The monastery; The abbot.

484 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
Scotland ever heard? Is she not of the bloody Guisian stock, whose sword
was so often red with the blood of God's saints? Is she not the daughter
of the wretched tyrant James, whom Heaven cast down from his kingdom,
and his pride, even as the king of Babylon was smitten?"
"Peace, villain i" said the Lady - a thousand varied recollections thronging on her mind at the mention of her royal lover's name; "Peace, and
disturb not the ashes of the dead-of the royal, of the unhappy dead.
Read thy Bible; and may God grant thee to avail thyself better of its contents than thou hast yet done!" She departed hastily, and as she reached
the next apartment, the tears rose in her eyes so hastily, that she was compelled to stop and use her kerchief to dry them. " I expected not this," she
said, "no more than to have drawn water from the dry flint, or sap from a
withered tree. I saw with a dry eye the apostacy and shame of George
Douglas, the hope of my son's house - the child of my love; and yet I now
weep for him who has so long lain in his grave-for him to whom I owe it
that his daughter can make a scoffing and a jest of my name! But she is
his daughter-my heart, hardened against her for so many causes, relents
when a glance of her eye places her father unexpectedly before me -and
as often her likeness to that true daughter of the house of Guise, her detested
mother, has again confirmed my resolution. But she must not -must not
die in my house, and by so foul a practice. Thank God, the operation of
the potion is slow, and may be counteracted. I will to her apartment once
more. But oh! that hardened villain, whose fidelity we held in such esteem,
and had such high proof of! What miracle can unite so much wickedness
and so much truth in one bosom!"
The Lady of Lochleven was not aware how far minds of a certain gloomy
and determined cast by nature, may be warped by a keen sense of petty
injuries and insults, combining with the love of gain, and sense of selfinterest, and amalgamated with the crude, wild, and indigested fanatical
opinions which this man had gathered among the crazy sectaries of Germany; or how far the doctrines of fatalism, which he had embraced so
decidedly, sear the human conscience, by representing our actions as the
result of inevitable necessity.
During her visit to the prisoner, Roland had communicated to Catherine
the tenor of the conversation he had had with her at the door of the apartment. The quick intelligence of that lively maiden instantly comprehended
the outline of what was believed to have happened, but her prejudices
hurried her beyond the truth.
"They meant to have poisoned us," she exclaimed in horror,." and there
stands the fatal liquor which should have done the deed!-Ay, as soon as
Douglas ceased to be our taster, our food was likely to be fatally seasoned.
Thou, Roland, who shouldst have made the essay, wert readily doomed to
die with us. Oh, dearest Lady Fleming, pardon, pardon, for the injuries I
said to you in my anger-your words were prompted by Heaven to save our
lives, and especially that of the injured Queen. But what have we now to
do? that old crocodile of the lake will be presently back to shed her hypocritical tears over our dying agonies.-Lady Fleming, what shall we do?"
"Our Lady help us in our need!" she replied; "how should I tell?unless we were to.make our plaint to the Regent."
"Make our plaint to the devil," said Catherine impatiently, "and accuse
his dam at the foot of his burning throne!-The Queen still sleeps —we
must gain time. The poisoning hag must not know her scheme has miscarried; the old envenomed spider has but too many ways of mending her
broken web. The jar of succory-water," said she-" Roland, if thou be'st
a man, help me-empty the jar on the chimney or from the window-make
such waste among the viands as if we had made our usual meal, and leave
the fragments on cup and porringer, but taste nothing as thou lovest thy
life. I will sit by the Queen, and tell her at her waking, in what a fearful