“Who is this woman?” said Sir Halbert Glendinning, somewhat sternly, “and what does she want?”
“That you know me not,” said the matron, “signifies little; I come by your own order, to give my free consent that the stripling, Roland Graeme, return to your service; and, having said so, I cumber you no longer with my presence. Peace be with you!” She turned to go away, but was stopped by inquiries of Sir Halbert Glendinning.
“Who are you?—what are you?—and why do you not await to make me answer?”
“I was,” she replied, “while yet I belonged to the world, a matron of no vulgar name; now I am Magdalen, a poor pilgrimer, for the sake of Holy Kirk.”
“Yea,” said Sir Halbert, “art thou a Catholic? I thought my dame said that Roland Graeme came of reformed kin.'
“His father,” said the matron, “was a heretic, or rather one who regarded neither orthodoxy or heresy—neither the temple of the church or of antichrist. I, too, for the sins of the times make sinners, have seemed to conform to your unhallowed rites—but I had my dispensation and my absolution.”
“You see, brother,” said Sir Halbert, with a smile of meaning towards his brother, “that we accuse you not altogether without grounds of mental equivocation.”
“My brother, you do us injustice,” replied the Abbot; “this woman, as her bearing may of itself warrant you, is not in her perfect mind. Thanks, I must needs say, to the persecution of your marauding barons, and of your latitudinarian clergy.”
“I will not dispute the point,” said Sir Halbert; “the evils of the time are unhappily so numerous, that both churches may divide them, and have enow to spare.” So saying, he leaned from the window of the apartment, and winded his bugle.
“Why do you sound your horn, my brother?” said the Abbot; “we have spent but few minutes together.”