The monastery; The abbot.

426 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
of domestics who had placed the dinner on the table, and who now, with
the same ceremonious formality, began to remove it.
The steward remained motionless as some old picture, while the domestics
did their office; and when it was accomplished, every thing removed from
the table, and the board itself taken from its tressels and disposed against
the wall, he said aloud, without addressing any one in particular, and
somewhat in the tone of a herald reading a proclamation, " My noble lady,
Dame Margaret Erskine, by marriage Douglas, lets the Lady Mary of
Scotland and her attendants to wit, that a servant of the true evangele, her
reverend chaplain, will to-night, as usual, expound, lecture, and catechise,
according to the forms of the congregation of gospellers.'
"Hark you, my friend, Mr. Dryfesdale," said Catherine, "I understand
this announcement is a nightly form of yours. Now, I pray you to remark,
that the Lady Fleming and I- for I trust your insolent invitation concerns
us only- have chosen Saint Peter's pathway to Heaven, so I see no one
whom your godly exhortation, catechise, or lecture, can benefit, excepting
this poor page, who, being in Satan's hand as well as yourself, had better
worship with you than remain to cumber our better-advised devotions."
The page was well-nigh giving a round denial to the assertions which this
speech implied, when, remembering what had passed betwixt him'and the
Regent, and seeing Catherine's finger raised in a monitory fashion, he felt
himself, as on former occasions at the Castle of Avenel, obliged to submit
to the task of dissimulation, and followed Dryfesdale down to the castle
chapel, where he assisted in the devotions of the evening.
The chaplain was named Elias Henderson. He was a man in the prime
of life, and possessed of good natural parts, carefully improved by the best
education which those times afforded. To these qualities were added a
faculty of close and terse reasoning; and, at intervals, a flow of happy
illustration and natural eloquence. The religious faith of Roland Grenme,
as we have already had opportunity to observe, rested on no secure basis,
but was entertained rather in obedience to his grandmother's behests, and
his secret desire to contradict the chaplain of Avenel Castle, than from any
fixed or steady reliance which he placed on the Romish creed. His ideas
had been of late considerably enlarged by the scenes he had passed through;
and feeling that there was shame in not understanding something of those
political disputes betwixt the professors of the ancient and the reformed
faith, he listened with more attention than it had hitherto been in his nature
to yield on such occasions, to an animated discussion of some of the principal points of difference betwixt the churches. So passed away the first day
in the Castle of Lochleven; and those which followed it were, for some
time, of a very monotonous and uniform tenor.
lapirr ilr'm utlIt-furt.'Tis a weary life thisVaults overhead, and grates and bars around me,
And my sad hours spent with as sad companions,
Whose thoughts are brooding o'er their own mischances,
Far, far too deeply to take part in mine.
THE WOODSMAN.
TnE course of life to which Mary and her little retinue were doomed, was
in the last degree secluded and lonely, varied only as the weather permitted
or rendered impossible the Queen's usual walk in the garden or on the battlements. The greater part of the morning she wrought with her ladies