Part 7

"What wouldst thou have? a blessing implored upon thy vessel, that neither the mermaids of the moskenstrom nor the water-spirit may bewitch it; nor that Nippen may come in the night and turn thy compass round from north to south, and so lead thee within the folds of the mighty Jormagundr, that great ocean snake which lieth coiled up under the frozen regions of the pole, and one dash of whose tail makes the great whirlpool to boil for a century? Hah!"

"Nay, good father," said Ormiston; "for none of these things have I sought thee, but to crave a blessing and the bands of wedlock for a knight and lady, who choose rather to receive their nuptial benediction from thee, who art a remnant of our ancient faith, (Heaven forgive me this vile blasphemy!) than from one of these newfangled parsons whom King Frederick hath planted in Norway."

"Good," replied the hermit, as a smile spread over his ghastly visage; "and what return will be made me if I concede to your request?"

"Return!" stammered Ormiston, taking a silver chain from his neck, but immediately replacing it, for he saw that he had not to deal with an ordinary man. "Holy father! though the lady is noble, and the knight is both noble and wealthy, they can make no other return than a promise to hold thy name in kind remembrance, and pray for thee daily, in memory of the blessing thou wilt bestow."

"Good again--thou pleasest me; let these strangers approach."

"By what name art thou known, father?"

"The fishermen call me the Hermit of the Rock. When I lived in the world I had another name. I was Saint Olaf of Norway."

"Now, God keep the poor hermit!" said Ormiston; "five hundred years have come and gone since that blessed preacher and converter of these wild lands from paganrie to the true faith, rested from his holy labours."

"Five hundred years!--thou sayest right well. All that time have I dwelt in this cavern, where I shall perhaps dwell five hundred more; but lead forward thy friends."

"Blessed Jupiter!" muttered Ormiston, as he hurried away, "methought the tying of this pretended nuptial knot was likely to cost more trouble than the untying of those on the enchanted cord. What, ho! my Lord of Bothwell."

"Odsbody!" exclaimed the Earl, "thou hast tarried long enough in all conscience. Is the occupant of this place man or woman?"

"Neither, by Jove! I think him half saint, half Satan, and wholly intolerable."

Anna trembled, and her attendant shrieked with terror, when they were lifted on the ledge of the rock that led to this uncouth dwelling. The seamen, whom the Earl had no wish should witness a ceremony which he might one day prefer to have forgotten, he desired imperatively to remain by their oars, and, as they were all his own vassals, they dared not to disobey.

"You will not follow me unless you hear my bugle blown, in sign that we are in some peril; and, by St. Andrew, the place looks perilous enough! But take courage, dearest Anna!" he whispered, "for I am with thee!"

Anna answered only by tears, and kept her face hidden within her hood. Her fears, and those of Christina Slingbunder, were no way allayed by the appalling aspect of Saint Olaf--the hermit of whom they had heard so many tremendous tales; and even Bothwell, as thorough a daredevil as ever drew sword, was startled for a moment; but, pressing Anna closer to him, he advanced at once to the hermit--and, in virtue of the vows he had once pronounced, requested him to unite them in marriage, and bestow his benediction upon them.

Tall Ormiston held his bonnet before his mouth; for a broad laugh spread over his dark and burly visage when he saw the Earl kneeling before this uncouth priest, whose insanity was so evident that even he, a border baron, felt some shame and reluctance at the profanity and folly of the adventure. When viewed by the light of the pine fire, that at times died away and anon shot up redly and fitfully, the aspect of this wild man of the rock, with his attenuated legs and arms clad in a gaberdine of seal-skin, his long and bushy beard glistening tremulously in the flame like streaming silver, his deeply sunk yet sparkling eyes of most unearthly blue--gave him all the appearance of a half crazed scald or saga from the frozen caves of Iceland--he seemed so spectral, so shadowy, and so like the wavering vision of a dreamer.

Sinking with terror and confusion, Anna had but a faint idea of all that passed around her, until she found herself once more in the bright moonlight with another ring on her finger, Bothwell's arm around her, and her burning cheek resting against his; while the diamond-like water flashed around them as it fell from the broad-bladed oars, and the seamen pulled hard and silently away from the cavern. The appearance of the hermit, who stood on a pinnacle of rock holding aloft a blazing pine branch with one hand, while he bestowed benedictions with the other, adding not a little to the energy with which they increased the distance between them and the shore. The Earl saw that the poor recluse was perfectly insane, yet there was something singularly wild and sublime in his aspect; he seemed so like an inspired prophet, or seer, or one of those strange demons with whom Norse superstition peoples every element, every wood, and rock, and hill.

Cheerfully pulled the stout rowers, and again the towers of Bergen rose above them, shining snow-white in the light of the autumnal moon. As they neared the ship, the startled Ormiston mattered a curse and a _Hail Mary!_ in the same breath, when a long line of fire suddenly gleamed across the bosom of the water, and there shot past their bows a swift boat, in which stood a tall figure brandishing a spear; his whole outline was dark and opaque, while a blaze of light shone behind him.

"'Tis only a night-fisher!" said Anna, with a smile; and now one more stroke of the oars brought them alongside of the Earl's ship, from the mizen-peak of which his own banner, bearing the chevronels of Hepburn and the azure bend of Dirleton, waved heavily in the night wind.

The _Fleur-de-lys_ was gaudily painted and gilded, low in the waist, but high in the bows and poop, where two great wooden castles, bristling with falcons and arquebuses, towered above the water. Each mast was composed of two taper spars, fidded at the topcastles. The Earl's crest--a white horse's head--reared up at the prow, balanced by a mighty lantern at the stern. Her sails were loose, and glimmered in the moonlight as they flapped heavily against the yellow masts and spars.

The Earl was welcomed by a shout from the sailors, who, with the master and his mates, crowded, bonnet in hand, around him.

Giving orders to sail immediately for the Isles of Orkney, he bore Anna to the little cabin, that, during his wanderings by the Adriatic and Italian shores, had received many a similar tenant. Like a boudoir, it was hung with the richest arras, lighted by silver lamps that were redolent with perfume, as they swung from the deck above, and from globes of rose-coloured glass shed a warm and voluptuous glow around the lovers.

*CHAPTER XI.*

*THE FLEUR-DE-LYS.*

I'll lo'e thee, Annie, while the dew In siller bells hangs on the tree; Or while the burnie's waves o' blue, Run wimplin to the rowin' sea. _Scott Song._

It is difficult, says the Magister Absalom, to analyse the nature of the Earl's love for this fair but fickle Norwegian.

His conscience and his interest led him to remember, that adherence to those vows so solemnly exchanged with Lady Jane Gordon, was the most honourable and prudent course; but this sudden passion, conceived by him for Anna Rosenkrantz at the Court of Copenhagen, and pursued in that rash and obstinate spirit with which he plunged into every new amour and vagary, soon made him commit to oblivion those vows which one yet fondly and sadly brooded over. A temporary separation, an unexpected meeting, as shown in the beginning of our story, had fully developed his sentiments for Anna, and in this mock marriage brought them to a crisis.

Having been frequently abroad, under every variety of fortune--at one time commanding a French army during a desperate civil war; at another, charged with an important embassy; and often an exile desperate in circumstances--in the wandering life he had led for many a year, his career had been one of such wild adventure and danger, that his code of morality fitted him loosely as his gauntlet; thus, with all the love he bore Anna, though as yet he shrank from wedding her before the altar of that church where he had knelt in childhood, this espousal of her, before a half-witted Norwegian hermit, exactly suited the wildness of his fancy and the romance of his temperament.

His trusty friend and libertine follower, Hob of Ormiston, whose fate and fortune were so completely identified with his own, knew, from old experience, that the flame of his lord had expanded too suddenly to burn long; and as the love fit and the voyage would in all probability end together, he would not have objected to wedding Christina Slingbunder in the same easy and fantastic fashion, although he was already handfasted, as the phrase was, to a lady of gentle blood at home.

Though she saw not the clouds that overhung her future career, Anna was very much dejected, when next morning she lay with her head reclining on the shoulder of that lover to whom she had sacrificed herself, and the love of Konrad; and into whose hands she had committed the honour of her family and her future fate.

Bright rose the sun from the waters of the Skager Rack; the hills of Denmark were on their lee, and those of Norway, with all their pouring waterfalls and echoing woods, were lessening far astern. A gentle breeze was blowing from the westward; and as the heavily-pooped ship careened over, her great white lateen sails bellied before it, and the bright green water flashed from her sharp prows to bubble in snowy showers under the head of the white steed that, with blood-red nostrils and arching neck, reared beneath the gallant bowsprit.

The sailors, with Nicholas Hubert and the Earl's other pages and servants, were grouped in the forecastle and in the deep waist, over which peered the brass arquebuses of the poop. The skipper, Master David Wood of Bonyngtoun, in Angus, with a great gaudy chart (such as was then prepared in the Hanseatic towns for the use of mariners) spread on the capstan, was intently measuring the distance from the Naze of Norway to the Oysterhead of Denmark; from thence to Thorsmynde, and so on.

He was a short, squat man, with a thick scrubby beard and heavy eyebrows; he wore his blue bonnet drawn well over his forehead, to keep the sun from his eyes, and had a gaberdine of blue broadcloth, with immense pockets at the sides, red trunk breeches, which met a pair of black funnel boots about three inches below the knee. He carried a pocket-dial and a long dagger at his girdle.

Hob of Ormiston, minus weapons and armour, without which he was never seen on shore, was yawning with ennui, wishing, as he often said, "sea-voyaging at the devil," and (in absence of Christina, who was very sick a-bed) endeavouring to wile away the time by watching for an occasional shot at the passing birds with his wheel-lock caliver, and whistling the old air then so much in vogue--

"The Frog cam to the Myll doore."

Anna and the Earl were seated under a small tapestry awning, which screened them from the view of the groups in the waist on one hand, and from the watch and timoneer on the other. Her eyes were full of tears.

"Anna, dearest, why so sad?" said the Earl, pressing his dark mustaches against her white forehead. "Do you regret the step you have taken for my sake?"

"Oh no!" she whispered in a soft low tone; "but I sorrow when I think of the knight Rosenkrantz, my poor old uncle, who since infancy has been so kind to me; my dear and only kinsman, when worn out by years and their infirmities, to be left alone by me in his old age--by me whom he loves so well! Who now will soothe him in sickness as I have done, and cheer him in the long nights of winter when I am far away? My place will be vacant at the board to-day, my chair by the fire to-night. My harp stands there beside it, but he will hear my voice no more. Oh! he will be very lonely--desolate!" Her tears fell fast and bitterly.

"Speak not thus, dear Anna!" said the Earl, kissing her again; and, glad to say any thing that might soothe her, he added, "We will return to him again, and together will we cheer his declining years."

"But he never will forgive me, nor love me as of old."

"He will! We shall kneel at his feet and implore his forgiveness, (Ormiston whistled very loud); and, if he loves you so well, he could never resist your supplications."

He kissed her with ardour, and the girl was soothed.

Fondly and trustfully she looked in his face. There was a light in her clear eyes, a flush on her soft cheek, and an infantile smile on her cherry lips, that made her quite bewitching, as she lay half fainting on Bothwell's breast and half embraced by him, listening to his oft-repeated, and perhaps too voluble, vows of constancy and love.

"Farewell, dear Norway--a long farewell!" she exclaimed, kissing her hand with playful sadness to the distant stripe of blue that shewed where her native hills were fading far astern. "I may no more hear the rush of thy waterfalls, or see thy pine-clad hills, and deep salt fiords, overhung by the sweetbrier and purple lilac that scent their waters in summer, or the silver birch and dark-green pine that shadow them in autumn and in whiter; but oh! _Gammle Norge_, I never will forget thee!"

"Anna," said the Earl, "from the ramparts of my castle of Bothwell, I will shew thee a valley of the Clyde, and such a territory as no lord in all Scandinavia could shew his bride; and bethink thee, that hold of Bothwell is thrice more magnificent than Frederick's castle of Elsineur. I have eight stately fortresses, the least of which would make four of yonder castle of Bergen; I have four lordships, each of which is richer than your native province of Aggerhuis; and I have four sheriffdoms, each of which is worth three of it--and thou shalt be lady of them all! When I wind this horn from Bothwell castle gate, it finds so ready an echo at the tower of Lawhope, the house of Clelland, the keep of Orbiestoun, and the place of Calder, that five thousand men, all dight for battle, are in their stirrups, and a hundred knights, the best in Scotland, are proud to unfurl their pennons beneath the banner of James Hepburn of Hailes!"

The Earl's eyes sparkled with enthusiasm, and those of Anna lit up with delight and pride; while Ormiston, who considered himself the representative of these hundred good palladia, adjusted his ruff complacently, and drew himself to the full extent of his six feet odd inches.

"And," whispered Anna, "and will you always love me as you do now?"

"O yes--ever and always!" replied the impassioned lover.

Ormiston whistled dubiously, and then continued his ditty--

"The Frog cam to the Myll doore, And a low bow made he, O! Saying, 'Gie, Sir Miller, a scrap o' thy store To a Frog of gentle degree, O!'"

*CHAPTER XII.*

*THE ISLE OF WESTERAY.*

'Tis evening quick;----'tis night:----the rain Is towing wide the fruitless main; Thick, thick;--no sight remains the while From the farthest Orkeny Isle, No sight to seahorse or to seer, But of a little pallid sail That seems as if 'twould straggle near. _Leigh Hunt._

The course of the Earl's ship lay westward; but heavy gales blew her far to the north, and for many days she beat about in that tempestuous ocean which roars around the hundred Isles of Shetland, pouring its foam upon their bluff precipices and into the vast and resounding caverns that perforate their stern shores, many of which have never seen other inhabitants than the gigantic erne that built its nest in the cliffs, the wild horse that browsed on the moor, and the whiskered walrus that basked on the beach below.

On others lie the rude towers and dwellings of the hardy Udallers, the ruined forts and runic tombs of those old ocean kings, who were so long the terror of Britain, of Belgium, and of Gaul--the temples of the Druids, the uncouth crosses and gothic chapels of that later creed which Columba preached, and for which Saint Erick died--and the obelisks that mark the lonely graves of the old Kuldei overlook the reedy moors, the foaming maelstroms, and the rushing surges of the Ultima Thule.

For fourteen days dark grey clouds had overhung that struggling ship. The sullenness of the sailors at the continuance of an adverse wind was communicated to the Earl, who became petulant; for Anna and her attendant were very unwell, and nothing cures love so much as a dose of sea-sickness. On the fifteenth day the sun rose brightly from the ocean, and tipped with light the dreary hills of Unst; the clouds dispersed, a fair wind swept over the water, and the _Fleur-de-lys_ bore away merrily for Westeray, an isle of Innistore, where stood the stronghold of Noltland, possessed by one of Bothwell's chief friends and adherents, Sir Gilbert Balfour, a powerful baron, and cadet of the house of Monkquhanny, in Fifeshire.

Anna, we have said, was very sick and sorrowful. The Earl scarcely left the side of her couch in the little tapestried cabin; and though in her pallor and helplessness she was as beautiful as ever, the Magister Absalom records, in his stiff, dry way, that Bothwell could not resist the bitter and obtruding reflection, that it might have been better (considering the turn of fortune in his favour at home) if his vessel had not been driven into the harbour of Bergen, on the night in which this history opened.

In their bud he endeavoured to crush these ungenerous and ungrateful thoughts; but they recurred to him again and again, till one glance of Anna's pleading eyes, one smile of her pretty mouth, would put them all to flight, and he felt that he could brave both Huntly and the queen for her sake. Yet whenever he was alone, or beyond the immediate influence of her charms, ambition, as of old, began to whisper in his ear and to gnaw at his heart; pride and self-interest were on one hand--love and generosity on the other.

The first flush of love was over.

Though he did not as yet entirely repent his strange espousal of this fair northern girl, he foresaw that it would prove a formidable barrier to his gaining any permanent ascendency over the faction of Moray and Morton, as the principal strength of the Catholic lords consisted in their unanimity, which was certain of being at an end, whenever Huntly learned how Bothwell had broken his promise to his sister, Lady Jane Gordon.

Ormiston had mentally been making similar reflections; and when a dark cloud gathered on the broad and noble brow of Bothwell, or an expression of deep meditation veiled the brightness of his fine dark eyes, he knew well what visions were struggling for mastery in his bold and ambitious heart. But the knight never intruded a remark of his own; and remembering how often, when in the full glow of his new amour, the Earl had so scornfully rejected his more sage advice, he resolved quietly to let fate have its own way.

At the close of a stormy day, the isle of Westeray, like a dark blue cloud, arose from ocean on their lee. Dark and louring, the sky communicated its inky hue to the sea, which was flecked by spots of white, that marked the crests of the waves. Like snow, their surf was poured upon the jutting rocks and hidden reefs that fringe the island; and thus, when night closed in, a white line of breakers alone indicated where it lay.

As the sun set, his sickly rays poured a yellow light along the waste of waters, and lit up with a parting gleam the gigantic facade of the castle of Noltland, which towered above the rocks of Westeray, with its heavy battlements and tourelles at the angles, its broad chimneys and stone-flagged tophouses gleaming redly and duskily against the murky sky beyond. The light faded away from its casements, one by one they grew dark, and an hour after the sun had set, the _Fleur-de-lys_ anchored on that side of the isle which is sheltered from the waves of the Atlantic.

Joyously the Earl and his companions sprang upon the rude pier, alongside of which their vessel was hauled after great labour, and much swearing and vociferation by the seamen. The night was now intensely black, but the darkness of the beach was partially dispelled by the blaze of ten or twelve torches, which were upheld by the retainers of the Baron of Noltland, who hastened to the pier to receive the Earl.

Sir Gilbert Balfour of Westeray, who, to the office of master of the household to Queen Mary, united the captaincy of the royal castle of Kirkwall, was a man above the middle height, strongly made, powerfully limbed, and well browned by constant exposure to the weather. His hair and beard, which were trimmed very short, were of the deepest black. He was richly attired in a doublet of yellow satin, embroidered with Venetian gold; a scarlet mantle lined with white silk hung from his left shoulder, and a small ruff fringed the top of a bright steel gorget that encircled his neck. His bonnet and trunk-hose were of black velvet. He carried a walking-cane, but was without other arms than one of those long daggers such as were then made at the Bowhead of Edinburgh. The magnificence of his attire, which glittered in the torchlight, contrasted forcibly with that of his islesmen who crowded about him.

Four or five, who seemed to act as a bodyguard, wore iron helmets adorned with eagles' feathers, coats-of-mail composed of minute rings of steel linked together, and reaching nearly to their ankles. They carried battle-axes and short but powerful handbows slung on their backs, and crossed saltirewise by sheafs of barbed arrows. Others were clad in sealskin doublets, with plaids of purple and blue check, and kilts of dark-brown stuff; but all were barefooted, barelegged, and barearmed--strong, muscular, red-haired, and savage-looking men--whose hazel eyes glistened through their matted locks in the light of the streaming torches.

"Noble Bothwell--welcome to Westeray!" exclaimed Sir Gilbert, vailing his bonnet. "I knew thy banner at a mile distant, when it glittered in that brief blink of sunshine. Ha! stout Ormiston, I have not seen thee since the day we fought side by side at the battle of Corrichie! Welcome home!"

"Balfour, I thank thee!" said Ormiston; "but dost thou call this home? By Jove! I deem that we have many a long Scottish mile to travel yet, ere we find ourselves under our own rafters."

"And if the same mischances attend me," said Bothwell, "I may cruise about in these northern seas like another Ulysses, but without acquiring his wisdom. However, I have brought my Calypso with me. Ha! ha! now I warrant, my trusty Gib Balfour, thou hast never read of this same Sir Ulysses!"

"Read! St. Mary forefend! though my brother, the Lord President, hath compiled a notable book of 'Practiques,' I never could read nor write either, praise God! and by his aid never shall. I can bite the pen and make my mark, in sign of the blessed cross, like my father, the stout knight of Monkquhanny, before me. Of what service are booklear or scholar-craft to a knight or gentleman of coat-armour? Nay, pshaw! I leave all such to monks and scribes--to knaves and notaries--and content me with the knowledge of arms, stable-craft, and falconrie, siclike as becometh me; but this Sir Ulysses--what manner of knight was he? came he from the Mearns or the west country?"

"A wise warrior he was, who fought valiantly at Troy, and he loved an enchantress such as I have with me now."

"Thou, my lord!"

"Ay, in yonder vessel."