The monastery; The abbot.

442 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
64fftrr tg?'Wp2t4-lirt0.
Room for the master of the ring, ye swains,
Divide your crowded ranks-bheore him march
The rural minstrelsy, the rattling drum,
The clamorous war-pipe, and far-echoing horn.
Rural Sports.- SOMERVILLE.
No long space intervened ere Roland Grseme was able to discover among
the crowd of revellers, who gambolled upon the open space which extends
betwixt the village and the lake, a person of so great importance as Dr.
Luke Lundin, upon whom devolved officially the charge of representing the
lord of the land, and who was attended for support of his authority by a
piper, a drummer, and four sturdy clowns armed with rusty halberds, garnished with party-coloured ribbons; myrmidons who, early as the day was,
had already broken more than one head in the awful names of the Laird of
Lochleven and his chamberlain.*
As soon as this dignitary was informed that the castle skiff had arrived,
with a gallant, dressed like a lord's son at the least, who desired presently
to speak to him, he adjusted his ruff and his black coat, turned round his
girdle till the garnished hilt of his long rapier became visible, and walked
with due solemnity towards the beach. Solemn indeed he was entitled to
be, even on less important occasions, for he had been bred to the venerable'
study of medicine, as those acquainted with the science very soon discovered from the aphorisms which ornamented his discourse. His success
had not been equal to his pretensions; but as he was a native of the neighbouring kingdom of Fife, and bore distant relation to, or dependence upon,
the ancient family of Lundin of that Ilk, who were bound in close friendship with the house of Lochleven, he had, through their interest, got planted
comfortably enough in his present station upon the banks of that beautiful
lake. The profits of his chamberlainship being moderate, especially in
those unsettled times, he had eked it out a little with some practice in his
original profession; and it was said that the inhabitants of the village and
barony of Kinross were not more effectually thirled (which may be translated enthralled) to the baron's mill, than they were to the medical monopoly of the chamberlain. Wo betide the family of the rich boor, who presumed to depart this life without a passport from Dr. Luke Lundin! for if
his representatives had aught to settle with the baron, as it seldom happened
otherwise, they were sure to find a cold friend in the chamberlain. He was
considerate enough, however, gratuitously to help the poor out of their ailments, and sometimes out of all their other distresses at the same time.
Formal, in a double proportion, both as a physician and as a person in
office, and proud of the scraps of learning which rendered his language
almost universally unintelligible, Dr. Luke Lundin approached the beach,
and hailed the page as he advanced towards him. —" The freshness of the
morning upon you, fair sir-You are sent, I warrant me, to see if we obserxe
here the regimen which her good ladyship hath prescribed, for eschewing all
* At Scottish fairs, the bailie, or magistrate, deputed by the lord in whose name the meeing is held, attends
the fair with his guard, decides trifling disputes, and punishes on the spot any petty'elinquencies. His
attendants are usually armed with halberds, and sometimes, at least, escorted by miusic. Thus, in the "Life
and Death of Habbie Simpson," we are told of that famous minstrel,"At fairs he play'd before the spear-men,
And gaily graithed in their gear-men;Steel bonnets, jacks, and swords shone clear then,
Like ony bead;
Now wha shall play before sic weir-men,
Since Habbie's dead