The abbot, who dreaded the violence of the young countess more than the temper of her husband (who was not exactly a lamb), was prudently silent; but she was determined to force an answer from him, and said bluntly, "Speak, abbot, you are silent!"
"Pardon me, lady, I was thinking of Plutarch. Know you what he said?"
"How should I know, Lord Abbot," said Margaret, while her black eyes sparkled with annoyance; "was he a heretic like Paul Crawer, or a magician like Michael Scott, with an urchin or prickly hedgehog for a familiar?"
"Why ask you all this?" "Because the name sounds cabalistic to a Scottish ear," said Margaret, crossing and fanning herself.
"He was a scholar—and yet an unfortunate pagan, for he knew not of St. Nicholas, the patron of scholars."
"But what said he?"
"That 'love and hatred corrupt the truth of everything,' and he thought profoundly, madam, for verily they do. Yet if our holy father at Rome will but listen to my prayer, ere long hatred and evil shall exist on earth no more; but all men shall live and die in peace and goodwill one with another—even unto the end of time."
The young earl smiled disdainfully, and relapsed into gloomy silence, for he knew that his father confessor referred to a strange project which he had long cherished, and concerning which he had seriously pestered the late Roman Legate, Æneas Sylvius—that the Pope Eugene IV., as head of the Church and "vicegerent of heaven upon earth," would intercede for the fallen angel, to have him forgiven and received once more into divine favour, to the sublime end that all evil in the world would henceforth cease; for the good old clergyman, in his largeness of heart, like his poetic countryman in after years, felt that he could even forgive the devil, when he thought
Auld Nickey Ben,
Maybe ye'll tak a thocht and mend.
But poor Pope Eugene was too much bothered and embroiled by the untractable council of Basle, to attend at that time to the mighty crotchets of the abbot of Tongland.