Part 10

He partly led and partly supported the companion of his journey, a young lady, whose unusually pale complexion had been rendered yet more pallid by fatigue; but her velvet hood being well drawn forward, almost concealed her features. Though light and graceful, her figure was veiled in one of those ample plaids of purple and blue check which were then (and for two hundred years after) so common in the Lowlands of Scotland. She wore it over her head, and pinned under the chin, from whence it fell over her shoulders and enveloped her whole form. Her white gloves were fringed with black lace, and her wrists and arms, where visible, were remarkably white and delicate.

Konrad and Anna--for doubtless the reader has recognised them--were wearied and covered with dust, having travelled on foot from the old Stockwell bridge of Glasgow. The commercial capital of the West was then but a small trading town, clustered round the great church, which, four hundred years before, the pious David had founded on the bank of the Molendinar burn.

There the crayer of Hans Knuber had anchored, and was discharging her cargo of tar and stockfish, for which Hans received in exchange cottons, and silks, and tanned leather, which he sold to the best advantage in the cities on the Baltic; and there Anna heard the sequel of Konrad's tidings, and the confirmation of Bothwell's falsehood beyond a doubt.

They found themselves in Clydesdale almost penniless; but, rough and turbulent though the times were, neither in baron's hall nor peasant's cottage were food, fire, and shelter, refused to the wayfarer or the unfortunate; and in the assumed character of French travellers on their way to court, to seek the patronage of Le Crocque, the ambassador of Charles IX., or the Marquis d'Elboeuff, they had reached the district of Bothwell with comparative ease and safety. Though the mass of the people, under terror of the act of 1555, "Anent speaking evill of the Maist Christian Kingis subjectis," and that of the following year, which defined the naturalization of the French in Scotland, treated all strangers with respect, Anna and Konrad were frequently reviled at wayside hostels as "massmongers and idolaters, worshippers of Baal, and followers of the shavelings of hell!" for Anna had the temerity and enthusiasm to wear openly on her bosom, that emblem against which, by word and deed, the preachers of the Reformation had poured forth their wrath and fury--a crucifix.

Evening was closing, and the woods of Bothwellhaugh were throwing their darkening shadows on the winding Calder. The foliage was in all the vivid green of July, and the perfume of the summer blossoms from the groves of apple-trees loaded the balmy air. The day had been one of intense heat; there was not a breath of wind upon the uplands, every leaf was still, and nothing was stirring save the busy gnats, that revolved in swarms where the sunlight pierced the leafy vistas.

So still was the atmosphere, that nothing was heard save the gurgle of the glittering stream, or the hum of the mountain bees as they floated over the grass, and sought the wild violets and pansies that grew in the dewy shades.

The sunlight died away along the deep glen sides, that were fringed with leafy woodlands; on trees bending with foliage and fruit, on the white-walled and moss-roofed cottages, with their light smoke curling through the coppice, on the river that glided past, placidly in one part, hoarse and brawling between its scaured banks in another, on rocks tufted with purple heather, or yellow with ripening corn, fell the dying sunlight, blending all with hazy softness, till the last rays faded from the tree-tops and the castle turrets, that overlooked them; and then, as the blue sky became veiled by dun clouds, which the set sun edged with the most brilliant golden light, the air became dense and oppressive, and a dusky crimson tinged the whole woodland scenery with the hue of blood. Perched on its rifted rock, the old square tower of Clelland turned to brick red; the Calder flowed below like a stream of purple wine, and the beechwood copse became like a grove of the red-leaved ilex.

The atmosphere soon became darker; a few heavy drops of rain plashed on the dusty causeway of the Roman road, and spread wide circles on the wooded stream that flowed beneath the bridge; the tops of the lofty trees were tossed, as the wind arose, and the summer thunder rumbled among the green and russet hills that overlook the fruitful valley of the Clyde.

"A storm is gathering, Anna!" said Konrad, gazing tenderly on her pale features; "and thou art growing faint and weary. Overtasked as it has been, thy little strength is completely exhausted; let me beseech thee once again to pause. There is a tower yonder that overhangs the river; and there, I doubt not, due hospitality will be gladly extended to two poor and unfriended foreigners!"

"No--no! On--on!" muttered Anna.

"We are, I believe, yet far from our destination; and, ere it is reached, thou wilt assuredly die of fatigue!"

"Then, O God! grant that it may be at Bothwell's castle gate!" said Anna, bursting into a passion of tears; "that the sight of my silent corpse might upbraid him with his perfidy. Assure me that he will behold me lying dead upon his threshold, and I will yield up my soul without a sigh. Life hath no longer any charm for me!"

"Nor for me!" murmured Konrad; but how different was the tone! The girl spoke in all the bitterness of rage; the young man with the accents of desolation. Anna read the emotion in his eyes, as she glanced hurriedly and pityingly upon him; and, repressing her own grief, still continued to totter forward. The feebleness of her steps became more and more apparent; but her spirit was strong and indomitable.

As they descended into the bosky woodlands, the red lightning began to gleam behind the trunks of the distant trees, and the Calder, as it jarred between ledges of rock, became covered with white foam. These signs of a coming tempest caused them to hasten on, and with both hands the trembling Anna clung to Konrad's arm. The woods grew dark as the plumes of a hearse, and the starless sky was crowded with masses of inky vapour;--but there was one dense cloud that came up from the westward, and in it the whole fury of the storm seemed to be concentrated. Onward it came, laying the corn flat to the earth, while the strong trees bent like willows beneath its sulphureous breath; for it was charged with all the electric fluid of the summer storm.

Konrad paused, and looked upward.

For a moment the aspect of the heavens was magnificent!

Forth from the bosom of that dark cloud broke one broad flash of forky lightning, resplendent, green, and lurid. For an instant it lit the whole firmament, and the earth beneath it, revealing the tossing forests and deep broad waters of Clyde, which was covered with snow-white foam, and poured on between its steep and wooded banks, making one bold sweep round Bothwell's dark red towers, that rose above them in massive magnificence.

In strong outline, tower and turret stood forth against the flaming sky, the lightning seeming to play among their summits, and all the leaves of Bothwell's blooming bank gleamed like filigree-work--but for an instant, and then all became darkness.

Another flash, brighter than the first, revealed the opposite bank of the stream, and the ruins of Blantyre Priory. Brightly, for a moment, pinnacle and pointed window, buttress and battlement, gleamed in the phosphorescent light--but to fade away; and then terrifically the thunder rolled along the beautiful and winding valley of the Clyde.

All became still--and though the foliage was agitated, the wind had passed away. Nothing was heard save the rush of the river, and the ceaseless hiss of the drenching rain, as noisily and heavily it poured down on the broad summer leaves.

Stunned for a moment by the thunder-peal, Konrad, in the confusion of the time, had thrown an arm round Anna as if to protect her, while she in turn clung to him convulsively for support; and even in that moment of consternation, the warm embrace of that loved bosom sent through his a thrill of pain and delight.

The thick foliage still protected them from the rain; but the necessity of seeking other shelter became immediately apparent, for Anna, exhausted by terror and fatigue, was almost speechless. Konrad supported her up the ascent, which is crowned by the ruins of Blantyre Priory; and there, in that desolate place, which the lightning had revealed to them, he found a place of shelter, under the arch of a vault, where the ivy clung and the wallflower flourished, for the place was utterly ruined. Seven years had elapsed since the sons of rapine and reformation had been there.

The gloom of the ruins impressed Konrad with a horror that he could scarcely repress; for thick and fast on his glowing fancy, came many a dark and terrible legend of the wild and frozen north--but the danger of Anna compelled him to think of other things.

The rain and the wind were over; the thunder had died away on the distant hills, and nothing was heard now but the rush of the adjacent stream, and the patter of the heavy drops as they fell from the overcharged foliage on the flattened grass. Occasional stars gleamed through the pointed windows and shattered walls of the Priory, and the long creeping ivy waved mournfully to and fro. The edifice was much dilapidated; for the sacrilegious builders of many a barn and cottage, had torn the best stones from the places where they had rested for ages, and where, doubtless, the pious Alexander II. deemed they would remain for ever; now the wild-rose, the sweetbrier, and the mountain ash grew thickly in the hospitium, where of old the sick were tended and the poor were fed--in the chapel aisles where the good had prayed, and the dead of ages lay.

Anna had become almost insensible; and, from being animated by activity and energy, had become passive in spirit and supine in body. The change had affrighted Konrad; her pulses beat like lightning, and her hands and brow were burning. Gently, as if she had been a sick child, he laid her in a corner of that vaulted apartment, which appeared to have been a cellar of the Priory. There the strewn and crisped leaves of the last autumn lay thick and soft, and thinking only of death, in her utter exhaustion of mind and body, she made no reply to his tender and reiterated inquiries.

Konrad adjusted her damp dress over her beautiful person, and, full of solicitude and anxiety, seated himself near her. He listened--her breath was becoming fainter and more rapid; excessive fatigue and over-excitement had evidently done their worst upon her tender frame.

"Oh, how thy hands burn!" said Konrad, as he took them in his with the fondness of other days. "Speak, Anna--for the love of mercy speak to me!"

"I am very pettish and ungracious," she said faintly; "but forgive me, Konrad. I deserve not thy care--leave me to die; for God, I think, has deserted me!"

"Ah, speak not thus, Anna! God will never desert one so good--so gentle as thee. Hath he not led us to this chamber, where we are safe from the wind, and the rain, and the chill night-dew? but here thou canst not pass a night. The storm hath died away--one effort more"----

"I cannot rise, Konrad," said Anna, in a breathless voice.

"Then I must fly for succour!"

"No--no--O, do not leave me! I will die of terror; there may be demons, and wolves, and bears in these Scottish woods, as in those at home."

"But thou hast thy piece of the blessed cross, Anna. I go but to wind my bugle for succour at the foot of the hill, and surely some one in yonder castle by the river, will hear and attend to me."

"Then hasten, for my heart is sickening, and my strength is failing fast with the fever that burns within me."

Konrad sprang to his feet in an agony of anxiety.

"Oh Bothwell, Bothwell!" said Anna; "my dear lord--may heaven forgive thee, freely as I do, all the misery and suffering thou hast caused to this poor heart!"

These words fell like ice on the young man's heart, and he said hurriedly--

"Be of good cheer, and pray to thy patron, the mother of the virgin--I will bring thee succour anon."

"Konrad," said Anna, in her low, soft voice, "my words have stung thee, for thine accent is changed. Pardon me!" she added tremulously, "and remember that I, too, am desolate now. Dost thou cease to love me? Am not I thy sister, Konrad?"

"Thou art, indeed!" replied her lover, whose heart was crushed by his emotion; "and I regard thee with a love more pure and pitying than ever. I am thy friend, Anna--a lover no longer."

"Then, Konrad, kiss and forgive me--for I may die ere thou returnest."

Konrad trembled. A gush that cannot be described--sorrow, love, agony, and despair, swelled up in his breast on hearing this singular and artless request, and, stooping down, he pressed his lips to hers long and passionately.

It was the first time he had ever kissed her, and it was a strange salute.

Anna's lips were burning and parched--Konrad's were cold and quivering, while a palsy seemed to possess his heart; but he sprang from her side, vaulted over the ruined wall, and, giddy with the whirl of his thoughts, rushed down the hill to the margin of the river, and wound his bugle furiously.

Deep, broad, and rapid, between its steep and beautifully wooded banks, the noble Clyde was flowing at his feet, and the bright stars were twinkling in its depth. Afar off, at one end of the silvan dell, the moon was rising red and fiery after the recent storm, and full on the imposing facade of the neighbouring castle fell its fitful gleam.

Flanked by two enormous circular towers of massive dark red stone, it presented a bold front to the south, and overlooked the wooded declivity so famed in song, as--

"Bothwell'e bank that bloom'd so fair."

around which, like a great moat, the girdling Clyde made one bold sweep.

The area of this vast and princely fortress, where, in other years, the Norman knights of Aymer of Valence, and the bonneted vassals of Archibald the Grim, kept watch and wassail, occupies a space of two hundred and thirty feet; towering with its magnificent battlements above the river on one side, and overlooking a beautiful lawn on the other. It occupies the most prominent and picturesque locality amid all the scenery traversed by the Clyde.

Darkly in the fitful light loomed the tourelles of the keep, and the ramparts of the Valence and Wallace towers, and darkly fell their giant shadows on the bosom of the starlit river. Amid its gloomy mass Konrad saw lights twinkling from windows strongly grated and deeply recessed in the thick walk; but the gates were closed, and the bridges up. _Now_--how different from then--

"The tufted grass lines Bothwell's ancient hall, The fox peeps cautious from the ruin'd wall; Where once proud Moray, Clydesdale's ancient lord, A mimic sovereign, held the festive board."

Ignorant that the stately castle before him was the stronghold of his rival, again and again Konrad poured the shrill blasts of his ivory bugle to the gusty wind; and, finding that he was unheard or unheeded by the inmates, his anxiety to procure aid for Anna would admit of no longer delay, and heavily encumbered as he was with half armour, he threw himself into the river, and, with his sword in his teeth, endeavoured to swim over. Though a strong, active, and practised swimmer, he no sooner found himself buffeting the fierce current of that rapid river, than an invocation to God burst from his lips; for he was swept away like a reed by the violence and impetuosity of the summer _speat_.

*CHAPTER XVII.*

*THE COUNTESS OF BOTHWELL.*

Load roars the north round Bothwell hall, And fast descends the pattering rain; But streams of tears yet faster fall, From thy blue eyes, O bonny Jane! Hark! hark! I hear the mournful yell, The wraiths of angry Clyde complain; But sorrow bursts with louder swell. From thy toft heart, O bonny Jane! _M. G. Lewis._

Within the stateliest chamber of that stately castle sat James, Earl of Bothwell, and his countess Jane, the bride of a few months. The apartment was long and lofty; in the daytime it was lighted by six grated windows that overlooked Bothwell bank, but now it was lit by two gigantic gilded chandeliers of wax candles. The ceiling was of panelled oak, and the floor was of the same material, but lozenged, and minutely jointed. The walls were completely hung with tapestry (made by the Countess of old Earl Adam, who fell at Flodden), and represented on one side the "_Hunts of Cheviot_," so famed in ancient song; and on the other, the miracles of the blessed St. Bothan, the cousin and successor of St. Colme of Iona. The spaces between were filled up by gorgeous flower-pieces, and the armorial coats of the Earl's alliances on trees covered with shields; but chief of all appeared the blazon of the house of Hailes. Now little known, the arms of Bothwell are worth recording, as they appeared above the stone chimney of that apartment. _Gules_ on a cheveron argent, two Scottish lions rending an English rose, (which had been the characteristic cognisance of Patrick Hepburn of Hailes at the great battle of Otterburn,) quartered azure with a golden ship; three cheveronels on a field ermine for the lordship of Soulis, with a bend azure for Vauss, lord of Dirltoun. His shield was supported by two lions gardant, crested by a horse's head bridled, and bearing on an escroll the motto--

Keepe Tryste.

The whole of this gorgeous armorial blazon was upborne by a gilded anchor, significant of Bothwell's office as Lord High Admiral of Scotland and the Isles.

Though the season was summer, a fire burned on the marble hearth; for the stone chambers of those ancient dwellings were often cold and chilly. Two silver lamps, lighted with perfumed oil, and having each a golden tassel appended to them, hung on each side of the mantelpiece, by the same chains that, ten years before, had swung them before St. Bothan's shrine, in Blantyre Priory. Their odour was mingled with that of the fresh flowers that, in vases of Italian glass, were piled upon the cabinets, and diffused a delightful fragrance through that noble apartment.

A wine vase, or flask of Venetian crystal, grained with gold, and of that peculiar fashion then very common in the dwellings of the Scottish noblesse, (so common, indeed, that the Regent Moray was wont to have them broken before visiters in a spirit of pure vanity,) stood upon the table, and the glow of its purple contents was thrown on the silver cups, the grapes, that were piled in baskets of mother-of-pearl, and the embossed salvers of confections that stood around it.

The Earl, richly attired, as when we last saw him, in a suit that admirably displayed the strength and symmetry of his limbs, was lounging on an ottoman, or low-cushioned settle, with his feet on a deer's skin, and seemed wholly occupied in caressing a large wiry hound of the Scottish breed, while the Countess had played to him on her ghittern, and sung that song so common at the court of Mary, but of which the title alone is known to us now--

"My love is layed upone ane knycht."

The old game of Troy had succeeded; and then they paused a while to listen to the fury of the storm that has been described hi the preceding chapter; and, during the pause, we will take a view of this fair and unfortunate lady, who was sacrificed by her lover and brother to the evil spirit of statecraft and ambition. But when Bothwell gazed on her, which he did from time to time, his dark eyes filled with softness, as hers did with love and languor.

The outline of her little figure (for she was of low stature) was singularly graceful, as she half reclined on the seat of crimson velvet, with the deep colour of which her neck and arms contrasted so admirably. Her eyes were of the deepest and most sparkling black; and when they dilated at times, seemed almost larger than her cherry mouth.

She was a gentle and excitable creature.

The fineness of her nervous temperament, might have been read in the thinness and exquisite fairness of her skin, in the slender blue veins of her snowy temples, and the lustre of her large dark orbs, which, with every emotion of joy, tenderness, or grief, seemed to swim in tears. Her very laughter had something strangely clear, ringing, and hysterical in it. Her small white hand, at which the Earl almost unconsciously gazed more than at the diagram of the game, from its thinness and delicacy, was alike indicative of her nature and disposition.

Jane of Huntly was every way the _belle_-ideal of that description of high-born beauty, upon whose soft cheek not even the wind of heaven had been permitted to blow "too roughly."

She was richly attired in black velvet, flowered with silver thread; her raven hair was braided with a string of pearls, and wreathed in a coronal round her head; while a necklace of Scottish topazes and Arran stones, set in gold, sparkled on her bosom and sustained a silver crucifix, the dying gift of the stout Earl her father, who, four years before, had fallen in his armour on the battle-field of Corrichie.

When Bothwell gazed upon his countess, there was more of admiration, perhaps, than love in his expression. He loved her well enough after the fashion of the world, but not so devotedly and well as that gentle being deserved. Anna had almost been forgotten; his flexible heart had been so frittered away among his innumerable loves, that he seemed to have become incapable of any lasting impression. However, he loved his bride better than he expected; for, as we have before stated, this marriage had, on his part, been strictly one of policy.

At times when Jane's dark eyes met his with their clear full gaze, there was a keen and searching expression in their starlike depth, that made the reckless noble quail, he knew not why; but her whole soul seemed to light them up with a vivid expression that troubled him.

"Another flash--and another!" she exclaimed, watching the lightning and clasping her hands, while her swimming eyes glittered with childlike joy. "Oh, mother of God!--how beautiful--how brilliant! Ah, that I were among the woods where the lightning is flashing, or at the linn where the Clyde is pouring in foam from the rocks!"

"By the Holy Rood!" replied the Earl, with surprise, "I think thou art better here, my bonnibel. None but a water-kelpie could live abroad to-night, and one half hour of such a storm would send thee to the company of the saints."

"And again thou wouldst be free to woo and win another," rejoined the Countess, laughing.

"I never wooed, and shall not win another, my bonny Jane!" said the lying Earl; while lounging on the velvet cushions he caressed his little countess, and played with her dark glossy hair, thinking as he did so, "Ah, how could I ever love any woman but a dark one!"

"And wilt thou always love me as thou dost now?" asked the Countess with the most engaging playfulness.

"Love thee!" stammered the Earl, perplexed by a question so pertinent to his thoughts. "My ladybird, why that thought?"

"Because," replied Jane, in a voice that was tremulous from the excess of her emotion; "if thou didst cease to love, O my dear lord! I would"----

"What?"

"Die!" and her beautiful head drooped on his shoulder.

"Anna's very words!" thought the conscience-stricken Earl, as he gazed upon her with anxiety and astonishment. Her expression startled him; but he knew not that it was the wild animation and over-excitement that in a little time would be developed in a terrible malady, which was already preying upon the fragile form and ardent mind of the Countess--madness!