Chapter II: Part 2

While sharing the stranger's hospitality, the young Norwegian, whom anxiety for his young charge had rendered suspicious of every one, covertly but keenly scrutinized him.

He was a powerfully but sparely formed man, whose well-strung limbs had been reduced to mere bone and brawn by constant exercise. His face was pleasant, good-humoured, and manly; he wore a short beard, and close shorn hair; his cheekbones were somewhat prominent; but his keen and dark grey eye had an expression, that by turns was full of boldness and penetration, merriment and fun. Beneath his gaberdine, which was of the coarsest white Galloway cloth, Konrad could perceive an excellent jack of jointed mail; a grey maud or Border plaid was thrown loosely over his broad chest and brawny shoulders; his flat worsted bonnet and a knotty oak cudgel lay on the floor, under the guardianship of a rough wiry cur. Konrad judged him to be a substantial yeoman or farmer, though at times his language and manner unguardedly imported something better.

He, on the other hand, while eating and drinking with the appetite and thirst of a strong and healthy fellow, who since sunrise had been travelling fast and far, quite as keenly scrutinized Konrad, whose occupation and degree he found himself puzzled to determine.

"By the set of thy head, and aspect of thine eye, I would say thou hast been something of a soldier, master," said the Scot.

"I have been more of a huntsman than a soldier, perhaps; yet I have done a little in both lines."

"Good! I love thee for that; thy life hath been checkered, like mine own. Thou art not one of our ain kindly Scots, or else thou hast attained the true twang of the foreigner. Peradventure, hast been pushing thy fortune under the banner of stout Sir Walter Scott, whose Border bands are now covering themselves with immortal honour on the frontiers of Saxony?"

"Nay! my sword has never been drawn against others than the fat citizens of Lubeck and Hamburg."

"Profitable warfare I would take that to be, and pleasant withal; for these Hanseatic burghers can wade above their baldricks in rixdollars, say our Leith shippers. So, then, thou art of Flanders?"

Willing to deceive him a little, Konrad nodded.

"I guessed thou wert a Fleming," replied the yeoman, laughing, "and so my heart warmed to thee; for they are all stout men and true. Mass! my own mother, who now sleeps at St. Mary in the Lows, was a Fleming of the house of Wigton, whose forbear, Baldwin le Flemyng, came from thy country in the days of St. David, to take knight's service, as I doubt not thou meanest to do."

Konrad again assented to his garrulous companion.

"Then there will be work enow for thy sword by Lammas-tide; for the stout Earl of Bothwell is about to make a royal raid into Clydesdale."

"Saidst thou Bothwell?" ejaculated Konrad, in a thick voice, and glancing hastily at Anna, who was now buried in a profound slumber, with her face concealed in her mantle.

"Yea, Bothwell--one of our queen's prime favourites; but there will be many a lance broken, and many a steed left riderless, ere he shall traverse all the windings of the Liddle. By St. Mary! but they must keep sharp watch and ward at the gate of his castle of Hermitage; for by this time, I warrant, the troopers of John of Park have all been riding by moss and moor."

"Who is this John of Park, of whom I hear so many speak, either with hatred or applause?"

"The chief of the brave clan Elliot, and long Lord Bothwell's mortal foe."

"Then would to Heaven I could meet this John of Park!"

"Hah!" exclaimed the countryman, whose eyes sparkled; "and for what end?"

"That under his banner I might have some chance of meeting Bothwell in his armour, lance to lance, and horse to horse. O God! thou alone knowest how much I have suffered at his hands, and what I have to avenge!"

"Is it thus with thee?" said the Scot; "swear that thou dost not deceive me.

"By all that is holy, I swear!"

"Good. To-morrow I shall lead thee to John Elliot of Park, who needeth much a few such spirits as thee," replied the other, in the same low tone under which the conversation had been maintained.

Here a clatter of horses' hoofs in the adjoining wynd, together with the jingle of steel bridles and two-handed swords, announced the arrival of more important guests.

"Now here cometh the Earl of Morton and his swash-bucklers--a pest on them!" muttered the countryman, instinctively grasping his cudgel; while the bluff host and his buxom better-half bustled about in a high state of excitement, dusting the long oaken table, adjusting the fire, placing fir buffet-stools, and trimming the long candles that flared in the tin wall-sconces.

*CHAPTER VI.*

*THE EARL OF MORTON.*

Dark Morton, girt with many a spear,
Murder's foul minion!
_Scott._

Attended by a train of forty armed horsemen, this potent noble had arrived.

His men, as they dismounted, placed their long and unwieldy lances against the wall of the inn yard, and set about stabling their steeds with ready activity. Followed by Archibald Douglas, laird of Whittinghame, and Hume of Spott--two gentlemen of his retinue--this factious, proud, and ferocious lord, whose name is so infamous from the dark and bloody share which he took in all the deep intrigues and civil broils of that unhappy period, entered the hall of the hostelry; and certainly, from the smile that spread over his handsome features, curving his fine mouth, and lighting up his brilliant hazel eye--and from the dignity of his aspect, and the magnificence of his yellow damask doublet, embroidered with gold, his purple velvet trunks, which were slashed with white and edged with point d'Espagne, where they joined his hose of Naples silk--the politeness with which he removed his black beaver, with its long white feather, and on entering saluted the hostess with a kiss, and the host with a thump between the shoulders--no one, we say, who saw his general aspect and bearing, would have recognized the same savage and avaricious noble, who, as it was commonly said, "never spared man in his vengeance, nor woman in his lust"--who murdered Captain Cullen for possession of his beautiful wife--who poisoned the Regent Mar to secure the regency--who hung sixty men, as a pastime before breakfast, at Leith Loan--and who was yet foredoomed, to die on the scaffold for the greatest of all human crimes.

Adam Ainslie bowed and bowed again, and Lucky Ainslie curtseyed, in concert, a dozen of times, so well as their corpulent figures would permit.

"How dost thou, stout Adam?" said the Earl, merrily, as he took his seat at the highest part of the chamber board. "Save us! but this meat smelleth savourily, and my evening ride hath given me a wolfs appetite. By the rood I mine host--(pest upon these old oaths of papistry, but how they stick to one's fancy!)--thou wearest noble hosen," continued the Earl, jocosely, as, with his walking-cane, he poked Adam's preposterously bombasted trunk-breeches. "Dost thou know that the Lord Bothwell and other gallants aver, that thy gudewife keepeth all her bed and table napery stuffed into them?"

"Your lordship is pleased to be merry," simpered Dame Ainslie, placing stools for the Earl's jackmen, who came crowding in with all their iron paraphernalia clanking, and dimmed with summer dust; and a terrible clatter they made with their long spurs, gigantic boots and gambadoes, long swords and jeddard staves, as they took all the best places at the hearth and table, hustling into the background the countryman and his two companions.

Awakened by the uproar of their entrance, Anna clung fearfully to Konrad's arm; and he remarked that their new acquaintance kept as much as possible in the background, and wore his grey plaid high up on his weatherbeaten visage.

"Hast thou no city news, Master Adam?" said the Earl. "Thou knowest that one might as well bide at the bottom of a draw-well as in that lonely tower of Dalkeith. How stand the markets? and how like our burghers their new provost, the stout knight of Craigmillar?"

"By my troth, Lord Earl, there is a southland yeoman ben there who ought to ken mair of market stock than I. The queen's byding at Lithgow makes the toun dull and eerie; for the second spiering, I may say auld Sir Simon is liket right well, for he sheweth small mercy to mass-priest and papist; gif they be found within the Fortes, they dree a douking in the Nor' Loch for the first offence, and a clean drowning in Bonnington Linn for the second. His riders had a lang chase nae farther gane than yesterday, frae Wardie peel to the Braid's burn, after a mass-priest, Sir James Tarbet, who had been found lamenting over his broken idols in the chapel of St. James by the sea; but I grieve that they failed to catch him."

"Beware thee, Adam!" said the knight of Whittinghame, "or thou mayest get a broken head for broaching such free opinions in an hostellary. The head of antichrist is still floating above the current of public opinion."

"Hath Monsieur de Rambouillet, the new French ambassador, arrived?" asked the laird of Spott.

"He landed yesterday at the New Haven from Monsieur de Villaignon's galley; and, preceded by the heralds and bailies of the town, was conducted to Willie Cant's hostel in the Kirkgate of Leith, close by St. Anthony's gate."

"I marvel mickle that he came not to thee, good Adam."

"I marvel mair," added the host, testily; "for there is no an hostel in a' broad Scotland, and that's a wide word, where there is better uppitting baith for man and beast than the _Red Lion_; beside, 'tis a clean insult to the gude toun his lying at a Leither's hostel; but I owe this to a leather-selling bailie in Niddry's Wind, who I outvoted in the council anent the double and single-soled shoon, that made sic a stir among the craftsmen. Ken ye, my Lord Earl, on whatna errand Maister Rambooly hath come hither?"

"Some new popish league, I warrant," said the laird of Spott, curling his grisly beard. "'Tis said that the Hugonets, jealous of such a body of Switzers being marched into the Isle of France, are resolving upon open war."

"Thou mistakest, Spott," replied the Earl, with a dark frown. "Gif the best man in France came hither on any such devil's errand, I would slit his tongue with my own dagger. He hath come from Charles IX., to bestow on King Henry the collar of St. Michael the archangel. Her majesty comes from Linlithgow in three days, and we shall have the ceremony of installation at Holyrood thereafter."

"She will be here in three days, the Queen--hearest thou, Anna?" whispered Konrad. She pressed his hand in reply, and drooped her head upon his shoulder; and the heart of Konrad sickened at the reflection, that the action was prompted only by the abandonment of despair.

"St. Michael's collar!" continued the laird of Spott; "the king should kneel on Rizzio's gravestone at this notable investment. Doth it not smell of popery and brimstone?"

"So the godly Maister Knox openly affirmit in a sermon preached this blessed day," said dame Ainslie, turning up her saucer-like eyes at the soul-stirring recollection thereof; "preached--ay, in the High Kirk, (named St. Giles by the idolaters,) and he advisit the crafts to hurl the stanes of the street upon Rambooly, as the son of anti-christ."

"Master Knox should beware, and bethink him that the persons of ambassadors are sacred," replied the Earl; "but on what other points did he touch in his notable discourse to-day?"

"Oh! he spoke in a way whilk was rapturous and soul-feeding to hear, anent the abomination of singing idolatrous carols at Yule-tide, the great sin of singing ought but psalms, and of all loud laughter and ungodly merriment, whilk becometh not poor sinners like us, in the slough of despondency. He railed at the Queen and the Lord Darnley--the one for her obstinate papistrie, and the other for his wicked life--and then he spoke o' the reiving bordermen in general, and John o' Park in particular, on whom he fulminated a' the curses that ever were crammed into a cardinal's excommunication, as being the strongest and most desperate thief in a' the south country, since puir John o' Gilnokie dree'd his dreich penance from King James."

"Said he aught of the Lord Bothwell?"

"Yea, my lord--that he had taken a hawk from an ill nest."

"Meaning his espousal of a popish woman of the house of Huntly," said Morton. "Well, said he aught of me?"

"Nay, my lord--Heaven forefend! Art thou not one of his boon and steadfast friends?"

"Right--he would not talk of me," replied the fierce noble, with one of his deep smiles; and striking his walking-cane on the floor, an involuntary custom of his, added, "Well, then, master hosteller, let us to supper, for I am ravenous as a hawk, and this noble baron of beef seemeth done to a single turn. If this strange gentleman will so far favour me as to deign"----

"Excuse me, Lord Earl, but I have already supped," replied Konrad, bowing with the distant air of one who wishes to be undisturbed and unrecognised. Morton's pride and curiosity were piqued.

"Thou art English, I think, by the fashion of thy beard, and, doubtless, hast a passport from the marshal of Berwick. I will pardon the bluntness with which thou declinest my courtesy, and will add, that thou mayest find the shadow of my banner a good protection, if the quarrels between the dainty queens of these realms end in blows; for our little dame looks sourly upon thine, deeming her little else than a false bastard and base usurper."

"Thou art mistaken, Lord Earl. I am not an Englishman."

"Then what manner of man art thou, fair sir? thou seest I have a restless curiosity. A stranger?"

"At thy service, noble lord. I understand thou art the great Earl of Morton--the foe of my foe."

"At the Scottish court each man is foe to every one else. I am, in fact, a little Earl compared with such a tall fellow as Bothwell. But I may easily be the foe of thy foe, seeing that the half of broad Scotland would readily drench my doublet in Douglas blood, gif they could; but," he added with hauteur, "who is thy foe?"

"James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell!" replied Konrad in the same manner, for he was displeased by the peculiar accentuation.

"Hah! is it so? Thou art a bold fellow to mention that name otherwise than in a whisper, for it findeth an echo every where now. Knowest thou not," he added, with a glance of ferocious scorn, "that the white horse of Hepburn is now bidding fair to swallow the crowned heart of Douglas? I ask not the cause of thine enmity to this man, but if thou wishest an opportunity of seeing him in his helmet, follow my banner for one month or so; for I tell thee that the heather is smouldering on our Scottish hills, and erelong 'twill burst into a red and furious flame."

"Excuse me, potent Earl," replied Konrad, for at that moment the countryman plucked him anxiously by the sleeve; "excuse me, for I am in some sort pledged to another."

"Please thyself, a-God's name! and now let us to supper."

*CHAPTER VII.*

*MORTON TURNS PHILANTHROPIST.*

"Blessed be the Lord for all his gifts;
Defied the deil and all his shifts;
God send us mair siller--_amen!_"

Such was the grace, which, with half mockery and half gravity, the Earl of Morton, who acted the rigid presbyter and stern reformer merely when it suited his own fancy or peculiar ends, commenced the repast which Adam Ainslie's pantryman had arranged upon the long oak chamber-board, as a table was then named.

The upper end was covered by a cloth of damask, flowered with red silk; the lower was bare; the guests of rank were furnished with knives and spoons of silver, with glasses of Venetian crystal, delft platters, and pewter trenchers. The lower had only wooden caups and luggies--quaighs and spoons of horn--the great saltseller forming the grand point of demarcation between the two classes of society who were to partake of the same meal, at the same board, in the kindly fashion of other years. The Earl and his gentlemen sat above; their rough-visaged troopers, unhelmeted, but still wearing their corselets and gorgets, swords and gambadoes, sat below it, closely, side by side, on buffet stools and wooden benches.

They were accommodated with porridge and luggies of sour-milk; a handful of prunes thrown into each platter, with cheese and cakes of mashlum, (flower made of ground peas and barley,) and horns of ale, formed their evening fare; but the savoury baron of beef, a pasty of powts, (or muirfowl,) a pudding of plumbs and spices, with flasks of choice Canary, Rochelle, and Bordeaux, at only sixpence or ninepence Scots the pint, garnished the upper end; and to this early supper, for which our late dinners are now a substitute, this jovial company sat down, just as the four old bells of St. Giles rang the hour of nine.

"'Tis savoury meat this, Mistress Ainslie," said the Earl; "and it well deserved a better blessing."

"Whence hadst thou it, lucky?" asked the Knight of Whittinghame, a grim and bearded man; "for here is what I would call the prick of a lance."

"A true Border mark, by Mahoud!" added Hume of Spott.

"Ye say true, sirs; it may be a gore-mark," replied Dame Ainslie, curtseying; "for ken ye, the beast was the best of a drove of four hundred, lifted in Nichol forest by John of Park, whose riders sauld it to my gudeman in the fleshmercat."

"English fed, by the rood!" said the bearded knight, cutting down another slice. "Here is another goad-mark! I warrant me, John's prickers had been sorely pressed by the English captain of Bewcastle, or the lances of the Wardenrie."

"These wild powts are right tasty, host of mine," said the Earl; "whence come they?"

"From the muirlands about the toun, my lord. They are thick as locusts on the braes of the Nor' Loch and Wardie muir. One crossbow shot brings down two at once in the feeding time."

From a nook, in which she had hitherto sat unseen, Anna had surveyed, with a terror which she could scarcely repress, the number of armed men who crowded the apartment. There was a reckless, daredevil aspect about them all; their armour was rusty, and their other attire well worn; in grisly profusion, their beards and whiskers fringed their weatherbeaten faces, which were all more or less stamped with ruffianism; for Morton, notwithstanding the placid suavity of his manner, was as oily a ruffian as ever drew a dagger--and, instead of his rural vassals, he generally preferred to be attended by a band of paid "wageours," as those military desperadoes were named, who swarmed throughout Scotland after the wars between the Congregation and Mary of Lorraine had ceased.

"Konrad," said she, tremblingly, as she clung to his arm; "let us leave this place"----

"For whence?--the wayside?--to be exposed to the midnight dew, and wild animals, perhaps?"

"Surely any place is preferable to this. The faces of these men terrify me!"

Ere Konrad could reply, the Earl of Morton, who had acute ears for such matters, on hearing the soft voice of a woman, bent his keen dark eyes towards where Anna was shrinking into the shadow, formed by a projection of the wall. He divined her sex in an instant; but with his usual cunning concealed this discovery.

"'Tis a pretty lad, this, sir stranger!" said he to Konrad, kindly. "Is he thy page, or thy brother; for he cannot be thy son?"

Konrad hesitated a moment, and then replied--

"My brother, noble lord! as thou perhaps mayest see by our resemblance. We have the same fair hair, and the same light eyes."

"Thou art come hither, thou saidst, to bear a lance in some knight's train. Dost design thy sickly brother for such rough work?"

"Not at present, my lord. He has been over-tenderly nurtured for saddling horses and scouring armour. I would rather leave him to bear the fardingale of some noble lady, could I meet with such, while I push my fortune in the camp."

"So far I may have it in my power to befriend thee," rejoined the cunning Earl, with a sly wink at his two companions. "Come hither, my boy, and let me see thee?"

Thus commanded by this terrible peer, Anna felt herself impelled to obey; and she approached the Earl, whose long beard appalled, while his keen dark eyes seemed to penetrate, the most secret thoughts of her palpitating heart. He took her by the hand; and one glance at its fair soft fingers and beautiful form, together with the pallor of her changing cheek, and the timidity of her downcast face, convinced him that a very bewitching woman was concealed under that boy's plain doublet and mantle.

"That will do, boy--seat thyself," said he, lest his companions, the dissolute lairds of Spott and Whittinghame, might make the same discovery. Morton formed his plan in a moment, and resolved by open force, if not by secret fraud--a course he usually preferred--to obtain possession of this fair foreigner. He again addressed Konrad.

"Thou knowest me, fair sir--I believe?"

"Yes, noble sir, to be the most powerful of the Scottish peers."

"After the great Earl of Bothwell," said Morton, with mock humility. "I will place thy brother in the service of a noble lady connected with the court, where he will be daily in the presence of her Majesty the Queen, if thou wilt trust me so far."

"Lord Earl, I cannot find words to thank thee!" replied Konrad, touched to the soul by this sudden kindness.

"Pest!" said Spott, "his fortune will be made. Thou knowest our queen's partiality for strangers and outlandish people."

"Earl Morton, were I not pledged to another, (and I never break my work even to the most humble,) thy standard alone would I follow, to requite with my sword"----

"And to whose pennon art thou pledged?"

Here the peasant plucked Konrad by the mantle, and whispered,--"Say John of Park, and they will hang thee from that rooftree!" but Konrad was relieved from the dilemma by Douglas of Whittinghame exclaiming with a hoarse laugh--

"Ha! ha! here is James of Morton, the lord of the lion's den, turning philanthropist! ha! ha! ha!"

"Can thy brother not speak for himself?" said the Earl.

"The boy is timid and bashful."

"The women will soon teach him impudence."

"Excuse him, noble sir"----

"Say I am thankful," whispered Anna in a broken voice, while her tears fell fast; "for though grieved to the heart at parting from thee, dear Konrad, the protection of one of my own sex is so necessary, that--and then to be near the queen, that she may hear my mournful story! O! what will I not risk? Yes--yes! to this great lord say that I thank him from my inmost soul, and will accept his generous offer."

"And what, may I ask, is the name of the noble lady who is to receive this boy as a gift?" asked Konrad, after he had complied with Anna's desire.

"The Dame Alison Craig," replied the Earl. "She dwells close bye here, a few doors up the wynd, in a house that was once a convent, but is now adapted to more useful purposes. It hath been reformed--ha! ha! She is a lady of fair repute, and keepeth open house for the rich. By my beard! I know not what would become of Messieurs the ambassadors of France, Spain, and Savoy, and all the gay chevaliers and signiors of their suites, in this gloomy city of psalms and sermonizing, but for Dame Alison's suppers and balls."

Though Konrad did not understand this speech, he partly detected the sly expression of eye with which it was accompanied; but, in his Scandinavian simplicity and honesty of heart, he never imagined it was an infamous courtesan the treacherous Earl was praising; and, pleased with the hope that Anna would so easily obtain access to the queen's presence, he once more thanked him, briefly and sincerely, and, after the grace-cup had been handed round by the hostess, the guests prepared for repose.

The Earl and his gentlemen were conducted to chambers in the upper regions of the lofty hostell, the host marshalling the way with a flambeau; but their jackmen lay on the hearth, on the benches, and under the hall tables, with their steel caps for pillows, and their swords and axes beside them.

Touched with the melancholy that was impressed on Konrad's handsome face, and with the singular beauty of the seeming boy who accompanied him, the hostess offered the brothers, as she deemed them, "a snug box-bed in the guest row, bein and cosy, gif they would accept of it--nae difference to be made in the lawing."

Though Anna understood little of the Scottish woman's language, with quick perception she divined, by Konrad's confused expression, the nature of the invitation, and a blush burned on her face. He hastened to remove it, by hurriedly declining; and, wrapped up in their mantles, they took their repose on the wooden benches as well as their sad thoughts would permit them; while coiled up in his grey maud, with a hand on his poniard and his bonnet drawn over his face, their first acquaintance, the countryman, lay snoring melodiously beside them, with his red-eyed terrier keeping watch and ward by his side.

*CHAPTER VIII.*

*JOHN OF PARK.*

"He blythely blew his silver call,
And, ere the echoes slept,
One hundred archers, stout and tall,
Appealed on right and left.
These are my body guard, fair sir:
Should fortune prove unkind,
Or foes our haunts invade, there are
Full fifty more behind."
_Ballad._

Grey morning was breaking, and its light struggled through the barred windows of the hostellary, edging with cold lustre and bringing into bold relief the harsh and fierce features, the muscular figures, and uncouth accoutrements of Morton's bearded troopers. They were still sleeping on the hard oak planks when the peasant stirred Konrad, and whispered--

"Fair sir, I am about to depart. If thou art still in the mood to follow John of Park to battle and foray against Bothwell--arise, and come forth!"

"I am ready," replied Konrad, feeling for the purse that hung at his girdle.

"Nay, nay, heed not the lawing! I will settle with our host's yeoman of the pantry, and thou canst do me service another time. Come softly forth; for I wish not to disturb these bloodhounds of the house of Morton."

Rising gently, the young man clasped on his steel cap, and gave a glance full of sorrow and anguish at Anna's fair and sleeping face, over which he drew the skirt of her mantle; and, praying that Heaven might take her under its peculiar care, hurried away.

"'Tis better--oh yes!--'tis better," thought he. "She is now under more powerful protection than I could afford her; and, in the whirl of war and strife, I may (for a time at least) forget that hopeless passion which her presence is turning into madness."

While his new friend, and one of the drowsy servitors, whom he had roused from his snug nest among the hay in the loft above the stables, were removing the ponderous wooden bar of the pend or archway, Konrad felt a hand laid lightly on his arm; he turned, and met Anna's tearful eyes fixed sorrowfully and pleadingly on his.

"Wouldst thou really go without bidding me one kind adieu?" she said tenderly, in the language of their native land.

"I deemed it better, Anna. Partings are ever painful, and I hoped to see thee soon again."

"My heart is oppressed by fears and misgivings"----

"Let them cease, I pray thee; but oh! above all things, carefully preserve thy disguise. Remain with this noble; he is great and powerful, and in his train, three days hence will doubtless find thee in the presence of the Scottish Queen. Once there, thou art safe. Throw thyself at her feet, and there pour out thy tears and thy sorrows together. Mary of Scotland, say the people of every land save her own, is good and gentle, pious, compassionate, and kind. Thou art sure to triumph. Farewell, Anna! may our blessed Lady, whose intercession is never sought in vain, protect and bless thee!"

"Thou wilt come and see me sometimes, Konrad--at court, I mean; for surely I must remain there after my story is heard!"

"And forget old Norway?" said Konrad, with a sad smile.

"_Gammle Norge!_" reiterated Anna; "ah, never! but I would wish that some great lady, fair, beautiful, and rich, should see thee, and love thee, and, and"----

"What?"

"Make amends for the worthless heart thou hast lost."

"Never, Anna!" responded the young man in a troubled voice, while he regarded her with a gaze of love as deep as in the days of yore. "That can never be--Konrad's die is cast;" and, kissing her hands, he sprang through the archway, and, with his mind in a tumult of confusion, hurried after his guide.

A sense of sadness, desolation, and doubt, were ever uppermost in his thoughts, and absorbed all his faculties.

There were none stirring in the city at that early hour; the streets were silent and deserted; and grimly in the grey morning the grated windows of its lofty mansions, tall, and strong, and spectral, with their turnpike towers, crow-stepped gables and Flemish roofs, frowned over the narrow way.

"What time of the morning is it, thinkest thou, for I never could afford me a pocket-dial?" said the peasant, as they descended St. Mary's Wynd.

"About two hours of matin-prime yet."

"Matin-prime hath not rung for these ten years and more from the steeples of Edinburgh," replied the other, with a dark look; "but please God a day shall come, when all the services of our blessed church, the _sexte and *none_, the _vesper_ and _nocturnal_, shall toll from every steeple in broad Scotland."

"Shall we meet John of Park in the city?"

"Marry, come up! thinkest thou he values his poor head so lightly that he trusts it there? Though of a sooth to say, 'tis worth more than I thought it; for there, on yonder gate, we will find that the lords of the land offer a hundred unicorns of gold for it. I never could read a line myself; but I heard a certain notary's servitor, a dainty youth in black buckram and a white ruff, read it to the gaping rabble yesternight. A hundred golden unicorns! ha! ha! John of Park, my poor knave! look well to thy harnpan, lest some day thou findest it grinning on yonder spikes!"

With a boisterous laugh, his guide directed Konrad's attention to a huge placard posted on the Porte of St. Mary. This barrier, which extended from east to west across the Pleasance, and gave access to the Wynd and Canongate, was removed in the seventeenth century.

The paper, which was surmounted by the rude engraving of a thistle and crown, with the initials M.R., purported to be the offer of one hundred unicorns for the "notour rebelle, traitor, and murtherour, at ye Queen's majesties home, John Elliot, umquhile designate of Parke." Imprinted by Thomas Bassandyne, one of the earliest Edinburgh printers, whose establishment was near the Netherbow.

As they left the city behind, pursuing the path that skirted the royal park, and (by the same narrow way that the good St. Margaret had rode on many a day to her gifted well) led towards the old collegiate church of Restalrig, with the ruined dwellings of its banished prebendaries nestling among the old orchards of the monkish days--the sun came up in splendour from his burnished bed in the German sea, and the summits of the city, and of the dark-green hills that overhung it, were reddened by the joyous light. Up, and farther up, soared the god of day in his glory; and Gulane Hill, St. Baldred's isle of rock, and the volcanic cone of Berwick Law, were mellowed in the morning haze.

Leaving the bridle path that led to the dwelling of the factious and turbulent Lord of Restalrig, they entered upon the dreary waste named the Figgate Whins, where, from time immemorial, the monks of Holyrood had grazed their flocks of sheep and cattle. Bordered by a low and sandy shore, and uncheered by a single habitation, this wide and lonely waste extended from the western ramparts of Leith to the chapel of Magdalene--a little oratory by the seaside, nearly four miles distant. The fragment of an ancient Roman way traversed the moorland, which was still as death, save where a few cattle browsed on the patches of grass; and each of them had a sprig of ash-tree tied with red tape to their horns, as a charm against disease and witchcraft. The gurgle of the Figgate burn flowing into the ocean, whose crested waves rolled in light on the yellow sand--and the cawing of the rooks, that were wheeling aloft from their nests in the ruined oratory--were the only sounds that broke the stillness; for Konrad, oppressed by his own sad thoughts, did not converse much--and his companion had also become somewhat taciturn and reserved.

This muir was studded by great thickets of dark-green whin, and mossy knolls, marking the roots of gigantic oaks, the remnants of that great forest whose shady dingles had once spread from the hills of Braid to the ocean, and which many a time and oft had echoed to the trumpets and timbrels of the Emperor Severus and Julius Agricola. There were deep hollows, mosshags, and sandpits, by the wayside; and, altogether, the place, as they progressed, seemed to become so fitted for outrage, murder, and robbery, that Konrad began to view with suspicion the tall and brawny fellow who had led him thus far, and who marched on a pace or two before, with his grey plaid waving in the wind, his bonnet drawn over his face, while with his knotty staff he hewed in a swordsman-like fashion at the broom-bells and thistle-heads that bordered the Roman causeway.

"Is it in this place we are to meet the knight whose pennon I am to follow?" asked Konrad.

"Yes!"

"And how saidest thou he was named?"

"The Laird of Park! a name at which men cock their lugs in Liddesdale."

"And where is he now?"

"Before thee!" said the other, drawing himself up, and raising his bonnet from his broad and manly brow. "I am Sir John Elliot of Park!"

"Thou!" exclaimed the young Norwegian, stepping back a pace, with a frown of anger and surprise, that his helmet partly concealed. "Peasant churl! how canst thou be that brave knight whom all men characterise as the foe of the great Earl of Bothwell, though thou mayest well be the strong thief he is said to be!"

"A salmon from the pool, a wand from the wood, a deer from the hill, or a drove of nolt from our English foemen, are thefts that no man hath need to blush for."

"By St. Olaf! I will rather forego my chance of meeting Bothwell in battle than follow such as thee. Nay, nay; fallen as he is, Konrad of Saltzberg hath not yet come so low as to seek suit or service from a low-born peasant!"

Long and loudly laughed the borderer at this remark, till his sunburnt face grew purple.

"Dost thou think, when I ventured into Edinburgh to learn how matters were likely to go with us in Liddesdale, I would enter with my pennon borne before me, and sound a trumpet at its gates? By St. Mary! no--and I care not mickle whether I don a blue bonnet, or Naples beaver, or a steel basinet, provided it keeps my head on my shoulders for the time. But tarry a moment, gentle sir; and, peradventure, thou wilt acknowledge there may be worse leaders than Jock Elliot of Park."

On approaching the chapel and bridge of Mary Magdalene, he placed to his mouth a small bugle of ivory, exquisitely carved and mounted with silver, and blew one clear low blast, that rang along the sandy shore, and immediately a knight's pennon and the glittering heads of sixty bright lances appeared above the broom, as they were uplifted in the sunshine, and there rode down the opposite bank a band of moss-troopers, armed, after the Scottish border fashion, in jacks of leather covered with little iron plates, steel gloves, gorgets, and basinets, and having two-handed swords slung from their shoulder-belts. As they approached the bridge-end, their strong, fleet, and active horses, though covered with dew and dust, seemed still fresh and active.

"Behold my pennon, fair sir!" said the Knight of Park, pointing to the scarlet bannerole, which bore on a golden bend _a flute_, the pastoral cognizance of the Elliot clan. "And these are a few of my Liddesdale lads; so, if thou art ashamed to follow the one in the ranks of the other, here we part, and in all friendship I say--God keep thee!"

"Nay--I crave pardon! I pledged my word to serve, and will keep the pledge."

"Then be it so. Ho there, Edie o' Earlshope!--Lauchey wi' the lang spear!--my horse and armour!" cried the knight, throwing down his bonnet and plaid; and immediately a strong and beautiful horse, stoutly, but plainly, bitted and caparisoned, bearing on its saddle a bundle of armour, was led forward by the laird's henchman, the said Edie, a muscular but spare sample of the thorough-bred moss-trooper.

His eyes and hair were of the deepest black, his face was long and lean, and by constant exposure had been tanned to the colour of mahogany. The bristly mustaches that overhung the clasps of his battered morion, were like iron wire. His powerful form seemed a model of muscular strength and activity, but his legs were considerably curved by constant riding; his armour was well worn, and by frequent use, rather than care, the grasp and pommel of his long and ponderous sword, that hung from a chain over his shoulder, was polished as brightly as if by a cutler's hand. Though Edie was merely the chartered portioner or crofter of Earlshope from the laird, there was much more of the outlaw than the farmer, and still more of the ruffian than the soldier, in his aspect.

"Park, thou art right welcome among us!" said he, with the respectful familiarity of a Scottish vassal to his lord in those days, when the interests of the people and their superiors were _one_. "What may be the tidings in yonder city?"

"Such as will cause sharp swords and sure watches to be kept in every tower that looks down on the Liddle, good gossip."

"Wow, laird!--and what be they?"

"The Lord Warden of the three marches, with four thousand lances in his train, is about to lead a raid among us, and meaneth to pay me such a visit as King James did John of Gilnokie."

"Weel--I carena a brass bodle!" growled the moss-trooper, as with a ready hand he buckled on his leader's coat-of-mail, and assisted him to mount. "I havena had a straw growing on Earlhope-rigs since Lammas-tide was 1560; nor a cow in the byre, save what I won in fair foray;--sae, gif we take to hill and moss again, we canna be mickle the waur."

"By the blood of Broomholm!" swore his chief; "gif I take to moss and moor, let the Lord Warden look to it, for I may chance one day to whet my lance on the groundstone of his own castle of Bothwell! Hast thou a horse for my friend?"

"By my faith have we--for ten friends!" replied the henchman, pointing to a troop of led horses, whose halters were fastened to troopers' bridles.

"And where got ye these nags?"

"Ou! just in the onsteadings owre the hill yonder, where I took a turn wi' Dandy Dumpie and Langspear, between the night and morning, to keep us frae wearying when waiting on ye. But as the crofters may be missing their cattle about this time, and set the countryside astir, 'twere wise to make use of rowel and rein till the Lammermuir is between us and the sea."

"Our Lady!--yes; for ere noonday this bridge will be echoing to the tramp of Bothwell's bands, who bring with them the Comptroller's cannon, to batter down every obnoxious peelhouse in the wardenrie, and my poor little tower of Park in particular. Mount, friend Konrad, and let us begone; for we have to ride fast and far ere we breakfast yet!"

Konrad sprang into the saddle of the charger proffered him--(a strong and active bay)--and rode forward by the side of his new friend, to whom he was completely reconciled, on beholding that his pennon was borne by a gentleman--and that his armour, though plain and unornamented, was of the finest steel, and every way such as became a knight. He rode with a jed-wood axe resting on his thigh; and his visor, which was lighted by two horizontal slits, clasped down.

Passing the turreted house of Crichton of Brunstan, who had taken such a leading part in the recent Reformation, they struck into a narrow horseway, that, crossing the Esk by a ford, led to the hill of Carberry--and, as they ascended, the districts of Newton and Inveresk lay spread at their feet like a beautiful map. The waves were rolling in silver and blue around the Inch and the May--St. Adrian's gifted isle--while the point of Elie, the peak of Kincraig, and all the shore of Fife, was mellowed by distance into faint and shadowy tints; but when John of Park and his troop of lances diverged along the heights that are crowned by the old tower of Falside, whose ruined turrets still overtop their grove of firs, the broad and beautiful bay of Preston opened out before them, dotted by the dark lug-sails of northern fisher-boats, and shining in golden light--yellow almost as the long expanse of sand that edged its ample margin.

Accustomed to the savage landscapes of his native Norway, there was a soft charm in that varied and magnificent panorama which for a time won Konrad from his melancholy thoughts.

An amphitheatre of fertile hills, and rich copsewood of the darkest green, rose gently upwards from the encircling shore, till their long blue undulating line stood defined distinctly and clearly against the pale and azure horizon. From the strongholds of the Lords of Winton and Dolphinton, and many a baronial dwelling, whose lofty turrets and crested gateway have long since crumbled into dust--from many a thatched cottage and many a snug home-farm--the smoke was rising amid the summer woods, to mingle with the morning mist, and melt in thin air.

Afar off, like a speck at the edge of the distant sea, a sail was visible, marking the faint line where sky and ocean blended into one; and Konrad gazed at it long and wistfully. It might be bound for his northern home; and for a time his eyes, his heart, and his wishes, followed it. But he soon lost sight of the sea and the distant capital, on entering the moorlands that lay to the southward of Falside and Carberry; for the experienced border knight and his moss-troopers, to avoid the Earl of Bothwell's line of route, had resolved, by taking a circuitous and solitary way, to gain, unseen, their native wilds of Liddesdale.

*CHAPTER IX.*

*THE CONFLICT IN HERMITAGE GLEN.*

And it's hame, and it's hame, my bonny brown steed,
And it's riderless hame ye maun gang;
For the warden has me fast, this night is my last,
The morn he swears I maun hang.
_Old Ballad._

Anxious to forget both Anna and his Countess, Bothwell hastened to plunge into the ardour and excitement of that wild and predatory warfare which was then maintained on the frontiers of the two countries. The memory of the wrong he had done his wife, stung him more than those endured by Anna; for he deemed his marriage with her a jest, a nullity, while his espousal of Lady Jane had been as solemn as the church could make it.

He salved his conscience, too, with the recollection of Anna's facility and faithlessness to her former lover, and made it an excuse for endeavouring utterly to obliterate from his mind all memory of his intrigue with her--for he deemed it nothing more. And now, when finding himself rising into eminence and power at court, he only viewed with fear her probable escape from Noltland, and the custody of Sir Gilbert Balfour; and that fear engendered a sentiment very much akin to hatred--for to such a bitter feeling will the most passionate love turn at times.

The complaints of the Earl of Bedford, lieutenant of the English marches, concerning the incessant forays of the border clans, caused the queen and her ministers to resolve on holding an assize, or court of justice, at Jedburgh, upon the 27th of August, and the nobles, barons, and freeholders of the adjacent shires were summoned by writ to meet their majesties, Henry and Mary, on the 23d, at Peebles; while the magistrates of the former place made preparations to accommodate such a vast retinue of men and horses.

While Bothwell continued warring on the borders, the approach of harvest caused a postponement of the royal visit till the 8th of October, when the queen joined him at Melrose, not alone, or nearly so, (as we are falsely informed by Buchanan,) but attended by her whole court and council, her archer guard, the officers of justice, and a strong armed force, as her father, James V., had come there thirty years before. King Henry, either from cowardice, caprice, or whim, chose to absent himself, and go no one knew whither, but as the queen shrewdly guessed, to visit one of his innumerable inamoratos.

After capturing many of those moss-troopers who were known to be lawless and predatory, who harried the beeves of their countrymen as well as those of the English, and delivering them to all the brief severities of Jeddart justice, especially our late acquaintances, Edie of Earlshope and Lauchey-with-the-lang-spear; after storming and dismantling many of their dwellings--those strong but solitary peelhouses which are either situated on rocks almost inaccessible, in the depths of forests, or among the pathless wilds of the border morasses--the impetuous Earl turned the whole tide of war and justice against the great master-reiver of that district, John of Park and the clan Elliot, who had hitherto successfully eluded his desultory operations.

Careless of his future fate, and glorying in the dangers of the wandering and Bedouin-like life of the Scottish moss-troopers--now garrisoning some solitary peel that overlooked many a silvan strath and silver stream; now biding in some unfathomed cavern; now stabling their steeds among the haggs of some deep moss, from whence they issued all in their armour, with uplifted lances, on the terrified troops of the wardenrie--the young Norwegian engaged with ardour in every desperate foray and attack on which John of Park dispatched him; and his daring, his activity, and indomitable hardihood, made him the byword and the idol of the wild spirits among whom his fortune had cast him; but they knew not that, in every action, in every deed of arms and essay of danger, one thought--one hope--was ever uppermost in his mind, to come within a lance length of the Earl of Bothwell.

On the other hand, that gallant noble having heard of this new desperado, with whose wild chivalry all the borders were ringing, and also of Anna's flight from Noltland, became doubly anxious for his capture, if not for his destruction.

Now many a time the reflection came home to his mind, how bitter were the dregs of the cup of deceit--and now he found how one false step required a hundred to repair it.

These foes had their long wished-for interview sooner than they anticipated.

On hearing of the queen's arrival at Jedburgh, Bothwell had ridden from his stately castle of Hermitage to visit her, and was returning, accompanied only by his gossip and boon companion, Hob of Ormiston. They were both lightly, but well armed, and splendidly mounted; for, by the ancient way, the castle of Hermitage is nearly twenty-five miles distant from Jedburgh.

The latter, a populous town, then twice the size of Berwick (as a letter of the English protector Somerset informs us), with its lofty abbey tower, its embattled ramparts, and six great bastel-houses, had been left behind; and the sun was setting when the Earl and his friend penetrated into the bleak and mountainous district of Liddesdale.

The vale of the winding Hermitage, with its fertile borders of fine holmland and rich copsewood, was then growing dark, and the sun's last rays were fading on the summits of Tudhope-hill and Millenwood-fell, whose steep and silent outlines stood in bold relief against the cold blue sky of October. This region was then almost without roads, and destitute of other inhabitants than the fox and the fuimart, the deer and the eagle. The country was swarming with exasperated outlaws and broken men of every description; and thus the Earl and the Knight rode fast without exchanging a word, for they knew that they ran considerable risk of being roughly interrupted, ere they reached the gates of Hermitage.

"By cock and pie!" grumbled Ormiston, under his barred aventayle, as he breathed his horse a little; "'twas a rash deed and a perilous, to come on this hellicate errand alone, like two knights of the Round Table, when we might so easily have had a hundred good lances at our cruppers."

"Heed it not, good Ormiston!" laughed the Earl, who was in excellent humour with himself and every thing else; for Mary had received him so affably, and thanked his good service so graciously. "Heed it not, I pray thee! If thou reachest the gate of Hermitage with a whole skin, thou canst stuff it well with wine and baked beef; but if thou gettest a Lockerby lick between this and its gates--why"----

"Thou must pay the masses for my soul, as I have not had a plack in my pouch since Michaelmas, and I doubt mickle if Mass John of the Priesthaugh will credit me."

"'Tis said that John of Park wears a corselet of Milan inlaid with gold, and worth a hundred angels. 'Twould be a rare prize for thee, did we meet him here by the Birkwoodshaws."

"By the mass! I hope not; for I have no wish to lose that which will not make the laird of Park one jot the richer--my poor life--which he will have lances enow to send to the devil in a twinkling!"

"If we _are_ to be intercepted," rejoined the Earl, "by broken knaves, I wish they would show face while our horses are fresh, and we could run a course on the level sward here with some pith and spirit."

A pause ensued, during which nothing was heard but the dull tramp of the steeds on the grassy waste, its echo from the mountains, the hard breathing of the riders, half suppressed in the hollow of their helmets, and the clinking of their mail. Suddenly the Earl drew up; for an abrupt turn of the path traversing that beautiful valley, which is ten miles in length, brought them close to a band of some twenty moss-troopers, riding leisurely down the hill side in full harness, with their steel caps and lofty lances glinting above the hazel bushes that tufted the mountains. They were trotting in a circle, and goading on a herd of fifty or sixty fat oxen, which they had harried from the holme of Canonbie Priory, which had been ruined and destroyed by the English, on their retreat from Solway Moss, twenty-four years before.

"Cock and pie!" exclaimed Ormiston.

"Devil take thine oath of cock and pie!" exclaimed the Earl, testily. "It cometh in on all occasions--grave as well as gay. Seest thou not that yonder is a band of Liddesdale lances, and we have now a chance of being overborne, slam, and thrown into the Hermitage, with a stone at our necks, to make amends for our late hard justice at Jedburgh."

"The knaves will scarcely dare to slay thee, who art the queen's lieutenant, and warden of the three marshes; but I doubt mickle if their scruples will extend to Hob Ormiston."

"Think not they will spare either of us, gossip of mine; and thou biddest fair to feed the crows, as the pelicans in thy banner do their young."

"I will be right well content to die in my helmet, if I cannot redeem my life with that of the best knave among them!"

"Then come on, a-God's name!" cried the Earl; and, brandishing his sword, he rode straight towards two of the moss-troopers who had advanced to reconnoitre; while the remainder, spurring at full gallop, and goading on the plunging and maddened herd of cattle with their sharp lances, pursued their path at full speed towards the wildest district of the mountains.