CHAPTER XI.

MY FIRST GUARD.

In my dreams she danced again before me, and her voice was lingering in my ear. I could still see that fairy figure, with the star beaming on her brow, the robe of muslin, the glancing ankles and shoulders, and hear the notes of that modulated voice, whose accents were like the tinkle of fairy bells. At twenty years of age, one only requires a day or two to fall (as one supposes) completely in love:--I was only twenty; the object of my secret adoration was beautiful, and I had seen her surrounded by all those accessories that will enhance beauty to the utmost extent. As a student, I had no time to fall in love; as a soldier, it seemed to be quite a matter of course--for I remembered the great Spanish novelist, who asserted that a soldier without a mistress, was like a ship without a compass.

The moment I was out of bed and dressed, I instituted another search for her chamber door.

"The very devil is in it!" said I, for none was visible.

I was not so far gone in love as to lose my appetite; I made a hearty breakfast with my friends, put on my headpiece, corslet, kilt, and sword, and sallied forth to our place of arms.

I was for guard that day, and marched with fifty musketeers of our regiment to relieve my cousin Ian at the old round tower and gate of Glückstadt, which adjoined it.

We approached the post with a pipe playing, our arms carried, and matches lighted. Ian drew out his guard in line to receive us; his piper, in reply to ours, played the _Mackay's Salute_; then arms were presented, and the posts delivered over.

"Now, Philip," said Ian, before he marched off the old guard, "I have received from the governor, Sir David Drummond, in person, the most strict orders to examine all persons who pass or repass this barrier; and these orders I was to deliver to you, who must in turn repeat them to your successor. It would seem that there are spies in the city, who communicate with the Imperialists. Two days after our landing here, our arrival and our strength were both known to the generals of the Empire; hence it is believed that Count Tilly will leave no means untried to cut us off on our march to join the king."

"Indeed!"

"Yes--as Sinclair's clan-regiment was cut to pieces among the Norwegian Alps; so look well to it, Philip Rollo, and see that none pass this gate without a written order from Sir David Drummond."

"And what of the burgomaster?"

"Dioul! the burgomaster Dubbelsteirn is under the baton just now. When a drum beats, the voice of law is dumb," replied Ian, throwing his plaid over his shoulders.

"You will return, Ian, and share my dinner?" said I.

"And why came you not to share mine yesterday? but I need scarcely ask. Doubtless you were searching all day for that imaginary door, which leads to where the spirit lives."

"Spirit?"

"The Trold--did not that fat Holsteiner tell us it was a fairy?"

"The Holsteiner is a lying poltroon," said I, with sudden passion, "and I will trouble you to tell him that I said so; and, moreover, that I mean to run him through the body if he will afford me a proper opportunity."

Ian left me laughing, and for some hours I sauntered dreamily on the gun platform of the tower, watching the gaudily painted and peculiarly built ships of the Lübeckers, the Hamburgers, and others who frequented the port, and were pouring in grain, beef, powder, and stores of every kind, for the use of that strong army which King Christian hoped to lead into central Germany. Among the foreign shipping were several bearing the blue Scottish ensign of St. Andrew, and others which displayed the white flag of England.

This guard being my first, I was of course extremely zealous; I posted all the sentinels, and in person heard them deliver over their orders to each other, being resolved that, so far as I was concerned, no suspicious or unauthorised person should leave the gates of Glückstadt. As none of my sentinels could speak any language but their native Gaëlic, and persons requesting ingress and egress were brought before me every five minutes, the time was not permitted to hang heavily on my hands.

A tall figure in the mountain garb, with a feather in his bonnet, and his belted plaid waving behind, with the tassels of his sporran and the hilt of his claymore sparkling in the sunshine, came along the ramparts, under the trees which overshadowed them, and cast also a comparative gloom on the yellow bosom of the turgid and barge-encumbered canal which lay below. Long before the Highlander had reached the steps of the wooden tower, and sprung up the platform, I recognised my handsome cousin, the chief and most stately gentleman of the great Clanchattan.

"So you have seen her again?" said he.

"Who told you so, Ian?" I asked.

"Red Angus M'Alpine, who was with us at the tragedy last night."

"I never told Angus that I recognised my unknown in the fair Spanish dancer."

"Angus, the best huntsman between Strathalladale and Strathearn, is not so blind as a bat; and, like many smart persons in this world, can see things without being told of them. He said, that you seemed to see nothing but her figure, and to hear nothing but her voice; to be all ear and eye--to devour every motion, and that you were a lost man. 'A lost man! Angus Roy,' said I; 'tuts! think you my cousin, Rollo of the Craig, will forget that he is a gentleman of birth and coat-armour, and that she is but a Spanish posture-maker, who exhibits her painted limbs at so much per night to all the boors of Glückstadt. A pretty wife she would make to take home to Cromartie Firth, and to the old tower of Craigrollo! I wonder if the old spoon of Sir Ringan would suit her dainty mouth!' And so you see, Philip, I quite laughed Angus out of the notion."

I felt that Ian was laughing a little at _me_, too; and the quick blood which had suffused my face while he was rallying me, announced that his suspicions were well founded, and that, if I was not fairly in love with the beautiful _danzador_, I was very near it.

"Take care, Philip," said Ian, whose keen Highland eyes had been regarding me with a half smile under his bonnet; "and beware, for there must be something shameful about her."

"Shameful!" I reiterated, shocked at a word so disrespectful; "shameful, Ian!"

"Immoral, then--which you will," continued Ian Dhu a little doggedly, "or why the d--l does your damsel conceal herself so closely? I do not half like that beetle-browed fellow, Roskilde, either."

"I dislike him wholly, and distrust him, too."

"He has some bad reason for concealing her, depend upon it; but then, cousin Philip, you know 'tis no business of _ours_."

"No--no--of course not," said I, coughing, to conceal the annoyance I felt at the idea of their being a _liaison_ between my beautiful Spaniard, and that hideous Holsteiner in the bombasted breeches and calfskin boots.

"Ah, my faith!" I added, grasping my dirk, as my chagrin and perplexity broke forth--"to be supplanted by such a rival!"

"Ay, a handsome cavalier like you, Philip, by a great bombarde such, as Herr Otto!" continued Ian, laughing.

"I swear to you, by my existence, that I will cut his life short suddenly; for the fellow has laughed at me, and played the fool with me, too."

"Let the poor man alone! What right have you to molest him, or search out his secrets with a sword-blade; besides, we march for the camp in a few days, and then, Philip, come battles and sieges, the leaguer and storm!"

"But he has given me the lie."

"Dioul! that is true," said Ian, gravely; "I had forgotten that. He insisted so sturdily that you were mistaken, and that she was a Trold, and so forth. You must exchange a few passes with him, and rip up a yard of his great breeches, were it only to let a few pounds of bran out of them; or we might order Phadrig Mhor to fling him into the canal--but we will see about it to-morrow, when you come off guard."

Ian had soon to leave me for the place of arms, where the regiment was exercised according to the rules prescribed by the Scottish officers in Denmark and Sweden; for the king's orders, that we should be trained with the utmost expedition, were stringent, as his entire forces were soon to take the field against Count Tilly.

The day passed on.

I longed for the morrow, which was to free me from my duty, and leave me at liberty to unravel the mystery which surrounded my beauty, and to punish the insolence of Roskilde, who had so openly trifled with my simplicity, and against whom I had conceived a most unmitigated aversion. Night, as it drew on, brought with it the sensations of irksome annoyance; for by the crowds which were passing into the Platz, I conjectured that my pretty actress was again upon that brilliant platform, with a thousand eyes bent in admiration on her graceful figure, her flowing dress and floating hair, her pure brow, and the star of light that beamed upon it; but, restrained by the strict order about spies in the city, I could not visit the theatre to behold her again, or hear that soft voice, which memory brought ever and anon so palpably to my ear.

The sun had set, and the storks retired to their nests on gable-nook and chimney-top; the canals turned from pale yellow to a muddy brown, and then became white, as the moon, partly obscured by a thin veil of gauzy mist, rose behind the square tower of the great church, and threw its black shadow far across the waters of the Elbe. That broad river seemed then, by the moonlight reflected from fleecy clouds, white and spotless as milk; but the shadows of its shores were black and opaque, for its depths gave back the strong and clear, but inverted, outline of every chimney-head and pointed roof--of every tree, and boat, and barge--just as one may see them in the pictures of the Low Country masters.

A vault of the fortifications was appropriated for the guardroom of the officer on duty at the wooden tower (or the Tower of Rats, as it should have been named), and there I sat ruminating, and watching the figures of the changing embers, which burned on the stone hearth, and endeavouring to decipher (by the light of a candle, which stood in an iron holder on the fir table) the innumerable caricatures of the Emperor Ferdinand, of Count Tilly, of Count Carlstein, and the Duke of Friedland, with which my predecessors had disfigured the plastered walls, frequently representing the whole four hanging on one gallows, held up by the devil, from whose mouth proceeded scrolls full of Danish invectives and low German ribaldry.

I then betook me to reading Captain Jean de Beaugue's _Histoire de la Guerre D'Ecosse_, with his campaigns there in 1548 and 1549, and had become deeply interested in the assault made by M. de la Mothe Ronge with his arquebussiers, and the chief of the Kerrs with his clan, upon the Tower of Pherniherst, and its garrison of English archers, whom they cruelly cut to pieces, making literally and savagely a foot-ball of their commander's head, when I was interrupted by my sergeant, Diarmed M'Gillvray, a cadet of the family of Drumnaglas, who came to inform me that Gillian M'Bane (a short and thickset clansman from the braes of Rannoch), who was sentinel at the tower-gate, had captured a very suspicious-looking personage; and that, as Gillian was sorely puzzled to know whether he had taken a man, woman, or goblin, Diarmed begged I would come with him to the post.

On arriving at the archway, the strong gate of which was closed all save the klinket, or wicket of three palisades, we found Gillian M'Bane swelling with importance, and standing on his guard, with his musket charged breast high, and ever and anon he blew the match, the lurid light of which glowed on his dark tartans, his steel cap, red beard, and brick-red face, shedding a crimson glow over them all; and he was uttering hoarse threats in Gaëlic, for the dress and face of the prisoner he had made, were fully calculated at least to startle and perplex his unsophisticated mind.

I immediately perceived the captured person to be a woman, who wore a mask of purple velvet, which, though a common enough article of apparel in the cities of the Lowlands, had never been seen so far north as the Black Mountain, or the shores of the Uisc Dhu. Hence the alarm of Gillian, on beholding a purple face with two eyes that shone through it like stars. The female, who was rather undersized, wore an enormous French hood, a plain buffin gown, and green silk apron, like the smart little wife of a citizen of Holstein.

"You have a pass I presume, from the governor, Sir David Drummond?"

"I have left it at home," replied the little mask, in German nearly as bad as my own, but in a tone that made me start.

"You are of Sleswig, I think?"

"_Si, señor_--that--that is--Mein Herr," she added with evident consternation. My heart seemed to rise to my lips!

"You have betrayed yourself," I replied, trembling in turn, for I knew my actress in a moment. Oh, how could I fail to recognise that charming voice!

"I swear to you, Mein Herr, that you mistake me for some one else. I am the poor little wife of a citizen, Juliane Eichhörn--who sells groceries in the Bürger-platz. My husband has been maltreated by the boors, and is lying in deadly peril at a farmhouse, some ten miles distant. A hundred yards from the gate I am to meet a messenger, who will tell of his health. Oh, Mein Herr! excuse me--excuse the order; for I swear that I have lost it, and am dying with anxiety to hear how my husband--my dear husband--my Reichardt, is."

All this was said with such an air of candour and sincerity, and accompanied by so many sobs and tears, that I was greatly moved and perplexed. Duty on one hand urged me to send her back to the city or guard-house, from whence, if her story was false, she might be sent to the Rasp-haus; curiosity, love, and jealousy, all prompted me to fathom the story, and send her on her mission.

"I will follow her for a hundred yards or so--'tis only a falcon shot from the gate," said I; "but, lest there should be treachery, lend me your pistols, Diarmed, and if you hear me fire send out a few files to my assistance. You may pass, lady," said I in Spanish, "but pray excuse my accompanying you."

I led her through the klinket, stuck Diarmed's pistols--a handsome pair of Highland pops, mounted with silver and bushed with gold--in my belt, and, with a mixed feeling of curiosity and apprehension, followed my mysterious little dancer; with curiosity and eagerness to make her acquaintance, and apprehension lest I might be led into some wicked ambush, or be found absent from my guard when the governor went his rounds, which he did every night at a certain hour. And what think you decided me in perpetrating this rashness? only a glimpse of a pretty foot and ancle, as my dancer was about to step through the klinket!

Avoiding the road which led to Crempen, she struck into a solitary pathway that led between low hedgerows, along the north bank of the Elbe.

"Señora," said I, in Spanish, "you walk very fast."

"Señor--I walk as I please," she replied in the same language.

"Oho! then you acknowledge that you are not of Sleswig, but a Spaniard?"

"I acknowledge nothing," she replied, with some asperity.

"And that you are not the little wife of a citizen who sells groceries, but the charming Prudentia?"

"I acknowledge nothing," she repeated, but with a smile that shewed her fine teeth under the dark mask.

"But I have every reason to suppose----"

"Cavalier, you may suppose just what you please. I am outside the barrier now; ha, ha!" and she laughed.

"But I may take you prisoner yet."

"Scarcely," said she, with another of her ringing laughs, as her small jewelled hand held before me the blade of a short but sharp stiletto of polished steel.

"The devil!--bright eyes and a dagger!--'tis quite a tragedy this!"

"It may end as a comedy, if you are kind to me."

"Well," said I, "the hour is late; here is midnight tolling in the steeple of the great church--allow me to act properly as your cavalier, and I shall be delighted."

"Many thanks, señor," she replied, and took my proffered hand. My heart beat like lightning; my head became giddy. Was it possible that I could be alone--at midnight, too--with that beautiful being, half woman, half fairy? I knew not what to say, and the light pressure of her little hand on mine, sent every moment a thrill to my heart, but then the other lay on the haft of a dagger!......

We seem to love very truly at twenty--then it is quite an enthusiasm, a second nature that can feed itself on smiles and sighs; but, with all this, I could not help reflecting that Prudentia was leading me a devil of a distance. I thought of my guard, and trembled lest Sir David should discover my absence--a catastrophe which would lead to inevitable degradation, and realise all the prophecies of my father. My companion addressed me--

"Señor, you have become very silent--cannot you speak, to enliven this dreary road?"

"I was thinking, señora, how charming you looked last night--and how adorably you sang."

"A great many have told me that fifty times."

"Then you must have a great many lovers?"

"Do you think that all who see me, love me?"

"If I judge from my own heart, I would say----"

"What----"

"Yes--that they must be compelled to do so," I added, with a tremulous voice.

"Oh, that is delightful! but recollect, señor, that though I shall be most happy to have you for my friend, my lover you cannot be."

"Come--that is not bad," said I, assuming somewhat of her tone of raillery, while her frankness charmed me. "I must, of course, be your friend first, señora."

"And then----" she added archly.

"Ah! there is no saying what I may be."

"Oh! 'tis quite a compact--we shall be friends!" she added, laughing and clapping her hands.

"I trust you have not much further to go," said I, as we approached the muddy margin of the Elbe; "for I fear me greatly, I am already liable to be tried by a court-martial."

"_Consejo de guerra?_" she repeated, turning on me her bright eyes, which shone like stars through the holes in her mask. "I should be miserable if I occasioned that; but you need come no farther. My husband's messenger is standing under yonder tree, and, as I have no wish that you should hear all the tender messages my Reichardt sends me, I beg you will stand here until I return."

"By that wicked smile I see you have no husband."

"You shall see that I have; but on your honour, as a soldier and cavalier, do not follow me, and permit none to approach us."

"Whoever does so, must pass over my body," said I, unsheathing my claymore.

With a light step she hurried to the water-side, where, from under the shadow of a group of willows, I saw a tall male figure step out of a boat, which lay concealed among the thick long reeds. To Prudentia he made a bow, the brevity, or rather hauteur of which, was indicated by the lofty nod of his feathers, and then they entered into conversation, and I saw her deliver into his hand a packet, which he placed in his breast.