THE ABBOT: BEING THE SEQUEL OF THE MONASTERY. CHAPTER I. Domum mancit-lanam fecit. ANCIENT ROMAN EPITAPH. She keepit close the hous, and birlit at the quhele. GAWAIN DOUGLAS, THE time which passes over our heads so imperceptibly, makes the same gradual change in habits, manners, and character, as in personal appearance. At the revolution of every five years we find ourselves another, and yet the same there is a change of views, and no less of the light in which we regard them; a change of motives as well as of actions. Nearly twice that space had glided away over the head of Halbert Glendinning and his lady, betwixt the conclusion of that narrative in which they played a distinguished part, and the commencement of the present. Two circumstances only had embittered their union, which was otherwise as happy as mutual affection could render it. The first of these was indeed the common calamity of Scotland, being the distracted state of that unhappy country, where every man's sword was diVOL. I.-A rected against his neighbour's bosom. Glendinning had proved what Murray expected of him, a steady friend, strong in battle, and wise in counsel, adhering to him from motives of gratitude, in situations where by his own unbiassed will he would either have stood neuter, or have joined the opposite party. Hence, when danger was near, and it was seldom far distant, Sir Halbert Glendinning, for he now bore the rank of knighthood, was perpetually summoned to attend his patron on distant expeditions, or on perilous enterprises, or to assist him with his counsel in the doubtful intrigues of a half barbarous court. He was thus frequently, and for a long space. absent from his castie and from his lady; and to this ground of regret we must add, that their union had produced no children to occupy the attention of the Lady of Avenel, while she was thus deprived of her husband's domestic society. On such occasions she lived almost entirely secluded from the world, within the walls of her paternal mansion. Visiting among neighbours was a matter entirely out of the question, unless on occasion of solemn festival, and then it was chiefly confined to near kindred. Of these the Lady of Avenel had none who survived, and the dames of the neighbouring barons affected to regard her less as the heiress of the House of Avenel, than as the wife of a peasant, the son of a church-vassel raised up to mushroom eminence by the capricious fayour of Murray. This pride of ancestry, which rankled in the bosom of the more ancient gentry, was more openly expressed by their ladies and was, moreover, embittered not a little by the political feuds of the time, for most of the Southron chiefs were friends to the authority of the Queen, and very jealous of the power of Murray. The castle of Avenel was, therefore, on all these accounts, as melancholy and solitary a residence for its lady as could well be imagined. Still it had the essential recommendation of great security. The reader knows that the fortress was built upon an islet in a small lake, |