The monastery; The abbot.

434 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"How can I withdraw," said Roland, "from an enterprise which has
never been communicated to me?-.Has the Queen, or have you, or has any
one, communicated with me upon any thing for her service which I have
refused? Or have you not, all of you, held me at such distance from your.
counsels, as if I were the most faithless spy since the days of Ganelon?"*
"And who," said Catherine Seyton, " would trust the sworn friend, and
pupil, and companion, of the heretic preacher Henderson? ay-a proper
tutor you have chosen, instead of the excellent Ambrosius, who is now
turned out of house and homestead, if indeed he is not languishing in a
dungeon, for withstanding the tyranny of Morton, to whose brother the
temporalities of that noble house of God have been gifted away by the
Regent."
"Is it possible?" said the page; " and is the excellent Father Ambrose
in such distress?"
"He would account the news of your falling away from the faith of your
fathers," answered Catherine, "a worse mishap than aught that tyranny
can inflict on himself."
" But why," said Roland, very much moved, "why should you suppose
that-that-that it is with me as you say?"
"Do you yourself deny it?" replied Catherine; " do you not admit that
you have drunk the poison which you should have dashed from your lips?
-Do you deny that it now ferments in your veins, if it has not altogether
corrupted the springs of life?-Do you deny that you have your doubts, as
you proudly term them, respecting what popes and councils have declared
it unlawful to doubt of? —Is not your faith wavering, if not overthrown?Does not the heretic preacher boast his conquest?-Does not the heretic
woman of this prison-house hold up thy example to others?-Do not the
Queen and the Lady Fleming believe in thy falling away?-And is there
any except one-yes, I will speak it out, and think as lightly as you please
of my good-will-is there one except myself that holds even a lingering
hope that you may yet prove what we once all believed of you?"
" I know not," said our poor page, much embarrassed by the view which
was thus presented to him of the conduct he was expected to pursue, and by
a person in whom he was not the less interested that, though long a resident in Lochleven Castle, with no object so likely to attract his undivided
attention, no lengthened interview had taken place since they had first met,
-" I know not what you expect of me, or fear from me. I was sent hither
to attend Queen Mary, and to her I acknowledge the duty of a servant
through life and death. If any one had expected service of another kind, I
was not the party to render it. I neither avow nor disclaim the doctrines
of the reformed church.-Will you have the truth?-It seems to me that the
profligacy of the Catholic clergy has brought this judgment on their own
heads, and, for aught I know, it may be for their reformation. But, for
betraying this unhappy Queen, God knows I am guiltless of the thought.
Did I even believe worse of her, than as her servant I wish-as her subject
I dare to do-I would not betray her-far from it-I would aid her in aught
which could tend to a fair trial of her cause."
"Enough! enough!" answered Catherine, clasping her hands together;
"then thou wilt not desert us if any means are presented, by which, placing
our Royal Mistress at freedom, this case may be honestly tried betwixt her
and her rebellious subjects?"
" Nay - but, fair Catherine," replied the page, " hear but what the Lord
of Murray said when he sent me hither."" Hear but what the devil said," replied the maiden, "rather than what
a false subject, a false brother, a false counsellor, a false friend, said! A
man raised from a petty pensioner on the crown's bounty, to be the coun* Gan, Gano, or Ganelon of Mayence, is, in the Romances on the subject of Charlemagne and his Paladin,
always represented as the traitor by whom the Christian champions are,betrayed.