The monastery; The abbot.

514 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"Forget us both," said the Ex-Abbot Boniface, " and may God be with
you!"
As they hurried out of the house, they heard the old man talking and
muttering to himself, as he hastily.drew bolt and bar behind them.
"The revenge of the Douglasses will reach the poor old man," said the
Queen. "God help me, I ruin every one whom I approach!"
" iis safety is cared for," said Seyton; " he must not remain here, but
will be privately conducted to a place of greater security. But I would
your Grace were in the saddle. - To horse! to horse!"
The party of Seyton and of Douglas were increased to about ten by those
attendants who had remained with the horses. The Queen and her ladies,
with all the rest who came from the boat, were instantly mounted; and
holding aloof from the village, which was already alarmed by the firing from
the castle, with Douglas acting as their guide, they soon reached the open
ground and began to ride as fast as was consistent with keeping together
in good order.
Isapfnr tllP W0Xity-kir xt-
He mounted himself on a coal-black steed,
And her on a freckled gray,
With a bugelet horn hung down from his side,
And roundly they rode away.
OLD BALLAD.
THE influence of the free air, the rushing of the horses over high and
low, the ringing of the bridles, the excitation at once arising from a sense
of freedom and of rapid motion, gradually dispelled the confused and
dejected sort of stupefaction by which Queen Mary was at first overwhelmed.
She could not at last conceal the change of her feelings to the person who
rode at her rein, and who she doubted not was the Father Ambrosius; for
Seyton, with all the heady impetuosity of a youth, proud, and justly so, of
his first successful adventure, assumed all the bustle and importance of commander of the little party, which escorted, in the language of the time, the
Fortune of Scotland. He now led the van, now checked his bounding steed
till the rear had come up, exhorted the leaders to keep a steady, though
rapid pace, and commanded those who were hindmost of the party to use
their spurs, and allow no"interval to take place in their line of march; and
anon he was beside the Queen, or her ladies, inquiring how they brooked
the hasty journey, and whether they had any commands for him. But
while Seyton thus busied himself in the general cause with some advantage
to the regular order of the march, and a good deal of personal ostentation,
the horseman who rode beside the Queen gave her his full and undivided
attention, as if he had been waiting upon some superior being. When the
road was rugged and dangerous, he abandoned almost entirely the care of
his own horse, and kept his hand constantly upon the Queen's bridle; if a
river or larger brook traversed their course, his left arm retained her in the
saddle, while his right held her palfrey's rein.
"I had not thought, reverend Father," said the Queen, when they reached
the other bank, " that the convent bred such good horsemen."-The person
she addressed sighed, but made no other answer.-" I know not how it is,"
said Queen Mary, "but either the sense of freedom, or the pleasure of my
favourite exercise, from which I have been so long debarred, or both combined, seem to have given wings to me-no fish ever shot through the water,
no bird through the air, with the hurried feeling of liberty and rapture with.