Part 12

"Hah! this is not the bearing of a Scottish boatswain," said old Christian Alborg, stepping back a pace at the menacing aspect of his prisoner; "and now, I bethink me that such wear neither corselets of steel nor spurs of gold; so tell me who thou art, or, by the hand of the king, I will run thee up at the other arm of yonder yard. Thy name?"

"James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, and Duke of Orkney, Knight of the Thistle, and Governor of the Kingdom of Scotland!" replied the Earl, drawing himself up with an aspect of dignity and pride, that was not lost upon the portly Norseman and his helmeted officers.

"Unhappy lord!" replied Christian Alborg, making a profound reverence; "I have heard of thine evil fame, and envy thee not the grandeur of thy titles."

"Thou sayest truly," said Bothwell, in a tone of sadness, "I am not to be envied; but withhold thy pity, for I am not yet fallen so low as find commiseration acceptable from any man."

"But if thou art governor of the kingdom of Scotland, what brought thee into these seas?"

"Foul wind, or fatality--which you will."

"And wherefore hast thou sacked the villages, stormed the castles, plundered the ships of thine own countrymen, who have done thee no wrong, and also committed innumerable piracies on the subjects of his Danish majesty, with whom thy people are at peace?"

"Because of my sore extremity!"

"That will form but a lame excuse to King Frederick, at whose palace of Kiobenhafen the tidings of thine outrages were sent from his castle of Bergenhuis, whither I have an order to convey thee, dead or alive. Though a bold man and a bad one, thou hast fought as became a Scottish noble, and I can respect valour wherever I find it. I had resolved to chain thee neck and heels, like a villanous pirate; but trusting to thine honour, that thou wilt not attempt to compromise me by escaping, I will permit thee to retain thy sword, to be at liberty, and to receive all due courtesy, till thou art committed to the custody of the king's garrison at Bergen."

The Earl was led to a cabin, and there left to his own melancholy reflections, which were rendered a hundred degrees worse by the reaction consequent to such a day of stirring activity and wild excitement.

He heard the ripple of the water as the waves that had swallowed up his companions flowed past; he heard the straining of the timbers, the creaking of the decks and cordage, as the wind bellied the full spread canvass of the _Biornen_, and urged her up the fiord of Bergen; but his thoughts were far away in the land he had left behind him, in the island tower of that lonely lake, overlooked by steep hills and girdled by the guarding water, where Mary of Scotland mourned in crownless captivity the shame, the contumely, and the hopeless fate _his_ wiles and ambition had brought upon her.

*CHAPTER XXI.*

*THE CASTELLANA.*

No waking dream shall tinge my thought With dyes so bright and vain; No silken net so slightly wrought, Shall tangle me again. No more I'll pay so dear for wit, I'll live upon mine own; Nor shall wild passion trouble it, I'll rather dwell alone. _Scott._

Next day the _Biornen_ cast anchor in the Jelta fiord, and, under a strong guard of crossbowmen, Christian Alborg carried Konrad and his prisoners ashore in a great red pinnace which bore the yellow lion of Norway floating at its stern.

They landed about half a mile from the citadel, to which he was conveying the captives, and Konrad accompanied them, for he knew not where else to bestow himself; but every step of the well-known way was full of bitter memories, and fraught with the idea of Anna.

And where was she?

Of Christian Alborg, who had conveyed her from Scotland, he never made an enquiry; for though he knew perfectly well that it was he who had received her from the Scottish council, he had no opportunity of an interview; and, on the other hand, Alborg knew not how deep was the young man's interest still in the fate of Anna, though he knew his story well; and thus no communication on the subject passed between them.

In all their old familiar features, his native hills were towering around that ancient fortress, which tradition averred to have been the work of the Sitonian giants; while, amid the deep recesses of their woods, the distant cry of the wolf was ringing as of old, and the wiry foliage of the Scandinavian pines, when they vibrated in the summer wind, as the Norse say, filled the air with the music of fairy harps, that mingled with the hum of the evening flies, and the rustle of the long reedy grass, as it waved in the rising wind like the surface of a rippled lake.

Every old familiar feature brought back its own sad train of memories. By the winding path they traversed, here and there lay an ancient runic monument, covered with uncouth characters, and those fantastic hieroglyphics with which the ancient Scandinavians handed down to posterity the history of their battles, and of the mighty men of the days of other years. There, too, was the ancient chapel of St. Olaus, still perched in a cleft of the mountains, with its bell swinging on the rocks that overhung it--rocks where the wild myrtle, the geranium, and the yellow pansy, all flourished together in one luxuriant blush of flowers.

As they ascended from the shore, the rocks became bolder and bolder, more sterile and abrupt; not a blade of grass waved on their basaltic faces, yet from their summits the tall and aged pines locked their branches together, and excluded the daylight from the deep chasm at the bottom of which the roadway wound.

Rents in the volcanic rock afforded at times, far down below, glimpses of the narrow fiord, a deep, blue inlet of the ocean, dotted with white sails, and overlooked by the strong, dark tower of Bergen, with its rude and clustering ramparts, little windows, and loopholes for arrows.

As they approached it, Konrad's sadness increased; for every stone in its walls seemed like the face of an old friend, and every feature of the scenery was associated with that first and early love which had become part of his very being.

With Bothwell it was quite otherwise.

He looked around him with the utmost nonchalance, and scarcely thought of Anna, though the scene was quite enough to bring her fully back to his mind; but his passion for Mary had completely absorbed or obliterated every other fancy, feeling, and sentiment.

A change had come over his features; his forehead was paler and more thoughtful, his eyes had lost much of their bold and reckless expression, and there was a decided melancholy in his fine face, which excited the interest of all who regarded him. He had become more taciturn; even Hob Ormiston had lost much of his loquacity, and now, depressed by the gloomy prospect of their fortunes, walked in silence by the side of the dejected and miserable Hepburn of Bolton.

"Captain Alborg," said Bothwell, "whither dost thou wend with us now?"

"To the royal castle of Bergen--to the hereditary governor of which I must deliver thee."

"Thank Heaven! 'tis not Erick Rosenkrantz who holds command there now, or I warrant me we would have had but a short shrift, and shorter mercy, for the trick I now remember me to have played him. I marvel much what manner of person this new castellan may be; for in sooth, much of our comfort, in this most dolorous case, depends thereon."

"Be under no apprehension, Lord Earl," replied Alborg; "you are the king's prisoners, and, though accused of invasion and piracy, no castellan in Denmark or Norway can hang or quarter you without the king's express orders."

"Hang!" grumbled Ormiston; "hang thee, thou old sea-horse! Dost forget thou speakest to James, Duke of Orkney, the mate of Mary of Scotland?"

The family of Rosenkrantz were hereditary governors of Bergen, and castellans of Bergenhuis, and, as Konrad's ancestors had always followed their banner in battle, he had ever considered the castle of Bergen his home; and, with all the feeling of a returned exile, he approached its massive portal, which was flanked by broad round towers, and overhung by a strong portcullis of jagged and rusted iron, where the crossbowmen of his own Danish band were still keeping guard in their scarlet gaberdines and steel caps.

At the gate they were received by Cornelius Van Dribbel, the great butler of Bergen, who, in his flutter and pomposity at the unusual arrival of such a goodly band of prisoners and visitors, never once recognised the careworn Konrad, who was too spirit-broken to address him, and, disguised by the altered fashion of his beard and garments, was borne with the throng towards the great hall, where the superior of the fortress was to receive them.

There was a flush on Bothwell's brow, a fire in his eye, a scorn on his lip, and a loftiness in his bearing, that increased as he approached the presence of this Norwegian dignitary; for, all unused to the humility of his position, he had resolved to requite pride with pride, scorn with scorn; and thus, modelling their looks by those of their leader, Hob Ormiston and Hay of Tallo assumed an air of sullen defiance; but the young knight of Bolton, who was utterly careless about his ultimate fate, wore a spirit-broken aspect, more nearly allied to that of Konrad.

"Cornelius Van Dribbel," said Christian Alborg, puffing and blowing, as he seated himself in a capacious chair on entering the hall, and wiped his great polished head with a handkerchief. "I thought thou saidst the castellan was here to receive the king's prisoners?"

"St. Olaus forefend!" replied Van Dribbel; "surely thou knowest that the knight Rosenkrantz hath lain in his last home at Fredericksborg these many months."

"Smite thee! yes," growled the seaman; "but I meant the new castellan."

"We have none but such as thou shalt see in time--Ha! lo you, now!" he added, as the arras concealing the archway, which, at the lower end of the hall, opened upon a carpeted dais, was withdrawn, and when again it fell, Anna Rosenkrantz, attended by Christina Slingebunder and another young maiden, stood before them.

Had a spectre appeared there, Bothwell and Konrad could not have appeared more disturbed, and Anna was equally so; but the Earl, now less animated by love, and, as a courtier, being habituated to keep his emotions under restraint, was the first to recover himself, and a smile of scornful surprise spread over his face, as he doffed his bonnet and bowed to the lady of the castle.

Poor Konrad grew pale as death; he became giddy and breathless; and shrank behind the shadow of a column against which he leaned, for the atmosphere seemed stifling.

Meanwhile Anna stood upon the dais, between two massive columns of gothic form, encrusted with old runic stones. She was looking pale, but beautiful as ever. Her tresses were gathered up in the simple fashion of the north, and, supported by a silver bodkin, formed a coronet of plaits, as they were wreathed round her head. Her dress of blue silk was massive with embroidery and silver fringe, and her stomacher was studded with jewels, as became the heiress of Welsoeoe and Bergenhuis.

The Earl's first reflection, was his being now a captive, and completely in the power of an enraged and slighted woman, whom in the zenith of his power he had treated with cruelty, contumely, and contempt. These thoughts brought with them no qualm, no pity. He felt only apprehension for what she might now in turn make him endure; for, when in Italy and France, he heard many a tale of "woman's vengeance," that now came back full and vividly on his memory.

"By St. Paul! we find kenned faces wherever we go;" said Ormiston to Bolton; "this old sea-dog hath brought us to the right haven. We will have free-house and free-hold here, I doubt not."

"Madam," said the stout captain of the _Biornen_, bowing as low as his great paunch and long basket-hilted espadone would permit him, "allow me to introduce to you the terrible pirate who, for the last month, has been the terror of our Fiords, and the scourge of the Sound, and whom we find to be no other than the great Earl of Bothwell, with whose astounding misdeeds all Europe has been ringing."

Anna scarcely heard a word of the captain's address. On first beholding the Earl, she had trembled violently, and then became pale as death. Her eyes filled with fire, and she regarded him with a long, fixed, and serpent-like gaze, that even he had some trouble in meeting.

"Well, madam," said he, with one of his graceful smiles, "when last we stood together in this hall, we foresaw not the day when we would greet each other thus."

"The meeting is as unexpected to me as our last may have been to _you_, my Lord Earl," replied Anna in French, but with admirable hauteur and firmness. "So, pirate and outlaw, as I now understand thee to be, thou hast lived to see all thy wild visions and schemes of ambition crumble and fade away, and now thou art a captive in the power of her thou didst so deeply wrong, and so cruelly insult."

"True, madam," replied Bothwell, curling his mustache, "and what then?"

"Dost thou not know that thy life and liberty are alike in my power?"

"I am glad of it, being assured that they could not be in safer keeping."

"Oh, man! cold and heartless as thou art," said Anna, who seemed now to have forgotten her own infatuated passion for the Earl, "I cannot but admire this stately calmness under a reverse of fortune so terrible. Were thy fate fully in mine own hands, I would return thee to the land from whence thou hast fled, leaving the flames of civil war to rage behind thee--to the arms of her thou didst love and win, so fatally for herself--or I would again commit thee to the wide ocean, to follow thy wayward fate on other shores; for now there can neither be love nor loyalty, nor falsehood nor truth, between us--but the will of the king sayeth nay!"

"And what sayeth the will of Frederick?" asked Bothwell, with proud surprise.

"That thou and thy followers must be separated."

"Hoh, is it so?"

"They, to be sent home to Scotland--thou, to his castle of Kiobenhafen, in fetters."

"Fetters!" cried the Earl, in a voice of thunder, while his eyes flashed fire and his hand grasped his sword. "This to Bothwell? Woman! what hast thou dared to say? Dost thou forget that I am a Scottish duke--the consort of a queen--the governor of a kingdom?"

"No!" replied Anna bitterly, while her eyes flashed with rage and jealousy, though every sentiment of love was long since dead; "and neither have I forgotten that thou art a regicide and a betrayer, who from this hour shall have meted out to him the stern measures he so ruthlessly dealt to others. Christian Alborg--this man is the king's prisoner, whom we have warrants from Peder Oxe, the marshal of Denmark, to detain. Away with him to the _Biornen_, and ere sunset be thou out of the Jelta fiord, and under sail for Kiobenhafen! Thou knowest Frederick, and that he brooks no delay."

And with a glance, where spite and jealousy were mingled with a sentiment of pity and admiration, Anna withdrew; and, as the arras fell behind her, a party of red-bearded Danish bowmen, who formed the garrison at Bergen, crowded round the Earl.

"Ha! ha!" he laughed bitterly through his clenched teeth; "there spoke thy woman's vengeance, Anna!"

"Lord Earl," said Ormiston gravely, "in the name of the master of mischief, what prompted thee to beard her thus? Foul fall thee! Why didst thou not flatter, and cajole, and feign thine old love? To fleech with the devil, when thou canst not fight him, is ever good policy. An old love is easily revived: she is only a woman, and would doubtless have believed thee, for thou hast a tongue that would wile the gleds out of the sky. Cock and pie! Bothwell, till something better came to hand, thou mightest have been castellan of Bergen, and I thy lieutenant. All our fortunes had been made even here, in this land of barkened bannocks and snowballs."

"To feign thus, would be to commit foul treason against her whom I will ever remember with loyalty and love, while Heaven, permits me to live. Here we part at last, stout Hob, perhaps to meet no more. If ever again thou treadest on Scottish ground, remember that in serving _her_ thou servest Bothwell. Farewell to thee, Bolton, thou man of gloomy thoughts; and farewell thou, stout Hay of Tallo; for I fear me much, that God's vengeance for _that night_ in the Kirk-of-Field is coming surely and heavily upon us all."

They were rudely separated.

Ormiston, Bolton, and Tallo, raised their bonnets with sadness and respect as the Earl was led off; for the bonds of old feudality, and love, and service, which knit their names and fortunes together, had been strengthened by a certainty that the terrible career on which they had run, had for ever cut them off and isolated them from the rest of mankind; and thus a feeling of loneliness and desolation fell upon their hearts, as their great leader and master-spirit was led away to that mournful captivity which was to end only in the--grave.

That night a Scottish ship of war, which was commanded by two knights of distinction, and had been sent by the Earl of Moray in pursuit of Bothwell, anchored in the Jelta fiord, and to their care were consigned the shipwrecked followers of the captive noble; and soon after these knights set sail for Scotland.

But many hours before they had come into Bergen, the _Biornen_ had vanished from that narrow inlet of the ocean, and was bearing the great Scottish captive along the shores of western Gothland, and breasting the frothy waves of the Cattegat.

The sun, as he set in the western ocean, shed a mellow light upon the wide expanse of shore that stretched upon their lee--on many an impending cliff, on the dark summits of which waved the old primeval pines of Scandinavia, and on whose bases the waters of the west were dashing in foam--on many a wooded wilderness, amid the recesses of which the wolves were prowling by the Druid stones of Loda, and the long-forgotten grave of many a gothic chief.

Buried in reverie, with folded arms and saddened eyes, Bothwell watched the changing features and windings of that foreign shore, with all its pathless woods, volcanic rocks, and dark blue hills, throwing their deepening shadows on each other, as the burning sun sank in the distant sea, and the dusky tints of night shed upon the scenery a gloom in unison with his own dark thoughts and bitter memories.

Bitter and sad they were truly; but how unavailing!

Now separated from the evil influence of Ormiston and others, he deplored his wickedness and folly with an intensity that amounted to agony. Had the universe been his, he would have given it that he might live the last year of his life over again, with the experience in his mind of what the guilt, the terrors, the anxieties, and remorse of that year had been.

With sorrow, with envy, yea, with agony, he looked back to the position he had held in the estimation of others, and of himself; and felt, in the bitterness of his soul, that the eminence could never more be re-won.

Never more, never more! It was a terrible reflection.

He thought, too, of the native land he might never see again; and--

"Of many a tale of love and war That mingled with the scene; Of Bothwell's bank that bloom'd so dear, And Bothwell's bonny Jean."

But he thought of Anna only with anger, for no human heart could ever contain two loves. Jane Gordon he remembered with feelings of compunction, when he mused on her unrepining gentleness and devoted love; but he thought most of Mary, and, forgetting that he was himself a captive, laid many a wild and futile scheme to free and to avenge her.

He could not flee from his own thoughts. They _would_ come again and again, weighing like an incubus upon his mind, alike in the bright sunshine of noon and the solemn silence of night; amid the heedless revelry of the Norwegian officers he longed for solitude, and in solitude the stings of conscience drove him back to revelry and wine; and thus the deep and morbid horror that hour by hour, and day by day, had every where pursued him, settled down like a cloud of darkness on his soul.

Long since satiated with pleasure, sick of ambition, and wearied of the world, he now found how deep were the stings of unavailing regret.

The day, we have said, went down, and night spread her spangled mantle on the darkened water and the moonlit sea.

Brightly in its calm beauty the evening star arose from the dark-heaving line of the northern ocean, and Bothwell thought of the time when he had last watched that orb expanding on the night, as it rose above the ruined spire of St. Mary-in-the-Field.

At that moment, a cry--that seemed to be wafted over the surface of the water--made his ears and heart tingle, as it passed away on the skirt of the hollow wind.

Bothwell grew ghastly pale, he covered his ears with his hands, and rushed away to his cabin in despair.

*CHAPTER XXII.*

*THE VAIN RESOLUTION.*

She told me all, And as she spoke her eyes led captive mine-- Her voice was low, and thrill'd me to the bone; She ceased and all was silence, whilst I sat Like one who, long entranced by melody, Feels still the music in the soul Though sound has died away. _Sir C. Lindesay's Alfred._

Christian Alborg had departed with his prisoners; and, unnoticed and uncared for, Konrad stood in the hall, where he had once been so welcome a guest. A sensation of loneliness and bitterness ran through his mind. There was the chair of the old knight Rosenkrantz, with his sword and long leather gloves hung upon it, just as he had last left them; his walking-cane stood in a corner, and his furred boots were beside it; the place was identified with his presence--full of his memory; and his bluff round figure, in his ample red gaberdine and trunk hose, his kind old face, with its mild blue eyes and fair bushy beard, seemed to flit between the shadowy columns of the ancient hall.

Konrad had no intention of remaining in a place where all was so changed to him; but, ere he turned to leave it for ever, he paused a moment irresolutely. Since last he stood there, all that had passed appeared like a dream, but a sad and bitter one. His heart melted within him at the very thought of his own desolation; a shower of tears would have relieved him, but he had none to shed, for his eyes felt dry and stony.

"Why should I remain here, where not one is left to care for me now?" he said with a smile, as if in scorn of the weakness that made him linger, and, turning away, was about to retire, when a sound arrested him; once more the arras rose and fell, and Anna stood before him. He gazed upon her without the power of utterance.

She was alone.

With a heightened colour in her cheek, and a charming timidity in her eye, she approached, and, touching his arm, said--

"Christina told me thou wert here, Konrad; and wouldst thou go without one greeting--one farewell--to me?"

Her accents sank into his inmost soul; he trembled beneath her touch, and felt all his resolution melting fast away.

"Unkind Konrad!" said she, with one of her sad but most winning smiles, "is this the friendship thou didst vow to me at Westeray?"

"I have learned, Anna, that love can never be succeeded by friendship. It runs to the other extreme--the impulses of the human heart cannot pause midway."

"Thou hast learned to hate me, then?"

"Heaven forbid!" replied Konrad, clasping his hands; "hate thee, Anna? oh no!"

His eyes were full of the sweetness and ardour of the days of their first love, and Anna's filled with tears.