The monastery; The abbot.

THE ABBOT. 431
Serf's island-there is a breeze from the west, and we shall have sport,
keeping to windward of the isle, where the ripple is strongest. We will
speak more of what you have mentioned when we have had an hour's
sport."
Their fishing was successful, though never did two anglers pursue even
that silent and unsocial pleasure with less of verbal intercourse.
When their time was expired, Douglas took the oars in his turn, and by
his order Roland Graeme steered the boat, directing her course upon the
landing-place at the castle. But he also stopped in the midst of his course,
and, looking around him, said to Grseme, "There is a thing which I could
mention to thee; but it is so deep a secret, that even here, surrounded as
we are by sea and sky, without the possibility of a listener, I cannot prevail
on myself to speak it out."
"Better leave it unspoken, sir," answered Roland Grgeme, "if you doubt
the honour of him who alone can hear it."
" I doubt not your honour," replied George Douglas; " but you are young,
imprudent, and changeful."
" Young," said Roland, "I am, and it may be imprudent-but who hath
informed you that I am changeful?"
"One that knows you, perhaps, better than you know yourself," replied
Douglas.
"I suppose you mean Catherine Seyton," said the page, his heart rising
as he spoke; "but she is herself fifty times more variable in her humour
than the very water which we are floating upon."
"My young acquaintance," said Douglas, " I pray you to remember that
Catherine Seyton is a lady of blood and birth, and must not be lightly
spoken of."
" Master George of Douglas," said Groeme, " as that speech seemed to be
made under the warrant of something like a threat, I pray you to observe,
that I value not the threat at the estimation of a fin of one of these dead
trouts; and, moreover, I would have you to know that the champion who
undertakes the defence of every lady of blood and birth, whom men accuse
of change of faith and of fashion, is like to have enough of work on his
hands."
"Go to," said the Seneschal, but in a tone of good-humour, "thou art a
foolish boy, unfit to deal with any matter more serious than the casting of
a net, or the flying of a hawk."
"If your secret concern Catherine Seyton," said the page, "I care not
for it, and so you may tell her if you will. I wot she can shape you opportunity to speak with her, as she has ere now."
The flush which passed over Douglas's face, made the page aware that he
had alighted on a truth, when he was, in fact, speaking at random; and the
feeling that he had done so, was like striking a dagger into his own heart.
Ils companion, without farther answer, resumed the oars, and pulled lustily
till they arrived at the island and the castle. The servants received the
produce of their spoil, and the two fishers, turning from each other in
silence, went each to his several apartment.
Roland Graeme had spent about an hour in grumbling against Catherine
Seyton, the Queen, the Regent, and the whole house of Lochleven, with
George Douglas at the head of it, when the time approached that his duty
called him to attend the meal of Queen Mary. As he arranged his dress
for this purpose, he grudged the trouble, which, on similar occasions, he
used, with boyish foppery, to consider as one of the most important duties
of his day; and when he went to take his place behind the chair of the
Queen, it was with an air of offended dignity, which could not escape her
observation, and probably appeared to her ridiculous enough, for she whispered something in French to her ladies, at which the lady Fleming laughed,
and Catherine appeared half diverted and half disconcerted. This pleasantry,