"
"But," said Adam, "touching the Abbot of Unreason--what say they to
that outbreak--An they be shrewishly disposed, I were better pitch the
packets to Satan, and take the other side of the Border for my bield."
"Oh, that was passed over as a jest, since there was little harm
done.--But, hark thee, Adam," continued his comrade, "if there was a
dozen vacant abbacies in your road, whether of jest or earnest, reason
or unreason, draw thou never one of their mitres over thy brows.--The
time is not fitting, man!--besides, our Maiden longs to clip the neck
of a fat churchman."
"She shall never sheer mine in that capacity," said the falconer,
while he knotted the kerchief in two or three double folds around his
sunburnt bull-neck, calling out at the same time, "Master Roland,
Master Roland, make haste! we must back to perch and mew, and, thank
Heaven, more than our own wit, with our bones whole, and without a
stab in the stomach."
"Nay, but," said Wing-the-wind, "the page goes not back with you; the
Regent has other employment for him."
"Saints and sorrows!" exclaimed the falconer--"Master Roland Graeme to
remain here, and I to return to Avenel!--Why, it cannot be--the child
cannot manage himself in this wide world without me, and I question if
he will stoop to any other whistle than mine own; there are times I
myself can hardly bring him to my lure."
It was at Roland's tongue's end to say something concerning the
occasion they had for using mutually each other's prudence, but the
real anxiety which Adam evinced at parting with him, took away his
disposition to such ungracious raillery.
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