"
"These amendments would here be but a vain fancy, my Halbert,"
answered the Lady of Avenel; "the trees would be burned by the English
foemen, ere they ceased to be shrubs, and the grain that you raised
would be gathered in by the first neighbour that possessed more riders
than follow your train. Why should you repine at this? The fate that
made you Scotsman by birth, gave you head, and heart, and hand, to
uphold the name as it must needs be upheld."
"It gave _me_ no name to uphold," said Halbert, pacing the floor
slowly; "my arm has been foremost in every strife--my voice has been
heard in every council, nor have the wisest rebuked me. The crafty
Lethington, the deep and dark Morton, have held secret council with
me, and Grange and Lindsay have owned, that in the field I did the
devoir of a gallant knight--but let the emergence be passed when they
need my head and hand, and they only know me as son of the obscure
portioner of Glendearg."
This was a theme which the Lady always dreaded; for the rank conferred
on her husband, the favour in which he was held by the powerful Earl
of Murray, and the high talents by which he vindicated his right to
that rank and that favour, were qualities which rather increased than
diminished the envy which was harboured against Sir Halbert
Glendinning among a proud aristocracy, as a person originally of
inferior and obscure birth, who had risen to his present eminence
solely by his personal merit. The natural firmness of his mind did not
enable him to despise the ideal advantages of a higher pedigree, which
were held in such universal esteem by all with whom he conversed; and
so open are the noblest minds to jealous inconsistencies, that there
were moments in which he felt mortified that his lady should possess
those advantages of birth and high descent which he himself did not
enjoy, and regretted that his importance as the proprietor of Avenel
was qualified by his possessing it only as the husband of the heiress.
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