"And whom meanest thou that he resembles so closely?" said Murray.
"Even the true and trusty Julian Avenel," replied Morton.
"But this youth belongs to the Debateable Land," said Murray.
"It may be so; but Julian was an outlaying striker of venison, and made many a far cast when he had a fair doe in chase."
"Pshaw!" said the Regent, "this is but idle talk--Here, thou Hyndman--thou curiosity," calling to the usher, who now entered,--"conduct this youth to his companion--You will both," he said to Graeme, "keep yourselves in readiness to travel on short notice."--And then motioning to him courteously to withdraw, he broke up the interview.
Chapter the
Nineteenth.
It is and is not--'tis the thing I sought for, Have kneel'd for, pray'd for, risk'd my fame and life for, And yet it is not--no more than the shadow Upon the hard, cold, flat, and polished mirror, Is the warm, graceful, rounded, living substance Which it presents in form and lineament. OLD PLAY.
The usher, with gravity which ill concealed a jealous scowl, conducted Roland Graeme to a lower apartment, where he found his comrade the falconer. The man of office then briefly acquainted them that this would be their residence till his Grace's farther orders; that they were to go to the pantry, to the buttery, to the cellar, and to the kitchen, at the usual hours, to receive the allowances becoming their station,--instructions which Adam Woodcock's old familiarity with the court made him perfectly understand--"For your beds," he said, "you must go to the hostelry of Saint Michael's, in respect the palace is now full of the domestics of the greater nobles."
No sooner was the usher's back turned than Adam exclaimed with all the glee of eager curiosity, "And now, Master Roland, the news--the news--come unbutton thy pouch, and give us thy tidings--What says the Regent? asks he for Adam Woodcock?--and is all soldered up, or must the Abbot of Unreason strap for it?"
"All is well in that quarter," said the page; "and for the rest--But, hey-day, what! have you taken the chain and medal off from my bonnet?"
"And meet time it was, when yon usher, vinegar-faced rogue that he is, began to inquire what Popish trangam you were wearing.--By the mass, the metal would have been confiscated for conscience-sake, like your other rattle-trap yonder at Avenel, which Mistress Lilias bears about on her shoes in the guise of a pair of shoe-buckles--This comes of carrying Popish nicknackets about you."
"The jade!" exclaimed Roland Graeme, "has she melted down my rosary into buckles for her clumsy hoofs, which will set off such a garnish nearly as well as a cow's might?--But, hang her, let her keep them--many a dog's trick have I played old Lilias, for want of having something better to do, and the buckles will serve for a remembrance. Do you remember the verjuice I put into the comfits, when old Wingate and she were to breakfast together on Easter morning?"
"In troth do I, Master Roland--the major-domo's mouth was as crooked as a hawk's beak for the whole morning afterwards, and any other page in your room would have tasted the discipline of the porter's lodge for it. But my Lady's favour stood between your skin and many a jerking--Lord send you may be the better for her protection in such matters!"
"I am least grateful for it, Adam! and I am glad you put me in mind of it."
"Well, but the news, my young master," said Woodcock, "spell me the tidings--what are we to fly at next?--what did the Regent say to you?"
"Nothing that I am to repeat again," said Roland Graeme, shaking his head.
"Why, hey-day," said Adam, "how prudent we are become all of a sudden! You have advanced rarely in brief space, Master Roland. You have well nigh had your head broken, and you have gained your gold chain, and you have made an enemy, Master Usher to wit, with his two legs like hawks' perches, and you have had audience of the first man in the realm, and bear as much mystery in your brow, as if you had flown in the court-sky ever since you were hatched. I believe, in my soul, you would run with a piece of the egg-shell on your head like the curlews, which (I would we were after them again) we used to call whaups in the Halidome and its neighbourhood. But sit thee down, boy; Adam Woodcock was never the lad to seek to enter into forbidden secrets--sit thee down, and I will go and fetch the vivers--I know the butler and the pantler of old."
The good-natured falconer set forth upon his errand, busying himself about procuring their refreshment; and, during his absence, Roland Graeme abandoned himself to the strange, complicated, and yet heart-stirring reflections, to which the events of the morning had given rise. Yesterday he was of neither mark nor likelihood; a vagrant boy, the attendant on a relative, of whose sane judgment he himself had not the highest opinion; but now he had become, he knew not why, or wherefore, or to what extent, the custodier, as the Scottish phrase went, of some important state secret, in the safe keeping of which the Regent himself was concerned. It did not diminish from, but rather added to the interest of a situation so unexpected, that Roland himself did not perfectly understand wherein he stood committed by the state secrets, in which he had unwittingly become participator. On the contrary, he felt like one who looks on a romantic landscape, of which he sees the features for the first time, and then obscured with mist and driving tempest. The imperfect glimpse which the eye catches of rocks, trees, and other objects around him, adds double dignity to these shrouded mountains and darkened abysses, of which the height, depth, and extent, are left to imagination.
But mortals, especially at the well-appetized age which precedes twenty years, are seldom so much engaged either by real or conjectural subjects of speculation, but that their earthly wants claim their hour of attention. And with many a smile did our hero, so the reader may term him if he will, hail the re-appearance of his friend Adam Woodcock, bearing on one platter a tremendous portion of boiled beef, and on another a plentiful allowance of greens, or rather what the Scotch call lang-kale. A groom followed with bread, salt, and the other means of setting forth a meal; and when they had both placed on the oaken table what they bore in their hands, the falconer observed, that since he knew the court, it had got harder and harder every day to the poor gentlemen and yeoman retainers, but that now it was an absolute flaying of a flea for the hide and tallow. Such thronging to the wicket, and such churlish answers, and such bare beef-bones, such a shouldering at the buttery-hatch and cellarage, and nought to be gained beyond small insufficient single ale, or at best with a single straike of malt to counterbalance a double allowance of water--"By the mass, though, my young friend," said he, while he saw the food disappearing fast under Roland's active exertions, "it is not so to well to lament for former times as to take the advantage of the present, else we are like to lose on both sides."
So saying, Adam Woodcock drew his chair towards the table, unsheathed his knife, (for every one carried that minister of festive distribution for himself,) and imitated his young companion's example, who for the moment had lost his anxiety for the future in the eager satisfaction of an appetite sharpened by youth and abstinence.