"Good even to you, valiant champion!" said she: "since the days of
Guy of Warwick, never was one more worthy to encounter a dun cow."
"Cow?" said Roland Graeme, "by my faith, I thought it had been the
devil that roared so near me. Who ever heard of a convent containing a
cow-house?"
"Cow and calf may come hither now," answered Catherine, "for we have
no means to keep out either. But I advise you, kind sir, to return to
the place from whence you came."
"Not till I see your charge, fair sister," answered Roland, and made
his way into the apartment, in spite of the half serious half laughing
remonstrances of the girl.
The poor solitary cow, now the only severe recluse within the nunnery,
was quartered in a spacious chamber, which had once been the refectory
of the convent. The roof was graced with groined arches, and the wall
with niches, from which the images had been pulled down. These
remnants of architectural ornaments were strangely contrasted with the
rude crib constructed for the cow in one corner of the apartment, and
the stack of fodder which was piled beside it for her food.
[Footnote: This, like the cell of Saint Cuthbert, is an imaginary
scene, but I took one or two ideas of the desolation of the interior
from a story told me by my father. In his youth--it may be near eighty
years since, as he was born in 1729--he had occasion to visit an old
lady who resided in a Border castle of considerable renown. Only one
very limited portion of the extensive ruins sufficed for the
accommodation of the inmates, and my father amused himself by
wandering through the part that was untenanted.
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