I marvel your ladyship could
bear so long with her insolence." But the commands of the Lady were
obeyed, and the old dame, dismissed from the castle, was committed to
her fortune. She kept her word, and did not long abide in that place,
leaving the hamlet on the very night succeeding the interview, and
wandering no one asked whither. The Lady of Avenel inquired under what
circumstances she had appeared among them, but could only learn that
she was believed to be the widow of some man of consequence among the
Graemes who then inhabited the Debateable Land, a name given to a
certain portion of territory which was the frequent subject of dispute
betwixt Scotland and England--that she had suffered great wrong in
some of the frequent forays by which that unfortunate district was
wasted, and had been driven from her dwelling-place. She had arrived
in the hamlet no one knew for what purpose, and was held by some to be
a witch, by others a zealous Protestant, and by others again a
Catholic devotee. Her language was mysterious, and her manners
repulsive; and all that could be collected from her conversation
seemed to imply that she was under the influence either of a spell or
of a vow,--there was no saying which, since she talked as one who
acted under a powerful and external agency.
Such were the particulars which the Lady's inquiries were able to
collect concerning Magdalen Graeme, being far too meagre and
contradictory to authorize any satisfactory deduction.
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