Chapter V: Part 5

A woman--a widow--a catholic--without a husband--she could never have governed Protestant Scotland, crowded as it was with rapacious peers and turbulent serfs, inured to blood and blows; and now, after all that had occurred at Dunbar, and after being so completely abandoned by her people to Bothwell's mercy for twelve weary days, no foreign prince, no Scottish noble or gentleman of honour, and indeed no man, save he who had wronged her, would seek her hand. She had but two misfortunes to choose between; on one hand to lose her crown, her liberty, perhaps her life; on the other, to accept of Bothwell, whom (though she never loved, and now abhorred,) she knew to be devoted to her, and as crafty as he was gallant and bold; and might, if he chose, wrest the sceptre from her grasp; for, by the number of his vassals, and the strength of his fortresses, he was one of Scotland's most powerful peers. Should she wed him, acquitted as he had been by the peers and prelates of the crime of which he had been charged, and recommended by these same reverend prelates and statecrafty peers, with her brother at their head, to her earnest and favourable notice, a new dawn might shine upon her gloomy fortune. She knew that he had made every preparation for their public nuptials; and that _bongre malgre_ she must wed, but still she withheld her consent until the very night before, and then, but not till the fatal promise was given.

In that wide and gloomy flood of desperation through which she struggled, her destroyer was the last plank to whom she could cling; and, abhorrent as he was to her now, she knew that he loved her deeply, and that sad, and terrible, and guilty, were the ties which bound them together, and would link their 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 and sunshine. Yellow buttercups sprinkled with gold the sides of Arthur's seat, and the blue hyacinth and the mountain-daisy unfolded their petals on the steep slopes of Salisbury. The mavis and the merle sang merrily in the abbey orchards and old primeval oaks that shaded the grey walls of Holyrood; and sheltered by the thorn hedges that, in its ancient garden, grew like thick and impervious ramparts, the flowers of summer that Mary loved so well, were all, like herself, in the noon of their beauty and fragrance.

And now came Beltane-eve, when this soft season of sunshine and perfume was welcomed by those ancient merry-makings of which we read in Polydore Virgil, and which were a remnant of those joyous rites offered to the Flora of the Romans, and the great fire-god of the Scandinavians and the Celtae--when the stern and mysterious Druids of Emona and Iona collected the dew of the morning, and sprinkled it on the fair-haired savages of Caledonia, as they blessed them in the name of 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 the May or stout Robin Hude to receive the homage of happy hearts; for the thunders of the reformed clergy had gone forth like a chill over the land, and the same iron laws that prevented the poor "papist" from praying before the symbol of his redemption, punished the merry for dancing round a garlanded tree.

Yet there were some remnants of other days that could not be repressed; and fires of straw were lit in the yard of many a castle and homestead, through which, as a charm against witchcraft, all the cattle were driven, amid furious fun and shouts of laughter; while the bluff laird regaled his vassals, and the bonneted farmer his sun-burned hinds, on pease-bannocks and nut-brown ale. Every old woman still marked her Beltane-bannock with the cross of life and the cipher of death, and covering it with a mixture of meal, milk and eggs, threw two pieces over her left 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 twigs of rowan-tree tied crosswise with red thread; and though the idolatrous Beltane-fire blazed on the summits of the Calton and Blackford, (as on St. Margaret's day they do still on those of Dairy in Ayrshire,) there was not the same jollity in the land; for as a mist from the ocean blights the ripening corn, so had the morose influence of the new clergy cast a gloom upon the temper, the manners, and the habits of the people--a gloom that is only now fading away, though its shadow still lingers in the rural valleys of the south and west.

But there is much to relate, and we must be brief.

Encompassed by the intrigues of the Earl, surrounded by his creatures, and overwhelmed by the terrible situation in which she found herself, at midnight Mary consented to become his bride, and at four o'clock next morning he led her into the great hall of Holyrood, where one of his minions, Adam Bothwell, the Protestant Bishop of Orkney--(his new dukedom)--together with Craig, the colleague of Knox, prepared to officiate.

Mary was attired in her widow-weeds of sable velvet, without other ornament than a few diamonds, that sparkled on her stomacher, and in her ear-rings. Cold, placid, still, and thoughtful, there were signs of suffering and sorrow on her pure and open brow, and in her deep, dark, melancholy eyes, and there was a nun-like solemnity in her beautiful face, that touched the heart of Bothwell with more, perhaps, of pity than love.

She seemed a changed and miserable woman.

A sprig of rosemary and a lily were in her hand; the first, because of the old superstition that it was necessary at a wedding as denoting love and truth; the second, because the month was that of St. Mary, and the lily is the flower of the Virgin. Mary Stuart could not forget these little things, though she accepted of a Protestant ritual because her own Church is averse to second marriages.

Day was breaking in the distant east, and coldly the dull grey twilight struggled with the lamps and wax candles that illuminated the long and ancient hall of the palace, from the walls of which the grim visage of many an antique king, and many a solemn prelate, seemed to stare starkly and desolately on that sombre bridal group, on Bothwell's magnificent costume, sparkling with precious stones, on tall Ormiston, in his half military and half gala costume, and a crowd of adherents of the house of Hepburn, whose dresses of velvet and satin, enriched with embroidery and precious stones, fluttering mantles, waving feathers, glittering spurs, and daggers, filled up the background.

When Mary's hand touched his, the Earl found it cold as death: it trembled. He thought of Darnley's quivering throat on that terrible night, and a thrill shot through his heart..........

The ceremony was over, and Bothwell led forth that high-born and beautiful bride, to win whom he had dared and done so much.

For that hour he had perilled every thing in this world, and the hour had come, but there was not in his heart that fierce triumph--that exultation and joy, he had so long anticipated. A deadly coldness had succeeded, and there was a clamorous anxiety in his breast as he looked forward to the future.

"Mary, star of heaven, and mother of God," prayed the poor queen, kissing the lily, as they descended the gloomy stone staircase of the Albany Tower; "intercede for me, that I may be forgiven this dark sacrilege in the month so solemnly dedicated to thee!" for, according to the ancient usage, it is still ominous to wed in the month of May--or _Mary_. Her piety was deep and fervent; when very young she had wished to assume the veil, that she might dwell with her aunt, the Prioress of Rheims; happy would it have been for her had she done so; and full upon her heart came back the first pious wish in that hour of humiliation and evil.

No pageants or rejoicings marked the ill-omened bridal; not a bell was rung, nor a cannon fired, and gloomily and in silence the few loiterers who were abroad at that early hour, or had never been a-bed, greeted their sovereign, and that presumptuous peer who had so determinedly espoused her.

That dawn, to Mary, was but the opening of another chapter in her life of misery and tears.

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

The general, but somewhat curious indignation this marriage excited among those nobles who had _urged it_ (having never had any other object in view than the gratification of their own greed and ambition), and their armed confederation against Bothwell, soon followed, for they accused him of intending to destroy the young prince, who was kept at Stirling by the Countess of Mar, and whom ostensibly they rose in arms to defend.

On this measure he was frequently urged by Black Hob.

"Cock and pie!" that worthy would frequently exclaim; "were this young cub once strangled _too_, thou mightst be king of broad Scotland, and I a belted earl."

"Tempter, begone!" replied the Earl, grasping his poniard; "far enough hast thou driven me on this desperate career--but another whisper of this, and thou diest!"

The armed combination soon made the Earl and his knights rush to arms; and, of all who followed his banner, there were none who hailed the approaching civil war with greater ardour than Ormiston and Bolton. The first, because, by a long career of profligacy, he had utterly ruined an ancient patrimony; the second, with a stern joy, because he was reckless, tired of life, and longing only for an honourable death, that in the oblivion of the grave he might for ever forget Mariette, and that remorse which rendered him miserable.

But Mary's surrender to the peers, and Bothwell's flight, frustrated their hopes for a time.

On the hill of Carberry, within view of the adverse lines, Mary and the Earl were parted to meet no more; and it is recorded that he bade her adieu with more sincerity of sorrow than might have been expected in one so long hardened by private and political profligacy.

"Farewell to thee, Lord Earl!" said the Queen kindly, for she was ever gentle; "nathless all that hath passed, Mary Stuart can still with kindness say farewell, and God attend thee."

"Farewell to your grace!" replied the Earl, 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. A long good-night to thee, and all the visions my ambition so vainly pictured, and so ruthlessly attempted to grasp. I go; but, while life remains, I will bear in sad remembrance thy goodness, thy beauty, and thy wrongs. I go--to exile and despair!"

And turning his horse's head, attended only by Ormiston and Bolton, he galloped down the hill to his castle of Dunbar, never once daring to look back towards that fair being whom a reverse of fortune had delivered to his enemies; and, save a message she sent to Denmark on her escape from Lochleven, never once from that hour did the name of Bothwell sully the lips of Mary. In one week from that day he was a pirate among the Isles of Orkney, while Mary was a captive in the hands of the confederates, and led through the streets of her own capital, 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 German sea, the labouring crayer of Hans Knuber, after several weeks (during which he became more and more convinced that Nippen, the spirit of evil, and the demons of the waves and wind, were in league against him), made a haven in the bleak isles of Shetland, where they found those uddallers, who inhabited the rude round towers and strong houses on the bluffs and promontories that overhung the ocean, all on the alert; for tidings were abroad that the great Earl of Bothwell, now a fugitive and a wanderer upon the face of the deep, in the madness and impotence of his wrath against his enemies, was spreading devastation and dismay among the northern isles.

After suffering a severe repulse at the Orcadian capital from the cannon of his old ally, Sir Gilbert Balfour of Noltland, he poured his fury upon the stray vessels he met in firth and bay, giving the poor hamlets of these half-desolate coasts to the flames, storming the fortlets of their lords, and, like a wild vikingr of old, spreading terror wherever his banner was unfurled.

Hans Knuber trembled again for his cargo of malt and beer when he heard of these terrible doings, and without other delay than that caused by procuring fresh water from a certain gifted well among those dreary hills that overlooked the sound of Balta, he bore away for the Skager Rack; but, notwithstanding every exertion of seamanship, whistling most perseveringly for fair winds, and sprinkling salt on the sea to lay the foul, the middle of June arrived before he prepared to enter the fiord of Christiana, and ere Konrad saw the shore of his native province rising from the dark blue water, and hailed those peaks, known as the hills of Paradise, that encircle the sea, arise before him with all their echoing woods and snow-white cataracts.

But there even, in their native seas, the fame and terror of the outlawed Earl had gone before them; and many a dismasted and many a shattered hull, with bloodstained decks and broken hatches, rolling on the Skager Back or stranded on the rocks of the fiord, attested the recklessness of that desperate noble and his followers, who were now at war with all mankind.

"I pray to Heaven we may meet this bold marauder, now that our keel is ploughing our own waters," said Konrad, whose old Norwegian spirit flashed up in his bosom at the sight of his native hills. "Would I had a score of my old crossbowmen that I left behind me at Bergen, and thou with thy two culverins"----

"St. Olaf forefend!" rejoined Hans, hastily hitching up his wide chocolate-coloured inexpressibles, as he thought of his investment in wheat and malt and tanned leather, and the risk they would run. "I would I were safe under the batteries of our old castle of Bergen, where, please Heaven and honest Nippen, I will drop my anchor to-night. And now, Master Konrad, that once again we are in sight of _Gamle Norge_, how meanest thou to shape thy course, and keep to the windward of misfortune? Dost thou steer for the Elbe or the Weser? There the Lubeckers and Holsteiners are every day playing at ding-dong with arquebuse and caliver."

"Thou askest, Hans, what I scarcely know how to answer. My band of crossbowmen will, of course, be still at Bergen, but the king, doubtless, will have given them another captain. Sir Erick is in his grave; and Anna, Heaven only knows where. I have nothing now to tie me to the spot I love so well," he continued, sighing, "but many sad and bitter memories, which are better committed to oblivion; so, as thou sayest, I will even wend me to the Elbe, and there follow the fortunes of the war."

"Then be it so: I can give thee a letter to Arnold Heidhammer, a certain burgomaster, which may avail thee much; and if a 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 us somewhat suspiciously. St. Olaf! but she shot round that promontory like a sea-gull!"

Hans sprang upon one of the culverins Konrad had referred to, and, shading his eyes with his hand (for his fur cap was minus a peak, and there were then no telescopes), he peered intently at the stranger.

"Friend Hans, what dost thou make her out to be?" asked Konrad, whose heart beat strangely.

"A great frigate, galley rigged--with ten culverins a-side--crossbows on her forecastle--and hackbuts on her poop; full of men, too--see how many helmets are glinting in the sunshine!"

The shore was five or six miles distant. The noonday sun shone joyously on the bright blue sea, and full upon the snow-white canvass of the approaching vessel, which was bellying in the land breeze, above the tier of brass-mouthed culverins that peered from the red port-holes of the bow, waist, and her towering poop and forecastle, which were covered with a profusion of heraldic and symbolical carving and gilding. Her masts were each composed of two tall spars, having four large square sails; she had ponderous basketed tops and poop-lanterns--a great square sprit-sail, under which the water that boiled against her bow was flashing, as it wreathed and foamed in the light of the meridian sun, and bubbled under the counters of her towering stern.

Several men in armour were visible above the gunnel, and their pikes glinted as she approached, rolling over the long waves; and there was one whose suit of polished steel shone like silver, as he stood on the lofty poop.

She was still above half a mile distant, and Hans, who liked not her appearance (for he had a mortal aversion to every thing like cannon, or coats-of-mail, on board ship) crowded all sail, and stood away, right up the Fiord. Upon this a red flash broke from the tall forecastle of the stranger--a wreath of white smoke curled aloft through her thick rattlins and white canvass, and a stone bullet, that whistled over the water, cut Hans' foreyard in the slings, and brought a ruin of splintered wood, and rope, and fluttering canvass, down upon his deck.

Deprived of her head-sails, the crayer immediately proved unmanageable; and the stranger, spreading his broad canvass more fully to the breeze, soon sheered ahead, and backing his fore-yard with an air of considerable seamanship, lay too across the bows of the _Skottefruin_.

Poor Hans now with dismay beheld a great foreign banner displayed; but though he knew it not, Konrad immediately recognised the cheverons and lions of Bothwell, and he perceived that the figure on the bow was the Earl's coroneted crest, a white horse's-head, with a gilded bridle; and one glance at the lofty sides, the grim cannon tier, and gigantic poop of the Scottish frigate, and her gunnels lined by pikemen and arquebusiers in their steel caps and coats-of-mail, sufficed to shew him that he was again completely in the power of his ancient enemy; though by what miracle he, who, when they left the Forth, seemed to have all Scotland prostrate under his hand, should thus again be a cruiser in the Scandinavian seas, he could not comprehend.

A small boat was lowered with a plash into the water; a tall man in dark armour, whose weight nearly overset it, dropped into it, and six seamen, armed with whingers and jedwood axes, followed, and immediately pushed off towards the vessel of the terrified Norwegian skipper, who stood as usual with his hands stuffed into his chocolate-coloured breeches, his Elsinore cap pulled over his bushy brows, his teeth set hard, and desperation in his eyes, viewing the approach of this armed and unknown enemy.

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

"Cock and pie!" he exclaimed, as he threw up his visor, and recognised both Konrad and Hans. "I find myself among acquaintances here."

"And what want ye now, Sir Knight?" said Konrad, as he threateningly grasped a handspike, the first and only weapon that lay at hand; "and how dare ye to bend cannon on a ship of the Danish king, within the Norwegian seas?"

"To the first question, Master Konrad," replied Ormiston, with mock deliberation, "as to what we want, I reply, a sight of this good skipper's invoice, for we mightily lack various things since our repulse before the harbour of Kirkwall, and an examination thereof will save us much trouble in overhauling a cargo which may consist of nought else than hazel-wands and wheel-barrows. To the second--as to why we dared to bend our cannon against thee, thou hadst better ask my Lord the Earl of Bothwell--nay, I mean James, Duke of Orkney, who dare do just whatever pleaseth himself on the land, and I see no reason why he should curb his frolicsome fancies on the open sea. By St. Paul! skipper, thou hast the very gloom of a Nordland bear; but bring up thy jar of hollands--let us drink and be friends, and then I will examine thine invoice, for I love not trifling, and lack time."

This formidable knight had all the air of a man who was to be obeyed; the unhappy Hans produced his round and capacious leathern bottle of Dutch gin, of which Ormiston, who had seated himself upon a culverin, drank a deep draught, and then handed the remainder to his boat's crew.

"Now, sirrah, for thine invoice of the victual under these hatches; for we lack nought else."

From a tin case, concealed in the breast of his rough doublet, Hans, with trembling fingers, produced from among several others a small piece of parchment. Ormiston adjusted his steel glove, unfolded the invoice, and, after viewing it in various ways, handed it to Konrad, saying--

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

Aware of the futility of resistance, and feeling for the agony of poor Hans, whose all was shipped on board his crayer, Konrad read the following invoice, which we give verbatim from the papers of the Magister Absalom:--

"Shippit by ye grace of God, in goode order and weel-conditioned, by Ihone Middiltoune, at the Timber Holfe, in and upon ye goode shippe _Skottefruin_ of Bergen, quherof Hans Knuber is maister, now lying in the harberie of Leith, bound for Bergen--to saye, 113 baggs containing aucht tons, four bollis, three lippies, and twa pecks of wheaten flour, to be delivered at Bergen, in ye like gude order (the act of God, the queen's enemies of England, fire, and all other dangeris of ye sea excepted), as customarie; and so God send yis gude and noble shippe to her destined port in safety.--Amen.

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

"Now God be with thee, thou dour carle!" said Ormiston, leaping up; "thou hast enough and to spare of the very provender we lack most. One hundred and thirteen bags of wheaten flour! St. Mary--I have not broken a flour bannock since we left Dunbar! Thou must hand me over, say fifty bags of this ware, and I will make thee a free gift of the three-and-sixty other bags, with the bolls, lippies, and pecks to boot--so up with thy hatches, for our stomachs and tempers lack no delay."

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

"Presumptuous fool!" said the gigantic knight, laying his hand on his sword; "were it worth while to draw, I might by one sliver cut thee in two. I have no wish to harm thee; but beware, for thou hast to deal with ruined and outlawed men, whom toil by sea--a narrow escape from a superior force, that hath pursued and driven us into these waters--starvation, and Heaven knows what more--have rendered desperate--so beware thee, Sir Skipper, or I will hang thee at thine own mast-head!"

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

"Black Hob of Ormiston, a name that would 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 at Edinburgh--ha! ha!--gif thou bringest to them our heads, thou old sea-dog! Mass! Hans Knuber, knowest thou not mine is well worth a hundred merks of silver, and that of his grace of Orkney two thousand pounds of Scottish gold. But I trifle. Back, fellow! and desire thy knaves to open the hatch and up with these wheaten bags; for, by St. Mary! my mouth waters at the thought of the bannocks."

Rendered furious by the prospect of being jocularly plundered by marauders, for such adventures were far from uncommon on the ocean in those days of ill-defined liberty and right, the long smothered passion of Hans broke forth; and, swinging the handspike aloft, he dealt a deadly blow at the head of Ormiston, who without much effort avoided it. The stroke glanced harmlessly off his polished 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 him over the gunnel and dropped him into the boat alongside, saying,--

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

Other boats now came off from the Earl's frigate; the hatches were raised, and in a few minutes fifty bags of flour, that had grown on the corn rigs of fertile Lothian, and been ground in the mills of Leith, were transferred to the possession of Bothwell, whose outlawed crew, hollow-eyed and wolfish with long travail, danger, and scanty fare, received them with shouts of rapture--greeting each white dusty sack with a round of applause as it was hoisted on board. Last of all, Ormiston came off, bringing Hans Knuber and fourteen men who composed the crayer's crew.

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

Hans, whom rage and the shock of falling into the boat, had reduced to a state bordering on stupefaction, raised his heavy leaden-like grey eyes, and gazed at his crayer. The sprit-sail and fore-topsail had been hastily re-rigged and braced up--the helm lashed, to keep her head to the wind; she was again under sail, and, without a soul on board, was bearing full towards a dangerous eddy, that in those days boiled near the shore of Bergen; and Hans, as the distance increased between him and his vessel, gradually raised his hands to the ears of his fur cap, which he grasped with a tenacity that tightened as she neared the vortex, or little moskenstrom.

The rowers paused with their oars in the air, and looked back with curiosity and interest; for there was something very absorbing in the aspect of the abandoned ship, running full tilt on the career of destruction with all her sails set. Onward she went, rolling over the heavy swells caused by the waters of the fiord meeting those of the Skager Rack; the sun shone full upon her stern windows from the western hills--on her white canvass and the sparkling water that curled under her counter--and nearer and nearer she drew to the boiling circle, that with rapidity whirled white and frothy under the brow of an almost perpendicular cliff, that was overhung by an ancient wood of drooping pine.

Drawn within its influence, and dragged round by its irresistible current, with sails torn, cordage snapping, and her yards flying round like those of a windmill, she was borne about in a circle that narrowed at every turn--faster and faster, deeper and deeper, round she went, till in one wild whirl, with a sound that came over the water like the sob of a drowning giant, she vanished--sucked into the 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 the fourteen 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, which was placed upon the capstan, against which he leaned, the handsome form of Bothwell never appeared to greater advantage than when among his uncouth mariners, in their wide breeches and fur boots. His face was paler and more grave than when Konrad had last seen him; his deep dark eyes were melancholy and thoughtful; but his compressed lips and knitted brows showed a steadiness of purpose and determination of aspect, that failed not to impress the beholder. Still more pale and grave, Hepburn of Bolton stood near him, leaning on his long sword; and, among the group that pressed forward to scrutinize the prisoners, Konrad recognised the faces of French Paris, Hay of Tallo, and others of the Earl's retinue.

"What strange freak of fate hath thrown thee in my path again?" he asked, with a calm smile.

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

"Well, well, I cannot feel chafed by thine honest plainness, Konrad; for I know well I have given thee deep reason to hate me. A strange fatality has woven our adventures together. Thou didst save me once from the waves of this very ocean, when last for my sins I was traversing these Norwegian seas; and I saved thee twice from drowning--first in the crystal Clyde, under the windows of my own castle of Bothwell; and once again when thou wert chained like a baited bear to yonder pillar in the North Loch of Edinburgh. But come," added the Earl, clapping him on the shoulder; "let us be friends; are the faith or falsehood of a woman matters for two brave men to quarrel about?"

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

"Nay, Earl or Duke, for I know not which thou art--men style thee both--though but a simple gentleman of Norway, a captain of crossbowmen, with a rixmark in the day, I would not follow thy banner to obtain the noblest of thy baronies. Our paths must be far separate. I never could owe thee friendship, suit, service, or captainrie; and I have but one request to make, that thou wilt land us on the nearest point of our native shore, and we will gladly say, God speed thee on thy voyage."

"I love and esteem few, and by fewer am I loved and esteemed," replied the Earl calmly; "but, fallen though I am, I have not yet sunk so low as to beg the friendship of any man. Be it so. Ere nightfall, I will land thee on yonder promontory, and the skipper knave likewise, though in good sooth he deserves to be hanged up at yonder yard-arm, for declining me the use of a few pitiful bags of our own Scottish wheat, when he saw my ducal banner displayed before his eyes."

With a brief reverence the Earl retired into his cabin, where French Paris attended to relieve him of part of that armour which he wore constantly; for he was in hourly expectation of being assailed--from the seaward, by ships sent in pursuit of him from Scotland--or from the land, for his piracies and plundering on the Danish and Norwegian shores.

"The raven's fate befall thee!" muttered Hans, thrusting his clenched hands farther into his pockets, and gazing with blank despair upon the vortex that, almost in sight of his haven, had swallowed up his ship.

The wind blew freshly from the fiord ahead of them, and David Wood, the Earl's skipper, found the impossibility of making the point where he desired to land their captives; and the sudden appearance of a large three-masted vessel of war, which, under easy sail, came round one of those steep headlands that overhung the water, made him bear away into the open channel; for so great was the rage and terror their depredations had spread on both sides of the Skager Rack, that the Earl knew he must greet a foe in every ship under the banner of Frederick of Denmark.

The sun had set, but the clear twilight of the long northern night played upon the dark blue waters of the fiord, which still rippled in silver against the wall-like rocks that hemmed them in; the air was mild and balmy; the whole sky had that clear, cold blue, which it exhibits among our lowland hills before sunrise; but the northern lights, that gleamed from Iceland's snow-clad peaks, the bright pole-star, and the myriad spangles of the milky-way, were all coming forth in their glory; nothing could surpass the beauty of the former, as their rays, like the gleams of a gigantic sword, flashed along the cerulean sky, behind the wooded summits of the dark and distant hills.

"Dost thou know aught of yonder ship, Sir Skipper?" asked Bothwell of Hans Knuber, who had been observing her approach with a stern joy which he took no pains to conceal.

"Yes, I know her!" said Hans. "Ay, by St. Olaf! every plank in her hull and every rope in her rigging--for my own hands helped 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, looking over his poop at the waves that curled under the counter. "I need care little for that, as Scottish men are unused to run either on sea or land, Master Knuber. She is a warship, I perceive."

"Thou art right, Lord Earl. She is the _Biornen_, or Great Bear, a ship of King Frederick's, carrying sixteen great carthouns, and as many demi-culverins; manned by three hundred mariners, and as many more crossbowmen and cannoniers. Christian Alborg commands--an old sea-horse as ever dipped his whiskers in salt-water--Knight of the Dannebrog and Commandant of Ottenbrocht. Ha! dost thou behold?"

At that moment, the red Norwegian flag, bearing a golden lion grasping a blue battle-axe, was unfurled upon the wind; the redder flash of a cannon, gleaming across the darkening water, and the whiz of the ball, as it passed through the rigging of the Earl's ship, announced his recognition by the stranger.

Hans drew his hands out of his chocolate-coloured breeches, and capered with revenge and 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 James V. The Earl, as Lord High Admiral of Scotland, had all the affairs and stores of the naval force under his control, and thus selected her, with all her cannon and gear, for his own particular service, and manned her with a crew of his vassals, on whose valour and fidelity he could rely to the last of their blood and breath.

Instead of the standard of Scotland, he ordered his own great banner, bearing the ducal arms of Orkney quartered with those of Bothwell, to be again displayed at the gaff-peak; from the mast-heads floated banneroles, bearing the three red pelicans of Ormiston, the cheverons of Bolton, the three red escutcheons of Hay of Tallo, and the pennons of other gentlemen who followed his desperate fortune; while enraged by the insult thus offered, in firing at once upon him, he gave immediate orders to open the gun-ports--shot the culverins--man the poop and topcastles with crossbowmen, and clear all for battle--orders which were obeyed by his people with alacrity. So now we will have to describe a sea-fight of the sixteenth century.

Both vessels were going under easy sail; but as the Earl had resolved to give battle to his heavy antagonist, careless of the result, he gradually shortened his way, making all secure on board as the distance lessened between him and his Danish Majesty's ship. The crossbowmen, with their weapons bent and bolts laid, and the arquebusiers, with muzzles pointed and matches lit, were crouching behind the wooden parapets of the poop and forecastle, which, like those round the tops, were all fashioned in the shape of battlements; the cannoniers stood by their culverins with linstock and rammer; the waist of the ship bristled with steel caps, short pikes, two-handed swords, and jedwood axes; while on the towering poop and forecastle were seen the mail-clad figures of Bothwell and his knights; but, notwithstanding all this display of bravery, as they neared the foe, they saw how fearful were the odds to be encountered.

Each vessel came on under topsails; the courses being hauled up, displayed the steel-bristling decks, and the polished mouths of the brass cannon, that gleamed upon the dark blue water as they were run through the carved and painted sides of the gunwall (_gunnel_), loaded with bullets of stone and iron, and pebbles lapped in lead. Both vessels were now running in the same direction, but gradually neared each other. They were within three lance-lengths, and not a sound was heard on board of either but the ripple under their bows; and in breathless silence as the still twilight deepened on the ocean, the adverse crews continued gazing on each other.

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

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

Except Bothwell and his knights, every man threw himself flat on the deck; and while fire flashed from the wide muzzles of eight great carthouns and as many demi-culverins, their shot tore across the _Fleur-de-Lys_, splintering her bulwarks, rending her rigging and canvass, but doing little other personal injury than slaying a few of the arquebusiers, who occupied the little wooden turrets with which the angles of the poop were furnished.

"A Bothwell! a Bothwell!" cried the Earl brandishing his sword; "cannoniers to your lintstocks--crossbowmen to your duty, and show yourselves men, my rough-footed Scots. Fight bravely! for know ye, that if taken we shall all die the death of caitiffs and felons; for there is not a man among us but will hang from the yards of yonder Norseman, for so hath King Frederick sworn. Shoot aloft, and fire below! St. Bothan and on!"

A volley of cannon, crossbows, and arquebuses was poured upon the great quarter and stern of the _Biornen_, while her people were slowly and laboriously re-charging their pieces. The bolts whistled from the crossbows, the bullets whizzed from the arquebuses _a croc_, and the cannon-shot boomed as they flew over the decks, or sank with a heavy crash into the echoing hulls of the adverse ships; while, ascending from the still bosom of that narrow inlet of the ocean, the reports were reverberated like thunder, as the echoes rolled from peak to peak along those high mountains that overlooked it.

From the poops and forecastles the arquebuses maintained an incessant roar, and their bullets, each containing three ounces of lead, did deadly execution, being fired point-blank, beating great pieces of buff and mail into the bodies of those they slew.

"Yare, yare--my yeomen of the sheets and braces! Cheerily now--my timoneer!" bellowed the skipper of the _Fleur-de-Lys_, through his speaking trumpet, as he, by a rapidity of manoeuvre and superior seamanship, sheered his vessel upon the larboard side of the _Biornen_ in the smoke, and poured another broadside upon the Norwegians, who did not expect it from that point, and the sudden crash and slaughter filled them with alarm and irresolution.

"By St. John of the Desart!" exclaimed Bothwell, in the excitement of the moment forgetting his assumed Protestantism, "ye do well my true cannoniers. Shoot--shoot, and spare not! or never again will ye see the woods of Clyde, and the blooming bank of Bothwell. To it, Bolton, with thy bowmen! Shoot me down those rascal archers on their tops; for by St. Peter, who smote off the lug of a loon, I have wellnigh lost mine by their hands. Shoot--shoot, and spare not!"

A loud cheer replied to the Earl, and his vassals bent to their toil with renewed ardour and alacrity.

The decks were rapidly becoming encumbered with the dead and wounded; for there were neither accommodation or due attendance for the latter, and so they were permitted to lie just where they fell, with their blood streaming away to leeward, and dripping from the scuppers into the ocean; while the shot ploughed and tore up the oak planking of the deck, beat down the bulwarks, rending mast and boom and spars to shreds and splinters; and each time the ponderous stone bullets of the great Danish carthouns thundered and crashed through the side of the _Fleur-de-Lys_, she staggered and trembled in every rib and plank.

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

"Cock and pie!" said Ormiston, as he levelled the long arquebuse in its iron sling; "we have been putting pelloks into their doublets ever since the tulzie began; and I doubt not have scored a hundred by the head, but the gloomy night is increasing so fast that we aim now at random."

The darkness, as he said, had increased very much. The clouds were gathering in heavy masses, and the red sheet lightning was gleaming behind the rocky peaks of those hills, where the northern lights had been flashing one hour before. Dark as ink grew the waters of the fiord, and the increasing wind that blew down it, between the high shores on either side, flecked its surface with foam, as it passed away into the turbulent waste of the Skager Rack. This change was unseen or unheeded by the combatants, who were now lying to with their foresails backed, and pouring their missiles upon each other with a deadly animosity, that increased as the slaughter and the darkness deepened around them together. Notwithstanding the superior size of the Norwegian ship, and the heavier metal of her cannon, the little _Fleur-de-Lys_ stood to her bravely; for she was manned by bold and desperate hearts, whom outlawry and revenge had urged to the utmost pitch of rashness and valour.

Meanwhile, Konrad and Hans Knuber watched with beating hearts the varying ebb and flow of the tide of battle in which they had so suddenly been involved. They remained passive spectators, exposed to the fire of their friends and countrymen, by whose hands they expected every instant to be decimated or decapitated. Whenever a barbed crossbow-shot from the _Biornen_ struck down a poor Scottish mariner to writhe in agony and welter in his blood, or when a shot tore up plank and beam almost beneath his feet, Hans growled a Norse malediction, and thought of the ruin these Scots had that day brought upon him. Suddenly he grasped Konrad by the hand, and pointed to a part of the water that appeared covered with white froth.

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

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

"Those accursed Scots perceive it not; but Christian Alborg doth. See, he hath hauled his wind and braced up his foreyard--another moment will see us sucked into the whirl, or stranded on the shoal made between us and the coast by the eddy, ha! ha!" and Hans, who was pale as death under the influence of wrath and fear, laughed like a hyena at the terrors about to replace those of the battle.

A shout of triumph burst from the little crew of Bothwell's shattered ship; but it was answered by one of derision and exultation from the Norwegian; for at that moment, as Hans had predicted, the _Fleur-de-Lys_ bilged upon the reef or rocky shoal that lay between the eddy and the shore--striking with a crash that made her foremast bend like a willow wand ere it went by the board, bringing down the main-topmast; the heavy culverins went surging all to leeward, and, crashing away the bulwarks, plunged into the sea, which, being agitated by the increasing gale, broke in foam upon the ridgy summit of the reef, and hurled its breakers over the parting frame of the _Fleur-de-Lys_, which thus in a moment became a shattered and desolate wreck.

The shout of the Norsemen was their last display of hostility; for, on beholding the terrible trap into which the foe had so suddenly fallen, the gallant old Knight of the Dannebrog suspended his firing, and lowered his boats to pick up the survivors of the battle and wreck; for so fierce was the tumult of water that boiled around her, and so great his dread of the whirlpool, that he continued rather to stand off than towards the scene of the catastrophe.

The towering forecastle of the bilged ship was highest above the water, and to that Konrad, after seeing poor Hans Knuber washed from his side, to be dashed again and again a lifeless corpse upon the brow of the reef, clung with all the energy of despair, clambering up step by step, clutching the ruin of spars and cordage that hung over it, till he reached the iron rail enclosing the top, which he embraced with both arms, and looked down upon the scene of terror and desolation presented by the lower half of the 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 was full of water--for every instant the surf broke over it in mountains of foam--was a swarm of struggling men, many of them in armour, clinging to whatever would support them. Ever and anon they sent forth cries of terror and despair; while every plank and spar creaked and groaned as the waves beat and lashed around, as if eager to overwhelm and engulf them all.

The wind was increasing, and, urged by the long fetch of the Skager Rack, the waves broke in stupendous volumes over the reef and the bilged wreck, at every return washing away some unfortunate into the abyss of the whirlpool, that yawned and foamed and growled on one side; while on the other lay the wide waste of the ocean, and the _Biornen_ about a mile distant, with her white canvass gleaming, like the garments of a spirit, in the light of the fitful moon. Behind the reef towered up the black Norwegian hills, like a wall of steep and frowning rock, fringed by nodding pines, and bordered by a white line of froth, that marked where the breakers reared their fronts to lash and roar upon the impending cliffs--but all these were buried in the long and sombre shadow which the tremendous bluffs threw far on the restless sea.

Meanwhile, Bothwell and his knights, though landsmen, and more at home in the tiltyard, in the tavern, the castle hall, or on the mountain side, never for a moment lost their presence of mind. Throwing off the heavier parts of their armour, they contrived to secure one of the boats, into which the Earl, with Ormiston, Bolton, Hay of Tallo, French Paris, and several others, sprang with all the speed that fear of a terrible fate could lend them.

"A Bothwell! a Bothwell!" cried the Earl waving his hand, as the light shallop was one moment buoyed aloft like a cork, and the next plunged down into the deep, dark trough of the midnight sea. "Save yourselves by spars and booms, my brave hearts!" he cried to those whom his heart bled to leave behind--but it was impossible that one boat could save them all; "or lash yourselves to the wreck, and we will return for you."

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

"Yare!" added Ormiston, whose tall figure loomed in the labouring shallop like that of an armed giant; "cheerily, ho! for if it is our fate to be hanged we will never be drowned."

"Hold!" exclaimed the Earl, as they pulled under the lee of the lofty poop, "yonder is one whom I would rather die than leave behind to perish, for then I would forfeit mine honour."

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

"Peace, peace; shame on thee, laird of Ormiston!" cried David Wood. "Mother of God, watch over us!"

"Hob, peace with thy blasphemy!" said the Earl, "or I will have thee cast into the sea. Is this a time for such dreadful thoughts as thine? By the bones of my father, I _shall_ save him. Ho, there! Konrad of Saltzberg, I pledged my word to land thee on thy native shore, and even in this moment of dread I will redeem it, or perish with thee. Leap with a bold heart, and a ready 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, sprang at 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 frothy water, and, urged by wind and tide, the laden boat shot away from the desolate wreck.

At that moment a wild shriek--the last despairing cry of the strong and the brave, who had never flinched when the arrow flew and the culverin boomed around them--ascended from 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 them with the blind tenacity of despair and death, were again and again, at the sport of the waves, dashed against the ridgy summits, that were one moment visible in terrible array in the moonlight, and the next were hidden, as a mountain of foam swept over them, hurrying into the deep vortex of the whirlpool the last fragments and the corpses of 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 the laird of Bolton; "steer we shoreward?"