"
Roland turned round in astonishment, and the tall commanding form of
Magdalen Graeme stood beside him. She was arrayed in a sort of loose
habit, in form like that worn by penitents in Catholic countries, but
black in colour, and approaching as near to a pilgrim's cloak as it
was safe to wear in a country where the suspicion of Catholic devotion
in many places endangered the safety of those who were suspected of
attachment to the ancient faith. Roland Graeme threw himself at her
feet. She raised and embraced him, with affection indeed, but not
unmixed with gravity which amounted almost to sternness.
"Thou hast kept well," she said, "the bird in thy bosom. [Footnote:
An expression used by Sir Ralph Percy, slain in the battle of
Hedgly-moor in 1464, when dying, to express his having preserved
unstained his fidelity to the house of Lancaster.] As a boy, as a
youth, thou hast held fast thy faith amongst heretics--thou hast kept
thy secret and mine own amongst thine enemies. I wept when I parted
from you--I who seldom weep, then shed tears, less for thy death than
for thy spiritual danger--I dared not even see thee to bid thee a last
farewell--my grief, my swelling grief, had betrayed me to these
heretics. But thou hast been faithful--down, down on thy knees before
the holy sign, which evil men injure and blaspheme; down, and praise
saints and angels for the grace they have done thee, in preserving
thee from the leprous plague which cleaves to the house in which thou
wert nurtured.
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