"
"Tell me not of Raymond Lullius," said the Lady, losing patience, "but
send me the chaplain hither. You grow all of you too wise for me,
during your lord's long and repeated absences. I would to God his
affairs would permit him to remain at home and rule his own household,
for it passes my wit and skill!"
"God forbid, my Lady!" said the old domestic, "that you should
sincerely think what you are now pleased to say: your old servants
might well hope, that after so many years' duty, you would do their
service more justice than to distrust their gray hairs, because they
cannot rule the peevish humour of a green head, which the owner
carries, it may be, a brace of inches higher than becomes him."
"Leave me," said the Lady; "Sir Halbert's return must now be expected
daily, and he will look into these matters himself--leave me, I say,
Wingate, without saying more of it. I know you are honest, and I
believe the boy is petulant; and yet I think it is my favour which
hath set all of you against him."
The steward bowed and retired, after having been silenced in a second
attempt to explain the motives on which he acted.
The chaplain arrived; but neither from him did the Lady receive much
comfort. On the contrary, she found him disposed, in plain terms, to
lay to the door of her indulgence all the disturbances which the fiery
temper of Roland Graeme had already occasioned, or might hereafter
occasion, in the family. "I would," he said, "honoured Lady, that you
had deigned to be ruled by me in the outset of this matter, sith it is
easy to stem evil in the fountain, but hard to struggle against it in
the stream.
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