CHAPTER XLIII.

MARCH FOR THE CASTLE OF NYEKIÖBING.

On the following day it was announced that Sir Donald was to leave us for Scotland, where he meant to recruit for the battalion among his own clan, and others that were friendly to him; that Ian, as lieutenant-colonel, was to command the regiment, which was to be broken into detachments; two companies were to remain at Assens, three companies in other parts of Funen, and four, under Ian, were to march for, and occupy the Isle of Laaland, which was the dowery of the queen-mother, and was now endangered by the capture of Fehmarn by the Imperialists, who always considered it the key of Denmark.

On the morning parade our colonel informed us of this separation, at which our soldiers grieved sorely, for every man loved and revered him as a father; and the regiment was like a band of brethren, as every regiment should be--a clan, or one great family; one half of its members were kinsmen, being Mackays, and reared in the same strath where the Naver flows. This arrangement touched me deeply too, fearing that I would now be separated from Ernestine; that I might never see her again; and that thus all my hopes would be crushed in the bud. I gazed eagerly after her, as, with the ladies of the court--for the king and queen were present--she passed along our line while arms were presented, the colours lowered, and the pipes played Mackay's salute. After being joined by Duke Bernard, whom the king embraced and kissed in the old German fashion (as I had often seen a couple of bearded cuirassiers do, to the astonishment of our Highlandmen), Christian and the colonel went down the ranks, addressing some words of compliment or congratulation to every officer; for all had done their devoir like gallant men. He paused before me, observing that I was very young, and was posted three paces in front of the line as commanding a company.

"Cavalier," said he--for, like Gustavus Adolphus, that was his favourite phrase when not speaking Danish--"your company shall be marched to Laaland, to quarter at Nyekiöbing, and guard our royal mother."

In profound salute I lowered the point of my claymore, and felt my heart dance with joy; for it was to Laaland that Ernestine and her sister were to accompany the old queen-dowager.

"I thank your majesty for this choice," said Sir Donald; "the youth is my own peculiar care, assigned to me by his father, an old knight of Cromartie, who sent him to the German wars, because----" I trembled with anger, lest Sir Donald had caught the story of that rascally spoon; "because he was the only lad of spirit in the family."

"Well, he shall march to Nyekiöbing," said the frank monarch, with a wink of his solitary eye, and a dry and peculiar cough, a sure sign that some deep idea was fermenting in his honest brain. He then whispered something to Sir Donald, gave his steel tassettes a slap, and laughed heartily. A sly smile twinkled in the dark eyes of the Highland chief, and the blood mounted to my temples.

What could this by-play mean?

I trembled lest the proud Ernestine should discover or observe it, for she was quite near us, and I afterwards learned that it had direct reference to herself: for these good souls--though one was a haughty Highland chief, and the other an ambitious king--in openness of heart, in honesty of purpose, and goodness of intent, were pure soldiers.

"Captain Rollo," said the king with a smile, "it is agreed that you shall guard the castle of Nyekiöbing," and he passed on to Captain M'Kenzie (Kildon), who commanded the next company.

Attended by her ladies, Queen Anna Catharina next went down the line on foot, and suspended with her own white hands, at every officer's neck, a silver medal attached to a blue riband. These had been lately struck at Glückstadt by the king's order, to commemorate his undertaking the defence of the Protestant religion. One side bore a man in armour, grasping a naked sword in one hand, in the other a Bible, and inscribed for _Religion and Liberty_. On the other was a lighted candle, half burned, encircled by the legend,

_Christianus IV. Dan. Norv. Vand. Goth. Rex._

To every soldier a rixdollar was given to drink his majesty's health.

That evening a ship--the _Scottish Crown_ of Leith--was lying off Assens, about to sail for poor old Schottland (as they name her in that part of the world.) The colonel was to sail next day; and all who could write were busy inditing letters to their friends, parents, and lovers at home--all but myself, who had none that cared much to hear from me. That was a sad and bitter reflection. Even the scrivener of the regiment was busy transferring to paper the regards, remembrances, promises, and prize-money of those who could handle their swords better than their pens. Ian wrote a letter to his Moina, and thereafter appended to it remembrances from half the soldiers of my company to their friends in Strathdee, condolences to the parents of the brave who had fallen, with a request that the names of Phadrig Mhor, Diarmid M'Gillvray, and other gallant men whom he mentioned, should be inscribed on the kirk-doors for three successive Sundays--the greatest ambition and glory of the poor Highland soldier when far from his native glen.

Next morning Sir Donald sailed for Scotland, to bring succour to the king, and urge his desperate state upon the government at Edinburgh. We saw his vessel as she bore northwards down the Belt, while the four companies under Ian paraded by sunrise and prepared to march across the Isle of Funen with sealed orders, which he was to open at Rodbye. Attended by the count's daughters and many other ladies on horseback, with pages and riders in the royal livery, the queen-mother rode forth from the archway of the castle, and we all received her with presented arms.

Ernestine and Gabrielle were gracefully attired in light blue riding-habits laced with silver, with hats and feathers suitable to their age; but the old queen wore the dress of Christian III.'s time, and was cased in a long straight stomacher, all fenced about with bars of whalebone, and thick enough to have turned a sword-thrust. On each side her fardingdale jutted out, and over all she had an enormous riding-skirt of crimson cloth, with a pair of those voluminous sleeves which Stubbs the Englishman condemned in the _Anatomy of Abuses_ (written in the days of his queen, Elizabeth). Like her coif and ruff, these were all stiffened, as the quaint Stubbs saith when reprehending the attire of women, "in that liquid matter called starch, wherein the devil hath learned them to wash and dive their ruffs, which, on being dry, will then stand stiff and inflexible about their necks;" and, like Master Stubbs, in truth I have known more than one gay cavalier who got his nose scratched by coming too close to those same ruffs, which hedge round a pretty face as sweyne's feathers do a square of infantry.

By the queen's bridle rode the Count of Carlstein; his daughters on their Danish nags came curveting behind, and waved their whips to us as they passed. Ernestine, all blooming and smiling, was in high spirits, and her drooping black feather shaded her beautiful face. She let a rose drop from her hand. I hurried from my place to restore it; then a sudden thought made me crave permission to retain it.

"No great boon, Herr," said she, "as it is all over dust now, and has lost half its leaves; nevertheless, if its poor remains will be such a source of gratification to you, I make you welcome to them," and, whipping up her horse, she darted after the group of equestrians, who were now fast leaving us behind.

"Keep at the head of your company, cousin Philip," said Ian drily, "and do not spoil your tartans by picking old flowers out of the dust."

"I would have picked it up under a shower of musketry, Ian," said I.

"Dioul!" he replied, laughing; "'tis more than I would do, even for Moina: there are bounds to love, but none to folly. A shower of musketry! Zounds, I do not think I would leave my ranks under that, to pick up the crown of Scotland if it lay at my feet!"

It was a beautiful autumn morning, and every thing around me seemed in unison with the lightness of my own heart. A warm summer had brought on an early harvest, and every where the grain had been hastily reaped and gathered by the husbandman, who trembled at the rapid approach of an irresistible foe. A strong fragrance arose from the fresh morning earth; the sunshine was warm, yet tempered by the cool breeze that came from the azure waters of the Lesser Belt, that stretched away into dim and far obscurity on our right. In our rear lay Assens with its castle, and on our left the landscape spread out in long and verdant vistas, tinted by dun autumnal hues; its faded green being interspersed by newly ploughed fields of rich brown land, the furrows of which glistened in the sun, while the water left in them by the recent rains, glittered in long and silvery lines.

From these the sun exhaled a hazy vapour, making somewhat obscure the more distant objects, and even those which were nearer at hand. Thus, at times, we saw in opaque outline the sturdy figure of a well-fed Danish boor, who was turning up the glistening soil with a plough of ancient fashion, drawn by two fat brindled kine, with curving horns and switching tails, around which the clouds of gnats were dancing; and there, between the stilts of his plough, the clod-pated boor would pause, and gaze at us with lack-lustre eyes as we marched past, four hundred strong, with our tartans waving, our arms and appointments glittering in the sun, while the hoarse drums rattled, and the wild war-pipes poured a Highland quick-step to the morning wind; for four hundred bare-kneed clansmen was a sight for a boor of Funen to remember, and describe to his grandchildren in after years to come.

"You are still looking after that blue skirt and black feather," said Ian, just as the queen and her group of attendants disappeared among the vapour far in front; "I pray you, kinsman, keep such vagaries as love out of your head."

"Love is an affair of the heart, Ian, and the head has nothing whatever to do with it."

"The greater is the pity, Philip; but allow me to advise----"

"You consider me a lover, and yet think I will take advice. Whoever heard of a lover that did so?"

"It is too true; but I hope you are not yet come to that. Love and its sentimentality are all nonsense in a true man of the sword."

"Ian!" I exclaimed; "and Moina----"

He coloured, and haughtily shook his eagle's plume.

"Moina is at home in Glen Mhor na' Albyn. Here, she would interfere with the performance of my duty to my colonel and the king. As it is, she rather aids them; for she is my guiding star in the hour of danger, and the wish that I may return worthy of the daughter of a brave chief, fires me to emulate the heroes of other times. On the long weary march, and in the dull lonely hours of the night; by the guard fire and the bivouac, or in the comfortless cantonment, with my plaid for a mantle, my sword for a pillow, I think of my brown-eyed Highland bride--I think of Moina Rose with sorrow and joy--sorrow that I am so far, far away from her, and joy that she loves me. Moina is a single-hearted and guileless mountain girl; to love her, is very different from the fancies now floating through your giddy brain, kinsman of mine. I am too true a son of the Gaël to regard strangers otherwise than with jealousy; and court ladies at best are slippery as eels. Remember how many dark-eyed maids at home are all looking for husbands, and ought to have the preference before all these foreign trumpery. There is the tall daughter of old Ferintosh, with her lint-white locks and a fair slice of land, with a good strong tower that, with six brass culverins, guards the highway to Milnbuy, and can levy a pretty good toll thereon; and there is little Oina Urquhart, the daughter of old Sir Thomas of Cromartie, whose dowery I know to be five hundred black cattle, which her spouse is to levy (if he can) among the clans in Ross; and Mary M'Alpine (Red Angus's cousin) whose tocher is still better; a castle in the Black Isle, with five hundred good claymores to defend it."

Without interruption, I permitted Ian to run on and enumerate all the heiresses in Nairn, Ross, and Cromartie, whose tochers consisted of short-legged cattle and long claymores, whinstones and fair purple heather; but the result was, that he put me into a very bad humour, which did not find vent until we entered Faaborg, after a march of about thirty Danish miles--a cannon-shot more or less.

The evening was closing as we marched in, and the church bells were ringing, as they are always rung about sunset in the Danish villages and towns.

We--the officers--were billeted by the Herredsfoged (or magistrate) on a tavern or hostelry named the Dannebrog, as it bore the Danish banner on its signboard. The roof of this place was (I remember) considerably depressed, as the host informed us with the utmost good faith and in a whisper, by the passage of King Waldemar, the wild huntsman, whose spectral train had swept over it on St. John's night, last year. He had just concluded his story when Will Lumsdaine, my lieutenant, came to inform me, that the ration of beer served out by the Herredsfoged to our company was only fit for swine.

"Have you told him so?" I asked.

"I did."

"And what was his reply?"

"That it was good enough for Scots."

"_Air Muire!_" cried Ian, buckling on his sword; "where is this fellow to be met with?"

"At his own house," replied Lumsdaine. "I would have punished him there; but I love not to draw on a man under his own roof-tree."

Now ensued a friendly contest about who should punish the Herredsfoged; Lumsdaine claimed the duty as the insult had been given to him; I claimed it as his senior, and Ian as mine. We tossed up a dollar, and the lot fell to me. I snatched up my sword, hurried away, and found my man smoking a pipe in his back garden.

"You are the Herredsfoged?" said I, drawing my claymore.

"I am," said he, with the utmost composure, for he was a strong fellow--a miller, and nearly a head taller than me. Requesting him to walk with me into a little plot which was screened by a privet hedge, I sternly commanded him to retract and apologise for his remarks anent the ration beer; but the Herredsfoged was a brave fellow, and swore by all the devils in Denmark, he would "never retract while there was a drop of blood in his heart!"

We then measured our swords, and fell on like a couple of wild Tartars; I received a scar on one of my bare knees, by an ill-parried thrust; and the second, by piercing my left arm, disabled me for a time from using my dirk; but at the third pass I ran him through the left side, close by the ribs, and flung him prostrate, with his weapon hand below him. Then with my sword at his throat, while he lay grovelling among his own tulips and broken flowerpots, I compelled him to retract, and repeating after me word for word, acknowledge "that the said beer was only fit for dogs or Danes." I then helped him into the house, and had his wound looked to. We marched next day, and all kept the story of the duel as secret as possible; for such encounters had been expressly forbidden by an edict of Christian IV. in 1618.

At Faaborg we found that the queen and her train had embarked for Laaland, and that nothing remained for us but to follow by the first shipping we could procure. For one night we occupied the little town, which has the waters of the Lesser Belt on one side, and those of deep marshes on the other. It had been burned in former wars by the army of Christian III., and now the greater portion of it consisted of ruins, encircling a shallow and unsheltered port.

About noon on the following day we disembarked on the isle of Longeland, in one of the towns of which we had a quarrel with the people. A merchant of the place having accused two of my company of pilfering a quantity of kirschwasser from his store in the market street, the Herredsfoged instituted a search, and with Sergeant Phadrig Mhor I went round the billets in person, but without discovering the wine, though in the quarters of Torquil Gorm, our piper-major, and Donald M'Vurich, a musketeer (our shoemaker), I saw a very suspicious-like liquid in a large tub, with some Highland brogues swimming on the surface thereof, and that liquid, the rogues told us next day, when on the march, was the very wine we were in search of, and that a good draught of it was still at our service; but as neither Phadrig nor I had any relish for wine flavoured by brogue leather, we declined their offer, with the threat of a good battooning if such tricks were ever discovered again.

Marching across that long and narrow isle, we took shipping in small sloops for Rodbye in Laaland, for whence (to my great disappointment) we found that the active old queen and her train had again departed before us; and we were a whole week travelling by land and water among these flat and sandy islands, before we drew up under our colours on the beach of Rodbye. There Ian opened his sealed orders, by which the king, fearing that the Imperialists might seize upon those isles, directed him to leave Kildon's company at Rodbye; those of Angus Roy, M'Alpine, Munro of Culcraigie, and Sir Patrick Mackay, were marched to the town of Mariboe, where they occupied an edifice that, in former times, had been a spacious convent, the walls of which were bordered by a beautiful lake; but we continued our route to the pleasant little isle of Falster, to guard the queen-mother in her own castle or jointure-house. There we arrived on Michaelmas-day, about sunset, wearied by our sea and land journey, and the long nights we had spent in open boats, exposed to the cold air of the Baltic.

Her majesty came forth with her train, in person, to welcome us to her castle of Nyekiöbing, and ordered a can of German wine to be served to every soldier; while the officers, _i.e._, Ian, Lumsdaine, and myself (for we had not yet an ensign), were invited to sup at the royal table.

Her castle was a strong and stately edifice, overlooking a regular and well-built town on the Guldborg-sound, a narrow passage usually studded with ships, as it is the way from the shores of Zealand to those of Germany. Every foot's-pace of this beautiful island, which teemed with fertility, was under cultivation, or covered with the richest copse wood; and from the castle windows we saw the stately beeches, brown with autumnal leaves, casting the evening shadows along the calm blue waters of the narrow sound. The only troops in the place were a few of the vassals or serfs, singularly clad in mail shirts like modern Tartars, or like the effigies on an antique tomb, and armed with the battle-axe, which, like the halbert, was of old the national weapon of the Danish islesmen. The good queen-mother had more of the frankness of an old German baroness about her than the frigid and empty dignity of courtly state. She sat at the head of her own table in the old castle hall; her steward, the Baron Fœyœ, a knight of the Armed Hand, a short, stout, and irritable old Dane, sat at the foot, and we enjoyed a merry and a sumptuous meal.

To my joy I found myself seated beside Ernestine, her father the count was opposite.

She perceived my arm in a sling, and immediately inquired the cause.

"It is a wound!" said I.

"A wound!--where and when did you receive it?" she asked, while I imagined with exultation that there was an ill-concealed expression of alarm depicted in her charming eyes.

"It is a secret!" said I, and knowing how a rencontre sets off a cavalier in the estimation of a pretty woman, I now resolved to make the most of mine.

"In what manner is it a secret, Herr?"

"Because, if divulged to King Christian, he would remember the law of 1618, and send me prisoner to Cronenborg."

"You have, then, fought a duel!"

"Hush--it was only a clean thrust with a rapier."

"And what did you fight about?"

"A lady!" I replied, laughing, and observing her narrowly.

"A lady!" she reiterated, unmoved as a rock, to my great disappointment.

"Nay, nay, Ernestine!" said I, "it was about nothing more than a can of beer."

"A reputable reason, certainly--a valuable commodity to peril one's life for!"

"Every other day I peril my life for the price of it, however; but a point of some importance was involved--a national insult." I then related my quarrel at Faaborg, and she declared that my indignation had been justly roused, but very improperly satisfied.

"But you must not speak of it, Ernestine--nor tell Gabrielle."

"Oh, fear not--your secret shall be kept!" said she.

I found that this story raised me higher in her favour, and I had the felicity of being helped by her to several things, while, to save all exertion of my poor wounded arm (of which I was very much inclined on this occasion to make the most), a servant in the red livery of Denmark cut my food for me, after which I could feed myself by one of those German forks with which the table was furnished.

The moment supper was over, we all shook hands and separated. As we parted, I raised my plaid and shewed Gabrielle where (in the breast of my doublet) I had preserved the withered rose, which had dropped from her sister's hand on the morning we had marched out of the east gate of Assens. I was too timid to make Ernestine aware that I had preserved this trivial gift; but hoped that Gabrielle would tell her to the letter, who was so gay and childlike, I could say more than I dared to Ernestine; for on her good or bad opinion hung the balance of my fate. My heart was too much interested in the stake to act boldly.

END OF VOL. I.

M'CORQUODALE AND CO., PRINTERS, LONDON--WORKS, NEWTON.