The Abbot by Walter Scott (classic fiction .TXT) 📗

well enough with her brother's hasty and masculine character. He endeavoured repeatedly to catch a glance of Catherine's eye, that he might judge how she was disposed to look upon him since he had made the discovery, but he was unsuccessful; for Catherine, when she was not reading herself, seemed to take so much interest in the exploits of the Teutonic knights against the Heathens of Esthonia and Livonia, that he could not surprise her eye even for a second. But when, closing the book, the Queen commanded their attendance in the garden, Mary, perhaps of set purpose, (for Roland's anxiety could not escape so practised an observer,) afforded him a favourable opportunity of accosting his mistress. The Queen commanded them to a little distance, while she engaged Lady Fleming in a particular and private conversation; the subject whereof we learn, from another authority, to have been the comparative excellence of the high standing ruff and the falling band. Roland must have been duller, and more sheepish than ever was youthful lover, if he had not endeavoured to avail himself of this opportunity.

“I have been longing this whole evening to ask of you, fair Catherine,” said the page, “how foolish and unapprehensive you must have thought me, in being capable to mistake betwixt your brother and you?”

“The circumstance does indeed little honour to my rustic manners,” said Catherine, “since those of a wild young man were so readily mistaken for mine. But I shall grow wiser in time; and with that view I am determined not to think of your follies, but to correct my own.”

“It will be the lighter subject of meditation of the two,” said Roland.

“I know not that,” said Catherine, very gravely; “I fear we have been both unpardonably foolish.”

“I have been mad,” said Roland, “unpardonably mad. But you, lovely Catherine—”

“I,” said Catherine, in the same tone of unusual gravity, “have too long suffered you to use such expressions towards me—I fear I can permit it no longer, and I blame myself for the pain it may give you.”

“And what can have happened so suddenly to change our relation to each other, or alter, with such sudden cruelty, your whole deportment to me?”

“I can hardly tell,” replied Catherine, “unless it is that the events of the day have impressed on my mind the necessity of our observing more distance to each other. A chance similar to that which betrayed to you the existence of my brother, may make known to Henry the terms you have used to me; and, alas! his whole conduct, as well as his deed, this day, makes me too justly apprehensive of the consequences.”

“Fear nothing for that, fair Catherine,” answered the page; “I am well able to protect myself against risks of that nature.”

“That is to say,” replied she, “that you would fight with my twin-brother to show your regard for his sister? I have heard the Queen say, in her sad hours, that men are, in love or in hate, the most selfish animals of creation; and your carelessness in this matter looks very like it. But be not so much abashed—you are no worse than others.”

“You do me injustice, Catherine,” replied the page, “I thought but of being threatened with a sword, and did not remember in whose hand your fancy had placed it. If your brother stood before me, with his drawn weapon in his hand, so like as he is to you in word, person, and favour, he might shed my life's blood ere I could find in my heart to resist him to his injury.”

“Alas!” said she, “it is not my brother alone. But you remember only the singular circumstances in which we have met in equality, and I may say in intimacy. You think not, that whenever I re-enter my father's house, there is a gulf between us you may not pass, but with peril of your life.—Your only known relative is of wild and singular habits, of a hostile and broken clan [Footnote: A broken clan was one who had no chief able to find security for their good behaviour—a clan of outlaws; And the Graemes of the Debateable Land were in that condition.]—the rest of your lineage unknown—forgive me that I speak what is the undeniable truth.”

“Love, my beautiful Catherine, despises genealogies,” answered Roland Graeme.

“Love may, but so will not the Lord Seyton,” rejoined the damsel.

“The Queen, thy mistress and mine, she will intercede. Oh! drive me not from you at the moment I thought myself most happy!—and if I shall aid her deliverance, said not yourself that you and she would become my debtors?”

“All Scotland will become your debtors,” said Catherine; “but for the active effects you might hope from our gratitude, you must remember I am wholly subjected to my father; and the poor Queen is, for a long time, more likely to be dependant on the pleasure of the nobles of her party, than possessed of power to control them.”

“Be it so,” replied Roland; “my deeds shall control prejudice itself—it is a bustling world, and I will have my share. The Knight of Avenel, high as he now stands, rose from as obscure an origin as mine.”

“Ay!” said Catherine, “there spoke the doughty knight of romance, that will cut his way to the imprisoned princess, through fiends and fiery dragons!”

“But if I can set the princess at large, and procure her the freedom of her own choice,” said the page, “where, dearest Catherine, will that choice alight?”

“Release the princess from duresse, and she will tell you,” said the damsel; and breaking off the conversation abruptly, she joined the Queen so suddenly, that Mary exclaimed, half aloud—

“No more tidings of evil import—no dissension, I trust, in my limited household?”—Then looking on Catherine's blushing cheek, and Roland's expanded brow and glancing eye—“No—no,” she said, “I see all is well—Ma petite mignone, go to my apartment and fetch me down—let me see—ay, fetch my pomander box.”

And having thus disposed of her attendant in the manner best qualified to hide her confusion, the Queen added, speaking apart to Roland, “I should at least have two grateful subjects of Catherine and you; for what sovereign but Mary would aid true love so willingly?—Ay, you lay your hand on your sword—your petite flamberge à rien there—Well, short time will show if all the good be true that is protested to us—I hear them toll curfew from Kinross. To our chamber—this old dame hath promised to be with us again at our evening meal. Were it not for the hope of speedy deliverance, her presence would drive me distracted. But I will be patient.”

“I profess,” said Catherine, who just then entered, “I would I could be Henry, with all a man's privileges, for one moment—I long to throw my plate at that confect of pride and formality, and ill-nature.”

The Lady Fleming reprimanded her young companion for this explosion of impatience; the Queen laughed, and they went to the presence-chamber, where almost immediately entered supper, and the Lady of the castle. The Queen, strong in her prudent resolutions, endured her presence with great fortitude and equanimity, until her patience was disturbed by a new form, which had hitherto made no part of the ceremonial of the castle. When the