earls, and knights, and squires, that had no wives
to greet for them, or else had wives that cared not how soon they were
widows; but that is not for the like of us. But touching my son
Halbert, there is no fear of him; for if it should be his misfortune
to be in the like case, he has the best pair of heels in Halidome, and
could run almost as fast as your mare herself."

"Is this he, neighbour?" quoth the Miller.

"No," replied the mother; "that is my youngest son, Edward, who can
read and write like the Lord Abbot himself, if it were not a sin to
say so."

"Ay," said the Miller; "and is that the young clerk the Sub-Prior
thinks so much of? they say he will come far ben that lad; wha kens
but he may come to be Sub-Prior himself?--as broken a ship has come to
land."

"To be a Prior, neighbour Miller," said Edward, "a man must first be
a priest, and for that I judge I have little vocation."

"He will take to the pleugh-pettle, neighbour," said the good dame;
"and so will Halbert too, I trust. I wish you saw Halbert.--Edward,
where is your brother?"

"Hunting, I think," replied Edward; "at least he left us this morning
to join the Laird of Colmslie and his hounds. I have heard them
baying in the glen all day."

"And if I had heard that music," said the Miller, "it would have done
my heart good, ay, and may be taken me two or three miles out of my
road.  When I was the Miller of Morebattle's knave, I have followed
the hounds from Eckford to the foot of Hounam-law--followed them on
foot, Dame Glendinning, ay, and led the chase when the Laird of
Cessford and his gay riders were all thrown out by the mosses and
gills. I brought the stag on my back to Hounam Cross, when the dogs
had pulled him down. I think I see the old gray knight, as he sate so
upright on his strong war-horse, all white with foam; and 'Miller,'
said he to me, 'an thou wilt turn thy back on the mill, and wend with
me, I will make a man of thee.' But I chose rather to abide by clap
and happer, and the better luck was mine; for the proud Percy caused
hang five of the Laird's henchmen at Alnwick for burning a rickle of
houses some gate beyond Fowberry, and it might have been my luck as
well as another man's."

"Ah, neighbour, neighbour," said Dame Glendinning, "you were aye wise
and wary; but if you like hunting, I must say Halbert's the lad to
please you. He hath all those fair holiday terms of hawk and hound as
ready in his mouth as Tom with the tod's tail, that is the Lord
Abbot's ranger."

"Ranges he not homeward at dinner-time, dame," demanded the Miller;
"for we call noon the dinner-hour at Kennaquhair?"

The widow was forced to admit that, even at this important period of
the day, Halbert was frequently absent; at which the Miller shook his
head, intimating, at the same time, some allusion to the proverb of
MacFarlane's geese, which "liked their play better than their
meat." [Footnote: A brood of wild-geese, which long frequented one of
the uppermost islands in Loch-Lomond, called Inch-Tavoe, were supposed
to have some mysterious connexion with the ancient family of
MacFarlane of that ilk, and it is said were never seen after the ruin
and extinction of that house. The MacFarlanes had a house and garden
upon that same island of Inch-Tavoe. Here James VI. was, on one
occasion, regaled by the chieftain. His Majesty had been previously
much amused by the geese pursuing each other on the Loch. But, when
one which was brought to table, was found to be tough and ill fed,
James observed--"that MacFarlane's geese liked their play better than
their meat," a proverb which has been current ever since.]

That the delay of dinner might not increase the Miller's disposition
to prejudge Halbert, Dame Glendinning called hastily on Mary Avenel to
take her task of entertaining Mysie Happer, while she herself rushed
to the kitchen, and, entering at once into the province of Tibb
Tacket, rummaged among trenchers and dishes, snatched pots from the
fire, and placed pans and gridirons on it, accompanying her own feats
of personal activity with such a continued list of injunctions to
Tibb, that Tibb at length lost patience, and said, "Here was as muckle
wark about meating an auld miller, as if they had been to banquet the
blood of Bruce." But this, as it was supposed to be spoken aside, Dame
Glendinning did not think it convenient to hear.

       *       *       *       *       *



Chapter the Fourteenth.


  Nay, let me have the friends who eat my victuals,
  As various as my dishes.--The feast's naught,
  Where one huge plate predominates. John Plaintext,
  He shall be mighty beef, our English staple;
  The worthy Alderman, a butter'd dumpling;
  Yon pair of whisker'd Cornets, ruffs and rees:
  Their friend the Dandy, a green goose in sippets.
  And so the hoard is spread at once and fill'd
  On the same principle--Variety.
                           NEW PLAY.

"And what brave lass is this?" said Hob Miller, as Mary Avenel entered
the apartment to supply the absence of Dame Elspeth Glendinning.

"The young Lady of Avenel, father," said the Maid of the Mill,
dropping as low a curtsy as her rustic manners enabled her to make.
The Miller, her father, doffed his bonnet, and made his reverence, not
altogether so low perhaps as if the young lady had appeared in the
pride of rank and riches, yet so as to give high birth the due homage
which the Scotch for a length of time scrupulously rendered to it.

Indeed, from having had her mother's example before her for so many
years, and from a native sense of propriety and even of dignity, Mary
Avenel had acquired a demeanour, which marked her title to
consideration, and effectually checked any attempt at familiarity on
the part of those who might be her associates in her present
situation, but could not be well termed her equals. She was by nature
mild, pensive, and contemplative, gentle in disposition, and most
placable when accidentally offended; but still she was of a retired
and reserved habit, and shunned to mix in ordinary sports, even--when
the rare occurrence of a fair or wake gave her an opportunity of
mingling with companions of her own age. If at such scenes she was
seen for an instant, she appeared to behold them with the composed
indifference of one to whom their gaiety was a matter of no interest,
and who seemed only desirous to glide away from the scene as soon as
she possibly could.

Something also had transpired concerning her being born on All-hallow
Eve, and the powers with which that circumstance was supposed to
invest her over the invisible world. And from all-these particulars
combined, the young men and women of the Halidome used to distinguish
Mary among themselves by the name of the Spirit of Avenel, as if the
fair but fragile form, the beautiful but rather colourless cheek, the
dark blue eye, and the shady hair, had belonged rather to the
immaterial than the substantial world. The general tradition of the
White Lady, who was supposed to wait on the fortunes of the family of
Avenel, gave a sort of zest to this piece of rural wit. It gave great
offence, however, to the two sons of Simon Glendinning; and when the
expression was in their presence applied to the young lady, Edward was
wont to check the petulance of those who used it by strength of
argument, and Halbert by strength of arm. In such cases Halbert had
this advantage, that although ho could render no aid to his brother's
argument, yet when circumstances required it, he was sure to have that
of Edward, who never indeed himself commenced a fray, but, on the
other hand, did not testify any reluctance to enter into combat in
Halbert's behalf or in his rescue.

But the zealous attachment of the two youths, being themselves, from
the retired situation in which they dwelt, comparative strangers in
the Halidome, did not serve in any degree to alter the feelings of the
inhabitants towards the young lady, who seemed to have dropped amongst
them from another sphere of life. Still, however, she was regarded
with respect, if not with fondness; and the attention of the Sub-Prior
to the family, not to mention the formidable name of Julian Avenel,
which every new incident of those tumultuous times tended to render
more famous, attached to his niece a certain importance. Thus some
aspired to her acquaintance out of pride while the more timid of the
feuars were anxious to inculcate upon their children the necessity of
being respectful to the noble orphan. So that Mary Avenel, little
loved because little known, was regarded with a mysterious awe, partly
derived from fear of her uncle's moss-troopers, and partly from her
own retired and distant habits, enhanced by the superstitious opinions
of the time and country.

It was not without some portion of this awe, that Mysie felt herself
left alone in company with a young person so distant in rank, and so
different in bearing, from herself; for her worthy father had taken
the first opportunity to step out unobserved, in order to mark how the
barnyard was filled, and what prospect it afforded of grist to the
mill. In youth, however, there is a sort of free-masonry, which,
without much conversation, teaches young persons to estimate each
other's character, and places them at ease on the shortest
acquaintance. It is only when taught deceit by the commerce of the
world, that we learn to shroud our character from observation, and to
disguise our real sentiments from those with whom we are placed in
communion.

Accordingly, the two young women were soon engaged in such objects of
interest as best became their age. They visited Mary Avenel's pigeons,
which she nursed with the tenderness of a mother; they turned over her
slender stores of finery, which yet contained some articles that
excited the respect of her companion, though Mysie was too
good-humoured to nourish envy. A golden rosary, and some female
ornaments marking superior rank, had been rescued in the moment of
their utmost adversity, more by Tibb Tacket's presence of mind, than
by the care of their owner,--who was at that sad period too much sunk
in grief to pay any attention to such circumstances.  They struck
Mysie with a deep impression of veneration; for, excepting what the
Lord Abbot and the convent might possess, she did not believe there
was so much real gold in the world as was exhibited in these few
trinkets, and Mary, however sage and serious, was not above being
pleased with the admiration of her rustic companion.

Nothing, indeed, could exhibit a stronger contrast than the appearance
of the two girls;--the good-humoured laughter-loving countenance of
the Maid of the Mill, who stood gazing with unrepressed astonishment
on whatever was in her inexperienced eye rare and costly, and with an
humble, and at the same time cheerful acquiescence in her inferiority,
asking all the little queries about the use and value of the
ornaments, while Mary Avenel, with her quiet composed dignity and
placidity of manner, produced them one after another for the amusement
of her companion.

As they became gradually more familiar, Mysie of the Mill was just
venturing to ask, why Mary Avenel never appeared at the May-pole, and to
express her wonder when the young lady said she disliked dancing, when
a trampling of horses at the gate of the tower interrupted their
conversation.

Mysie flew to the shot-window in the full ardour of unrestrained female
curiosity. "Saint Mary! sweet lady! here come two well-mounted gallants;
will you step this way to look at them ?"

"No," said Mary Avenel, "you shall tell me who they are."

"Well, if you like it better," said Mysie--"but how shall I know
them?---Stay, I do know one of them, and so do you, lady; he is a
blithe man, somewhat light of hand, they say, but the gallants of
these days think no great harm of that. He is your uncle's henchman,
that they call Christie of the Clinthill; and he has not his old green
jerkin and the rusty blackjack over it, but a scarlet cloak, laid down
with silver lace three inches broad, and a breast-plate you might see
to dress your hair in, as well as in that keeking-glass in the ivory
frame that you showed me even now. Come, dear lady, come to the
shot-window and see him."

"If it be the man you mean, Mysie," replied the orphan of Avenel, "I
shall see him soon enough, considering either the pleasure or comfort
the sight will give me."

"Nay, but if you will not come to see gay Christie," replied the Maid
of the Mill, her face flushed with eager curiosity, "come and tell me
who the gallant is that is with him, the handsomest, the very
lovesomest young man I ever saw with sight."

"It is my foster-brother, Halbert Glendinning," said Mary, with,
apparent indifference; for she had been accustomed to call the sons of
Elspeth her foster-brethren, and to live with them as if they had been
brothers in earnest.

"Nay, by Our Lady, that it is not," said Mysie; "I know the favour of
both the Glendinnings well, and I think this rider be not of our
country.  He has a crimson velvet bonnet, and long brown hair falling
down under it, and a beard on his upper lip, and his chin clean and
close shaved, save a small patch on the point of the chin, and a
sky-blue jerkin slashed and lined with white satin, and trunk-hose to
suit, and no weapon but a rapier and dagger--Well, if I was a man, I
would never wear weapon but the rapier!  it is so slender and
becoming, instead of having a cartload of iron at my back, like my
father's broad-sword with its great rusty basket-hilt. Do you not
delight in the rapier and poniard, lady?"

"The best sword," answered Mary, "if I must needs answer a question of
the sort, is that which is drawn in the best cause, and which is best
used when it is out of the scabbard."

"But can you not guess who this stranger should be?" said Mysie.

"Indeed, I cannot even attempt it; but to judge by his companion, it is
no matter how little he is known," replied Mary.

"My benison on his bonny face," said Mysie, "if he is not going to
alight here! Now, I am as much pleased as if my father had given me
the silver earrings he has promised me so often;--nay, you had as well
come to the window, for you must see him by and by whether you will or
not." I do not know how much sooner Mary Avenel might have sought the
point of observation, if she had not been scared from it by the
unrestrained curiosity expressed by her buxom friend; but at length
the same feeling prevailed over her sense of dignity, and satisfied
with having displayed all the indifference that was necessary in point
of decorum, she no longer thought herself bound to restrain her
curiosity.

From the outshot or projecting window, she could perceive that
Christie of the Clinthill was attended on the present occasion by a
very gay and gallant cavalier, who, from the nobleness of his
countenance and manner, his rich and handsome dress, and the showy
appearance of his horse and furniture, must, she agreed with her new
friend, be a person of some consequence.

Christie also seemed conscious of something, which made him call out
with more than his usual insolence of manner, "What, ho! so ho! the
house! Churl peasants, will no one answer when I call?--Ho!
Martin,--Tibb,--Dame Glendinning--a murrain on you, must we stand
keeping our horses in the cold here, and they steaming with heat, when
we have ridden so sharply?"

At length he was obeyed, and old Martin made his appearance. "Ha!"
said Christie, "art thou there, old Truepenny? here, stable me these
steeds, and see them well bedded, and stretch thine old limbs by
rubbing them down; and see thou quit not the stable till there is not
a turned hair on either of them."

Martin took the horses to the stable as commanded, but suppressed not
his indignation a moment after he could vent it with safety. "Would
not any one think," he said to Jasper, an old ploughman, who, in
coming to his assistance, had heard Christie's imperious injunctions,
"that this loon, this Christie of the Clinthill, was laird or lord at
least of him? No such thing, man! I remember him a little dirty
turnspit boy in the house of Avenel, that every body in a frosty
morning like this warmed his fingers by kicking or cuffing! and now he
is a gentleman, and swears, d--n him and renounce him, as if the
gentlemen could not so much as keep their own wickedness to
themselves, without the like of him going to hell in their very
company, and by the same road. I have as much a mind as ever I had to
my dinner, to go back and tell him to sort his horse himself, since he
is as able as I am."

"Hout tout, man!" answered Jasper, "keep a calm sough; better to
fleech a fool than fight with him."

Martin acknowledged the truth of the proverb, and, much comforted
therewith, betook himself to cleaning the stranger's horse with great
assiduity, remarking, it was a pleasure to handle a handsome nag, and
turned over the other to the charge of Jasper. Nor was it until
Christie's commands were literally complied with that he deemed it
proper, after fitting ablutions, to join the party in the spence; not
for the purpose of waiting upon them, as a mere modern reader might
possibly expect, but that he might have his share of dinner in their
company.

In the meanwhile, Christie had presented his companion to Dame
Glendinning as Sir Piercie Shafton, a friend of his and of his master,
come to spend three or four days with little din in the tower. The
good dame could not conceive how she was entitled to such an honour,
and would fain have pleaded her want of every sort of convenience to
entertain a guest of that quality. But, indeed, the visiter, when he
cast his eyes round the bare walls, eyed the huge black chimney,
scrutinized the meagre and broken furniture of the apartment, and
beheld the embarrassment of the mistress of the family, intimated
great reluctance to intrude upon Dame Glendinning a visit, which could
scarce, from all appearances, prove otherwise than an inconvenience to
her, and a penance to himself.

But the reluctant hostess and her guest had to do with an inexorable
man, who silenced all expostulations with, "such was his master's
pleasure. And, moreover," he continued, "though the Baron of Avenel's
will must, and ought to prove law to all within ten miles around him,
yet here, dame," he said, "is a letter from your petticoated baron,
the lord-priest yonder, who enjoins you, as you regard his pleasure,
that you afford to this good knight such decent accommodation as is in
your power, suffering him to live as privately as he shall
desire.--And for you, Sir Piercie Shafton," continued Christie, "you
will judge for yourself, whether secrecy and safety is not more your
object even now, than soft beds and high cheer. And do not judge of
the dame's goods by the semblance of her cottage; for you will see by
the dinner she is about to spread for us, that the vassal of the kirk
is seldom found with her basket bare." To Mary Avenel, Christie
presented the stranger, after the best fashion he could, as to the
niece of his master the baron.

While he thus laboured to reconcile Sir Piercie Shafton to his fate,
the widow, having consulted her son Edward on the real import of the
Lord Abbot's injunction, and having found that Christie had given a
true exposition, saw nothing else left for her but to make that fate
as easy as she could to the stranger. He himself also seemed
reconciled to his lot by some feeling probably of strong necessity,
and accepted with a good grace the hospitality which the dame offered
with a very indifferent one.

In fact, the dinner, which soon smoked before the assembled guests,
was of that substantial kind which warrants plenty and comfort. Dame
Glendinning had cooked it after her best manner; and, delighted with
the handsome appearance which her good cheer made when placed on the
table, forgot both her plans and the vexations which interrupted them,
in the hospitable duty of pressing her assembled visiters to eat and
drink, watching every trencher as it waxed empty, and loading it with
fresh supplies ere the guest could utter a negative.

In the meanwhile, the company attentively regarded each other's
motions, and seemed endeavouring to form a judgment of each other's
character.  Sir Piercie Shafton condescended to speak to no one but to
Mary Avenel, and on her he conferred exactly the same familiar and
compassionate, though somewhat scornful sort of attention, which a
pretty fellow of these days will sometimes condescend to bestow on a
country miss, when there is no prettier or more fashionable woman
present. The manner indeed was different, for the etiquette of those
times did not permit Sir Piercie Shafton to pick his teeth, or to
yawn, or to gabble like the beggar whose tongue (as he says) was cut
out by the Turks, or to affect deafness or blindness, or any other
infirmity of the organs. But though the embroidery of his conversation
was different, the groundwork was the same, and the high-flown and
ornate compliments with which the gallant knight of the sixteenth
century inter-larded his conversation, were as much the offspring of
egotism and self-conceit, as the jargon of the coxcombs of our own
days.

The English knight was, however, something daunted at finding that
Mary Avenel listened with an air of indifference, and answered with
wonderful brevity, to all the fine things which ought, as he
conceived, to have dazzled her with their brilliancy, and puzzled her
by their obscurity. But if he was disappointed in making the desired,
or rather the expected impression, upon her whom he addressed, Sir
Piercie Shafton's discourse was marvellous in the ears of Mysie the
Miller's daughter, and not the less so that she did not comprehend the
meaning of a single word which he uttered. Indeed, the gallant
knight's language was far too courtly to be understood by persons of
much greater acuteness than Mysie's.

It was about this period, that the "only rare poet of his time, the
witty, comical, facetiously-quick, and quickly-facetious, John
Lylly--he that sate at Apollo's table, and to whom Phoebus gave a
wreath of his own bays without snatching" [Footnote: Such, and yet
more extravagant, are the compliments paid to this author by his
editor, Blount. Notwithstanding all exaggeration, Lylly was really a
man of wit and imagination, though both were deformed by the most
unnatural affectation that ever disgraced a printed page.]--he, in
short, who wrote that singularly coxcomical work, called _Euphues
and his England_, was in the very zenith of his absurdity and his
reputation. The quaint, forced, and unnatural style which he
introduced by his "Anatomy of Wit," had a fashion as rapid as it was
momentary--all the court ladies were his scholars, and to _parler
Euphuisme_, was as necessary a qualification to a courtly gallant,
as those of understanding how to use his rapier, or to dance a
measure.

It was no wonder that the Maid of the Mill was soon as effectually
blinded by the intricacies of this erudite and courtly style of
conversation, as she had ever been by the dust of her father's own
meal-sacks. But there she sate with her mouth and eyes as open as the
mill-door and the two windows, showing teeth as white as her father's
bolted flour, and endeavouring to secure a word or two for her own
future use out of the pearls of rhetoric which Sir Piercie Shafton
scattered around him with such bounteous profusion.

For the male part of the company, Edward felt ashamed of his own
manner and slowness of speech, when he observed the handsome young
courtier, with an ease and volubility of which he had no conception,
run over all the commonplace topics of high-flown gallantry. It is
true the good sense and natural taste of young Glendinning soon
informed him that the gallant cavalier was speaking nonsense. But,
alas! where is the man of modest merit, and real talent, who has not
suffered from being outshone in conversation and outstripped in the
race of life, by men of less reserve, and of qualities more showy,
though less substantial? and well constituted must the mind be, that
can yield up the prize without envy to competitors more worthy than
himself.

Edward Glendinning had no such philosophy. While he despised the
jargon of the gay cavalier, he envied the facility with which he could
run on, as well as the courtly tone and expression, and the perfect
ease and elegance with which he offered all the little acts of
politeness to which the duties of the table gave opportunity. And if I
am to speak truth, I must own that he envied those qualities the more
as they were all exercised in Mary Avenel's service, and, although
only so far accepted as they could not be refused, intimated a wish on
the stranger's part to place himself in her good graces, as the only
person in the room to whom he thought it worth while to recommend
himself. His title, rank, and very handsome figure, together with some
sparks of wit and spirit which flashed across the cloud of nonsense
which he uttered, rendered him, as the words of the old song say, "a
lad for a lady's viewing;" so that poor Edward, with all his real
worth and acquired knowledge, in his home-spun doublet, blue cap, and
deerskin trowsers, looked like a clown beside the courtier, and,
feeling the full inferiority, nourished no good-will to him by whom he
was eclipsed.

Christie, on the other hand, as soon as he had satisfied to the full a
commodious appetite, by means of which persons of his profession
could, like the wolf and eagle, gorge themselves with as much food at
one meal as might serve them for several days, began also to feel
himself more in the back-ground than he liked to be. This worthy had,
amongst his other good qualities, an excellent opinion of himself;
and, being of a bold and forward disposition, had no mind to be thrown
into the shade by any one. With an impudent familiarity which such
persons mistake for graceful ease, he broke in upon the knight's
finest speeches with as little remorse as he would have driven the
point of his lance through a laced doublet.  Sir Piercie Shafton, a
man of rank and high birth, by no means encouraged or endured this
familiarity, and requited the intruder either with total neglect, or
such laconic replies as intimated a sovereign contempt for the rude
spearman, who affected to converse with him upon terms of equality.

The Miller held his peace; for, as his usual conversation turned
chiefly on his clapper and toll-dish, he had no mind to brag of his
wealth in presence of Christie of the Clinthill, or to intrude his
discourse on the English cavalier.

A little specimen of the conversation may not be out of place, were it
but to show young ladies what fine things they have lost by living when
Euphuism is out of fashion.

"Credit me, fairest lady," said the knight, "that such is the cunning
of our English courtiers, of the hodiernal strain, that, as they have
infinitely refined upon the plain and rusticial discourse of our
fathers, which, as I may say, more beseemed the mouths of country
roisterers in a May-game than that of courtly gallants in a galliard,
so I hold it ineffably and unutterably impossible, that those who may
succeed us in that garden of wit and courtesy shall alter or amend it.
Venus delighted but in the language of Mercury, Bucephalus will stoop
to no one but Alexander, none can sound Apollo's pipe but Orpheus."

"Valiant sir," said Mary, who could scarcely help laughing, "we have
but to rejoice in the chance which hath honoured this solitude with a
glimpse of the sun of courtesy, though it rather blinds than
enlightens us."

"Pretty and quaint, fairest lady," answered the Euphuist. "Ah, that I
had with me my Anatomy of Wit--that all-to-be-unparalleled
volume--that quintessence of human wit--that treasury of quaint
invention--that exquisitively-pleasant-to-read, and
inevitably-necessary-to-be-remembered manual, of all that is worthy to
be known--which indoctrines the rude in civility, the dull in
intellectuality, the heavy in jocosity, the blunt in gentility, the
vulgar in nobility, and all of them in that unutterable perfection, of
human utterance, that eloquence which no other eloquence is sufficient
to praise, that art which, when we call it by its own name of
Euphuism, we bestow on it its richest panegyric."

"By Saint Mary," said Christie of the Clinthill, "if your worship had
told me that you had left such stores of wealth as you talk of at
Prudhoe Castle, Long Dickie and I would have had them off with us if
man and horse could have carried them; but you told us of no treasure
I wot of, save the silver tongs for turning up your mustachoes."

The knight treated this intruder's mistake--for certainly Christie had
no idea that all these epithets which sounded so rich and splendid,
were lavished upon a small quarto volume--with a stare, and then
turning again to Mary Avenel, the only person whom he thought worthy
to address, he proceeded in his strain of high-flown oratory, "Even
thus," said he, "do hogs contemn the splendour of Oriental pearls;
even thus are the delicacies of a choice repast in vain offered to the
long-eared grazer of the common, who turneth from them to devour a
thistle. Surely as idle is it to pour forth the treasures of oratory
before the eyes of the ignorant, and to spread the dainties of the
intellectual banquet before those who are, morally and metaphysically
speaking, no better than asses."

"Sir Knight, since that is your quality," said Edward, "we cannot
strive with you in loftiness of language; but I pray you in fair
courtesy, while you honour my father's house with your presence, to
spare us such vile comparisons."

"Peace, good villagio," said the knight, gracefully waving his hand,
"I prithee peace, kind rustic; and you, my guide, whom I may scarce
call honest, let me prevail upon you to imitate the laudable
taciturnity of that honest yeoman, who sits as mute as a mill-post,
and of that comely damsel, who seems as with her ears she drank in
what she did not altogether comprehend, even as a palfrey listening to
a lute, whereof, howsoever, he knoweth not the gamut."

"Marvellous fine words," at length said Dame Glendinning, who began
to be tired of sitting so long silent, "marvellous fine words, neighbour
Happer, are they not?"

"Brave words--very brave words--very exceeding pyet words," answered
the Miller; "nevertheless, to speak my mind, a lippy of bran were worth
a bushel of them."

"I think so too, under his worship's favour," answered Christie of the
Clinthill. "I well remember that at the race of Morham, as we call it,
near Berwick, I took a young Southern fellow out of saddle with my
lance, and cast him, it might be, a gad's length from his nag; and so,
as he had some gold on his laced doublet, I deemed he might ha' the
like on it in his pocket too, though that is a rule that does not aye
hold good--So I was speaking to him of ransom, and out he comes with a
handful of such terms as his honour there hath gleaned up, and craved
me for mercy, as I was a true son of Mars, and such like."

"And obtained no mercy at thy hand, I dare be sworn," said the knight,
who deigned not to speak Euphuism excepting to the fair sex.

"By my troggs," replied Christie, "I would have thrust my lance down
his throat, but just then they flung open that accursed postern-gate,
and forth pricked old Hunsdon, and Henry Carey, and as many fellows at
their heels as turned the chase northward again. So I e'en pricked
Bayard with the spur, and went off with the rest; for a man should
ride when he may not wrestle, as they say in Tynedale."

"Trust me," said the knight, again turning to Mary Avenel, "if I do
not pity you, lady, who, being of noble blood, are thus in a manner
compelled to abide in the cottage of the ignorant, like the precious
stone in the head of the toad, or like a precious garland on the brow
of an ass.--But soft, what gallant have we here, whose garb savoureth
more of the rustic than doth his demeanour, and whose looks seem more
lofty than his habit; even as--"

"I pray you, Sir Knight," said Mary, "to spare your courtly similitudes
for refined ears, and give me leave to name unto you my foster-brother,
Halbert Glendinning."

"The son of the good dame of the cottage, as I opine," answered the
English knight; "for by some such name did my guide discriminate the
mistress of this mansion, which you, madam, enrich with your
presence.--And yet, touching this juvenal, he hath that about him
which belongeth to higher birth, for all are not black who dig
coals--"

"Nor all white who are millers," said honest Happer, glad to get in a
word, as they say, edgeways.

Halbert, who had sustained the glance of the Englishman with some
impatience, and knew not what to make of his manner and language,
replied with some asperity, "Sir Knight, we have in this land of
Scotland an ancient saying, 'Scorn not the bush that bields you'--you
are a guest of my father's house to shelter you from danger, if I am
rightly informed by the domestics. Scoff not its homeliness, nor that
of its inmates--ye might long have abidden at the court of England,
ere we had sought your favour, or cumbered you with our society. Since
your fate has sent you hither amongst us, be contented with such fare
and such converse as we can afford you, and scorn us not for our
kindness; for the Scots wear short patience and long daggers."

All eyes were turned on Halbert while he was thus speaking, and there
was a general feeling that his countenance had an expression of
intelligence, and his person an air of dignity, which they had never
before observed.  Whether it were that the wonderful Being with whom
he had so lately held communication, had bestowed on him a grace and
dignity of look and bearing which he had not before, or whether the
being conversant in high matters, and called to a destiny beyond that
of other men, had a natural effect in giving becoming confidence to
his language and manner, we pretend not to determine. But it was
evident to all, that, from this day, young Halbert was an altered man;
that he acted with the steadiness, promptitude, and determination,
which belonged to riper years, and bore himself with a manner which
appertained to higher rank.

The knight took the rebuke with good humour. "By my mine honour," he
said, "thou hast reason on thy side, good juvenal--nevertheless, I
spoke not as in ridicule of the roof which relieves me, but rather in
your own praise, to whom, if this roof be native, thou mayst
nevertheless rise from its lowliness; even as the lark, which maketh
its humble nest in the furrow, ascendeth towards the sun, as well as
the eagle which buildeth her eyry in the cliff."

This high-flown discourse was interrupted by Dame Glendinning, who,
with all the busy anxiety of a mother, was loading her son's trencher
with food, and dinning in his ear her reproaches on account of his
prolonged absence. "And see," she said, "that you do not one day get
such a sight while you are walking about among the haunts of them that
are not of our flesh and bone, as befell Mungo Murray when he slept on
the greensward ring of the Auld Kirkhill at sunset, and wakened at
daybreak in the wild hills of Breadalbane. And see that, when you are
looking for deer, the red stag does not gall you as he did Diccon
Thorburn, who never overcast the wound that he took from a buck's
horn. And see, when you go swaggering about with a long broadsword by
your side, whilk it becomes no peaceful man to do, that you dinna meet
with them that have broadsword and lance both--there are enow of rank
riders in this land, that neither fear God nor regard man."