The monastery; The abbot.

250 WAVER.L EY NOVELS.
Piercie Shafton from the realm of Scotland. —Be well advised, and let the
matter now pass off-you will gain nothing by farther violence, for if we
fight, you as the fewer and the weaker through your former action, will
needs have the worse."
Sir John Foster listened with his head declining on his breast-plate.
"It is a cursed chance," he said, "and I shall have little thanks for my
day's work."
He then rode up to Murray, and said, that, in deference to his Lordship's
presence and that of my Lord of Morton, he had come to the resolution of
withdrawing himself, with his power, without farther proceedings.
"Stop there, Sir John Foster," said Murray; "I cannot permit you to
retire in safety, unless you leave some one who may be surety to Scotland,
that the injuries you have at present done us may be fully accounted for -
you will reflect, that by permitting your retreat, I become accountable to my
Sovereign, who will demand a reckoning of me for the blood of her subjects,
if I suffer those who shed it to depart so easily."
" It shall never be told in England," said the Warden, " that John Foster
gave pledges like a subdued man, and that on the very field on which he
stands victorious.-But," he added, after a moment's pause, "if Stawarth
Bolton wills to abide with you on his own free choice, I will say nothing
against it; and, as I bethink me, it were better he should stay to see the
dismissal of this same Piercie Shafton."
"I receive him as your hostage, nevertheless, and shall treat him as such,"
said the Earl of Murray. But Foster, turning away as if to give directions
to Bolton and his men, affected not to hear this observation.
"There rides a faithful servant of his most beautiful and Sovereign
Lady," said Murray aside to Morton. " Happy man! he knows not whether the execution of her commands may not cost him his head; and yet he
is most certain that to leave them unexecuted will bring disgrace and death
without reprieve. Happy are they who are not only subjected to the caprices of Dame Fortune, but held bound to account and be responsible for
them, and that to a sovereign as moody and fickle as her humorous ladyship
herself!"
"We also have a female Sovereign, my lord," said Morton.
"We have so, Douglas," said the Earl, with a suppressed sigh; "but it
remains to be seen how long a female hand can hold the reins of power in a
realm so wild as ours. We will now go on to Saint Mary's, and see ourselves after the state of that House.-Glendinning, look to that woman, and
protect her.-What the fiend, man, hast thou got in thine arms?-an infant
as I live — where couldst thou find such a charge, at such a place and moment?"
Halbert Glendinning briefly told the story. The Earl rode forward to
the place where the body of Julian Avenel lay, with his unhappy companion's arms wrapped around him like the trunk of an uprooted oak borne
down by the tempest with all its ivy garlands. Both were cold dead. Murray was touched in an unwonted degree, remembering, perhaps, his own
birth.' What have they to answer for, Douglas," he said, "who thus abuse
the sweetest gifts of affection?"
The Earl of Morton, unhappy in his marriage, was a libertine in his
amours.
"You must ask that question of Henry Warden, my lord, or of John
Knox-I am but a wild counsellor in women's matters."
"Forward to Saint Mary's," said the Earl; "pass the word on-Glendin
ning, give the infant to this same female cavalier, and let it be taken charge
of. Let no dishonour be done to the dead bodies, and call on the country
to bury or remove them.-Forward, I say, my masters I"