The monastery; The abbot.

THE ABBOT. 333
slight bend of the body and gentle depression of the head. This she performed very demurely; but the party on whom the salutation was conferred,
thought he could discern in her manner an arch and mischievous exultation
over his secret disappointment. — " The devil take the saucy girl," he
thought in his heart, though the presence of the Abbess should have
repressed all such profane imaginations, -" she is as hard-hearted as the
laughing hyaena that the story-books tell of- she has a mind that I shall
not forget her this night at least."
The matrons now retired also, giving the page to understand that he was
on no account to stir from the convent, or to show himself at the windows,
the Abbess assigning as a reason, the readiness with which the rude heretics
caught at every occasion of scandalizing the religious orders.
" This is worse than the rigour of Mr. Henry Warden, himself," said the
page, when he was left alone; "for, to do- him justice, however strict in
requiring the most rigid attention during the time of his homilies, he left
us to the freedom of our own wills afterwards -ay, and would take a share
in our pastimes, too, if he thought them entirely innocent. But these old
women are utterly wrapt up in gloom, mystery and self-denial.-Well, then,
if I must neither stir out of the gate nor look out at window, I will at least
see what the inside of the house contains that may help to pass away one's
time - peradventure I may light on that blue-eyed laugher in some corner
or other.
Going, therefore, out of the chamber by the entrance opposite to that
through which the two matrons had departed, (for it may be readily supposed that he had no desire to intrude on their privacy,) he wandered from
one chamber to another, through the deserted edifice, seeking, with boyish
eagerness, some source of interest and amusement. Here he passed through
a long gallery, opening on either hand into the little cells of the nuns, all
deserted, and deprived of the few trifling articles of furniture which the
rules of the order admitted.
"The birds are flown," thought the page; "but whether they will find
themselves worse off in the open air than in these damp narrow cages, I
leave my Lady Abbess and my venerable relative to settle betwixt them.
I think the wild young lark whom they have left behind them, would like
best to sing under God's free sky."
A winding stair, strait and narrow, as if to remind the nuns of their
duties of fast and maceration, led down to a lower suite of apartments,
which occupied the ground story of the house. These rooms were even
more ruinous than those which he had left: for, having encountered the first
fury of the assailants by whom the nunnery had been wasted, the windows
had been dashed in, the doors broken down, and even the partitions betwixt
the apartments, in some places, destroyed. As he thus stalked from desolation to desolation, and began to think of returning from so uninteresting
a research to the chamber which he had left, he was surprised to hear the
low of a cow very close to him. The sound was so unexpected at the time
and place, that Roland Graeme started as if it had been the voice of a lion,
and laid his hand on his dagger, while at the same moment the light and
lovely form of Catherine Seyton presented itself at the door of the apartment from which the sound had issued.
"Good even to you, valiant champion.!" said she: "since the days of
Guy of Warwick, never was one more worthy to encounter a dun cow."
"Cow?" said Roland Grmeme, "by my faith, I thought it had been the
devil that roared so near me. Who ever heard of a convent containing a
cow-house?"
"Cow and calf may come hither now," answered Catherine, "for we have
no means to keep out either. But I advise you, kind sir, to return to the
place from whence you came."
"Not till I see your charge, fair sister," answered Roland, and made his