The Abbot

Chapter 8

The cell of Saint Cuthbert, as it was called, marked, or was supposed

to mark, one of those resting-places, which that venerable saint was

pleased to assign to his monks, when his convent, being driven from

Lindisfern by the Danes, became a peripatetic society of religionists,

and bearing their patron's body on their shoulders, transported him

from place to place through Scotland and the borders of England, until

he was pleased at length to spare them the pain of carrying him

farther, and to choose his ultimate place of rest in the lordly towers

of Durham. The odour of his sanctity remained behind him at each place

where he had granted the monks a transient respite from their labours;

and proud were those who could assign, as his temporary resting-place,

any spot within their vicinity. There were few cells more celebrated

and honoured than that of Saint Cuthbert, to which Roland Graeme now

bent his way, situated considerably to the north-west of the great

Abbey of Kennaquhair, on which it was dependent. In the neighbourhood

were some of those recommendations which weighed with the experienced

priesthood of Rome, in choosing their sites for places of religion.

There was a well, possessed of some medicinal qualities, which, of

course, claimed the saint for its guardian and patron, and

occasionally produced some advantage to the recluse who inhabited his

cell, since none could reasonably expect to benefit by the fountain

who did not extend their bounty to the saint's chaplain. A few rods of

fertile land afforded the monk his plot of garden ground; an eminence

well clothed with trees rose behind the cell, and sheltered it from,

the north and the east, while the front, opening to the south-west,

looked up a wild but pleasant valley, down which wandered a lively

brook, which battled with every stone that interrupted its passage.

The cell itself was rather plainly than rudely constructed--a low

Gothic building with two small apartments, one of which served the

priest for his dwelling-place, the other for his chapel. As there were

few of the secular clergy who durst venture to reside so near the

Border, the assistance of this monk in spiritual affairs had not been

useless to the community, while the Catholic religion retained the

ascendancy; as he could marry, christen, and administer the other

sacraments of the Roman church. Of late, however, as the Protestant

doctrines gained ground, he had found it convenient to live in close

retirement, and to avoid, as much as possible, drawing upon himself

observation or animadversion. The appearance of his habitation,

however, when Roland Graeme came before it in the close of the

evening, plainly showed that his caution had been finally ineffectual.

The page's first movement was to knock at the door, when he observed,

to his surprise, that it was open, not from being left unlatched, but

because, beat off its upper hinge, it was only fastened to the

door-post by the lower, and could therefore no longer perform its

functions. Somewhat alarmed at this, and receiving no answer when he

knocked and called, Roland began to look more at leisure upon the

exterior of the little dwelling before he ventured to enter it. The

flowers, which had been trained with care against the walls, seemed to

have been recently torn down, and trailed their dishonoured garlands

on the earth; the latticed window was broken and dashed in. The

garden, which the monk had maintained by his constant labour in the

highest order and beauty, bore marks of having been lately trod down

and destroyed by the hoofs of animals, and the feet of men.

The sainted spring had not escaped. It was wont to rise beneath a

canopy of ribbed arches, with which the devotion of elder times had

secured and protected its healing waters. These arches were now almost

entirely demolished, and the stones of which they were built were

tumbled into the well, as if for the purpose of choking up and

destroying the fountain, which, as it had shared in other days the

honour of the saint, was, in the present, doomed to partake his

unpopularity. Part of the roof had been pulled down from the house

itself, and an attempt had been made with crows and levers upon one of

the angles, by which several large corner-stones had been forced out

of their place; but the solidity of ancient mason-work had proved too

great for the time or patience of the assailants, and they had

relinquished their task of destruction. Such dilapidated buildings,

after the lapse of years, during which nature has gradually covered

the effects of violence with creeping plants, and with weather-stains,

exhibit, amid their decay, a melancholy beauty. But when the visible

effects of violence appear raw and recent, there is no feeling to

mitigate the sense of devastation with which they impress the

spectators; and such was now the scene on which the youthful page

gazed, with the painful feelings it was qualified to excite.

When his first momentary surprise was over, Roland Graeme was at no

loss to conjecture the cause of these ravages. The destruction of the

Popish edifices did not take place at once throughout Scotland, but at

different times, and according to the spirit which actuated the

reformed clergy; some of whom instigated their hearers to these acts

of demolition, and others, with better taste and feeling, endeavoured

to protect the ancient shrines, while they desired to see them

purified from the objects which had attracted idolatrous devotion.

From time to time, therefore, the populace of the Scottish towns and

villages, when instigated either by their own feelings of abhorrence

for Popish superstition, or by the doctrines of the more zealous

preachers, resumed the work of destruction, and exercised it upon some

sequestered church, chapel, or cell, which had escaped the first burst

of their indignation against the religion of Rome. In many places, the

vices of the Catholic clergy, arising out of the wealth and the

corruption of that tremendous hierarchy, furnished too good an apology

for wreaking vengeance upon the splendid edifices which they

inhabited; and of this an old Scottish historian gives a remarkable

instance.

"Why mourn ye," said an aged matron, seeing the discontent of some of

the citizens, while a stately convent was burnt by the multitude,--

"why mourn ye for its destruction? If you knew half the flagitious

wickedness which has been perpetrated within that house, you would

rather bless the divine judgment, which permits not even the senseless

walls that screened such profligacy, any longer to cumber Christian

ground."

But although, in many instances, the destruction of the Roman Catholic

buildings might be, in the matron's way of judging, an act of justice,

and in others an act of policy, there is no doubt that the humour of

demolishing monuments of ancient piety and munificence, and that in a

poor country like Scotland, where there was no chance of their being

replaced, was both useless, mischievous, and barbarous.

In the present instance, the unpretending and quiet seclusion of the

monk of Saint Cuthbert's had hitherto saved him from the general

wreck; but it would seem ruin had now at length reached him. Anxious

to discover if he had at least escaped personal harm, Roland Graeme

entered the half ruined cell.

The interior of the building was in a state which fully justified the

opinion he had formed from its external injuries. The few rude

utensils of the solitary's hut were broken down, and lay scattered on

the floor, where it seemed as if a fire had been made with some of the

fragments to destroy the rest of his property, and to consume, in

particular, the rude old image of Saint Cuthbert, in its episcopal

habit, which lay on the hearth like Dagon of yore, shattered with the

axe and scorched with the flames, but only partially destroyed. In the

little apartment which served as a chapel, the altar was overthrown,

and the four huge stones of which it had been once composed lay

scattered around the floor. The large stone crucifix which occupied

the niche behind the altar, and fronted the supplicant while he paid

his devotion there, had been pulled down and dashed by its own weight

into three fragments. There were marks of sledge-hammers on each of

these; yet the image had been saved from utter demolition by the size

and strength of the remaining fragments, which, though much injured,

retained enough of the original sculpture to show what it had been

intended to represent.

[Footnote: I may here observe, that this is entirely an ideal scene.

Saint Cuthbert, a person of established sanctity, had, no doubt,

several places of worship on the Borders, where he flourished whilst

living; but Tillmouth Chapel is the only one which bears some

resemblance to the hermitage described in the text. It has, indeed, a

well, famous for gratifying three wishes for every worshipper who

shall quaff the fountain with sufficient belief in its efficacy. At

this spot the Saint is said to have landed in his stone coffin, in

which he sailed down the Tweed from Melrose and here the stone coffin

long lay, in evidence of the fact. The late Sir Francis Blake Delaval

is said to have taken the exact measure of the coffin, and to have

ascertained, by hydrostatic principles, that it might have actually

swum. A profane farmer in the neighborhood announced his intention of

converting this last bed of the Saint into a trough for his swine; but

the profanation was rendered impossible, either by the Saint, or by

some pious votary in his behalf, for on the following morning the

stone sarcophargus was found broken in two fragments.

Tillmouth Chapel, with these points of resemblance, lies, however, in

exactly the opposite direction as regards Melrose, which the supposed

cell of St. Cuthbert is said to have borne towards Kennaquhair.]

Roland Graeme, secretly nursed in the tenets of Rome, saw with horror

the profanation of the most sacred emblem, according to his creed, of

our holy religion.

"It is the badge of our redemption," he said, "which the felons have

dared to violate--would to God my weak strength were able to replace

it--my humble strength, to atone for the sacrilege!"

He stooped to the task he first meditated, and with a sudden, and to

himself almost an incredible exertion of power, he lifted up the one

extremity of the lower shaft of the cross, and rested it upon the edge

of the large stone which served for its pedestal. Encouraged by this

success, he applied his force to the other extremity, and, to his own

astonishment, succeeded so far as to erect the lower end of the limb

into the socket, out of which it had been forced, and to place this

fragment of the image upright.

While he was employed in this labour, or rather at the very moment

when he had accomplished the elevation of the fragment, a voice, in

thrilling and well-known accents, spoke behind him these words:--"Well

done, thou good and faithful servant! Thus would I again meet the

child of my love--the hope of my aged eyes."

Roland turned round in astonishment, and the tall commanding form of

Magdalen Graeme stood beside him. She was arrayed in a sort of loose

habit, in form like that worn by penitents in Catholic countries, but

black in colour, and approaching as near to a pilgrim's cloak as it

was safe to wear in a country where the suspicion of Catholic devotion

in many places endangered the safety of those who were suspected of

attachment to the ancient faith. Roland Graeme threw himself at her

feet. She raised and embraced him, with affection indeed, but not

unmixed with gravity which amounted almost to sternness.

"Thou hast kept well," she said, "the bird in thy bosom. [Footnote:

An expression used by Sir Ralph Percy, slain in the battle of

Hedgly-moor in 1464, when dying, to express his having preserved

unstained his fidelity to the house of Lancaster.] As a boy, as a

youth, thou hast held fast thy faith amongst heretics--thou hast kept

thy secret and mine own amongst thine enemies. I wept when I parted

from you--I who seldom weep, then shed tears, less for thy death than

for thy spiritual danger--I dared not even see thee to bid thee a last

farewell--my grief, my swelling grief, had betrayed me to these

heretics. But thou hast been faithful--down, down on thy knees before

the holy sign, which evil men injure and blaspheme; down, and praise

saints and angels for the grace they have done thee, in preserving

thee from the leprous plague which cleaves to the house in which thou

wert nurtured."

"If, my mother--so I must ever call you" replied Graeme,--"if I am

returned such as thou wouldst wish me, thou must thank the care of the

pious father Ambrose, whose instructions confirmed your early

precepts, and taught me at once to be faithful and to be silent."

"Be he blessed for it," said she; "blessed in the cell and in the

field, in the pulpit and at the altar--the saints rain blessings on

him!--they are just, and employ his pious care to counteract the evils

which his detested brother works against the realm and the

church,--but he knew not of thy lineage?"

"I could not myself tell him that," answered Roland. "I knew but

darkly from your words, that Sir Halbert Glendinning holds mine

inheritance, and that I am of blood as noble as runs in the veins of

any Scottish Baron--these are things not to be forgotten, but for the

explanation I must now look to you."

"And when time suits, thou shalt not look for it in vain. But men say,

my son, that thou art bold and sudden; and those who bear such tempers

are not lightly to be trusted with what will strongly move them."

"Say rather, my mother," returned Roland Graeme, "that I am laggard

and cold-blooded--what patience or endurance can you require of which

_he_ is not capable, who for years has heard his religion

ridiculed and insulted, yet failed to plunge his dagger into the

blasphemer's bosom!"

"Be contented, my child," replied Magdalen Graeme; "the time, which

then and even now demands patience, will soon ripen to that of effort

and action--great events are on the wing, and thou,--thou shalt have

thy share in advancing them. Thou hast relinquished the service of the

Lady of Avenel?"

"I have been dismissed from it, my mother--I have lived to be

dismissed, as if I were the meanest of the train."

"It is the better, my child," replied she; "thy mind will be the more

hardened to undertake that which must be performed."

"Let it be nothing, then, against the Lady of Avenel," said the page,

"as thy look and words seem to imply. I have eaten her bread--I have

experienced her favour--I will neither injure nor betray her."

"Of that hereafter, my son," said she; "but learn this, that it is not

for thee to capitulate in thy duty, and to say this will I do, and

that will I leave undone--No, Roland! God and man will no longer abide

the wickedness of this generation. Seest thou these fragments--

knowest thou what they represent?--and canst thou think it is for thee

to make distinctions amongst a race so accursed by Heaven, that they

renounce, violate, blaspheme, and destroy, whatsoever we are commanded

to believe in, whatsoever we are commanded to reverence?"

As she spoke, she bent her head towards the broken image, with a

countenance in which strong resentment and zeal were mingled with an

expression of ecstatic devotion; she raised her left hand aloft as in

the act of making a vow, and thus proceeded; "Bear witness for me,

blessed symbol of our salvation, bear witness, holy saint, within

whose violated temple we stand, that as it is not for vengeance of my

own that my hate pursues these people, so neither, for any favour or

earthly affection towards any amongst them, will I withdraw my hand

from the plough, when it shall pass through the devoted furrow! Bear

witness, holy saint, once thyself a wanderer and fugitive as we are

now--bear witness, Mother of Mercy, Queen of Heaven--bear witness,

saints and angels!"

In this high train of enthusiasm, she stood, raising her eyes through

the fractured roof of the vault, to the stars which now began to

twinkle through the pale twilight, while the long gray tresses which

hung down over her shoulders waved in the night-breeze, which the

chasm and fractured windows admitted freely.

Roland Graeme was too much awed by early habits, as well as by the

mysterious import of her words, to ask for farther explanation of the

purpose she obscurely hinted at. Nor did she farther press him on the

subject; for, having concluded her prayer or obtestation, by clasping

her hands together with solemnity, and then signing herself with the

cross, she again addressed her grandson, in a tone more adapted to the

ordinary business of life.

"Thou must hence," she said, "Roland, thou must hence, but not till

morning--And now, how wilt thou shift for thy night's quarters?--thou

hast been more softly bred than when we were companions in the misty

hills of Cumberland and Liddesdale."

"I have at least preserved, my good mother, the habits which I then

learned--can lie hard, feed sparingly, and think it no hardship. Since

I was a wanderer with thee on the hills, I have been a hunter, and

fisher, and fowler, and each of these is accustomed to sleep freely in

a worse shelter than sacrilege has left us here."

"Than sacrilege has left us here!" said the matron, repeating his

words, and pausing on them. "Most true, my son; and God's faithful

children are now worst sheltered, when they lodge in God's own house

and the demesne of his blessed saints. We shall sleep cold here, under

the nightwind, which whistles through the breaches which heresy has

made. They shall lie warmer who made them--ay, and through a long

hereafter."

Notwithstanding the wild and singular expression of this female, she

appeared to retain towards Roland Graeme, in a strong degree, that

affectionate and sedulous love which women bear to their nurslings,

and the children dependent on their care. It seemed as if she would

not permit him to do aught for himself which in former days her

attention had been used to do for him, and that she considered the

tall stripling before her as being equally dependent on her careful

attention as when he was the orphan child, who had owed all to her

affectionate solicitude.

"What hast thou to eat now?" she said, as, leaving the chapel, they

went into the deserted habitation of the priest; "or what means of

kindling a fire, to defend thee from this raw and inclement air? Poor

child! thou hast made slight provision for a long journey; nor hast

thou skill to help thyself by wit, when means are scanty. But Our Lady

has placed by thy side one to whom want, in all its forms, is as

familiar as plenty and splendour have formerly been. And with want,

Roland, come the arts of which she is the inventor."

With an active and officious diligence, which strangely contrasted

with her late abstracted and high tone of Catholic devotion, she set

about her domestic arrangements for the evening. A pouch, which was

hidden under her garment, produced a flint arid steel, and from the

scattered fragments around (those pertaining to the image of Saint

Cuthbert scrupulously excepted) she obtained splinters sufficient to

raise a sparkling and cheerful fire on the hearth of the deserted

cell.

"And now," she said, "for needful food."

"Think not of it, mother," said Roland, "unless you yourself feel

hunger. It is a little thing for me to endure a night's abstinence,

and a small atonement for the necessary transgression of the rules of

the Church upon which I was compelled during my stay in the castle."

"Hunger for myself!" answered the matron--"Know, youth, that a mother

knows not hunger till that of her child is satisfied." And with

affectionate inconsistency, totally different from her usual manner,

she added, "Roland, you must not fast; you have dispensation; you are

young, and to youth food and sleep are necessaries not to be dispensed

with. Husband your strength, my child,--your sovereign, your religion,

your country, require it. Let age macerate by fast and vigil a body

which can only suffer; let youth, in these active times, nourish the

limbs and the strength which action requires."

While she thus spoke, the scrip, which had produced the means of

striking fire, furnished provision for a meal; of which she herself

scarce partook, but anxiously watched her charge, taking a pleasure,

resembling that of an epicure, in each morsel which he swallowed with

a youthful appetite which abstinence had rendered unusually sharp.

Roland readily obeyed her recommendations, and ate the food which she

so affectionately and earnestly placed before him. But she shook her

head when invited by him in return to partake of the refreshment her

own cares had furnished; and when his solicitude became more pressing,

she refused him in a loftier tone of rejection.

"Young man," she said, "you know not to whom or of what you speak.

They to whom Heaven declares its purpose must merit its communication

by mortifying the senses; they have that within which requires not the

superfluity of earthly nutriment, which is necessary to those who are

without the sphere of the Vision. To them the watch spent in prayer is

a refreshing slumber, and the sense of doing the will of Heaven is a

richer banquet than the tables of monarchs can spread before

them!--But do thou sleep soft, my son," she said, relapsing from the

tone of fanaticism into that of maternal affection and tenderness; "do

thou sleep sound while life is but young with thee, and the cares of

the day can be drowned in the slumbers of the evening. Different is

thy duty and mine, and as different the means by which we must qualify

and strengthen ourselves to perform it. From thee is demanded strength

of body--from me, strength of soul."

When she thus spoke, she prepared with ready address a pallet-couch,

composed partly of the dried leaves which had once furnished a bed to

the solitary, and the guests who occasionally received his

hospitality, and which, neglected by the destroyers of his humble

cell, had remained little disturbed in the corner allotted for them.

To these her care added some of the vestures which lay torn and

scattered on the floor. With a zealous hand she selected all such as

appeared to have made any part of the sacerdotal vestments, laying

them aside as sacred from ordinary purposes, and with the rest she

made, with dexterous promptness, such a bed as a weary man might

willingly stretch himself on; and during the time she was preparing

it, rejected, even with acrimony, any attempt which the youth made to

assist her, or any entreaty which he urged, that she would accept of

the place of rest for her own use. "Sleep thou," said she, "Roland

Graeme, sleep thou--the persecuted, the disinherited orphan--the son

of an ill-fated mother--sleep thou! I go to pray in the chapel beside

thee."

The manner was too enthusiastically earnest, too obstinately firm, to

permit Roland Graeme to dispute her will any farther. Yet he felt some

shame in giving way to it. It seemed as if she had forgotten the years

that had passed away since their parting; and expected to meet, in the

tall, indulged, and wilful youth, whom she had recovered, the passive

obedience of the child whom she had left in the Castle of Avenel. This

did not fail to hurt her grandson's characteristic and constitutional

pride. He obeyed, indeed, awed into submission by the sudden

recurrence of former subordination, and by feelings of affection and

gratitude. Still, however, he felt the yoke.

"Have I relinquished the hawk and the hound," he said, "to become the

pupil of her pleasure, as if I were still a child?--I, whom even my

envious mates allowed to be superior in those exercises which they

took most pains to acquire, and which came to me naturally, as if a

knowledge of them had been my birthright? This may not, and must not

be. I will be no reclaimed sparrow-hawk, who is carried hooded on a

woman's wrist, and has his quarry only shown to him when his eyes are

uncovered for his flight. I will know her purpose ere it is proposed

to me to aid it."

These, and other thoughts, streamed through the mind of Roland Graeme;

and although wearied with the fatigues of the day, it was long ere he

could compose himself to rest.