Bothwell or, The Days of Mary Queen of Scots (2025)

CONTENTS OF VOL. III.

CHAPTER

1. The-Kirk-Of-Field

2. The Midnight Mass

3. Guilt Levels All

4. The Prebend of St. Giles

5. The Papists' Pillar

6. Remorse

7. The Rescue

8. The Challenge

9. Ainslie's Supper

10. Hans and Konrad

11. How Bothwell Made Use of the Bond

12. Love and Scorn

13. The Cry

14. Hans' Patience is Rewarded

15. The Legend of St. Mungo

16. Mary's Despair

17. The Bridal at Beltane

18. The Whirlpool

19. Bothwell and the Great Bear

20. Christian Alborg

21. The Castellana

22. The Vain Resolution

23. Retribution

24. Malmö

——— Notes

BOTHWELL;

OR,

THE DAYS OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE KIRK-OF-FIELD.

They make me think upon the gunner's lintstock,

Which yielding forth a light about the size

And semblance of the glow-worm, yet applied

To powder, blew a palace into atoms.

Sent a young king—a young queen's mate, at least—

Into the air, as high as ere flew night-hawk,

And made such wild work in the realm of Scotland.

Auchindrane, Act ii.

There was not a sound heard in themansion, which, at that moment, had no otheroccupants than the doomed prince, his twopages, (or chamber-cheilds as the Scots namethem,) and five other attendants,—WilliamTaylor, Thomas Neilson, Simpson, Edwards,and a boy. These occupied apartments atthe extremity of the house, but on the samefloor with the king. All the other attendantshad absconded, to partake of the festivities atHolyrood, or had gone there in the queen'sretinue.

"French Paris—Nicholas Hubert," saidBothwell in a husky voice, "the keys!"

Hubert produced them from beneath hismantle. They were a set of false keys whichhad been made from waxen impressions ofthe originals. The door was softly opened,and the conspirators entered the lowerambulatory, on each side of which lay a vaultedchamber.

Bolton thought of Hubert's sister, and hisheart grew sick; for the brother knew notthat his sister was at that time above them,in the chamber of Darnley.

"Come, Master Konrad," said Ormiston,tapping him on the shoulder; "if we are tobe friends, assist us, and make thyself useful;for we have little time to spare."

Thus urged, Konrad, though still in profoundignorance as to the object of his companions,and the part he was acting, assistedOrmiston and French Paris to unload thesumpter-horse, and to drag the heavy mailswithin doors. These he supposed to containplunder, and then the whole mysteryappeared unravelled. His companions wererobbers, and the solitary house, about andwithin which they moved so stealthily, wastheir haunt and hiding-place. With affectedgood-will he assisted to convey the mails intothe vaults, where, some hours before, Huberthad deposited a large quantity of powder,particularly under the corner or ground stonesof the edifice.

While they were thus employed, andwhile the ex-Lord Chancellor and Whittinghamekept watch, the Earl and John of Boltonascended softly to the corridor of theupper story, where, by the dim light of asmall iron cresset that hung from the pointedceiling, they saw Andro Macaige, one ofthe king's pages, lying muffled in his mantle,and fast asleep on a bench.

"Confusion!" said the Earl fiercely; "thisreptile must be destroyed, and I have lostmy poniard!"

"Must both the pages die?" asked hiscompanion, in a hollow tone.

"Thou shalt soon see!" replied the Earl,who endeavoured, by imitating Ormiston'scareless and ruffian manner, to veil from hisfriends, and from himself, the horror thatwas gradually paralysing his heart.

They passed the sleeping page unheard,as the floor was freshly laid with rushes,and entered the chamber of the youngking—that dimly-lighted chamber of sicknessand suffering; where the innumerablegrotesque designs of some old prebend ofSt. Mary, seemed multiplied to a myriadgibbering faces, as the faint and flickeringradiance of the night lamp played upon them.The great bed looked like a dark sarcophagus,canopied by a sable pall; and the king'slong figure, covered by a white satin coverlet,resembled the effigy of a dead man;and certainly the pale sharp outline of hissleeping face, in no way tended to dispel thedreamy illusion.

Bothwell's fascinated gaze was riveted onhim, but Bolton's turned to the page, whowas half seated and half reclined on the lowbed, and, though fast asleep, lay against thesick king's pillow, with an arm clasping hishead.

They seemed to have fallen asleep thus.

The thick dark hair of Mariette fell indisorder about her shoulders; her cheekswere pale and blanched, and blistered byweeping; her long and silky eyelashes werewet and matted with tears; and there wasmore of despondency than affection in the airwith which she drooped beside the king.Her weariness of weeping and sorrow hadevidently given way to slumber.

Rage and jealousy swelled the heart ofBolton. He panted rather than breathed;and though his long-desired hour ofvengeance on them both had come, he too wasparalysed, trembling, and irresolute. TheEarl gave him a glance of uncertainty; butBolton saw only Mariette. Consciencewhispered "to pause," while there was yettime; but the bond had been signed, thestake laid, and to waver was to die!

For a moment a blindness fell upon hiseyes, and a sickness on his heart; and theEarl said to Hepburn in a hollow accent—

"Thy poniard—thy poniard! Thou hast it!The king, the king! and I will grasp this boy."

At that moment Mariette started, awoke,and uttered a shrill cry of terror on perceivingtwo armed men with their faces masked.

The king turned uneasily in bed; and, filledwith desperation by the imminence of thedanger, and the necessity for immediateaction, Bothwell approached, the couch.But either Darnley had been awake (andwatching them for some time,) or instantlybecame so, and with all his senses abouthim; for like lightning he sprang frombed—his long illness and attenuation makinghis lofty stature appear more colossal; hesnatched a sword, and, clad only in his shirtand pelisse, rushed upon the intruders. Onthis, a frenzy seemed to take possession ofboth conspirators.

Parrying a sword thrust with his mailedarm, Bothwell threw himself upon the weakand powerless Darnley, and struck him downby a blow of the maul he carried.

The wretched king uttered a piercing cry;another and another succeeded, and Bothwell,animated by all the momentary fury ofa destroyer, stuffed a handkerchief violentlyinto his mouth, and at that moment hebecame insensible.

Meanwhile, Bolton, trembling with apprehension,jealousy, horror, and (shall we sayit?) love, clasped Mariette in his arms, andendeavoured to stifle her cries; but sheuttered shriek upon shriek, till, maddened by fearand excitement, all the despair of the loverbecame changed to hatred and clamorousalarm. A spirit of destruction possessed hissoul; his nerves seemed turned to iron, hiseyes to fire.

He became blind—mad!

He grasped her by the neck—(that delicateand adorable neck, which it had oncebeen a rapture to kiss, while he toyed withthe dark ringlets that shaded it)—and as hisnervous grasp tightened, her eyeballsprotruded, her arms sank powerless, and herform became convulsed.

She gave him one terrible glance that showedshe recognised him, and made one desperateeffort to release herself, and to embracehim.

"O Jesu Maria! spare me, dearestHepburn—spare me! I love thee still—I do—Ido! Kill me not—destroy me notthus—thus—with all my sins!Man—devil—spare me! God—God!"

She writhed herself from his hands, andsank upon the floor, where, vibrating betweentime and eternity, she lay motionless and still.Hepburn's senses were gone—yet he couldperceive close by him the convulsed form ofthe king, with Bothwell's handkerchief in histhroat. He was dead.

The terrible deed was done! They sprangaway, stumbling over the body of Macaigethe page, whom Hay of Tallo had slain in thecorridor; and, descending the stairs almost atone bound, came panting and breathless tothe side of the cool and deliberate Morton,who, with his sword drawn, stood nearOrmiston, and superintended the laying of a trainto the powder in the vaults. Then, by thelight of the red-orbed moon, that streamedfull upon them, did the startled Konradperceive that Bothwell and Bolton, whose maskswere awry, appeared stunned and bewildered.The eyes of the Earl were glazed and haggard;his hands were clenched, and his browknit with horrible thoughts; his companionwas like a spectre; his eyes rolled fearfully,and his hair seemed stiffened and erect.

Konrad recognised them both, and immediatelybecame aware that some deed of darknesshad been perpetrated.

"Thou hast done well!" said Ormiston,surveying them grimly.

"Well!" reiterated the Earl, in a sepulchralvoice, as, overcome and exhausted bythe sudden revulsion of his terrible thoughts,he leaned against the doorway. "Well! saidstthou? Oh, Hob Ormiston! my verysoul seemed at my finger-points when Igrasped him. My God! what am I saying?I was intoxicated—delirious! Cain—Cain!"

"Ah, Mariette!" groaned the repentantBolton; "thy dying cry, and the last glareof thy despairing eyes, will haunt me to mygrave!"

"Cock and pie!" cried Ormiston, withastonishment and exasperation; "have wehere two bearded men, or two schulebairnsblubbering over their Latinities? May athousand yelling fiends hurl ye both to hell!"he added savagely. "Away! disperse—whileI fire the train. The match—the lunt!Hither, Paris—Hubert—thou French villain! quick!"

"Separate!" said the Earl of Morton;"disperse—I go to Dalkeith on the spur.Away!" and, leaping on the horse that hadborne the powder, this noble Earl, who atall times was extremely economical of hisown person, galloped away, and disappearedover the brae to the southward.

Bothwell's olive face glowed for a moment,as he blew the slow match and fired thetrain. Like a fiery serpent, it glowed alongthe ground, flashed through the open doorway,and down the dark corridor of the house,till it reached the vaulted chamber belowthat of Darnley, and where the powder lay.Then there was a pause—but for a momentonly—for, lo'——

Broad, red, and lurid, on the shadowynight, through all the grated windows of thehouse of the Kirk-of-Field, there flashed avolume of light—dazzling and blindinglight—eclipsing the full-orbed moon and all thesparkling stars—revealing the forms of theshrinking conspirators, and every surroundingobject. Full on the massive ramparts ofthe city, tufted with weeds and blackenedby the smoke of years, fell that sudden glow,revealing the strong embrasures that stretchedaway into far obscurity, the grim bastel-houseclose by, with its deep-mouthed gunportand peering culverin—on the ivied aisles ofMary's lonely kirk—on the shattered towerof the Dominicans—and displaying even fora gleam the distant woods of Merchiston.The fields quaked—the walls of the mansionshook; and then came a roar, as if theearth was splitting.

The solid masonry rent from copestone tofoundation in a hundred ruddy fissures; themassive vaults yawned and opened; thewindow-gratings were torn asunder like gossamerwebs; and a gigantic column of fire andsmoke, dust and stones, ascended into theair, as if vomited from the mouth of avolcano, to descend in ruin and darkness on theearth; and a vast pile of rubbish was all thatremained of the house of St. Mary-in-the-Fields!

"Ho! ho!" cried Ormiston, with a wildlaugh. "Like a bolt from a bow, there goethHenry Stuart, Lord of Darnley, Duke ofAlbany, and King of Scotland!"

For a moment Bothwell felt as if he neitherlived nor breathed; but Ormiston hurried himaway, while all their appalled comradesdispersed in various directions. Konrad,although the whole affair was anincomprehensible mystery to him, acting bythe natural instinct of self-preservation,on finding himself deserted by companionswhom he dreaded and abhorred, instead ofreturning to the city, struck into a narrowhorseway that led southward, and hurriedwith all speed from the scene of thisterrible explosion; for the whole bearing ofthose who had so suddenly left him tohis own reflections, informed him that itwould neither be conducive to his safetyor honour to be found in a vicinity so dangerous.

Ignorant of the country, and with no otherobject than to leave the city far behind him,he traversed the rough and winding path, onone side of which lay a vast lake[*] and theruins of a convent; on the other, fields markedin the ancient fashion (when draining wasunknown) by high rigs, having between deepbalks or ditches, where the water lay glisteningin the moonlight. Then he entered uponthe vast common muir of the burgh, that inthe gloom of the night appeared to be boundedonly by the distant hills.

[*] The Burgh loch. Mag. Absalom.

From the effect of long confinement hesoon became faint and exhausted; and, thoughhe dared not approach any habitation, therewas none within view, for the district seemedstrangely desolate and still.

At the verge of the muirland, near wherea little runnel meandered between banksoverhung by reeds and whin and rushes, therestood a little chapel, dedicated in the oldentime to St. John the Baptist, having a crucifixand altar, where the wayfarer might pause tooffer up a prayer. There a hermit had onceresided; and the charter of foundationmentions, that he was clothed "in a whitegarment, having on his breast a portraiture ofSt. John the Baptist, whose hermit he wascalled." The chapel had been partlydemolished to pave the road; and even the stonethat marked the anchorite's grave, had beentorn out for the same purpose. The windowswere empty, and the grass grew where thecross had stood on the altar; but there was noother resting-place, and Konrad entered thelittle ruin with caution.

A lamp was burning on the altar, but theoratory was quite desolate. The nuns ofSt. Katherine of Sienna had kept, in other days,a light ever burning on the Baptist's shrine,to which they made yearly pilgrimages; andone poor old survivor of the scattered sisterhoodstill tended the lamp with the labour ofreligious love.

Uttering a prayer to Heaven for protection,overcome by weariness and exhaustion,Konrad laid by his side the sword given him byOrmiston, and, wrapped in the other gift ofthe same remarkable personage, composedhimself to sleep, leaving to the morrow thestudy and development of his future plans.

How little he knew of the deed in which hehad that night been so unwittingly a participator!

Of Darnley's attendants, all were buriedamong the ruins save Neilson, who was takenalive from amid the debris next day, andWilliam Taylor the page, whose body wasfound lying beside the king's. They had bothbeen carried through the air, over the loftyramparts of the city, into the garden of theBlackfriars, where they were found in theirnight-clothes, within a few yards of each other,without much external injury, save a woundmade by the maul on the king's forehead.

Such was the generally received accountof this affair, though the recent and ablehistorian of Scotland asserted, that he had seendocuments which proved that the young kinghad been first assassinated, and then carriedinto the garden; after which the house wasblown up—a useless and dangerous means ofcausing a more general and immediate alarm.

CHAPTER II.

THE MIDNIGHT MASS.

What, though the men

Of worldly minds have dared to stigmatise

The sister-cause—religion and the law—

With superstitious name!

Grahame.

"Now, Lord Earl," said Ormiston, as theypaused breathlessly near the Pleasance Porte;"which way wendest thou?"

"To Holyrood—to Holyrood!" pantedthe Earl. "And thou?"——

"Faith! to my own lodging. Thou knowestthat I byde me at the Netherbow, in theturnpike above Bassandyne, that rascallyproclamation printer; and we must enterthe city separately." The Earl sighedbitterly. "Cock and pie! what dost thouregret?"

"To-night."

"Then, what dost thou fear?"

"To-morrow."

"By Tantony! thou art a very woman!Remember the bond by which this deed wasdone—signed by so many noble lords andpowerful barons under that yew-tree atWhittinghame. Sighing again! What dost thoudread?"

"Myself!" replied the Earl, in whom thereaction of spirit had caused an agony ofremorse. "Thee, and the subscribers of thatbond, I may avoid—but myself—never!"

"These scruples come somewhat late, mylord!" said Ormiston, scornfully. "Dostthou doubt the faith of me, or of FrenchParis? Surely thou knowest my zeal!"

"True! but faith and zeal are verydifferent things."

"'Sblood! Lord Earl, dost thou doubtmine honour?" said Ormiston, laying handon his sword. "Though I owe thee suit andknight's service, nevertheless I am a baronof coat-armour, whose honour brooks nohandling. But let us not quarrel, Bothwell!"he added, on seeing that the spirit of hisally was completely prostrated for the time."Suspicion will never attach to thee; besides,that Norse knave is abroad, with thewell-known cloak and sword of Darnley,which Hubert stole me from his chamber.These, when he is found again, will turn allthe vengeance on him; so let us to bed erethe alarm be given—to bed, I say, in peace;for we have the alliance of ten thousandhearts as brave as ever marched to battle."

"How much more would I prefer theapprobation of my own!"

"Out upon thee! I will loose all patience.If thou distrustest Paris, one stroke of aponiard"——

"Peace, Ormiston! thou art a very bravo,and would thus make one more sacrifice toincrease our list of crimes."

"Just as a name may be wanted to fillthe roll of Scotland's peers, by thy lamentabledecapitation and profitable forfeiture,"growled Ormiston. "I know little ofstatecraft, though I have a bold heart and astrong hand. Come! be once more a man,and leave remorse to children. The crimethat passes unpunished, deserves not to beregretted."

"Sophistry!" exclaimed the conscience-struckEarl; "sophistry! Avenging remorsewill blast my peace for ever. Now, toobitterly I begin to feel, that joy for ever endswhere crime begins!"

They separated.

Blind with confusion, and bewildered byremorse, the Earl reeled like a drunken man,as he hurried down by the back street of theCanongate towards the palace, impatient, anddreading to be missed from his apartments,when the alarm should be given.

A burning thirst oppressed him; his tonguefelt as if scorched, and his lips were dry andbaked. Frightful ideas pressed in crowdsthrough his mind; he often paused and pressedhis hands upon his temples; they were likeburning coals, and throbbed beneath histrembling fingers. He looked back mentally tothe eminence from which he had fallen, andshuddered at the depth and rapidity of hisdescent. In the storm of remorse andunavailing regret that agitated his soul, thebeauty of Mary, and the dreams of ambitionit had inspired, were alike forgotten.

He paused at times, and listened; he knewnot why. The night was very still, and therecame no sound on the passing wind. A pulsewas beating in his head. How loud andpalpable it was!

There was ever before him the last unearthlyglare of those despairing eyes. It wasever in his ears, that expiring wail, sinkinginto a convulsive sob—ever—ever, turnwhere he would; if he walked fast—to leave hisburning thoughts behind him; if he stoodstill—that cry and the deathlike visage wereever before him.

"O! to be as I have been—as I was but onelong hour ago!" he exclaimed, shaking hisclenched hands above his head. "O! for thewaves of Lethe to wash the past for ever frommy memory! Satan—prince of hell—hearme! Hear me, who dares not now to addresshis God!"

His frightful thirst still continued, until itsagony became insupportable; and he lookedaround to find wherewith to quench it. Onthe side of St. John's hill, a green andsolitary knoll that rose some sixty feet in heighton the wayside, a light attracted his attention;and, supposing that it shone from alonely cottage or small change-house, heapproached to procure a draught of any thingthat could be had for money—any liquid, fromwater to lachryma Christi, to quench themaddening thirst that seemed to consume him.

The light shone from an aperture in thedoor of a half-ruined barn. Bothwell graspedhis sword, and adjusted his mask; but erehe knocked, a voice within, deep and musicallysolemn, arrested him by saying—

"Confiteor Deo Omnipotenti, beatæ Mariæsemper Virgini, beato Michaeli archangelo,beato Joanni Baptistæ, Sanctis ApostolisPetro et Paulo, omnibus Sanctis et tibi,Pater, quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verboet operâ. Meâ culpâ! meâ culpâ! meâmaximâ culpâ!"

Astonished by these words, which formpart of the office of mass, and struck to thevery soul in hearing them at such a time,when their application was so painfullydirect, he paused a moment. The door wasopened by a man in complete armour; butthe Earl entered immediately, to behold—whatappalled and bewildered him still more.

The rude barn had been hurriedly adaptedto the purposes of a chapel. A rough table,representing the altar, occupied one end;six candles burned thereon, three on eachside of a plain wooden crucifix, which stoodbefore an old representation of thecrucifixion, that whilome had adorned some moreconsecrated fane.

Bowing down before this rude altar, witheyes full of fervour, and piety, and glory,was the aged priest, who, not a hundred yardsfrom the same spot, had, but a few hoursbefore, craved and received alms from the handsof the regicide noble; but now his aspectwas very different, for he wore the richvestments of other days, when he was one ofSt. Giles' sixteen prebendaries; and he held alofta round silver chalice, which he had savedfrom the plunder of the church by the bailiesof Edinburgh. The bell was ringing, and hewas in the act of celebrating mass, beforean anxious and fearful, but devout few, who,despite the terrible laws passed against themby the men of the new regime, met thus insecret to worship God after the fashion oftheir fathers, preferring the mystical formsand ceremonies which had been handeddown to them by the priests of other years,to a new hierarchy, upheld by the swordsof the unlettered peers and homicidal baronsof 1560. The women, fearful and pale, weremuffled in their hoods and plaids; the menwere all well armed, and not a few graspedtheir poniards, and keenly scrutinized theEarl on his entrance.

All the long-forgotten piety of hischildhood—all the memory of those days ofinnocence, when his pious mother, Agnes ofSinclair, taught him first to raise his littlehands in prayer in Blantyre's stately Priory—gushedback upon his heart. Making a signof the cross, he knelt down among the people;and, overcome by the influence of oldassociations, by the sudden vision of an altarand the mass, and by the terrible knowledgeof what he was now in the sight of thatBeing whom he trembled to address, heburst into an agony of prayer.

Again and again the mass-bell rang, andlower bent every head before that humblealtar, on which all present deemed (for suchis the force of faith) that the invoked Spiritof God was descending, and the Destroyertrembled in his inmost soul. He coveredhis head with his mantle, and bent all histhoughts on Heaven, in prayers for mercyand forgiveness.

A shower of tears came to his aid, and histhirst passed away; but oh! how deep werethose mental agonies, of which he dared toinform no one!

It was long since he had wept, and he couldnot recall the time; but his tears were salt andbitter. They relieved him; after a few minuteshe became more composed; and the sternnecessity of returning instantly to Holyroodpressed vividly upon him; but he dreaded toattract attention or suspicion of treachery, bymoving away. Among those present, he recognisedmany citizens who outwardly had conformedto the new religion; but thus, in secret,clung to the old. Near him knelt youngSir Arthur Erskine, captain of the queen'sarchers, in his glittering doublet of cloth-of-gold;and a beautiful girl of eighteen, whosedark brown hair was but half-concealed byher piquant hood (à la Mary), was kneelingby his side, and reading from the same missal.Their heads were bent together, and theirhair mingled, as the young girl's shoulderalmost rested on the captain's breast.

Bothwell saw that they were lovers; fornothing could surpass the sweetness andconfidence of the girl's smile when she gazed onSir Arthur's face; for then the impulses oflove and religion together, lit up her eyeswith a rapture that made her seem somethingdivine.

The Earl thought of Mary—of the desperatepart he had yet to play; of all he haddared and done, and had yet to dare and do;the paroxysm passed, and he felt his heartnerved with renewed courage.

Love revived—remorse was forgotten; and,the moment mass was over, he stolehurried to Holyrood—gained his apartmentsunseen, swallowed a horn of brandy to drownall recollection, and flung himself on his bed,to await the coming discovery and the coming day.

CHAPTER III.

GUILT LEVELS ALL.

He is my lord!—my husband! Death! twas death!—

Death married us together! Here I will dig

A bridal bed, and we'll lie there for ever!

I will not go! Ha! you may pluck my heart out,

But I will never go. Help! help! Hemeya!

They drag me to Pescara's cursed bed.

Sheils' Apostate.

A stupor, not a slumber, sank uponhim; it weighed down his eyelids, it confusedhis faculties, and oppressed his heart; buteven that state of half unconsciousness wasone of bliss, compared to the mental torturehe had endured.

The tolling of the great alarm bell of thecity, which usually summoned the craftsmento arms, and the gathering hum of startledmultitudes, murmuring like the waves of adistant ocean, as the citizens were roused bythose who kept watch and ward, awoke EarlBothwell. He listened intently. Loudlyand clearly the great bell rang on the wind,above the hum of the people pouring downwardslike a sea, to chafe against the palacegates. Then came distant voices, crying—

"Armour!—armour!—fie!—treason!"

Steps came hastily along the resoundingcorridor; there was a sharp knocking at thedoor of his chamber, and, without waitingfor the usual ceremony of being introducedby a page, Master George Halkett, the Earlof Huntly, and Hepburn of Bolton, entered.The latter was now in complete armour, thatthe visor might conceal the terribleexpression of his altered face.

"How now, Master Halkett!" asked theEarl with affected surprise. "Whence thisintrusion? What is the matter?"

"Matter enough, I trow!" replied theother; "the king's house has been blownup, and his majesty slain."

"Jesu!" cried the Earl, leaping from hisbed, glad to find in action a refuge from hisown solitary thoughts. "Fie! treason!Surely thou ravest! Speak, Bolton!"

Bolton replied in a voice so inarticulatethat it was lost in the hollow of his helmet;for his mind seemed a chaos of despair andstupefaction. Since that terrible hour hehad vainly been endeavouring to arrangehis thoughts, and act like a sane man.

"'Tis the verity, my lord!" continuedHalkett. "Hark! how the roar increasethin the town."

"And who, say they, hath done this dark deed?"

"All men accuse the Earls of Morton andMoray," replied Huntly, who had beenindustriously spreading the rumour, whichtheir known hostility to Darnley madecommon at the time.

"Fie! treason!" cried Bothwell, bustlingabout. "Armour!—a Bothwell! Harkee,French Paris—Calder, ho! my pyne doubletand sword!"

"Nay! thou hadst better take armour,"said Bolton.

"Right! there lieth a Milan suit in yondercabinet. Sirs, my pages are gone Heavenknows where—I crave service—my points,I pray you truss them."

Huntly and Bolton brought the mail fromthe carved cabinet, and hastily accoutred theEarl. It was a Milan suit, a very beautifulone of the late King James's fashion, washedwith silver; the corselet was globular, havingpuckered lamboys of steel in lieu of tassettes,and a bourgoinette, with a metoniere actingas a gorget. He could have concealed hisface perfectly by this peculiar appendage tothe headpiece; but his natural boldness anddaring now rendered such a measure unnecessary.The moment the accoutring wasover, he was left alone; for Master Halketthurried away from chamber to chamber,being one of those who love to be the firstbearers of startling tidings; Huntly departedto arm his retinue for any emergency, andBolton to array the archer guard, and bearback the armed populace, who were clamouringat the palace gates.

Aware how much his future fate dependedon the issue of his first interview with Mary,the Earl could bear suspense no longer; andaware that she would now be roused,notwithstanding the untimely hour, he resolvedto seek her apartments; the daylight, hissword and armour, had restored his confidence.

Coldly and palely the February dawn wasbrightening: though the stillness of midnightlay yet upon the dewy hills, there was a dinwithin the city that might "awake thedead." There was a melancholy solemnity about thedull grey dawn, and the gloomy façade ofthe old monastic edifice, that oppressed theEarl's heart as he crossed its empty court,and heard the jingle of his armour echoed inthe dark arcades, where pages and servitorswere hurrying to and fro; while quick stepsand sharp voices rang in the long corridorsand stone ambulatories of the old palace. Ashe approached James V.'s tower, where thequeen occupied those apartments that are nowdaily exhibited to the curious, a man in acomplete suit of black armour jostled him.

"Ormiston!" he exclaimed.

"Well met, Lord Earl—good-morrow!"replied his evil mentor, in a whisper. "Thewhole city is agog now, and every voice israised against the Lord Moray—a luckyinfatuation for us. The blue banner hath beendisplayed by the convener of the corporations,whose thirty-three pennons are all unfurled;so the rascally craftsmen are fast musteringin their helmets for trouble and tulzie; whileCraigmillar and the Lord Lindesay, with theirlances, are coming in on the spur.—But whithergoest thou?"

"To the queen."

"Fool! fool! is this a time?"

"There was a time," replied the Earl,bitterly, "when such a varlet as thou dared nothave spoken thus to Bothwell."

"True," replied the other, with a sardonicgrin; "but guilt, like misfortune, levels allmen. Tarry—the queen"——

"No, no—I must see her! Not hell itselfshall keep me from her!"

"Ha! ha!" laughed Ormiston, as the Earlascended the staircase; "odsbody! why, astone wall or a stout cord would keep astronger lover than thee well enow."

Bothwell felt now all the humility andagony of being in the power of thisunscrupulous ruffian, and he sighed bitterlymore than once as he advanced towards theroyal apartments.

"Now," thought he, "must I doubly dyemy soul in guilt—the guilt of blackhypocrisy. Oh, to be what I have been! Howdark are the clouds—how many the vaguealarms—that involve the horizon of my fate!Last night—and the recollection of thatirreparable deed—could I blot them frommemory, happiness might yet be mine."

A crowd of yeomanry of the guard, in theirscarlet gaberdines, with long poniards andpartisans; archers in green, with bent bowsand bristling arrows; pages in glitteringdresses, and gentlemen in waiting, allvariously armed, made way at the entrance ofthe queen's apartments, near the door markedwith Rizzio's blood. After a brief preliminaryit was opened—the heavy Gobeline tapestrywas raised, and the earl found himselfin the presence of—Mary.

When he beheld her, every scruple andregret, every remnant of remorse againevaporated, and he felt that he had done nothingthat he would not repeat.

She was plainly and hurriedly attired ina sacque of blue Florence silk, tied with atassel round her waist. The absence of herhigh ruff revealed more than usual of herbeautifully delicate neck and swelling bosom;while the want of her long peaked stays andstiffened skirts, displayed all the grace andcontour of her graceful form. Save therings that flashed on her fingers, she waswithout jewels; and in a profusion, such asthe Earl had never seen before—her brightand luxuriant auburn hair fell unbound uponher shoulders, covered only by a square ofwhite lace, a long and sweeping veil, that(as old Juvenal says), "like a tissue of wovenair," floated around her. Her snow-whitefeet were without stockings, for she had justsprung from bed, and the short slippers ofblue velvet shewed her delicately veinedinsteps and taper ankles in all their nakedbeauty.

Her brow and rounded cheeks were paleas death; but, though suffused with tears,her eyes were full of fire, and there was moreperhaps of anger than of grief in the quiveringof her short upper lip. Aware of herdishabille, and that the Countess of Argyle,and other ladies of the court, who were allin their night-dresses, had fled at the Earl'sapproach, as so many doves would have donefrom a vulture, leaving her almost alone withhim—the queen cast down her long darklashes for a moment, and then bent her keengaze full upon Bothwell, whose open helmetrevealed the pallor of his usually careless,jovial, and nutbrown face.

"Forth from its raven fringe the full glance flies,

Ne'er with such force the swiftest arrow flew;

'Tis as the snake late coil'd, who pours his length,

And hurls at once his venom and his strength."

Powerful and daring as he was, the Earlquailed beneath her eye; but immediatelyrecovering his admirable air of self-possession,he began in the most courteous mannerto deplore the dreadful event, "which," saysthe Knight of Halhill, "he termed the strangestcatastrophe that ever was heard of; forthunder had come out of the sky, and burntthe house of the king, whose body was foundlying dead at a little distance from the ruinsunder a tree."

"Thunder, sayest thou?" reiterated theQueen. "Sweet mother Mary—assist me!Some of the archers of our guard, LordEarl, men whose bows were drawn at Pinkiecleughand Ancrumford, aver that the ruinsbear marks of Friar Bacon's art rather thanelectricity. Thunder!"——

"What does your majesty mean?"

"Lord Earl," replied Mary, in a lowemphatic tone; "this—this is—thy doing—thine!"

"Madam—madam"—urged the Earl, buthis tongue refused its office, and clove to theroof of his mouth.

"Hah, my Lord!" continued the Queen;"is it the astonishment of innocence, or theshame of guilt, that paralyses thy too readytongue at this terrible moment? I see thouart guilty," she added, in a sepulchral voice;"and now thou comest before me coveredwith the blood of my husband."

"I swear to your majesty"——

"Swear not! Else whence do your handstremble? Why is your face thus pale—yea,pale as Ruthven's seemed on that other fatalnight—a year ago in this chamber?"

Gathering courage from desperation, thekneeling noble, hoping to be interrupted inhis vow, replied—

"I swear to you, gracious madam, byheaven and all that is in it—by the earthand all that is on it—by the souls of myCatholic ancestors—by the bones of myfather—by my own salvation and honour, whichI prize more than life—by your love, youresteem, to win which I would gladly perilmore than a thousand lives"——

"Enough!" replied the Queen, interruptingthe terrible falsehood, and covering herface with her hands; "pardon my grief andhorror—I believe thee. There—kiss my handin token of trust."

Bothwell's heart was touched by her innocentconfidence; he became giddy, and almostreeled.

"O Mary! my wish, my hope, my dream!Would that I were pure enough to be worthyof thee!" said the Earl, in a touching voice;for a moment his heart was crushed by sorrowand remorse, as he pressed to his lip thesoft, small hand of the queen. But she didnot hear these pathetic exclamations, whichconveyed all the Earl's secret in their tone;for at that moment a group that crossed thepalace yard riveted all her faculties.

Sir Arthur Erskine and Hepburn of Bolton,both sheathed in armour, with a band oftheir archers, appeared escorting a fewyeomen of the guard, who bore on their crossedpartisans a body muffled in a soldier's mantle,and followed by a crowd of gentlemen, grooms,pages, and armed craftsmen.

She shuddered. The weak points of Darnley'scharacter, his folly, his foppery, hisprofligacy, his neglect of herself, and the wantonmurder of her secretary, all vanished fromher memory for the time, and she saw himonly as she had seen him first in the hall ofWemyss—handsome, tall, and graceful—inall the bloom of youth, nobility, andcomeliness, with his dark eye sparkling and hisfeathers waving, and all the blind devotionwhich at two-and-twenty had become a partof her very being, and which had absorbedyoung Henry Stuart into her very soul,came back vividly and painfully upon her mind.

She tottered to a seat.

Her eyes assumed a tearless and stonyaspect—a cloud of horror descended uponher snowy brow; and the Earl felt bitterlyas he gazed on her, that his presence, andthe love he had so daringly expressed, werealike unheeded or forgotten.

CHAPTER IV.

THE PREBEND OF ST. GILES.

A "God be with thee," shall be all thy mass;

Thou never lovedst those dry and droning priests.

Thou'lt rot most cool and quiet in my garden;

Your gay and gilded vault would be costly.

Fazio, a Tragedy.

After an uneasy slumber, in the placewhere we left him a few pages back, Konradwas awakened by a rough grasp being laidon his shoulder, and a voice crying—

"Harl him forth, till we find what mannerof carle he is!" and, ere he was thoroughlyroused, several strong hands dragged him tothe door of that solitary little chapel, wherehe found himself in the presence of twoknights on horseback, and a band of mailedmen-at-arms, bearing hackbuts and partisans,and carrying a banner bearing a blueshield charged with the heart and mulletsof Morton.

It was a beautiful spring morning. Thesun was rising above the eastern hills, andgilding the peaks of the Pentlands, thattowered above the wreaths of gauzy mistrolling round their heath-clad bases.

"Whence comest thou, fellow?" asked thefirst knight, who was no other than ourferocious acquaintance, Lord Lindesay of theByres, who, with his men-at-arms, had beenscouring the adjacent country for some oneupon whom to execute his vengeance.

"Some accomplice and abettor of the LordMoray!" observed the other; "art and partat least—for all the city saith that hecommitted the deed; at least, there are those whofind their interest in circulating the reportmost industriously."

"Tush! the Lord Moray abideth at histower of Donibristle; and I will maintainbody to body against any man, that he liethfoully in his throat who accuseth JamesStuart of being concerned in the slaughterof last night."

"But, dustifute—knave—speak! whencecomest thou?"

"By what right dost thou ask?" saidKonrad, starting at the voice of the questioner,who had the policy to keep his visordown, and affected not to recognise hisacquaintance of the hostellary.

"What right? false loon! the right of myrank. I am James Earl of Morton; and nowthat I look on thee, thou tattered villain—bySt. Paul! I see the king's cloak on thyshoulders. We all know the Lord Darnley'sscarlet mantle, sirs, with its gold embroidery;and doth its splendour not contrast curiouslywith this foreigner's rags and tatters?"

"By cock and pie!" said Ormiston underhis helmet, as he pushed through the crowdat this juncture, "I would swear to it asI would to my own nose, or to the king'stoledo sword, which I now see by the sideof this double thief and traitor! We allknow him, sirs! The unco'—the foreigner—whowith John of Park attempted to assassinatemy Lord of Bothwell in Hermitageglen. Last night he escaped from the towerof Holyrood."

"Close up, my merry men all!" said Morton;"forward, pikemen—bend your hackbuts;for we have meshed one of the knavesat last."

There was a terrible frown gathering onthe brow of Lindesay. This ferocious peer,and uncompromising foe of the ancientchurch, was distinguished by the sternnessand inflexibility of his character, even inthat iron age; and the fire of his keen greyeye increased the expression of his hardScottish, yet noble features, and thick grizzledbeard, which consorted so well with theantique fashion of his plain steel armour, withits grotesque and gigantic knee and elbowjoints projecting like iron fans, withpauldrons on the shoulders. His salade was ofthe preceding century, and was surmountedby his crest, a silver ostrich bearing in itsbeak a key—on his colours, a roll azure andargent. Unsheathing his long shoulder-sword,he said with stern solemnity—

"Now, blessed be God! that hath given usthis great and good fortune to-day. Theseruins, where that mother of blasphemy andabomination—who hath made whole nationsdrunk with the cup of her iniquities—oncepractised her idolatries, seem to have raretenants this morning. First, amid the wallsof Leonard's chapel, we found that worshipperof graven images—Tarbet, the mass-priest,with all his missals and mummery in rightorder for the pillory at the Tron; and here, inthe oratory of the Baptist, we have startedour other game—one of the regicides, whosebody shall be torn piecemeal, even as Graemeand Athol were torn of old; yea,villain! embowelled and dismembered shalt thou be,while the life yet flickers in thy bleedingheart; but, first, thou shalt be half-hangedfrom yonder tree. Quick! a knotted cord,some of ye!"

"Nay, my good Lord of Lindesay," interposedMorton, "I would reserve him for thequeen's council, whose examination maybring to light much of whilk we are still inignorance."

"Now, by my father's bones!" began fierceLindesay, clenching his gauntleted handwith sudden passion, "must I remind thee,who wert High Chancellor of Scotland, and,as such, chief in all matters of justice—theking's most intimate councillor, and holderof that seal, without the touch of which nota statute of the estates can pass forth to thepeople—must I remind thee of that ancientScottish law, by which our forefathers decreed,if a murderer be taken REDHAND, he shouldincontinently be executed within three daysafter commission of the deed; and here, withina mile of the Kirk-of-Field, we find a knowncomrade of Park, the border outlaw, with thesword and mantle of our murdered king"—

"Yea," interrupted a voice from the band,"a cloak which I saw in the king's chamberbut yesternight."

"What other proof lack we?" said Lindesay.

"Away with him!" cried several voices,and Ormiston's among them; "for he hathassuredly murdered the king!"

To all these fiercely-uttered accusations,Konrad had not a word to reply in extenuationor defence; and his astonishment andconfusion were easily mistaken for guilt andfear.

"As thou pleasest, Lindesay," said Mortoncoldly, for he was unused to find his adviceneglected. "To me it mattereth not,whether he be hanged now or a year hence. Ihave but one thing more to urge. Let usconfront him with the mass priest Tarbet,and I warrant that, by blow of boot andwrench of rack, we may make some notablediscoveries. We know not whom they may,in their agony, accuse as accessories if we givethem a hint;" and indeed the Earl might haveadded, that he did not care, while he was notaccused himself.

But his own time was measured.

Lindesay seemed struck by this advice (asthere was an estate bordering his own whichhe had long coveted), and so ordering theprisoner to be secured by cords, and gagged,by having a branch cut from a hawthorn bushtied across his mouth so tightly that theblood oozed from his torn lips. He was thenbound to the tail of a horse, and thusignominiously conducted back to the excited city,escorted by Morton's band of hackbuttiers.

Had an English army, flushed with victory,been crossing the Esk, a greater degree ofexcitement could not have reigned in theScottish capital than its streets exhibited on thismorning, the 11th February, 1567.

The crafts were all in arms, and thespacious Lawnmarket was swarming with menin armour, bearing pikes, hackbuts, andjedwood axes, two-handed swords, and partisans;while the pennons of the various corporations—thecheveron and triple towers of the sturdyMasons—the shield, ermine, and triple crownsof the Skinners—the gigantic shears of theTailors—and so forth, were all waving in themorning wind. Splendidly accoutred, astrong band of men-at-arms stood in closearray near the deep arch of Peebles Wynd,around the residence of the provost, SirSimeon Preston of Craigmillar, whose greatbanner, bearing a scudo pendente, thecognisance peculiar to this illustrious baron, wasborne by his knightly kinsman, Congalton ofthat Ilk.

A half-mad preacher, in a short Genevacloak and long bands, and wearing along-eared velvet cap under his bonnet, hadensconced himself in a turret of the city cross,from whence, with violent gestures, in a shrillintonation of voice, he was holding forth toa scowling rabble of craftsmen, and womenin Gueldrian coifs and Galloway kirtles, whoapplauded his discourse, which he was beatingdown, with Knox-like emphasis, and strikinghis clenched hand on the cope of the turretwith such fury, that he had frequently topause, make a wry face, and blow upon it.Then, with increased wrath, he thunderedhis anathemas against the "shavelings ofRome, the priests of antichrist—the relics oftheir saints—their corrupted flesh—their ragsand rotten bones—their gilded shrines andmumming pilgrimages!" Sternly he spoke,and wildly, too, with all the enthusiasm of aconvert, and the rancour of an apostate, forhe was both.

A few yards further down the sunlit street,stood one of those very shavelings againstwhom he was pouring forth the vials and thevehemence of his wrath. At the Tron beamstood the aged Tarbet on a platform, a few feetabove the pavement. By a cord that encircledhis neck, his head was tied close to the woodencolumn supporting the tron, or great steel-yardwhere the merchants weighed theirwares; and to that his ear was fixed by along iron nail, from which the blood wastrickling. Faint and exhausted, the old manclung with feeble hands to the pillar to avoidstrangulation, as his knees were refusing theiroffice. He was still in his vestments, with thecross embroidered on his stole; a rosaryencircled his neck, and, to excite the mockeryof the mob, a missal, a chalice, and censer weretied to it; and while enduring the greatestindignities to which the inborn cowardice,cruelty, and malevolence of the vulgar, cansubject the unfortunate and the fallen,inspired by the memory of the greater martyrwho had suffered for him, he blessed themrepeatedly in return. The boys wereyelling "Green Sleeves"—"John, cum kiss menow," and other songs, converted fromCatholic hymns into profane ribaldry; ever andanon, as Knox tells us, serving him with "hisEaster eggs," meaning every availablemissile, and under the shower that poured uponhim the old man was sinking fast. At lasta stone struck his forehead, the blood burstover his wrinkled face, and drenched hissilver hair. He tottered, sank, and hungstrangling by the neck; and then, but nottill then, he was released and borne away tothe nearest barrier, where he was againexpelled the city, with the warning, that to saymass once more would involve the penaltyof instant death.

The tide was now completely turnedagainst the ancient clergy, and the sternestmeans were used by the new against them.Knox had declared that the toleration of asingle mass was more dangerous to Scotlandthan 10,000 armed soldiers; and in thespirit of this precept, so long after theReformation as 1615, a poor Jesuit was draggedfrom his altar in an obscure cellar, andhanged by King James's authority in thestreets of Glasgow.

It was while the minds of the people werein the state we have described—excited bythe terrible death of the king, inspired bythe discourse of the firebrand on the cross,and only half glutted by the persecution ofthe poor old prebend of St. Giles, that,guarded by Morton's and Lindesay's band,Konrad of Saltzberg was led up Merlin'sWynd, and into the High Street, where themasses of men in a state of fury and ferment,swayed to and fro from side to side of thatmagnificent thoroughfare, like the waves ofan angry sea. The moment he appeared,there was given a yell that rent the air; anda rush was made from all quarters towardsthe new victim, of whose participation in thedeed at the Kirk-of-Field, a terrible accountwas instantly circulated.

CHAPTER V.

THE PAPISTS' PILLAR.

Oh! I will hail

My hour when it approaches; life has been

A source of sorrow, and it matters not

How soon I quit the scene, for I have roved

A friendless outcast in the thorny world,

Upon it, but not of it; and my death

Is but escape from bondage.

The Spell of St. Wilten.

We have likened the dense mass that filledthe High Street to a sea, and so like the wavesof a sea, when agitated by a stormy wind,was that mass urged in one directiontowards this new victim, whom they demandedof both Morton and Lindesay to be given upto their summary vengeance. The windowswere crowded to excess; and at the greatsquare casement of his mansion, overlookingthe Netherbow, was seen the grave andserious face of Knox the Reformer, with hisportentous beard and Geneva cap, andbeside him Master George Buchanan, withhis stern visage and towering brow. Theywere observing the fray below, and makingtheir caustic remarks on "yat terrible factof yesternicht."

A deadly struggle seemed about to ensue;faces became flushed with passion, and eyeslit with energy—swords were drawn, bowsbent, and matches blown.

"Truncheon me those knaves!" cried LordLindesay, as the people pressed upon his bandand impeded their march; "use the bolls ofyour hackbutts! Back with these rascallyburghers—how! dare they assail my bannerin open day?"

"They are ripe for a fray, my lord," saidMorton; "and in sooth, 'tis matter forconsideration, whether by resistance we shouldshed the blood of our own countrymen, tolengthen by an hour the existence of a foreignknave, who must hang at all events."

"Right, Lord Earl—but to die thus! unhouselledand unprayed for—by the handsof a furious mob—to be torn piecemeal—tobe hunted like an otter"——

Lindesay could not conclude, for theconfusion increased every moment, and the denseand well-armed multitude demandedincessantly, and with stentorian clamour, that theregicide should be given up to their fury.Lindesay, who now became animated by asentiment of compassion, on beholding oneman in a situation so terrible, vainly endeavouredby the influence of his rank, his knowndetermination and aspect, his stentorian voiceand gigantic sword, to overawe the crowd,and convey his captive to King David's tower;but every where the craftsmen barred his waywith levelled pikes and clubbed hackbutts.As yet, not a shot had been exchanged, or ablow struck; for the vassals who guardedKonrad, being quite indifferent as to theissue, behaved with admirable coolness. Onseeing this, the populace demanded theprisoner more loudly than ever, and becamemore energetic and exasperated by the delay.

Gagged and bound, the unhappy Konradfound the impossibility alike of demandingeither protection from his guards or mercyfrom their assailants—to fight or to escape;and a cold perspiration burst over him asthe soldiers swayed to and fro, when thepeople pressed upon their iron ranks.

Ten thousand scowling faces were bentupon him, and twice that number of handswere raised against him. His heart neversank; but the mild precepts of Father Tarbetwere forgotten, and, with an intensity amountingto agony, he longed to be free and armed,to indulge that momentary and tiger-likehatred of all mankind that swelled up withinhim, that he might sell his life as dearly aspossible, and strike for vengeance ere he died!In that terrible moment of confusion anddread he never thought of prayer; but theimage of Anna rose to his memory, and whilehe thanked Heaven that now she was probablysafe at home in their native Norway,the recollection that he was desolate, and shewas lost to him for ever, nerved him the moreto encounter his terrible fate.

Lord Lindesay threatened them with summaryvengeance from himself, and ultimatelyfrom the queen and lord provost; but hemight as well have addressed the wind, for,by their nightly watches and constantbrawling, the burghers were better trained toarms than were the vassals of the landowners,and his threats were unheeded.

"Come on, my bold callants!" cried a fatcitizen in a vast globular corselet, a morion,and plate sleeves with gloves of steel, brandishinga ponderous jedwood axe with his righthand, while opposing with his left arm a lightScottish target to the levelled spears ofLindesay's band. "Come on, with a warrion! Aresae mony bearded men to be kept at play likebairns by these ox-goads o' the Byres?"

"Weel spoken, Adam!—Armour! armour!—Strikefor the gude toun!" cried a thousandvoices to the host of the Red Lion, who waslooming about like a vast hogshead sheathedin iron; and thus encouraged, by sheer weightof body he burst through the ranks of Lindesay'svassalage, striking up their levelledlances. The mob followed in his wake, and theguards were immediately scattered, disarmed,and their prisoner dragged from his shelter.

Torn and whirled from hand to hand,Konrad was soon released from all his bonds;but still escape was impossible. Many a bowwas drawn, and many a blade uplifted againsthim; but the very presence and blind furyof the people saved him; and madly he washurled from man to man, till, alike bereft ofsense of sight and sound, he sank breathlessbeneath their feet.

"Now, by the might of Heaven!" said oldLord Lindesay, "'tis a foul shame on us, Earlof Morton, to sit calmly here in our saddles,and see a Christian man used thus. Fie!—downwith the traitors!" and he spurred hishorse upon the people, only to be repelled bya steady stand of pikes.

Konrad was loaded with mud and filth;and every new assailant was more fierce thanthe last. Howls, yells, and execrations filledthe air, and he was bandied about like afootball, till one well-aimed blow from the bollof a hackbutt struck him down, and, coveredwith mud and bruises, and bathed in blood,he lay upon the pavement motionless, and toall appearance dead.

They deemed him so, and, consequently,a momentary cessation of their crueltyensued, till a voice cried—

"Fie! away wi' him to the Papists' pillar!Gar douk him in the loch! Harl him awa'!Gar douk! gar douk and droun!"

A shout of assent greeted this new proposition.The inanimate form of Konrad wasraised on the shoulders of a few sturdy fellows,who bore him along the street with as muchspeed as its crowded state would permit; andclosing, like a parted sea, the mob collapsedbehind, and followed in their train. Theybore him up the Lawnmarket, then encumberedby innumerable sacks of grain andwooden girnels, farm horses, and rudelyconstructed carts; for at that time the meal,and flesh, and butter markets, were held there.Turning down Blyth's close, under the loftywindows of the palace of Mary of Lorraine, theyhurried to the bank of that steep lake whichformed the city's northern barrier, and thevast concourse followed; the arch of thenarrow alley receiving them all, like a smallbridge admitting a mighty river.

The rough and shelving bank descendedabruptly from the ends of the lofty closes,which (when viewed from the east or west):resembled a line of narrow Scottish towersoverhanging the margin of the water, whichwas reedy, partly stagnant, and so muchswollen by the melted snows of the pastwinter, that, on the northern side, it reachedan ancient quarry from which the TrinityChurch was built, and on the southern tothe Twin-tree, an old double-trunked thornthat overhung the loch, and had for centuriesbeen famous as a trysting-place for lovers, asit was supposed to exercise a supernaturalinfluence on the pair who sat between itsgnarled stems.

"Fie! gar douk!" cried the vast concoursethat debouched from all the adjoining wyndsand closes along the sloping bank. "To thepillar—to the pillar! Truss him wi' a tow tothe Papists' pillar, and leave him there torot or row;" and this new proposal wasreceived with renewed applause.

The Papists' pillar was a strong oak stakefixed in that part of the loch where the waterwas about five feet deep. It had been placedthere by the wise bailies of Edinburgh atthis time, when certain ablutions were muchin vogue, and considered so necessary forwitches, sorcerers, scolding wives, and"obstinate papists;" for in every part of Europeducking was the favourite penance for offences,against morality; and nothing afforded suchsupreme delight and intense gratification tothe worthy denizens of the Lawnmarket, andtheir kindly dames, as the sousing of anunfortunate witch, a "flyting wife" of theCalton, or a hapless Catholic, in the deep andexecrable puddle that was named the NorthLoch—and so frequently were exhibitions ofthe latter made, that the stake wasunanimously dubbed the Papists' Pillar.

To this the inanimate Konrad was fastenedby a strong cord, encircling his neck andwaist; and there he was left to perish,wounded, bleeding, and insensible—coveredwith bruises, and merged nearly to the neckin a liquid rendered fetid and horrible by allthe slime and debris of the populous city thattowered above it, being poured down hourlyfrom its narrow streets, to increase the massof corruption that grew and festered in itsstagnant depths.

On accomplishing this, the mob retired; forthe conveyance of the bodies of the murderedking and his attendants through the streets,excited all the morbid sympathy of thevulgar: the entire populace now rushed towardsthe other end of the city, and all became stillas death where Konrad lay.

The coolness of the sudden immersionpartially revived him, and the bleeding of thewound on his head ceased; but his senseswere confused—his perception indistinct—andhe hung against the column in a statebordering on insensibility.

There was a rushing sound in his ears; forstill the roar of that vast multitude rang inthem: there was a sense of pain and languorpervading his whole frame; a faint light shonebefore his half-closed eyes, and he wasconscious of nothing more.

The noon passed away; evening came, andcold and pale the watery sun sank behind thesummits of Corstorphine, involved in yellowhaze. The clouds gathered in inky massesto the westward; a few large drops of rainplashed on the dark surface of the glassywater; there was a low wind rushing amongthe uplands; but Konrad neither saw nor heardthese precursors of a coming storm.

And there he lay—helpless and dying!

A great and ravenous gled wheeled in circlesround him. These circles diminished bydegrees, until it had courage at last to alighton the top of the column, where it screamedand flapped its wings, while eyeing him witheager and wolfish impatience. So passed theevening.

Night—the cold and desolate night ofFebruary, came on, and the hungry gled wasstill sitting there. * * *

In the morning, the inexorable host of theRed Lion and others, who had made themselvesso active in his persecution, went tothe place where they had bound him.

The water had ebbed several feet; the stakewas still standing there among the dark slimeand sedges—but the cords were cut, and theunfortunate had disappeared.

CHAPTER VI.

REMORSE.

All day and all the livelong night he pour'd,

His soul in anguish, and his fate deplored;

While every moment skimm'd before his sight,

A thousand forms of horror and affright.

Tasso.

Bothwell was sitting alone in his apartmentsat Holyrood. The fire burned cheerfullyin the sturdy iron grate, and threw aruddy glow on the gigantic forms of Dariusand Alexander, who seemed ready to startfrom the gobeline tapestry into life andaction. The Earl's sword and dagger hungon one knob of his chair; his headpiece anda wheel-lock caliver on the other; for therewere dangerous rumours abroad in the city,and he knew not the moment in which hemight be required to use them.

Let us take a view of him as he satgazing fixedly into the fire, that glowed soredly between the massive bars.

A change had come over his features sincethe preceding night. They had acquired amore severe style of manly beauty. Hisnoble brow was more pale and thoughtfulin expression, and was already marked bythose lines which are indicative of sorrowand remorse. But there were times whenhis keen dark eye assumed a diabolical glitter,and the redness of the fire shed an infernalbrightness on his face. His lip was curledby bitterness; his brows were knit; and thennothing could surpass the scorn andmisanthropy pervading the aspect of the fierceand haughty regicide.

Yes! he knew himself a destroyer; though,strange to say, he felt his personalimportance increased by the awful reflection thathe was so. He had more than once slainmen in mutual strife; but never till now didhe feel himself a—murderer.

Murderer! he repeated it in a low voiceand then started, looking round fearfully asif he dreaded the figures might hear him.He frequently caught himself muttering it,coupled with his own name. They seemedsynonymous. His mind was full of incoherenceand dread, and a regret so intense, thatat times he smote his breast and wrung hishands in agony, or turned to a flask ofBurgundy to drown all recollection; and somuch was he absorbed in the fierce currentof his own corroding thoughts, that he heardnot the rising storm that shook the turretsof the palace, howled through the arcades ofits ancient courts, and tossed the branches ofits venerable trees.

A step rung in the antechamber; the tapestrywas lifted, and the slight figure ofHepburn of Bolton, still sheathed in armour,appeared. His helmet was open, and thepaleness of his features was painful to lookupon.

"Well!" said his chieftain; "what say theyin the city?"

"Every where, that the Lord Moray hasslain the king, in pursuance of his ancientfeud with the house of Lennox."

"This is well! I hope thou and Hob Ormistonhave been spreading the report withdue industry!"

"We have lacked in nothing!" repliedBolton, gloomily, as he drank a deep draughtof the Burgundy; "but there is noisedabroad a counter-rumour, that thou art notunconcerned in the deed."

"Hah!" ejaculated the Earl, drawing inhis breath through his clenched teeth, while afrown of alarm contracted his brow, "Whovalue life so cheaply as to bruit this abroad?"

"The vassals of the Lord Morton, withwhom certain archers of my band have beencarousing at Ainslie's hostel overnight, haveaccused thee, and so strongly, that I sorelysuspect treason somewhere, and that theirlord hath prompted them."

"He dares not!" rejoined the Earl, halfassuming his sword, and setting his teeth.

"Thou knowest how false and subtle allmen deem him."

"He dare not prove so to me—I tell thee,John of Bolton, he dare not!" replied theEarl, in a fierce whisper, starting to his feet."I would level to the earth his castle ofDalkeith, and spike his head amidst its ruins.There is the bond, the damning deed wesigned at Whittinghame, that will cause usall to hang together in our armour, lest wehang separately without it. Ha! ha! takeanother horn of the Burgundy. Thou seest,Bolton, how it gives me both wit and spirit.Any other tidings?"

"None, save of a horrible apparition thatlast night haunted the Lord Athol's lodging,near the Kirk-of-Field."

"And what about our Norwegian?"

"He hath been bound to the Papists'pillar, and left to drown."

"Now, God's malison be on these rascallyburghers!"

"By this time he must be dead, for therain hath fallen heavily, and thou knowesthow fast the loch fills; besides, the host ofthe Red Lion shut the sluice at the TrinityHouse, so long ere this all must be over."

"One other life!" said the Earl, gloomily.

Hepburn gave a bitter laugh, and therewas a momentary pause.

"By Heaven, Bolton! I will not permitthis stranger to perish if I can save him.Come—'tis not yet midnight! The deed mayin some sort atone"——

"True—true! but there will be somedanger, and much suspicion"——

"Danger—so much the better! Suspicion—Ihope we are above it! In a brawl abouta rascally courtesan, how readily did I drawmy sword with that blockhead d'Elboeuff;while to-day I stood by yonder Tron, andsaw, on one hand, a consecrated priest ofGod insulted, pilloried, and beaten downsenseless in his blood—a priest who yesternightcelebrated the most holy of all Christiansacraments; on the other, I saw aninnocent man dragged away to a mercilessand dreadful death; and, like a child or awoman, I stood paralysed, without giving aword or a blow to save either. Coward thatI was! Oh, how deeply would old Earl Adam,who fell by James's side on Flodden Field,blush for his degenerate grandson!"

"Be it so; I will doff some of this ironshell, and, if thou wilt lend me a pyne doublet,will go with thee. Hark! what a driechstorm without; and how the windows dirl inthe blast!" and, as he spoke, the rain, blownwith all the violence of a furious east wind,came lashing on the lofty casements of thepalace, and hissed as it plashed drearily onthe pavement of its empty courts.

"Summon French Paris!" cried the Earl;"I must first speak with him."

CHAPTER VII.

THE RESCUE.

The lightning's flash

Scarce ran before the thunder's sudden crash;

Down on the lake, the rain sonorous rush'd;

O'er the steep rocks, the new-born torrents gush'd.

Bayley's Rival.

As the night closed, Konrad partiallyrevived, and became alive to the horror of hissituation. Corded by the wrists and neck toa stake, with the water almost up to his chin;faint, exhausted by the wound on his head,and the innumerable blows he had received,he was so very feeble that he thought himselfdying, and endeavoured to remember a prayer;but his mind was a chaos, and he foundhimself alike unable to account for hispredicament, and to free himself from it.

Darker, and darker still, the clouds gatheredover the lofty city that towered up to thesouth; and the rain-drops plashed more heavilyon the surface of the water, till the circlesbecame mingled, and the shower increased to awinter torrent; for the month was Februaryonly, and, though the first of spring, the coldwas intense.

The gled shook its wings, and croaked onthe post above his head, and Konrad fearedit might suddenly stoop and tear out hisdefenceless eyes.

Poured along the gorge between the CaltonHill and the city, the chill wind from theGerman sea swept over the rippled water; andthen came the glare of the lightning to renderthe darkness of the night more appalling.Pale, blue, and sulphury, it flashed in thenorth and east, dashing its forky strengthbetween the masses of cloud, gleaming on thedarkened water, and revealing the bleakoutline of the Calton—the high and fantasticmansions of the city, among whose blacksummits the levin-bolts seemed playing anddancing—to be tossed from chimney toturret, and from turret to tower—leaping fromhand to hand, ere they flashed away intoobscurity, or cast one lurid glare on the gorgebehind the church that, for four hundred years,covered the grave of Mary of Gueldres and of Zutphen.

Then the thunder rumbled in the distance;and, as if the air was rent, down gushed therain upon the midnight lake; and Konrad,as he felt his senses and strength ebbingtogether, became aware that the water rose—that,with all his feeble struggles, he wouldultimately drown in that lake of mud, whereso many have perished; for, so lately as 1820,the skeletons of these unfortunates have beenfound in the bed, where of old the water lay.

Still the dusky gled sat on its perch, and,by the occasional gleams of the lightning,he could perceive its sable wings flappingabove his unsheltered head, like those of ashadowy fiend; and oft it stooped down, as ifimpatient of its feast. Whenever its unearthlycroak rang on the passing wind, he could notresist the inclination to raise his hands toprotect his eyes—but his arms were pinionedbelow water. Powerless, he resigned himselfto die without a murmur—save one prayerfor Anna. His last thoughts were of her—forthe love of poor Konrad surpassed the loveof romance.

Strange visions of home and other yearsfloated before him; he heard the wiry rustleof his native woods, and the voice of Annamingling with the music of the summer leaves.Then came a state of stupefaction, in whichhe remained, he knew not how long.

A sound roused him; it was a scream fromthe gled, as, scared from its perch, it spreadits broad wings to the wind, and vanishedinto obscurity like an evil spirit. The starswere veiled in vapour; the moon was sailingthrough masses of flying cloud, and, by itsfitful light, Konrad, as he unclosed his heavyeyes, could perceive a boat approaching. Itcontained two figures, which, as they werebetween him and the light, appeared in darkand opaque outline.

They were Bothwell and Hepburn of Bolton;both were masked as usual to themustache, and wore their mantles up totheir chins.

"If we are not too late," said the first, asthey approached; "perhaps this act of mercymay be an atonement—yea, in somewise asmall atonement—ha! heardst thou thatcry?"

"What cry?"

"By the blessed Bothan, I heard it again!"said Bothwell, in a voice of agony. "NowGod me defend!" he added, making thelong-forgotten sign of the cross, while a coldperspiration burst over him; "but where is theNorwegian? I see but the stake only!"

"Here—here! his head is above water still.Now praise Heaven! Dost thou live yet?"

Konrad uttered a faint sound; upon whichboth gave an exclamation of joy, and, urgingthe boat towards the stake, succeeded inraising him up, cutting the cords, anddrawing him on board; but so benumbed andlifeless, that he sank across the thwarts andlay there insensible. Meanwhile, Bolton andthe Earl, after pulling a few dozen of strokes,beached the boat (which they had stolenfrom the ferryman) among the thick sedgesand reeds that fringed the northern bank ofthe loch. Bothwell sprang ashore, and gavea low whistle. There was a reply heard,and French Paris came out of the ancientquarry before mentioned, (the site of whichis now covered by the Scott monument,)leading four horses. Konrad was assistedashore, and seated upon the bank.

"Now, Paris," said the Earl; "thyhunting bottle!" The page unslung a roundleather flask from his waist-belt, and handedit to the Earl, who filled a quaigh withliquid, saying—

"I trust the cordial of which I spoke—thatrare reviving compound made by thequeen's physician—was mixed with this.Drink, sir, if thou canst, and in three minutesthou wilt be another man."

Konrad, who was still unable to speak,quaffed off the proffered draught, andimmediately became revived; for a glow shotthrough every vein, and warmed his quivering limbs.

"Another," said the Earl, "and thou wiltstill further bless the skill of MonsieurMartin Picauet as a druggist and apothegar.Now, Bolton, our task is done, and we musthie to Holyrood ere daybreak; for this isnot a time for men of such light account aswe, to be roving about like the owls. Tothee, Paris, we will leave the rest. Thou artwell assured of where this crayer of Norwaylieth."

"At the New haven, immediately oppositethe chapel of St James."

A shudder ran through the heart ofBolton; for the page's voice sounded at thatmoment too painfully like his sister's—who,though he knew it not, was probably lying,bruised and mangled out of human form,among the ruins of the Kirk-of-Field.

"Then here we part. Thou wilt see thisstranger fitted with dry garments: give himthis purse, and bid him go in the name ofgrace, and cross my path no more; for it isbeset with thorns, dangers, and deeppitfalls—and I will not be accountable for theissue of our again forgathering."

"How well I know that voice!" saidKonrad feebly. "Tell me, ere we part, ifmy suspicions are right. For whom shall Ipray this night?"——

"Thy greatest enemy—but one who hathevery need of prayer," replied the other, in ahusky voice.

"Thou art"——

"Hush! James, Earl of Bothwell," repliedthe noble in a low voice, as he andBolton mounted, and, without further parley,dashed at full gallop along the bank of theloch and disappeared in the direction ofDingwall's castle, a strong tower, battlementedat the top and furnished with tourelles, thatoverhung the steep bank above the TrinityHouse, forming the residence of its provost.

The night was still gloomy and dark,though occasional gleams of moonlight shotacross the varied landscape to the north,one moment revealing it all like a picture,and the next veiling it in obscurity.

"Mount, if thou canst," said French Paris,"and wend with me, for we have little timeto spare. Our burghers will be all at theiraccursed pillar, like ravening wolves, bydaybreak, and if they should miss, pursue, andovertake thee, our lives would not be wortha brass testoon!"

"And whither wend we?"

"To the seashore—to Our Lady's port ofGrace, where there lieth at anchor a tradingcrayer, commanded by a countryman ofthine—Hans Knuber, or some such uncouthname."

"Ha, honest Hans!" exclaimed Konradwith joy. "But how came so great a nobleas thy lord to know of this poor skipper?"

"Knowest thou not that he is high admiralof the realm, and that not a cock-boatcan spread a sail in the Scottish seasunknown to him?"

"Jovial Hans!" continued Konrad; "Iwould give my right hand to see thee, andhear thy hearty welcome in our good oldNorwayn. Let us mount and go! Benumbed,and stiff, and sick as I am at heart and inbody, thou shalt see, Sir Page (for I knowthee of old), that I can ride a horse like thedemon of the wind himself."

Nevertheless, Konrad mounted with difficulty,and they progressed but slowly; for theancient way was steep and winding, and ledthem far to the westward of the city, whichdisappeared, as they traversed the steep andbroken ground that lay between it and theFirth.

This district was all open and rural, butgenerally in a high state of cultivation,divided by hedges and fauld-dykes into fallowfields and pasture lands, in some places shadedby thick copsewood, especially round thoseeminences on which rose the towers of Innerleithand Waniston, between which the roadwaywound. These square fortlets were theresidences of two of the lesser barons; thefirst extended his feudal jurisdiction over theancient village of Silvermills; and the otherover that of Picardie, where dwelt a colonyof industrious weavers, who had left theirsunny France, and, under the wing of theancient alliance, came hither to teach theScots the art of weaving silk.

Near some ancient mills, gifted by Robert I. tothe monks of Holyrood, the horsewaycrossed the pebbled bed of the Leith, whichbrawled and gurgled between rough andstony banks, jagged with rocks and boulders,and overhung by hawthorn, whin, andwillow. Soon wood, and tower, and path wereleft behind, the city lights vanished in thedistance, and Konrad, with his guide, enteredon a broad and desolate tract, then knownas the Muir of Wardie. There their horsessank fetlock deep in the soft brown heather,over which came the jarring murmur of thedistant sea, as its waves rolled on the lonelyshore of the beautiful estuary.

Then it was a lonely shore indeed!

That broad and desert moorland of manysquare miles, extended to the beach uncheeredby house or homestead, by tree or bush, orany other objects than a solitary little chapelof Our Lady and the old tower of Wardie,with its square chimneys and round turrets,overhanging the rocks, on which, urged bythe wind, the waves were pouring all theirfoam and fury, flecking the ocean with whitewhen the moonbeams glinted on its waters.

Broad and spacious links of emerald greenlay then between the little fisher-village andthe encroaching sea, which has long sincecovered them; but their grassy downs hadto be traversed by our horsemen ere theyreached the wooden pier where the crayer ofbluff Hans Knuber lay, well secured bywarp and cable, and having her masts, andyards, and rigging all covered, and madesnug, to save them from the storms which, atthat season of the year, so frequently set infrom the German sea.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CHALLENGE.

Defiled is my name full sore,

Through cruel spyte and false report;

That I may say for evermore,

Farewell, my joy! adieu, comfort!

For wrongfully ye judge of me.

Unto my fame a mortall wounde;

Say what ye lyst it will not be,

Ye seek for that cannot be founde.

Anne Boleyn's Lament.

The remains of the unfortunate king, afterbeing embalmed by Picauet the Frenchphysician, were interred among his royalancestors in the aisles of Holyrood, notcontemptuously, as some historians tell us, butsolemnly and privately; for Mary dared nothave had the burial service of the Catholicchurch publicly performed, when, but sevenyears before, those sepulchral rites were, bythe Reformers, denied to her mother.

In the southern aisle of the church ofSanctæ Crucis, near the slab that still markswhere Rizzio lies, he was lowered into thetomb, while the torches cast their lurid lighton the dark arcades and shadowy vistas ofthe nave, amid the lamentations and themuttered threats of vengeance—the deepsure vengeance of the feudal days—from theknights and barons of the Lennox.

Attired in sackcloth, poor Mary shutherself up in a darkened chamber hung withblack serge, and there for many days shepassed the weary hours in vigil and inprayer, for the unshriven soul of that erringhusband, whom for the past year she hadbeen compelled to hold in abhorrence—asentiment which she then remembered witha remorse that increased her pity for his fate.

Bothwell dared not to approach her whilethis paroxysm lasted; but by plunging intogaiety and riot—by spending the days andnights in revelry with Ormiston andd'Elboeuff—he endeavoured to drown therecollections of the past, to deaden the senseof the present, and to nerve himself for thefuture; but in vain—one terrible thoughtwas ever present!

It stood like something palpable and visiblebefore him. It seemed written on thefragrant earth, in the buoyant air, and onthe shining water, imparting to the sunnyspring the gloom of winter. It was in hisears, it was on his tongue, and in his soul;there was no avoiding, no crushing, noforgetting it! Oh, how vividly at times, in thecalm silence of the sleepless night, that crycame to his ears; and his thoughts wereriveted on that grey marble slab in thechapel aisle, beneath which, mangled, cold,and mouldering, lay one——he would smitehis damp forehead to drive away the thoughts,and rush to drown his sense of misery in wine.

Amid the hum of the city, when its sunlitthoroughfares were crowded with the gaietyand bustle of passing crowds, all of whomseemed so happy and so gay, it rang in his ears!

Amid the solemn deliberations of thecouncil on border raids and feudal broils—onEnglish wars and French embassies—in allof which he was compelled to take the lead,as the royal favourite and first of the Scottishpeers, it came to him sadly and mournfullyabove the voices of the most able orators;and then his heart sank when he looked onthe blanched visages of Morton, of Maitland,and his other copartners in that terrible deed,to which—as if by common consent—theynever dared to recur!

Amid the leafy rustle of the woods, as theirdewy buds expanded beneath the alternateshowers and sunshine of an early spring (ifhe sought the country), still he heard it!

Amid the deep hoarse murmur of the chafingsea, if he sought the lonely shore, he heardit still—that sad and wailing cry of death andof despair!

Amid the joys of the midnight revel, whenthe wine sparkled in the gilded glasses—thegrapes blushed in their silver baskets—thelofty lamps filled the chamber with rosy lightand rich perfume;—when the heedless ribaldryof Ormiston, the courtly wit of d'Elboeuff,the frolicsome spirit of Coldinghame, were allthere to make the present paramount alike tothe past and the future, still it came tohim—that terrible sound—the last cry of Darnley!

The queen still remained shut in her darkenedchamber, secluded from all—even fromthe prying ambassador of Elizabeth, who,when introduced, could not discern her faceamidst the sombre gloom surrounding her;but, as he informed his mistress, the accentsof Mary were both touching and mournful.

Two strange rumours were now floatingthrough the city; one of a spectre which hadappeared in the lodging of the Lord Atholon the night of the king's death; the other,of Bothwell's implication in that terribledeed, in which he and his companions hadendeavoured (and perhaps not without goodgrounds) to implicate the Earl of Moray.

No one knew how this rumour gainedcredence; but each man whispered it to hisneighbour. Voices, accusing him of the deed,rang at midnight in the narrow streets of thecity; the scholars chalked ribald verses at thecorners of the wynds and church-doors; whileMoray—openly Bothwell's friend, and secretlyhis foe—had handbills posted on the portes,naming him as the perpetrator. Furtivelythese things were done; for few dared toimpugn the honour of so powerful a noble, andnone could arraign him save the father of themurdered prince, Matthew Earl of Lennox,an aged noble, who had served with valourand distinction in the wars of Francis I.; andhe boldly charged the Earl with the crime.

Bothwell saw, or imagined he saw, anaccusation in the eye of every man whoseglance he encountered. Pride, jealousy, andangry suspicion, now by turns animated hisresentful heart, and galled his fiery spirit.He was always conferring secretly with theknights and barons of his train; he kept hisvassals ever on the alert, and never wentabroad without being completely armed, toprevent a surprise; but daily and hourly,slowly and surely, like an advancing andoverwhelming tide, the suspicions of the peoplegrew and waxed stronger, till, clamorously,it burst in one deep hoarse shout against him,and a hundred thousand tongues said, "Thouart the man!"

"Malediction on these presumptuouschurls!" said the Earl angrily to Ormiston,as they met near the palace gate on the dayafter Darnley's funeral. "They all accuseme; and there must be treachery somewhere."

"Nay, nay, never think so while that bondof Whittinghame exists. It binds us all, bodyand soul, to be silent as the grave, and deepas Currie brig."

"But now they speak of the queen, addingall that the innate malevolence of the vulgar,the hatred that Knox and his compatriotshave fostered and fanned, can add; anddeclaring that she is art and part with thosewho freed her and the nation from thedominion of the house of Lennox."

"May God forefend!" said Ormiston; for,ruffian as he was, he deemed the nationalhonour at stake under such an accusation."I would run my sword through the brisketof the first base mechanic who breathed aword of this."

"Breathed a word of it!—Gramercy!French Paris tells me, it is openly discussedby every full-fed burgess at the city cross; byevery rascally clown who brings his milkand butter to the Tron; by every archer andpikeman over their cans of twopenny; byevery apostate priest and pious psalmist whohaunt the houses of Knox, of Craig, andBuchanan. A curse upon the hour whenmy secret love, my cherished hopes—thename and fame the brave old Lords ofHailes transmitted to me, so spotless and sopure—are turned to ribaldry and jest, tolaughter and to scorn, by every foul-mouthedcitizen."

"'Tis mighty unlucky all this; for herehath been my Lord Fleming, the greatchamberlain, with the queen's especialcommendations to your lordship, announcing,that on the morrow she intendeth to layaside her weeping and wailing, her dumpsand dolours, and departing hence for the houseof Lord Seaton, a gay place, and a merrywithal; and there she hopes you will escorther with your train of lances, for theLothians are so disturbed that she mistrustseven Arthur of Mar and his band of archers."

"Be it so! Send Bolton to her grace withmy dutiful answer," replied the Earl, whoseeye lighted up, for he thought that, in theshock Darnley's fate had given her, thequeen had forgotten him; "we will be all inour helmets, and at her service by cock-crowto-morrow; but first," he added, sternlyand impressively, "take this, my better glove,and hang it on yonder city cross, and thereto-day at noon announce to all, that I,James Earl of Bothwell, and Lord of Hailes,will defend mine honour against all men,body for body, on foot or on horseback, atthe barriers of the Portsburgh, between thechapel of St. Mary and the castle rock, sohelp me God at the day of doom!"

And drawing off his long buff glove, whichwas richly embroidered and perfumed, theEarl handed it to his faithful Achates, andreturned into the palace to have his trainprepared with becoming splendour, for thehonourable duty of guarding the queen onthe morrow.

In compliance with this command, BlackHob, sheathed in his sable armour, his visorup to reveal his swarthy visage, and mountedon a strong charger of the jettiest black,attended by Hay of Tallo as esquire, FrenchParis as his page, and three trumpeters inthe Earl's gorgeous livery, gules and argent,and having his banner, with the lions ofHepburn rending an English rose, advancedinto the city, and there, amid a note ofdefiance, hung the Earl's glove above thefountain, together with his declaration ofinnocence, and offer "to decide the matterin a duel with any gentleman or person ofhonour who should dare to lay it to hischarge."

For many a day the glove hung there, andnone answered the challenge; for the star ofHepburn was still in the ascendant, and nonedared to encounter its chieftain in the field,for dread of the deadly feud that was sureto ensue.

But the printer of pasquils and thecaricaturists were still busy, and one morningthere was a paper found beneath the Earl'schallenge, on which was drawn a handgrasping a sword, and bearing the initialsof the queen, opposed to another armed witha maul, bearing those of the Earl—apalpable allusion to the weapon by which theunfortunate prince was slain, and whichcould only have been made by a conspirator.

The heedlessness of the unsuspecting Maryin visiting the Earl of Winton under theescort of Bothwell (of whose innocence shehad been convinced by Moray), and hisdivorce from his countess, lent renewed energyto the voice of calumny; and then thoserumours of her participation in that crime,in which all the skill of her enemies for threehundred years has failed to involve her, werenoised abroad; and slowly but surely thenation, which had never loved her for hercatholicity, and partiality for gaiety andsplendour, was completely estranged fromher. Now, on one hand, were a fiercepeople and a bigoted clergy; on the other, aferocious vassalage, headed by illiterate andrapacious nobles, and to withstand them butone feeble woman.

In the glamour that came over the Scottishpeople, they failed to remember that,animated by delicacy and honour, theunhappy Mary, only six weeks before the deathof Darnley, had rejected a divorce, thoughurged by the most able of her ministers andpowerful of her nobles; they also forgot howanxiously she had prevented his committinghimself to the dangers of the ocean, whenabout to become an exile in another land;and they forgot, too, her assiduity andtenderness, to one who had so long slighted andceased to love her, when he lay almost upona deathbed, under the effects of a loathsomeand terrible disease. The nobles saw onlya woman, who stood between them andpower—regencies, places, and command; thepeople saw only an idolater and worshipperof stocks and stones; and the clergy "aneunseemly woman," who dared to laugh, andsing, and dance, in defiance of theirfulminations anent such sin and abomination.

Exasperated by his son's death, and therumours abroad, the aged Earl of Lennoxdemanded of Mary that Bothwell shouldsubmit to a trial. His prayer was granted;and Keith acquaints us that she wrote toher father-in-law, requesting him to attendthe court with all his feudal power andstrength.

Dreading the issue of an ordeal whichmight blast his prospects and his fame, thepolitic Bothwell used every means to increasehis already vast retinue, by enlistingunder his banner every dissolute fellow,border outlaw, and broken man, that wouldassume his livery, the gules and argent; andthus his town residence, and those of hisMends, were soon swarming with thesesinister-eyed and dark-visaged swashbucklers,with their battered steel bonnets, their longswords, and important swagger. Thus, whenthe day of trial came, the streets werecrowded with them; and when Bothwell, afterpassing through a long lane of his ownarquebussiers, at the head of three thousand men,(mostly barons, knights, and esquires,)appeared at the bar, sheathed in a magnificentsuit of armour, supported on one side bythe crafty Earl of Morton, and on the otherby two able advocates—the father of theyoung prince he had destroyed dared notappear, as he dreaded to share the fate of his son.

After a long discussion, to which the high-bornculprit listened with a beating heart—thoughhis influence had packed the jury,which was composed of Mary's friends andRizzio's murderers; and though he had bribedthe judges and deterred the prosecutor—thecourt, actuated by sentiments best known tothemselves, unanimously "acquitted the Earlof Bothwell of all participation in the king'sdeath."

With him the die had been cast.

Had they brought in a verdict of guilty,another hour had seen his banner wavingin triumph and defiance above the capital—forhe was alike prepared to conquer or to die;but this decision of the jury, delivered by themouth of Caithness, their chancellor, renderedall his warlike preparations nugatory. Hadthey found him guilty, he would boldly haverushed to arms in defence of his honour andlife, with an energy and wrath that wouldalike have stifled the whispers of conscienceand remorse; but they had declared himinnocent, and he left the bar slowly and sadly,feeling in his inmost soul a thousand degreesmore criminal than ever.

As he left the chamber where the HighCourt sat, his friends and vassals receivedhim with acclamations—with brandishedswords and waving pennons; and, withtrumpets sounding, conveyed him through thegreat arch of the Netherbow to St. Mary'sWynd, where, by his command, the host ofthe Red Lion had prepared a grand banquetand rere-supper for the nobles and baronsattending the Parliament.

Though "one of the handsomest men ofhis time," as old Crawford tells us, the Earlfeared that, notwithstanding the assiduity ofhis attentions, Mary would never regard himwith other sentiments than those of mereesteem for his services, and efficiency as anofficer of state. "Men stop at nothing whentheir hands are in," saith an old saw; and,actuated by this spirit, Bothwell—everkeeping steadily in view that alluring object,which, step by step, had drawn him to thedangerous and terrible eminence on which hefound himself—resolved, by one more desperateact, to reach the summit of his hopes, orsink into the gulf for ever.

CHAPTER IX.

AINSLIE'S SUPPER.

Men talk of country, Christmasses, and court gluttony,

Their thirty pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carps' tongues,

Their pheasants drench'd with ambergris; the carcasses

Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to

Make sauce for a single peacock; yet their feasts

Were fasts, compared with the City's.

Massinger's City Madam.

It was, as we have stated, the month ofApril, and on the day of the Earl's acquittal.

About seven in the evening, the sun wassetting behind the purple hills of the Ochilrange, in all the splendour of that beautifulmonth of bright blue skies and openingflowers—of the pale primrose and the droopingblue-bell; when the dew lingers long onthe fresh grass and the sprouting hedges—whenthe swallow builds its nest under thewarm eave, and the mavis sings merrily ashe spreads his pinions on the buoyant air.It was an April evening. The rays of thesetting sun had long since left the narrowstreets of Edinburgh, though they stilllingered on its gothic spires and gilded vanes,throwing a farewell gleam on each tallchimney head, each massy bartisan, and roundtourelle.

A great fire blazed in the yawning hallchimney of the Red Lion, throwing its ruddyglow on the red ashler walls, which the hostendeavoured to decorate by various piecesof tapestry, begged and borrowed from hisneighbours, on the rough oak rafters thatonce had flourished on the burgh-muir—onthe far-stretching vista of the sturdy table,flanked with wooden benches on each sidefor Bothwell's noble guests, covered with ascarlet broad cloth, and glittering in all theshiny splendour of French pewter and delftplatters—for there had never been an atom ofsilver seen in an hostellary as yet; and byeach dark-blue cover lay a knife, halfted withhorn and shaped like a skene-dhu. A giganticsalt occupied the centre, and a carvedchair raised upon a dais—a chair thatwhilome had held the portly Provost ofSt. Giles, but to which honest Adam had helpedhimself in 1559, that year of piety andplunder—stood at the upper end, and wasdesigned for the great Earl of Bothwell.

A smile of the utmost satisfaction andcomplaisance spread over the fat rosy face ofAinslie's ample dame, as she surveyed the greattable, which her taste and skill had decoratedand arrayed; and she absolutely clapped herhands with glee, when the great platter,bearing a peacock roasted, and having its legsshining with gold-leaf, and all its bright-dyedpinions stuck round it, was placed upon theboard at the moment that a trampling ofhorses in the narrow wynd announced thearrival of the Earl and his guests, amongwhom were such a number of dignitaries asnever before had been under the rooftree ofthe Red Lion; and honest Elspat Ainslie wasoverwhelmed each time that she reckonedthem on her fat fingers, and found there wereeight bishops, nine earls, and seven barons,all the most powerful and popular in Scotland,where a man's power was then reckonedby the number of ruffians under his standard,and his popularity by his hatred of the Papists,and distribution of their gear to the preachersand pillars of the new regime.

The dame hurried to a mirror—gave hercoif a last adjust—smoothed her apron andgown of crimson crammasie; while Adambrushed a speck from his fair doublet of broadcloth—practised his best bow several timesto the gilt peacock; and all their trenchermenand attendants stood humbly by the door indouble file as the guests entered.

Bothwell came first, with his usual air ofgallantry and grace—his doublet of cloth-of-goldglittering in the light of the setting sun;his ruff buttoned by diamonds; his shoulder-beltand mantle stiff with gold embroidery;while his sword, dagger, and plumed bonnet,were flashing with precious stones. He madea profound bow to the hostess; for now hesmiled less than formerly, and the pallor ofhis noble features was attributed by all togrief at the Lord Lennox's accusation.

Morton followed, looking quite as usual,with his sinister eyes, his long beard and littleEnglish hat, his black velvet cloak andsilver-headed cane; but, with a jocularity that wasalways affected, he pinched the plump cheekof Dame Ainslie, and thumped her husbandupon the back, saying—

"How farest thou, host of mine? Faith,I need scarcely ask thee, for thou swellest andwallowest amid the good things of this lifedaily."

"By Tantony and Taudry! in these kittletimes, my lord"—began Adam.

"Peace, thou irreverend ronion!" whisperedthe Earl of Huntly fiercely, as hegrasped his poniard—"Saint Anthony andSaint Audry, thou meanest."

"I mean just whatever your lordshippleases," replied the hosteller, as he shrankabashed by the stern eye of the Catholicnoble, who resented every disrespect to theancient church, so far as he dared.

"Nay, nay," interposed Secretary Maitland,with his bland smile and flute-likevoice; "poor Adam's slip of the tonguemerited not a rebuke so sharp; to grasp thyponiard thus amounts almost to hamesucken—agloomy beginning to our banquet, myLord of Huntly."

There was present that gay scion of thehouse of Guise, d'Elboeuff—all smiles andgrimaces, starched lace and slashes; therewas the Earl of Sutherland, the lover ofBothwell's absent countess; Glencairn, theferocious; Cassilis, who once half-roasted anabbot alive; Eglinton, the cautious; Seaton,the gallant; and Herries, the loyal; Rosse,of Hawkhead, and many others—until thehall was crowded by the bravest and thegreatest of Scotland's peers, and many lesserbarons, who, though untitled, consideredthemselves in feudal dignity second to thecrown alone. All were well armed, andthe nature of the time was evinced by theirdresses; for all who had not on corseletsand gorgets to prevent sudden surprises, hadquilted doublets of escaupil, and all werescrupulously accoutred with swords andParmese poniards, without which no gentlemancould walk abroad.

As Bothwell advanced to the head of thetable to assume his seat, his eye caughtone of the black-letter proclamations of thecouncil, which was fixed over the gothicfireplace, and offered a yearly rent, withtwo thousand pounds of Scottish money, forthe discovery of the perpetrators of the crimeat the Kirk-of-Field; "quhilk horribill andmischevious deed," as the paper bore it,"almychty God would never suffer to lie hid."

"Mass!" said the Earl, as the bloodmounted to his temples, "thou hast a roaringfire, Master Adam, this April day."

"The coals bleeze weel, Lord Earl; yetthey cost a good penny, coming as they do bythe galliots frae the knight of Carnock'sheughs, aboon Cuboss."

"Little marvel is it that they burn thus,"said the Earl of Glencairn; adding, in a lowervoice, "for knowest thou, gudeman, thatinstead of contenting himself with such ofthis precious mineral as may be got shovel-deep,by advice of that damnable sorcerer,the knight of Merchiston, he hath sunk apit—a cylinder—even unto the bowels of theearth, as Hugh of Tester did at his GoblinHall; and he is now digging under the Forth,with intent, as Master George Buchanantold me yesterday, to ascend and seek upperair on this side."

"Ascend!" reiterated Morton withastonishment—"Where?"

"At the gate of thy castle of Dalkeith,perhaps; thou art thought to dabble a littlein spell and philtre—like draweth to like."

"As the deil said to the collier," addedold Lindesay. Several laughed at the hit, butMorton frowned.

This famous supper at Ainslie's hostel—asupper which has been fated to live for everin Scottish history—was marked by all thatbarbaric profusion that characterised thefeasts of those days, when men feasted seldom.Under the superintendence of a notableFrench chef de cuisine, the first courseconsisted of ling, pike, haddocks, and gurnards,dressed with eggs, cream, and butter; butthere was no salmon, that being esteemed asfitted only for servants. The chief dish of allwas a grand pie of salt herrings, minced, andprepared with almond paste, milts, and dates;a grated manchet, sugar, sack, rose-water, andsaffron; preserved gooseberries, barberries,currants, and Heaven knows what more; butthe curious or the epicurean may still findthe recipe in worthy Master Robert May's"Accomplished Cooke, 1685."

This delightful mess threw the Marquisd'Elboeuff into as great an ecstasy as theartificial hens—which formed part of the secondcourse, and were made of puff-paste—seatedupon large eggs of the same material, each ofwhich contained a plump mavis, seasoned withpepper and ambergris; and, to him, theseproved infinitely more attractive than thehaunches of venison, the chines of beef, androasted pigs, that loaded the table. To suitthe palates of Lindesay, Glencairn, and othersturdy Scots, who disdained such foreignkickshaws, there were sottens of mutton,platters of pouts, Scottish collops, tailyies ofbeef, and sea-fowl. Every description ofFrench wine was to be had in abundance—aleand old Scots beer, seasoned with nutmeg;and it would have been a fair sight for theeffeminate descendants of these doughty earlsand bearded barons, to have witnessed howthey did honour to this great repast, eatingand drinking like men who rose with the larkand eagle, whose armour was seldom fromtheir breasts, whose swords were never fromtheir sides, and whose meals depended oftenon the dexterity with which they bent thebow, or levelled the arquebuss.

On each side of the Earl sat four bishops;and all his real and pretended friends werepresent except Moray, who had suddenlydeparted to France, "that he might seem tobe unconcerned in what was going forward:he failed not in this journey to circulate everyinjurious report to the prejudice of hisunhappy sovereign, who, in the mean time, wasdestitute of every faithful friend and propercouncillor."

The Archbishop of St. Andrew's—the lastCatholic primate of Scotland (the same nobleprelate whom, for his loyalty, Moray sosavagely hanged over Stirling bridge five yearsafter)—now arose, and, stretching his handsover the board, uttered the brief grace thenfashionable:—"Soli Deo honor et gloria,"whereat the Lord Lindesay muttered somethingunder his beard, "anent the idolatry ofLatin."

Instead of that calm, cold, and politereserve, that marks the modern dinner table,their nut-brown faces shone with the broadgood-humour that shook their buirdly frameswith laughter, and they became boisterousand jocose as the night drew on; and theblood red wines of old France and Burgundy,and the stiff usquebaugh of their nativehills, fired their hearts and heads.

Lord Lindesay had prevailed on d'Elboeuffto partake of a haggis, and he was laughingunder his thick beard at the grimaces of theFrench noble, whose complaisance compelledhim to sup a dish he abhorred.

"Thou findest it gude, Lord Marquis?"

"Ah! cest admirable!" sighed d'Elboeuff.

"Why, thou seemest to relish it prettymuch as a cat liketh mustard."

"Oui!" smiled the Frenchman, who didnot understand him.

"And how fares my noble friend, Coldinghame?"asked the Earl of his brother roué.

"Weel enow; but sick of dangling aboutthis court, which is such a mess of intrigue."

"Tush! Bethink thee, the queen hath thewardship of many a fair heiress, and maybestow on thee a handsome wife."

"Bah! like my Lord of Morton, I care notfor a handsome wife"—

"Unless she belong to another," saidOrmiston, coarsely closing the sentence.

"By the rood! a good jest and a merry,"laughed Bothwell; but Morton's olive cheekglowed with anger.

"Be not chafed, my lord," said Ormiston;"by cock and pie! I spoke but in boonfellowship. Drink with me! This Rochelle isfamously spiced, and stirred with a rosemarysprig for good-luck."

"Does Master Ainslie warrant it old?"

"Old! my Lord Morton," reiterated Adam,turning up his eyes; "ay! auld as the threetrees of Dysart; for it lay many a long yearbefore the '59, among the stoor and cobwebso' the Blackfriars' binns, up the brae yonder."

"By the way," said the Lord Coldinghame,"as thou talkest of the Blackfriars, what taleof a roasted horse is this, anent whilk thewhole city is agog, concerning a spectre whichis said to have appeared there on the nightthe king was slain, and hath haunted theruins of St. Mary's kirk ever since?"

"Knowest thou aught of this, Adam?"asked Bothwell, whose mind, though heendeavoured to maintain his usual aspect ofnonchalance, wandered constantly to thegigantic projects he had in view.

"As ye know, my lord," replied Adam,setting his head on one side and his left legforward, with the air of a man who has astory to tell; "on the night of that deadlycrime in the Kirk-of-Field, two especialgentlemen of the Earl of Athol, the umquhileking's gude-cousin, were both a-bed at hislordship's lodging, which is just within thetown wall, and not a bowshot frae auldSt. Mary's kirk. In the mirk mid hour of thenight, Sir Dougal Stuart, who slept next thewall, was awaked by a death-cauld handpassing owre his cheek, and which thereaftertook him by the beard, while an unearthlyvoice, sounding as if from afar off, said—'Arise,or violence will be offered unto you!' Atthe same moment his friend, a half-wudHielandman, awoke, saying furiously—'Whereis my durk, for some one hath boxedmine ear?' And both started up to see, close bytheir bed, a dusky figure, of which no featurecould be defined save a clenched hand, bare,and long, and glistening in the sillermoonlight, that shone through the grated window;then it melted away like morning mist; theturnpike door was heard to close with a bang,as if some one had left the house; and while,with fear and alarm, they started to theirsword's, lo! they heard the explosion thatsent king and kirk-house into the air together."[*]

[*] See Buchanan.

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Bothwellangrily, for this story was then current in thecity; "'tis a tale befitting only the olddames who play basset and primero in thequeen's antechamber. Wert thou at sermonin the High Kirk this morning, Hob?" heasked, to change the subject.

"Cock and pie, no!" said Ormiston, ashe gulped down his wine with surprise.

"Marry!" said Lord Lindesay; "thoudidst miss a rare discourse."

"On what did Master Knox expone?"asked several Protestant peers; while Huntlyand other Catholics curled their mustaches,and exchanged glances of scorn. Lindesayreplied—

"Anent the story of that strong loon,Samson, tying three hundred torches to thetails of sae mony tod-lowries, to burn thecorn of the Philistines—likening himselfunto Samson—the ministry o' the reformitkirk to the three hundred tods, and theirdiscourses unto the bleezing torches—the corno' the Philistines unto the kirk o' the Pope,whilk their burning tails would utterlyoverthrow, ruinate, and consume. God speed thegude wark!" added the stern peer, as hebrushed aside his heavy white beard withone hand, and tossed over his wine-cup withthe other.

"What spell hath come over thee, compereBothwell?" said d'Elboeuff; "thouseemest grave as a judge. Here is themerry-thought of a capercailzie to scare thymelancholy."

"Marquis," replied the Earl gaily, "thywit would require the addition of a wing tomake it soar. What a tall goblet thou hast!Dost mean to get drunk to-night?"

"Why not, parbleu! when I am to rideto Holyrood?"

"What difference doth that make?"

"Mon Dieu! because, if I stumble, thereis more effect when falling from a saddle,than sprawling endlong in the kennel like abeastly bourgeoise."

"'Tis time with thee, Marquis, that siclikefollies were left owre, for thy beard gettethfrosted wi' eild," said Lord Lindesay.

"Tete Dieu! dost thou say so, and live?But remember, most sombre Lord of theByres, that Paris is as different from thiscity as the fields of Elysium are from thoseon the other side of the Styx. There thegaieties and glories of youth begin when weare yet children; when ye are boys, we aremen; when ye are in your prime, we are inold age—exhausted with pleasure, ennui,drinking and gaming, roistering and"——

"Enough, Marquis!" said Bothwell, whohad two ends in view—to drench his guestswith wine, and to keep them all in excellenthumour. "Enough!" he whispered; "forthere are some stern spirits here who do notrelish this discourse; and bethink thee ofthe reverend bishops who are among us."

"Tonnere! apostates! heretics!"muttered the Marquis. Meanwhile Ormiston,Bolton, Morton, and others who were Bothwell'sfriends, seeing how his spirit alternatelyflagged and flashed, left nothing undoneto increase the hilarity of the evening,and keep the wine circulating; for therewere many present whom descent, religion,or faction had set at deadly feud, and who,had they met on a hillside or highway, orperhaps in the adjacent street, would havefought like mad bulls; but these had beenartfully and politicly separated, and thusthe unrestrained jesting and revelryincreased apace.

Some talked of creaghs upon the northernfrontier, of forays on the southern, ofpartition of kirk lands, and the flavour of wines,in the same breath. D'Elboeuff chatteredlike a magpie of new doublets and perfumes,of Paris and pretty women: old Lindesayspoke solemnly and portentously, over hisale, on the prospects of the holy kirk; andGlencairn responded with becoming gravityand ferocity of aspect.

Morton sat opposite Lethington, and fromtime to time they sipped their wine andexchanged those deep glances which the mostacute physiognomist would have failed toanalyse; but, as they watched the ebb andflow of the conversation around them,Morton seemed almost to say in his eyes, "Thouart wise as Nestor;" and the secretary toreply, "And thou cunning as Ulysses."

Gradually the latter led the conversationto the politics of the day—the misgovernmentthat, since the death of James V., hadcharacterised each succeeding year; how thesceptre, feebly swayed by the hands of afacile woman, had never been capable ofaweing the great barons and their predatoryvassalage—the urgent necessity of somepowerful peer espousing the queen, andassuming the reins of government, otherwisethe destruction of Scotland by foreigninvasion and domestic brawl—the subversion ofthe rights of the nobles, the power of thechurch, the courts of law, and the libertiesof the people, would assuredly ensue.

This half-false and half-fustian speech,which the able Lethington delivered withsingular emphasis and grace, was receivedwith a burst of acclamation.

"My lords and gentles," said the agedLindesay, standing erect, and leaning on hissix feet sword as he spake; "here we areconvened, as it seemeth, as mickle for council ascarousal; albeit, ye have heard the premisesso suitably set forth by the knight ofLethington, it causeth me mickle marvel to knowwhom among us he would name as worthyof the high honour of espousing our fair queen."

"Cock and pie!" exclaimed the impetuousHob Ormiston, erecting his giganticfigure, and speaking in a voice that madethe rafters ring; "whom would we namebut her majesty's prime favourite and sorelymaligned first counsellor, James Earl ofBothwell, Governor of Edinburgh andDunbar, and Lord High Admiral of the realm?Who, I demand, would not rather see himthe mate of Mary Stuart, than the beardlessLord of Darnley—that silken slave, thatcarpet knight, and long-legged giraffe inlace and taffeta? What say ye, my lordsand barons, are we unanimous?"

There was a pause, and then rose a shoutof applause, mingled with cries of "ABothwell! a Bothwell!" from Morton andother allies of the Earl, who were sonumerous that they completely overcame thescruples, or hushed into silence theobjections, of the hostile and indifferent.

The Earl, whose heart was fired anew bythe glow of love and ambition—for neverdid a prospect more dazzling open to theview of a subject than the hope of sharing athrone with a being so beautiful as Mary—thankedhis friends with a grace peculiarlyhis own, and immediately produced thatfamous BOND—a document in which thenobles in parliament assembled, asserted hisinnocence of the crime of the 11th February,and earnestly recommended him to Mary asthe most proper man in Scotland to espouseher in her widowhood—and bind themselvesby every tie, human and divine, "to fortifythe said Earl in the said marriage," so runsthe deed, "as we shall answer to God, onour fidelity and conscience. And in case wedo on the contrary, never to have reputationor credit in time hereafter, but to beaccounted unworthy and faithless traitors."

"God temper thy wild ambition, Bothwell!"said the Archbishop, as he signed thedocument to which the seven other prelatesappended their names. That of Moray—Mary'sdearly loved brother—had alreadybeen given before his departure; and itsappearance had a powerful effect on all present.

"Deil stick me, gif I like mickle to scaldmy neb in another man's brose!" growledGlencairn; "yet I will subscrive it, albeit Iwould rather have had a suitor to whosemaintainance of the Holy Reformit KirkMaster Knox could have relied on."

Morton gave one of his cold and sinistersmiles as he appended his name in silence;while the Marquis d'Elboeuff also smiled,shrugged his shoulders, and applied to hisnostrils an exquisitely chased silver pouncet-boxof fragrant essences, to conceal themerriment with which he watched the arduousoperation of fixing the signatures; for writingwas a slow and solemn process in those days.

A new and terrible difficulty occurred,which nearly knocked the whole affair onthe head.

Very few of these potent peers could signtheir names, and others objected to makingtheir mark, which, from its resemblance toa cross, savoured of popery; but Lethingtoneffected a conscientious compromise, bycausing them to make a T, as those did whosigned the first solemn league—a smallnessof literary attainment which did not preventthose unlettered lords from demolishing thehierarchy of eight hundred years, and givinga new creed to a nation as ignorant as themselves.

Bothwell felt as if he trode on air whenconsigning this tremendous paper, which hadthe signatures of so many bishops, earls, andlords, the most powerful in Scotland, to thecare of Pittendreich, the Lord President.

The rere-supper lasted long.

Deeply they drank that night, but nonedeeper than the Earl and his friends; andthe morning sun was shining brightly intothe narrow wynd—the city gates had beenopened, and the booths which, from 1555till 1817, clustered round St. Giles, were allunclosed for business, and carlins werebrawling with the acquaoli at the Mile-end well,ere the company separated; and the Earl,accompanied by Hob Ormiston and theknights of Tallo and Bolton, with their eyeshalf closed, their cloaks and ruffs awry, andtheir gait somewhat oscillating and unsteady,threaded their way down the sunlit Canongate,and reached Bothwell's apartments inHolyrood—that turreted palace, where theunconscious Mary was perhaps asleep withher child in her bosom, and little foreseeingthe storm that was about to burst on herunhappy head.

CHAPTER X.

HANS AND KONRAD.

Yes, she is ever with me! I can feel,

Here as I sit at midnight and alone,

Her gentle breathing! On my breast can feel

The presence of her head! God's benison

Rest ever on it!

Longfellow.

On this morning, the sun shone brightlyon the blue bosom of the Forth, and thegrey rocks of all its many isles. Thesea-mews were spreading their broad whitepinions to the wind, as they skimmed from theirnests in the ruins of Inchcolm, and the cavesof Wemyss.

The little fisher-hamlet that bordered theNew haven, with its thatched and gable-endedcottages, its street encumbered by greatbrown boats, rusty anchors, and drying nets,looked cheerful in the warm sunshine; andtroops of ruddy-cheeked children weregamboling on those broad links that lay wherenow the water rolls.

Near a little window in the confined cabin ofa Norwegian ship, lay Konrad of Saltzberg,faint, feeble, and exhausted; for the fever ofa long and weary sickness had preyed uponhis body and mind, prostrating every energy.He was pale, attenuated, and hollow-eyed;and now, for the first time since the night welast saw him, had emerged from insensibilityto a state of consciousness. He felt the coolair of the April morning blow freshly on hispallid cheek; he heard the ripple of thewater, and saw its surface gleaming in thesunshine afar off, where its waves broke inpurple and gold on a distant promontory;and close by (for the crayer lay within tenyards of the shore) he heard the merry voicesof the children as they gamboled and tumbledon the bright green grass.

Konrad had been dreaming of his home, andthese voices came to his slumbering ear in oldfamiliar tones. He had heard the heartygreeting of old Sir Erick Rosenkrantz, and themerry laugh of Anna, as it had sounded inthe days of his boyhood and joy; and heheard the murmur of the sea, as, wafted bythe summer wind, its waves rolled upon therocks of Bergen.

The morning breeze from the Germanocean roused him from this dreamy lethargy,and for the first time in many weeks heraised his head, and endeavoured to recollectwhere he was; but the aspect of the littlecabin, with its arched deck, and massivebeams, confused and puzzled him.

"I am still dreaming," he murmured, andclosed his eyes.

He opened them again, but still saw thesame objects—the same little cabin, with itspannelled locker—a brass culverin on eachside; a crossbow, maul, and helmet hangingon the bulkhead, and the open port affordinga glimpse of the shining estuary, with itscastled isle, and distant sails, that seemed likewhite birds resting on the faint and far offhorizon.

Steps were heard, and then a stout andthick-set man was seen slowly descending theladder from the deck. First appeared a pairof broad feet encased in rough leathershoes—then two sturdy legs in brown stockings,gartered with red ribbons; a vast obesity cladin chocolate-coloured breeches, garnishedwith three dozen of metal knobs at theseams; a waist encircled by a belt, sustaininga Norway knife; then square bulky shouldersin a white woollen jacket, and then a greatbullet head, covered by a cap of black fox'sfur, under which, on the person turninground, appeared the moonlike face of honestHans Knuber, open-mouthed and open-eyed—expressiveonly of good-humour and hilarity;and, where not hidden by his thick redbeard, exhibiting a hue that, by exposure tothe weather, had turned to somethingbetween brick-dust and mahogany.

"Cheerily, ho!" said he, patting Konrad'sshoulder with his broad hard hand; "andnow, St. Olaus be praised, thou art come tolife again! I knew the pure breeze that blewright over the sea from old Norway wouldrevive thee."

"Honest Hans," replied Konrad, in a feeblevoice, "I have often heard thy deep tonesin the dreams of my sleep, as I thought."

"And so thou wert in a dream, lad—anda plaguy long one! such a dream as thewood-demon used to weave about those whodared to take a nap under his oak.Asleep! why, lad, thou'st been delirious"——

"How! since I came on board thy shiplast night, in a plight so pitiful?"

"St. Olaus bless thee, Master Konrad!Thou hast lain by that gun-port for theseeight long weeks!"

"Weeks—weeks!" muttered Konrad, pressinghis hands on his temples, and endeavouringin vain to recollect himself.

"Ay, weeks; and a sad time we have hadof it, with leeching and lancing, druggingand dosing, plastering and patching. Mass!I thought thou would have slipped thycables altogether, though under the handsof Maitre Picauet." For Hans had sparedno expense, and had brought even the royalphysician to see his young charge; and so,thanks to the same skill that brought JamesVI. into the world, and nearly recoveredDarnley from the grave, Konrad, when thedelirium left him, began to find himself anew man.

"Eight weeks! I remember me now.Thou hadst landed thy cargo of Norwaydeals from our old pine-woods ofAggerhuis—hazel cuts and harrowbills"——

"Ay, ay; and had stowed on board mynew lading, being crammed to the hatcheswith tanned leather, earthenware, andScottish beer, wheat and malt, for which Iexpect to realize a goodly sum in rounddollars among the cities on the Sound, whereI would long since have furled my topsails,but for a rascally English pirate that hathcruised off the mouth of the fiord (or frithas the Scots call it), and I dared not put tosea, though ready to sail, with the freecocquet of the queen's conservator in mypouch, and my ship hove short upon hercable; for this is my last venture, andunder hatches I carry all that must makeor mar for ever the fortune of old Hans Knuber."

"Thou didst tell me some news from oldNorway, I now remember, on that nightEarl Bothwell's page led me here."

"Why, thou wert like the spectre of adrowned man—St. Erick be with us! Buthere—drain thy cup of barley ptisan, and Iwill tell thee more in good time."

Konrad drank the decoction prescribed bythe physician, and impatiently said—

"Thou sawest my good friend, the oldknight Rosenkrantz, I warrant?"

"I did," replied Hans gravely.

"And how looked he?"

"Stiff enow, Master Konrad; for he waslying in his coffin, with his spurs on hisheels, and his sword girt about him."

Konrad was thunderstruck, and barelyable to articulate; he gazed inquiringly atHans.

"True it is, this sad story," said theseaman, wiping a tear away with the back of hisbrawny hand; "thou knowest well how allthe province loved the bluff old knight, whowas never without a smile or a kind word forthe humblest among us; and faith he neverallowed old Hans Knuber to pass his halldoor without putting a long horn of drickaunder his belt. But Sir Erick is gone now,and the king's castle of Bergen (ah! thourememberest that) is a desolate place enough.And honest Sueno Throndson, that mostpuffy and important of chamberlains, he isgone to his last home too. He went toZealand in the ship of Jans Thorson, to hangSir Erick's shield, with all his arms fairlyemblazoned thereon, among those of otherdead Knights of the Elephant, in the subterraneanchapel of Fredericksborg; but Jans,as thou knowest, could never keep a goodreckoning, and, by not allowing duly forvariation and leeway, was sucked by themoskenstrom, with all his crew, right downinto the bowels of the earth. St. Olaussain them!"

"Poor Sir Erick!" said Konrad, heedlessof the fate of Jans, while his tearsfell fast.

"Dost thou not know that King Frederickhad created him Count of Bergen, and Lordof Welsöö, for his services in the oldHolstein war?"

"Of all these passages, I have heard nothing."

"His niece, the Lady Anna, will be acountess now, as well as the richest heiressin the kingdom. Baggage that she is! Heruncle never recovered her desertion of hishome for the arms of that Scottish lord,whom, if I had him here, I would string upto my gaff peak. By the mass! the oldknight's heart was broken, for he loved theeas a son, and Anna as a daughter; but tothe devil say I with women, for they all yawin their course somehow, and require a stronghand at the tiller to make them lie well tothe wind. This Anna, God's murrain"——

"Hold thee, Hans Knuber!" said Konrad,with something of his old air of dignity andauthority; "for, nevertheless all thy kindness,I will not permit thee to breathe one wordthat is ungracious of Anna."

"As thou pleasest, lad," replied the seaman,taking off his fur cap to wipe his capacioushead; "I thought 'twould relieve theesomewhat to hear one who had so shamefullymisused thee roundly cursed."

"Oh no! never!" replied the young man ina low voice; "Oh, Hans! thou knowest not thedepth and the enthusiasm of this passion thathath bewitched me. It banishes every angrythought from my mind, and leaves only asense of desolation and agony, that can neverdie but with myself."

"Now, by the bones of Lodbrog! but Ihave no patience with this. How! a boldfellow like thee to be caterwauling thus, likea cat on a gutter? Go to! The Lubeckersand Holsteiners are again displaying theirbanners on the Elbe and Weser. Assumethy sword and helmet again. Thou hastthe world before thee, with a fair wind; andwhat matters it leaving a false woman anda slighted love behind? Cheerily, ho! MasterKonrad; a love that is easily won is lightlylost."

"False as this girl has been to me, Hans,there are times when her bright smile andher winning voice, and all the memory ofour happy early days, come back to mein their first freshness and joy, and mysoul melts within me. Then, Hans—inmoments like these—I feel that, were sherepentant, I could love her as of old. Oh,yes! I could forgive her—I could press herto my breast, and worship her as I did evenin those days that have passed to return nomore.

"Well, well—as thou pleasest. Takeanother gulp of this barley drench—thyptisan. Get strong and healthy ere we seeold Norway, where she is gone before theewith Christian Alborg, in the Biornen, andwho knoweth what the clouds of futuritymay conceal? An old love is easilyrekindled, I have heard, though, by the mass!I know little of such gear; though this Iknow, that the castle of Bergen, with theyoung countess's lordship of Welsöö, wouldmake a very snug roadstead to drop one'sanchor in;" and, with a leering wink, HansKnuber once more clambered to the upperdeck, where he drew his fur cap over hisbushy brows, thrust his hands into hispockets, and scowled defiance at the smallwhite speck that, near the Isle of May, stillmarked where the English pirate lay cruisingin the offing.

CHAPTER XI.

HOW BOTHWELL MADE USE OF THE BOND.

I love you better—oh! better far than

Woman was ever loved. There's not an hour

Of day or dreaming night, but I am with thee;

There's not a wind but whispers of thy name,

And not a flower that sleeps beneath the moon,

But in its hues or fragrance tells a tale

Of thee, my love!

Mirandola, a Tragedy.

It was the 23rd of April, four days afterthe great supper described in chapter 9th,when the queen, without her guard ofarchers, and accompanied only by a slenderretinue, passed along the Stirling roadtowards Edinburgh. She was mounted onher celebrated white palfrey, with its bridleand housings covered with silver bossesand elaborate embroidery; and withsurpassing grace she managed it, the statelyanimal bowing its arched neck, andchamping the burnished bit, as if proud of itsbeautiful rider.

Mary wore a long and flowing riding-habitof dark cloth, laced with silver about the neckand sleeves. It came close up to her dimpledchin, where a thick frill, or little ruff, stuckstiffly out all round. She had her glossy hairdrawn back from her snow-white temples,under her lace cap of widowhood (the far-famedQueen Mary cap), that drooped overher brow, while cocked jauntily a little on oneside, she wore one of those small sugar-loaf hatswhich were then so fashionable. A diamondband encircled it, and a veil of the richest lacedanced from it in the evening wind, as shecaricoled along the old narrow horseway thatwound among the fields near the ancientmanor of Sauchton.

She was accompanied by only five attendants,among whom were Huntly, Lethingtonthe secretary, and Sir James Melvilleof Halhill. With her colour brightened bythe exercise of riding, and her eyes sparklingwith animation and pleasure, (for she hadjust been paying a visit to the infant princeat Stirling—a visit fated to be her last,)when her veil was wafted aside, Mary's faceseemed to glow with a beauty and vivacity,to which her smart beaver hat lent additionalpiquancy; and she conversed with more thanher usual gaiety and thoughtlessness to thepolitic Melville, the subtle secretary, andtheir better man, the stately young chieftainof the house of Gordon. On her wrist satthe gift of her father's aged falconer, (JamesLindesay of Westschaw,) one of thosebeautiful falcons which made their eyry in aperpendicular rock on the West-hill of Alva,where, says the Magister Absalom, nevermore than one pair have been known tobuild a nest, even unto this time.

The day was serene; the sun was vergingwestward, and large masses of shadow laydeepening on the Pentland hills, while thebright flush of the sunlight beamed upontheir steep acclivities and heather-brows witha golden tint. The sky was cloudless, and thewhole of that magnificent plain, which spreadsfrom the western gates of Edinburgh to thoseof Glasgow, was clad in all the rural beauty ofan early summer. Warmed by the Aprilshowers, the trees were putting forth theirgreenest leaves, and the pink foxglove andblue-bells were bordering the highway; whilethe wildbrier, the mountain thyme, and therose of Gueldres, filled the air with perfume.

"Oh joy! how beautiful!" said Mary, asshe checked her palfrey on the high andancient bridge that crossed the Leith nearthe old baronial manor of the Elphinstones,whose broad dark chimneys were seen peepingabove a grove of beeches. "See! yonderis the town, with its castle and St. Giles'spire shining blood-red in the light of thesunset, above the bright green copsewood.And look, Monsieur Huntly, what a delightfullittle cottage by the side of that river!The green ivy, the wild roses, and thewoodbine, are all clambering about its thatchedroof—nothing is visible but its little door.Ah, Jane, ma bonne!" she exclaimed to hersister Argyle, "how I should love to livethere, with nothing to attend to but myflowers and music, and a nice little cow to milk."

"I fear your majesty would soon be ennuéeyedto death, and longing for Holyrood, withits floors of oak and walls of velvet tapestry,with your archers at the gate and pages inthe corridor," replied the grave Lethington,with a smile of something between amusementand sarcasm at the simplicity of theyoung queen.

At the cottage door an old woman wassprinkling water on a herd of cattle, withbroom dipped from time to time in a tub,at the bottom of which lay a perforated stone,which was deemed a sovereign remedyagainst all witchcraft; but, suddenly ceasingher employment, she curtsied lowly to thelady, of whose exalted rank she was ignorant.

The scenery was very fine, for the countrywas then more thickly wooded almost thannow, and afar off shone the rugged outline ofEdinburgh, rearing up on its ridgy hills,with the great square spire of its cathedral,and the lofty towers and bastel-houses of itscastle, clustering on lofty and perpendicularrocks. Close by the road, arose the doublepeaks of Craiglockhart; one covered withpastures of emerald green, the other bluffwith whin-tufted basalt, and crowned withgloomy firs; while, following its winding anddevious course, the Leith brawled andgurgled over its pebbled bed. Brightly thesunlight danced upon the dimpled water;already in blossom, the lilac groves thatshaded it were filling the air with fragrance;their white and purple flowers being at timesrelieved by the pale green of the willow, thegolden laburnum, and the pink cups of thewild-roses; while every flower and blade ofgrass were glittering in the early dew of theApril evening. Unseen, amid the thickfoliage that bordered the highway, a thousandbirds were filling the air with a melody,that died away even as the sun's rays diedupon the distant hills, and the saffron glowof the west assumed the sombre tint of thegloaming.

The young Highland earl, who rode byMary's side, was charmed with her vivacity,and conversed with her alone; while themore phlegmatic Lethington and Melvillejogged together a few paces behind, veryintent on their own intrigues and correspondencewith Elizabeth of England, with Cecil,and with Killigrew; both of whom, thoughable statesmen and subtle politicians, will befound, if tried by the rules of justice andhonour, the greatest villains that ever breathed.The beauty of the scenery, and the buoyancyof the air, raised Mary's vivacity, and increasedher brilliant wit; and she often made thethickets echo with her musical laugh, or averse of a merry French song; till asudden turn of the road brought them full inview of a sight that made her utter a faintcry of alarm, rein up her palfrey withone hand, and with the other grasp thearm of Huntly, who instantly drew hissword.

Right across that narrow path was drawnup the imposing line of a thousand horsemenin close array, all sheathed in armour,with the points of their uplifted lances, theirbreastplates, and conical helmets, glitteringin the setting sun. Their flanks, whichextended into the fields on each side, werewell thrown forward, so as completely toencircle the terrified queen and her littleretinue. A few yards in front were twoknights with their visors up; one bore astandard displaying two Scottish lionsrending a red rose, and by his sable armour,his negro-like visage, and colossal frame, allrecognised Hob of Ormiston; but in theother, whose light suit of mail, engrainedwith gold, was white as winter frost, andreached only to the knees of his scarlet hose,they knew the Earl of Bothwell. He leapedfrom his horse, and, drawing off his rightgauntlet, advanced reverentially towardsthe queen on foot.

"What foul treason is meditated here?"asked Huntly sternly, as the Earl passedhim.

"None; but thou shalt see," replied theother with a smile, "that I will now wedthe queen—yea, whether she will or not!"[*]

[*] See Melville.

"Now by my father's soul!" began Huntlyfuriously.

"How!" said Secretary Lethington, withone of his cold and placid smiles; "has yourlordship already forgotten the supper, andthe bond?"

"Jesu Maria!" muttered Huntly; "Iforesaw not this!"

"Your grace will hold me excused," saidthe Earl of Bothwell, grasping the bridle ofMary's palfrey; "but your own safety andthe commonweal require that I should, withouta moment's delay, lead you to my castleof Dunbar."

"Mother of God! How—why?" askedMary in an agitated voice, as she gazed onthe face of the Earl, which was pale as death;for the magnitude of the crime he contemplated,had for a moment appalled even himself."With what am I menaced? Is there araid among the Lennox men—an invasion ofthe English—or what? Who is my enemy?"

"James of Bothwell, as this sword shallprove!" exclaimed the young Earl of Huntly,making a furious blow at the noble's temperedhelmet—a blow that must have cloven himto the chin, had not Bolton and Hob Ormistoncrossed their lances, and interfered withthe speed of light; but Hob's tough ashstandard pole was cut in two.

"Mass!" he exclaimed; "now hold thee,Earl Huntly, or, with my jeddart staff, Iwill deal thee a dirl on the crown that willhang a scutcheon on the gate of castleGordon for the next year."

The horsemen closed up with levelledlances, and the gentlemen of the queen'strain were immediately disarmed.

"To Dunbar! to Dunbar!" cried Bothwell,leaping on horseback, but still retainingthe queen's bridle.

"For what end, Lord Earl, and for whatpurpose, am I to be thus escorted, or madecaptive, I know not which? Tell me, Iimplore—nay, I demand of thee as myliegeman and vassal?"

"I refer your majesty to my advisers herepresent, to the Earl of Huntly and theKnight of Lethington; but fear not, dearestmadam, for I am devoted to you in bodyand in soul, and I swear to you by the fourblessed gospels, that I have only your wealat heart. Oh, come with me—come withoutresistance; for resistance would be vain!"

"Darest thou to say so?"

"Pardon me; but once within the gatesof Dunbar, that stately castle with whichthou didst so graciously gift me, I will tellthee all. On, on—knights and horsemen! forthe night is closing fast, and I can foreseethat, natheless the beauty of this April eve,we shall have a storm of no common potency."

Mary's pride, which never for a momentdeserted her, impelled resistance; her darkeyes filled with fire; she grew very pale;her beautiful mouth expressed all the scornand anger that swelled up in her breast,and she endeavoured to snatch her bridlefrom the hand of the Earl; but at thatmoment the soft persuasive voice ofSecretary Maitland addressed her, and his handtouched her arm lightly. He spoke in anunder tone, and what he said was unheardby the Earl; but his wily eloquence wasnever exercised in vain, and that tact whichbent the most stubborn nobles to his purpose,was not likely to prove ineffectual upon thetoo facile and gentle Mary.

"Be it so!" she replied with hauteur. "Detout, mon coeur! I will bide my time; but,Sir William of Lethington, if this raid shouldprove as my mind misgiveth me, by everyblessed saint my vengeance will be terrible!"

The cold statesman bowed with one of hisinexplicable smiles as he reined back hishorse; and then, by the command of Bothwell,the whole train set forward at a furiouspace, which the Earl had no wish to diminish,for the double purpose of avoiding thealternate questions, threats, and intreatiesof the queen, and escaping the fury of asudden storm, that, with singular rapidity,had converted that beautiful evening intoone of darkness and gloom.

Agitated, by turns, with astonishment,vexation, indignation, and fear, the queenrode on, reserving her enquiries till theyshould reach Dunbar.

But why to Dunbar, and not to Holyrood?

A thousand terrors and fancies flittedacross her mind. Perhaps the principalnobles had again leagued to slay her, asthey had done when her brother rose inrebellion; perhaps he was again in arms,with Lindesay, Glencairn, and all the furiousupholders of that new doctrine, which sheopenly feared and secretly abhored.

The clank of a thousand suits of armour,and the rush of four times that number ofgalloping hoofs on the hard dusty road,stunned and confused her; while the figuresof the mail-clad riders, their tall lances, andBothwell's rustling banner, the hills andcopsewood that overhung their way, grewdarker and duskier as the sky became veiledby the heavy clouds that came up in massesfrom the German sea.

The summits of the mountains were veiledin descending mist; the air became closeand still, and afar off the broad red gleamsof the sheet lightning brightened in thesky, revealing in bold outline the ridges ofthe distant hills, and the waving woods thatcrowned their summits.

Edinburgh, with its walls and gates, wasleft behind in night and obscurity; themarshes of Restalrig, where every momenttheir chargers floundered to the girths; thedreary Figgate whins, where every pace wasencumbered with roots and other remainsof an old primeval forest; and the ruinedchapel of Mary Magdalene—were passed;and the captive queen, with her escort,were galloping along that far expanseof sandy beach, where the white-crestedwaves rolled with a sullen boom on the desertshore.

Now the clanging hoofs rang like thunderon the broad flagged pavement of the ancientRoman way, that led directly over thepicturesque old bridge built by the soldiers ofAgricola, and where a strong iron gate,erected transversely across the centre arch,closed the passage after nightfall. But ablast from Ormiston's bugle-horn summonedthe gateward, cowering and shivering fromhis seat by the ingle; for now, from thedarkened sky, the heavy rain was patteringupon the hurrying river. At the imperiouscommand, to "make way for the Lord Earlof Bothwell!" the barrier was instantlyunclosed, and on swept the train in all itsmilitary show, each horseman stooping hishelmeted head, and lowering the point ofhis long Scottish spear, as he passed underthe low-browed gate, and wheeled to the left,by the base of the mound, where still theRoman trenches lay, as strong and as visibleas when the cohorts of the empire raisedthere a temple to "Apollo, the long-haired."

Then Musselburgh, the chapel of Loretto,with its demolished tombs and desecratedshrines, old Pinkiecleugh, with its woods andtower, where Abbot Durie dwelt, were leftbehind, and once more the train was sweepingalong the echoing shore, by the margin ofthe midnight sea—with the thunder rumblingamong the hills, and the rain and the stormadding spurs to their headlong speed. Bymidnight they reined up before the castle ofDunbar, where broad and vast, in all theirancient strength and feudal pride, the stronground towers of Bothwell's princely dwellingstood in clusters on the sea-beaten rocks.

Despite the darkness of the night, and thefury of the storm, which was pouring theGerman sea in waves of snow-white foamagainst the castle cliffs, the roar of threesalvoes of brass culverins from the lowerbattlements, burst like peals of thunder on the air;while, red and forky, the flashes shot forthbetween the strong embrasures and deep-mouthedgun-ports of curtain-wall and flankingtower, as the drawbridge fell, the portcullisascended, and the glare of twenty blazingtorches flashed under its iron teeth,displaying a court-yard crowded with the Earl'sretainers in jack and morion, his servitors inlivery, and pages glittering in lace andembroidery, grouped beneath the strong-ribbedarchway to receive the queen.

Somewhat assured by this display of loyalty,respect, and security, the queen permittedBothwell to kiss her hand as he assistedher to alight, and led her half sinking fromfatigue to the hall, where every thing appearedas if prepared for her reception; for, thanksto the forethought of Hob of Ormiston,nothing was ever wanting to complete thosedangerous dramas in which the Earl was nowthe leading actor; and, by his contrivance,while the Earl led Mary up the great staircase,French Paris conducted Sir James Melvilleand the other gentlemen of her retinueto a detached tower, where some of hisvassals guarded them till daybreak, whenthey were expelled from the castle, the gatesclosed, and they were left (as Sir James tellsus in his memoirs) somewhat unceremoniouslyto shift for themselves, and to bear toEdinburgh and its astonished citizens, thetidings of Bothwell's daring and the queen'scaptivity.

CHAPTER XII.

LOVE AND SCORN.

This gushing life

Is all that I can give in reparation

Of all the wrongs I have done thee.

We shall lie down together in the grave;

And, when the sound of Heaven shall rouse the dead,

We shall awake in one another's arms.

Shiels' Apostate.

Though the ardour of Bothwell's daringand ambitious passion for Mary was increasedalmost to a frenzy, on finding her completelyin his power, within the strong gates andstronger walls of that magnificent fortress, ofwhich, in an unfortunate moment of liberality,she had made him governor; he felt hiscourage sink when the moment came for revealingthe bond of the nobles, the hopes he hadcherished, and the deed of which he had beenguilty.

Three great chandeliers of wax candles,which hung from the arched roof of thelofty hall, shed a blaze of light upon thegobeline tapestry that covered its walls, fromthe base to the spring of the vault, whichwas profusely decorated with the richestfresco work, where the royal cipher and thefleur-de-lys were prominently seen. Fourgothic pillars sustained the carved arch ofthe fireplace, where an enormous grate,standing on four knobs of brass, was filledwith blazing coal. The floor was coveredwith thick rush matting; and a magnificentcollation of fruit, confections, and dainties,in baskets of chased silver, flasks of crystal,and jasper vases, were laid upon the tablesby French Paris, little Calder, and otherattendants.

Meanwhile the storm continued withunabated fury without; with the noise ofthunder the ocean dashed against the bluffson which the castle stood, and roared in thefar recesses of those deep caverns thatperforate its cliffs of dark red basalt. The rainpoured like a cataract against the barredwindows, and hissed in the wide chimney;the mournful cry of the solan goose, and theshriek of the seamew, were heard on thepassing wind, as it dashed them with thesurf against the castle walls; and thestreaming of the wax lights, and undulations of thetapestry within, increased the dreary effectof the tempest without; and its fury seemedthe greater, from very contrast with thebeautiful evening which had preceded it.

The Earl, like other men of his time, wasnot without a tinge of superstition; and thestorm contributed greatly to increase hisirresolution.

"Being at Dunbar," says Mary in one ofher letters, "we reproached him with thefavour we had always shewn him—hisingratitude, and all other remonstrances thatmight serve to release us out of his hands;albeit we found his doings rude, yet hiswords and answers were gentle, that hewould honour and serve us. He askedpardon for the boldness of conveying us toone of our own houses, constrained by love,the vehemence of which made him set apartthe reverence which naturally he bore us asour subject, as also the safety of his own life."

Thus far the artless Mary; but the papersof the worthy Magister Absalom Beyer aremore full in their details.

Pale, from the hurry of the journey, andthe current of her own thoughts, Mary stoodin the centre of the hall, divested of her hatand riding-habit, which had been drenchedby rain. Her plain but rich dress of blacksatin fell in deep and shining folds aroundher figure, but presented nothing to indicateher rank; for, save her amber beads, hergold crucifix, and celebrated diamond ring,she was without other ornament than herown bright auburn hair. In some degreedamp and disordered, it fell in heavy braidsupon her neck, which, on her ruff beingremoved, contrasted by its delicate whitenesswith her black satin dress.

Bothwell had hurriedly thrown aside hiswet armour, and assumed a manteau, orrobe of scarlet, which was trimmed withermine, and usually worn by knights uponstate occasions; and it lent additional dignityto his towering figure, as, with a beatingheart, he approached Mary, and welcomedher to the castle of Dunbar.

Her eyes were full of enquiry, and hermouth, half-opened, displayed all herbeautiful teeth; and Bothwell, dazzled andintoxicated, dreaded only that his own eyesmight too soon reveal the passion whichnow, when he gazed upon its object, madeevery scruple to vanish.

"And now, Lord Earl," said the Queengravely, but with a slight tinge of her usualplayfulness, "for what have we had thisterrible ride to Dunbar, passing in ourhurry even the gates of our own palace andcapital? Now, say—for what didst thoubring me here?"

"To say, madam, that I love you withother sentiments than those a subject bearsa sovereign," replied the Earl, as he pressedher hand to his heart, for at the end of thatvast hall they were almost alone. "Oh! thoutoo winning Mary," he added, in his low andmost persuasive tones; "I have long adoredthee, and with a love surpassing that of men."

Starting back a pace, the queen withdrewher hand; her brow crimsoned, and herflashing eyes were firmly bent on Bothwell.

"Lord Earl," she replied, in a voice thattrembled between anger and dread, "whatis this thou hast dared to do?"

"To love thee—is it a crime?"

"No, if it be such love as I may receive;but such is not thine, Lord Earl."

"Oh! visionary that I have been!" exclaimedthe astonished noble, as he claspedhis hands; "and to a dream have I givenup my soul, my peace, my honour! Oh,madam! shew me some way in which I mayyet farther prove the ardour of this passion,of which thou art the idol! Give me sufferingsto be borne—difficulties to surmount—dangersto encounter; shew me battles tofight and fortresses to storm. Didst thouwish it, I would invade England to-morrow,and carry fire and sword even to the gatesof York; for five hundred knights and tenthousand horsemen follow my banner."

"Je vous remercie!" exclaimed Mary, withirony, as she turned away—"I thank thee,Lord Earl; but ere I go to war with my goodcousin Elizabeth, I must punish my rebels athome."

"Oh, madam! thou, to win whose love Ihave dared so much—thou, the object of myboyish dreams and manhood's bold ambition—towardswhom I have ever been borne by anirresistible and inevitable tide—the sure, darkcurrent of fatality—hear me? But look notupon me thus, for an aspect so stony willwither my heart."

"Lord Bothwell," replied the Queen gravely;"thou deceivest thyself with a volumeof sounding words, but seek not to deludeme, too. Till morning, I will rest me in this,my castle of Dunbar; and to-morrow inHolyrood will seek a sure vengeance for theraid of to-night."

"Sayest thou so, madam?" replied theEarl, whose proud heart fired for a momentat her scorn; "then thine will be the greaterremorse."

"Remorse? mon Dieu!" said Mary, laughing.

"Ah, madam! why didst thou encourageme to love thee?"

"I encourage you!" reiterated the Queenwith astonishment. "Mother Mary! thouravest. Never! never! I needed not toencourage men to love me."

"Thou didst so to me, madam. By God'sdeath! thou didst; and it was cruel to inspireme with a passion which thou couldst notreturn."

"Thou hast mistaken my too affable manner,"replied the Queen; "but I will notstoop to defend myself before thee,presumptuous vassal!"

Bothwell's spirit now fell as the queen'srose; for he felt certain that, should shecontinue in this mood, he was lost.

Ambition and policy supplied him withthat eloquence, of which, perhaps, the excessof his romantic passion might have deprivedhim; and his voice, ever persuasive andseductive, poured all his practised blandishmentslike a flood upon her ear. Borneaway by the tide of feeling, he painted historments, his ardour, his long-treasured love,his stifled despair; and Mary listened withpity and interest, for her heart was thegentlest of the gentle; and she saw in him ahandsome and gallant noble, who had drawnhis sword in her service when a wholepeerage held aloof—who had shed his blood touphold her authority—and who had latelysuffered deeply (so she thought) by the meremalevolence of his enemies; but not oneglance even of kindness would she bestowupon him.

Even the bond signed by those reverendprelates, whom she almost worshipped—thosepowerful peers, whom she sometimesrespected, but more often feared—and thatpolitic brother, whom she had ever lovedbetter than herself—even that documentwas urged upon her in vain. It servedbut to increase her anger, and she toldBothwell she "could never, never, love him!"

"Madam, madam, repulse me not! Oh,thou knowest not how long, how deeply,I have loved thee!"

"Summon my attendants! This night Iwill rest me here; but," she added threateningly,"to-morrow is a new day; and thou,Lord Earl, mayest tremble when I leaveDunbar!"

"Madam," replied the Earl proudly, butsadly, "from the hour my eyes first openedon the light, I have never trembled; andnow I swear to thee, by the joys of heavenand the terrors of hell, thou shalt NEVERleave Dunbar but as the bride of Bothwell!"

And turning, he retired abruptly.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CRY.

She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd;

She is a woman, therefore may be won.

Titus Andronicus.

That night, in his private apartment,Bothwell drank deeply with Ormiston andBolton.

The storm still raged without; the dash ofthe waves on the bluffs, their clangour in thecaverns below, and the mournful moaningof the wind as it swept round the battlementsabove, were heard incessantly; but the fireburned merrily on the broad flagged hearth;the hounds yawned lazily as they stretchedthemselves before it; a supper of muttonsottens, broiled capon, a solan goose, andpout-pie, lay untouched on a buffet, whichtwo oak wyverns upheld on their outspreadwings.

The bright wines of Rochelle and Bordeauxsparkled as they were poured fromgreat Flemish jugs into the elaborately chasedsilver maizers, from which the Earl and hisfriends were drinking—and drinking, as wehave said, deeply; Bolton, to drown thememory of a deed that was likely to drive himdistracted; Bothwell, to obtain nerve forwhatever might ensue; and Hob Ormiston,to please himself, and keep them company.After a pause—

"Courage, brave Bothwell!" he exclaimed,striking the Earl on the shoulder; "for thouseemest the chosen son of the fickle littlegoddess."

"Fortune has been smiling on me of late;but, as I have told thee, I begin to scornher favour since the rejection of my suit byMary."

"All coy reluctance. By St. Anthony'spig! were I thou"——

"Nay, Nay! Mary is above acting sochildishly. But wert thou me, what then?"

"By cock and pie! I would make her mineere the sun rises from the sea to-morrow."

"Peace!" said the Earl, through whoseheart there thrilled a fierce and sudden joyas Ormiston spoke.

"Take courage; for the same day thatsees thee Duke of Orkney and Regent ofScotland, beholds me Earl of Ormiston andMarquis of Teviotdale; and by Tantony'sbell and bones, and pig to boot, the soonerthe better say I, for every rood of my barony,main and milne, holm and haugh, are mortgagedto the chin among the rascally notariesand usurers of Edinburgh, whom the devilconfound! What sayest thou, Bolton?Sorrow take him! he is drunk and asleep. Poorfool! he hath never been himself since thatnight. Hearken," continued this ruffian,approaching the Earl, whom it was his interestto urge yet further on that desperate coursein which they had embarked together;"doth not the queen and her sister, theLady Argyle, sleep in the chambers of theAgnes tower?"

"Yes; so sayeth Sandy of Whitelaw, myseneschal. The queen is in the vaultedchamber on the first floor; Jane of Argyleabove."

"Well!" said Ormiston, fixing his keendark eyes on those of the Earl.

"Well?" reiterated the Earl.

"It is folly to pause midway in thecareer of ambition; and it lies with thyselfto make this woman thine; for what is shebut a pretty woman after all? It lieth withthyself, I say, to make her thine, to end herscruples, and to close for ever the web thouhast woven around her."

"Silence!" said the Earl, rising abruptly,but immediately reseating himself; "silence! thyvillanous counsels will destroy me."

"Destroy thee!" reiterated Ormiston."Nay; but thy faintness of heart will now,at the eleventh hour, destroy all those whofollow thy banner by knight's service andcaptainrie; by fear of Chatelherault andhatred of Lennox. Let Mary once bethine, and she dare not punish, but rather,for the reparation of her own honour, willbe compelled to wed thee. Think of heralluring loveliness; and to be so nearthee—so completely in thy power. Hah! art thoua child—a love-sick frightened boy—to sitthere with that lackadaisy visage, when thewoman thou lovest so madly is almostwithin arm's length? Go to! What amiserable thing is this! to see a strong andproud man the slave of a passion such asthine—a love so wild, so daring, somisdirected; his heart and soul absorbed by awayward woman, who perhaps secretlyprizes, though she outwardly affects todespise, the acquisition."

"Silence, I tell thee!" replied the Earlthrough his clenched teeth; but Ormistonsaw, by the deep flush in his cheek—by thelight that sparkled in his eye, and thetremour that passed over his frame, howdeep was the impression his words had made.

"Dost thou recoil? By St. Paul! thesafety of thine own house, and that of manya gallant baron, depends on the measuresof this night; for to-morrow she will leaveDunbar only to return with the royal bannerand all the crown vassals at her back. Takeanother maizer of the Rochelle, while Ileave thee to ponder over what I have said,for the night wears apace."

"Begone, in God's name! and take Boltonwith thee, for I would be alone."

The powerful Ormiston bore away thelieutenant of the archers as if he had been achild, and the Earl was left to his ownreflections.

"He is right—he is right! To hesitate isto fall—delay is fraught with danger; andto pause, is to be immediately overwhelmedby the recoil of that fatality of which I havetaken the lead. But—but—curse thee,Ormiston! why did I listen to thee?"

He drank—again and again—to deadenalike the stings of conscience and the whispersof honour—to fire yet farther his insanepassion, and to make, as it were, a tool ofhimself.

"Revenge!" he mused; "revenge andambition spur me on, till the dread of deathand the ties of honour are alike forgotten.How irresistible has been the fatality thathas led me on, from what I was to what I amto-night—a regicide! a traitor! Let me notthink of it; still—still, on this hand I glutmy revenge on Morton and on Mar; on theother, I grasp love and power like a kinglyorb. It shall be so!" he exclaimed, after apause; "this night I am not myself—thehand of Destiny is upon me."

He leaped from his chair, and threw off hisermined manteau; exchanged his boots forsoft taffeta slippers; he laid aside the swordand belt that girt his powerful figure; hetook his sheathed poniard in one hand, alighted cresset in the other, and, leaving hisapartment by a private stair which the arrasconcealed, rapidly traversed the corridors andstaircases that led to the queen's apartment.

His face was haggard—his hands trembled—hiseyes were full of fire.

As he ascended softly, taking three stepsat a time, he met Ormiston, who, being wellaware of the train of thought he had fired,was loitering near to watch the explosion.He paused, and the blood rushed to his browat meeting even him at such a moment.

"Ha—whither goest thou?" he asked.

"To the tower of Black Agnes," repliedBothwell in a husky voice, while he staggeredfrom his emotions, and the effects of thewine.

"Thou darest then at last to act like a man."

"Like a fiend, if my fate wills it! Whatmay I not dare now, after all I have daredand done? But hark!" said the Earl, as aghastly pallor overspread his face; "didstthou hear?"

"What?"

"That mournful cry!"

"By the mass! I heard only the skirl of awild sea-maw."

"Hah!" said the Earl, through his clenchedteeth; "comest thou from thy grave inyonder abbey church, to scare me from mypurpose? Avaunt! thou shalt see that I fearthee not, and thus will trample alike on thevengeance of heaven, the fears of hell, thestings of conscience, and the slavish laws ofmen!" and, brandishing his cresset, he sprangup the staircase and disappeared.

Black Ormiston, that colossal ruffian,drew his long sword, and retired into ashadowy part of the corridor to keep watch andward. The storm still rang without, thoughits fury was lessened, and coldly the fitfulmoonlight gleamed upon the frothy waste ofwaters that boiled around the caverned rocks.It shone at times through the strong irongratings of the staircase window, and glintedon the dark face, the keen eyes, and bushymustaches of the watcher, who ever and anonput forth his head to listen.

Still the wind howled—the rain patteredand hissed at intervals, and the mews shriekedlike evil spirits as they were swept away onthe skirts of the hurrying blast; but,lo! there came a cry from the upper chambersof that strong Saxon tower, that gave thelistening bravo a shock as of electricity.

A fainter succeeded, and a cold and sinistersmile spread over the face of Ormiston. * * * * *

CHAPTER XIV.

HANS' PATIENCE IS REWARDED.

While shunn'd, obscured, or thwarted and exposed,

By friends abandon'd and by foes enclosed;

Thy guardian council softens every care,

To ease soothes anguish, and to hope despair.

Richard Savage.

The English pirate still lay in the offingat the mouth of the estuary, and honest HansKnuber, who, like all the skippers of thattime, was his own merchant and supercargo,dared not put to sea; and each fine sunnyday, while the fair wind blew down the riverfrom St. Margaret's Hope, he trod his littledeck to and fro, with his hands stuffed into thepockets of his chocolate-coloured small-clothes,his Elsinore cap pulled well over his redeyebrows, and consoling himself by prayingto St. Mungo (who once had voyaged in thesewaters), and by swearing many a round oath inguttural Norse at the obnoxious Englishman,whose broad lateen sails, dark brown atsunrise, and snow-white at sunset, were alwaysvisible, as he cruised under the lee of the May,that beautiful isle of old Saint Adrian.

Meanwhile the sunny month of May approached,and when Hans thought of the goodprices his cargo of wheat and malt wouldbring in the market of Kiobenhafen, hisvexation increased hourly; and every morning hesolemnly gave over the Englishman to thedevil and the jormagundr, or great sea-snake,that lies coiled round the foot of the northpole, and makes the whirlpool of Lofoden bywagging its tail.

During this, by the strength of his constitutionand the care of Martin Picauet, Konradrecovered strength daily. He shook offthe torpor that weighed upon his spirit; and,while he endeavoured to efface the image ofAnna from his memory, it was evident toHans Knuber (and he was no subtle lovecasuist), that the prospect of returning toNorway and meeting her again, contributedmore than all the skill of the queen'sapothegar to make him a new man.

And though, at times, when bluff Hanswould thump him between the shoulders,and drink to Anna's health and his success,in their native dricka or brown Scottishbeer, he was wont earnestly to assert, thatwere she queen of all Scandinavia, from theNaze of Norway to the Isles of Lofoden, hecould not, and would not, wed her, after allthat had passed; and he felt so: for now,deadened a little by absence, by bitterrecollection, and the excess of his first despair,there was at times something of indignationmingled with his memory of her. At others,all his old tenderness would painfully revive,and come gushing back like a flood uponhis heart; and she was then rememberedonly as the Anna of his boyhood's days—theAnna of that early love, which had first beentold in whispers and confusion among thedruid groves of Aggerhuis.

From time to time he heard tidings ofBothwell's daring deeds, but all, of course,distorted or discoloured by the malevolenceof the narrators; for in that early age, whennewspapers were unknown, the only meansof intelligence were the "common bruit," asrumour was named; and the simple Norseman,who knew nothing of statecraft, oflawless ambition, the lust of power, and theboldness of such a spirit as Bothwell, heardwith astonishment how he had slain theking of the land, by blowing his palace, withall his court and attendants, to the numberof thousands, his guards, grooms, and horses,into the air; how he had seized the queenand crown; and how he had strangled theyoung prince before her eyes, because shehad refused to marry him; and of how hehad imprisoned her in chains in a darkdungeon, where her food was bread andblack beer; and, assuming the sceptre, hadseated himself on the throne. Poor Hanstrembled for his cargo of malt when heheard of these terrible passages, prayed toSt. Tradewell of Orkney, and wished himselfsafe at home.

He and Konrad knew not how commonwas the stratagem of seizing the Scottishsovereign in those days, and that the seizureof Mary had twice before been attempted—onceby the old Earl of Huntly, and once byher brother Moray, on his rebellion in 1565;and consequently, had Mary viewed Bothwellwith any favour, there had been nonecessity for his wooing her at the head ofa thousand horse.

Meanwhile, Hans waited anxiously thearrival of those French galleys, which attimes, under the pennon of the Chevalierde Villaignon, made their appearance in theScottish firth—for Scotland had then but sixor eight ships for military purposes, under thepennons of David Wood, Sir Edmund Blackadder,Thomas Dixon, and Edward Robertson,who (though Buchanan styles them"pirates of known rapacity") were Scottishsea-officers, and vassals of the Lord HighAdmiral. These ships were then in theWestern seas; thus, the pirate of Hull,which was the bane of Hans' existence, laythere unmolested, like a wolf waiting for hisprey, and the fishers from the New havendaily brought terrible accounts of her crew;how they were plundering the coast aboutCrail—how they cruised with a man hangingat each yard-arm—how her poop lanternswere human skulls—and the skipper wassaid to be the devil himself; for he cameashore every night, not in his jolly-boat,like any other respectable shipman, but inhis broad beaver inverted on the water, toattend the witches of Pittenweem, who heldthe meeting in the weem, or great cavern,below St. Mary's priory; and thus poorHans was denied the hope of escaping evenin the night, by creeping along the shore,under the brows of Kincraigie and Elie-nesson the north, or by the broad and beautifulbay of Preston on the south; and so thetime wore on—the month of May waspassing—and still the Skottefruin of Bergen layoff the New haven, with her canvass bent,her brown sides and curved deck blisteringin the summer sun.

At last there came tidings that the highadmiral was about to put to sea, and thatfive Scottish frigates were anchored near hiscastle of Dunbar. Upon this, the piratedisappeared, and Hans Knuber rubbed hiseyes again and again, one morning, to assurehimself that the offing was clear. Then,impatient to bend his course homeward, hetook immediate advantage of the gentlesummer breeze that blew from the westernhills, and spread his canvass on a beautifulmorning in May—though a Friday, of alldays in the week, by ancient superstition,the most unpropitious for putting to sea.

Then, with a heart that grew lighter asthe Scottish mountains lessened in thedistance, Konrad hailed the blue sky and thedark ocean; for he knew that, when landagain was visible, it would be the pine-coveredhills and thunder-riven cliffs of hisnative Norway.

CHAPTER XV.

THE LEGEND OF ST. MUNGO.

A famous sanct St. Mungo was,

And ane cantye carle was he;

He drank o ye Molendinar burne,

Quhan he oouldna better prie!

Ballad.

"Mass!" said Hans Knuber to Konrad,as they walked to and fro one day on the leeside of his quarter-deck; "we have voyagedprosperously. I knew I should not implorethe aid of good St. Mungo for nought; though,poor man! his work was like our anchorage inyonder firth—like to have no end."

"Thou seemest ever in a rare mood now,Hans;" replied Konrad; "but what madeSt. Mungo thy particular patron, and how cameit that the work of so holy a man was never done?"

"Why, Master Konrad, 'tis a long story,which I heard from a certain old friar whenmy crayer was once discharging her cargo atthe ancient Stockwell bridge of Glasgow. Icare not if I tell it thee to wile away an houror so; so here cometh like a rope out of thecoil, with a wanion on it!—the story I mean,not the saint—the Lord forbid! It happenedsomewhere about the time that Erick Blodiaxewas among us here in Norway—the year530—a long time ago, Master Konrad."

We here present the legend, not in thewords of honest Hans, but as we find it inthe MSS. of Magister Absalom, who hasentitled it,

The Legend of St. Mungo.

In the days when Eugene III. was king ofScotland, and Lothus ruled the race of thePicts, there was a certain holy woman whodwelt in a cavern on the shore of the riverForth, above where the ruins of the Romaninvaders overlooked the mouth of the Carron.

The place was then all desolate, and theland was covered with wood from the darksummit of the distant rock of Stirling, wherethere frowned the fragments of a Romantower, to the yellow shore of the river, wherethe rippling waves rolled up in all theirechoing loneliness.

The only traces of men near her dwellingwere a circle of stones—large and upright; inthe centre lay one whereon the Druids ofother times, on the first day of every ninthyear, had sacrificed to Odin a foeman taken inbattle; and to that mysterious circle, thereyet came more than one white-bearded believerin his wild pagan faith to adore themorning sun, as he arose from his bed in theshining eastern sea. Where a busy townnow stands, a few squalid huts, built ofturf, and mud, and bows freshly torn fromthe pine woods, straggled up the roughascent; and among them grazed a herd ofwild cattle, watched by wilder-looking men,half naked and half clad in skins and coatsof jointed mail, armed with bows and clubs,long reedy spears, and shields of black bull'shide; while their hair, long, yellow, anduncombed, flowed like horse-manes frombeneath their caps of steel.

These were Scottish warriors, who hadcome on a hunting expedition from theirnative wilds in the west of Braidalbyn, todrive the deer in the woods of the Pictishrace; for Lothus the Just was then at peacewith Eugene.

The Scottish prince had wearied of hunting;he had tarried many days among thevast forests that bordered on Bodoria, andmore than a hundred noble stags, and ascore of the snow-white bulls of Caledonia,had fallen beneath the spears of his huntsmen.

It chanced that on Beltane morning, abeautiful white deer, scared from the mountainsby the beal-fires that were lit on theirsummits, passed the young king, as slowly,dreamily, and alone, he rode along thesandy shore of that broad river, whoseglassy surface had been unploughed by akeel since the galleys of Rome had, a hundredyears before, quitted, and for ever, their nowdesolate harbours at Alauna and Alterva.It bounded close by him, lightly and gracefullyas a spirit, and disappeared into agloomy weem or cavern, up to the mouth ofwhich the white-edged waves were rolling.

He sprang from his horse, threw its bridle,which was massive with brazen ornaments,over the branch of a tree, and, grasping hisshort hunting-spear, advanced fearlessly intothe cavern; but he had not gone ten pacesbefore his steps were arrested, and, removinghis steel cap, which was encircled by therude representation of an ancient diadem,he knelt before St. Thena, the recluse ofthat desert, and as yet nameless, solitude.

No man knew from whence St. Thenacame; she was the daughter of a distantrace, and her beauty, which was very great,had doubtless made her seek the wilderness,that there, separated from the temptations ofthe world, she might dedicate her days toGod. For years her food had been barleybread and a few wild-beans, to which, intimes of great scarcity, she added a littlemilk, and now and then a small fish, whenthe receding waves left it on the shore nearher cavern. Her prayer was continual, andher tears often flowed for the benightedand still Pagan state of many of hercountrymen. She was good and gentle, and herface, which was seldom seen (for, like herform, it was enveloped in her long sackclothgarment), was said to be one of wondrousbeauty. Many feared but more loved her;and the wild huntsmen, and wilder warriors,when they tracked either the foe or the reddeer, through the vast woods or along thedesert shores of that far-winding river,avoided to disturb the recluse, and blessedher peaceful life, after their own rude fashion.

The fame of her virtue spread abroad;and through all the land of King Lothus,from the waters of the Tay to those of theAbios, among the northern Saxons, shebecame known for the austerity of her fastsand other mortifications. Some averred shewas the daughter of a king, and that, likethe blessed St. Ebba, she had fled to avoidan evil marriage; others, that she was anangel, for the man who obtained even aglimpse of her figure, with its floatinggarments, never bent the bow nor threw thenet in vain that day.

She stood with one arm around the neckof the deer, to protect it from the intruder;that arm was bare to the elbow, and itswhiteness was not surpassed by the snowycoat of the fugitive. Her face was concealedby the overshadowing hood; a rosy littlemouth and one long ringlet of golden hairwere visible. The young king saw with pain,that her tender feet had no protection from theflinty floor of the cavern—that flinty floorwhereon she knelt daily, before a rough woodencross, which St. Serf of Lochleven hadfashioned for her with his own holy hands.

Timidly she gazed on the young Scottishking, whose strong and graceful form wasclad in a close-fitting hauberk of steel scales,and a tunic of bright-coloured breacan, thatreached to his knees, which were bare; hissandals were covered with plates of polishedbrass, and were plaited saltirewise to withinsix inches of his tunic. A crimson mantlehung from his left shoulder, and on his rightwere his bow, fashioned of yew from theforest of Glenure, and his arrows, featheredfrom the wings of the swift eagles of Lochtreig.

"Warrior!" said the Recluse, "spare methis deer; it is the only living thing thatclings to me, or to which my heart yearnsin this wilderness."

"It is spared," replied the huntsman,lowering the bright point of his spear; "butwhence is it, gentle voice, that so muchbeauty and goodness are hidden from theworld; and that one so fair, so young, andso queen-like, is vowed to this life ofausterity and seclusion."

"Because my heart told me it was myvocation; and now, warrior, I pray you toleave me, for I may not, and must not holdconverse with men."

"Saint Thena, thou seest that I knowthee," replied the young man gently; "I amEugene, the King of the fierce Scottishtribes that dwell beyond the Grampians.Even there, among these distant mountains,we have heard of thy holiness and piety; andI will bless the hour that led me to thycavern, for I have looked on a form thatwill never be forgotten."

"And, king, what seekest thou hereamong these woods?"

"The white bull with its eyes of fire, andthe great stags and wild elks of this richland of the Cruitnich; but say, gentle Thena,may I not come again to have thy blessingere I return to the wilds and wars of my owndark mountains in the land of the west?"

The saint paused, and the young king sawthat her bosom heaved. Another longgolden tress fell from her dark hood, and hecould perceive, when her lips unclosed, thather teeth were white as the pearls of hisdiadem; again he urged, for an unholycuriosity burned within him, and the poorRecluse replied,—

"Why should I shun thee? come, yes,and I shall bless thee; go, and I shall blessthee likewise. God's will be done! I amarmed against temptation; but, O king! Iam not above the tongue of reproach."

"Art thou not Thena, the saint, and theholy one?" replied the young king; and,fearful lest she should retract her promise,he withdrew, and, still more slowly andthoughtfully than before, pursued his wayby the echoing strand to the camp, wherehis bare-kneed Dalriads were stretched onthe grassy sward, with their bucklers castaside and bows unstrung, wiling away thesunny hours with bowls of blaedium, whilethe harpers sang of the wars of Fingal ofSelma, and Fergus the son of Erc.

But a spell had fallen upon the Recluse, andafter the king was gone, his voice seemed tolinger in her ear, and his stately form wasstill before her; with his shining hauberk,and his bright curling locks, that glitteredin the sunlight.

The next day's eve was declining.

The sun was setting, like a circle of flame,behind the western hills; the waters ofBodoria rolled in light, and the bright greenleaves of its pathless shores were glitteringwith the early dew, when the king, witha bugle in his baldrick, and a spear in hishand, again approached the cavern ofThena. He was alone and unattended, saveby his favourite dog; one of thosedark-eyed and deep-chested hounds of Albyn,rough, shaggy, and gigantic, like the Branof other days.

He entered softly. The saint was atprayer, and she knelt on the bare step ofher altar, which was a fragment of the livingrock; a skull, thrown by the waves uponthe shore, was placed thereon; and above itstood the cross of St. Serf. The white deer,which was asleep on the Recluse's bed of dryleaves, sprang up on the stranger's entrance,and cowered beside her.

Eugene paused till her orisons were over,and gazed the while with wonder. Herhood had fallen back, and her long flowinghair, which steel had never touched, fellin luxuriance to her knees. Reflected fromthe glassy waters of the river, a ray of thesetting sun entered the cavern; her tressesshone in light, and she seemed somethingethereal, for they glittered like a halo of gloryaround her. The young king was intoxicated;and a deep sigh escaped him.

It startled the Recluse, and as she turned,a glow of shame, perhaps of anger, overspreadher beautiful countenance.

The king implored her forgiveness.

And the gentle St. Thena forgave him;and in token, gave him a ring which she hadthat morning found upon the shore; andthe king vowed to offer up a prayer for thedonor, whenever he looked upon it.

Again and again the young king came tovisit the fair inmate of that lonely cavern.After a time she ceased to chide his visits;and though she wept and prayed after hisdeparture, and vowed to fly from him intothe wild-woods that covered the howe of theLowland Ross, she still lingered; and thus,day by day, the spell closed around her, and,day by day, the king came to lay theunwished for, and unrequested, spoils of thechase at her feet, until St. Thena learned towelcome him with smiles, to wreathe her ringletswith her white fingers, to long for evening,and to watch the fading sunlight as it diedon the distant sea—yea, to watch it withimpatience, but not, as in other days, forthe hour of evening prayer.

It was surely a snare of the evil one tothrow a handsome and heedless young princein the path of this poor recluse, who hadneither the power of St. Dunstan, when thefell spirit came to him in his cell atGlastonbury, nor the virtue of St. Anthony, whenhe tempted him so sorely in the old sepulchrewherein he dwelt at Como. Nothing shortof a blessed miracle could have saved her,and no miracle was wrought.

Her good angel covered his face with hiswings, and St. Thena fell, as her mother Evehad fallen before her......

On his caparisoned horse, with all thebells of its bridle jangling, the wicked youngking rode merrily along the sandy shore ofthe shining river; and the red eyes of hisgreat hound sparkled when he hallooed to thedun deer, that on the distant ridges wereseen against the western sky, for it wasevening now. Thus merrily King Eugenesought the camp where his warrior huntsmen,impatient at his tarrying so long in theland of the wheat-eaters, muttered undertheir thick beards that waved in the risingwind, and pointed to the blue peak of thedistant Benlomond, that looked down onthe lake, with all its wooded isles—the lakewhere the fish swam without fins, the wavesrolled without wind, and the fairies dwelt ona floating islet.

St. Thena was very sad.

A deep grief and a sore remorse fell uponher; she confessed her errors to good St. Serf,who dwelt on an isle of the lonely Leven,and the saint blessed and absolved her,because she had sinned and repented. Dailyshe prayed—yea, hourly—for the forgivenessof God; that the youth might return nomore; and, though he had seduced herfrom her vows to heaven, that his presencemight not be permitted to disturb her sincererepentance.

But he came not; war had broken out onthe western hills of Caledonia, and, leaguingwith Dovenald of Athole, Arthur, the sonof Uther Pendragon, was coming with hiswhite-mantled Britons against thebare-knee'd Dalreudini; and hastening to hishome, where the seven towers of Josinalook down on the mountains of Appin, KingEugene returned to St. Thena no more.Her remorse was bitter; but time, whichcureth all things, brought no relief to her,for she found that she had become a mother;and there, unseen in that lonely cavern,gave birth to a boy—the son of a Scottishking; and when she laid him on her bed ofsoft leaves and dried grass, she thought ofthe little child Jesus, as he lay in themanger at Bethlehem, and thought herselfhappy, vowing the child to the service ofGod as an atonement for her own sin.

And, lo! it seemed to her as if, for a time,that the same star which shone aboveBethlehem sparkled on the pure forehead of thesinless babe, and from that moment the heartof St. Thena rejoiced. All the mother gushedupon her troubled soul, and she wouldhave worshipped the infant, for it was amiracle of beauty—and its feet and hands,they were so tiny and so rosy, she was nevertired of kissing them, and bedewing themwith her tears.

That night she felt happy, as, nestlingbeside her tame deer, the poor reclusehushed her babe to sleep, and covered itslittle form with her only garment, that itmight not hear the wind mourning in thosevast forests that overshadowed the shore,where the waves of the eternal sea werebreaking in their loneliness.

I have said that Lothus was king of theland: he dwelt on the opposite shore, whichhe called Lothian, from himself. Now itchanced that a daughter of this king,attended by a train of maormars and ladieson horseback, came to visit St. Thena, thefame of whose holiness had spread from therising to the setting sun. This princess, whowas soon to be espoused by Eugene king ofthe Scots, was a proud and a wicked woman.St. Serf had recently converted her fromPaganrie to the blessed faith; but hersecret love yet lingered after the false godsof her fathers, and she still (as in herchildhood) worshipped the crystal waters of afountain that flowed at her father's palacegate; for her mother was of the tribe of theLavernani, who dwelt on the banks of the Gryfe.

Dismounting with softness and fear nearthe cavern, the princess paused a moment tohave her attire adjusted, that she mightover-awe the poor recluse by the splendour of itsaspect. According to the fashion of thePictish virgins, her flaxen hair flowed overher shoulders; her tunic was of scarlet cloth,and reached to her sandals; her mantle wasof the yellow linen then woven by thedistant Gauls, and it was fastened on her rightshoulder by a shining beryl—an amulet ofgreat virtue, which had been given to hermother by the last arch-druid of the Lavernani,and, filled with the vain thought ofthese things, she sought the presence ofSt. Thena. She was sleeping.

Softly the princess drew near, and, lo! shesaw the babe that slept in the bosom of therecluse, and uttered a cry of spite and anger.St. Thena awoke, and, while her facereddened with modest shame, she raised onehand to shield the child, and the other insupplication.

"Hypocrite that thou art!" exclaimedthe half Pagan princess, "is it for this thatthou dwellest in caverns and lonely places,like the good druids of our forefathers!Truly it was wise of thee; for thy deedsrequire the cloak of darkness and obscurity.Ha!" she continued scornfully, seeing thatthe saint wept, "dost thou weep in contritionfor thine abominable hypocrisy, or interror of the punishment it so justly merits,and which I may mete out to thee? And isit to visit such as thee that I have enduredso much in journeying through wild places,by pathless woods and rocky rivers? Ha! ifsuch as thou art a priestess of the Christians'triple God, I say, welcome again bethose of Him who rideth on the north wind,and whose dwelling-place is in yonderglorious sun, which we now see rising fromhis bed in the waters."

This imperious lady, as a mark of disgrace,then ordered the beautiful hair ofSt. Thena to be entirely cut off, andcommitted to the winds, that the birds mightline their nests with it; and she furthercommanded her Pagan followers to placethe poor recluse and her infant in a crazylittle currach, or boat of wickerwork anddeerskin, and commit them to the watersof the great river, that they might be borneto the distant sea.

The boat was old and decayed; it hadbeen used in war, and flint arrows and spearshad pierced its sides of skin. A humanhead and shoulders dried in the wind, andtanned with the bark of the oak-tree,ornamented its prow. Long ringlets of fairSaxon hair waved about its shrunken ears,and two clam-shells filled its hollow eyelids;it was a horrible and ghastly companion,and, when night came on, seemed like ademon of the sea, leading the fallen saintto destruction.

Endlong and sidelong, the sport of thewaves and the current, the boat drifteddown the broad Bodoria; the sun set behindthe hills of the west, and its last raysfaded away from the mountain peaks thatlook down on the valley of Dolour, and thewaters of Sorrow and Care. The sky grewdark, and the shores grew darker; there wereno stars, but the red sheet lightning gleamedafar off, revealing the rocky isles of thewidening estuary. Still the boat floated on,darkly and silently; and, resigned to herfate, and pouring all her soul in prayer—butprayer only for the poor infant that nestledin her bosom—St. Thena, overcome withweariness, after a time sank to sleep; andthen, more than ever, did her good angelwatch over her.

When she awoke, the sun had risen again;there was no motion; the little bark wasstill. Thena looked around her. Thecurrach was fast, high and dry, upon a sandybeach; on one side, the broad and glassyriver was flowing past; on the other, werethe green and waving woods of Rosse.[*] Anold man, with long flowing garments, and abeard of snow that floated in the passingwind, approached; and in his bent form,and the cross-staff on which he leant, sherecognised St. Serf of the Isle, and hurriedto meet him, and implore his blessing on herbabe. Then the good man blessed it, andtaking a little water from a limpid fountain thatpoured over a neighbouring rock, he markedits little forehead with the cross, and calledthe babe Mungo—a name which, he prophesied,would become famous in future times.

[*] Fife, so called as it lay between theTay and Forth; hence Kinrossand Culross, the head and back of Rosse.

And there, in that lonely place, where thefountain ran, the mother built a cell, whereshe dwelt in holiness, rearing her boy forthe service of God; there she died in theodour of sanctity, and there she was interred;and above her grave her son built an oratory,which is called, even unto this day, bythe burghers of Culross, the chapel of St. Mungo.

His mother's feast is the 18th of July, inthe Scottish calendar.

Reared by St. Serf, and trained up in theway he was to pursue, the little boy, whoimitated that man of God in all things,became, as he waxed older, a pattern ofChristian humility and piety; and those hourswhich were not spent in labouring withhis hands, that he might have food andraiment to bestow on the sick, the aged,and the poor, (for he called the poor thechildren of God,) he spent in prayer for thesins of men; and long after the blessed Serfhad passed to the company of the saints, whoare in heaven, the young man had waxedtall and strong, stately in figure andbeautiful in face; but the fame of his goodnessand sanctity exceeded even those of hispastor, until the simple people of theland, who knew not he was the son oftheir king, began to assert that his birthhad been miraculous.

Now, after many days of deep meditationin the dark woods of Rosse, and of prayer atthe shrine of his sainted mother, for herintercession and support, the young man tookthe staff of St. Serf, and set forth on apilgrimage to convert the benighted heathensof the south and west; for there were manystill in Mercia and the land of the Deirii, whoin their secret hearts worshipped fountainsthat sprung in lonely places, or made humansacrifices in the depths of forests, and litBeltane fires on the lofty hills in honour of therising sun; and so, moved by these things,St. Mungo gave the little he possessed to thepoor, and, undeterred by the terrors of thejourney, by the hostile tribes of savage men,and the equally savage denizens of the vastforests that covered the plains and mountainsof Caledonia, the prowling wolves, the howlingbulls, the grisly bears and ravenous boars,he went forth to teach and baptize, toconvert and to save.

His under garment was sackcloth; hisupper was the white skin of a sheep; his headhad no other covering than his own fair hair,which curled upon his shoulders and mingledwith his beard.

In that age there was no money in the land,save the old coins of the Roman invaders,which the women wore as amulets, and sothe saint took no care for his sustenance. Hehad ever eternity before him; in the morningreflecting that he might not see the night, inthe night reflecting that he might not see themorning. The acorns and the wild herbs ofthe forest were his food; a little water in thehollow of his hand quenched his thirst; andhe regretted the time spent in these necessities,as so much taken from the service of hisMaster. He travelled throughout the wholeisle of Britain, preaching, and taking no rest;hence cometh the old proverb—Like the workof St. Mungo, which never was done.

Now the fame of his preaching went farand wide, throughout the length and breadthof the land, till King Eugene in his distantcastle of Dunolli, on the mountains of Midlorn,heard of the fame of St. Mungo, anddedicated to him an island in western Lochleven,which still bears his name, and it becamethe burial-place of the men of Glencoe, whoname it Eilan Mundh, or the Island ofSt. Mungo. But Eugene knew not that thesaint was his son, and as little did his queen,(with whom he lived in continual strife,)suppose that he was the same little boy,whom, with his mother, in that wickedmoment of wrath and pride, she had committedto the waters of Bodoria; and tidingscame that he was preaching and teachingthe four gospels in the kingdom of Strathclyde,where he was daily bringing into thefold of God those red-haired Attacotti, whowere said to be worshippers of fire and eatersof human flesh. He brought them torepentance and a horror of their ways; theylevelled the stones of Loda, the altars of theirwickedness, and destroyed the temples oftheir dreadful idols. He baptized them inthousands at a little stream that meanderedthrough a plain to pour its waters in theClyde.

To the saint it seemed that this was likethe place where his mother lay; and therehe built a bower among the alder-bushes,and rested for a time from his pious labours.

Now, about this time, it chanced that thering which St. Thena had found upon theshore was the occasion of much discordbetween Eugene and his Pictish queen; for,having bestowed it upon her as a gift atYule-tide, she had lost it, and therebyexcited his jealousy. He swore by the blackstones of Iona, the great oath of the Gael,that she should die a terrible death if thering appeared not before the Beltane day;and, within three days of that time, thequeen in great tribulation appeared at thebower on the Clyde, to seek the advice andconsolation of St. Mungo; for she had notevilly bestowed the jewel, but had lost it,and knew not where or how; though shedreamt that a bird had flown away with it,and dropped it in the sea.

Though he had learned, from his mother'sprayers, of the wrong this proud queen haddone her, St. Mungo chid her not, but heardher story benignantly; and she told him intouching language of the king's wrath, andthe value of the ring, for it had in it a pearlof great value: only two such were found inthe Dee—one was in that trinket, and theother is at this hour in the Scottish diadem,where King Eugene placed it.

St. Mungo ordered one who stood near himto throw a baited line into the Clyde, and,lo! there was drawn forth a noble salmon,having in its mouth a beautiful ring. Thequeen knew it to be her own, and in atransport of joy she vowed to found there acathedral church, in honour of God andSt. Mungo, who should be first bishop of thatsee; and there, where the alder-bower hadstood, the great lamp of the western tribeswas founded and built, and the city thatrose around was named Glasgow; but thespot was then, as the old Cistertian monk ofFurness tells us, made pleasant by the shadeof many a stately tree.

There, after preaching the gospel withSt. David, and turning many away fromPelagianism, after converting all the northernPicts, and building an abbey at Culross,where his mother lay, St. Mungo, the firstbishop of Glasgow, passed away to thecompany of the saints, on the 13th day ofJanuary, 603, having reached the miraculousage of a hundred and eighty-five years; andthere, in his cathedral church, we may yetsee his shrine, where many a miracle waswrought of old, when faith was strong inthe land, and where the pious of other daysgifted many a stone of wax for the candlesat a daily mass for the repose of his soul.

In honour of St. Mungo we may to thishour see, in the arms of the great city hefounded, the tree under which he built hisbower, with his mass-bell hanging on a branchthereof; across its stem is the salmon withthe ring of the Scottish queen in its mouth,and the bird that first bore it away has alsoa place on that armorial tree. Before theReformation, St. Mungo's head, mitred,appeared in the dexter side of the shield; andon an escroll are the last words of that goodman, which were a blessing upon the cityand a prayer to God that in all future timeGlasgow should flourish.

*****

Such was the tale related by the old monkof Glasgow to Hans, who had no soonerconcluded, than he drew a hand from hisbreeches pocket, and directed Konrad's attentionto a low streak of blue that, on theirlee-quarter, marked the distant Oyster-headof Denmark, and a shout of joy rang throughthe ship.

CHAPTER XVI.

MARY'S DESPAIR.

You never loved me.

And you are come to triumph o'er my sorrows,

To smile upon the ruin you have made;

To part——

Sheil.

We return to Dunbar.

The sun was rising from the sea, and redlyits morning splendour shone upon therock-built towers of old Dunbar, as they frownedupon the bright green ocean and its snow-whitefoam. The estuary of the Forth shonelike gold in the glory of the east; fed by thestreams from a thousand hills it thereexpanded to an ocean, and its broad bosom,dotted by fisher boats and by Flemish caravells,swept round its rocky isles in surf, andwashed with tiny waves of silver the shellsand pebbles that bordered its sandymargins—margins shaded by the summer woods ofFife and Lothian, and overlooked by many agreen and many a purple peak.

One great window that lit the queen'sapartment in the Agnes Tower, overlookedthis beautiful prospect. It was open, andthe morning breeze from the eastern seablew freely upon Mary's pallid cheek, andlifted her dishevelled hair; she seemed verydesolate and broken-hearted. She wasreclining in a large velvet chair, in the shadowof one of the thick brocaded window curtains,which made the corner she occupiedso dark, that to a pair of eyes which wereobserving her through a hole in the arrasbehind the high and canopied bed, little elsewas visible than her snow-white hands claspedbefore her, a jewel that sparkled in herunbound hair, a spangle or two that glitteredon the stomacher of her disordered dress,or among the folds of her torn veil—thatwhite and flowing veil, which had won for herthe romantic sobriquet of la Reine Blanche.

Her face was blistered by weeping; herlips were pale; she drooped her gracefulhead, and closed her blood-shot eyes, as ifoppressed by an ocean of heavy thoughts.All that pride, energy, and indomitablecourage which had sustained her unshakenamid a thousand scenes of outrage, insult,and sorrow, had now deserted her, layingher noble spirit prostrate; nothing but hergentle nature and woman softness remainedbehind. She was then, as she touchinglytells in one of her letters, "desolate of allcouncil, and separated from all femaleattendance."

The very stupor of despair seemed to havesettled upon her soul; she sat still—motionlessas a statue, and nothing but the heavingof her bosom would have indicated that shelived. Yesterday she seemed so full ofvivacity, so pure, so beautiful.

In this poor crushed being—this butterfly,formed only for the light and the sunshineof life—in this lonely and desolatewoman, with her weeping eyes, herdishevelled hair, and torn dress, who couldhave recognised the same beautiful queenthat shone so lately at Sebastian's hall, inall the pride of royalty; and a lovelinessheightened to the utmost by magnificence ofdress; and who, only five days before, hadsat on the throne in the hall of the Scottishestates, with the crown of the Bruce on herbrow, the St. Andrew sparkling on herbosom, and the sceptre of the Jameses in herhand, assenting to those laws by which weare still governed?

"Alas, for the Queen of Scotland and ofFrance!" exclaims the old Magister Absalom;"Oh, for twenty knights of that goodchivalry her grandsire led to Flodden, or ofthat glittering gendarmerie that many atime and oft had lowered their white pennonsbefore her at the Tilts of the Tournelles,and on the Plains of Montmartre!"

A sound made her raise her head; the arrasrose and fell, and Bothwell stood before her.

Shame crimsoned his brow, and confusiondimmed his eye; he felt compassion andremorse, together with the bitter convictionthat he had gone too far to recede. Thedreadful gulf between himself and othermen was now wider than before; but he feltthat to stand still was to sink into it andperish. He had yet to progress. He knewnot how to address his victim. Her aspectfilled him with pity, sorrow, and a horror ofhimself. He knew that he had irreparablyruined her honour, and destroyed her peace;and this was the woman he loved!

Strange it was, that now he felt himselfalike attracted and repelled by her; but thenecessity of soothing her compelled him tospeak, and as policy ever supplied him withwords, hurriedly, gently, and eloquently(for he too felt deeply, now when the storm ofpassion had died away), he endeavoured toconsole her; to declare his contrition; hiswillingness to die as an atonement; and then,stung with remorse on witnessing the agonyof her grief, he attempted to destroy himselfwith his own sword, and turned her despairinto momentary terror, by inflicting on hisown person a wound, from which the bloodflowed freely.[*] Then he ventured to foldher in his arms, and to kiss her pale browrespectfully, assuring her again and again thatshe was now a thousand times dearer to himthan ever. Then, sinking on his knees, hebowed down his head, and abjectly imploredher pardon; but Mary remained silent,passive, speechless, cold as marble; and hersituation seemed so hopeless, so wobegone, andirrelievable, that the Earl in despair knew notwhat more to urge. He received no answer,and his heart trembled between love, remorsefor the past, and apprehension of the future."Speak, dearest madam," said he; "forthe mercy of Heaven, speak to me! Dostthou wish to leave Dunbar?"

[*] Whittaker.

"Yes!" replied Mary, rising with suddenenergy, as if all her spirit had suddenlywelled up in her breast. "Yes!" she continued,gathering up her dishevelled hair withher slender and trembling fingers. "Mytrain!—my people!—summon them!—I willgo"——

"Thou wilt go?" said the Earl, whosedark eyes shone with a sad and wildexpression, "and where?"

"To Edinburgh."

"To denounce me to its purse-proudcitizens—to proclaim me at the barrier gatesand market cross of every Scottish burgh—atthe court of every European king, to bewhat I am—what I shrink from contemplating.That I am a craven knight, a perjuredpeer, a rebel, and a ruffian! Ha, ha!No! hence shalt thou never go but withBothwell at thy bridle rein, with his bannerbefore, his knights around, and hisspearmen behind thee. What has hurried me on,step by step, in the terrible career on whichmy destiny has driven me—from being theleader of the Scottish peers, esteemed incouncil as in battle, respected by mineequals, loved by my vassals, and feared bymine enemies—what hath made me, frombeing all this, a man whose name willperhaps be remembered in the land withreprobation, with curses, and with bitterness—what,but thy beauty, thy fatal beauty? Oh,wretched woman! a curse upon it, I say, forit hath been the cause of all! Fatalsorceress, thou still smilest upon me with scorn.In undoing thee, I have perhaps butundone myself; though from this time ourfates and lives are entwined together; for,bethink thee, for very dread of what mayensue, for very shame, and for thereparation of thine own honour, thou canst notdestroy me. Yet can I read in thine eye,that thou hast visions of the dungeon, theblock, the axe, the dismembered limbs, andthe severed head of Bothwell, spiked onyonder city cross to welter in the midnightdew, and broil in the noonday sun—hah!"

And, rendered half furious by the picturehis fancy conjured up, he gave her a push,so violent that she sank down on her knees,trembling and in tears.

Suddenly she arose again to her full height,her dark eyes flashing, and her proudnostrils appearing almost to dilate with theanger that curled her beautiful lip; shegave him one full, bright glance of reproachand anger, as she attempted to sweep fromhis presence; but the Earl firmly held herback, and, aware of the futility of attemptingto pacify her at present, retired abruptly,leaving her still unattended, to sorrow andto tears.

Sir James Melville, who, as we haveelsewhere stated, had been expelled thatmorning from Dunbar, relates that Bothwell'sfury compelled her every day to weep—thatshe would have left him, but dared not—andthat she would have destroyed herself,could she have found a knife or dagger; buta strict watch was kept over all her actions.

And thus passed twelve long and wearydays, during which no attempt was madeby her nobles, her knights, or her people,to relieve her. Each man gossiped to hisneighbour of the unco' doings at Dunbar—citizensstared stupidly at each other, andcontented themselves by marvelling sorelywhere all these startling events were likelyto end.

So much of this part of our story belongsto the chronicles of the time, that it must beglanced at briefly, that we may hasten tothe portion involving the fate of Konrad, andmore particularly of the great Earl himself.

How he conducted Mary to Edinburgh,guarded by 1200 spearmen on horseback,and compelled her to appear in presence ofthe new chancellor and the nobles, and thereto declare herself at full liberty—how hehad the dukedom of Orkney, a marquisate,and other titles, conferred upon himself—andhow he caused the banns of marriagebetween Mary and himself to be proclaimedin the great church of St. Giles, while sheremained a captive in the castle ofEdinburgh, which was garrisoned by his ownvassals, and commanded by Sir James Balfour,the holder of the bond of blood, thebrother of the Lord of Noltland, and ofRobert Balfour, proprietor of the lonelyhouse of the Kirk-of-Field—are known toevery historical reader.

Still Mary withheld her consent to themarriage, for which the impetuous Earlmade every preparation with determineddeliberation.

A woman—a widow—a catholic—withouta husband—she could never have governedProtestant Scotland, crowded as it was withrapacious peers and turbulent serfs, inuredto blood and blows; and now, after all thathad occurred at Dunbar, and after beingso completely abandoned by her people toBothwell's mercy for twelve weary days, noforeign prince, no Scottish noble or gentlemanof honour, and indeed no man, save hewho had wronged her, would seek her hand.She had but two misfortunes to choosebetween; on one hand to lose her crown, herliberty, perhaps her life; on the other, toaccept of Bothwell, whom (though she neverloved, and now abhorred,) she knew to bedevoted to her, and as crafty as he wasgallant and bold; and might, if he chose, wrestthe sceptre from her grasp; for, by thenumber of his vassals, and the strength of hisfortresses, he was one of Scotland's mostpowerful peers. Should she wed him,acquitted as he had been by the peers andprelates of the crime of which he had beencharged, and recommended by these samereverend prelates and statecrafty peers, withher brother at their head, to her earnest andfavourable notice, a new dawn might shineupon her gloomy fortune. She knew thathe had made every preparation for their publicnuptials; and that bongré malgré she mustwed, but still she withheld her consent untilthe very night before, and then, but not tillthe fatal promise was given.

In that wide and gloomy flood of desperationthrough which she struggled, her destroyerwas the last plank to whom she couldcling; and, abhorrent as he was to her now,she knew that he loved her deeply, and thatsad, and terrible, and guilty, were the tieswhich bound them together, and would linktheir names in one to the latest posterity.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE BRIDAL AT BELTANE.

Slowly at length with no consenting will,

And eyes averse, she stretch'd her beauteous hand,

To that detested bridegroom, and received

The nuptial blessing, to her anguish'd heart,

Worse than a malediction. Then burst forth

Grief impotent.

Attila, King of the Huns.

Now came sweet May with its flowers andsunshine. Yellow buttercups sprinkled withgold the sides of Arthur's seat, and the bluehyacinth and the mountain-daisy unfoldedtheir petals on the steep slopes of Salisbury.The mavis and the merle sang merrily in theabbey orchards and old primeval oaks thatshaded the grey walls of Holyrood; and shelteredby the thorn hedges that, in its ancientgarden, grew like thick and imperviousramparts, the flowers of summer that Mary lovedso well, were all, like herself, in the noon oftheir beauty and fragrance.

And now came Beltane-eve, when this softseason of sunshine and perfume was welcomedby those ancient merry-makings of which weread in Polydore Virgil, and which were aremnant of those joyous rites offered to theFlora of the Romans, and the great fire-godof the Scandinavians and the Celtæ—whenthe stern and mysterious Druids of Emonaand Iona collected the dew of the morning,and sprinkled it on the fair-haired savages ofCaledonia, as they blessed them in the nameof the god of fire—the Beal of Scandinavia,and the Baal of the Moabites and Chaldeans.

Blooming Beltane came, but not as of old;for there was no maypole on the burgh links,or at the abbey-cross, and no queen of theMay or stout Robin Hude to receive thehomage of happy hearts; for the thunders ofthe reformed clergy had gone forth like achill over the land, and the same iron lawsthat prevented the poor "papist" frompraying before the symbol of his redemption,punished the merry for dancing round agarlanded tree.

Yet there were some remnants of otherdays that could not be repressed; and firesof straw were lit in the yard of many a castleand homestead, through which, as a charmagainst witchcraft, all the cattle were driven,amid furious fun and shouts of laughter;while the bluff laird regaled his vassals, andthe bonneted farmer his sun-burned hinds,on pease-bannocks and nut-brown ale. Everyold woman still marked her Beltane-bannockwith the cross of life and the cipher of death,and covering it with a mixture of meal,milk and eggs, threw two pieces over herleft shoulder at sunrise, saying as she did so—

"This for the mist and storm,

To spare our grass and corn;

This for the eagle and gled,

To spare the lamb and kid."

Door-lintels were still decorated with twigsof rowan-tree tied crosswise with red thread;and though the idolatrous Beltane-fire blazedon the summits of the Calton and Blackford,(as on St. Margaret's day they do still onthose of Dairy in Ayrshire,) there was not thesame jollity in the land; for as a mist fromthe ocean blights the ripening corn, so hadthe morose influence of the new clergy casta gloom upon the temper, the manners, andthe habits of the people—a gloom that isonly now fading away, though its shadowstill lingers in the rural valleys of the southand west.

But there is much to relate, and we mustbe brief.

Encompassed by the intrigues of the Earl,surrounded by his creatures, and overwhelmedby the terrible situation in whichshe found herself, at midnight Maryconsented to become his bride, and at fouro'clock next morning he led her into thegreat hall of Holyrood, where one of hisminions, Adam Bothwell, the ProtestantBishop of Orkney—(his new dukedom)—togetherwith Craig, the colleague of Knox,prepared to officiate.

Mary was attired in her widow-weeds ofsable velvet, without other ornament thana few diamonds, that sparkled on herstomacher, and in her ear-rings. Cold, placid,still, and thoughtful, there were signs ofsuffering and sorrow on her pure and openbrow, and in her deep, dark, melancholyeyes, and there was a nun-like solemnity inher beautiful face, that touched the heart ofBothwell with more, perhaps, of pity thanlove.

She seemed a changed and miserable woman.

A sprig of rosemary and a lily were inher hand; the first, because of the oldsuperstition that it was necessary at awedding as denoting love and truth; the second,because the month was that of St. Mary, andthe lily is the flower of the Virgin. MaryStuart could not forget these little things,though she accepted of a Protestant ritualbecause her own Church is averse to secondmarriages.

Day was breaking in the distant east, andcoldly the dull grey twilight struggled withthe lamps and wax candles that illuminatedthe long and ancient hall of the palace, fromthe walls of which the grim visage of manyan antique king, and many a solemn prelate,seemed to stare starkly and desolately onthat sombre bridal group, on Bothwell'smagnificent costume, sparkling with preciousstones, on tall Ormiston, in his halfmilitary and half gala costume, and a crowdof adherents of the house of Hepburn,whose dresses of velvet and satin,enriched with embroidery and precious stones,fluttering mantles, waving feathers, glitteringspurs, and daggers, filled up the background.

When Mary's hand touched his, the Earlfound it cold as death: it trembled. Hethought of Darnley's quivering throat onthat terrible night, and a thrill shot throughhis heart..........

The ceremony was over, and Bothwell ledforth that high-born and beautiful bride,to win whom he had dared and done somuch.

For that hour he had perilled every thingin this world, and the hour had come, butthere was not in his heart that fiercetriumph—that exultation and joy, he had so longanticipated. A deadly coldness had succeeded,and there was a clamorous anxiety in hisbreast as he looked forward to the future.

"Mary, star of heaven, and mother of God,"prayed the poor queen, kissing the lily, asthey descended the gloomy stone staircase ofthe Albany Tower; "intercede for me, thatI may be forgiven this dark sacrilege in themonth so solemnly dedicated to thee!" for,according to the ancient usage, it is stillominous to wed in the month of May—orMary. Her piety was deep and fervent;when very young she had wished to assumethe veil, that she might dwell with her aunt,the Prioress of Rheims; happy would ithave been for her had she done so; and fullupon her heart came back the first piouswish in that hour of humiliation and evil.

No pageants or rejoicings marked theill-omened bridal; not a bell was rung, nor acannon fired, and gloomily and in silence thefew loiterers who were abroad at that earlyhour, or had never been a-bed, greeted theirsovereign, and that presumptuous peer whohad so determinedly espoused her.

That dawn, to Mary, was but the openingof another chapter in her life of misery andtears.

In one month from that day, Bothwell,instead of seating himself upon the Scottishthrone, and making Black Hob an Earl,found all his stupendous projects fadeaway, like mist in the sunshine, and sawhimself a homeless fugitive, cast, like a weed,upon the ocean of events.

The general, but somewhat curious indignationthis marriage excited among thosenobles who had urged it (having never hadany other object in view than the gratificationof their own greed and ambition), andtheir armed confederation against Bothwell,soon followed, for they accused him ofintending to destroy the young prince, whowas kept at Stirling by the Countess of Mar,and whom ostensibly they rose in arms todefend.

On this measure he was frequently urgedby Black Hob.

"Cock and pie!" that worthy wouldfrequently exclaim; "were this young cubonce strangled too, thou mightst be king ofbroad Scotland, and I a belted earl."

"Tempter, begone!" replied the Earl,grasping his poniard; "far enough hast thoudriven me on this desperate career—butanother whisper of this, and thou diest!"

The armed combination soon made theEarl and his knights rush to arms; and, ofall who followed his banner, there were nonewho hailed the approaching civil war withgreater ardour than Ormiston and Bolton.The first, because, by a long career ofprofligacy, he had utterly ruined an ancientpatrimony; the second, with a stern joy,because he was reckless, tired of life, andlonging only for an honourable death, thatin the oblivion of the grave he might for everforget Mariette, and that remorse whichrendered him miserable.

But Mary's surrender to the peers, andBothwell's flight, frustrated their hopes fora time.

On the hill of Carberry, within view ofthe adverse lines, Mary and the Earl wereparted to meet no more; and it is recordedthat he bade her adieu with more sincerityof sorrow than might have been expected inone so long hardened by private andpolitical profligacy.

"Farewell to thee, Lord Earl!" said theQueen kindly, for she was ever gentle;"nathless all that hath passed, Mary Stuartcan still with kindness say farewell, and Godattend thee."

"Farewell to your grace!" replied theEarl, as he kissed her hand with tenderness."Adieu, Mary! thou who hast been the light,the hope, the pole-star of my life, and whom,more than that life, I have held dear. Along good-night to thee, and all the visionsmy ambition so vainly pictured, and soruthlessly attempted to grasp. I go; but,while life remains, I will bear in sadremembrance thy goodness, thy beauty, andthy wrongs. I go—to exile and despair!"

And turning his horse's head, attendedonly by Ormiston and Bolton, he gallopeddown the hill to his castle of Dunbar, neveronce daring to look back towards that fairbeing whom a reverse of fortune haddelivered to his enemies; and, save a messageshe sent to Denmark on her escape fromLochleven, never once from that hour didthe name of Bothwell sully the lips of Mary.In one week from that day he was a pirateamong the Isles of Orkney, while Mary wasa captive in the hands of the confederates,and led through the streets of her owncapital, where—

"Around her numberless the rabble flow'd,

Shouldering each other, crowding for view,

Gaping and gazing, taunting and reviling;

Some pitying; but those, alas! how few.

The most, such iron hearts we are, and such

The base barbarity of human kind,

With insolence and loud reproach pursued her,

Hooting and railing, and with villanous hands

Gathering the filth from out the common ways

To hurl it on her head."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE WHIRLPOOL.

On Norway's shore the widowit dame

May wash the rocks with tears;

May long, long look o'er the shipless seas

Before her mate appears.

Tossed by adverse winds in the Germansea, the labouring crayer of Hans Knuber,after several weeks (during which he becamemore and more convinced that Nippen, thespirit of evil, and the demons of the wavesand wind, were in league against him), madea haven in the bleak isles of Shetland, wherethey found those uddallers, who inhabited therude round towers and strong houses on thebluffs and promontories that overhung theocean, all on the alert; for tidings were abroadthat the great Earl of Bothwell, now a fugitiveand a wanderer upon the face of thedeep, in the madness and impotence of hiswrath against his enemies, was spreadingdevastation and dismay among the northern isles.

After suffering a severe repulse at theOrcadian capital from the cannon of his oldally, Sir Gilbert Balfour of Noltland, hepoured his fury upon the stray vessels he metin firth and bay, giving the poor hamlets ofthese half-desolate coasts to the flames, stormingthe fortlets of their lords, and, like a wildvikingr of old, spreading terror whereverhis banner was unfurled.

Hans Knuber trembled again for his cargoof malt and beer when he heard of theseterrible doings, and without other delay thanthat caused by procuring fresh water from acertain gifted well among those dreary hillsthat overlooked the sound of Balta, he boreaway for the Skager Rack; but, notwithstandingevery exertion of seamanship, whistlingmost perseveringly for fair winds, andsprinkling salt on the sea to lay the foul, themiddle of June arrived before he prepared toenter the fiord of Christiana, and ere Konradsaw the shore of his native province risingfrom the dark blue water, and hailed thosepeaks, known as the hills of Paradise, thatencircle the sea, arise before him with alltheir echoing woods and snow-white cataracts.

But there even, in their native seas, thefame and terror of the outlawed Earl hadgone before them; and many a dismastedand many a shattered hull, with bloodstaineddecks and broken hatches, rolling on theSkager Back or stranded on the rocks ofthe fiord, attested the recklessness of thatdesperate noble and his followers, who werenow at war with all mankind.

"I pray to Heaven we may meet thisbold marauder, now that our keel is ploughingour own waters," said Konrad, whoseold Norwegian spirit flashed up in his bosomat the sight of his native hills. "Would Ihad a score of my old crossbowmen that Ileft behind me at Bergen, and thou withthy two culverins"——

"St. Olaf forefend!" rejoined Hans, hastilyhitching up his wide chocolate-colouredinexpressibles, as he thought of hisinvestment in wheat and malt and tanned leather,and the risk they would run. "I would Iwere safe under the batteries of our oldcastle of Bergen, where, please Heaven andhonest Nippen, I will drop my anchorto-night. And now, Master Konrad, that onceagain we are in sight of Gamle Norgé, howmeanest thou to shape thy course, and keepto the windward of misfortune? Dost thousteer for the Elbe or the Weser? There theLubeckers and Holsteiners are every dayplaying at ding-dong with arquebuse andcaliver."

"Thou askest, Hans, what I scarcely knowhow to answer. My band of crossbowmenwill, of course, be still at Bergen, but theking, doubtless, will have given them anothercaptain. Sir Erick is in his grave; andAnna, Heaven only knows where. I havenothing now to tie me to the spot I love sowell," he continued, sighing, "but manysad and bitter memories, which are bettercommitted to oblivion; so, as thou sayest, Iwill even wend me to the Elbe, and therefollow the fortunes of the war."

"Then be it so: I can give thee a letterto Arnold Heidhammer, a certain burgomaster,which may avail thee much; and ifa hundred rose nobles will be of service,thou mayest have them. For this cargo,above which we are now treading—But,ho! yonder is a sail that beareth towards ussomewhat suspiciously. St. Olaf! but sheshot round that promontory like a sea-gull!"

Hans sprang upon one of the culverinsKonrad had referred to, and, shading hiseyes with his hand (for his fur cap wasminus a peak, and there were then notelescopes), he peered intently at the stranger.

"Friend Hans, what dost thou make herout to be?" asked Konrad, whose heart beatstrangely.

"A great frigate, galley rigged—with tenculverins a-side—crossbows on herforecastle—and hackbuts on her poop; full of men,too—see how many helmets are glinting inthe sunshine!"

The shore was five or six miles distant.The noonday sun shone joyously on thebright blue sea, and full upon the snow-whitecanvass of the approaching vessel,which was bellying in the land breeze, abovethe tier of brass-mouthed culverins thatpeered from the red port-holes of the bow, waist,and her towering poop and forecastle, whichwere covered with a profusion of heraldicand symbolical carving and gilding. Hermasts were each composed of two tall spars,having four large square sails; she hadponderous basketed tops and poop-lanterns—agreat square sprit-sail, under which thewater that boiled against her bow was flashing,as it wreathed and foamed in the lightof the meridian sun, and bubbled under thecounters of her towering stern.

Several men in armour were visible abovethe gunnel, and their pikes glinted as sheapproached, rolling over the long waves; andthere was one whose suit of polished steelshone like silver, as he stood on the loftypoop.

She was still above half a mile distant, andHans, who liked not her appearance (for hehad a mortal aversion to every thing likecannon, or coats-of-mail, on board ship)crowded all sail, and stood away, right upthe Fiord. Upon this a red flash broke fromthe tall forecastle of the stranger—a wreathof white smoke curled aloft through her thickrattlins and white canvass, and a stonebullet, that whistled over the water, cutHans' foreyard in the slings, and brought aruin of splintered wood, and rope, andfluttering canvass, down upon his deck.

Deprived of her head-sails, the crayerimmediately proved unmanageable; and thestranger, spreading his broad canvass morefully to the breeze, soon sheered ahead, andbacking his fore-yard with an air of considerableseamanship, lay too across the bows ofthe Skottefruin.

Poor Hans now with dismay beheld a greatforeign banner displayed; but though heknew it not, Konrad immediately recognisedthe cheverons and lions of Bothwell, and heperceived that the figure on the bow wasthe Earl's coroneted crest, a white horse's-head,with a gilded bridle; and one glanceat the lofty sides, the grim cannon tier, andgigantic poop of the Scottish frigate, and hergunnels lined by pikemen and arquebusiersin their steel caps and coats-of-mail, sufficedto shew him that he was again completely inthe power of his ancient enemy; though bywhat miracle he, who, when they left theForth, seemed to have all Scotland prostrateunder his hand, should thus again be acruiser in the Scandinavian seas, he couldnot comprehend.

A small boat was lowered with a plashinto the water; a tall man in dark armour,whose weight nearly overset it, dropped intoit, and six seamen, armed with whingers andjedwood axes, followed, and immediatelypushed off towards the vessel of the terrifiedNorwegian skipper, who stood as usual withhis hands stuffed into his chocolate-colouredbreeches, his Elsinore cap pulled over hisbushy brows, his teeth set hard, anddesperation in his eyes, viewing the approach ofthis armed and unknown enemy.

The dark knight put a foot on one of theforechain-plates, grasped the rattlins, andvaulted on board with singular agility,considering the bulk of his frame and the weightof his armour.

"Cock and pie!" he exclaimed, as hethrew up his visor, and recognised bothKonrad and Hans. "I find myself amongacquaintances here."

"And what want ye now, Sir Knight?"said Konrad, as he threateningly grasped ahandspike, the first and only weapon thatlay at hand; "and how dare ye to bendcannon on a ship of the Danish king, withinthe Norwegian seas?"

"To the first question, Master Konrad,"replied Ormiston, with mock deliberation,"as to what we want, I reply, a sight ofthis good skipper's invoice, for we mightilylack various things since our repulse beforethe harbour of Kirkwall, and an examinationthereof will save us much trouble inoverhauling a cargo which may consist ofnought else than hazel-wands andwheel-barrows. To the second—as to why wedared to bend our cannon against thee,thou hadst better ask my Lord the Earl ofBothwell—nay, I mean James, Duke ofOrkney, who dare do just whatever pleasethhimself on the land, and I see no reasonwhy he should curb his frolicsome fancieson the open sea. By St. Paul! skipper, thouhast the very gloom of a Nordland bear;but bring up thy jar of hollands—let usdrink and be friends, and then I will examinethine invoice, for I love not trifling,and lack time."

This formidable knight had all the air of aman who was to be obeyed; the unhappyHans produced his round and capaciousleathern bottle of Dutch gin, of whichOrmiston, who had seated himself upon aculverin, drank a deep draught, and thenhanded the remainder to his boat's crew.

"Now, sirrah, for thine invoice of thevictual under these hatches; for we lacknought else."

From a tin case, concealed in the breastof his rough doublet, Hans, with tremblingfingers, produced from among several othersa small piece of parchment. Ormistonadjusted his steel glove, unfolded the invoice,and, after viewing it in various ways, handedit to Konrad, saying—

"I request of thee to read me this, andread it truly for thine own sake. By themass! I never could read much at any time,and such a cramped scrawl baffles my skillin writing, which never went much beyondmaking my mark on an Englishman's hide."

Aware of the futility of resistance, andfeeling for the agony of poor Hans, whoseall was shipped on board his crayer, Konradread the following invoice, which we giveverbatim from the papers of the MagisterAbsalom:—

"Shippit by ye grace of God, in goodeorder and weel-conditioned, by IhoneMiddiltoune, at the Timber Holfe, in and uponye goode shippe Skottefruin of Bergen,quherof Hans Knuber is maister, now lyingin the harberie of Leith, bound for Bergen—tosaye, 113 baggs containing aucht tons, fourbollis, three lippies, and twa pecks of wheatenflour, to be delivered at Bergen, in ye likegude order (the act of God, the queen'senemies of England, fire, and all otherdangeris of ye sea excepted), as customarie; andso God send yis gude and noble shippe toher destined port in safety.—Amen.

"At Leith, ye 23d April, in ye zeir ofour Lord 1567."

"Now God be with thee, thou dour carle!"said Ormiston, leaping up; "thou hastenough and to spare of the very provenderwe lack most. One hundred and thirteenbags of wheaten flour! St. Mary—I havenot broken a flour bannock since we leftDunbar! Thou must hand me over, sayfifty bags of this ware, and I will makethee a free gift of the three-and-sixty otherbags, with the bolls, lippies, and pecks toboot—so up with thy hatches, for ourstomachs and tempers lack no delay."

It was only on hearing this that Hansseemed to shake oft his lethargy, and his rageburst suddenly forth. He seized a handspike,and, grasping it with nervous hands, flourishedit aloft, and planted his broad sturdy feet,which were cased in rough leather shoes,upon the hatchway, vowing to dash out thebrains of the first man who approached it.

"Presumptuous fool!" said the giganticknight, laying his hand on his sword; "wereit worth while to draw, I might by one slivercut thee in two. I have no wish to harmthee; but beware, for thou hast to deal withruined and outlawed men, whom toil by sea—anarrow escape from a superior force, thathath pursued and driven us into thesewaters—starvation, and Heaven knows whatmore—have rendered desperate—so beware thee,Sir Skipper, or I will hang thee at thine ownmast-head!"

"And who art thou, robber and pirate! thatI, a free trader, should unclose myhatches at thy bidding on the open sea?"cried Hans in broken Scottish, as he flourishedhis club within an inch of the speaker's nose.

"Black Hob of Ormiston, a name thatwould find an echo in bonny Teviotdale,Master Knuber, ha! ha!"

"And what wantest thou with my goods?"

"Nay, 'tis his grace the Duke of Orkney."

"And by whom shall I be paid?"

"The lords of the secret council atEdinburgh—ha! ha!—gif thou bringest to themour heads, thou old sea-dog! Mass! HansKnuber, knowest thou not mine is well wortha hundred merks of silver, and that of hisgrace of Orkney two thousand pounds ofScottish gold. But I trifle. Back, fellow! anddesire thy knaves to open the hatch and upwith these wheaten bags; for, by St. Mary! mymouth waters at the thought of the bannocks."

Rendered furious by the prospect of beingjocularly plundered by marauders, for suchadventures were far from uncommon on theocean in those days of ill-defined liberty andright, the long smothered passion of Hansbroke forth; and, swinging the handspikealoft, he dealt a deadly blow at the head ofOrmiston, who without much effort avoidedit. The stroke glanced harmlessly off hispolished helmet; but, ere it could be repeated,he grasped the portly assailant like a child,and with a strength that astonished Konrad,and none more than Hans himself, lifted himover the gunnel and dropped him into theboat alongside, saying,—

"Thank Heaven and thy patron, Sir Skipper,that I have not popped thee into thesea, with a bunch of cannon-balls at thyneck; yet for that rash blow I shall punishthee with a severity I meant not to practise."

Other boats now came off from the Earl'sfrigate; the hatches were raised, and in a fewminutes fifty bags of flour, that had grownon the corn rigs of fertile Lothian, and beenground in the mills of Leith, were transferredto the possession of Bothwell, whose outlawedcrew, hollow-eyed and wolfish with longtravail, danger, and scanty fare, received themwith shouts of rapture—greeting each whitedusty sack with a round of applause as it washoisted on board. Last of all, Ormiston cameoff, bringing Hans Knuber and fourteen menwho composed the crayer's crew.

"Now, sirrah," said he sternly to Hans;"lift thy pumpkin head, and behold how Iwill punish thee for that dirl on the sconcethou gavest me!"

Hans, whom rage and the shock of fallinginto the boat, had reduced to a state borderingon stupefaction, raised his heavy leaden-likegrey eyes, and gazed at his crayer. Thesprit-sail and fore-topsail had been hastilyre-rigged and braced up—the helm lashed, tokeep her head to the wind; she was againunder sail, and, without a soul on board, wasbearing full towards a dangerous eddy, thatin those days boiled near the shore of Bergen;and Hans, as the distance increased betweenhim and his vessel, gradually raised his handsto the ears of his fur cap, which he graspedwith a tenacity that tightened as she nearedthe vortex, or little moskenstrom.

The rowers paused with their oars in theair, and looked back with curiosity andinterest; for there was something very absorbingin the aspect of the abandoned ship, runningfull tilt on the career of destruction with allher sails set. Onward she went, rolling overthe heavy swells caused by the waters of thefiord meeting those of the Skager Rack; thesun shone full upon her stern windows fromthe western hills—on her white canvass andthe sparkling water that curled under hercounter—and nearer and nearer she drew tothe boiling circle, that with rapidity whirledwhite and frothy under the brow of an almostperpendicular cliff, that was overhung by anancient wood of drooping pine.

Drawn within its influence, and draggedround by its irresistible current, with sailstorn, cordage snapping, and her yards flyinground like those of a windmill, she was borneabout in a circle that narrowed at everyturn—faster and faster, deeper and deeper, roundshe went, till in one wild whirl, with a soundthat came over the water like the sob of adrowning giant, she vanished—sucked intothe watery profundity of the abyss!

CHAPTER XIX.

BOTHWELL AND THE GREAT BEAR.

And do not fear the English rogues,

Nor stand of them in awe;

But hold ye fast by St. Andrew's cross

Till ye hear my whistle blaw.

Thus boarded they this gallant ship,

With right good-will and main;

But eighteen Scots were left alive,

And eighteen more were slain.

Old Ballad of Sir A. Barton.

When Konrad with Hans Knuber, and thefourteen Norsemen who composed his crew,were brought on board the ship of the Earl,they were immediately led towards him.Completely armed, save the helmet, whichwas placed upon the capstan, against whichhe leaned, the handsome form of Bothwellnever appeared to greater advantage thanwhen among his uncouth mariners, in theirwide breeches and fur boots. His face waspaler and more grave than when Konradhad last seen him; his deep dark eyes weremelancholy and thoughtful; but hiscompressed lips and knitted brows showed asteadiness of purpose and determination ofaspect, that failed not to impress the beholder.Still more pale and grave, Hepburn of Boltonstood near him, leaning on his long sword;and, among the group that pressed forwardto scrutinize the prisoners, Konrad recognisedthe faces of French Paris, Hay ofTallo, and others of the Earl's retinue.

"What strange freak of fate hath thrownthee in my path again?" he asked, with acalm smile.

"The waves, the winds, and mine ownevil destiny; for Heaven knoweth, Lord Earl,I had no desire again to see thy face,"replied Konrad.

"Well, well, I cannot feel chafed by thinehonest plainness, Konrad; for I know well Ihave given thee deep reason to hate me. Astrange fatality has woven our adventurestogether. Thou didst save me once from thewaves of this very ocean, when last for mysins I was traversing these Norwegian seas;and I saved thee twice from drowning—firstin the crystal Clyde, under the windows ofmy own castle of Bothwell; and once againwhen thou wert chained like a baited bearto yonder pillar in the North Loch ofEdinburgh. But come," added the Earl, clappinghim on the shoulder; "let us be friends; arethe faith or falsehood of a woman mattersfor two brave men to quarrel about?"

Konrad, who could not conceal the repugnancehe felt at the presence of the Earl,whom he hated as his rival, and Anna'sbetrayer, drew back with a hauteur that stungthe outlawed lord to the heart.

"Nay, Earl or Duke, for I know notwhich thou art—men style thee both—thoughbut a simple gentleman of Norway,a captain of crossbowmen, with a rixmarkin the day, I would not follow thy bannerto obtain the noblest of thy baronies. Ourpaths must be far separate. I never couldowe thee friendship, suit, service, orcaptainrie; and I have but one request tomake, that thou wilt land us on the nearestpoint of our native shore, and we will gladlysay, God speed thee on thy voyage."

"I love and esteem few, and by fewer amI loved and esteemed," replied the Earlcalmly; "but, fallen though I am, I havenot yet sunk so low as to beg the friendshipof any man. Be it so. Ere nightfall, I willland thee on yonder promontory, and theskipper knave likewise, though in goodsooth he deserves to be hanged up at yonderyard-arm, for declining me the use of afew pitiful bags of our own Scottish wheat,when he saw my ducal banner displayedbefore his eyes."

With a brief reverence the Earl retiredinto his cabin, where French Paris attendedto relieve him of part of that armour whichhe wore constantly; for he was in hourlyexpectation of being assailed—from theseaward, by ships sent in pursuit of him fromScotland—or from the land, for his piraciesand plundering on the Danish and Norwegian shores.

"The raven's fate befall thee!" mutteredHans, thrusting his clenched hands fartherinto his pockets, and gazing with blankdespair upon the vortex that, almost in sightof his haven, had swallowed up his ship.

The wind blew freshly from the fiordahead of them, and David Wood, the Earl'sskipper, found the impossibility of makingthe point where he desired to land theircaptives; and the sudden appearance of alarge three-masted vessel of war, which,under easy sail, came round one of thosesteep headlands that overhung the water,made him bear away into the open channel;for so great was the rage and terror theirdepredations had spread on both sides ofthe Skager Rack, that the Earl knew hemust greet a foe in every ship under thebanner of Frederick of Denmark.

The sun had set, but the clear twilight ofthe long northern night played upon the darkblue waters of the fiord, which still rippled insilver against the wall-like rocks thathemmed them in; the air was mild and balmy;the whole sky had that clear, cold blue,which it exhibits among our lowland hillsbefore sunrise; but the northern lights, thatgleamed from Iceland's snow-clad peaks, thebright pole-star, and the myriad spangles ofthe milky-way, were all coming forth intheir glory; nothing could surpass the beautyof the former, as their rays, like the gleamsof a gigantic sword, flashed along thecerulean sky, behind the wooded summits of thedark and distant hills.

"Dost thou know aught of yonder ship,Sir Skipper?" asked Bothwell of HansKnuber, who had been observing her approachwith a stern joy which he took no pains toconceal.

"Yes, I know her!" said Hans. "Ay, bySt. Olaf! every plank in her hull and everyrope in her rigging—for my own handshelped to nail one and reeve the other.There sails not a better craft, nor a swifter,in the Danish waters."

"A swifter!" rejoined the Earl, lookingover his poop at the waves that curled underthe counter. "I need care little for that,as Scottish men are unused to run either onsea or land, Master Knuber. She is a warship,I perceive."

"Thou art right, Lord Earl. She is theBiornen, or Great Bear, a ship of KingFrederick's, carrying sixteen great carthouns,and as many demi-culverins; manned bythree hundred mariners, and as many morecrossbowmen and cannoniers. ChristianAlborg commands—an old sea-horse as everdipped his whiskers in salt-water—Knightof the Dannebrog and Commandant ofOttenbrocht. Ha! dost thou behold?"

At that moment, the red Norwegian flag,bearing a golden lion grasping a bluebattle-axe, was unfurled upon the wind; theredder flash of a cannon, gleaming acrossthe darkening water, and the whiz of theball, as it passed through the rigging of theEarl's ship, announced his recognition bythe stranger.

Hans drew his hands out of his chocolate-colouredbreeches, and capered with revengeand joy as he heard it.

The ship of Bothwell was the Fleur-de-Lys,a galliot carrying twenty demi-culverins,and had been one of the war-ships of JamesV. The Earl, as Lord High Admiral ofScotland, had all the affairs and stores ofthe naval force under his control, and thusselected her, with all her cannon and gear,for his own particular service, and mannedher with a crew of his vassals, on whosevalour and fidelity he could rely to the lastof their blood and breath.

Instead of the standard of Scotland, heordered his own great banner, bearing theducal arms of Orkney quartered with thoseof Bothwell, to be again displayed at thegaff-peak; from the mast-heads floatedbanneroles, bearing the three red pelicans ofOrmiston, the cheverons of Bolton, the threered escutcheons of Hay of Tallo, and thepennons of other gentlemen who followedhis desperate fortune; while enraged by theinsult thus offered, in firing at once uponhim, he gave immediate orders to open thegun-ports—shot the culverins—man thepoop and topcastles with crossbowmen, andclear all for battle—orders which wereobeyed by his people with alacrity. So nowwe will have to describe a sea-fight of thesixteenth century.

Both vessels were going under easy sail;but as the Earl had resolved to give battle tohis heavy antagonist, careless of theresult, he gradually shortened his way,making all secure on board as the distancelessened between him and his DanishMajesty's ship. The crossbowmen, with theirweapons bent and bolts laid, and thearquebusiers, with muzzles pointed and matcheslit, were crouching behind the wooden parapetsof the poop and forecastle, which, likethose round the tops, were all fashioned inthe shape of battlements; the cannoniers stoodby their culverins with linstock and rammer;the waist of the ship bristled with steel caps,short pikes, two-handed swords, and jedwoodaxes; while on the towering poop and forecastlewere seen the mail-clad figures of Bothwelland his knights; but, notwithstandingall this display of bravery, as they neared thefoe, they saw how fearful were the odds to beencountered.

Each vessel came on under topsails; thecourses being hauled up, displayed thesteel-bristling decks, and the polished mouths ofthe brass cannon, that gleamed upon the darkblue water as they were run through thecarved and painted sides of the gunwall(gunnel), loaded with bullets of stone andiron, and pebbles lapped in lead. Bothvessels were now running in the same direction,but gradually neared each other. They werewithin three lance-lengths, and not a soundwas heard on board of either but the rippleunder their bows; and in breathless silenceas the still twilight deepened on the ocean,the adverse crews continued gazing on eachother.

All at once a line of lights glittered alongthe deck of the Norwegian.

"Yare, my hearts!" cried Wood, the Earl'sskipper, "down, and save yourselves!"

Except Bothwell and his knights, everyman threw himself flat on the deck; and whilefire flashed from the wide muzzles of eightgreat carthouns and as many demi-culverins,their shot tore across the Fleur-de-Lys,splintering her bulwarks, rending her rigging andcanvass, but doing little other personalinjury than slaying a few of the arquebusiers,who occupied the little wooden turrets withwhich the angles of the poop were furnished.

"A Bothwell! a Bothwell!" cried theEarl brandishing his sword; "cannoniers toyour lintstocks—crossbowmen to your duty,and show yourselves men, my rough-footedScots. Fight bravely! for know ye, that iftaken we shall all die the death of caitiffsand felons; for there is not a man among usbut will hang from the yards of yonderNorseman, for so hath King Frederick sworn.Shoot aloft, and fire below! St. Bothan and on!"

A volley of cannon, crossbows, and arquebuseswas poured upon the great quarterand stern of the Biornen, while her peoplewere slowly and laboriously re-chargingtheir pieces. The bolts whistled from thecrossbows, the bullets whizzed from thearquebuses à croc, and the cannon-shotboomed as they flew over the decks, or sankwith a heavy crash into the echoing hulls ofthe adverse ships; while, ascending from thestill bosom of that narrow inlet of the ocean,the reports were reverberated like thunder,as the echoes rolled from peak to peak alongthose high mountains that overlooked it.

From the poops and forecastles thearquebuses maintained an incessant roar,and their bullets, each containing threeounces of lead, did deadly execution, beingfired point-blank, beating great pieces ofbuff and mail into the bodies of those theyslew.

"Yare, yare—my yeomen of the sheetsand braces! Cheerily now—my timoneer!"bellowed the skipper of the Fleur-de-Lys,through his speaking trumpet, as he, by arapidity of manoeuvre and superior seamanship,sheered his vessel upon the larboardside of the Biornen in the smoke, and pouredanother broadside upon the Norwegians, whodid not expect it from that point, and thesudden crash and slaughter filled them withalarm and irresolution.

"By St. John of the Desart!" exclaimedBothwell, in the excitement of the momentforgetting his assumed Protestantism, "yedo well my true cannoniers. Shoot—shoot,and spare not! or never again will ye seethe woods of Clyde, and the blooming bankof Bothwell. To it, Bolton, with thybowmen! Shoot me down those rascal archerson their tops; for by St. Peter, who smoteoff the lug of a loon, I have wellnigh lostmine by their hands. Shoot—shoot, andspare not!"

A loud cheer replied to the Earl, and hisvassals bent to their toil with renewedardour and alacrity.

The decks were rapidly becoming encumberedwith the dead and wounded; for therewere neither accommodation or due attendancefor the latter, and so they were permittedto lie just where they fell, with their bloodstreaming away to leeward, and drippingfrom the scuppers into the ocean; while theshot ploughed and tore up the oak plankingof the deck, beat down the bulwarks, rendingmast and boom and spars to shreds andsplinters; and each time the ponderous stonebullets of the great Danish carthounsthundered and crashed through the side of theFleur-de-Lys, she staggered and trembled inevery rib and plank.

"Sweep me the gunwall with your arquebuses!"cried the Earl, leaping upon thecorpse-strewn forecastle, where Ormiston, likea swarthy Moor, was handling one of thoseponderous fire-arms as easily as a bird caliver;"for one more salvoe from those accursedcarthouns will hurl us from the ocean likea flash of lightning!"

"Cock and pie!" said Ormiston, as helevelled the long arquebuse in its iron sling;"we have been putting pelloks into theirdoublets ever since the tulzie began; and Idoubt not have scored a hundred by thehead, but the gloomy night is increasing sofast that we aim now at random."

The darkness, as he said, had increasedvery much. The clouds were gathering inheavy masses, and the red sheet lightningwas gleaming behind the rocky peaks ofthose hills, where the northern lights hadbeen flashing one hour before. Dark as inkgrew the waters of the fiord, and theincreasing wind that blew down it, betweenthe high shores on either side, flecked itssurface with foam, as it passed away into theturbulent waste of the Skager Rack. Thischange was unseen or unheeded by thecombatants, who were now lying to with theirforesails backed, and pouring their missilesupon each other with a deadly animosity,that increased as the slaughter and thedarkness deepened around them together.Notwithstanding the superior size of theNorwegian ship, and the heavier metal of hercannon, the little Fleur-de-Lys stood to herbravely; for she was manned by bold anddesperate hearts, whom outlawry and revengehad urged to the utmost pitch of rashnessand valour.

Meanwhile, Konrad and Hans Knuberwatched with beating hearts the varying ebband flow of the tide of battle in which theyhad so suddenly been involved. They remainedpassive spectators, exposed to the fireof their friends and countrymen, by whosehands they expected every instant to bedecimated or decapitated. Whenever a barbedcrossbow-shot from the Biornen struck downa poor Scottish mariner to writhe in agonyand welter in his blood, or when a shot toreup plank and beam almost beneath his feet,Hans growled a Norse malediction, andthought of the ruin these Scots had that daybrought upon him. Suddenly he graspedKonrad by the hand, and pointed to a partof the water that appeared covered with whitefroth.

"Seest thou that, Master Konrad?—hah!"he exclaimed.

"The lesser moskenstrom—the eddy thatswallowed up thy ship. God shield us!"said Konrad; "for we are just upon its verge."

"Those accursed Scots perceive it not; butChristian Alborg doth. See, he hath hauled hiswind and braced up his foreyard—anothermoment will see us sucked into the whirl, orstranded on the shoal made between us andthe coast by the eddy, ha! ha!" and Hans,who was pale as death under the influence ofwrath and fear, laughed like a hyena at theterrors about to replace those of the battle.

A shout of triumph burst from the littlecrew of Bothwell's shattered ship; but it wasanswered by one of derision and exultationfrom the Norwegian; for at that moment, asHans had predicted, the Fleur-de-Lys bilgedupon the reef or rocky shoal that lay betweenthe eddy and the shore—striking with a crashthat made her foremast bend like a willowwand ere it went by the board, bringing downthe main-topmast; the heavy culverins wentsurging all to leeward, and, crashing awaythe bulwarks, plunged into the sea, which,being agitated by the increasing gale, brokein foam upon the ridgy summit of the reef,and hurled its breakers over the parting frameof the Fleur-de-Lys, which thus in a momentbecame a shattered and desolate wreck.

The shout of the Norsemen was their lastdisplay of hostility; for, on beholding theterrible trap into which the foe had sosuddenly fallen, the gallant old Knight of theDannebrog suspended his firing, and loweredhis boats to pick up the survivors of thebattle and wreck; for so fierce was the tumultof water that boiled around her, and so greathis dread of the whirlpool, that he continuedrather to stand off than towards the scene ofthe catastrophe.

The towering forecastle of the bilged shipwas highest above the water, and to thatKonrad, after seeing poor Hans Knuberwashed from his side, to be dashed again andagain a lifeless corpse upon the brow of thereef, clung with all the energy of despair,clambering up step by step, clutching theruin of spars and cordage that hung over it,till he reached the iron rail enclosing thetop, which he embraced with both arms, andlooked down upon the scene of terror anddesolation presented by the lower half ofthe wreck, which was submerged in water.

Fitfully the white moon gleamed upon it,through the openings in the hurrying clouds;its cold lustre rather adding to, than lessening,the ghastly horror of the wreck and reef.

Far down in the deep waste, which wasfull of water—for every instant the surf brokeover it in mountains of foam—was a swarmof struggling men, many of them in armour,clinging to whatever would support them.Ever and anon they sent forth cries of terrorand despair; while every plank and sparcreaked and groaned as the waves beat andlashed around, as if eager to overwhelm andengulf them all.

The wind was increasing, and, urged bythe long fetch of the Skager Rack, the wavesbroke in stupendous volumes over the reefand the bilged wreck, at every returnwashing away some unfortunate into the abyssof the whirlpool, that yawned and foamed andgrowled on one side; while on the other laythe wide waste of the ocean, and the Biornenabout a mile distant, with her white canvassgleaming, like the garments of a spirit, inthe light of the fitful moon. Behind thereef towered up the black Norwegian hills,like a wall of steep and frowning rock,fringed by nodding pines, and bordered bya white line of froth, that marked where thebreakers reared their fronts to lash and roarupon the impending cliffs—but all these wereburied in the long and sombre shadow whichthe tremendous bluffs threw far on therestless sea.

Meanwhile, Bothwell and his knights,though landsmen, and more at home in thetiltyard, in the tavern, the castle hall, or onthe mountain side, never for a moment losttheir presence of mind. Throwing off theheavier parts of their armour, they contrivedto secure one of the boats, into which theEarl, with Ormiston, Bolton, Hay of Tallo,French Paris, and several others, sprangwith all the speed that fear of a terrible fatecould lend them.

"A Bothwell! a Bothwell!" cried theEarl waving his hand, as the light shallopwas one moment buoyed aloft like a cork,and the next plunged down into the deep,dark trough of the midnight sea. "Saveyourselves by spars and booms, my bravehearts!" he cried to those whom his heartbled to leave behind—but it was impossiblethat one boat could save them all; "or lashyourselves to the wreck, and we will returnfor you."

"Bend to your oars, my stout knaves,cheerily," cried Wood, the skipper.

"Yare!" added Ormiston, whose tallfigure loomed in the labouring shallop likethat of an armed giant; "cheerily, ho! for ifit is our fate to be hanged we will never bedrowned."

"Hold!" exclaimed the Earl, as theypulled under the lee of the lofty poop,"yonder is one whom I would rather die thanleave behind to perish, for then I wouldforfeit mine honour."

"Cock and pie! Lord Earl, art thou mad?"cried Ormiston, in great wrath; "is this atime to have thy qualms about honour,when ten minutes more may see us all in thepit of hell?"

"Peace, peace; shame on thee, laird ofOrmiston!" cried David Wood. "Mother ofGod, watch over us!"

"Hob, peace with thy blasphemy!" saidthe Earl, "or I will have thee cast into thesea. Is this a time for such dreadfulthoughts as thine? By the bones of myfather, I shall save him. Ho, there! Konradof Saltzberg, I pledged my word to landthee on thy native shore, and even in thismoment of dread I will redeem it, or perishwith thee. Leap with a bold heart, and aready will, and gain our boat if thou canst,albeit that it is laden so heavily."

Aware that the chance was a last one,Konrad, who could swim like a duck, sprangat once into the waters of his native fiord,and, rising a short distance from the boat,was pulled in by the athletic Ormiston.Then the oars were dipped in the frothywater, and, urged by wind and tide, theladen boat shot away from the desolatewreck.

At that moment a wild shriek—the lastdespairing cry of the strong and the brave,who had never flinched when the arrow flewand the culverin boomed around them—ascendedfrom the seething ocean to the sky;the wreck parted into a thousand fragments,that covered the face of the water; and these,with the poor fellows who clung to themwith the blind tenacity of despair and death,were again and again, at the sport of thewaves, dashed against the ridgy summits,that were one moment visible in terriblearray in the moonlight, and the next werehidden, as a mountain of foam swept overthem, hurrying into the deep vortex of thewhirlpool the last fragments and the corpsesof the Fleur-de-Lys.

CHAPTER XX.

CHRISTIAN ALBORG.

Where the wave is tinged with red,

And the russet sea-leaves grow;

Mariners, with prudent dread,

Shun the whelming reefs below.

Thus, all to soothe the chieftain's woe,

Far from the maid he loved so dear,

The song arose so soft and slow,

He seem'd her parting sigh to hear.

Leyden's Mermaid.

"Which way, Lord Earl?" asked thelaird of Bolton; "steer we shoreward?"

"Nay!" cried Ormiston, in his usual toneof banter, for now his spirits rose as thedanger lessened; "nay—a malison on thee,Norway! Woe worth the day I again setfoot on thy devilish shore, where there isnought but bran-bannocks and sour beerin summer, and bears' hams with toastedsnowballs in winter!"

"To yonder ship?" continued Hepburn.

"Yes!" replied the Earl. "Row briskly,my merry men; she hath altered her course,and stands towards us. We must yield; butmy mind misgives me sorely, that we shallhave but sorry treatment."

A few minutes' pulling brought themunder the lee of the lofty Norwegian ship—aladder was lowered, and the Earl and hisattendants sprang fearlessly on board. Theyimmediately found themselves surrounded bya crowd of savage-looking Norwegianseamen and Danish soldiers, the former ingarments of singular fashion, and the latterwearing armour of an age at least two centuriesolder than their own. Their red bushybeards protruded from their little steel caps,and flowed over their gourgerins, as theyleaned upon their iron mauls, chain maces,and the bolls of their slackened bows, andgazed with wild eyes on the strangers whothus voluntarily yielded themselves prisoners.

The whole group were immediately led tothe summit of the lofty poop, where thecaptain stood surrounded by his officers; andBothwell could perceive, by many asplintered plank and battered boom—by many atorn rope and shattered block—by spots ofblood, and broken heads, and bandagedarms, that the Biornen had not come offscatheless in the late encounter.

The Norwegian captain was a fat andpompous little man; his round bulbousfigure was clad in a quilted doublet of finecrimson cloth, the gold lacing of which shonein the light of three large poop lanterns thatwere blazing close by; his short, thick legswere covered by yellow silk stockings; hewore a thick ruff that came up to his ears,and a beaver hat nearly four feet in diameter;his mustaches were preposterously long,and he rolled his saucer eyes in a way thatwas very appalling, as the Earl stepped up tohim, and, in no degree abashed by themagnificence of his portly presence, raised hisblue velvet bonnet, saying in French as hebowed gracefully—

"I believe I have the honour of addressingthe knight Christian Alborg, captain ofhis Danish Majesty's galley, the Biornen?"

"Yes!" replied the captain gruffly; "andwhat art thou?"

"Boatswain of the Scottish ship."

"And where is the pirate, thy master?"

"He stands before thee," replied the Earl,pointing to David Wood; for he was anxiousto preserve an incognito which he hoped hisdisordered attire might favour.

"Thou hast but little the air of a shipman,"rejoined the captain of the Biornenincredulously; "and I think that, were thisknave thy leader, he would have addressedme, and not thou. So, sirrah, art thou reallycaptain of that ship which dared to abidemy cannon in the Danish seas?"

"Yes!" replied Wood boldly; "and howdarest thou, Sir Captain, to doubt the wordof a true Scottishman?"

"Because I would save thee, if I could,from the doom such an acknowledgmentmerits—away with him to the yard-arm!"

And in another moment, almost ere aword could be spoken or a hand raised inhis defence, a rope was looped round theneck of David Wood, and he was run up tothe arm of the main-yard, where he hung,quivering and writhing in the moonlight,while his last half-stifled shriek tingled inthe ears of his companions, who were silencedand appalled by a catastrophe so sudden.

"By St. Paul! my poor skipper," thoughtthe Earl, "if thou farest so for telling thetruth, how shall I fare for telling a falsity?Knave of a Norseman! thou hast destroyedthe cadet of a gallant race—the line ofBonnington, in Angus!"

"Hah! this is not the bearing of a Scottishboatswain," said old Christian Alborg, steppingback a pace at the menacing aspect ofhis prisoner; "and now, I bethink me thatsuch wear neither corselets of steel norspurs of gold; so tell me who thou art, or,by the hand of the king, I will run thee upat the other arm of yonder yard. Thy name?"

"James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, andDuke of Orkney, Knight of the Thistle, andGovernor of the Kingdom of Scotland!"replied the Earl, drawing himself up withan aspect of dignity and pride, that was notlost upon the portly Norseman and hishelmeted officers.

"Unhappy lord!" replied Christian Alborg,making a profound reverence; "I have heardof thine evil fame, and envy thee not thegrandeur of thy titles."

"Thou sayest truly," said Bothwell, in atone of sadness, "I am not to be envied;but withhold thy pity, for I am not yetfallen so low as find commiserationacceptable from any man."

"But if thou art governor of the kingdomof Scotland, what brought thee into theseseas?"

"Foul wind, or fatality—which you will."

"And wherefore hast thou sacked thevillages, stormed the castles, plundered theships of thine own countrymen, who havedone thee no wrong, and also committedinnumerable piracies on the subjects of hisDanish majesty, with whom thy people areat peace?"

"Because of my sore extremity!"

"That will form but a lame excuse to KingFrederick, at whose palace of Kiobenhafen thetidings of thine outrages were sent from hiscastle of Bergenhuis, whither I have an orderto convey thee, dead or alive. Though abold man and a bad one, thou hast fought asbecame a Scottish noble, and I can respectvalour wherever I find it. I had resolved tochain thee neck and heels, like a villanouspirate; but trusting to thine honour, thatthou wilt not attempt to compromise me byescaping, I will permit thee to retain thysword, to be at liberty, and to receive all duecourtesy, till thou art committed to thecustody of the king's garrison at Bergen."

The Earl was led to a cabin, and there leftto his own melancholy reflections, which wererendered a hundred degrees worse by thereaction consequent to such a day of stirringactivity and wild excitement.

He heard the ripple of the water as thewaves that had swallowed up his companionsflowed past; he heard the straining of thetimbers, the creaking of the decks andcordage, as the wind bellied the full spreadcanvass of the Biornen, and urged her up thefiord of Bergen; but his thoughts were faraway in the land he had left behind him, inthe island tower of that lonely lake,overlooked by steep hills and girdled by theguarding water, where Mary of Scotlandmourned in crownless captivity the shame,the contumely, and the hopeless fate his wilesand ambition had brought upon her.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE CASTELLANA.

No waking dream shall tinge my thought

With dyes so bright and vain;

No silken net so slightly wrought,

Shall tangle me again.

No more I'll pay so dear for wit,

I'll live upon mine own;

Nor shall wild passion trouble it,

I'll rather dwell alone.

Scott.

Next day the Biornen cast anchor in theJelta fiord, and, under a strong guard ofcrossbowmen, Christian Alborg carriedKonrad and his prisoners ashore in a great redpinnace which bore the yellow lion ofNorway floating at its stern.

They landed about half a mile from thecitadel, to which he was conveying thecaptives, and Konrad accompanied them, forhe knew not where else to bestow himself;but every step of the well-known way wasfull of bitter memories, and fraught with theidea of Anna.

And where was she?

Of Christian Alborg, who had conveyedher from Scotland, he never made anenquiry; for though he knew perfectly wellthat it was he who had received her fromthe Scottish council, he had no opportunityof an interview; and, on the other hand,Alborg knew not how deep was the youngman's interest still in the fate of Anna,though he knew his story well; and thus nocommunication on the subject passed betweenthem.

In all their old familiar features, his nativehills were towering around that ancientfortress, which tradition averred to havebeen the work of the Sitonian giants; while,amid the deep recesses of their woods, thedistant cry of the wolf was ringing as ofold, and the wiry foliage of the Scandinavianpines, when they vibrated in the summerwind, as the Norse say, filled the air with themusic of fairy harps, that mingled with thehum of the evening flies, and the rustle ofthe long reedy grass, as it waved in therising wind like the surface of a rippled lake.

Every old familiar feature brought backits own sad train of memories. By thewinding path they traversed, here and therelay an ancient runic monument, coveredwith uncouth characters, and those fantastichieroglyphics with which the ancient Scandinavianshanded down to posterity the historyof their battles, and of the mighty men of thedays of other years. There, too, was theancient chapel of St. Olaus, still perched ina cleft of the mountains, with its bellswinging on the rocks that overhung it—rockswhere the wild myrtle, the geranium, andthe yellow pansy, all flourished together inone luxuriant blush of flowers.

As they ascended from the shore, therocks became bolder and bolder, more sterileand abrupt; not a blade of grass wavedon their basaltic faces, yet from theirsummits the tall and aged pines locked theirbranches together, and excluded the daylightfrom the deep chasm at the bottom of whichthe roadway wound.

Rents in the volcanic rock afforded attimes, far down below, glimpses of the narrowfiord, a deep, blue inlet of the ocean, dottedwith white sails, and overlooked by thestrong, dark tower of Bergen, with itsrude and clustering ramparts, little windows,and loopholes for arrows.

As they approached it, Konrad's sadnessincreased; for every stone in its walls seemedlike the face of an old friend, and everyfeature of the scenery was associated with thatfirst and early love which had become partof his very being.

With Bothwell it was quite otherwise.

He looked around him with the utmostnonchalance, and scarcely thought of Anna,though the scene was quite enough to bringher fully back to his mind; but his passion forMary had completely absorbed or obliteratedevery other fancy, feeling, and sentiment.

A change had come over his features; hisforehead was paler and more thoughtful, hiseyes had lost much of their bold and recklessexpression, and there was a decided melancholyin his fine face, which excited theinterest of all who regarded him. He hadbecome more taciturn; even Hob Ormistonhad lost much of his loquacity, and now,depressed by the gloomy prospect of theirfortunes, walked in silence by the side of thedejected and miserable Hepburn of Bolton.

"Captain Alborg," said Bothwell, "whitherdost thou wend with us now?"

"To the royal castle of Bergen—to thehereditary governor of which I must deliverthee."

"Thank Heaven! 'tis not Erick Rosenkrantzwho holds command there now, or I warrantme we would have had but a short shrift,and shorter mercy, for the trick I nowremember me to have played him. I marvelmuch what manner of person this newcastellan may be; for in sooth, much of ourcomfort, in this most dolorous case, dependsthereon."

"Be under no apprehension, Lord Earl,"replied Alborg; "you are the king'sprisoners, and, though accused of invasion andpiracy, no castellan in Denmark or Norwaycan hang or quarter you without the king'sexpress orders."

"Hang!" grumbled Ormiston; "hangthee, thou old sea-horse! Dost forget thouspeakest to James, Duke of Orkney, the mateof Mary of Scotland?"

The family of Rosenkrantz were hereditarygovernors of Bergen, and castellans ofBergenhuis, and, as Konrad's ancestors hadalways followed their banner in battle, he hadever considered the castle of Bergen his home;and, with all the feeling of a returned exile,he approached its massive portal, which wasflanked by broad round towers, and overhungby a strong portcullis of jagged and rustediron, where the crossbowmen of his ownDanish band were still keeping guard intheir scarlet gaberdines and steel caps.

At the gate they were received by CorneliusVan Dribbel, the great butler of Bergen,who, in his flutter and pomposity at theunusual arrival of such a goodly band ofprisoners and visitors, never once recognised thecareworn Konrad, who was too spirit-brokento address him, and, disguised by the alteredfashion of his beard and garments, was bornewith the throng towards the great hall, wherethe superior of the fortress was to receive them.

There was a flush on Bothwell's brow, afire in his eye, a scorn on his lip, and aloftiness in his bearing, that increased as heapproached the presence of this Norwegiandignitary; for, all unused to the humility ofhis position, he had resolved to requite pridewith pride, scorn with scorn; and thus,modelling their looks by those of their leader,Hob Ormiston and Hay of Tallo assumed anair of sullen defiance; but the young knightof Bolton, who was utterly careless about hisultimate fate, wore a spirit-broken aspect,more nearly allied to that of Konrad.

"Cornelius Van Dribbel," said ChristianAlborg, puffing and blowing, as he seatedhimself in a capacious chair on entering thehall, and wiped his great polished head witha handkerchief. "I thought thou saidst thecastellan was here to receive the king's prisoners?"

"St. Olaus forefend!" replied Van Dribbel;"surely thou knowest that the knightRosenkrantz hath lain in his last home atFredericksborg these many months."

"Smite thee! yes," growled the seaman;"but I meant the new castellan."

"We have none but such as thou shaltsee in time—Ha! lo you, now!" he added, asthe arras concealing the archway, which, atthe lower end of the hall, opened upon acarpeted dais, was withdrawn, and whenagain it fell, Anna Rosenkrantz, attended byChristina Slingebunder and another youngmaiden, stood before them.

Had a spectre appeared there, Bothwelland Konrad could not have appeared moredisturbed, and Anna was equally so; butthe Earl, now less animated by love, and, asa courtier, being habituated to keep hisemotions under restraint, was the first torecover himself, and a smile of scornfulsurprise spread over his face, as he doffedhis bonnet and bowed to the lady of thecastle.

Poor Konrad grew pale as death; hebecame giddy and breathless; and shrankbehind the shadow of a column against whichhe leaned, for the atmosphere seemedstifling.

Meanwhile Anna stood upon the dais,between two massive columns of gothic form,encrusted with old runic stones. She waslooking pale, but beautiful as ever. Hertresses were gathered up in the simplefashion of the north, and, supported by asilver bodkin, formed a coronet of plaits, asthey were wreathed round her head. Herdress of blue silk was massive with embroideryand silver fringe, and her stomacherwas studded with jewels, as became theheiress of Welsöö and Bergenhuis.

The Earl's first reflection, was his beingnow a captive, and completely in the powerof an enraged and slighted woman, whom inthe zenith of his power he had treated withcruelty, contumely, and contempt. Thesethoughts brought with them no qualm, nopity. He felt only apprehension for whatshe might now in turn make him endure;for, when in Italy and France, he heardmany a tale of "woman's vengeance," thatnow came back full and vividly on hismemory.

"By St. Paul! we find kenned faceswherever we go;" said Ormiston to Bolton;"this old sea-dog hath brought us to theright haven. We will have free-house andfree-hold here, I doubt not."

"Madam," said the stout captain of theBiornen, bowing as low as his great paunchand long basket-hilted espadone would permithim, "allow me to introduce to you theterrible pirate who, for the last month, hasbeen the terror of our Fiords, and thescourge of the Sound, and whom we find tobe no other than the great Earl of Bothwell,with whose astounding misdeeds all Europehas been ringing."

Anna scarcely heard a word of the captain'saddress. On first beholding the Earl,she had trembled violently, and then becamepale as death. Her eyes filled with fire, andshe regarded him with a long, fixed, andserpent-like gaze, that even he had sometrouble in meeting.

"Well, madam," said he, with one of hisgraceful smiles, "when last we stood togetherin this hall, we foresaw not the day whenwe would greet each other thus."

"The meeting is as unexpected to me asour last may have been to you, my LordEarl," replied Anna in French, but withadmirable hauteur and firmness. "So,pirate and outlaw, as I now understand theeto be, thou hast lived to see all thy wildvisions and schemes of ambition crumble andfade away, and now thou art a captive inthe power of her thou didst so deeply wrong,and so cruelly insult."

"True, madam," replied Bothwell, curlinghis mustache, "and what then?"

"Dost thou not know that thy life andliberty are alike in my power?"

"I am glad of it, being assured that theycould not be in safer keeping."

"Oh, man! cold and heartless as thouart," said Anna, who seemed now to haveforgotten her own infatuated passion for theEarl, "I cannot but admire this statelycalmness under a reverse of fortune soterrible. Were thy fate fully in mine ownhands, I would return thee to the land fromwhence thou hast fled, leaving the flames ofcivil war to rage behind thee—to the armsof her thou didst love and win, so fatally forherself—or I would again commit thee tothe wide ocean, to follow thy wayward fateon other shores; for now there can neitherbe love nor loyalty, nor falsehood nor truth,between us—but the will of the king sayeth nay!"

"And what sayeth the will of Frederick?"asked Bothwell, with proud surprise.

"That thou and thy followers must beseparated."

"Hoh, is it so?"

"They, to be sent home to Scotland—thou,to his castle of Kiobenhafen, in fetters."

"Fetters!" cried the Earl, in a voice ofthunder, while his eyes flashed fire and hishand grasped his sword. "This toBothwell? Woman! what hast thou dared tosay? Dost thou forget that I am a Scottishduke—the consort of a queen—the governorof a kingdom?"

"No!" replied Anna bitterly, while hereyes flashed with rage and jealousy, thoughevery sentiment of love was long since dead;"and neither have I forgotten that thou arta regicide and a betrayer, who from thishour shall have meted out to him the sternmeasures he so ruthlessly dealt to others.Christian Alborg—this man is the king'sprisoner, whom we have warrants fromPeder Oxe, the marshal of Denmark, todetain. Away with him to the Biornen, andere sunset be thou out of the Jelta fiord,and under sail for Kiobenhafen! Thouknowest Frederick, and that he brooks nodelay."

And with a glance, where spite and jealousywere mingled with a sentiment of pityand admiration, Anna withdrew; and, as thearras fell behind her, a party of red-beardedDanish bowmen, who formed the garrisonat Bergen, crowded round the Earl.

"Ha! ha!" he laughed bitterly through hisclenched teeth; "there spoke thy woman'svengeance, Anna!"

"Lord Earl," said Ormiston gravely, "inthe name of the master of mischief, whatprompted thee to beard her thus? Foulfall thee! Why didst thou not flatter, andcajole, and feign thine old love? To fleechwith the devil, when thou canst not fighthim, is ever good policy. An old love iseasily revived: she is only a woman, andwould doubtless have believed thee, for thouhast a tongue that would wile the gleds outof the sky. Cock and pie! Bothwell, tillsomething better came to hand, thou mightesthave been castellan of Bergen, and I thylieutenant. All our fortunes had been madeeven here, in this land of barkened bannocksand snowballs."

"To feign thus, would be to commit foultreason against her whom I will everremember with loyalty and love, while Heaven,permits me to live. Here we part at last,stout Hob, perhaps to meet no more. Ifever again thou treadest on Scottish ground,remember that in serving her thou servestBothwell. Farewell to thee, Bolton, thouman of gloomy thoughts; and farewell thou,stout Hay of Tallo; for I fear me much,that God's vengeance for that night in theKirk-of-Field is coming surely and heavilyupon us all."

They were rudely separated.

Ormiston, Bolton, and Tallo, raised theirbonnets with sadness and respect as the Earlwas led off; for the bonds of old feudality,and love, and service, which knit their namesand fortunes together, had been strengthenedby a certainty that the terrible career on whichthey had run, had for ever cut them off andisolated them from the rest of mankind; andthus a feeling of loneliness and desolation fellupon their hearts, as their great leader andmaster-spirit was led away to that mournfulcaptivity which was to end only in the—grave.

That night a Scottish ship of war, whichwas commanded by two knights of distinction,and had been sent by the Earl of Morayin pursuit of Bothwell, anchored in the Jeltafiord, and to their care were consigned theshipwrecked followers of the captive noble;and soon after these knights set sail for Scotland.

But many hours before they had come intoBergen, the Biornen had vanished from thatnarrow inlet of the ocean, and was bearingthe great Scottish captive along the shores ofwestern Gothland, and breasting the frothywaves of the Cattegat.

The sun, as he set in the western ocean,shed a mellow light upon the wide expanse ofshore that stretched upon their lee—on manyan impending cliff, on the dark summits ofwhich waved the old primeval pines ofScandinavia, and on whose bases the waters of thewest were dashing in foam—on many awooded wilderness, amid the recesses of whichthe wolves were prowling by the Druid stonesof Loda, and the long-forgotten grave ofmany a gothic chief.

Buried in reverie, with folded arms andsaddened eyes, Bothwell watched the changingfeatures and windings of that foreignshore, with all its pathless woods, volcanicrocks, and dark blue hills, throwing theirdeepening shadows on each other, as theburning sun sank in the distant sea, and thedusky tints of night shed upon the scenery agloom in unison with his own dark thoughtsand bitter memories.

Bitter and sad they were truly; but howunavailing!

Now separated from the evil influence ofOrmiston and others, he deplored his wickednessand folly with an intensity that amountedto agony. Had the universe been his, hewould have given it that he might live thelast year of his life over again, with theexperience in his mind of what the guilt, theterrors, the anxieties, and remorse of thatyear had been.

With sorrow, with envy, yea, with agony,he looked back to the position he had heldin the estimation of others, and of himself;and felt, in the bitterness of his soul, thatthe eminence could never more be re-won.

Never more, never more! It was a terriblereflection.

He thought, too, of the native land hemight never see again; and—

"Of many a tale of love and war

That mingled with the scene;

Of Bothwell's bank that bloom'd so dear,

And Bothwell's bonny Jean."

But he thought of Anna only with anger,for no human heart could ever contain twoloves. Jane Gordon he remembered withfeelings of compunction, when he mused onher unrepining gentleness and devoted love;but he thought most of Mary, and, forgettingthat he was himself a captive, laid many awild and futile scheme to free and to avengeher.

He could not flee from his own thoughts.They would come again and again, weighinglike an incubus upon his mind, alike in thebright sunshine of noon and the solemnsilence of night; amid the heedless revelryof the Norwegian officers he longed for solitude,and in solitude the stings of consciencedrove him back to revelry and wine; andthus the deep and morbid horror that hourby hour, and day by day, had every wherepursued him, settled down like a cloud ofdarkness on his soul.

Long since satiated with pleasure, sick ofambition, and wearied of the world, he nowfound how deep were the stings of unavailingregret.

The day, we have said, went down, andnight spread her spangled mantle on thedarkened water and the moonlit sea.

Brightly in its calm beauty the eveningstar arose from the dark-heaving line of thenorthern ocean, and Bothwell thought ofthe time when he had last watched that orbexpanding on the night, as it rose above theruined spire of St. Mary-in-the-Field.

At that moment, a cry—that seemed to bewafted over the surface of the water—madehis ears and heart tingle, as it passed awayon the skirt of the hollow wind.

Bothwell grew ghastly pale, he coveredhis ears with his hands, and rushed away tohis cabin in despair.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE VAIN RESOLUTION.

She told me all,

And as she spoke her eyes led captive mine—

Her voice was low, and thrill'd me to the bone;

She ceased and all was silence, whilst I sat

Like one who, long entranced by melody,

Feels still the music in the soul

Though sound has died away.

Sir C. Lindesay's Alfred.

Christian Alborg had departed with hisprisoners; and, unnoticed and uncared for,Konrad stood in the hall, where he had oncebeen so welcome a guest. A sensation ofloneliness and bitterness ran through his mind.There was the chair of the old knightRosenkrantz, with his sword and long leathergloves hung upon it, just as he had last leftthem; his walking-cane stood in a corner,and his furred boots were beside it; theplace was identified with his presence—fullof his memory; and his bluff round figure, inhis ample red gaberdine and trunk hose, hiskind old face, with its mild blue eyes andfair bushy beard, seemed to flit between theshadowy columns of the ancient hall.

Konrad had no intention of remaining ina place where all was so changed to him; but,ere he turned to leave it for ever, he pauseda moment irresolutely. Since last he stoodthere, all that had passed appeared like adream, but a sad and bitter one. His heartmelted within him at the very thought ofhis own desolation; a shower of tears wouldhave relieved him, but he had none to shed,for his eyes felt dry and stony.

"Why should I remain here, where notone is left to care for me now?" he saidwith a smile, as if in scorn of the weaknessthat made him linger, and, turning away,was about to retire, when a sound arrestedhim; once more the arras rose and fell, andAnna stood before him. He gazed uponher without the power of utterance.

She was alone.

With a heightened colour in her cheek,and a charming timidity in her eye, sheapproached, and, touching his arm, said—

"Christina told me thou wert here,Konrad; and wouldst thou go without onegreeting—one farewell—to me?"

Her accents sank into his inmost soul;he trembled beneath her touch, and felt allhis resolution melting fast away.

"Unkind Konrad!" said she, with one ofher sad but most winning smiles, "is this thefriendship thou didst vow to me at Westeray?"

"I have learned, Anna, that love cannever be succeeded by friendship. It runsto the other extreme—the impulses of thehuman heart cannot pause midway."

"Thou hast learned to hate me, then?"

"Heaven forbid!" replied Konrad, claspinghis hands; "hate thee, Anna? oh no!"

His eyes were full of the sweetness andardour of the days of their first love, andAnna's filled with tears.

"I have long wished," she faltered, in alow and broken voice, while seating herselfon the bench of one of those deeply-recessedwindows near them—"I have long wished tosee thee once more," she repeated, withoutraising her timid eyes, "to implore—not thypardon, dear Konrad, for that I have noright to expect—but—but that thou wilt notremember me with bitterness"——

Konrad muttered something—he knewnot what.

"I feel, Konrad, that I owe thee muchfor all I have made thee suffer; and I havenow seen the worth and faith of thy heartwhen contrasted with mine own, and I blushfor my weakness—my wickedness—my folly.Thou mayest deem this unwomanly—indelicate;but in love we are equal, and whymay not one make reparation as the other—Ias well as thou? I have lived, I say, tolearn the value of the heart that loved meso well, and which, in a moment offrenzy—infatuation—O, dearest Konrad! call it whatthou wilt—I forsook for another—anotherwho betrayed me by a semblance of religiousrites—oh! spare me the rest!" ....

"Anna," said Konrad, in a choking voice,as he rose to retire—but, instead, drew nearerto her; "though my eye may be hollow,my cheek pale, and my heart soured andsaddened, its first sentiment for thee hathnever altered. Anna—Anna, God knoweththat it hath not! For all thou hast mademe endure for the past two years—from myheart—from my soul, I forgive thee, and Ipray that thou mayest be happy. Anna—dearestAnna—I am going far away fromthe hills and woods of Bergen, to join theLubeckers, or perhaps the Knights of Rhodesin their warfare in the distant East, for Ihave doomed myself to exile; but I stillregard thee as I did, when we were in yon farisle of Westeray—as my sister—as myfriend. As we first met in this old castlehall, when thou wert but a guileless girland I a heedless boy, so shall we now part.All is forgotten—all is forgiven. Andnow—farewell; may the mother of God blessthee!"

He kissed her hand, and his tears fell uponit; he turned to leave the hall, but a giddinesscame over him, and a film overspread his eyes.

He still felt the hand of Anna in his:another moment, and she sank upon hisbreast. All her love for him had returned;and all her womanly delicacy, and overweeningpride, had given way before themore tender and generous impulses thissudden reunion with her early lover hadcalled up within her.

"Oh, Konrad!" she whispered, whilealmost suffocated by her tears, "if my heart,though seared and saddened, is still prizedby thee, it is thine, as in the days of ourfirst love."

And, borne away by his passion, theforgiving Konrad pressed her close and closerto his breast. "And here," sayeth theMagister Absalom in his quaint papers,"here endeth the most important Boke inthis our Historie."

CHAPTER XXIII.

RETRIBUTION.

Vanish'd each pleasure—vanish'd all his woes,

Nor Hope nor Fear disturb his long repose;

He saw the busy world—'twas but to-day!

A keen spectator of life's motley play—

The curtain falls—the scene is o'er.

Hallor's Eternity.

The summer wore away—and the winterapproached.

By order of Frederick II., the conquerorof the Ditmarsians, Bothwell had beentransmitted, heavily ironed—an insult underwhich his proud spirit writhed in agony—fromthe great castle of Kiobenhafen to thatof Malmö, a strong and gloomy fortress onthe Swedish coast, washed by the waters ofthe Sound, and overlooking a little townthen possessed by the Danes.

There he was kept, in sure and strictward, by a knight named Beirn Gowes,captain of Malmö and governor of Draxholm,in a vaulted apartment, with windowsgrated, and doors sheathed with iron, groovedin the enormous granite walls, to preventescape; and there, the long and weary days,and weeks, and months, rolled on in dulland unchanging monotony.

Of those stirring events that were actingat home he knew nothing, for never a voicefell on his ear in that far-northern prison;and thus he heard not of Mary's escapefrom the isle of Lochleven—her futile flightto seek succour of the false Elizabeth, andthat she, too, was pining a captive in thecastle of Nottingham. He knew not thatall his sounding titles, and those old heraldichonours which, by their good swords, hisbrave forefathers had acquired, and borneon their bucklers through many a Scottishbattle-field, had been gifted away with hislordly castles, his fertile fiefs, and noblebaronies, to the upholders of the newrégime—the Lords of the Secret Council. Of thefury of the Douglas wars—of Moray's death,and Lennox's fall—of Morton's power andpride, his lust and wrath, under which thecapital languished and the country writhed.Of all these he heard not a word; for hewas utterly forgotten and deserted by all.Even Jane of Huntly, his countess, thatgentle being who had once loved him sowell, after their divorce had soon learned toforget him in the arms of her former lover,the Earl of Sutherland, and to commit tooblivion that she had once been the happybride of the splendid Bothwell.

He knew not, too, of the terrible vengeancethat had fallen upon his numerous adherents,—howtheir heads were bleaching on thebattlements of Edinburgh—how their castleswere ruined, their families forfeited, theirnames proscribed; while James, Earl ofMorton, the mainspring and prime mover ofall these plots and conspiracies, of which his(Bothwell's) frantic love and mad ambitionhad made him the too ready tool, was flourishing,for a brief term, in unrestricted prideand plenitude of power, as Regent andGovernor of Scotland.

Black Hob of Ormiston, Bolton, Hay ofTallo, with French Paris and others, whohad been transmitted by Anna Rosenkrantzto Scotland, were solemnly arraigned astraitors and regicides before the supremelegal tribunal at Edinburgh, and sentencedto be decapitated and quartered.

In that grated chamber of the old towerof Holyrood, in which Konrad had beenconfined, young Hepburn of Bolton satcounting the minutes that yet remained tohim between time and eternity.

The hand of retribution had come heavilyupon him.

That day he had seen his three companionsled forth to die—to be dismembered astraitors, to have their bowels torn out fromtheir half-strangled and yet breathing bodies,and their limbs fixed to the ramparts ofthe city barriers; and that day, with sorrowand contrition, he had confessed to theministers of Moray all his share in Bothwell'splots and crimes.

As if in mockery of his sad thoughts,bright through the iron grating streamedthe setting sunlight in all the beauty of awarm autumnal eve.

At that sunset he gazed long and fixedly,for it was the last he would ever behold, andthe tears filled his sunken eyes and bedewedhis faded cheek, for more lovely was thatevening sun than ever he had seen it, as,sinking behind the long ridge of the Calton, itcast a farewell gleam on the old rood spire andabbey towers of Holyrood—on the hills ofemerald green and rocks of grey basalt thatoverhang them—on the woods of Restalrig,and the narrow glimpse of the blue anddistant ocean beyond them—and he felt thaton all this his eyes were about to be closedfor ever.

For ever I did his mind recoil at thisterrible reflection? No; but it often trembledbetween the depth of thought and the abyssof despair.

Better it was to die, than to linger out alife, haunted by the burning recollection ofthose crimes, upon which the force ofcircumstances, rather than any evil propensityof his own, had hurried him.

And Mariette—since the hour when firsthe knew her love was lost, he had feltcomparatively happy, to what he had been sincethat terrible night on which he took suchvengeance upon her, and on her kingly lover,in the house of the Kirk-of-Field—thatvengeance for which he was now to die.

As he mused on all his blighted hopes andblasted prospects—of what he was and whathe might have been—the young man groanedaloud in the agony of his soul; he wreathedhis hands among his heavy dark-brown hair,and bowed his head upon the hard woodenbench, which served him alike for bed andtable.

The sunlight died away—the gloamingcame, and the walls of the old abbey, withinwhose aisles the dead of ages lay, lookeddark and dreary; the silence of his prisonincreased, and a deep reverie—astupefaction—fell upon the mind of Bolton.

A hand that touched his shoulder lightlyaroused him; he looked up, and saw—couldit be possible?

Mariette!

"Oh no! it is a spectre!" he muttered,and covered his face with his hands! Againhe ventured to look up, and the same figuremet his eye—the same face was gazing sadlyupon him. The features—for he summonedcourage to regard them fixedly—were indeedthose of the Mariette Hubert he had loved sowell; but the bloom of their beauty hadfled; her dark French eyes had lost theirlustre and vivacity; her cheeks their roses,and her lips their smiles.

Her countenance was full of grief, andexpressed the most imploring pity. Hepburngazed steadily upon her; and though for amoment he deemed her a supernatural vision,he felt no fear. Suddenly he sprang to herside, and threw an arm around her form—herpassive but round and palpableform—exclaiming as he did so,—

"Mariette—my own Mariette, is it thou?By what miracle did the mercy of Godenable thee to escape me? Speak—speak—convinceme that it is thee, and to-morrow Iwill die happy; for I will be guiltless of thydeath, Mariette—thine—thine! Oh, thatmoment of crime, of vengeance, ofmadness—how dear it has cost me! Speak to me,adorable Mariette—thou livest?"

"I do, dearest Bolton, by the mercy ofHeaven."

"True, true!" he gasped; "for thy loverhad none." He groaned aloud, and regardedher with eyes full of grief, astonishment, andpassion.

"I found myself, when day was breaking,lying near the ruins of the king's house. Ihad been insensible I know not how long,and was covered with bruises, and almostdying; for" (she shuddered, and added witha sad but tender smile) "thou, dear heart! inthe blindness of thy fury, did so nearlydestroy me"——

"Oh, now! when standing upon the vergeof my grave, Mariette, remind me not of thatmoment of dread and despair. Thou wertfound"——

"By an aged man, in other days a prebendof St. Giles, Father Tarbet, who conveyed meto a cottage near the ruined convent ofPlacentia, where an old woman, that in a bettertime had been a sister of St. Katherine, dwelt;and to her care he bequeathed me. A ragingfever preyed upon me long; but, by thegoodness of Heaven, and the tenderness of thepoor old recluse, I recovered; and, disguisedin this long cloak, by presenting to thejavellour of Holyrood a forged order purportingto be from the Regent Moray, have gainedadmittance to thy cell, and am come to savethee, John of Bolton, and to take thy placetill to-morrow—to be freed as a woman, orto die in thy name as fate may direct."

Hepburn wept with rapture to find that hehad not destroyed her in that fit of insanitywhich jealousy and passion had brought uponhim; hot and salt were the tears that fellupon her hands, as he kissed them again andagain.

"The darkness increases apace," saidMariette; "take thou this mantle andbroad hat, lower thy stature, stoop if thoucanst, pass forth, and may God attend thee!Leave me in thy place—they cannot havethe heart to destroy me, a poor French girl;and yet," she added, in an under tone, "whatmatters it now?"

"Destroy thee? thou the sister of FrenchParis—of that Nicholas Hubert, who thisday died amid the yells of the infuriatedthousands who crowded the Lawnmarketlike a living sea!"

"True, true, I am his sister!" said Mariette,wringing her hands; "God sain and assoilziethee, my dear, dear brother; but in this,my disguise of page, I have another chanceof escaping, for Charles la Fram, Duval, andDionese la Brone, who, thou mayest remember,were in thy band of archers, and nowserve as arquebusiers in the guards of theRegent Moray, are at this moment sentinelsin the Abbey Close, and by their connivance,for the love of old France, I am sure—oh! quitesure—of escaping in safety. Be persuaded,dearest monsieur, I am as certainof freedom as thou art of a terrible death."

"And by the ignominious rope—the badgeof shame—amid a gazing and revilingmultitude. John Hepburn, of the house ofBolton—the last of a line whose pennons wavedat Halidon—to die thus! God of mercy! anyrisk were better than the agony of suchan end."

"Away, then, and long ere the sun riseswe shall both be free."

"At this hour, then, to-morrow eve, thouwilt meet me, Mariette."

"Meet thee—meet thee!—where?"

"At the Rood Chapel, by the loan sidethat leads to Leith."

"Ah, monsieur! 'tis a wild and solitary place."

"But a safe one. Thou knowest it then—nearthe Gallowlee. I have much—oh, verymuch—to say to thee, and many a questionto ask. Promise thou wilt come, Mariette,for the sake of that dear love thou didstonce bear me!"

"Once," she repeated mournfully; "well,be it so. I promise—at this hour, then; butaway while all around us is so quiet andstill—take this pass, and leave me to my owningenuity for the rest."

Bolton wrapped himself in the mantle,and drew the broad Spanish hat over hisface.

"Ah, mon Dieu! La Fram and Duval willnever be deceived!" said Mariette, withanguish, as she surveyed his towering figure.

"Trust to me and the gloom of thisautumnal night. To-morrow, then—at theRood Chapel—remember!" said Hepburn,taking her hands in his, and pausing irresolutely,until impelled by that old regardwhich, when once kindled in the human heart,can never wholly die, he drew her towardshim, and kissed her; but with more calmtenderness, and with less of passion, thanever he had done in other days.

"Go, go!" said Mariette, in a choking voice,"I deserve not this honour from thee. Guiltyhave I been, and false; but St. Mary be mywitness that I speak the truth—I was besieged,betrayed, and dazzled by the artful king;the rest was fear, despair, and frenzy all!"

She pressed her hands upon her bosom, asif it was about to burst.

"I can conceive all that now, Mariette,"replied Hepburn, in the same broken voice, whilehe pressed her to his heart; "from my soul Iforgive thee, as thou hast done me, thegreater, the more awful ill, I meditatedagainst thee."

They separated; but he had lingered solong, and time had fled so fast, that midnighttolled from the spire of the old abbeychurch before he had shown the passbearing the forged signature of James, Regent, tothe drowsy javellour, or gateward, avoidedthe sentinels at the outer porch, and issuedinto the palace gardens, from which, byscaling a wall, he easily made his way to thebare and desolate Calton.

At the east end of the hill there then laymany deep pits, overgrown with whin andbushes; deep, dangerous, and half-filled withwater, the haunt of the hare and fuimart.These were known as the Quarry Holes, andwere often the scene of a ducking for sorcery,and legal drowning for various crimes; andto these he fled for shelter and concealment;for though hundreds would gladly haveafforded him both on his own barony ofBolton, which was only eighteen miles distant,and had been gifted to the (as yet unsuspected)secretary Maitland—there was not a man inEdinburgh but would instantly havesurrendered him into the hands of the civilauthorities—and to that punishment awardedhim as Bothwell's abettor in the death ofthe Lord Darnley.

There, overcome by long deprivation ofsleep, and the bitterness of his thoughts formany a weary night and day, a deep slumberfell upon him, and the noonday sun ofthe morrow had soared into the wide bluevault of heaven, ere he awoke to consciousnessand a remembrance of where he was—thefate from which he had escaped—theexistence and the last devotion of Mariette.

Her existence! While lying in that desolatespot, he knew not what had been actedin the city that lay below the brow of thehill where he lurked in security.

In the grey twilight of that autumnalmorning, which a dense and murky mistfrom the German sea rendered yet moregloomy, the prisoner in the tower of Holyroodhad been led forth by the half-intoxicateddoomster to die; and passing in hermale disguise for Hepburn of Bolton, therepentant Mariette—as an atonement for thefalsehood she had practised towards him—afaithlessness that had hurried him intocrimes against his country, and plans ofvengeance on his king—died on the scaffold,where her brother had perished but the daybefore—died with the secret of her sex onher lips—and died happy, that in doing soshe might, by allaying all suspicion andpursuit, enable her lover to escape.

Young Hepburn knew not of this; butanxiously watched the passing day, andlonged for evening, when he was to meether at the Rood Chapel, a lonely littleoratory situated on the open muirland midwaybetween the Calton Hill and St. Anthony'sPorte, the southern gate of Leith.

He heard the hum of Edinburgh ascendingthe hill-side, and the notes of its clockson the passing wind as they struck theslow-seceding hours. The blue sky was above,and the dark-green whins were noddingfrom the rocks around him; at times, a redfox put forth its sharp nose and glancingeyes from its secret hole, or a fuimart, withits long body and bushy tail, shot past likean evil spirit; but nothing else disturbed thesolitude of the place where he lay. Slowlythe weary day rolled on, and he hailed withjoy the last red rays of the sun, as theystole up the steep rocks of Salisbury,lingered for a moment on Arthur's rifted cone,and then died away.

The twilight soon came on; the youngman crept from his hiding-place, and with ananxious heart descended the northern side ofthe hill, towards the place of meeting. Thelast flush of the set sun was lingering stillbehind the darkening Ochils; and amidstthe smoke of busy Leith, the old spire ofSt. Mary, and St. Anthony's shattered tower,were still visible, but a favourable gloom andobscurity were veiling every thing; andBolton hurried with a beating heart to the oldoratory, burning to give Mariette the warmembrace, her devotion to him in his worstextremity so well deserved.

There was no one there.

Dismantled of its ornaments and statues,its font and altar, its door and windows, byreformers and thieves, the old chapel of theHoly Rood was desolate and empty. Thestone arches still sustained the groined roof;but the velvet moss and the tufted grassgrew in the joints of the masonry, and clungto the carved crockets and grotesque corbels.

Long he waited, and anxiously he watchedthe loan, that, from the chasm below theCalton's western brow, led to Leith; but noone approached—not a footstep or a soundmet his ear—but the wind, as it swept overthe Gallowlee, whistling drearily in the opentracery of the chapel windows, and wavingthe tufts of grass and wallflower that grewin its mouldering niches.

Hour succeeded hour.

Midnight came, and an agony entered hissoul, for he then feared, he knew not what—hedared not to think of it, but began hastily totraverse the rough horse-way that led to thecity.

Near the chapel there stood a clump ofancient sycamores, and among them weretwo from which the branches had beenlopped, and across the tops of these divestedtrunks, a beam was extended to serve forthe gibbet, which obtained for the placethe name it bears even unto this day—theGallowlee—and thereon were usually exposedin chains the bodies of those who hadbeen executed—a barbarous practice, whichwas common in England until a comparativelyrecent period.

A crowd of horrible thoughts filled the mindof Bolton; but, above all, two were mostpalpable before him—the image of Mariette asshe had been when he loved her of old, andthe gibbet.

He drew near it fearfully.

Behind this ill-omened spot, the landscapeto the eastward was level, extending to theseashore; here and there low clumps ofcoppice and the rocks of Restalrig broke itshorizontal outline. The sky was all of acloudless white tint; there were no stars, therewas no moon; but against that cold palebackground, the trees and the beam of thegallows stood forth in strong relief and blackoutline.

On the right towered up the rocky Calton,a dark and undistinguishable mass.

A number of full-fed gleds and monstrousravens, who built their nests in the sycamores,were perched on the beam of the gallows,where they clapped their dusky wings, andcawed and screamed as the disturber of theirfeast approached.

Two skeletons were swinging there in thenight wind; and the remains of two otherbeings, evidently fresh from the hands of thedoomster, swung beside them. One washeadless and handless; but, by its bulk andvast conformation, Hepburn knew the bodyto be that of Black Hob of Ormiston.

The other, which was of much shorterstature and slighter make, hung by the neckvibrating in the passing wind, which swayedit round and waved its long dark hair.

Fearfully, tremblingly, and scarcely daringto breathe, Hepburn of Bolton drew near it.

One glance sufficed him, and he rushedfrom the spot to return no more.

*******

CHAPTER XXIV.

MALMO.

Yes! there are sighs for the bursting heart,

And tears for the sleepless eye;

But tears and sighs and sympathy,

Are luxuries unknown to me.

The wretch immured in the dungeon-keep

May snatch an hour's repose;

And dream of home and the light of heaven

Ere he wake to misery's throes;

If Hope with her radiant light be there—

I mate with the swarthy fiend Despair!

Vedder.

Here, for a page or so, we resume theMSS. of the reverend and worthy MagisterAbsalom Beyer.

About this period, his diary, journal, orhistory (which you will), for it partakes ofthem all, suddenly breaks off, and there areleft but a few fragments, referring to a laterperiod.

One records the baptism of the sixth sonof Anna and Konrad, whom King Frederick,for his valour in capturing a Lubeck frigatethat ravaged the shores of Bergen, had createdCount of Saltzberg, Lord of Welsöö, andgovernor of Bergenhuis; and the garrulousMagister records that this baptismal ceremony,at which he officiated, and which wascelebrated with great splendour, was theseventh anniversary of that joyous day onwhich he had blessed the nuptial ring ofAnna and Konrad in the old cathedral of thebishopric of Bergen; and he further recordsthe quantity of ale, wine, and dricka imbibedon the occasion, and the loads of venison,bread, and bergenvisch, eaten by the tenantryat the baptism of young Hans (for so babythe sixth was named); and how he screamedand kicked when the holy water fell on him,till he nearly sprang from his carved cradle,which was hollowed like a boat in the Norsefashion, lined with moss and velvet, and wasborne by Christina Slingebunder, who hadfound her way from Westeray back to Bergen.

He also mentions that Konrad had grownsomewhat florid, and rather more round inform, than when he had placed the ring onAnna's hand before that magnificent altar;and that she too, though retaining heryouthful bloom, had (alas, for romance!) lostmuch of her slender and graceful aspect, andlooked quite like the mother of the fivechubby little ones, each of whom clung toher skirts with one hand, while the otherwas occupied with a great piece of the spicedchristening cake, on which they were regalingwith a satisfaction, equalled only by that of theDanish soldier, who, having again found thecan and the cake offered on this occasion toNippen, had appropriated them both to himself.

*****

Ten years have elapsed since the readerlast heard in these pages of Bothwell'shapless earl, and the lonely towers of Malmö.

Ten years!

And in all that long and weary time hehad been a fettered felon within the ironwalls of Malmö. Pining hopelessly in acaptivity the most crushing to a heart sofierce and proud—to a soul so high-spiritedand restless, with one thought ever beforehim—liberty and home; and thoughforgotten by Mary, or remembered only with ashudder, his old love for her had never died;and many a futile effort he made, by piteousletters and petitions, to Frederick II. ofDemark—petitions so humble, that his onceproud nature would have shrunk from theirtenor—to interest himself, "pour la deliverancede la Royne sa Princesse Marie."[*]

[*] See Les Affaires de le Cante du Boduel.

But neither her deliverance or his ownwere ever achieved; for, were such a thingpossible, even God seemed to have abandonedthem to a fate that was alike inexorable andirresistible.

Year after year wore away, and the seasonssucceeded each other in dreary andmonotonous succession. This monotony wasmost intolerable in winter—the long anddesolate winter of the north; when thedescending avalanche roared between thefrozen peaks—when the ice cracked andburst in the narrow fiords, where the sealsand walrusses slept in the rays of themoon—and when the northern lights, as theyflashed behind the summits of the distanthills, filled the midnight sky with figuresthat were equally beautiful and terrible.

Ever and anon, in one of those drearywinters, when (as in A.D. 1333) all theharbours of the Sound were sheeted over withice, and the shallow Baltic was frozen fromLubeck to the castle of Kiobenhafen, Bothwellsighed, as he thought of the greatYule-logs that blazed so merrily in many a Scottishhall, of the nut-brown ale and wine thatflowed in many a quaigh and luggie; whilethe green holly branch and the mistletoebough hung from the old roof-trees, and themirth and joy of the season expanded everyheart.

Then came the short spring, that lastedbut a month, when the snow melted orlingered only on the distant peaks; whenthe streams burst their frosty barriers, and,with the roar of a thousand waterfalls,poured in silver currents over the rocks ofthe fiord, where the wild rasp, the dwarfbirch, and the barberry, sprouted in thewarmth of the coming sun.

And then, in the early mornings and thelate nights of that northern region—nightswhen the sun sets at twelve P.M., he wouldgaze, dreamily, from his prison window onthe waters of the Sound, until, to his fancy,they became like those of the Clyde, thatswept round Bothwell bank, amid its darkgreen woods and sylvan solitude.

The summer passed, and winter wouldcome again to spread snow and desolationover the face of the land; and so the timewore on, until its very monotony turned hisimpetuous brain, and he became a ravingmaniac!

*****

*****

It was in the year of grace 1577, when aScottish priest, one of those whom theReformation had compelled to wander, inmisery and penury, far from their nativelands, appeared at the gates of Malmö, andsought permission of Beirn Gowes, knightcastellan, to visit the unhappy captive.

The priest was a man about five-and-thirty;but the duties of his office, toil, andhardship, made him seem considerably older;his head was already becoming bald, evenwhere he had no tonsure; his blue eyeswere mild, and deep, and thoughtful; heleaned a little on a staff, and bore on hisback the wallet containing a few of thenecessaries required by him on his solitarypilgrimage; for he was one of those whoselife had been devoted to spreading andupholding the Catholic faith in thosenorthern lands, where it had been mostseverely shaken; and, amid hardship anddanger, his days were spent in exhortingthe faithful, recovering the faithless, andconfirming the wavering.

He stood within the vault where Bothwelllay, and, folding his hands upon his breast,regarded him fixedly with eyes that filledwith tears.

Oh, what a change was there!

Visible only in the twilight that struggledthrough the open grating of that vaulteddungeon, the captive lay in a corner upon alittle damp straw, chained by the middle tothe wall like a wild animal; he wascompletely nude, and his coal-black hair andbeard, now beginning to be grizzled, flourishedin one thick matted and luxuriant mass,from amid which his wild black eyes gleamedlike two bright stars. They were hollow,dilated, and ghastly. His form was attenuatedto the last degree; every rib, joint, andmuscle being horribly visible; he resembledan inmate of the grave—a chained fiend—anything but a man in the prime of life, forthe miserable being had barely reached hisfortieth year.

When he moved, the straw rustled, andthe rusty chain that fretted his tender skinrattled grimly in the ears of the priest, whoknelt down in the further end of the dungeon,and prayed with fervour; but Bothwellneither saw nor heard him.

One of those glimmerings of the past thatso frequently haunted him, was at thatmoment coming like a vision before hismind. Exhausted by illness, and the feverof his spirit, the poor maniac had becomecalm; and his thoughts were slowly emergingfrom the mist that obscured them, andarranging themselves in order and form, as hestruggled back into a consciousness ofexistence—the brief consciousness that so oftenprecedes the oblivion of the grave.

In the figures made by the damp on hisdungeon wall, he saw the same pale face,with its weeping eyes and white veil, thathad haunted him so often, ere hisovercharged mind found a relief in insanity.Mary—la Reine Blanche! he stretched hisbony arms towards the figure; but still itremained there, neither advancing norretiring, till a change came over its features.

Then its eyes seemed to fill with a terribleglare, and the shriek that once rang throughthe Kirk-of-Field, seemed to rend the massivevault, and to pierce his tingling ears like aponiard. Then he dashed his hands againstthem, and grovelled down among the straw,to shut out that dreadful sound—the dyingcry of Darnley!

"Oh, Father of mercy and of justice!"said the priest, beating himself upon thebreast; "how dreadful is thy vengeance,when thou permittest the sinner to mete outthe meed of his own sin!"

"A voice! a voice—who spoke?" said theEarl, struck by the unusual sound. "Hah! wasit thee?"

His tone was low and husky, and thesounds seemed to come with labour from hisfurry throat.

"Was it thee—oh, say it was thee!" hecontinued, as he paused, and seemed towrestle mentally with his madness, till heovercame it, and, by obtaining one furtherrevelation of the past, became more and morecognizant of the present, and alive to thereal horrors of his situation. "Memory,"said he, passing a hand thoughtfully overhis brow—"Oh, memory! what a curse artthou; and, when united to remorse, howdoubly so! Hah! those eyes," he groaned;"those weeping eyes again! ... Butthat voice—it was hers! so soft—so gentle! itcame back to me like a strain of old musicon the wind of memory—as it has often comein the slow hours of many a cheerless day,and the dead calm silence of many a changelessnight—through the long dark vista ofmany monotonous years. Years—howmany! oh, how many! Dost thou smilewith thine unearthly features? ha! ha!" ...

Like sunshine emerging from a mist, thepast was coming gradually back; and suddenly,like a flash of light, one bright gleamof thought brought all the long-forgottendays of other years before him.

The visionary saw her—Mary—the bright,the beautiful, the innocent, as she had shonein the buoyancy of youth and loveliness,when surrounded by the chivalry of France,and the splendour of the house of Bourbon.

The scene changed—she was standingtimidly, irresolute, and pale, on the shoresof her half-barbarized native land; again sheappeared—it was with the diadem of theBruces on her brow, and the orb of theAlexanders on her sceptre, as she presidedover the first of her factious parliaments, inthe ancient hall of the Scottish estates. Hesaw her standing with the triumphant Darnleyat the altar of Sancte Crucis, with morein her air and eye of the timid bride thanthe stately queen, blushing and abashed bythe side of her handsome and exultingvassal.

Then came the memory of that terriblehour in the Kirk-of-Field—the night in thetowers of Dunbar, and that fruitless cryfor mercy—the sad low wail that chilled theruffian heart of Ormiston.

He saw to what he had reduced thatbright and happy being, who, like abutterfly or an Indian bird, was born alone forthe sunshine and the most flowery paths oflife! He saw her robbed of her purity andsweetness—crushed like a rose beneath thecoil of a snake; and fancy painted her in aprison like his own, sad, solitary, anddesolate—broken in heart, and crushed inspirit—blighted in name and fame andhonour—withered in hope, and faded in form—ahousehold word of scorn to the cruel andthe factious, and all by him—by him, whohad loved her so madly and so wickedly.

These thoughts poured like a currentthrough the floodgate of memory; eachand all came back with returning consciousness;and gradually his career arose beforehim, like one stupendous curse.

He sighed heavily.

"God be with thee, thou sinful andvainglorious—thou rash and headstrong—lord!"said the priest; "now thou seest to what thymanifold transgressions against the blessedlaw have brought thee."

"It was my doom—my destiny," repliedthe Earl, pressing his bony hands upon histhin, wan temples.

"Nay, Lord Earl," replied the other, in asad and broken accent; "unless it be thata man maketh his own destiny, as assuredlythou didst thine."

"And who," he asked, endeavouring topierce the gloom with his hopeless eye; "whoart thou that speakest thus to Bothwell?"

"One, in other days, Lord Bothwell'ssteadfast friend. I am John Hepburn ofBolton—hast thou quite forgotten me? Iwas long the partner of thy folly—theabettor of thine insane ambition—the partakerof thy damning guilt! O miserere meiDeus!"

"Oh, Bolton! John of Bolton!" exclaimedthe fettered Earl, bursting into tears, andstretching forth his thin worn hands, whichthe priest grasped with fervour; "I knowthee now—and where I am, and what I am.And thou art now a priest? Oh, how muchthou art to be envied! Years—years havegone past me as the wind passes over theocean. As the waves arise and sink, theseyears have come and gone, and have left notrace on my memory. But I feel that Iam dying now!" he exclaimed in an unearthlyvoice; "Oh, God of my fathers! look downwith pity on me, the most abject of theirrace! Oh, John of Bolton! if Heaven shouldbe as unforgiving as earth—if God should beas inexorable as man!"

"Think not so, Bothwell"——

"Oh! it were indeed better that I shouldperish altogether, and pass into oblivion."

"Say not so," replied Bolton; "beholdthe flowers of the field, and the fruits of theearth; they spring up—they bloom—theywither, and die, but only to be reproducedat another season, more beautiful andblooming than before. So it is with men—and sowill it be with thee. All human memoryis freighted with care and sad remembrance"——

"But few with such remorse as mine."

"This contrition and grief are good,"replied the priest, as, with kindling eyes, hepointed upwards to Heaven; "by perishingthou shalt be preserved, and die but to berenewed for ever, and in such glory asthe mind of angels can alone conceive; forHe who is above us, beareth aloft thosescales, from which, on one hand, he metesout eternal life to the good and contrite—onthe other, the eternal punishment to theunrepentant."

"Thou hast been lately in Scotland," saidthe Earl abruptly.

"Nay; not for ten long years," repliedthe priest calmly.

"Ten, ten!" reiterated Bothwell, passinghis hands across his brow; "and what of Mary?"

"She is still a captive, with the axe of theEnglish queen hanging over her devoted head."

Bothwell started, as if he would haveleaped from the ground; but his strengthfailed him, and he sank heavily on the strawamong which he was chained.

"My energies, so briefly gained, aresinking fast again; but ere they leave me, andperhaps for ever—oh! thou who art a priest,bless me, for I have sinned! Hear myconfession—let it be written out, and attestedby the captain of my prison, that my lastearthly act may be one of justice to herwhom I have so deeply wronged. Oh,John of Bolton! thou knowest well that shewas the most innocent and artless of allGod's creatures! Quick, quick! as anatonement to her, and to the world, for allI have done—hasten, ere it be too late!"cried the Earl sinking back, overcome byweakness and despair.

The friar knocked hurriedly on thedungeon door; it was opened by a Danishpikeman, who, by his request, hastened tosummon the attendance of Biern Gowes,the castellan of Malmö and governor ofDraxholm. Unwillingly he came,accompanied by Christian Alborg, Otto Brawe,captain of the king's castle of Ottenbrocht,Baron Gullemstierne, and others, with whomhe had been drinking skiedam, till their faces,where visible through their red Danish beardsand outrageous whiskers, were flushed likescarlet—and in their presence, that documentnow so well known, the CONFESSIONof Bothwell's many crimes, and Mary'sinnocence of all that she had ever been accusedof, was written, attested, and sealed up fortransmission to King Frederick.

What a subject for a picture would thisepisode have formed!

That dreary vault of red granite, half-veiledin dusky obscurity, save where themoonlight struggled through a narrow sliton one hand; while, on the other, the flickeringlight of a single torch shed its fitfulglare on the unearthly form of the dyingEarl—hollow-eyed, pale, and attenuated toa skeleton—chained by the waist to his bedof straw, and sinking fast, with the deathrattle almost in his throat; the bald headand dark robe of the priest, who knelt byhis side writing down his dying words—thatpriest in other days his friend and knightlycomrade—on the tall, burly figures of thesleepy Danish governor and his friends, withtheir long beards, and fantastic costumestrimmed with sable fur, stooping over thesputtering torch, to hear the faint but terriblewords of those pale lips that were aboutto close for ever.

"Now, blessed be God, it is done!" criedthe Earl, closing his eyes; "for I feel that Iam passing from among you. I am dying!Oh, John of Bolton! in this dread momentlet me think that thou at least will stand bymy grave—will say one prayer for my soul;and, in memory of the days of other years,will remember me with pity and forgiveness!"

Bolton pressed his clammy hand, butthere was no return, for the jaw relaxed,and the eyes turned back within their sockets,announced that the soul of the Earlhad fled.

********

His grave lay under the old castle wall, ina lonely little dell.

It was shaded by the light leaves of thedwarf-birch and the purple flowers of thelilac tree; the blue forget-me-not, the whitestrawberry, and the yellow daisy, were plantedthere by the kind-hearted Swedes, in memoryof the poor stranger that had found a graveso far from his home, and from where thedust of his forefathers lay.

On St. Bothan's eve, for many a returningyear, a wandering priest was seen to kneelbeside that lonely grave, with eyes downcast,and a crucifix in his clasped hands; and afterpraying he would go sadly away, but whitherno one knew.

Year after year passed on, and still he cameto offer up that promised prayer for therepose of the dead man's soul; though on thegrave the weeds grew long and rank, and hewho lay within it had long since mingledwith the dust.

Those who first remembered the priestwhen they were little children, saw him stillreturning when they were men and womenin the prime of life—but then he wasdecrepit and old.

The last time he was seen was in the reignof King Christian IV., about the year 1622.His form was then bent with extreme old age,and he leaned upon a staff; his hair was thinand white—his cheeks were hollow, and hewept as he prayed.

He gazed long and wistfully at the grassytomb, and tottered away to return no more.

Where that poor priest died, no man knew.

And there lay the deserted grave in itsloneliness, by the shore of the northern sea,with the long grass waving on its solemnridge, till in time it became flattened andeffaced, and its memory was forgotten; forno kind hand ever raised a stone to markwhere that memorable instance of ambitionand misrule, the last Earl of the old line ofHailes and Bothwell, lay.

NOTES.

ANNA ROSENKRANTZ.

The foregoing story has been conceived from a passage inSUHM'S "SAMLINGES," or Collections for the History of Denmark.

As stated in the romance, there is every reason to believe thatJames Hepburn, the famous Earl of Bothwell, was married earlyin life to a Norwegian lady, Anne Throndson (daughter ofChristopher Throndson), prior to his marriage with Lady JeanGordon, of the house of Huntly, and that his possessing, by her,certain lands in Orkney, was the reason for his obtaining theDukedom of these Isles in 1567.—(See Les Affaires du Conte deBoduel: Bannatyne Club.)

After his battle with, and defeat at sea by, the celebrated SirWilliam Kirkaldy of Grange, Bothwell entered Karmesound, aharbour between the island of Karm and the mainland, wherehe was found by Captain Christian Alborg, commander of theBiornen, or Great Bear, a Danish ship of war. He immediatelydemanded Bothwell's passports and licence for sailing with flagdisplayed and cannon bent in the Danish seas; and, failing theirproduction, requested the Earl to follow him to Bergen up theJelta Fiord. In his declaration or report, Alborg states, "Thatamong the Scottish crew there was one dressed in old torn andpatched boatswain's clothes, who, some time afterwards, statedhimself to be the supreme ruler of all Scotland."

This was the Earl, with whom he reached the castle of Bergenon the 2nd September, 1567.

The governor of the castle and province, as stated in theromance, was Erick Rosenkrantz, a wealthy Danish noble, who,on the captain's report, appointed a committee of twenty-fourgentlemen to examine the captive. They met on the 23rdSeptember; among them were the bishop and four councillors ofBergen, who successively questioned Bothwell. He requestedand obtained leave to reside in the city. Among his followers,we are told, there was found "one David Wood, a famouspirate."

Magister Absalom Beyer, the minister of Bergen, who hasleft behind him a diary, called The Chapter Book, extending fromthe year 1533 to 1570, recorded the following, which is extractedfrom SUHM'S "SAMLINGES."

"1567, September 2—Came in (to Bergen harbour) the shipRoyal David, of which Christian Alborg is captain. He hadcaptured a Scottish noble, named James Hepburn, Earl ofBothwell, Duke of Orkney and Shetland, who had been weddedto the Queen of Scotland. He was suspected to have been inthe plot against the King's life. The Council of the kingdomhaving revolted against the Queen, this Earl escaped, and hascome hither to Norway.

"1567, September 17—I upbraided the Lady Anne, the daughterof Christopher Throndson, that the Earl of Bothwell had takenher from her native country, and yet would not keep her as hislawful wife, which he had promised her to do, with hand, mouth,and letters, which letters she caused to be read before him; and,whereas, he has three wives living—firstly, herself—secondly,another in Scotland, from whom he has bought (divorced?)himself—and, thirdly, Queen Mary. The Lady Anne opined, 'thathe was good for nothing.' Then he promised her an annualrent of a hundred dollars from Scotland, and a ship with all heranchors and cordage complete.

"1567, September 25—The Earl went to the Castle, whereErick Rosenkrantz did him great honour.

"1567, September 28—Erick Rosenkrantz made a splendidbanquet for the Earl and his followers.

"1567, September 30—The Earl departed on board the David,and was carried captive into Denmark, where he yet remains inthe Castle of Malmo at this time, 1568.

"1567, October 10—Part of the Earl's men were returned toScotland, on beard a small pink which Erick Rosenkrantz lentthem, and, it is said, they were all put to death on theirlanding."

The only discrepancy lies in one statement of the Magisterand the Committee; the former calls the Danish ship, the David;the latter, Biornen; but probably the Captain Alborg commandedtwo bearing these names.

From other passages in the diary, we find that so early as1563, Lady Anna Rosenkrantz moved in the best circle in theprovince (which she could not have done as Bothwell's mistress);and also that she was usually named Skottefruin, or the Scottishlady. Her second sister, Dorothy, was married to John Stewart,a gentleman of Shetland; and the third, Else', was thricemarried—the last time to Axel Mouatt, a Scottish gentleman settledin Norway.

The song sung by Anna in the first volume, is an old Norseor Lapland ballad, and is taken from Consett's Remarks in a Tourthrough Lapland.

II.—THE QUEEN'S APOTHECARY.

Three documents are still preserved in the General RegisterHouse of Edinburgh, from which we learn the name of thisperson, and other interesting items concerning that murder inthe Kirk-of-Field, which bears so prominent a place in theromance.

On the 12th February, this precept, written by the Earl ofHuntly, was issued by the Queen's order to Mr Robert Richardson,treasurer of Scotland, to pay £40 for perfuming the King'sbody.

"My Lord Thesaurar, forsamekle as the Queenis Majestieand Counsell has direckett ane Pottinger and Schirurgen tocaus perfume the Kingis body, and in respect that there is syndrithingis requirit to the samyn quhilkis thay hadde nocht, heirforethe Queenis Majestie has ordanit me to advertis you, that yecans delyver fourtie pundis for performance of sick necessars asappertenis thairtill, quhilkis sal be allouit to you, and delyver thesame to the Pottinger, and tak his vritting thairon; and for myawin part, I vald pray you effectualy that the said soume warperfarmit with diligence and delyverit in all haist, in respectthe same rynis to the Queenis Majesties honor and the halecuntrey.

"At the Palyce of Halirudhous, the xij. februar, 1566.

"Your L. guid freind, HUNTLYE."

"To my Lord Thesraur."

(In dorso.)

"Je, Martin Picauet, appore de la Royne de Scosse, Douairierede France, confesse auair Recu de Mr. Robert Richardson, tresorierdes finances de la diste dame, la soume de quatre vintz livresTourn., pour la fourniture des drogues pour l'ambamemente deRoy, de la quelle soume prometz en tenir compt au dist tresoreir,et a tous auttres Tesmointz mon seing Manuel cy mis le xij.,jour de februier mil cinq cent soixante et six, auant pasques.

"E. PICAUET."

The High Treasurer's Accounts contain two interestingentries for the above purpose,

"Item, the xij. day of Februar, be the Queenis grace's speciallcommand to Martine Picauet, ypothegar, to mak furnesing ofdroggis, spices, and utheris necessaris for oppining and perfumingof the Kingis grace Majesties umquhile bodie, as hisacquittance shawin upon compt beris, ... xl. li.

"Item, for colis, tubbis, hardis, barrellis, and utheris necessarispreparit for bowalling of the Kingis grace. ... xlvj. s."

For more information concerning this, see the third volume ofARCHÆOLOGIA SCOTICA, from which this is taken.

III.—QUEEN MARY'S ARCHERS.

"The Archearis of our Soverane Ladyis Gaird," seem to havenumbered only seventy-five on their muster roll, in the books ofthe Comptroller and Collector of the Thirds of Benefices, 1stApril, 1562. The pay list is as follows:—

"*Item*, To the Captain of the Guard, . . . . . v. c. lib."To Robert Stewart, Ensign, . . . . . . . . . . j. c. l. lib."To Corporal Jenat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . l. v. li."To Captain Bello . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . j. c. lib."To Captain Hew Lawder . . . . . . . . . . . . lxxv. lib."

Six Frenchmen, Dionese and Charles La Brone, Duval, LaBram, La Fram, Savoy, and a Trumpeter, appear on the list.

This garde-du-corps, which were enrolled under Sir ArthurErskine, 1st April, 1562, or not quite a year after the Queen'sreturn from France, continued under pay till 1567, when theywere disbanded on her imprisonment in Lochleven. See theMaitland Club Miscellany.

IV.—BOTHWELL.

The following document is so little known, and so immediatelyrelates to the melancholy fate of the unhappy hero ofthese pages, that an apology is almost unnecessary for presentingit here to the reader. It is the royal order for imprisoning himin the Castle of Malmö:—

Til Biorn Kaas.

"FREDERICK—Be it known unto you, that we have orderedour well-beloved Peder Oxe, our man, Councillor and Marshallof the Kingdom of Denmark, to send the Scottish Earl, whoresides in the Castle of Copenhagen, over to our Castle of Malmo,where he is to remain for some time. Therefore we request ofyou, that you will prepare the same vaulted room in the Castlewhere the Marshal Eyler Hardenberg had his apartment; andthat you will cover with mason-work the private place in thesame chamber; and where the iron bars of the windows may notbe sufficiently strong and well guarded, that you will have themrepaired; and when he arrives, that you will put him in the saidchamber, give him a bed and good entertainment, as Peder Oxewill further direct and advise you; and that you, before all things,will keep a strong guard, and hold in good security, the saidEarl, as you may best devise, in order that he shall not escape.

"THER MET SKEER WOR WILGE. (Thereby our will is done.)

"Written at Fredericksborg, the 28th day of December, of theyear after the birth of Christ, 1567."

(See Les Affaires du Conte de Boduel, 4to.)

END OF VOL. III.

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

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOTHWELL, VOLUME III (OF 3) ***