--You seem rejoiced at this?" he added,
fixing his eyes keenly on Magdalen Graeme, who returned his gaze with
calm indifference.
"I would rather," she said, "that Roland, a poor and friendless
orphan, were the jest of the world at large, than of the menials at
Avenel."
"Fear not, dame--he shall be scorned by neither," answered the Knight.
"It may be," she replied--"it may well be--but I will trust more to
his own bearing than to your countenance." She left the room as she
spoke.
The Knight looked after her as she departed, but turned instantly to
his brother, and expressing, in the most affectionate terms, his
wishes for his welfare and happiness, craved his leave to depart. "My
knaves," he said, "are too busy at the ale-stand, to leave their
revelry for the empty breath of a bugle-horn."
"You have freed them from higher restraint, Halbert," answered the
Abbot, "and therein taught them to rebel against your own."
"Fear not that, Edward," exclaimed Halbert, who never gave his brother
his monastic name of Ambrosius; "none obey the command of real duty
so well as those who are free from the observance of slavish bondage."
He was turning to depart, when the Abbot said,--"Let us not yet part,
my brother--here comes some light refreshment. Leave not the house
which I must now call mine, till force expel me from it, until you
have at least broken bread with me."
The poor lay brother, the same who acted as porter, now entered the
apartment, bearing some simple refreshment, and a flask of wine.
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