CHAPTER II.

THE ARMS OF EXPECTATION.

On the day after their father's departure, I saw neither Ernestine nor Gabrielle. They were no doubt discomposed by his sudden absence; but they had been so used to see him go and come again, and generally little the worse save a slash or two, that in the evening I expected to meet them in the garden adjoining the royal residence of Nyekiöbing, the spacious donjon tower of which, with its heavy battlements and grated casements, overlooked it. I was not disappointed. From the window of my apartment I saw them walking there, and hurried to meet them.

It was a beautiful autumnal evening; the low flat shore of the island was bordered by a stripe of golden sand, encircled by the glittering waves of a dark blue sea, on which the sunburnt woods of the past summer cast a long and lingering shadow. Behind the yellow beach and its shady woods of brown, the sun like a golden targe began to sink, and as it sank, a million of sparkles seemed to shoot from its descending disc; down, slowly down it went; the wavering rays shot further upward; they played upon the clouds above, and lingered long there after the sun itself had disappeared; then a deeper blue spread over the waters of the Guldborg Sound--those waters among which (as the old queen once told us) Grön Jette--or the Green Giant--shot a beautiful mermaid, whom he had pursued round Falster for seven years and a day; the woods appeared in darker outline against the lurid sky, and their crisped leaves rustled in the rising wind, as the evening deepened.

Gabrielle was looking sadly towards the sea, as if she was pondering on the path their father was pursuing; but Ernestine had seated herself, and was embroidering on the cover of a large Roman missal, a coat of arms with gold and variously coloured thread. Poor Ernestine's ideas of Catholicism were not very well defined, and consisted more in forms than belief; for nearly all that her Spanish mother had taught her in infancy, the mother of Gabrielle--a French or Belgian Protestant--had left no means untried to obliterate; but Ernestine loved to do all that she thought would please her mother who was in heaven; she loved, as she said, to consider herself "the peculiar care of the mother of God;" she read more prayers than usual in the month of May, and decorated her little altar with the lilies of Mary; but her opinions were very vague and undecided. She and Gabrielle said their prayers every night and morning together on their knees, and before a crucifix; yet Gabrielle did not consider herself a Catholic. Ernestine seemed the most devout in the queen's train when in the Lutheran church of Nyekiöbing, yet she would have repelled with scorn the imputation of being a Protestant. They had both been taken frequently to task by Father d'Eydel, but his asceticism and his harangues rather terrified them; and, being almost entirely occupied by military duty and dreams of ambition, the count had permitted them both to please themselves. Ernestine had an intense love for Gabrielle, and her regard for Gabrielle's mother had only been second to that which she bore her own.

There was but one heart--one soul seemed to animate these two winning creatures.

"Herr Kombeek," said Gabrielle, hastening to me; "you saw our father before he left this, and can tell us his last messages?"

"The most tender love to you, and that you were both to keep light hearts till his return. But you must not call me that name now, Gabrielle. Mine is the same as your father's--the same as yours, as I have just discovered--Philip Rollo."

"Oh, that is charming!" exclaimed both the girls looking up, one with her blue eyes, and the other with her black, beaming with pleasure.

"Your father----"

"Our poor father!" said Gabrielle sadly, as the tears rose again to her eyes, and she turned towards the sea.

"He deputed me to be your guardian."

"You!" said Gabrielle, with a sunny smile of wonder in her bright blue eyes.

"You!" added Ernestine, with a flash of astonishment in her dark orbs, which were red with weeping, although she proudly endeavoured to conceal it.

"I--there is nothing so surprising in that surely, except to myself--that I should have so great an honour, so supreme a happiness.

"A rare guardian--as if we were mere children, who could not look after ourselves!" they said, laughing.

"Besides, there is that dear old queen," added Gabrielle.

"Nay, ladies, if the wild musketeers of Merodé, or Tilly's savage Walloons--if some exasperated Holsteiners or discomfited Danes, paid a visit in the dark to this castle by the sea; or if the boors revolted under some popular ruffian, as they do at times, and assailed the dowager's court, because her son the king will not make peace with an emperor, who has sworn to conquer Denmark as he has conquered Bohemia, you might find there were worse protectors than Philip Rollo and his company of kilted musketeers."

"And your tall kinsman that wears the eagle's-wing," said Gabrielle, with a faint blush.

"I thank you for remembering me, though he in his vanity forgot me," said Ian laughing, as he stepped forward and saluted the ladies, while Phadrig Mhor, his tall henchman, remained a few paces behind; "but harkee, Philip, here hath Phadrig Mhor just learned from a fisherman, that the king is concentrating forces in Laaland to attack Pehmarn."

Ernestine gazed at him anxiously.

"He will certainly recall us. Our swords will rust and our tartans become moth-eaten in this mouldy old castle. Dioul! was it to guard an old woman that we came to Denmark?"

"Are you not very happy here, Herr Major?" asked Gabrielle timidly.

"Doubtless he is, madam," said Phadrig, who had picked up a little German in these wars; "but while we stay here, I will continue a sergeant. Dugald Mhor Mhic Alaster, Gillian M'Bane, and Dunachadh Mhor of Kilmalie, will all be mere musketeers; while our Scots lads in Sweden and Germanie are all becoming colonels of foot and rittniasters of horse. Huich!" he added, cutting a Highland caper, at which the girls laughed excessively; "Clanna nan Gaël an' guillan a chiele!"

"Right, Phadrig!" said Ian, with sparkling eyes, as he caught our sergeant's enthusiasm; "here's to our Highlandmen, shoulder to shoulder!" he added, drinking a handful of pure water which bubbled into a stone basin near him.

"I am weary of this place already--my sorrows be on it!" grumbled Phadrig.

"Discontented rogue!" said I; "thou wilt never be pleased, I fear. Have we not the best of Danish beef, of Rostock beer and German wine, with easy duty and dry quarters to boot?"

"Phadrig is a true Highlander," said Ian, giving his foster-brother a slap on the shoulder; "he snuffs the distant strife like the erne or gled. A true Highlander, M'Farquhar, thy sword is as ready for a foe, as thy purse for a friend. But away to our company, and in case the king summons us, look well to the hammer-stalls and collars of bandoliers; for orders may come to embark in an hour; and, if we unfurl our colours, Count Tilly must keep sure watch at Fehmarn." Phadrig retired, flinging up his bonnet as he went.

"It is to Fehmarn our father has gone," said Gabrielle, in a tremulous voice; "surely--I hope you will not go there."

"We must go where the king commands us; but fear not, lady, for your father, the count. He bears a charmed life; I could almost vow be was _gefrorn_, as the Germans and Walloons call it--bullet proof. But, come--I have brought some bread for you to feed the golden fish in yon old mossy basin," continued Ian, offering his hand to Gabrielle to lead her away; for he knew well that I wished to be alone with her sister, and a few days residence at Nyekiöbing had made a wonderful change in his sentiments regarding these two girls. I saw the colour mount to the fair brow of Gabrielle, and a smile of pleasure play on her rosy mouth as Ian led her away.

In the garden there was a pond or large basin, built of stone, and sunk in a thick carpet of rich moss and grass, surrounded by Gueldre rose-bushes; water filled it to the brim, and therein a few gold fish shot to and fro, and now and then a stray frog croaked or swam among the leaves that floated on its surface.

In this garden the great beeches and tall solemn poplars stood in rows, with black branches old and gnarled. Like the castle itself, the aspect of the garden was dreary and antique, for the hand of Time had passed over every thing; but when I sat beside Ernestine, all seemed to grow beautiful and bright; the scentless roses gave forth perfume; leaves covered the trees; the still stagnant bosom of the pond became limpid and sparkling, while the old castle walls shone redly and joyously, though the last flush of the west was dying upon their broad fagacle.

As Ian and Gabrielle retired, I drew nearer Ernestine, and for a moment saw the blood suffuse her face and white neck as she stooped over her needle, and my thoughts were beginning to be very much perplexed, when a fortunate incident gave a sudden--I may say glorious--turn to the conversation.

"What a very remarkable coat of arms!" said I.

"They are my _arms of expectation_," said she, looking up with a waggish smile.

"Your arms of--pardon me--but I do not understand."

"You know that I am half a Spaniard."

"And half a Scot," I added, placing a hand timidly upon her left shoulder.

"Well--it is the fashion in my mother's country to divide their shield per pale, _thus_--placing their paternal arms on the sinister side."

"On my honour, Ernestine, you are quite a little herald!"

"And leaving the dexter _blank_ for those of----"

"Who--what?"

"Their future husband--whoever Heaven shall send; and these we call our 'arms of expectation.'"

Encouraged by her merry laugh, with a beating heart I took up a pencil which lay in her work-case, and traced upon the dexter side my own arms, three cinque foils within a border.

"Whose arms are these?" she asked, looking up with a timid expression in her eyes.

"The Rollos--they are mine! Oh, Ernestine!--do not be offended; but you are so proud, that I am positively quite afraid of you. My fathers have carried these emblems on their shields in many a battle--and by the side of Scotland's kings."

"Ah! good heavens!--what do I see--they are the same as ours! _argent_, three cinque foils _or_, is it? My father has them engraved on every thing at Vienna, from his banner to his saddle-bags."

"This is very remarkable; we may be related."

"Who can say that we are not?" continued Ernestine with a charming smile, while every moment her colour deepened; "my father bears an assumed name, and even we scarcely know him by any other than Rupert-with-the-Red-plume. His is a strange story! He quarrelled with his elder brother, the lord of his family, who concluded that he was born to misfortune because his mouth was not adapted to the capacity of a certain gigantic spoon, or heirloom, which, however, I do not understand; but to ask questions about it is sufficient to kindle his anger. He served in a Scottish ship of war as captain of arquebusses, and fought against the Spaniards and Portuguese. He was wrecked; and, after many and strange vicissitudes, found his way into the Imperial army, and, belying the old tradition of his house, won himself a coronet, and a fame that will die only with the history of Austria. His own name, written in a character which I do not understand, is traced here on a blank leaf of this old family missal."

I had listened to her as one transfixed by her words, and now, trembling with eagerness, I turned to the leaf of the Latin missal (a thick little volume, printed on vellum by Thomas Davidsone, "Printer to the King's Majestie of Scotland,") and read a single line in the old Gaëlic letter, which will make two when translated;--

"_Helen, daughter of Iain MacAonghais, to her son Philip, on his tenth birthday, at the Tower of Craigrollo._"

"This is the writing of my grandmother, the daughter of John, the son of Angus of Strathdee! She had been reared by her aunt, who was a nun in a Lowland convent, and, after the storm of the Reformation, had retired to her father's house, where she dwelt in the strictest seclusion, and practising every austerity and rule of her order, had reached a wondrous age, and, outliving all her contemporaries, died only a short time before my embarkation for Denmark. The Count of Carlstein is my long missing uncle, Philip--Oh, Ernestine, I am your cousin!"

I exclaimed all this with one breath; threw an arm around her, and kissed her forehead. A sudden light--a gleam of pleasure and astonishment--flashed in the eyes of Ernestine.

"My cousin!--you--are we cousins? Oh, it is impossible!"

"You are my dear cousin. Oh, Ernestine! my sweet little heart, how I shall love you!"

"Good Heaven--how strange! In one day I lose my father and find a kinsman!"

"Now, have I not a right to be your guardian--and Ian, too! And Gabrielle--oh, I must kiss that little fairy! Ian--Ian! Hallo!" I exclaimed, throwing my bonnet into the air; "M'Farquhar--come hither--we are all cousins!"

"It is a miracle!" said Ernestine.

"Believe me, dear Ernestine," said I, tenderly; "love works more miracles than all the saints in your Roman calendar."