It seemed as if she would
not permit him to do aught for himself which in former days her
attention had been used to do for him, and that she considered the
tall stripling before her as being equally dependent on her careful
attention as when he was the orphan child, who had owed all to her
affectionate solicitude.
"What hast thou to eat now?" she said, as, leaving the chapel, they
went into the deserted habitation of the priest; "or what means of
kindling a fire, to defend thee from this raw and inclement air? Poor
child! thou hast made slight provision for a long journey; nor hast
thou skill to help thyself by wit, when means are scanty. But Our Lady
has placed by thy side one to whom want, in all its forms, is as
familiar as plenty and splendour have formerly been. And with want,
Roland, come the arts of which she is the inventor."
With an active and officious diligence, which strangely contrasted
with her late abstracted and high tone of Catholic devotion, she set
about her domestic arrangements for the evening. A pouch, which was
hidden under her garment, produced a flint arid steel, and from the
scattered fragments around (those pertaining to the image of Saint
Cuthbert scrupulously excepted) she obtained splinters sufficient to
raise a sparkling and cheerful fire on the hearth of the deserted
cell.
"And now," she said, "for needful food."
"Think not of it, mother," said Roland, "unless you yourself feel
hunger. It is a little thing for me to endure a night's abstinence,
and a small atonement for the necessary transgression of the rules of
the Church upon which I was compelled during my stay in the castle.
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