The monastery; The abbot.

526 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"l)o I not know thou dost wish it?" said Catherine-" Can a woman say
to a man what I have well-nigh said to thee, and yet think that he could
harbour fear or faintness of heart? -There is that in yon distant sound
of approaching battle that pleases me even while it affrights me. I would
I were a man, that I might feel that stern delight, without the mixture of
terror 1"
" Ride up, ride up, Lady Catherine Seyton," cried the Abbot, as they still
swept on at a rapid pace, and were now close beneath the walls of the castle
-" ide up, and aid Lady Fleming to support the Queen -she gives way
more and more."
They halted and lifted Mary from the saddle, and were about to support
her towards the castle, when she said faintly, "Not there-not there-these
walls will I never enter more!"
"Be a Queen; madam," said the Abbot, "and forget that you are a
woman."
" Oh, I must forget much, much more," answered the unfortunate Mary,
in an under tone, "ere I can look with steady eyes on these well-known
scenes i —I must forget the days which I spent here as the bride of the lost
-the murdered -"
"This is the Castle of Crookstone," said the Lady Fleming, "in which
the Queen held her first court after she was married to Darnley."
" Heaven," said the Abbot, " thy hand is upon us!-Bear yet up, madam
-your foes are the foes of Holy Church, and God will this day decide
whether Scotland shall be Catholic or heretic."
A heavy and continued fire of cannon and musketry, bore a tremendous
burden to his words, and seemed far more than they to recall the spirits of
the Queen.
"To yonder tree," she said, pointing to a yew-tree which grew on a small
mount close to the castle; "I know it well — from thence you may see a
prospect wide as from the peaks of Schehallion."
And freeing herself from her assistants, she walked with a determined,
yet somewhat wild step, up to the stem of the noble yew. The Abbot,
Catherine, and Roland Avenel followed her, while Lady Fleming kept back
the inferior persons of her train. The black horseman also followed the
Queen, waiting on her as closely as the shadow upon the light, but ever
remaining at the distance of two or three yards-he folded his arms on his
bosom, turned his back to the battle, and seemed solely occupied by gazing
on Mary, through the bars of his closed visor. The Queen regarded him
not, but fixed her eyes upon the spreading yew."
"Ay, fair and stately tree," she said, as if at the sight of it she had been
rapt away from the present scene, and had overcome the horror which had
oppressed her at the first, approach to Crookstone, " there thou standest, gay
and goodly as ever, though thou hearest the sounds of war, instead of the
vows of love. All is gone since I last greeted thee - love and lover-vows
and vower - king and kingdom. - How goes the field, my Lord Abbot? -
with us, I trust- yet what but evil can Mary's eyes witness from this
spot?"
Her attendants eagerly bent their eyes on the field of battle, but could
discover nothing more than that it was obstinately contested. The small
enclosures and cottage gardens in the village, of which they had a full and
commanding view, and which shortly before lay, with their lines of sycamore and ash-trees, so still and quiet in the mild light of a May sun, were
now each converted into a line of fire, canopied by smoke; and the sustained
and constant report of the musketry and cannon, mingled with the shouts
of meeting combatants, showed that as yet neither party had given ground.
" Many a soul finds its final departure to heaven or hell, in these awful
thunders," said the Abbot; " let those that believe in the Ioly Church, join
me in crisons for victory in this dreadful combat."