"
"You owe it to yourself, ungrateful boy?" replied his relative,
passion rapidly supplying the colour which age had long chased from
her features,--"to yourself you owe nothing--you can owe nothing--to
me you owe every thing--your life when an infant--your support while a
child--the means of instruction, and the hopes of honour--and, sooner
than thou shouldst abandon the noble cause to which I have devoted
thee, would I see thee lie a corpse at my feet!"
Roland was alarmed at the vehement agitation with which she spoke, and
which threatened to overpower her aged frame; and he hastened to
reply,--"I forget nothing of what I owe to you, my dearest
mother--show me how my blood can testify my gratitude, and you shall
judge if I spare it. But blindfold obedience has in it as little
merit as reason."
"Saints and angels!" replied Magdalen, "and do I hear these words from
the child of my hopes, the nursling by whose bed I have kneeled, and
for whose weal I have wearied every saint in heaven with prayers?
Roland, by obedience only canst thou show thy affection and thy
gratitude. What avails it that you might perchance adopt the course I
propose to thee, were it to be fully explained? Thou wouldst not then
follow my command, but thine own judgment; thou wouldst not do the
will of Heaven, communicated through thy best friend, to whom thou
owest thine all; but thou wouldst observe the blinded dictates of
thine own imperfect reason. Hear me, Roland! a lot calls
thee--solicits thee--demands thee--the proudest to which man can be
destined, and it uses the voice of thine earliest, thy best, thine
only friend--Wilt thou resist it? Then go thy way--leave me here--my
hopes on earth are gone and withered--I will kneel me down before
yonder profaned altar, and when the raging heretics return, they shall
dye it with the blood of a martyr.
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