Maggie accordingly refrained from her jocularity, and began to soothe and comfort him, for she was naturally of a winsome way, and prepared a bed for him with her best sheets, the which, she said, were gi'en her in gratus gift frae the Lord Abbot, so that he undressed himself and enjoyed a pleasant interregnum of anxiety for more than five hours; and when he awoke and was up, he found a breakfast worthy of the abbot himself ready, and his hostess was most courtly and kind, praising the dainties, and pressing him to eat. Nor when he proposed to reckon with her for the lawin would she touch the money, but made him promise, when he came back, he would bide another night with her, hoping he would then be in better spirits, for she was wae to see so braw a gallant sae casten down, doless and dowie.
When they had settled their contest, and my grandfather had come out to mount his beast, which a stripling was holding ready for him at a louping-on-stane near the abbey-yett, as he was going thither, a young friar, who was taking a morning stroll along the pleasant banks of the Cart, approached towards him, and, after looking hard at him for some time, called him by name and took him by both the hands, which he pressed with a brotherly affection.
This friar was of Lithgow parentage and called Dominick Callender, and when he and my grandfather were playing-bairns, they had spent many a merry day of their suspicion-less young years together. As he grew up, being a lad of shrewd parts, and of a very staid and orderly deportment, the monks set their snares for him, and before he could well think for himself he was wiled into their traps, and becoming a novice, in due season professed himself a monk. But it was some time before my grandfather knew him again, for the ruddy of youth had fled his cheek, and he was pale and of a studious countenance; and when the first sparklings of his pleasure at the sight of his old play-marrow had gone off, his eyes saddened into thoughtfulness, and he appeared like one weighed down with care and heavy inward dule.
CHAPTER XIII
After Dominick Callender and my grandfather had conversed some time, with many interchanges of the kindly remembrances of past pleasures, the gentle friar began to bewail his sad estate in being a professed monk, and so mournfully to deplore the rashness with which inexperienced youth often takes upon itself a yoke it can never lay down, that the compassion of his friend was sorrowfully awakened, for he saw he was living a life of bitterness and grief. He heard him, however, without making any reply or saying anything concerning his own lot of hazard and adventure; for, considering Dominick to be leagued with the papistical orders, he did not think him safe to be trusted, notwithstanding the unchanged freshness of the loving-kindness which he still seemed to bear in his heart; nor even, had he not felt this jealousy, would he have thought himself free to speak of his errand, far less to have given to any stranger aught that might have been an inkling of his noble master's zealous, but secret, stirrings for the weal of Scotland and the enfranchisement of the worshippers of the true God.
When my grandfather had arrived at his horse, and prepared to mount, Dominick Callender said to him if he would ride slowly for a little way he would walk by his side, adding, "For maybe I'll ne'er see you again – I'm a-weary of this way of life, and the signs of the times bode no good to the church. I hae a thought to go into some foreign land where I may taste the air of a freeman, and I feel myself comforted before I quit our auld, hard-favoured but warm-hearted Scotland, in meeting wi' ane that reminds me how I had once sunny mornings and summer days."
This was said so much in the sincerity of a confiding spirit that my grandfather could not refrain from observing, in answer, that he feared his friar's cloak did not sit easy upon him, which led him on to acknowledge that it was so.
"I am speaking to you, Gilhaize," said he, "with the frank heart of auld langsyne, and I dinna scruple to confess to one that I hae often thought of, and weary't to see again, and wondered what had become of, that my conscience has revolted against the errors of the papacy, and that I am now upon the eve of fleeing my native land and joining the Reformed at Geneva. And maybe I'm no ordain'd to spend a' my life in exile, for no man can deny that the people of Scotland are not inwardly the warm adversaries of the church. That last and cruellest deed, the sacrifice of the feckless old man of fourscore and upward, has proven that the humanity of the world will no longer endure the laws and pretensions of the church, and there are few in Paisley whom the burning of auld Mill has not kindled with the spirit of resistance."
The latter portion of these words was as joyous tidings to my grandfather, and he tightened his reins and entered into a more particular and inquisitive discourse with his companion, by which he gathered that the martyrdom of Master Mill had indeed caused great astonishment and wrath among the pious in and about Paisley, and not only among them, but had estranged the affections even of the more worldly from the priesthood, of whom it was openly said that the sense of pity towards the commonalty of mankind was extinguished within them, and that they were all in all for themselves.
But as they were proceeding through the town and along the road, conversing in a familiar but earnest manner on these great concerns, Dominick Callender began to inveigh against the morals of his brethren, and to lament again, in a very piteous manner, that he was decreed, by his monastic profession, from the enjoyment of the dearest and tenderest pleasures of man. And before they separated, it came out that he had been for some time touched with the soft enchantments of love for a young maiden, the daughter of a gentleman of good account in Paisley, and that her chaste piety was as the precious gum wherewith the Egyptians of old preserved their dead in everlasting beauty, keeping from her presence all taint of impurity and of thoughts sullying to innocence, insomuch that, even were he inclined, as he said many of his brethren would have been, to have acted the part of a secret canker to that fair blossom, the gracious and holy embalmment of her virtues would have proved an incorruptible protection.
"But," he exclaimed, with a sorrowful voice, "that which is her glory and my admiration and praise is converted by the bondage of my unnatural vows into a curse to us both. The felicity that we might have enjoyed together in wedded life is forbidden to us as a great crime. But the laws of God are above the canons of the church, the voice of Nature is louder than the fulminations of the Vatican, and I have resolved to obey the one and give ear to the other despite the horrors that await on apostacy. Can you, Gilhaize, in aught assist my resolution?"
There was so much vehemence and the passion of grief in these ejaculations, that my grandfather wist not well what to say. He told him, however, not to be rash in what he did, nor to disclose his intents save only to those in whom he could confide, for the times were perilous to everyone that slackened in reverence to the papacy, particularly to such as had pastured within the chosen folds of the church.
"Bide," said he, "till you see what issue is ordained to come from this dreadful deed which so shaketh all the land, making the abbey towers topple and tremble to their oldest and deepest foundations. Truth is awakened and gone forth conquering and to conquer. It cannot be that ancient iniquities will be much longer endured, the arm of Wrath is raised against them, the sword of Revenge is drawn forth from its scabbard by Justice, and Nature has burst asunder the cords of the Roman harlot and stands in her freedom, like Samson, when the Spirit of the Lord was mightily poured upon him, as he awoke from the lap of Delilah."
The gentle friar, as my grandfather often told, stood for some time astounded at this speech, and then he said, —
"I dreamt not, Gilhaize, that beneath a countenance so calm and comely, the zealous fires of a warrior's bravery could have been kindled to so vehement a heat. But I will vex you with no questions. Heaven is on your side, and may its redeeming promptings never allow its ministers to rest till the fetters are broken and the slaves are set free."
With these words he stepped forward to shake my grandfather by the hand and to bid him farewell, but just as he came to the stirrup he halted and said, —
"It is not for nothing that the remembrance of you has been preserved so much brighter and dearer to me than that of all my kin. There was aye