Page:Walter Scott - The Monastery (Henry Frowde, 1912).djvu/492

RV 424 (Rh) milk-pail; for this girl is a peasant wench in all but the accident of birth. I thought you had more deep respect for the honour of the Douglasses.'

'The honour of the Douglasses is safe in my keeping,' answered Morton, haughtily; 'that of other ancient families may suffer as well as the name of Avenel, if rustics are to be matched with the blood of our ancient barons.'

'This is but idle talking,' answered Lord Murray; 'in times like these, we must look to men and not to pedigrees. Hay was but a rustic before the battle of Loncarty; the bloody yoke actually dragged the plough ere it was blazoned on a crest by the herald. Times of action make princes into peasants, and boors into barons. All families have sprung from one mean man; and it is well if they have never degenerated from his virtue who raised them first from obscurity.'

'My Lord of Murray will please to except the house of Douglas,' said Morton, haughtily; 'men have seen it in the tree, but never in the sapling—have seen it in the stream, but never in the fountain.$n$ In the earliest of our Scottish annals, the Black Douglas was powerful and distinguished as now.'

'I bend to the honours of the house of Douglas,' said Murray, somewhat ironically; 'I am conscious we of the royal house have little right to compete with them in dignity. What though we have worn crowns and carried sceptres for a few generations, if our genealogy moves no farther back than to the humble Alanus Dapifer!'$n$

Morton's cheek reddened as he was about to reply; but Henry Warden availed himself of the liberty which the Protestant clergy long possessed, and exerted it to interrupt a discussion which was becoming too eager and personal to be friendly.

'My lords,' he said, 'I must be bold in discharging the duty of my Master. It is a shame and scandal to hear two nobles, whose hands have been so forward in the work of reformation, fall into discord about such vain follies as now occupy your thoughts. Bethink you how long you have thought with one mind, seen with one eye, heard with one ear, confirmed by your union the congregation of the church, appalled by your joint authority the