The monastery; The abbot.

510 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
" To-morrow," said the page, rubbing his hands with glee as he repeated
the Lady's last words, "fools look to-morrow, and wise folk use to-night. -
May I pray you, my gracious Liege, to retire for one half hour, until
all the castle is composed to rest? I must go and rub with oil these
blessed implements of our freedom. Courage and constancy, and all will
go well, provided our friends on the shore fail not to send the boat you
spoke of."
"Fear them not," said Catherine, " they are true as steel- if our dear
mistress do but maintain her noble and royal courage." *
"Doubt not me, Catherine," replied the Queen; "a while since I was
overborne, but I have recalled the spirit of my earlier and more sprightly
days, when I used to accompany my armed nobles, and wish to be myself a
man, to know what life it was to be in the fields with sword and buckler,
jack, and knapscap."
"Oh, the lark lives not a gayer life, nor sings a lighter and gayer song
than the merry soldier," answered Catherine. "Your Grace shall be in
the midst of them soon, and the look of such a liege Sovereign will make
each of your host worth three in the hour of need: -but I must to my
task."
"We have but brief time," said Queen Mary; " one of the two lights in
the cottage is extinguished-that shows the boat is put off."
" They will row very slow," said the page, " or kent where depth permits,
to avoid noise. - To our several tasks - I will communicate with the good
Father."
At the dead hour of midnight, when all was silent in the castle, the pago
put the key into the lock of the wicket which opened into the garden, and
which was at the bottom of a staircase which descended from the Queen's
apartment. "Now, turn smooth and softly, thou good bolt," said he, "if
ever oil softened rust!" and his precautions had been so effectual, that the
bolt revolved with little or no sound of resistance. IHe ventured not to cross
the threshold, but exchanging a word with the disguised Abbot, asked if
the boat were ready?
"This half hour," said the sentinel. "She lies beneath the wall, too
close under the islet to be seen by the warder, but I fear she will hardly
escape his notice in putting off again."
" The darkness," said the page, " and our profound silence, may take her
off unobserved, as she came in. Hildebrand has the watch on the towera heavy-headed knave, who holds a can of ale to be the best headpiece upon
a night-watch. He sleeps, for a wager."
"Then bring the Queen," said the Abbot, "and'I will call Henry Seyton to assist them to the boat."
On tiptoe, with noiseless step and suppressed breath, trembling at every
rustle of their own apparel, one after another the fair prisoners glided down
the winding stair, under the guidance of Roland Groeme, and were received
at the wicket-gate by Henry Seyton and the churchman. The former
seemed instantly to take upon himself the whole direction of the enterprise.
" My Lord Abbot," he said, " give my sister your arm - I will conduct the
Queen-and that youth will have the honour to guide Lady Fleming."
This was no'time to dispute the arrangement, although it was not that
* In the dangerous expedition to Aberdeenshire, Randolph, the English Ambassador, gives Cecil the follow.
ing account of Queen Mary's demeanour:" In all those garbulles, I assure your honour, I never saw the Queen merrier.-never dismayed; nor never
thought I that stomache to be in her that I find. She repented nothing but, when the Lords and others, at
Inverness, came in the morning from the watches, that she was not a man, to know what life it was to lye all
iightin the fields, or to walk upon the causeway with a jack and a knaps-cap, a Glasgow buckler, and a
broadsword.R"-RANDOLPH to CECIL, September 18, 1562.
The writer of the above letter seems to have felt the same impression which Catherine Seyton, in the text,.
considered as proper to the Queen's presence among her armed subjects.
" lhough we neither thought nor looked for other than on that day to have fought or never-what desperate
blkws woul] not have been given, when every man should have fought in the sight of so noble a Queen, and
so nany fair ladies, our enemies to have taken them from us, and we to save our honours, not to be reft of
tihei, yourl onour can easily judge."-The same to the same, September 24, 1562