Part 11

"Why dost thou doubt my love, Jane?" said the Earl; "it is four years since the Bishop of Dunblane betrothed thee unto me, and in that time my heart hath never wandered from thee."

"Ah! I don't doubt it--mother of God forefend that I should!" exclaimed the little Countess, while her eyes filled with tears, and she clung closer to her husband, "for thou wert the first love and the idol of me."

Bothwell's heart was touched; a pang shot through it when contemplating the deceit he had practised towards this loving and trusting creature, in winning her young heart and still retaining his own, and he kissed her tenderly.

"And thou, too, art mine idol, Jane; for since I first met thee, the fairest faces in the halls of Holyrood and Linlithgow have been without one attraction for me."

"And yet, dost thou know, there was one of whom, until her marriage, I was wont to be jealous; for thou wert ever engaged with her in conversations full of wit and laughter and repartee."

"Hah!" said Bothwell, colouring perceptibly.--"Thou meanest Mary Beaton, I warrant."

"Nay! Nay!" laughed the Countess; "naughty varlet! thou knowest well whom I mean."

"Mary Fleming, then, whose father fell at Pinkie-cleugh."

"Nay, God forbid! she is the wife of thy friend, the secretary; another, and a fairer Mary, still."

"By St. Abb on the Nab! little fairy, thou meanest the Queen herself!" exclaimed Bothwell with a loud laugh, as if he had no previous idea of who was meant. "This would be to make me a rival of Henry Darnley--a proper squire, and a tall fellow, too--Ha! ha! thou art a merry wag, my bonnibel," added the Earl, as he turned to the grape basket, for the purpose of hiding the deep colour that crimsoned his face from beard to temple. "Thou mistakest, dear Jane; my thoughts never soared so high, and it may prove dangerous to--hark! is not that the blast of a hunting-horn?"

"And by the river-side?"

"Some belated wayfarer."

"I see no one," said the Countess, who had run to a window.

"It may be Lauchope and his jackmen--there was some whisper abroad of their riding tonight, anent his feud with the Laird of Clelland concerning their meithes and marches. Seest thou aught like lances or steel caps glittering in the moonlight, for now the storm has died away?"

"There is a man by the river-side. Hark! he winds his bugle again and again; the poor soul seemeth in some sad jeopardy."

"Ho! Calder--Bertram--French Paris--ho there, without!" cried the Earl; and two pages, the younger sons of the neighbouring lairds of Southcalder and Bertram-shotts appeared, rubbing their eyes, for they had both fallen asleep in the antechamber over tric-trac and Rochelle. "Quick! ye little guzzling varlets--summon the Gate-ward and his yeoman--away to the river, and see what aileth yonder fellow that he winds his horn so dolorously!"

"Mother Mary!" cried the Countess, clinging to the Earl; "see--see! he is about to plunge into that rapid stream--he is in! God--now--now! see how he buffets with the current! Oh, how small, how feeble, he seems amid that hoarse and foaming river! Oh, save him! for the love of Heaven and of heavenly mercy: away, my lord, away!"

"'Tis more than likely this fellow is some rascally Egyptian. There hath been a band of such knaves on Bothwellmuir for this month past; but should it be Johnnie Faa himself--hurry the Gate-ward--and his grooms"----

"Now--now he is gone--he is down! how fast the current sweeps him on! I can look no more!" and, burying her face in her hands, the excitable little Countess fell on her knees, exclaiming passionately, "Fie on thy boasted valour, Lord of Bothwell! for thou hast stood idly by and seen this poor man drowned!"

"By cross and buckler! since thou art so free with thy husband's life, Lady Jane," said the Earl angrily, "'tis alike at the service of thee and this knave-errant. Follow me, Calder and French Paris!" and, raising the arras that concealed a door which communicated with a staircase and postern leading to Bothwellbank, the Earl rushed away.

*CHAPTER XVIII.*

*THE RESCUE.*

Then on they hurried, and on they hied, Down Bothwell's slope, so steep and green; And soon they reach'd the river Clyde, Alas! no Edgar still is seen. _M. G. Lewis._

Attended only by two of his pages, Bothwell left the postern door at the foot of the Valence Tower, and hurried down the _bank_, or wooded declivity, at the base of which the Clyde, swollen by the recent rains, was foaming past with a hoarse and ceaseless roar, rending the rough whin boulders and red earth from its scaured banks, and hurrying trees, and turf, and bushes--the debris of its hundred tributaries--to the waves of the western sea.

"Use thine eyes, Calder! Dost thou see him, Paris?" said the Earl, stooping low to pierce the gloomy shade thrown by the copse-wood upon the river.

"He struggles yonder, my lord!" cried Nicholas Hubert, or French Paris, as he was usually named.

"Nay, thou glaiket mole!" said little Calder; "'tis a tree. Seest thou not that he buffets the water a furlong further down?"

"Right, my little fellow! thou hast the very eyes of a true huntsman!" said the Earl; "'tis a man's head; I see him; he floats like a cork on the strong current. Shout, boys, while I wind my bugle, to let him know that aid is nigh!"

The pages placed their hands to their mouths, and uttered a loud hunting holloa, while Bothwell repeatedly wound his silver bugle. Then a faint cry came from the hissing water, and the drowning man waved an arm with the action of despair.

"He points to the Priory," said Paris; "now, what may that import?"

"By Saint Paul! he is in harness!" exclaimed the Earl; "and the weight of it is sinking him fast. Shall we stand here, like base runnions, and see him perish? Never!"

"Good, my lord--be wary!" urged Calder.

"Sweet, my noble master--have a care!" said Paris; "he may only be some drunken trooper of Lauchope or Clelland's, whom his comrades have lost when fording the river!"

"But to die, and unaided, under my hall windows! No! no! that would be a blight upon my name for ever," cried the Earl as he unbuckled his belt, and throwing down his mantle, bugle, and poniard, leaped without a moment's hesitation into the watery tumult, exclaiming as he did so, "Saint Bothan of Bothwell for me!"

He plunged in a few yards above where the man was struggling with the current, that was foaming past him with the speed of a swollen mill-race.

Exhausted with his efforts, the unfortunate swimmer clung to an ash-tree that had sunk into the stream by having the soil partly washed away from its root, and the foam-bells were dancing white and frothy around it. The current bore the Earl close to him; he grasped him by the scarf, and then, both yielding a little to the impetuous current, swam together to a point of rock close by, where the Earl, strong, active, and fresh, dragged the rescued man ashore, and he was immediately supported by the pages, who were very vociferous in praise of their lord's courage and address.

"Praise God, and not me!" he replied; "for a moment more had seen the poor man perish. Behold the tree to which he clung!"

At the moment he spoke, the tough ash was rent from its tenacious rooting, and swept by the swollen stream like a withered reed round the wooded promontory, which is crowned by the castle of Bothwell.

"'Twas a brave feat and a perilous!" said Paris.

"A gallant deed and a godly!" chorused young Calder, though both were laughing in secret to see their lord shaking himself like a water-spaniel.

"Enough," said he, "from both, and thou in especial, Master Calder, for thou hast the very snuffle of a preacher in thy nostrils. Remove this man's steel bonnet--faith! he seems quite speechless; but lead him by the postern to the hall, while I don me another doublet and shirt, for I am wet as a water-dog."

A few minutes sufficed to change the Earl's attire, and to find him lounging on the crimson settle in that luxurious chamber, toying with the countess's raven ringlets, and listening to her praises of his strength and courage, and her regrets and agonies, &c., for the danger on which her taunts had hurried him.

Her dark eyes were again sparkling with light and love; but the tenderness and engaging fondness of her manner failed as before to enliven or win the attention of her husband.

In his mind there was, he knew not why, a sad presentiment of impending evil; his heart was oppressed by that kind of dead calm that in some men precedes a tempest of passion. The childlike fondling of the beautiful countess was now lavished in vain. Ceasing to address him, she sighed and drooped her head; while her fairy fingers patted and played with the strong hand and arm, that more from habit than from love had almost unconsciously encircled her.

French Paris, the Earl's favourite and most trusted page, now raised the arras and presented his saucy and ruddy face.

"Well," asked the Earl, "how fares it with the person whom I fished out of the river?"

"He will be well, and with you anon, my Lord."

"What manner of man is he?"

"French, my lord, I think; but he has not yet spoken."

"Good! by his sleeves of fluted plate I deemed him a gentleman. He will be one of d'Elboeuff's retinue."

"Monsieur le Marquess has been hunting with the Hamiltons in the wood of Orbiestoun, so 'tis very likely."

"Well, bring the stranger hither with all speed."

"We have hung him heels uppermost to run the water out of him; and when we have reversed him, and replaced the said water by a bicker of wine, we will present him to your lordship."

"A forward March chick!" said the Earl, as the page disappeared. "By the mass! when I carried the helmet of old John of Albany, I dared not have spoken so flippantly even to a simple squire or archer as this saucy imp doth to me, who am a belted Earl."

"'Tis the influence of Calvinism," said the Countess; "but Heaven be praised that thou, my dear lord, and my gallant brother, with Arran, Errol, and Herries, shall again raise up those blessed altars which the frenzy and fanaticism of an hour hath destroyed!"

"That is just as may suit my ambition," thought the Earl; "but hush, my ladybird," he added aloud; "talk not thus in the hearing of our people, for knowest thou----How now!" he exclaimed, as the arras was shaken and raised; "Paris, is it thee?"

"Yes, my lord. The stranger is a gentleman of Norway, and he earnestly craves a brief audience."

The Earl started and arose; he grew pale, and his eyes sparkled with anger and confusion; but he had still sufficient tact to avert his face, that the countess might not perceive his emotion.

"Saidst thou a gentleman of Norway?" he stammered; "now, what in the fiend's name brought him to swim in the Clyde at midnight?"

"I know not, my lord."

"The fool--in armour, too!"

"That was the only wise part of his proceedings; for no man ventures abroad in these days without his iron case."

"Silence, sirrah! Norway," muttered Bothwell, in great confusion; "ass and jolt-head that I have been! Had I known he was of Norway, he had been tossing over the steepest falls of Clyde by this time for aught that I had cared. 'Tis some demon from the north I suppose--some devil of the wood, or the rocks, or the ice--some kinsman of Anna--(Nippen himself, perhaps,)--ha! ha! come to beard Bothwell in his own hall. God's blood!" he muttered, setting his teeth on edge, while his eyes glared with a fury suitable to his terrible oath; "he must be a stout fellow, and a rare one, who, knowing me, will bruit abroad my dangerous _secret_."

He trod hastily to and fro, while, alarmed and filled with curiosity, the countess approached, and, taking his hands in hers, said---

"My sweet lord--my dear lord--now prithee tell me what is all this about?"

"What thou hadst better not hear, my bonnibel," replied the Earl, turning abruptly from her; but on seeing that her dark eyes filled with tears, he added gently--"'Tis the stranger, Jane--a man-at-arms--one of Hob Ormiston's vassals, who would speak with me on matters unbefitting a lady's ear; so, I pray thee to retire!"

"Hast thou any secrets from me--from me, who loves thee so well--whose life is thy love?"

"I keep nothing secret that thou shouldst hear; but this"----

"Concerneth a woman, doth it not?" said the Countess, growing pale, while her dark eyes filled with a strange and dusky fire.

"A woman, sayest thou?" stammered the Earl, grasping her arm; "who can have told thee that?"

"Thine own lips did so! Did I not hear thee speak of one called _Anna_?"

"Confusion! no!--go! go! thou art mistaken; I swear to thee, thou art; and anon I will explain how. Retire, lady, for this man would speak with me alone, on matters which concern the state. Paris! raise the arras, and lead him in; but, on peril of thy neck, see that thou keepest beyond earshot!"

The Countess retired, with an expression of face in which surprise and chagrin were blended with the hauteur that seemed to dilate her little figure, as she swept out of the apartment, and the heavy tapestry fell behind her.

"Jealous, by St. Paul!" said the Earl; "but how can she have divined my secret, or learned the name of Anna? Poor Anna! I dream much of her! Now, Heaven forefend I should mutter of her in my sleep, and thus reveal my heart's most deadly secret! But there was jealousy in the eye of Jane, or I am immensely mistaken. There can be none without love, say the casuists. Well! but this maudlin love of hers becomes at times excessively tiresome; and yet I cannot help liking the little dame. Her eyes, St. Mary! how they shone! Ho, there, Calder! lead in this merman--this water-kelpie--and let us know what he would have of James Hepburn!"

*CHAPTER XIX.*

*THE REJECTED AND THE RIVAL.*

When fix'd to one, Love safe at anchor rides, And dares the fury of the winds and tides; But losing once that hold, to the wide ocean borne, It drives at will, to every wave a scorn. _Dryden._

Though the Earl spoke aloud with an air of careless bravado, he was not without sincere apprehension for the issue of this visit; and when contemplating what might ensue, if his rash and foolish espousal of the Norwegian lady became known to Lord Huntly, various dark ideas of threats, of dule-tree and dungeon, were suggested as the surest means of procuring silence. The malice and gibing of his highborn enemies at court--the queen's indignation--the countess' grief and anger--Huntly's pride and scorn!

"Devil!" muttered Bothwell, playing with his Parmese dagger; "it may be old Rosenkrantz himself! Would that Black Ormiston were here to advise me!"

His heart beat like lightning as footsteps crossed the antechamber; they came nearer; a hand grasped the arras, and the stranger (whom the pages had attired in one of Bothwell's own suits, but who still had his sword, dagger, and corselet) stooped as he entered, and stood erect before him, with head drawn back, his breast heaving, his eyes kindling, and his cheek flushing.

Save a fierce glance, no other greeting was exchanged between them.

"I see that the gay Lord of Bothwell has not forgotten me," said Konrad in French.

"The lover of Anna Rosenkrantz--Konrad of Saltzberg--here, within the walls of Bothwell!"

"Ay, proud noble, here!--beard to beard with thee; yet, believe me, had I known that the fortress, whose round towers rose so grimly above the river, were those of my greatest foe, I had rather have perished among its foaming waters than, given one cry for succour, save to God!"

"I disclaim all enmity, Sir Konrad--but, if this be thy spirit, why seek my presence? My gates are open, and thy course is free."

"I come but to thank thee for having saved a life which, though worthless now to me, I have for a time dedicated to the service of another."

"Thou didst save mine from the waves of the Skager Rack," said the Earl.

"Would to Heaven I had left thee to perish!" muttered Konrad, in a burst of anguish.

"Thou didst then establish a claim to my eternal gratitude, and I thank God that he hath this night enabled me to repay my debt. We are now equal."

"'Tis well! I would not be _thy_ debtor for all the silver in the mines of Bergen; thou art alike faithless and base--yea, Lord of Bothwell, I tell thee in thine own hall, that thou art a dishonoured villain."

The Earl started as if a serpent had stung him, and made a movement as if to sound his bugle.

"I am here beneath thy roof," continued Konrad; "within thy lofty towers and gates of strength, and I fearlessly repeat, that thou art the villain this sword shall one day proclaim thee, in the midst of assembled thousands."

"Thou art stark mad, young fellow!" said the Earl, making an effort to restrain his passion, from a sense of the injury he had done the speaker, and the deceit practised towards Anna, of whose escape and immediate vicinity he had not the most remote idea. "Konrad, I am aware that I have wronged thee deeply, for I have acted most unwittingly to thee, the part another acted once to me; for in my hot and ardent youth, I loved one who neglected me with a coquetry and a cruelty that, to this hour, have cast a shadow over my fortune and my days, I have loved many since then; but, as God knoweth, none with the ardour and passion that welled up in my boyish bosom for that young girl, my first and earliest love. Since then, a morbid and mischievous spirit has led me--in vengeance, as it were--to make women my playthings and my toys, each after each to be won, thrown aside, and forgotten, when I tired of them--yea, thrown aside like flowers whose perfume is gone."

Touched by the Earl's gentleness, the eyes of Konrad filled with tears; and, clasping his hands, he said with great bitterness--

"Oh! Lord of Bothwell, in pursuit of this ideal vengeance thou hast destroyed me."

"Forgive me," said the Earl, laying a hand kindly upon his shoulder; "forgive one who has endured all that you now feel; but, mark me, a time will come when thou wilt despise the woman who could so coldly desert thee for another."

"Oh, never!" said the young man earnestly--"never!"

"Remember the old saw that sayeth, 'There are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.' Thou art still young, Konrad; thy years"----

"Have scarcely numbered two-and-twenty, and already I am tired of life."

"Thou art mistaken; the old man may weary of existence, but the young man never. The ardour of thy love will die"----

"Never, my lord--I tell thee, never!"

"Ha! ha!--how, dost thou love her still?"

"God alone knows how deeply and how dearly."

"Jesu! after she hath so misused thee? This is indeed the love of romance," said the Earl, who thought he now saw some hope of ridding himself of Anna, and so doing both himself and her lover a service. "Well, Konrad, if thy passion is the same, and if Anna might be restored to thee"----

"What! now--when in heart and soul she is the wife of another? Never! Much as I love her still, though on her bended knees she implored that love, I swear to thee, Sir Earl, by God and St. Mary, I would withhold it! I love her, 'tis true--but oh! not with the same passion as of old. Thou hast rifled my flower of its perfume, and broken the chain that love and innocence cast around it. Though Anna still, she is no longer the Anna who was the idol of my first day-dreams. No, my lord, to me her love would now be but a mockery and an insult."

"By the mass! but I love thy spirit, and if I could be thy friend"----

"Friend!" reiterated Konrad with a bitter smile; "no, my lord--that thou never canst be!"

"Then what devilish errand brings thee now to Scotland?"

Konrad hesitated in replying, for he was so much in the Earl's power that some subterfuge was necessary.

"Is it to seek vengeance on me, or to compel me to do some manner of justice to thy false lemane?" asked Bothwell, haughtily.

"Justice? hast thou not wedded another after thy deliberate espousal of her?"

"Dost thou deem the mock blessing of yon mad hermit a spousal rite?" exclaimed the Earl, laughing; "what passed well enow for a marriage on the half-barbarian shores of thy native fiord, will scarcely be deemed one in this reformed land of stern superintendents, ruling elders, and wrathful ministers--ha! ha!"

Konrad repressed his rising passion, and his hand involuntarily sought the pommel of his dagger; but the recollection of Anna, lying helpless and faint among the ruins of the desolate Priory, made him adopt the less hostile course.

"I go to push my fortune under the banner of some of your border chiefs and turbulent nobles, for thou hast made me loathe the land of my birth, though there I have garnered up my heart; and sadly the memory of its dark blue hills and waving woods cometh ever to my mind; and if, Lord of Bothwell, in the strife that all men say will soon convulse this land, thou meetest Konrad of Saltzberg in his helmet--look well to thyself; for by the bones of Olaus! in that hour thou mayest need the best of thy mail and thy manhood to boot."

"Be it so!" replied the Earl with bold frankness. "If that time ever comes, Sir Konrad, the memory that I have wronged thee deeply will alone make me blench. But go thy way, and God be with thee! for Bothwell hall hath scarcely space enow to contain two such spirits as thou and I, even for one night. Ho, there!--French Paris, lead this gentleman to the gates. He is the first who hath rejected with scorn the proffered friendship of the house of Hepburn, and bent a dark brow on a lord of Bothwell under his own rooftree!"

*CHAPTER XX.*

*KONRAD AND THE COUNTESS.*

Oh, Bothwell bank! that blooms so bright Beneath the sun of May; The heaviest cloud that ever blew, Is bound for you this day. _Aytoune's Lays._

Konrad was now doubly anxious to return to Anna, on learning the dangerous nature of the predicament in which she was placed, and the sad truth that, beyond a doubt, the faithless Earl had really cast her off for ever, by his marriage with the Lady Jane Gordon. Under these circumstances, the young man knew how much there was to dread should she rashly seek the presence of the Earl, who might be compelled to adopt some dark and desperate course to silence her for ever, in dread of her accusations and clamour, which might so seriously injure his public character and domestic peace.

While the interview recorded in the last chapter was taking place, the Countess of Bothwell was sitting in her bower, with her dark eyes full of tears; for the manner of the stranger, and certain expressions uttered by the Earl, had roused her jealousy, and wounded her self-esteem. Old stories of Bothwell's innumerable intrigues and gallantries floated dimly and painfully through her mind, and her vivid imagination filled up a dark tableau of--she knew not what--but which her wilful and impetuous nature prompted her, at all risks, to fathom.

"Come hither, French Paris," she said to the youngest page, a pretty lad, who had been presented to the Earl by the young Queen Mary; "come hither," she continued, with one of her most engaging smiles. "Lead that strange man to my presence on the first opportunity; for I must see him before he leaves the castle!"

"Lady--the stranger?" stammered the lad.

"I said the stranger, sirrah! Didst thou not hear me?" she replied, pettishly.

"I dare not, lady; for it seemeth to my poor comprehension that there lurketh some mystery"----

"For that very reason, thou prevaricating little varlet, I wish to converse with him."

"I dare not, madam; for well thou knowest that our lord, the Earl, is not to be trifled with."

"'Tis mighty well, this, Master Paris! can I neither tempt nor oblige thee to obey me, and keep my secret?"

"Thou canst well do both, sweet madam," replied the gallant page, with a coy glance.