The monastery; The abbot.

THE ABBOT. 461
I can walk with any good man of my age in the kingdom of Fife-Fy upon
it, that experience should be so long in coming!"
As he was thus muttering, his eye fell upon the branch of a pear-tree
which drooped down for want of support, and at once forgetting his haste,
the old man stopped and set seriously about binding it up. Roland Groeme
had both readiness, neatness of hand, and good nature in abundance; he
immediately lent his aid, and in a minute or two the bough was supported,
and tied up in a way perfectly satisfactory to the old man, who looked at it
with great complaisance. " They are bergamots," he said, " and if you will
come ashore in autumn, you shall taste of them -the like are not in Lochleven Castle - the garden there is a poor pin-fold, and the gardener, Hugh
Houkham, hath little skill of his craft —so come ashore, Master Page, in
autumn, when you would eat pears. But what am I thinking of- ere that
time come, they may have given thee sour pears for plums. Take an old
man's advice, youth, one who hath seen many days, and sat in higher
places than thou canst hope for - bend thy sword into a pruning-hook, and
make a dibble of thy dagger-thy days shall be the longer, and thy health
the better for it,- and come to aid me in my garden, and I will teach thee
the real French fashion of imping, which the Southron call graffing. Do
this, and do it without loss of time, for there is a whirlwind coming over
the land, and only those shall escape who lie too much beneath the storm to
have their boughs broken by it."
So saying, he dismissed Roland Grseme, through a different door from
that by which he had entered, signed a cross, and pronounced a benedicito
as they parted, and then, still muttering to himself, retired into the garden,
and locked the door on the inside.
a:; tar tt Cmntq-YintD.
Pray God she prove not masculine ere long!
KING HENRY VI.
DISMISSED from the old man's garden, Roland Groeme found that a grassy
paddock, in which sauntered two cows, the property of the gardener, still
separated him from the village. He paced through it, lost in meditation
upon the words of the Abbot. Father Ambrosius had, with success enough,
exerted over him that powerful influence which the guardians and instructors of our childhood possess over our more mature youth. And yet, when
Roland looked back upon what the father had said, he could not but suspect
that he had rather sought to evade entering into the controversy betwixt
the churches, than to repel the objections and satisfy the doubts which the
lectures of Henderson had excited. "For this he had no time," said the
page to himself, " neither have I now calmness and learning sufficient to
judge upon points of such magnitude. Besides, it were base to quit my
faith while the wind of fortune sets against it, unless I were so placed, that
my conversion, should it take place, were free as light from the imputation
of self-interest. I was bred a Catholic - bred in the faith of Bruce and
Wallace -I will hold that faith till time and reason shall convince me that
it errs. I will serve this poor Queen as a subject should serve an imprisoned
and wronged sovereign - they who placed me in her service have to blame
themselves-who sent me hither, a gentleman trained in the paths of loyalty
and honour, when they should have sought out some truckling, cogging,
double-dealing knave, who would have been at once the observant page of
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