their place," said Adam; " and as I have but one boon to ask, I trust you will not nick me with nay."

"Not if it be in my power to say yes, iny trusty friend." "Why then, I must needs, if I live to see that day, keep on feeding the eyasses with unwashed flesh," said Woodcock sturdily, yet as if doubting the reception that his request might meet with.

"Thou shalt feed them with what you list for me," said Roland, laughing; "I am not many months older than when I left the Castle, but I trust I bave gathered wit enough to cross no man of skill in his own vocation."

"Then I would not change places with the King's falconer," said Adam Woodcock, "nor with the Queen's neither-but they say she will be mewed up and never need one- -I see it grieves you to think of it, and I could grieve for company, but what help for it-fortune will fly her own flight, let a man hollo himself hoarse."

The Abbot and Roland journeyed to Avenel, where the former was tenderly received by his brother, while the lady wept for joy to find that in her favourite orphan she had protected the sole surviving branch of her own family. Sir Halbert Glendinning and his household were not a little surprised at the change which a brief acquaintance with the world had produced in their former inmate, and rejoiced to find, in the pettish, spoiled, and presuming page, a modest and unassuming young man, too much acquainted with his own expectations and character, to be hot or petulant in demanding the consideration which was readily and voluntarily yielded to him. The old Major Domo Wingate was the first to sing his praises, to which Mrs. Lilias bore a loud echo, always hoping that God would teach him the true gospel.

To the true gospel the heart of Roland had secretly long inclined, and the departure of the good Abbot for France, with the purpose of entering into some house of his order in that kingdom, removed his chief objection to renouncing the Catholic faith. Another might have existed in the duty which he owed to Magdalen Græme, both by birth and from gratitude. But he learned, ere

he had been long a resident in Avenel, that his grandmother had died at Cologne, in the performance of a penance too severe for her age, which she had taken upon herself in behalf of the Queen and Church of Scotland, so soon as she heard of the defeat at Langside. The zeal of the Abbot Ambrosius was more regulated, but he retired into the Scottish convent of

and so lived there, that the fraternity were inclined to claim for him the honours of canonization. But he guessed their purpose, and prayed them, on his deathbed, to do no honours to the body of one as sinful as themselves; but to send his body and his heart to be buried in Avenel burial-aisle, in the monastery of Saint Mary's, that the last Abbot of that celebrated house of devotion might sleep among its ruins.17

Long before that period arrived, Roland Avenel was wedded to Catherine Seyton, who after two years residence with her unhappy mistress, was dismissed, upon her being subjected to closer restraint than had been at first exercised. She returned to her father's house, and as Roland was acknowledged for the successor and lawful heir of the ancient house of Avenel, greatly increased as the estate was by the providence of Sir Halbert Glendinning, there occurred no objections to the match on the part of her family. Her mother was recently dead when she first entered the convent; and her father in the unsettled times which followed Queen Mary's flight to England, was not averse to an alliance with a youth, who, himself loyal to Queen Mary, still held some influence, through means of Sir Halbert Glendinning, with the party in power.

Roland and Catherine, therefore, were united, spite of their differing faiths; and the White Lady, whose apparition had been infrequent when the House of Avenel seemed verging to extinction, was seen to sport by her haunted well, with a zone of gold around her bosom as broad as the baldric of an Earl.

22* VOL. II.

NOTES TO THE ABBOT.

1. Page 35. The details of this remarkable event are, as given in the preceding chapter, imaginary; but the outline of the events is historical. Sir Robert Lindesay, brother to the author of the Memoirs, was at first intrusted with the delicate commission of persuading the imprisoned Queen to resign her crown. As he flatly refused to interfere, they determined to send the Lord Lindesay, one of the rudest and most violent of their own faction, with instructions, first to use fair persuasions, and if these did not succeed, to enter into harder terms. Knox associates Lord Ruthven with Lindesay in this alarming commission. He was the son of that Lord Ruthven who was primne agent in the murder of Rizzio; and little mercy was to be expected from his conjunction with Lindesay.

The employment of such rude tools argued a resolution on the part of those who had the Queen's person in their power, to proceed to the utmost extremities, should they find Mary obstinate. To avoid this pressing danger, Sir Robert Melville was despatched by them to Lochleven, carrying with him, concealed in the scabbard of his sword, letters to the Queen from the Earl of Athole, Maitland of Lethington, and even from Throgmorton, the English ambassador, who was then favourable to the unfortunate Mary, conjuring her to yield to the necessity of the times, and to subscribe such deeds as Lindesay should lay before her, without being startled by their tenor; and assuring her that her doing so, in the state of captivity under which she was placed. would neither, in law, honour, or conscience, be binding upon her when she should obtain her liberty. Submitting, by the advice of one part of her subjects, to the menace of the others, and learning that Lindesay was arrived in a boasting, that is, threatening humour, the Queen, "with some reluctancy, and with tears," saith Knox, subscribed one deed resigning her crown to her infant son, and another establishing the Earl of Murray regent. It seems agreed by historians, that Lindesay behaved with great brutality on the occasion. The deeds were signed 24th July, 1567.

2. Page 62. Gan, Gano, or Ganelon of Mayence, is, in the Romances on the subject of Charlemagne and his Paladins, always represented as the traitor by whom the Christian champions are betrayed.

3. Page 78. At Scottish fairs, the bailie, or magistrate, deputed by the lord in whose name the meeting is held, attends the fair with his guard, decides trifling disputes, and punishes on the spot any petty delinquencies. His attendants are usually armed with halberds, and, sometimes at least, escorted by music. 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-mon,

Since Habbie's 'dead!”

1

4. Page 86. This was the name given to the grand Mother Witch, the very Hecate of Scottish popular superstition. Her name was bestowed, in one or two instances, upon sorceresses, who were held to resemble her by their superior skill in "Hell's black grammar."

5. Page 111. By an ancient, though improbable tradition, the Douglasses are said to have derived their name from a champion who had greatly distinguished himself in an action. When the king demanded by whom the battle had been won, the attendants are said to have answered, "Sholto Douglas, sir;" which is said to mean, "Yonder dark grey man.' But the name is undoubtedly territorial, and taken from Douglas river and dale.

6. Page 176. A romancer, to use a Scottish phrase, wants but a hair to make a tether of. The whole detail of the steward's supposed conspiracy against the life of Mary, is grounded upon an expression in one of her letters, which affirms, that Jasper Dryfesdale, one of the Laird of Lochleven's servants, had threatened to murder William Douglas, (for his share in the Queen's escape,) and averred that he would plant a dagger in Mary's own heart.-CHALMERS's Life of Queen Mary, vol. i. P. 278.

7. Page 177. Pancakes.

8 Page 185. Generally a disguised man; originally one who wears the cloak or mantle muffled round the lower part of the face to conceal his coun tenance. I have on an ancient piece of iron the representation of a robber thus accoutred, endeavouring to make his way into a house, and opposed by a mastiff, to whom he in vain offers food. The motto is Spernit dona fides. It is part of a fire-grate said to have belonged to Archbishop Sharpe.

9. Page 188. Diamond-shaped; literally, formed like the head of a quarrel, or arrow for the crossbow.

10. Page 195. A broken clan was one who had no chief able to find security for their good behaviour a clan of outlaws; and the Græmes of the Debateable Land were in that condition.

11. Page 197. A favourite, and said to be an unworthy one, of James V. 12. Page 197. The names of these ladies, and a third frail favourite of James, are preserved in an epigram too gaillard for quotation.

13. Page 204. Sir John Holland's poem of The Howlet is known to collectors by the beautiful edition presented to the Bannatyne Club by Mr. David Laing.

14. Page 208. In the dangerous expedition to Aberdeenshire, Randolph,, the English ambassador, gives Cecil the following account of Queen Mary's demeanour :

"In all those garbulles, I assure your honour, I never saw the Queen merrier, never dismayed; nor never thought I that stomache to be in her that I find. She repented nothing but, when the Lords and others, at Inverness, came in the morning from the watches, that she was not a man to know what life it was to lye all night in the fields, or to walk upon the causeway with a jack and a knapscap, a Glasgow buckler, and a broadsword."-RANDOLPH to CECIL, September 18, 1562.

The writer of the above letter seems to have felt the same impression which Catherine Seyton, in the text, considered as proper to the Queen's presence among her armed subjects.

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"Though we neither thought nor, looked for other than on that day to have fought or never-what desperate blows would not have been given, wher