When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray —
Julian Avenel saw with surprise the demeanour of the reverend stranger. “Beshrew me,” he said, “these new-fashioned religioners have fast-days, I warrant me — the old ones used to confer these blessings chiefly on the laity.”
“We acknowledge no such rule,” said the preacher —“We hold that our faith consists not in using or abstaining from special meats on special days; and in fasting we rend our hearts, and not our garments.”
“The better — the better for yourselves, and the worse for Tom Tailor,” said the Baron; “but come, sit down, or, if thou needs must e’en give us a cast of thy office, mutter thy charm.”
“Sir Baron,” said the preacher, “I am in a strange land, where neither mine office nor my doctrine are known, and where, it would seem, both are greatly misunderstood. It is my duty so to bear me, that in my person, however unworthy, my Master’s dignity may be respected, and that sin may take not confidence from relaxation of the bonds of discipline.”
“Ho la! halt there,” said the Baron; “thou wert sent hither for thy safety, but not, I think, to preach to me, or control me. What is it thou wouldst have, Sir Preacher? Remember thou speakest to one somewhat short of patience, who loves a short health and a long draught.”
“In a word, then,” said Henry Warden, “that lady —”
“How?” said the Baron, starting —“what of her? — what hast thou to say of that dame?”
“Is she thy house-dame?” said the preacher, after a moment’s pause, in which, he seemed to seek for the best mode of expressing what he had to say —“Is she, in brief, thy wife?”
The unfortunate young woman pressed both her hands on her face, as if to hide it, but the deep blush which crimsoned her brow and neck, showed that her cheeks were also glowing; and the bursting tears, which found their way betwixt her slender fingers, bore witness to her sorrow, as well as to her shame.
“Now, by my father’s ashes!” said the Baron, rising and spurning from him his footstool with such violence, that it hit the wall on the opposite side of the apartment — then instantly constraining himself, he muttered, “What need to run myself into trouble for a fool’s word?”— then resuming his seat, he answered coldly and scornfully —“No, Sir Priest or Sir Preacher, Catherine is not my wife — Cease thy whimpering, thou foolish wench — she is not my wife, but she is handfasted with me, and that makes her as honest a woman.”
“Handfasted?”— repeated Warden.
“Knowest thou not that rite, holy man?” said Avenel, in the same tone of derision; “then I will tell thee. We Border-men are more wary than your inland clowns of Fife and Lothian — no jump in the dark for us — no clenching the fetters around our wrists till we know how they will wear with us — we take our wives, like our horses, upon trial. When we are handfasted, as we term it, we are man and wife for a year and day — that space gone by, each may choose another mate, or, at their pleasure, may call the priest to marry them for life — and this we call handfasting.” 62
“Then,” said the preacher, “I tell thee, noble Baron, in brotherly love to thy soul, it is a custom licentious, gross, and corrupted, and, if persisted in, dangerous, yea, damnable. It binds thee to the frailer being while she is the object of desire — it relieves thee when she is most the subject of pity — it gives all to brutal sense, and nothing to generous and gentle affection. I say to thee, that he who can meditate the breach of such an engagement, abandoning the deluded woman and the helpless offspring, is worse than the birds of prey; for of them the males remain with their mates until the nestlings can take wing. Above all, I say it is contrary to the pure Christian doctrine, which assigns woman to man as the partner of his labour, the soother of his evil, his helpmate in peril, his friend in affliction; not as the toy of his looser hours, or as a flower, which, once cropped, he may throw aside at pleasure.”
“Now, by the Saints, a most virtuous homily!” said the Baron; “quaintly conceived and curiously pronounced, and to a well-chosen congregation. Hark ye, Sir Gospeller! trow ye to have a fool in hand? Know I not that your sect rose by bluff Harry Tudor, merely because ye aided him to change his Kate; and wherefore should I not use the same Christian liberty with mine? Tush, man! bless the good food, and meddle not with what concerns thee not — thou hast no gull in Julian Avenel.”
“He hath gulled and cheated himself,” said the preacher, “should he even incline to do that poor sharer of his domestic cares the imperfect justice that remains to him. Can he now raise her to the rank of a pure and uncontaminated matron? — Can he deprive his child of the misery of owing birth to a mother who has erred? He can indeed give them both the rank, the state of married wife and of lawful son; but, in public opinion, their names will be smirched and sullied with a stain which his tardy efforts cannot entirely efface. Yet render it to them, Baron of Avenel, render to them this late and imperfect justice. Bid me bind you together for ever, and celebrate the day of your bridal, not with feasting or wassail, but with sorrow for past sin, and the resolution to commence a better life. Happy then will have the chance been that has drawn me to this castle, though I come driven by calamity, and unknowing where my course is bound, like a leaf travelling on the north wind.”
The plain, and even coarse features, of the zealous speaker, were warmed at once and ennobled by the dignity of his enthusiasm; and the wild Baron, lawless as he was, and accustomed to spurn at the control whether of religious or moral law, felt, for the first time perhaps in his life, that he was under subjection to a mind superior to his own. He sat mute and suspended in his deliberations, hesitating betwixt anger and shame, yet borne down by the weight of the just rebuke thus boldly fulminated against him.
The unfortunate young woman, conceiving hopes from her tyrant’s silence and apparent indecision, forgot both her fear and shame in her timid expectation that Avenel would relent; and fixing upon him her anxious and beseeching eyes, gradually drew near and nearer to his seat, till at length, laying a trembling hand on his cloak, she ventured to utter, “O noble Julian, listen to the good man!”
The speech and the motion were ill-timed, and wrought on that proud and wayward spirit the reverse of her wishes.
The fierce Baron started up in a fury, exclaiming, “What! thou foolish callet, art thou confederate with this strolling vagabond, whom thou hast seen beard me in my own hall! Hence with thee, and think that I ana proof both to male and female hypocrisy!”
The poor girl started back, astounded at his voice of thunder and looks of fury, and, turning pale as death, endeavoured to obey his orders, and tottered towards the door. Her limbs failed in the attempt, and she fell on the stone floor in a manner which her situation might have rendered fatal — The blood gushed from her face. — Halbert Glendinning brooked not a sight so brutal, but, uttering a deep imprecation, started from his seat, and laid his hand on his sword, under the strong impulse of passing it through the body of the cruel and hard-hearted ruffian. But Christie of the Clinthill, guessing his intention, threw his arms around him, and prevented him from stirring to execute his purpose.
The impulse to such an act of violence was indeed but momentary, as it instantly appeared that Avenel himself, shocked at the effects of his violence, was lifting up and endeavouring to soothe in his own way the terrified Catherine.
“Peace,” he said, “prithee, peace, thou silly minion — why, Kate, though I listen not to this tramping preacher, I said not what might happen an thou dost bear me a stout boy. There — there — dry thy tears — Call thy women. — So ho! — where be these queans? — Christie — Rowley — Hutcheon — drag them hither by the hair of the head!”
A half dozen of startled wild-looking females rushed into the room, and bore out her who might be either termed their mistress or their companion. She showed little sign of life, except by groaning faintly and keeping her hand on her side.
No sooner had this luckless female been conveyed from the apartment, than the Baron, advancing to the table, filled and drank a deep goblet of wine; then, putting an obvious restraint on his passions, turned to the preacher, who stood horror-struck at the scene he had witnessed, and said, “You have borne too hard on us, Sir Preacher — but coming with the commendations which you have brought me, I doubt not but your meaning was good. But we are a wilder folk than you inland men of Fife and Lothian. Be advised, therefore, by me — Spur not an unbroken horse — put not your ploughshare too deep into new land — Preach to us spiritual liberty, and we will hearken to you. — But we will give no way to spiritual bondage. — Sit, therefore, down, and pledge me in old sack, and we will talk over these matters.”
“It is from spiritual bondage,” said the preacher, in the same tone of admonitory reproof, “that I came to deliver you — it is from a bondage more fearful than than that of the heaviest earthly gyves — it is from your own evil passions.”
“Sit down,” said Avenel, fiercely; “sit down while the play is good — else by my father’s crest and my mother’s honour! ——”
“Now,” whispered Christie of the Clinthill to Halbert, “if he refuse to sit down, I would not give a gray groat for his head.”
“Lord Baron,” said Warden, “thou hast placed me in extremity. But if the question be, whether I am to hide the light which I am commanded to show forth, or to lose the light of this world, my choice is made. I say to thee, like the Holy Baptist to Herod, it is not lawful for thee to have this woman; and I say it though bonds and death be the consequence, counting my life as nothing in comparison of the ministry to which I am called.”
Julian Avenel, enraged at the firmness of this reply, flung from his right hand the cup in which he was about to drink to his guest, and from the other cast off the hawk, which flew wildly through the apartment. His first motion was to lay hand upon his dagger. But, changing his resolution, he exclaimed, “To the dungeon with this insolent stroller! — I will hear no man speak a word for him —— Look to the falcon, Christie, thou fool — an she escape, I will despatch you after her every man — Away with that hypocritical dreamer — drag him hence if he resist!”
He was obeyed in both points. Christie of the Clinthill arrested the hawk’s flight, by putting his foot on her jesses, and so holding her fast, while Henry Warden was led off, without having shown the slightest symptoms of terror, by two of the Baron’s satellites. Julian Avenel walked the apartment for a short time in sullen silence, and despatching one of his attendants with a whispered message, which probably related to the health of the unfortunate Catherine, he said aloud, “These rash and meddling priests — By Heaven! they make us wors............