"My dearest brother," said the Knight, "it grieves me deeply I cannot
abide with you; but it would sound ill for us both were one of the
reformed congregation to sit down at your admission feast; and, if I
can ever have the satisfaction of affording you effectual protection,
it will be much owing to my remaining unsuspected of countenancing or
approving your religious rites and ceremonies. It will demand whatever
consideration I can acquire among my own friends, to shelter the bold
man, who, contrary to law and the edicts of parliament, has dared to
take up the office of Abbot of Saint Mary's."

"Trouble not yourself with the task, my brother," replied Father
Ambrosius. "I would lay down my dearest blood to know that you
defended the church for the church's sake; but, while you remain
unhappily her enemy, I would not that you endangered your own safety,
or diminished your own comforts, for the sake of my individual
protection.--But who comes hither to disturb the few minutes of
fraternal communication which our evil fate allows us?"

The door of the apartment opened as the Abbot spoke, and Dame
Magdalen entered.

"Who is this woman?" said Sir Halbert Glendinning, somewhat sternly,
"and what does she want?"

"That you know me not," said the matron, "signifies little; I come by
your own order, to give my free consent that the stripling, Roland
Graeme, return to your service; and, having said so, I cumber you no
longer with my presence. Peace be with you!" She turned to go away,
but was stopped by inquiries of Sir Halbert Glendinning.

"Who are you?--what are you?--and why do you not await to make
me answer?"

"I was," she replied, "while yet I belonged to the world, a matron of
no vulgar name; now I am Magdalen, a poor pilgrimer, for the sake of
Holy Kirk."

"Yea," said Sir Halbert, "art thou a Catholic? I thought my dame said
that Roland Graeme came of reformed kin.'

"His father," said the matron, "was a heretic, or rather one who
regarded neither orthodoxy or heresy--neither the temple of the church
or of antichrist. I, too, for the sins of the times make sinners,
have seemed to conform to your unhallowed rites--but I had my
dispensation and my absolution."

"You see, brother," said Sir Halbert, with a smile of meaning towards
his brother, "that we accuse you not altogether without grounds of
mental equivocation."

"My brother, you do us injustice," replied the Abbot; "this woman, as
her bearing may of itself warrant you, is not in her perfect mind.
Thanks, I must needs say, to the persecution of your marauding barons,
and of your latitudinarian clergy."

"I will not dispute the point," said Sir Halbert; "the evils of the
time are unhappily so numerous, that both churches may divide them,
and have enow to spare." So saying, he leaned from the window of the
apartment, and winded his bugle.

"Why do you sound your horn, my brother?" said the Abbot; "we have
spent but few minutes together."

"Alas!" said the elder brother, "and even these few have been sullied
by disagreement. I sound to horse, my brother--the rather that, to
avert the consequences of this day's rashness on your part, requires
hasty efforts on mine.--Dame, you will oblige me by letting your young
relative know that we mount instantly. I intend not that he shall
return to Avenel with me--it would lead to new quarrels betwixt him
and my household; at least to taunts which his proud heart could ill
brook, and my wish is to do him kindness. He shall, therefore, go
forward to Edinburgh with one of my retinue, whom I shall send back to
say what has chanced here.--You seem rejoiced at this?" he added,
fixing his eyes keenly on Magdalen Graeme, who returned his gaze with
calm indifference.

"I would rather," she said, "that Roland, a poor and friendless
orphan, were the jest of the world at large, than of the menials at
Avenel."

"Fear not, dame--he shall be scorned by neither," answered the Knight.

"It may be," she replied--"it may well be--but I will trust more to
his own bearing than to your countenance." She left the room as she
spoke.

The Knight looked after her as she departed, but turned instantly to
his brother, and expressing, in the most affectionate terms, his
wishes for his welfare and happiness, craved his leave to depart. "My
knaves," he said, "are too busy at the ale-stand, to leave their
revelry for the empty breath of a bugle-horn."

"You have freed them from higher restraint, Halbert," answered the
Abbot, "and therein taught them to rebel against your own."

"Fear not that, Edward," exclaimed Halbert, who never gave his brother
his monastic name of Ambrosius; "none obey the command of real duty
so well as those who are free from the observance of slavish bondage."

He was turning to depart, when the Abbot said,--"Let us not yet part,
my brother--here comes some light refreshment. Leave not the house
which I must now call mine, till force expel me from it, until you
have at least broken bread with me."

The poor lay brother, the same who acted as porter, now entered the
apartment, bearing some simple refreshment, and a flask of wine. "He
had found it," he said with officious humility, "by rummaging through
every nook of the cellar."

The Knight filled a small silver cup, and, quaffing it off, asked his
brother to pledge him, observing, the wine was Bacharac, of the first
vintage, and great age.

"Ay," said the poor lay brother, "it came out of the nook which old
brother Nicholas, (may his soul be happy!) was wont to call Abbot
Ingelram's corner; and Abbot Ingelram was bred at the Convent of
Wurtzburg, which I understand to be near where that choice wine
grows."

"True, my reverend sir," said Sir Halbert; "and therefore I entreat my
brother and you to pledge me in a cup of this orthodox vintage."

The thin old porter looked with a wishful glance towards the Abbot.
"_Do veniam_," said his Superior; and the old man seized, with a
trembling hand, a beverage to which he had been long unaccustomed;
drained the cup with protracted delight, as if dwelling on the flavour
and perfume, and set it down with a melancholy smile and shake of the
head, as if bidding adieu in future to such delicious potations. The
brothers smiled. But when Sir Halbert motioned to the Abbot to take up
his cup and do him reason, the Abbot, in turn, shook his head, and
replied--"This is no day for the Abbot of Saint Mary's to eat the fat
and drink the sweat. In water from our Lady's well," he added, filling
a cup with the limpid element, "I wish you, brother, all happiness,
and above all, a true sight of your spiritual errors."

"And to you, my beloved Edward," replied Glendinning, "I wish the free
exercise of your own free reason, and the discharge of more important
duties than are connected with the idle name which you have so rashly
assumed."

The brothers parted with deep regret; and yet, each confident in his
opinion, felt somewhat relieved by the absence of one whom he
respected so much, and with whom he could agree so little.

Soon afterwards the sound of the Knight of Avenel's trumpets was
heard, and the Abbot went to the top of the tower, from whose
dismantled battlements he could soon see the horsemen ascending the
rising ground in the direction of the drawbridge. As he gazed,
Magdalen Graeme came to his side.

"Thou art come," he said, "to catch the last glimpse of thy grandson,
my sister. Yonder he wends, under the charge of the best knight in
Scotland, his faith ever excepted."

"Thou canst bear witness, my father, that it was no wish either of
mine or of Roland's," replied the matron, "which induced the Knight of
Avenel, as he is called, again to entertain my grandson in his
household--Heaven, which confounds the wise with their own wisdom, and
the wicked with their own policy, hath placed him where, for the
services of the Church, I would most wish him to be."

"I know not what you mean, my sister," said the Abbot.

"Reverend father," replied Magdalen, "hast thou never heard that there
are spirits powerful to rend the walls of a castle asunder when once
admitted, which yet cannot enter the house unless they are invited,
nay, dragged over the threshold?

[Footnote: There is a popular belief respecting evil spirits, that
they cannot enter an inhabited house unless invited, nay, dragged over
the threshold. There is an instance of the same superstition in the
Tales of the Genii, where an enchanter is supposed to have intruded
himself into the Divan of the Sultan.

"'Thus,' said the illustrious Misnar, 'let the enemies of Mahomet be
dismayed! but inform me, O ye sages! under the semblance of which of
your brethren did that foul enchanter gain admittance here?'--'May the
lord of my heart,' answered Balihu, the hermit of the faithful from
Queda, 'triumph over all his foes! As I travelled on the mountains
from Queda, and saw neither the footsteps of beasts, nor the flight of
birds, behold, I chanced to pass through a cavern, in whose hollow
sides I found this accursed sage, to whom I unfolded the invitation of
the Sultan of India, and we, joining, journeyed towards the Divan; but
ere we entered, he said unto me. 'Put thy hand forth, and pull me
towards thee into the Divan, calling on the name of Mahomet, for the
evil spirits are on me and vex me.'"

I have understood that many parts of these fine tales, and in
particular that of the Sultan Misnar, were taken from genuine Oriental
sources by the editor, Mr. James Ridley.

But the most picturesque use of this popular belief occurs in
Coleridge's beautiful and tantalizing fragment of Christabel. Has not
our own imaginative poet cause to fear that future ages will desire to
summon him from his place of rest, as Milton longed

  "To call him up, who left half told
   The story of Cambuscan bold?"

The verses I refer to are when Christabel conducts into her father's
castle a mysterious and malevolent being, under the guise of a
distressed female stranger.


  'They cross'd the moat, and Christabel
  Took the key that fitted well;
  A little door she open'd straight,
  All in the middle of the gate;
  The gate that was iron'd within and without,
  Where an army in battle array had march'd out.

  "The lady sank, belike through pain,
  And Christabel with might and main
  Lifted her up, a weary weight,
  Over the threshold of the gate:
  Then the lady rose again,
  And moved as she were not in pain.

  "So free from danger, free from fear,
  They cross'd the court;--right glad they were,
  And Christabel devoutly cried
  To the lady by her side:
  'Praise we the Virgin, all divine,
    Who hath rescued thee from this distress.'
  'Alas, alas!' said Geraldine,
  'I cannot speak from weariness.'
  So free from danger, free from fear,
  They cross'd the court: right glad they were
]

Twice hath Roland Graeme been thus drawn into the household of Avenel
by those who now hold the title. Let them look to the issue."

So saying she left the turret; and the Abbot, after pausing a moment
on her words, which he imputed to the unsettled state of her mind,
followed down the winding stair to celebrate his admission to his high
office by fast and prayer instead of revelling and thanksgiving.




Chapter the Sixteenth.


  Youth! thou wear'st to manhood now,
  Darker lip and darker brow,
  Statelier step, more pensive mien,
  In thy face and gate are seen:
  Thou must now brook midnight watches,
  Take thy food and sport by snatches;
  For the gambol and the jest,
  Thou wert wont to love the best,
  Graver follies must thou follow,
  But as senseless, false, and hollow.
                        LIFE, A POEM.

Young Roland Graeme now trotted gaily forward in the train of Sir
Halbert Glendinning. He was relieved from his most galling
apprehension,--the encounter of the scorn and taunt which might
possibly hail his immediate return to the Castle of Avenel. "There
will be a change ere they see me again," he thought to himself; "I
shall wear the coat of plate, instead of the green jerkin, and the
steel morion for the bonnet and feather. They will be bold that may
venture to break a gibe on the man-at-arms for the follies of the
page; and I trust, that ere we return I shall have done something more
worthy of note than hallooing a hound after a deer, or scrambling a
crag for a kite's nest." He could not, indeed, help marvelling that
his grandmother, with all her religious prejudices, leaning, it would
seem, to the other side, had consented so readily to his re-entering
the service of the House of Avenel; and yet more, at the mysterious
joy with which she took leave of him at the Abbey.

"Heaven," said the dame, as she kissed her young relation, and bade
him farewell, "works its own work, even by the hands of those of our
enemies who think themselves the strongest and the wisest. Thou, my
child, be ready to act upon the call of thy religion and country; and
remember, each earthly bond which thou canst form is, compared to the
ties which bind thee to them, like the loose flax to the twisted
cable. Thou hast not forgot the face or form of the damsel Catherine
Seyton?"

Roland would have replied in the negative, but the word seemed to
stick in his throat and Magdalen continued her exhortations.

"Thou must not forget her, my son; and here I intrust thee with a
token, which I trust thou wilt speedily find an opportunity of
delivering with care and secrecy into her own hand."

She put here into Roland's hand a very small packet, of which she
again enjoined him to take the strictest care, and to suffer it to be
seen by no one save Catherine Seyton, who, she again (very
unnecessarily) reminded him, was the young lady he had met on the
preceding day. She then bestowed on him her solemn benediction, and
bade God speed him.

There was something in her manner and her conduct which implied
mystery; but Roland Graeme was not of an age or temper to waste much
time in endeavoring to decipher her meaning. All that was obvious to
his perception in the present journey, promised pleasure and novelty.
He rejoiced that he was travelling towards Edinburgh, in order to
assume the character of a man, and lay aside that of a boy. He was
delighted to think that he would have an opportunity of rejoining
Catherine Seyton, whose bright eyes and lively manners had made so
favourable an impression on his imagination; and, as an experienced,
yet high-spirited youth, entering for the first time upon active life,
his heart bounded at the thought, that he was about to see all those
scenes of courtly splendour and warlike adventures, of which the
followers of Sir Halbert used to boast on their occasional visits to
Avenel, to the wonderment and envy of those who, like Roland, knew
courts and camps only by hearsay, and were condemned to the solitary
sports and almost monastic seclusion of Avenel, surrounded by its
lonely lake, and embossed among its pathless mountains. "They shall
mention my name," he said to himself, "if the risk of my life can
purchase me opportunities of distinction, and Catherine Seyton's saucy
eye shall rest with more respect on the distinguished soldier, than
that with which she laughed to scorn the raw and inexperienced
page."--There was wanting but one accessary to complete the sense of
rapturous excitation, and he possessed it by being once more mounted
on the back of a fiery and active horse, instead of plodding along on
foot, as had been the case during the preceding days.

Impelled by the liveliness of his own spirits, which so many
circumstances tended naturally to exalt, Roland Graeme's voice and his
laughter were soon distinguished amid the trampling of the horses of
the retinue, and more than once attracted the attention of the leader,
who remarked with satisfaction, that the youth replied with
good-humoured raillery to such of the train as jested with him on his
dismissal and return to the service of the House of Avenel.

"I thought the holly-branch in your bonnet had been blighted, Master
Roland?" said one of the men-at-arms.

"Only pinched with half an hour's frost; you see it flourishes as
green as ever."

"It is too grave a plant to flourish on so hot a soil as that
headpiece of thine, Master Roland Graeme," retorted the other, who was
an old equerry of Sir Halbert Glendinning.

"If it will not flourish alone," said Roland, "I will mix it with the
laurel and the myrtle--and I will carry them so near the sky, that it
shall make amends for their stinted growth."

Thus speaking, he dashed his spurs into his horse's sides, and,
checking him at the same time, compelled him to execute a lofty
caracole. Sir Halbert Glendinning looked at the demeanour of his new
attendant with that sort of melancholy pleasure with which those who
have long followed the pursuits of life, and are sensible of their
vanity, regard the gay, young, and buoyant spirits to whom existence,
as yet, is only hope and promise.

In the meanwhile, Adam Woodcock, the falconer, stripped of his
masquing habit, and attired, according to his rank and calling, in a
green jerkin, with a hawking-bag on the one side, and a short hanger
on the other, a glove on his left hand which reached half way up his
arm, and a bonnet and feather upon his head, came after the party as
fast as his active little galloway-nag could trot, and immediately
entered into parley with Roland Graeme.

"So, my youngster, you are once more under shadow of the
holly-branch?"

"And in case to repay you, my good friend," answered Roland, "your
ten groats of silver."

"Which, but an hour since," said the falconer, "you had nearly paid me
with ten inches of steel. On my faith, it is written in the book of
our destiny, that I must brook your dagger after all."

"Nay, speak not of that, my good friend," said the youth, "I would
rather have broached my own bosom than yours; but who could have
known you in the mumming dress you wore?"

"Yes," the falconer resumed,--for both as a poet and actor he had his
own professional share of self-conceit,--"I think I was as good a
Howleglas as ever played part at a Shrovetide revelry, and not a much
worse Abbot of Unreason. I defy the Old Enemy to unmask me when I
choose to keep my vizard on. What the devil brought the Knight on us
before we had the game out? You would have heard me hollo my own new
ballad with a voice should have reached to Berwick. But I pray you,
Master Roland, be less free of cold steel on slight occasions; since,
but for the stuffing of my reverend doublet, I had only left the kirk
to take my place in the kirkyard."

"Nay, spare me that feud," said Roland Graeme, "we shall have no time
to fight it out; for, by our lord's command, I am bound for
Edinburgh."

"I know it," said Adam Woodcock, "and even therefore we shall have
time to solder up this rent by the way, for Sir Halbert has appointed
me your companion and guide."

"Ay? and with what purpose?" said the page.

"That," said the falconer, "is a question I cannot answer; but I know,
that be the food of the eyases washed or unwashed, and, indeed,
whatever becomes of perch and mew, I am to go with you to Edinburgh,
and see you safely delivered to the Regent at Holyrood."

"How, to the Regent?" said Roland, in surprise.

"Ay, by my faith, to the Regent," replied Woodcock; "I promise you,
that if you are not to enter his service, at least you are to wait
upon him in the character of a retainer of our Knight of Avenel."

"I know no right," said the youth, "which the Knight of Avenel hath to
transfer my service, supposing that I owe it to himself."

"Hush, hush!" said the falconer; "that is a question I advise no one
to stir in until he has the mountain or the lake, or the march of
another kingdom, which is better than either, betwixt him and his
feudal superior."

"But Sir Halbert Glendinning," said the youth, "is not my feudal
superior; nor has he aught of authority--"

"I pray you, my son, to rein your tongue," answered Adam Woodcock; "my
lord's displeasure, if you provoke it, will be worse to appease than
my lady's. The touch of his least finger were heavier than her hardest
blow. And, by my faith, he is a man of steel, as true and as pure,
but as hard and as pitiless. You remember the Cock of Capperlaw, whom
he hanged over his gate for a mere mistake--a poor yoke of oxen taken
in Scotland, when he thought he was taking them in English land? I
loved the Cock of Capperlaw; the Kerrs had not an honester man in
their clan, and they have had men that might have been a pattern to
the Border--men that would not have lifted under twenty cows at once,
and would have held themselves dishonoured if they had taken a drift
of sheep, or the like, but always managed their raids in full credit
and honour.--But see, his worship halts, and we are close by the
bridge. Ride up--ride up--we must have his last instructions."

It was as Adam Woodcock said. In the hollow way descending towards the
bridge, which was still in the guardianship of Peter Bridgeward, as he
was called, though he was now very old, Sir Halbert Glendinning halted
his retinue, and beckoned to Woodcock and Graeme to advance to the
head of the train.

"Woodcock," said he, "thou knowest to whom thou art to conduct this
youth. And thou, young man, obey discreetly and with diligence the
orders that shall be given thee. Curb thy vain and peevish temper. Be
just, true, and faithful; and there is in thee that which may raise
thee many a degree above thy present station. Neither shalt
thou--always supposing thine efforts to be fair and honest--want the
protection and countenance of Avenel."

Leaving them in front of the bridge, the centre tower of which now
began to cast a prolonged shade upon the river, the Knight of Avenel
turned to the left, without crossing the river, and pursued his way
towards the chain of hills within whose recesses are situated the Lake
and Castle of Avenel. There remained behind, the falconer, Roland
Graeme, and a domestic of the Knight, of inferior rank, who was left
with them to look after their horses while on the road, to carry their
baggage, and to attend to their convenience.

So soon as the more numerous body of riders had turned off to pursue
their journey westward, those whose route lay across the river, and
was directed towards the north, summoned the Bridgeward, and demanded
a free passage.

"I will not lower the bridge," answered Peter, in a voice querulous
with age and ill-humour.--"Come Papist, come Protestant, ye are all
the same. The Papist threatened us with Purgatory, and fleeched us
with pardons--the Protestant mints at us with his sword, and cuttles
us with the liberty of conscience; but never a one of either says,
'Peter, there is your penny.' I am well tired of all this, and for no
man shall the bridge fall that pays me not ready money; and I would
have you know I care as little for Geneva as for Rome--as little for
homilies as for pardons; and the silver pennies are the only passports
I will hear of."

"Here is a proper old chuff!" said Woodcock to his companion; then
raising his voice, he exclaimed, "Hark thee, dog--Bridgeward, villain,
dost thou think we have refused thy namesake Peter's pence to Rome, to
pay thine at the bridge of Kennaquhair? Let thy bridge down instantly
to the followers of the house of Avenel, or by the hand of my father,
and that handled many a bridle rein, for he was a bluff
Yorkshireman--I say, by my father's hand, our Knight will blow thee
out of thy solan-goose's nest there in the middle of the water, with
the light falconet which we are bringing southward from Edinburgh
to-morrow."

The Bridgeward heard, and muttered, "A plague on falcon and falconet,
on cannon and demicannon, and all the barking bull-dogs whom they
halloo against stone and lime in these our days! It was a merry time
when there was little besides handy blows, and it may be a flight of
arrows that harmed an ashler wall as little as so many hailstones. But
we must jouk and let the jaw gang by." Comforting himself in his state
of diminished consequence with this pithy old proverb, Peter
Bridgeward lowered the drawbridge, and permitted them to pass over. At
the sight of his white hair, albeit it discovered a visage equally
peevish through age and misfortune, Roland was inclined to give him an
alms, but Adam Woodcock prevented him. "E'en let him pay the penalty
of his former churlishness and greed," he said; "the wolf, when he has
lost his teeth, should be treated no better than a cur."

Leaving the Bridgeward to lament the alteration of times, which sent
domineering soldiers and feudal retainers to his place of passage,
instead of peaceful pilgrims, and reduced him to become the oppressed,
instead of playing the extortioner, the travellers turned them
northward; and Adam Woodcock, well acquainted with that part of the
country, proposed to cut short a considerable portion of the road, by
traversing the little vale of Glendearg, so famous for the adventures
which befell therein during the earlier part of the Benedictine's
manuscript. With these, and with the thousand commentaries,
representations, and misrepresentations, to which they had given rise,
Roland Graeme was, of course, well acquainted; for in the Castle of
Avenel, as well as in other great establishments, the inmates talked
of nothing so often, or with such pleasure, as of the private affairs
of their lord and lady. But while Roland was viewing with interest
these haunted scenes, in which things were said to have passed beyond
the ordinary laws of nature, Adam Woodcock was still regretting in his
secret soul the unfinished revel and the unsung ballad, and kept every
now and then, breaking out with some such verses as these:--

    "The Friars of Fail drank berry-brown ale,
       The best that e'er was tasted;
     The Monks of Melrose made gude kale
       On Fridays, when they fasted.
          Saint Monance' sister.
          The gray priest kist her--
           Fiend save the company!
          Sing hay trix, trim-go-trix.
            Under the greenwood tree."

"By my hand, friend Woodcock," said the page, "though I know you for a
hardy gospeller, that fear neither saint nor devil, yet, if I were
you, I would not sing your profane songs in this valley of Glendearg,
considering what has happened here before our time."

"A straw for your wandering spirits!" said Adam Woodcock; "I mind them
no more than an earn cares for a string of wild-geese--they have all
fled since the pulpits were filled with honest men, and the people's
ears with sound doctrine. Nay, I have a touch at them in my ballad, an
I had but had the good luck to have it sung to end;" and again he set
off in the same key:

  From haunted spring and grassy ring,
    Troop goblin, elf, and fairy;
  And the kelpie must flit from the black bog-pit,
    And the brownie must not tarry;
       To Limbo-lake,
       Their way they take,
         With scarce the pith to flee.
       Sing hay trix, trim-go-trix,
         Under the greenwood tree.

"I think," he added, "that could Sir Halbert's patience have stretched
till we came that length, he would have had a hearty laugh, and that
is what he seldom enjoys."

"If it be all true that men tell of his early life," said Roland, "he
has less right to laugh at goblins than most men."

"Ay, _if_ it be all true," answered Adam Woodcock; "but who can
ensure us of that? Moreover, these were but tales the monks used to
gull us simple laymen withal; they knew that fairies and hobgoblins
brought aves and paternosters into repute; but, now we have given up
worship of images in wood and stone, methinks it were no time to be
afraid of bubbles in the water, or shadows in the air."

"However," said Roland Graeme, "as the Catholics say they do not
worship wood or stone, but only as emblems of the holy saints, and not
as things holy in themselves----"

"Pshaw! pshaw!" answered the falconer; "a rush for their prating.
They told us another story when these baptized idols of theirs brought
pike-staves and sandalled shoon from all the four winds, and whillied
the old women out of their corn and their candle ends, and their
butter, bacon, wool, and cheese, and when not so much as a gray groat
escaped tithing."

Roland Graeme had been long taught, by necessity, to consider his form
of religion as a profound secret, and to say nothing whatever in its
defence when assailed, lest he should draw on himself the suspicion of
belonging to the unpopular and exploded church. He therefore suffered
Adam Woodcock to triumph without farther opposition, marvelling in his
own mind whether any of the goblins, formerly such active agents,
would avenge his rude raillery before they left the valley of
Glendearg. But no such consequences followed. They passed the night
quietly in a cottage in the glen, and the next day resumed their route
to Edinburgh.




Chapter the Seventeenth.


Edina! Scotia's darling seat,
  All hail thy palaces and towers,
Where once, beneath a monarch's feet,
  Sate legislation's sovereign powers.
                          BURNS.

"This, then, is Edinburgh?" said the youth, as the fellow-travellers
arrived at one of the heights to the southward, which commanded a view
of the great northern capital--"This is that Edinburgh of which we
have heard so much!"

"Even so," said the falconer; "yonder stands Auld Reekie--you may see
the smoke hover over her at twenty miles' distance, as the gosshawk
hangs over a plump of young wild-ducks--ay, yonder is the heart of
Scotland, and each throb that she gives is felt from the edge of
Solway to Duncan's-bay-head. See, yonder is the old Castle; and see
to the right, on yon rising ground, that is the Castle of Craigmillar,
which I have known a merry place in my time."

"Was it not there," said the page in a low voice, "that the Queen held
her court?"

"Ay, ay," replied the falconer, "Queen she was then, though you must
not call her so now. Well, they may say what they will--many a true
heart will be sad for Mary Stewart, e'en if all be true men say of
her; for look you, Master Roland--she was the loveliest creature to
look upon that I ever saw with eye, and no lady in the land liked
better the fair flight of a falcon. I was at the great match on Roslin
Moor betwixt Bothwell--he was a black sight to her that Bothwell--and
the Baron of Roslin, who could judge a hawk's flight as well as any
man in Scotland--a butt of Rhenish and a ring of gold was the wager,
and it was flown as fairly for as ever was red gold and bright wine.
And to see her there on her white palfrey, that flew as if it scorned
to touch more than the heather blossom; and to hear her voice, as
clear and sweet as the mavis's whistle, mix among our jolly whooping
and whistling; and to mark all the nobles dashing round her; happiest
he who got a word or a look--tearing through moss and hagg, and
venturing neck and limb to gain the praise of a bold rider, and the
blink of a bonny Queen's bright eye!--she will see little hawking
where she lies now--ay, ay, pomp and pleasure pass away as speedily as
the wap of a falcon's wing."

"And where is this poor Queen now confined?" said Roland Graeme,
interested in the fate of a woman whose beauty and grace had made so
strong an impression even on the blunt and careless character of Adam
Woodcock.

"Where is she now imprisoned?" said honest Adam; "why, in some castle
in the north, they say--I know not where, for my part, nor is it worth
while to vex one's sell anent what cannot be mended--An she had guided
her power well whilst she had it, she had not come to so evil a pass.
Men say she must resign her crown to this little baby of a prince, for
that they will trust her with it no longer. Our master has been as
busy as his neighbours in all this work. If the Queen should come to
her own again, Avenel Castle is like to smoke for it, unless he makes
his bargain all the better." "In a castle in the north Queen Mary is
confined?" said the page. "Why, ay--they say so, at least--In a
castle beyond that great river which comes down yonder, and looks like
a river, but it is a branch of the sea, and as bitter as brine."

"And amongst all her subjects," said the page, with some emotion, "is
there none that will adventure anything for her relief?"

"That is a kittle question," said the falconer; "and if you ask it
often, Master Roland, I am fain to tell you that you will be mewed up
yourself in some of those castles, if they do not prefer twisting your
head off, to save farther trouble with you--Adventure any thing? Lord,
why, Murray has the wind in his poop now, man, and flies so high and
strong, that the devil a wing of them can match him--No, no; there she
is, and there she must lie, till Heaven send her deliverance, or till
her son has the management of all--But Murray will never let her loose
again, he knows her too well.--And hark thee, we are now bound for
Holyrood, where thou wilt find plenty of news, and of courtiers to
tell it--But, take my counsel, and keep a calm sough, as the Scots
say--hear every man's counsel, and keep your own. And if you hap to
learn any news you like, leap not up as if you were to put on armour
direct in the cause--Our old Mr. Wingate says--and he knows
court-cattle well--that if you are told old King Coul is come alive
again, you should turn it off with, 'And is he in truth?--I heard not
of it,' and should seem no more moved, than if one told you, by way of
novelty, that old King Coul was dead and buried. Wherefore, look well
to your bearing, Master Roland, for, I promise you, you come among a
generation that are keen as a hungry hawk--And never be dagger out of
sheath at every wry word you hear spoken; for you will find as hot
blades as yourself, and then will be letting of blood without advice
either of leech or almanack."

"You shall see how staid I will be, and how cautious, my good friend,"
said Graeme; "but, blessed Lady, what goodly house is that which is
lying all in ruins so close to the city? Have they been playing at the
Abbot of Unreason here, and ended the gambol by burning the church?"

"There again now," replied his companion, "you go down the wind like a
wild haggard, that minds neither lure nor beck--that is a question you
should have asked in as low a tone as I shall answer it."

"If I stay here long," said Roland Graeme, "it is like I shall lose
the natural use of my voice--but what are the ruins then?"

"The Kirk of Field," said the falconer, in a low and impressive
whisper, laying at the same time his finger on his lip; "ask no more
about it--somebody got foul play, and somebody got the blame of it;
and the game began there which perhaps may not be played out in our
time.--Poor Henry Darnley! to be an ass, he understood somewhat of a
hawk; but they sent him on the wing through the air himself one bright
moonlight night."

The memory of this catastrophe was so recent, that the page averted
his eyes with horror from the scathed ruins in which it had taken
place; and the accusations against the Queen, to which it had given
rise, came over his mind with such strength as to balance the
compassion he had begun to entertain for her present forlorn
situation.

It was, indeed, with that agitating state of mind which arises partly
from horror, but more from anxious interest and curiosity, that young
Graeme found himself actually traversing the scene of those tremendous
events, the report of which had disturbed the most distant solitudes
in Scotland, like the echoes of distant thunder rolling among the
mountains.

"Now," he thought, "now or never shall I become a man, and bear my
part in those deeds which the simple inhabitants of our hamlets repeat
to each other, as if they were wrought by beings of a superior order
to their own. I will know now, wherefore the Knight of Avenel carries
his crest so much above those of the neighbouring baronage, and how it
is that men, by valour and wisdom, work their way from the hoddin-gray
coat to the cloak of scarlet and gold. Men say I have not much wisdom
to recommend me; and if that be true, courage must do it; for I will
be a man amongst living men, or a dead corpse amongst the dead."

From these dreams of ambition he turned his thoughts to those of
pleasure, and began to form many conjectures, when and where he should
see Catherine Seyton, and in what manner their acquaintance was to be
renewed. With such conjectures he was amusing himself, when he found
that they had entered the city, and all other feelings were suspended
in the sensation of giddy astonishment with which an inhabitant of the
country is affected, when, for the first time, he finds himself in the
streets of a large and populous city, a unit in the midst of
thousands.

The principal street of Edinburgh was then, as now, one of the most
spacious in Europe. The extreme height of the houses, and the variety
of Gothic gables and battlements, and balconies, by which the sky-line
on each side was crowned and terminated, together with the width of
the street itself, might have struck with surprise a more practised
eye than that of young Graeme. The population, close packed within the
walls of the city, and at this time increased by the number of the
lords of the King's party who had thronged to Edinburgh to wait upon
the Regent Murray, absolutely swarmed like bees on the wide and
stately street. Instead of the shop-windows, which are now calculated
for the display of goods, the traders had their open booths projecting
on the street, in which, as in the fashion of the modern bazaars, all
was exposed which they had upon sale. And though the commodities were
not of the richest kinds, yet Graeme thought he beheld the wealth of
the whole world in the various bales of Flanders cloths, and the
specimens of tapestry; and, at other places, the display of domestic
utensils and pieces of plate struck him with wonder. The sight of
cutlers' booths, furnished with swords and poniards, which were
manufactured in Scotland, and with pieces of defensive armour,
imported from Flanders, added to his surprise; and, at every step, he
found so much to admire and gaze upon, that Adam Woodcock had no
little difficulty in prevailing on him to advance through such a scene
of enchantment.

The sight of the crowds which filled the streets was equally a subject
of wonder. Here a gay lady, in her muffler, or silken veil, traced her
way delicately, a gentleman-usher making way for her, a page bearing
up her train, and a waiting gentlewoman carrying her Bible, thus
intimating that her purpose was towards the church--There he might see
a group of citizens bending the same way, with their short Flemish
cloaks, wide trowsers, and high-caped doublets, a fashion to which, as
well as to their bonnet and feather, the Scots were long faithful.
Then, again, came the clergyman himself, in his black Geneva cloak and
band, lending a grave and attentive ear to the discourse of several
persons who accompanied him, and who were doubtless holding serious
converse on the religious subject he was about to treat of. Nor did
there lack passengers of a different class and appearance.

At every turn, Roland Graeme might see a gallant ruffle along in the
newer or French mode, his doublet slashed, and his points of the same
colours with the lining, his long sword on one side, and his poniard
on the other, behind him a body of stout serving men, proportioned to
his estate and quality, all of whom walked with the air of military
retainers, and were armed with sword and buckler, the latter being a
small round shield, not unlike the Highland target, having a steel
spike in the centre. Two of these parties, each headed by a person of
importance, chanced to meet in the very centre of the street, or, as
it was called, "the crown of the cause-way," a post of honour as
tenaciously asserted in Scotland, as that of giving or taking the wall
used to be in the more southern part of the island. The two leaders
being of equal rank, and, most probably, either animated by political
dislike, or by recollection of some feudal enmity, marched close up to
each other, without yielding an inch to the right or the left; and
neither showing the least purpose of giving way, they stopped for an
instant, and then drew their swords. Their followers imitated their
example; about a score of weapons at once flashed in the sun, and
there was an immediate clatter of swords and bucklers, while the
followers on either side cried their master's name; the one shouting
"Help, a Leslie! a Leslie!" while the others answered with shouts of
"Seyton!  Seyton!" with the additional punning slogan, "Set on, set
on--bear the knaves to the ground!"

If the falconer found difficulty in getting the page to go forward
before, it was now perfectly impossible. He reined up his horse,
clapped his hands, and, delighted with the fray, cried and shouted as
fast as any of those who were actually engaged in it.

The noise and cries thus arising on the Highgate, as it was called,
drew into the quarrel two or three other parties of gentlemen and
their servants, besides some single passengers, who, hearing a fray
betwixt these two distinguished names, took part in it, either for
love or hatred.

The combat became now very sharp, and although the sword-and-buckler
men made more clatter and noise than they did real damage, yet several
good cuts were dealt among them; and those who wore rapiers, a more
formidable weapon than the ordinary Scottish swords, gave and received
dangerous wounds. Two men were already stretched on the causeway, and
the party of Seyton began to give ground, being much inferior in
number to the other, with which several of the citizens had united
themselves, when young Roland Graeme, beholding their leader, a noble
gentleman, fighting bravely, and hard pressed with numbers, could
withhold no longer. "Adam Woodcock," he said, "an you be a man, draw,
and let us take part with the Seyton." And, without waiting a reply,
or listening to the falconer's earnest entreaty, that he would leave
alone a strife in which he had no concern, the fiery youth sprung from
his horse, drew his short sword, and shouting like the rest, "A
Seyton! a Seyton! Set on! set on!" thrust forward into the throng, and
struck down one of those who was pressing hardest upon the gentleman
whose cause he espoused. This sudden reinforcement gave spirit to the
weaker party, who began to renew the combat with much alacrity, when
four of the magistrates of the city, distinguished by their velvet
cloaks and gold chains, came up with a guard of halberdiers and
citizens, armed with long weapons, and well accustomed to such
service, thrust boldly forward, and compelled the swordsmen to
separate, who immediately retreated in different directions, leaving
such of the wounded on both sides, as had been disabled in the fray,
lying on the street.

The falconer, who had been tearing his beard for anger at his
comrade's rashness, now rode up to him with the horse which he had
caught by the bridle, and accosted him with "Master Roland--master
goose--master mad-cap--will it please you to get on horse, and budge?
or will you remain here to be carried to prison, and made to answer
for this pretty day's work?"

The page, who had begun his retreat along with the Seytons, just as if
he had been one of their natural allies, was by this unceremonious
application made sensible that he was acting a foolish part; and,
obeying Adam Woodcock with some sense of shame, he sprung actively on
horseback, and upsetting with the shoulder of the animal a
city-officer, who was making towards him, he began to ride smartly
down the street, along with his companion, and was quickly out of the
reach of the hue and cry. In fact, rencounters of the kind were so
common in Edinburgh at that period, that the disturbance seldom
excited much attention after the affray was over, unless some person
of consequence chanced to have fallen, an incident which imposed on
his friends the duty of avenging his death on the first convenient
opportunity. So feeble, indeed, was the arm of the police, that it was
not unusual for such skirmishes to last for hours, where the parties
were numerous and well matched. But at this time the Regent, a man of
great strength of character, aware of the mischief which usually arose
from such acts of violence, had prevailed with the magistrates to keep
a constant guard on foot for preventing or separating such affrays as
had happened in the present case.

The falconer and his young companion were now riding down the
Canongate, and had slackened their pace to avoid attracting attention,
the rather that there seemed to be no appearance of pursuit. Roland
hung his head as one who was conscious his conduct had been none of
the wisest, whilst his companion thus addressed him:

"Will you be pleased to tell me one thing, Master Roland Graeme, and
that is, whether there be a devil incarnate in you or no?"

"Truly, Master Adam Woodcock," answered the page, "I would fain
hope there is not."

"Then," said Adam, "I would fain know by what other influence or
instigation you are perpetually at one end or the other of some bloody
brawl?  What, I pray, had you to do with these Seytons and Leslies,
that you never heard the names of in your life before?"

"You are out there, my friend," said Roland Graeme, "I have my own
reasons for being a friend to the Seytons."

"They must have been very secret reasons then," answered Adam
Woodcock, "for I think I could have wagered, you had never known one
of the name; and I am apt to believe still, that it was your
unhallowed passion for that clashing of cold iron, which has as much
charm for you as the clatter of a brass pan hath for a hive of bees,
rather than any care either for Seyton or for Leslie, that persuaded
you to thrust your fool's head into a quarrel that no ways concerned
you. But take this for a warning, my young master, that if you are to
draw sword with every man who draws sword on the Highgate here, it
will be scarce worth your while to sheathe bilbo again for the rest of
your life, since, if I guess rightly, it will scarce endure on such
terms for many hours--all which I leave to your serious
consideration."

"By my word, Adam, I honour your advice; and I promise you, that I
will practise by it as faithfully as if I were sworn apprentice to
you, to the trade and mystery of bearing myself with all wisdom and
safety through the new paths of life that I am about to be engaged
in."

"And therein you will do well," said the falconer; "and I do not
quarrel with you, Master Roland, for having a grain over much spirit,
because I know one may bring to the hand a wild hawk which one never
can a dung-hill hen--and so betwixt two faults you have the best
on't. But besides your peculiar genius for quarrelling and lugging out
your side companion, my dear Master Roland, you have also the gift of
peering under every woman's muffler and screen, as if you expected to
find an old acquaintance. Though were you to spy one, I should be as
much surprised at it, well wotting how few you have seen of these same
wild-fowl, as I was at your taking so deep an interest even now in the
Seyton."

"Tush, man! nonsense and folly," answered Roland Graeme, "I but
sought to see what eyes these gentle hawks have got under their hood."

"Ay, but it's a dangerous subject of inquiry," said the falconer; "you
had better hold out your bare wrist for an eagle to perch upon.--Look
you, Master Roland, these pretty wild-geese cannot be hawked at
without risk--they have as many divings, boltings, and volleyings, as
the most gamesome quarry that falcon ever flew at--And besides, every
woman of them is manned with her husband, or her kind friend, or her
brother, or her cousin, or her sworn servant at the least--But you
heed me not, Master Roland, though I know the game so well--your eye
is all on that pretty damsel who trips down the gate before us--by my
certes, I will warrant her a blithe dancer either in reel or revel--a
pair of silver morisco bells would become these pretty ankles as well
as the jesses would suit the fairest Norway hawk."

"Thou art a fool, Adam," said the page, "and I care not a button about
the girl or her ankles--But, what the foul fiend, one must look at
something!"

"Very true, Master Roland Graeme," said his guide, "but let me pray
you to choose your objects better. Look you, there is scarce a woman
walks this High-gate with a silk screen or a pearlin muffler, but, as
I said before, she has either gentleman-usher before her, or kinsman,
or lover, or husband, at her elbow, or it may be a brace of stout
fellows with sword and buckler, not so far behind but what they can
follow close--But you heed me no more than a goss-hawk minds a yellow
yoldring."

"O yes, I do--I do mind you indeed," said Roland Graeme; "but hold my
nag a bit--I will be with you in the exchange of a whistle." So
saying, and ere Adam Woodcock could finish the sermon which was dying
on his tongue, Roland Graeme, to the falconer's utter astonishment,
threw him the bridle of his jennet, jumped off horseback, and pursued
down one of the closes or narrow lanes, which, opening under a vault,
terminate upon the main-street, the very maiden to whom his friend had
accused him of showing so much attention, and who had turned down the
pass in question.

"Saint Mary, Saint Magdalen, Saint Benedict, Saint Barnabas!" said the
poor falconer, when he found himself thus suddenly brought to a pause
in the midst of the Canongate, and saw his young charge start off like
a madman in quest of a damsel whom he had never, as Adam supposed,
seen in his life before,--"Saint Satan and Saint Beelzebub--for this
would make one swear saint and devil--what can have come over the lad,
with a wanion! And what shall I do the whilst!--he will have his
throat cut, the poor lad, as sure as I was born at the foot of
Roseberry-Topping. Could I find some one to hold the horses! but they
are as sharp here north-away as in canny Yorkshire herself, and quit
bridle, quit titt, as we say. An I could but see one of our folks
now, a holly-sprig were worth a gold tassel; or could I but see one of
the Regent's men--but to leave the horses to a stranger, that I
cannot--and to leave the place while the lad is in jeopardy, that I
wonot."