"This, then," she said, addressing his relative, "is the child of
thine unhappy daughter, sister Magdalen; and him, the only shoot from
your ancient tree, you are willing to devote to the Good Cause?"
"Yes, by the rood," answered Magdalen Graeme, in her usual tone of
resolved determination, "to the good cause I devote him, flesh and
fell, sinew and limb, body and soul."
"Thou art a happy woman, sister Magdalen," answered her companion,
"that, lifted so high above human affection and human feeling, thou
canst bind such a victim to the horns of the altar. Had I been called
to make such a sacrifice--to plunge a youth so young and fair into the
plots and bloodthirsty dealings of the time, not the patriarch
Abraham, when he led Isaac up the mountain, would have rendered more
melancholy obedience."
She then continued to look at Roland with a mournful aspect of
compassion, until the intentness of her gaze occasioned his colour to
rise, and he was about to move out of its influence, when he was
stopped by his grand-mother with one hand, while with the other she
divided the hair upon his forehead, which was now crimson with
bashfulness, while she added, with a mixture of proud affection and
firm resolution,--"Ay, look at him well, my sister, for on a fairer
face thine eye never rested. I too, when I first saw him, after a long
separation, felt as the worldly feel, and was half shaken in my
purpose. But no wind can tear a leaf from the withered tree which has
long been stripped of its foliage, and no mere human casualty can
awaken the mortal feelings which have long slept in the calm of
devotion.
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