Had we not been wary, she would have been purveyed of
a page as much to her purpose as her waiting-damsel. I hear a rumour
that an old mad Romish pilgrimer, who passes for at least half a saint
among them, was employed to find a fit subject."
"We have escaped that danger at least," said Murray, "and converted it
into a point of advantage, by sending this boy of Glendinning's--and
for her waiting-damsel, you cannot grudge her one poor maiden instead
of her four noble Marys and all their silken train?"
"I care not so much for the waiting-maiden," said Morton, "but I
cannot brook the almoner--I think priests of all persuasions are much
like each other--Here is John Knox, who made such a noble puller-down,
is ambitious of becoming a setter-up, and a founder of schools and
colleges out of the Abbey lands, and bishops' rents, and other spoils
of Rome, which the nobility of Scotland have won with their sword and
bow, and with which he would endow new hives to sing the old drone."
"John is a man of God," said the Regent, "and his scheme is a devout
imagination."
The sedate smile with which this was spoken, left it impossible to
conjecture whether the words were meant in approbation, or in
derision, of the plan of the Scottish Reformer. Turning then to Roland
Graeme, as if he thought he had been long enough a witness of this
conversation, he bade him get him presently to horse, since my Lord of
Lindesay was already mounted. The page made his reverence, and left
the apartment.
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