CHAPTER IV.

WINTER QUARTERS--THE SECRET OF GABRIELLE.

Time rolled away; we did not, as Ian expected, go to Fehmarn. Winter stole on, and one day of snow was succeeded by another. The queen and court rode out in sledges, or on horses shod with jagged shoes; our soldiers vegetated like the weeds on the ramparts. The old queen told us endless stories of James VI. and of her daughter's marriage, and went regularly every Sunday to the church of Nyekiöbing, where worship was celebrated after the Lutheran fashion. There was a fine organ. After service, the preacher was wont to come out of the pulpit and enter the choir, where he muttered a prayer, after the fashion of a low mass, which used to make Lieutenant Lumsdaine, who was a stanch Presbyterian, twirl his mustaches, and own (though he thought the organ infinitely preferable to the bagpipe then used in his parish kirk of Invergellie) that Lutheranism, as practised in Denmark, was another name for Catholicism. After service, the queen usually rode back in state, seated upon a pillion behind the Baron Fœyœ.

In the evenings we had a little ball, and danced to the flute and tabor, or, at times, to the great war-pipe of Torquil Gorm, which shook the dust from the rafters of the hall. At times, the old queen told us legends of the Trolds, or of the imps that haunted the ancient church of Nyekiöbing.

Like every old building in the Danish isles, it had a _nis_ (or brownie) attached to it. This spirit kept the seats clean and swept the aisles, arranged the cushions and dusted the pulpit. He was seldom seen at these duties, but was known to wear a green dress and conical red hat, which on the feast of St. Michael he regularly exchanged for a broad Spanish beaver, which overshadowed the whole of his squat figure. He was called the _kirckegrim_, and for his use a basin of groute was deposited every night in the vestry, by the wife of the beadle. Once this was omitted, and the spirit, in revenge, turned all her holiday garments into clouted rags. King Waldemar, the wild huntsman, was another source of many a legend, to which all the old queen's listeners gave implicit faith.

"Every night he rides across Laaland at this season," the queen would say, "and sweeps over the Möens-klint."

"I, myself, have heard him approaching," the Baron Fœyœ would add in corroboration; "once on St. John's night, when crossing the rocky ridges of the Möens-klint, I heard on the midnight wind a shouting and winding of horns, the barking of dogs, and the rushing sound of a mighty wind, coming up as from the waters of the Grön-sünd."

"And you knew the approach of Waldemar," said the old queen, all attention, as we drew our chairs closer round the glowing hearth--"of the wild huntsman?"

"My heart seemed frozen within me, and when the spirit passed before me, as the book of Job saith, 'the hair of my flesh stood up.' A storm of wind swept over the dark ridges of the Möens-klint, there was a gleam of lightning, and in the passing flash I saw the coal-black hounds of Waldemar, with long red tongues hanging out of their foam-covered mouths, as they ran snuffing and questing among the grass."

"And what aspect had Waldemar?" asked twenty voices in whispers.

"The aspect of a gigantic shadow, brandishing a hunting-sword; and his horse was but a shadow, for the stars shone through them both as they swept into the hollow, and I heard the clatter of farm-gates, the crackle of roofs, and the crash of chimneys, as the infernal train sped over Klintholun and vanished in the distance."

Told by the winter fire, while the night wind rumbled hollowly in the vast tunnelled chimney of the old castle hall, some of these wild legends were more impressive than any relation of mine can make them.

My company lay in winter quarters at the fort of Nyekiöbing for four months, during a most severe winter, in which (after having had the extremity of summer heat) we had to endure the extremity of cold. Over our cuirasses we wore doublets of fur or sheepskin, and my soldiers of course retained their tartan kilts, to the astonishment of the Danes, who were ignorant of the actual warmth and comfort of the Scottish garb; for one accustomed to it, feels less cold in his knees than other men do in their faces. The Guhlborg Sound was frozen over; even the Baltic was clothed with ice, which stood, as it seemed, in silent waves, and covered by long accumulated snow. All the adjacent isles, Möen, Nyord, and Bogöe, were covered with the same white mantle, and we travelled between them on sledges; but the cold was so much more severe than even the most hardy of our men were accustomed to, that I am sure they spent nearly all their pay in potent corn brandy.

All the courtiers were muffled to their noses in Russian sables; for though in summer they rather loved the French fashions, they were compelled in winter to resume the well-furred and more picturesque costume of the Danish isles.

Unmarked by any event, save the half-pagan festivities at Yule-tide, the four months glided pleasantly and joyously away; for a day never passed without some hours of it being spent in the society of Ernestine, and the more I knew of her, the more did I love her, for in her manner there was so much that was winning and charming. There was a piquant raciness and vivacity in her mode of expression that were very attractive, though her occasional bursts of pride and temper were a little perplexing; but the graces of mind I discovered in Ernestine, gave me cause to rejoice in the hour that I first became known to her. When I looked back to that moonlight night by the northern shore of the Elbe, where first I met the count near the gates of Glückstadt, conducting to him the little spy Prudentia, and where I received from him the gold chain to which so singular an interest attached, as having been the communion cup of Knox and Calvin, it seemed remarkable that now I should be so intimate with his daughters--the received lover of one--the acknowledged relation of both.

One can "make love" more readily, I think, in a foreign language than in ours. Every other tongue, even the Lowland Scottish, the Gaëlic and the Irish, teem with expressions of tenderness which the English language does not possess. Consequently the phrase, "How much I love you," could easily be said in German to Ernestine, or, in the language of her Spanish mother; it did not sound nearly so tremendous as in plain English.

Gabrielle was the only alloy to our happiness: she pined, became low-spirited, and longed incessantly to return to Vienna or to Luneburg--to see her father--to leave at least Nyekiöbing; and as the winter wore away, and spring drew near, this morbid melancholy increased. We thought the dreary view of the snow-clad isles and frozen sea, the leafless woods and black pine forests, rendered her spirits low and dulled her old vivacity; or that perhaps it was the grim castle, which certes was dreary enough, for it had served many generations of the house of Oldenburg--generations who had passed away like the casual inmates of an hostel, without their names being remembered in the place of their abode. The winter winds sighed through the doors, and waved the heavy tapestries, which depicted the loves of King Waldemar and _Torve Lille_, the little lady of the enchanted ring; while the melancholy cries of the horned owl were heard incessantly from the turrets of the weatherbeaten keep.

"I am not surprised that Gabrielle finds this old castle dull," said I one day to Ernestine; "but, for your presence here, I should have found it dreary enough too."

I observed that, whenever I spoke of Gabrielle's melancholy, the cheek of Ernestine reddened, and she changed the subject with an abruptness that evinced there was some secret in it; but what that secret was I could not divine.

Yule-tide passed; on Christmas-eve the queen ordered all the gates and doors to be thrown open, that there might remain nothing to obstruct the stormy career of the wild huntsman, if he came that way--but Waldemar never came.

The months of snow glided on, and the spring of 1628 approached; but in that solitary Danish isle we heard little of the war which the valiant and unfortunate king was fruitlessly maintaining by outfalls, boat excursions, sudden landings on the coast of Holstein and Juteland, and as sudden embarkations; always with severe loss to the small but brave force of Scottish and French infantry, which yet adhered to his desperate fortunes.

Vegetating at Nyekiöbing, we almost forgot that we were soldiers. Ian was so impatient to be gone, that he frequently vowed he would make an offer of his sword to Gustavus Adolphus, whose army was almost entirely led by Scottish officers, whom peace with England had compelled to court the smiles of fortune in a foreign camp, where many of them had risen to the rank of nobles; such as Spence of that Ilk, who became Count of Orcholm; Douglas of Whittinghame, who became Count of Schonengen; while the Laird of Dalserf and many others rose to be barons of Sweden and Finland.

The charming society of Ernestine had somewhat tempered in me, perhaps, that restless craving for glory and adventure which animates a true soldier of fortune. Thus I was perfectly content, and the winter months were passed in quiet happiness; for she had promised to unite her fortunes with mine when the war ceased, and her father's consent was obtained. When the war ceased! That, indeed, would have tried the patience of honest Job, for the great _Thirty_ Years' war was only then in its infancy.

The poor old queen-dowager was so kind and good, so affable and motherly, and bore her diminished fortune with such philosophical equanimity of temper, that it was impossible not to love and respect her; but she prosed sometimes, and inflicted upon us interminable stories of Holger Danske, King Waldemar, and Lille Torve, and repeated the profound sayings of that pedantic blockhead, her son-in-law, the King of Scotland.*

* The pen has been drawn through this in the original. In 1694, Lord Molesworth gave an account of Denmark similar to that which follows. It proved so offensive to the Danes, that their king demanded, by his ambassador, the author's head, from King William of Orange.

During my residence at Nyekiöbing, I discovered why King Christian, the patron of poetry and the drama, employed so many Scots, Irish, German, and French soldiers of fortune to fight his battles; for, unlike the Holsteiners, the majority of his subjects had really lost much of their ancient bravery, and, being somewhat addicted to cheating, were, as usual with the false, full of mistrust of others. In short, they loved not to wage war, while they could get so many gallant Scots and Irishmen to wage it for them; but, oppressed by its consequences, poverty and poor fare were every where apparent. The slavish boors fed on roots, rye-bread, and salted fish; the burghers or citizens on lean flesh, stock-fish, bacon, and bad cheese. When the land is sold, the men, their wives and children who inhabit it, go with the freehold, like the trees and walls thereon. Their songs bore a strong resemblance to the old ballads sung by our Border harpers; and I have no doubt that many of those ancient lays which the Goths brought out of the East, and which Tacitus mentions in his account of the Germans, might be traced among our Scottish hills, where the wandering bards of other times have brought them from Denmark.

I found them great vaunters, too, those Danes. It was their frequent boast that they were the conquerors of England, and this is graven on the tombs of many of their kings. Thus at Roskilde, on the graves of Harold VII., of Sueno III., and others, they are always designated _Rex Daciæ, Angliæ et Norvegiæ_. Being Scots, we could not quarrel with these assumptions, as they did not concern us; the Baron Fœyœ in particular, when the schnaps or corn brandy were more potent than usual, was a vehement upholder of the ancient Danish glory, of which Ian was always somewhat sceptical.

"I assure you it is a fact, Herr Rollo," the baron would say, counting on his fingers; "we have defeated the Swedes in twenty-two pitched battles, and made them swear allegiance to four-and-twenty of our kings. We have overthrown the Norsemen in thirty-two battles. Russia has paid tribute to eight of our monarchs; we have conquered Ireland eight, and England ten times. Canute IV. conquered Livonia, and Helgo won Saxony by his sword; while Courland, Esthonia, and Prussia, have all, at various times, belonged to the Danish crown."

"Thank God, and the stout hearts of our fathers, these conquering Danes never found aught but their graves on Scottish ground!" Ian would retort with a grim look; "and you may see them yet, Herr Baron, on the battle-fields of Crail, Cru-dane, and Luncarty; but I marvel much that the descendants of these enterprising rovers, are unable to hold yonder poor peninsula of Juteland against the soldiers of Wallenstein, Tilly, and Merodé."

From our dreamy mode of passing the time, we were roused to our active military labours by the opening spring; and, from leading the quiet life of a very Dutchman, I was soon to become immersed in a succession of the most stirring incidents.

The season was that which at home in Britain we call spring; but in those northern isles of Denmark the snow lay thick upon the land, and with its dreary sheets the white field-ice covered all the Baltic and the Guldborg Sound; for that infallible authority who exists every where, the oldest inhabitant of Nyekiöbing, could not remember a season so cold or so severe. From my windows, which overlooked the Sound on one side, and the castle garden on the other, the view was intensely desolate and dreary.

The fortress was very old, and my chamber was hung with faded tapestry, representing the martyrdom of Erik Plogpenning, and his ghastly body gashed with fifty-six wounds; my bed was an immense antique four-poster of the most alarming dimensions, old perhaps as the days of Holger Danske, and completely shrouded by curtains of sombre blue velvet. A tall wardrobe and cabinet of walnut wood, a table and two chairs of oak, all curiously and somewhat barbarously carved, made up the furniture; while the stone fireplace was so capacious, that within it I could stand upright with my bonnet on. And so thick were the walls, that even at noonday, but a dim light straggled through the strongly barred and deeply embayed windows.

A mound--doubtless the barrow in which reposed the bones of some bold Cimbric warrior--lay under the castle wall. Therein as the Baron Fœyœ told me, dwelt a vast number of little Trolds, all clad in green dresses, with heavy ungainly persons, long noses, crooked backs, and red caps. He averred having seen them at a festival on St John's night; when the mound opened, its womb seemed full of light, and there, around a dead man's skeleton, were the little Trolds seen dancing, drinking fairy wine out of limpet shells, and keeping in thrall the wife of Heinrich Vüg (the Royal gateward), whom they had spirited away, and who had not the power to return to her spouse; though he frequently heard her wailing, when, in the calm summer evenings, he sat on the summit of the mound, smoking his long pipe, and reflecting that, all things considered, his bereavement was not so hard that it could not be borne patiently.

One evening in March, when the snow lay deep around the castle, and, except the woods of leafless beech, or here and there a clump of dark green pine, every thing was mantled over with it; I sat at one of my windows, which I had opened to see more clearly the prospect of the Sound, where many a ship lay frozen in, with her high poop and snow-mantled yards casting a long shadow on the expanse of ice.

I was buried in reverie; my mind was endeavouring to pierce the clouds that rested on the future; for though the progress of my love affair was indeed most fortunate, the chances of a happy conclusion were, as yet, distant and vague; and, of all things in this world, there is nothing I dislike more than suspense.

The sun was setting, and its cold yellow lustre fell upon a stone terrace immediately below my window; there, in a sheltered place, and well muffled up in dresses of warm red cloth, trimmed with ample furs of Muscovite sable, Ernestine sat with Gabrielle, conversing in low and earnest tones. They had been there for a considerable time, before a sudden exclamation of the first made me aware of their vicinity. I had not the least intention of listening, for I had too keen a sense of honour to do so, though we have known it to be the favourite resort of romancers and players, to make even their best bred cavaliers acquainted with what it was never intended they should know; but a burst of surprise and anguish from Ernestine, and its tenor, chained me to the spot, and, think of it what you will, I was compelled to remain and listen.

"Gabrielle! oh, Gabrielle! what is this you tell me? I will leave this place at all risks--we must--we shall! Nay, nay! talk not of danger or of difficulty; for we will launch a boat and put forth together, rather than expose you to this humiliating--this miserable infatuation!"

"Oh, spare me, dear sister!" urged the plaintive voice of Gabrielle.

"I do not reproach you, Gabrielle!" said Ernestine, affectionately drawing her sister's drooping head upon her breast, and embracing it with her arm.

"Ernestine, is it a sin to love?"

"Not as your spotless heart loves!" replied the elder sister, kissing her; while a bright smile of affection sparkled in her mild dark eyes.

"It must be--else whence this sense of mingled shame and mortification?"

"We shall leave this ill-omened island, Gabrielle. We must depart for Vienna--I have still money enough; but oh, what a distance to travel alone! Surely, we shall find some safe conductor, at least, to the opposite shore, where the Imperialists have garrisoned every town. At all risks, my poor little dove, I will free you from this danger; so dry your tears, Gabrielle, and weep no more."

But Gabrielle's tears fell faster.

"Oh, Ernestine! I should die of shame if I thought that any one save you had heard this avowal--this humiliating avowal--or knew my terrible secret!"

"That you love a heedless cavalier--ha, ha, Gabrielle!"

"Do not laugh. I would to Heaven, Ernestine, that I had never met this man--that we had remained at Luneburg, as our dear father wished. And his Moina--how he loves her! He often praises her to me, and without perceiving that every word is like a death stab. Happy Moina!"

Moina! I was thunderstruck. The gentle, the pining Gabrielle loved Ian Dhu, whose chivalric heart was faithfully devoted to another. This was the source of that secret sadness which had so much astonished and alarmed us. Innocent and guileless, her heart had guarded in its pure recesses this deep love, which sprang from a gratitude to her father's brave preserver. Sincerely I pitied Gabrielle, for I knew that her love was hopeless; and a thousand little expressions of eye, changes of voice and manner, which, in my pre-occupation with Ernestine, had passed unobserved at the time, now flashed upon my memory. Dear Gabrielle! I loved her like a younger sister, and felt alike hostile and indignant at this unknown Moina, who had rendered Ian so invulnerable to her many attractions.

"Ian will go home to his own mountains--those blue mountains he talks so much of; and he will marry--yes, Ernestine," continued Gabrielle, "he will marry this Moina. He cannot love me. Oh! I fear he would rather despise me if he knew how much I loved him."

"Despise!--you, the Count of Carlstein's daughter!" said her sister, whose eyes kindled.

"He saved our dear father's life," said Gabrielle, with a sad smile; "'twas that which first opened my heart unto him. He will marry that woman--and never have one thought for me, who love him so well; my memory will pass away like the last year's leaves. I hope she is good and beautiful--for he deserves a bride who is both. Yes--yes, dear Ernestine--let us leave this place; for I long for another still more solitary, where, unseen, I may give myself up to grief, and die."

"I have met men at Vienna who did not believe that a woman could love, my poor little lamb, Gabrielle!"

"Not love? How little they knew us! And who were they?"

"Wallenstein, the Duke of Friedland, was one--the Count Merodé another."

"Merodé--ah, frightful!" said Gabrielle with a shudder. "What could he know of love?"

"It was once said that he loved you, and that your rejection drove him to those excesses which have made him and his regiment a European proverb."

"He--the wretched libertine--who is said to have three wives shut up at his castle in the Black Forest of Thuringia! He--a horror to his own kinsman as to his enemies! How could you speak of him, Ernestine? oh, how unlike _him_ whose image, as if by fascination, fills up my whole mind. Sister, I admire, not alone his handsome figure or fine military eye; but his bold and manly spirit, his free and gallant bearing. When we return to Vienna, I will go to a convent, sister; I think I have the vocation of which you once used to speak. It has left you, and come to me. My heart swells with pride when I see him, Ernestine. How his tall eagle's-plume overtops all others here! (I am sure I have got the vocation, sister.) He jests and laughs so kindly, and I jest in return, to hide the deadly secret that preys upon my spirit; for until she is beloved a woman cannot love. Oh, Ernestine--Ernestine! do not think me mad or immodest; but kiss me, dear sister, for I assure you I am neither; I am still your dear little sister--the same Gabrielle. How happy you must be to have some one who loves you! There are times when jestingly he kisses my hand because we are cousins; and, as his kinswoman, in his brave heart he loves me like a little sister. But, oh! he knows not the swell of passion excited by his voice, by his approach, by his touch, and how the kiss he prints in play upon my hand sinks into my inmost heart, and makes it tremulous with joy. But he passes away to others, and then the darkness, the gloom, and desolation again sink over me."

"It is an infatuation!"

"Kiss me, Ernestine--for you have been a mother to me since my poor mother died. Kiss me, dear sister, for I am indeed very miserable!"

It seemed as if the lofty spirit of Ernestine was stung by the strange avowal of poor Gabrielle, and she wept with her; but her tears were those of pride and mortification.

Lovers never dream that others can discern their passion; and thin though the disguise may be that usually veils it, so admirably had Gabrielle concealed her secret thoughts, that none could have suspected them, and honest Ian least of all.

Time rolled on, and the month of March was passing away.

Daily I could perceive how the secret I had heard was preying upon the mind of Gabrielle, and blanching her thin, wan cheek. She lived without hope--without a future to look forward to; and when Ian spoke with joy of his return home at the close of the war (now soon expected by a treaty of which a whisper reached us), I saw that his thoughtless words sunk like iron into the poor girl's soul.

She gradually subsided into a calm but profound state of melancholy, and begged to be removed from Nyekiöbing, that she might enter a German convent; but the sea around us was yet closed by the frozen waves of the field-ice. Ernestine and I could alone see into the depths of her heart; and even Ernestine knew not that I had overheard their secret.

As for Ian Dhu, I thought he was blind not to perceive, when he approached Gabrielle, how her blue eyes sparkled, how her fair cheek flushed, and then waxed deadly pale, while her voice trembled when she answered him; but about the middle of the month a courier came from the king requiring his presence at Assens, and he left us by the port of Skielbye, where the ice had partly left an open passage between the floes.

Ernestine was pleased to see him depart; but after that event the mild eyes of Gabrielle became more sad, and her cheek more blanched. Deep thoughts preyed like deathly weariness or an incurable sorrow upon her soul. It was the "worm in the bud."

Poor Gabrielle!--like a young flower deprived of sunshine and air, was withering away; and I feared the unhappy girl would die--though people never die of love.

But a crisis was at hand.