Вальтер Скотт - The Abbot

“Oh, she has a fair name in the world,” replied Catherine Seyton. “Few ladies kept a fairer house, or held more gentlewomen in her household; my aunt Bridget was one of her housekeepers. We never saw our mistress’s blessed face, to be sure, but we heard enough of her; were up early and down late, and were kept to long prayers and light food.”

“Out upon the penurious old beldam!” said the page.

“For Heaven’s sake, blaspheme not!” said the girl, with an expression of fear. – “God pardon us both! I meant no harm. I speak of our blessed Saint Catherine of Sienna! – may God forgive me that I spoke so lightly, and made you do a great sin and a great blasphemy. This was her nunnery, in which there were twelve nuns and an abbess. My aunt was the abbess, till the heretics turned all adrift.”

“And where are your companions?” asked the youth.

“With the last year’s snow,” answered the maiden; “east, north, south, and west – some to France, some to Flanders, some, I fear, into the world and its pleasures. We have got permission to remain, or rather our remaining has been connived at, for my aunt has great relations among the Kerrs, and they have threatened a death-feud if any one touches us; and bow and spear are the best warrant in these times.”

“Nay, then, you sit under a sure shadow,” said the youth; “and I suppose you wept yourself blind when Saint Catherine broke up housekeeping before you had taken arles [Footnote: Anglice – Earnest-money] in her service?”

“Hush! for Heaven’s sake,” said the damsel, crossing herself; “no more of that! but I have not quite cried my eyes out,” said she, turning them upon him, and instantly again bending them upon her work. It was one of those glances which would require the threefold plate of brass around the heart, more than it is needed by the mariners, to whom Horace recommends it. Our youthful page had no defence whatever to offer.

“What say you, Catherine,” he said, “if we two, thus strangely turned out of service at the same time, should give our two most venerable duennas the torch to hold, while we walk a merry measure with each other over the floor of this weary world?”

“A goodly proposal, truly,” said Catherine, “and worthy the mad-cap brain of a discarded page! – And what shifts does your worship propose we should live by? – by singing ballads, cutting purses, or swaggering on the highway? for there, I think, you would find your most productive exchequer.”

“Choose, you proud peat!” said the page, drawing off in huge disdain at the calm and unembarrassed ridicule with which his wild proposal was received. And as he spoke the words, the casement was again darkened by the forms of the matrons – it opened, and admitted Magdalen Graeme and the Mother Abbess, so we must now style her, into the apartment.

When the matrons re-entered, and put an end to the conversation – which we have detailed in the last chapter, Dame Magdalen Graeme thus addressed her grandson and his pretty companion: “Have you spoke together, my children? – Have you become known to each other as fellow-travellers on the same dark and dubious road, whom chance hath brought together, and who study to learn the tempers and dispositions of those by whom their perils are to be shared?”

It was seldom the light-hearted Catharine could suppress a jest, so that she often spoke when she would have acted more wisely in holding her peace.

“Your grandson admires the journey which you propose so very greatly, that he was even now preparing for setting out upon it instantly.”

“This is to be too forward, Roland,” said the dame, addressing him, “as yesterday you were over slack – the just mean lies in obedience, which both waits for the signal to start, and obeys it when given. – But once again, my children, have you so perused each other’s countenances, that when you meet, in whatever disguise the times may impose upon you, you may recognize each in the other the secret agent of the mighty work in which you are to be leagued? – Look at each other, know each line and lineament of each other’s countenance. Learn to distinguish by the step, by the sound of the voice, by the motion of the hand, by the glance of the eye, the partner whom Heaven hath sent to aid in working its will. – Wilt thou know that maiden, whensoever, or wheresoever you shall again meet her, my Roland Graeme?”

As readily as truly did Roland answer in the affirmative. “And thou, my daughter, wilt thou again remember the features of this youth?”

“Truly, mother,” replied Catherine Seyton, “I have not seen so many men of late, that I should immediately forget your grandson, though I mark not much about him that is deserving of especial remembrance.”

“Join hands, then, my children,” said Magdalen Graeme; but, in saying so, was interrupted by her companion, whose conventual prejudices had been gradually giving her more and more uneasiness, and who could remain acquiescent no longer.

“Nay, my good sister, you forget,” said she to Magdalen, “Catharine is the betrothed bride of Heaven – these intimacies cannot be.”

“It is in the cause of Heaven that I command them to embrace,” said Magdalen, with the full force of her powerful voice; “the end, sister, sanctifies the means we must use.”

“They call me Lady Abbess, or Mother at the least, who address me,” said Dame Bridget, drawing herself up, as if offended at her friend’s authoritative manner – “the Lady of Heathergill forgets that she speaks to the Abbess of Saint Catherine.”

“When I was what you call me,” said Magdalen, “you indeed were the Abbess of Saint Catherine, but both names are now gone, with all the rank that the world and that the church gave to them; and we are now, to the eye of human judgment, two poor, despised, oppressed women, dragging our dishonoured old age to a humble grave. But what are we in the eye of Heaven? – Ministers, sent forth to work his will, – in whose weakness the strength of the church shall be manifested-before whom shall be humbled the wisdom of Murray, and the dark strength of Morton, – And to such wouldst thou apply the narrow rules of thy cloistered seclusion? – or, hast thou forgotten the order which I showed thee from thy Superior, subjecting thee to me in these matters?”

“On thy head, then, be the scandal and the sin,” said the Abbess, sullenly.

“On mine be they both,” said Magdalen. “I say, embrace each other, my children.”

But Catherine, aware, perhaps, how the dispute was likely to terminate, had escaped from the apartment, and so disappointed the grandson, at least as much as the old matron.

“She is gone,” said the Abbess, “to provide some little refreshment. But it will have little savour to those who dwell in the world; for I, at least, cannot dispense with the rules to which I am vowed, because it is the will of wicked men to break down the sanctuary in which they wont to be observed.”

“It is well, my sister,” replied Magdalen, “to pay each even the smallest tithes of mint and cummin which the church demands, and I blame not thy scrupulous observance of the rules of thine order. But they were established by the church, and for the church’s benefit; and reason it is that they should give way when the salvation of the church herself is at stake.”

The Abbess made no reply.

One more acquainted with human nature than the inexperienced page, might have found amusement in comparing the different kinds of fanaticisms which these two females exhibited. The Abbess, timid, narrowminded, and discontented, clung to ancient usages and pretensions which were ended by the Reformation; and was in adversity, as she had been in prosperity, scrupulous, weak-spirited, and bigoted. While the fiery and more lofty spirit of her companion suggested a wider field of effort, and would not be limited by ordinary rules in the extraordinary schemes which were suggested by her bold and irregular imagination. But Roland Graeme, instead of tracing these peculiarities of character in the two old damps, only waited with great anxiety for the return of Catherine, expecting probably that the proposal of the fraternal embrace would be renewed, as his grandmother seemed disposed to carry matters with a high hand.