The monastery; The abbot.

360 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
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 Grseme 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 I-ouse 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 Groeme 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. IHe rejoiced
that he was travelling towards Edinburgh, in order to assume the character
of a man, and lay aside that of a boy. Ile 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
thi 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