The Abbot

Chapter 6

"He is gone at last," said the abigail, sipping her glass; "and here

is to his good journey."

"Amen," answered the steward, gravely; "I wish the poor deserted lad

no ill."

"And he is gone like a wild-duck, as he came," continued Mrs. Lilias;

"no lowering of drawbridges, or pacing along causeways, for him. My

master has pushed off in the boat which they call the little Herod,

(more shame to them for giving the name of a Christian to wood and

iron,) and has rowed himself by himself to the farther side of the

loch, and off and away with himself, and left all his finery strewed

about his room. I wonder who is to clean his trumpery out after

him--though the things are worth lifting, too."

"Doubtless, Mistress Lilias," answered the master of the household,

"in the which case, I am free to think, they will not long cumber the

floor."

"And now tell me, Master Wingate," continued the damsel, "do not the

very cockles of your heart rejoice at the house being rid of this

upstart whelp, that flung us all into shadow?"

"Why, Mistress Lilias," replied Wingate, "as to rejoicing--those who

have lived as long in great families as has been my lot, will be in no

hurry to rejoice at any thing. And for Roland Graeme, though he may be

a good riddance in the main, yet what says the very sooth proverb,

'Seldom comes a better.'"

"Seldom comes a better, indeed!" echoed Mrs. Lilias. "I say, never can

come a worse, or one half so bad. He might have been the ruin of our

poor dear mistress," (here she used her kerchief,) "body and soul, and

estate too; for she spent more coin on his apparel than on any four

servants about the house."

"Mistress Lilias," said the sage steward, "I do opine that our

mistress requireth not this pity at your hands, being in all respects

competent to take care of her own body, soul, and estate into the

bargain."

"You would not mayhap have said so," answered the waiting-woman, "had

you seen how like Lot's wife she looked when young master took his

leave. My mistress is a good lady, and a virtuous, and a well-doing

lady, and a well-spoken of--but I would not Sir Halbert had seen her

last evening for two and a plack."

"Oh, foy! foy! foy!" reiterated the steward; "servants should hear and

see, and say nothing. Besides that, my lady is utterly devoted to Sir

Halbert, as well she may, being, as he is, the most renowned knight in

these parts."

"Well, well," said the abigail, "I mean no more harm; but they that

seek least renown abroad, are most apt to find quiet at home, that's

all; and my Lady's lonesome situation is to be considered, that made

her fain to take up with the first beggar's brat that a dog brought

her out of the loch."

"And, therefore," said the steward, "I say, rejoice not too much, or

too hastily, Mistress Lilias; for if your Lady wished a favourite to

pass away the time, depend upon it, the time will not pass lighter now

that he is gone. So she will have another favourite to choose for

herself; and be assured, if she wishes such a toy, she will not lack

one."

"And where should she choose one, but among her own tried and faithful

servants," said Mrs. Lilias, "who have broken her bread, and drunk her

drink, for so many years? I have known many a lady as high as she is,

that never thought either of a friend or favourite beyond their own

waiting-woman--always having a proper respect, at the same time, for

their old and faithful master of the household, Master Wingate."

"Truly, Mistress Lilias," replied the steward, "I do partly see the

mark at which you shoot, but I doubt your bolt will fall short.

Matters being with our Lady as it likes you to suppose, it will

neither be your crimped pinners, Mrs. Lilias, (speaking of them with

due respect,) nor my silver hair, or golden chain, that will fill up

the void which Roland Graeme must needs leave in our Lady's leisure.

There will be a learned young divine with some new doctrine--a learned

leech with some new drug--a bold cavalier, who will not be refused the

favour of wearing her colours at a running at the ring--a cunning

harper that could harp the heart out of woman's breast, as they say

Signer David Rizzio did to our poor Queen;--these are the sort of folk

who supply the loss of a well-favoured favourite, and not an old

steward, or a middle-aged waiting-woman."

"Well," replied Lilias, "you have experience, Master Wingate, and

truly I would my master would leave off his picking hither and

thither, and look better after the affairs of his household. There

will be a papestrie among us next, for what should I see among

master's clothes but a string of gold beads! I promise you,

_aves_ and _credos_ both!--I seized on them like a falcon."

"I doubt it not, I doubt it not," said the steward, sagaciously

nodding his head; "I have often noticed that the boy had strange

observances which savoured of popery, and that he was very jealous to

conceal them. But you will find the Catholic under the Presbyterian

cloak as often as the knave under the Friar's hood--what then? we are

all mortal--Right proper beads they are," he added, looking

attentively at them, "and may weigh four ounces of fine gold."

"And I will have them melted down presently," she said, "before they

be the misguiding of some poor blinded soul."

"Very cautious, indeed, Mistress Lilias," said the steward, nodding

his head in assent.

"I will have them made," said Mrs. Lilias, "into a pair of

shoe-buckles; I would not wear the Pope's trinkets, or whatever has

once borne the shape of them, one inch above my instep, were they

diamonds instead of gold.--But this is what has come of Father Ambrose

coming about the castle, as demure as a cat that is about to steal

cream."

"Father Ambrose is our master's brother," said the steward gravely.

"Very true, Master Wingate," answered the Dame; "but is that a good

reason why he should pervert the king's liege subjects to papistrie?"

"Heaven forbid, Mistress Lilias," answered the sententious major-domo;

"but yet there are worse folk than the Papists."

"I wonder where they are to be found," said the waiting-woman, with

some asperity; "but I believe, Master Wingate, if one were to speak to

you about the devil himself, you would say there were worse people

than Satan."

"Assuredly I might say so," replied the steward, "supposing that I saw

Satan standing at my elbow."

The waiting-woman started, and having exclaimed, "God bless us I"

added, "I wonder, Master Wingate, you can take pleasure in frightening

one thus."

"Nay, Mistress Lilias, I had no such purpose," was the reply; "but

look you here--the Papists are but put down for the present, but who

knows how long this word _present_ will last? There are two great

Popish earls in the north of England, that abominate the very word

reformation; I mean the Northumberland and Westmoreland Earls, men of

power enough to shake any throne in Christendom. Then, though our

Scottish king be, God bless him, a true Protestant, yet he is but a

boy; and here is his mother that was our queen--I trust there is no

harm to say, God bless her too--and she is a Catholic; and many begin

to think she has had but hard measure, such as the Hamiltons in the

west, and some of our Border clans here, and the Gordons in the north,

who are all wishing to see a new world; and if such a new world should

chance to come up, it is like that the Queen will take back her own

crown, and that the mass and the cross will come up, and then down go

pulpits, Geneva-gowns, and black silk skull-caps."

"And have you, Master Jasper Wingate, who have heard the word, and

listened unto pure and precious Mr. Henry Warden, have you, I say, the

patience to speak, or but to think, of popery coming down on us like a

storm, or of the woman Mary again making the royal seat of Scotland a

throne of abomination? No marvel that you are so civil to the cowled

monk, Father Ambrose, when he comes hither with his downcast eyes that

he never raises to my Lady's face, and with his low sweet-toned voice,

and his benedicites, and his benisons; and who so ready to take them

kindly as Master Wingate?"

"Mistress Lilias," replied the butler, with an air which was intended

to close the debate, "there are reasons for all things. If I received

Father Ambrose debonairly, and suffered him to steal a word now arid

then with this same Roland Graeme, it was not that I cared a brass

bodle for his benison or malison either, but only because I respected

my master's blood. And who can answer, if Mary come in again, whether

he may not be as stout a tree to lean to as ever his brother hath

proved to us? For down goes the Earl of Murray when the Queen comes by

her own again; and good is his luck if he can keep the head on his own

shoulders. And down goes our Knight, with the Earl, his patron; and

who so like to mount into his empty saddle as this same Father

Ambrose? The Pope of Rome can so soon dispense with his vows, and then

we should have Sir Edward the soldier, instead of Ambrose the priest."

Anger and astonishment kept Mrs. Lilias silent,--while her old friend,

in his self-complacent manner, was making known to her his political

speculations. At length her resentment found utterance in words of

great ire and scorn. "What, Master Wingate! have you eaten my

mistress's bread, to say nothing of my master's, so many years, that

you could live to think of her being dispossessed of her own Castle of

Avenel, by a wretched monk, who is not a drop's blood to her in the

way of relation? I, that am but a woman, would try first whether my

rock or his cowl was the better metal. Shame on you, Master Wingate! I

If I had not held you as so old an acquaintance, this should have gone

to my Lady's ears though I had been called pickthank and tale-pyet for

my pains, as when I told of Roland Graeme shooting the wild swan."

Master Wingate was somewhat dismayed at perceiving, that the details

which he had given of his far-sighted political views had produced

on his hearer rather suspicion of his fidelity, than admiration of his

wisdom, and endeavoured, as hastily as possible, to apologize and to

explain, although internally extremely offended at the unreasonable

view, as he deemed it, which it had pleased Mistress Lilias Bradbourne

to take of his expressions; and mentally convinced that her

disapprobation of his sentiments arose solely out of the

consideration, that though Father Ambrose, supposing him to become the

master of the castle, would certainly require the services of a

steward, yet those of a waiting-woman would, in the supposed

circumstances, be altogether superfluous.

After his explanation had been received as explanations usually are,

the two friends separated; Lilias to attend the silver whistle which

called her to her mistress's chamber, and the sapient major-domo to

the duties of his own department. They parted with less than their

usual degree of reverence and regard; for the steward felt that his

worldly wisdom was rebuked by the more disinterested attachment of the

waiting-woman, and Mistress Lilias Bradbourne was compelled to

consider her old friend as something little better than a time-server.