CHAPTER XXXVI.

HELSINGOR.

It was a relief to us all when day dawned, for the great event of the night had sorely damped our spirit. The funeral was not over before an early hour; Fritz, Ian, M'Alpine, and I, sat under the _Green-Tree_, drinking hot sack by the light of a stable lantern, and when day dawned in the east, and the clouds of night rolled away over Juteland and the Belt, we gladly prepared to march. With the first peep of day our pipers blew the "gathering," and the regiment fell in by companies, in the main street. Munro of Culcraigie had marched with the baggage-wains an hour before.

Ernestine was in Karl's carriage, and was accompanied by her female attendants, while our preacher, doctor, founder, and such other gentlemen as had no place under baton, rode by the side of the wheels. Just as the sun rose above the horizon, we marched from Hesinge, with the shrill fifes playing and merry drums rattling to the old air, _Put up your dagger, Jamie_.* Thus with all the glitter of military display, and its greatest accessary, martial music, we left for ever that old Danish village of Odenzee, and its melancholy associations.

* Now known as "My love she's but a lassie yet."

Next day we reached Nyeborg, a town strongly fortified, but falling into ruin; the old castle of four towers, which Christian III. enclosed by bastions of earth, was untiled, and hastening to decay. From thence we crossed the Great Belt, which was rough and stormy, and landed at Korsör, a poor-looking town, having an ancient fortress. From thence we continued our route towards Elsineur (or Helsingör), where we arrived after an easy march of five days, during which there occurred nothing of any consequence save an occasional quarrel with the boors.

On the route I had many opportunities of paying to Ernestine all those little attentions which gallantry inculcates, and affection inspires. The constant change of scene, for each night we halted in a different town, kept her mind employed, and drew her away from her own sorrows; but still they would recur, again and again, with greater force, because she had permitted herself to be for a time comparatively placid.

The only scene in Zealand that elicited an observation from her was the royal forest of Sora, and its pretty town, which stood on the margin of a deep dark lake, dotted by snow-white swans. We approached it by a bank, which was laid across a marsh and formed a roadway, bordered on each side by trees, and terminated by a gate.

If some of my brother officers had not acquainted Major Fritz of the tenor of my intimacy with Ernestine, no doubt the condolences and attentions he would have bestowed on a girl so attractive, would have been overpowering and intrusive; but though the gallant musketeer of Sleswig was enchanted by her beauty, he was compelled to keep his vivacity and admiration within the narrow bounds allotted by the most frigid politeness; for I believe he knew that I was one whose temper would not brook much trifling. Still he could not restrain his propensity to jest, and was wont to say at times, when we were smoking a pipe together on the march, or sipping a can of wine at a halt--

"Ah--oh!--I see how it is, devilish well; one does not require the eyes of Argus for that."

"For what, Herr Major?"

"That we shall not be long in cantonments before you will commit something in the way of matrimony; though a wife is a deuced incumbrance to a soldier of fortune. In fact, long before we fight our way to Vienna, I expect to see you the delighted father of a little brood of bare-legged Scots, subsiding down into a staid old fellow, and a pattern of all the domestic virtues."

"In these I shall never be rivalled by _you_, Fritz."

"Der Teufel, no! If I have my pipe and my horse, my sword and a few dollars in my purse, a friend to chat to and an occasional pretty girl to toy with, the world, and all the domestic virtues to boot, may go and be hanged for aught that I would care."

Three miles from Elsineur the brave old King of Denmark came on horseback to meet us, accompanied by his Live Knecht, the Count of Rantzau, the Barons of Klosterfiörd, Fœyœ, and other knights of the Armed Hand. This stout monarch, who was still as keen an admirer of beauty as when a stripling of eighteen, first paid his respects to Ernestine, and, alighting from horseback, stood hat in hand at the door of the caleche. Unaware of all that had happened, he asked where her "pretty sister was."

Then Ernestine could no longer restrain her tears, and told her sorrowful story.

King Christian's solitary eye, glistened at her narrative. He kissed her hand, and then patted her on the head, as a father would have done; for though a king, and one as brave as ever wore a crown, or drew a sword, he was a good old soul.

"Poor child!" said he; "my heart bleeds for you, but, if possible, forget the past in contemplating the future. We cannot alter it; even the great Master of heaven and earth himself, with all his power and majesty, though he may avert the evils or change the events of the future, cannot control the past. It is unalterable."

From a hill above Elsineur the view was lively, beautiful, and even impressive. On one side lay the flat and low, but green promontory, grasping the narrow gate of the Baltic, with its white town spreading irregularly along the slope, and over looked by the square and massive castle of Cronborg, in the vaults of which, the legends say, old Holgier Danske and his long bearded Knechts have been seated round a stone table for centuries; and there the fat and well-fed Danish soldiers hear the occasional clash of their axes and hauberks, during the still, dark hours of their midnight guard.

Away on the west stretched the level shore of Denmark, with little tufts of coppice and gentle hills of sand, rising from immense plains, where wind-mills were tossing their light arms on the breeze. On the east, rough Sweden reared its mighty mountains and tremendous rocks, which the earthquakes and thunderbolts of an antediluvian world had cleft and rent into steep summits, starting boldly and bluffly forward from a sky of blue, and tinted with the rosy light of a setting sun; between these peaks, and beyond them, lay its deep dark vales and old primeval woods, its vast lakes and foaming rivers; its scenery stern and magnificent, like that of our mother Caledonia.

The setting sun was gilding the copper roofs of the four large turrets or corner towers of Cronborg, and throwing their shadows far upon the azure waters of the Sound, then dotted by the white sails of many a passing ship. I remember to have seen an original letter, written from this castle, by his Majesty James VI. to Alexander Lord Spynie, anent the erection of the bishopric of Moray into a temporal lordship.*

* The letter referred to by Captain Rollo, is now among the Denmylne MSS.

Five casemated bastions faced the landward, and one, mounted with cannons-royale, swept the narrow gate, where Christian IV. had again begun to levy an ocean toll upon the ships of all nations. Except those of the Scots, who were in alliance with Denmark, every vessel lowered her topsail, and showed her flag for five minutes, or a cannon-shot came booming upon her from Cronborg. This toll was originally exacted on account of certain buoys, by which the Danish government marked the dangerous shoals, and for certain lights burned upon the coast by night. Previous to 1582, England paid a rose-noble for every ship that passed the Sound, and her vessels lowered their topsails; but in consequence of the double marriages and ancient friendship between Denmark and Scotland, the ships of the latter nation passed the fort with St. Andrew's ensign flying and all their sails set.

At the gate of Helsingör, we were met by our colonel, Sir Donald Mackay, who with five hundred good recruits had arrived from Scotland three days previous. As we marched in, with pipes sounding, drums beating, and colours flying, these recruits mingled with our ranks, in search of friends and relations, brothers and kinsmen, and there arose a clamour of joyous congratulations, mingled with exclamations of sorrow, for many a man who was missing, and whom the new-comers had hoped to see and to greet.

Some inquired for brothers and fathers, and were answered that they were lying in their graves at Bredenburg, the Boitze, at Eckernfiörd, or other places. These announcements cast a shadow over their obstreperous joy; while the news they brought us from Scotland were of the most varied description, and led us to believe, that erelong all our swords and our valour would be required to vindicate the rights and the dignity of Scotland against her native prince, and his meddling subjects of England.

Sir Donald handed me a letter from Dominie Daidle, who had prayed him, when passing through Cromartie, to deliver it to me, "if he found me in the body." It was written, as the Dominie said, by the express order of the laird, my father, who (poor man!) was no deacon at penmanship.

All were in good health at Craigrollo; all congratulated me on my promotion to the command of a company, and so forth. Even my father was beginning to take an interest in my success, and regretted my absence. "The muckle spune----" but here the Dominie had drawn his pen through the words, as if he had changed his mind, and went on with other information. My three brothers had recently had some hard work in recovering certain herds of our cattle, which had been borrowed, sans leave, by the caterans of the Black Isle. In this service, Finlay had received a slash from an axe, and Farquhar a dab from a biodag; but, thanks to Providence, and the salves of old Mhona Toshach, the poor lads were doing well. Then came all the news of the district. Urquhart of Cromartie had won his famous plea anent his niece's tocher before the Lords of Session; but as the lord justice-general was his kinsman, auld Sir Thomas was aye fortunate in _his_ pleas. Dalblair had come down the burn-side with four-and-twenty Hielandmen, and burned the tower of his auld enemy, Camstrairy; but had been put to the horn, and was now fled from the kingdom to France or England. The laird of Brea had burned the clachan of St. Martin's, because Gilbert Blakhal, a seminary priest, had been hiding there, and so forth. Then came various messages to soldiers of the regiment. "Tell Alister Glas from Kessock, that his mother received the fifty dollars that he sent; and that his father, puir bodach! mistook another man's kye for his own, and bade farewell to this world at Crieff, last Lammas-tide. Tell Rori Beg, from Brea, that his sister went off with the Egyptians to the Lowlands, and has not since been heard of; but the laird swears he will hang every man and mother's son of them that pass this way in future, for she was the bonniest lass on the barony. Tell Gillian M'Bane, that his brother, the sailor, has been seized and made a slave by the cruel pirates of Barbary, with twenty other mariners of the good ship _Bon Accord_, of Aberdeen, but we raised a subscription here to buy him off, and the laird has given twenty crowns Scots towards the gude work. Kynnoch, the provost of Forres, was burned yesterday as a warlock and traitor.

"There are doleful troubles brewing in the south," continued the dominie, "and a war with England is confidently looked for. Maist men wish it, for there are sic swarms o' idle callants biding about every hall and homestead--and war must come; for flying rumour saith, that our Scottish clergy have petitioned the king against the Five obnoxious Articles of Perth, and that he hath urged the Archbishop of St. Andrews to enforce the Episcopal order. The cloud gathers, and the storm groweth. A little while, and we shall see the one darken, and the other burst over the length and breadth of the land. Mark me, Master Philip, a day of dule is coming, when all those gallant Scots who are now fighting the battles of Denmark, Sweden, Bohemia, and Almainie, will be summoned home to protect (against the king and the aggressive English) that holy kirk which Knox and Wishart founded, and those institutions which our forefathers transmitted to us--even as we are bound to transmit them unimpaired to our posterity."

In fact, the acuteness of my old dominie enabled him to perceive those storms then darkening the horizon of Scottish politics, but which, to more superficial observers, were as yet invisible.

Since the death of Gabrielle, Ernestine had become more than ever impatient and anxious to rejoin her father, who (as the king informed her) was now at Stralsund, in command of a brigade of cavalry, and who probably supposed that all this time his daughters had been safely at Falster with the old queen-dowager.

Stralsund was now in a desperate state, and no time was to be lost in hastening to its rescue. Thus, in one hour after we entered Elsineur, we embarked on board the fleet, and sailed for the beleaguered city.

Ernestine and her two attendants were the only females on board the king's ship, where, by the judicious management of my friend, the Baron Karl--then acting as quartermaster-general--I had the good fortune to be embarked with my company. For the first time since we left Hesinge, I perceived a smile on the face of Ernestine; this was when the vessels were got fairly under weigh, and, squaring their yards to the northern gale, stood down the Sound with all their sails set, just as the sun sank behind the spires of Elsineur.

"I am now fairly on my way to my father," said she.

"And to leave me?"

The smile died away, and she gave me a pleading glance.

She sat long beside me on the deck, wrapped up in a well-furred mantle, nor did she bid me adieu for the night until we were far past the isle of Hueen, the residence of Tycho Brahe (and then famous for four castles, said by the Danish legends to have been built by the children of Huenella the giantess), and had reached that part of the straits where they widen to twenty-five and thirty miles in breadth, and the distant spires of Landscrona faded from our view.

After she retired I paced the deck alone (being captain of the military watch), rolled in my plaid, and smoking a German pipe. I was thoughtful, and looked forward, with no pleasant anticipations, to our arrival at the great city of Stralsund; for there I would be separated from Ernestine for a long and indefinite period. Her father and I were the servants of hostile kings; and, though near kinsmen (but, as yet, the count knew not that), were the leaders of soldiers who were the enemies of each other; and all that I could hope for now, was to be favoured with bearing the flag of truce by which Ernestine would be finally guided to the Imperial tents.

Near me a number of our soldiers of the watch were telling stories, and sat in a circle on the main deck, with their plaids and bonnets drawn over their ears. I drew near to listen, and thus wiled away the hours of the night.

Morning came again: another part of the coast and a wider sea were in view. The grey clouds which had veiled the sky, and shed a cold hue on the waters, were rent asunder, as if by the broad wave of some mighty hand--by Odin himself, the king of spells; and through the gap a blaze of saffron light was shed upon the fertile isle of Amack and Zealand's level shores--level save where a little chalky cliff, a venerable tower, or a clump of trees rose against the sky--part of that long succession of wood-bordered lawns which spread, with villas, cottages, and gardens, along the beautiful but monotonous coast from Elsineur to Copenhagen.

Opposite, bleak Scania reared up her iron and precipitous front, above which, and amid a pile of purple clouds, the sun was rising; and when these clouds were rolled away towards the north, the sky appeared in all its cold and Swedish purity of blue. At sea one's spirit naturally becomes exhilarated on a fine morning, when with a beautiful sunrise the wind is fair, and all the fleet are rolling before it, until their yard-arms almost dip, and we have our friends exchanging signals from the sides of the vessels; but I felt--I know not why--none of that ardour with which I should have hailed our entrance upon such an arena of war and glory as Stralsund: a foreboding of approaching sorrow--conduced probably by the certainty that, within a week at least, I would be separated from Ernestine--oppressed me, and I looked forward with no emotion of pleasure to the day we should drop our anchors on the Pomeranian shores.

Long ere the noonday sun had brightened the rippling water, and tinted with yellow the faint blue Scanian peaks, the towers of Kiöbenhafn, and the turrets of the old castle of Christianborg, faded away or sank into the gulf of Kjöge; the point of Falsterboro' in Sweden rose out of the water, and then we were breasting the short, foamy waves of the Baltic sea.