Chapter IV (4)

"By the Holy Rood!" replied the Earl, with surprise, "I think thou art better here, my bonnibel. None but a water-kelpie could live abroad to-night, and one half hour of such a storm would send thee to the company of the saints."

"And again thou wouldst be free to woo and win another," rejoined the Countess, laughing.

"I never wooed, and shall not win another, my bonny Jane!" said the lying Earl; while lounging on the velvet cushions he caressed his little countess, and played with her dark glossy hair, thinking as he did so, "Ah, how could I ever love any woman but a dark one!"

"And wilt thou always love me as thou dost now?" asked the Countess with the most engaging playfulness.

"Love thee!" stammered the Earl, perplexed by a question so pertinent to his thoughts. "My ladybird, why that thought?"

"Because," replied Jane, in a voice that was tremulous from the excess of her emotion; "if thou didst cease to love, O my dear lord! I would"----

"What?"

"Die!" and her beautiful head drooped on his shoulder.

"Anna's very words!" thought the conscience-stricken Earl, as he gazed upon her with anxiety and astonishment. Her expression startled him; but he knew not that it was the wild animation and over-excitement that in a little time would be developed in a terrible malady, which was already preying upon the fragile form and ardent mind of the Countess--madness!

"Why dost thou doubt my love, Jane?" said the Earl; "it is four years since the Bishop of Dunblane betrothed thee unto me, and in that time my heart hath never wandered from thee."

"Ah! I don't doubt it--mother of God forefend that I should!" exclaimed the little Countess, while her eyes filled with tears, and she clung closer to her husband, "for thou wert the first love and the idol of me."

Bothwell's heart was touched; a pang shot through it when contemplating the deceit he had practised towards this loving and trusting creature, in winning her young heart and still retaining his own, and he kissed her tenderly.

"And thou, too, art mine idol, Jane; for since I first met thee, the fairest faces in the halls of Holyrood and Linlithgow have been without one attraction for me."

"And yet, dost thou know, there was one of whom, until her marriage, I was wont to be jealous; for thou wert ever engaged with her in conversations full of wit and laughter and repartee."

"Hah!" said Bothwell, colouring perceptibly.--"Thou meanest Mary Beaton, I warrant."

"Nay! Nay!" laughed the Countess; "naughty varlet! thou knowest well whom I mean."

"Mary Fleming, then, whose father fell at Pinkie-cleugh."

"Nay, God forbid! she is the wife of thy friend, the secretary; another, and a fairer Mary, still."

"By St. Abb on the Nab! little fairy, thou meanest the Queen herself!" exclaimed Bothwell with a loud laugh, as if he had no previous idea of who was meant. "This would be to make me a rival of Henry Darnley--a proper squire, and a tall fellow, too--Ha! ha! thou art a merry wag, my bonnibel," added the Earl, as he turned to the grape basket, for the purpose of hiding the deep colour that crimsoned his face from beard to temple. "Thou mistakest, dear Jane; my thoughts never soared so high, and it may prove dangerous to--hark! is not that the blast of a hunting-horn?"

"And by the river-side?"

"Some belated wayfarer."

"I see no one," said the Countess, who had run to a window.

"It may be Lauchope and his jackmen--there was some whisper abroad of their riding tonight, anent his feud with the Laird of Clelland concerning their meithes and marches. Seest thou aught like lances or steel caps glittering in the moonlight, for now the storm has died away?"

"There is a man by the river-side. Hark! he winds his bugle again and again; the poor soul seemeth in some sad jeopardy."

"Ho! Calder--Bertram--French Paris--ho there, without!" cried the Earl; and two pages, the younger sons of the neighbouring lairds of Southcalder and Bertram-shotts appeared, rubbing their eyes, for they had both fallen asleep in the antechamber over tric-trac and Rochelle. "Quick! ye little guzzling varlets--summon the Gate-ward and his yeoman--away to the river, and see what aileth yonder fellow that he winds his horn so dolorously!"

"Mother Mary!" cried the Countess, clinging to the Earl; "see--see! he is about to plunge into that rapid stream--he is in! God--now--now! see how he buffets with the current! Oh, how small, how feeble, he seems amid that hoarse and foaming river! Oh, save him! for the love of Heaven and of heavenly mercy: away, my lord, away!"

"'Tis more than likely this fellow is some rascally Egyptian. There hath been a band of such knaves on Bothwellmuir for this month past; but should it be Johnnie Faa himself--hurry the Gate-ward--and his grooms"----

"Now--now he is gone--he is down! how fast the current sweeps him on! I can look no more!" and, burying her face in her hands, the excitable little Countess fell on her knees, exclaiming passionately, "Fie on thy boasted valour, Lord of Bothwell! for thou hast stood idly by and seen this poor man drowned!"

"By cross and buckler! since thou art so free with thy husband's life, Lady Jane," said the Earl angrily, "'tis alike at the service of thee and this knave-errant. Follow me, Calder and French Paris!" and, raising the arras that concealed a door which communicated with a staircase and postern leading to Bothwellbank, the Earl rushed away.

*CHAPTER XVIII.*

*THE RESCUE.*

Then on they hurried, and on they hied,
Down Bothwell's slope, so steep and green;
And soon they reach'd the river Clyde,
Alas! no Edgar still is seen.
_M. G. Lewis._

Attended only by two of his pages, Bothwell left the postern door at the foot of the Valence Tower, and hurried down the _bank_, or wooded declivity, at the base of which the Clyde, swollen by the recent rains, was foaming past with a hoarse and ceaseless roar, rending the rough whin boulders and red earth from its scaured banks, and hurrying trees, and turf, and bushes--the debris of its hundred tributaries--to the waves of the western sea.

"Use thine eyes, Calder! Dost thou see him, Paris?" said the Earl, stooping low to pierce the gloomy shade thrown by the copse-wood upon the river.

"He struggles yonder, my lord!" cried Nicholas Hubert, or French Paris, as he was usually named.

"Nay, thou glaiket mole!" said little Calder; "'tis a tree. Seest thou not that he buffets the water a furlong further down?"

"Right, my little fellow! thou hast the very eyes of a true huntsman!" said the Earl; "'tis a man's head; I see him; he floats like a cork on the strong current. Shout, boys, while I wind my bugle, to let him know that aid is nigh!"

The pages placed their hands to their mouths, and uttered a loud hunting holloa, while Bothwell repeatedly wound his silver bugle. Then a faint cry came from the hissing water, and the drowning man waved an arm with the action of despair.

"He points to the Priory," said Paris; "now, what may that import?"

"By Saint Paul! he is in harness!" exclaimed the Earl; "and the weight of it is sinking him fast. Shall we stand here, like base runnions, and see him perish? Never!"

"Good, my lord--be wary!" urged Calder.

"Sweet, my noble master--have a care!" said Paris; "he may only be some drunken trooper of Lauchope or Clelland's, whom his comrades have lost when fording the river!"

"But to die, and unaided, under my hall windows! No! no! that would be a blight upon my name for ever," cried the Earl as he unbuckled his belt, and throwing down his mantle, bugle, and poniard, leaped without a moment's hesitation into the watery tumult, exclaiming as he did so, "Saint Bothan of Bothwell for me!"

He plunged in a few yards above where the man was struggling with the current, that was foaming past him with the speed of a swollen mill-race.

Exhausted with his efforts, the unfortunate swimmer clung to an ash-tree that had sunk into the stream by having the soil partly washed away from its root, and the foam-bells were dancing white and frothy around it. The current bore the Earl close to him; he grasped him by the scarf, and then, both yielding a little to the impetuous current, swam together to a point of rock close by, where the Earl, strong, active, and fresh, dragged the rescued man ashore, and he was immediately supported by the pages, who were very vociferous in praise of their lord's courage and address.

"Praise God, and not me!" he replied; "for a moment more had seen the poor man perish. Behold the tree to which he clung!"

At the moment he spoke, the tough ash was rent from its tenacious rooting, and swept by the swollen stream like a withered reed round the wooded promontory, which is crowned by the castle of Bothwell.

"'Twas a brave feat and a perilous!" said Paris.

"A gallant deed and a godly!" chorused young Calder, though both were laughing in secret to see their lord shaking himself like a water-spaniel.

"Enough," said he, "from both, and thou in especial, Master Calder, for thou hast the very snuffle of a preacher in thy nostrils. Remove this man's steel bonnet--faith! he seems quite speechless; but lead him by the postern to the hall, while I don me another doublet and shirt, for I am wet as a water-dog."

A few minutes sufficed to change the Earl's attire, and to find him lounging on the crimson settle in that luxurious chamber, toying with the countess's raven ringlets, and listening to her praises of his strength and courage, and her regrets and agonies, &c., for the danger on which her taunts had hurried him.

Her dark eyes were again sparkling with light and love; but the tenderness and engaging fondness of her manner failed as before to enliven or win the attention of her husband.

In his mind there was, he knew not why, a sad presentiment of impending evil; his heart was oppressed by that kind of dead calm that in some men precedes a tempest of passion. The childlike fondling of the beautiful countess was now lavished in vain. Ceasing to address him, she sighed and drooped her head; while her fairy fingers patted and played with the strong hand and arm, that more from habit than from love had almost unconsciously encircled her.

French Paris, the Earl's favourite and most trusted page, now raised the arras and presented his saucy and ruddy face.

"Well," asked the Earl, "how fares it with the person whom I fished out of the river?"

"He will be well, and with you anon, my Lord."

"What manner of man is he?"

"French, my lord, I think; but he has not yet spoken."

"Good! by his sleeves of fluted plate I deemed him a gentleman. He will be one of d'Elboeuff's retinue."

"Monsieur le Marquess has been hunting with the Hamiltons in the wood of Orbiestoun, so 'tis very likely."

"Well, bring the stranger hither with all speed."

"We have hung him heels uppermost to run the water out of him; and when we have reversed him, and replaced the said water by a bicker of wine, we will present him to your lordship."

"A forward March chick!" said the Earl, as the page disappeared. "By the mass! when I carried the helmet of old John of Albany, I dared not have spoken so flippantly even to a simple squire or archer as this saucy imp doth to me, who am a belted Earl."

"'Tis the influence of Calvinism," said the Countess; "but Heaven be praised that thou, my dear lord, and my gallant brother, with Arran, Errol, and Herries, shall again raise up those blessed altars which the frenzy and fanaticism of an hour hath destroyed!"

"That is just as may suit my ambition," thought the Earl; "but hush, my ladybird," he added aloud; "talk not thus in the hearing of our people, for knowest thou----How now!" he exclaimed, as the arras was shaken and raised; "Paris, is it thee?"

"Yes, my lord. The stranger is a gentleman of Norway, and he earnestly craves a brief audience."

The Earl started and arose; he grew pale, and his eyes sparkled with anger and confusion; but he had still sufficient tact to avert his face, that the countess might not perceive his emotion.

"Saidst thou a gentleman of Norway?" he stammered; "now, what in the fiend's name brought him to swim in the Clyde at midnight?"

"I know not, my lord."

"The fool--in armour, too!"

"That was the only wise part of his proceedings; for no man ventures abroad in these days without his iron case."

"Silence, sirrah! Norway," muttered Bothwell, in great confusion; "ass and jolt-head that I have been! Had I known he was of Norway, he had been tossing over the steepest falls of Clyde by this time for aught that I had cared. 'Tis some demon from the north I suppose--some devil of the wood, or the rocks, or the ice--some kinsman of Anna--(Nippen himself, perhaps,)--ha! ha! come to beard Bothwell in his own hall. God's blood!" he muttered, setting his teeth on edge, while his eyes glared with a fury suitable to his terrible oath; "he must be a stout fellow, and a rare one, who, knowing me, will bruit abroad my dangerous _secret_."

He trod hastily to and fro, while, alarmed and filled with curiosity, the countess approached, and, taking his hands in hers, said---

"My sweet lord--my dear lord--now prithee tell me what is all this about?"

"What thou hadst better not hear, my bonnibel," replied the Earl, turning abruptly from her; but on seeing that her dark eyes filled with tears, he added gently--"'Tis the stranger, Jane--a man-at-arms--one of Hob Ormiston's vassals, who would speak with me on matters unbefitting a lady's ear; so, I pray thee to retire!"

"Hast thou any secrets from me--from me, who loves thee so well--whose life is thy love?"

"I keep nothing secret that thou shouldst hear; but this"----

"Concerneth a woman, doth it not?" said the Countess, growing pale, while her dark eyes filled with a strange and dusky fire.

"A woman, sayest thou?" stammered the Earl, grasping her arm; "who can have told thee that?"

"Thine own lips did so! Did I not hear thee speak of one called _Anna_?"

"Confusion! no!--go! go! thou art mistaken; I swear to thee, thou art; and anon I will explain how. Retire, lady, for this man would speak with me alone, on matters which concern the state. Paris! raise the arras, and lead him in; but, on peril of thy neck, see that thou keepest beyond earshot!"

The Countess retired, with an expression of face in which surprise and chagrin were blended with the hauteur that seemed to dilate her little figure, as she swept out of the apartment, and the heavy tapestry fell behind her.

"Jealous, by St. Paul!" said the Earl; "but how can she have divined my secret, or learned the name of Anna? Poor Anna! I dream much of her! Now, Heaven forefend I should mutter of her in my sleep, and thus reveal my heart's most deadly secret! But there was jealousy in the eye of Jane, or I am immensely mistaken. There can be none without love, say the casuists. Well! but this maudlin love of hers becomes at times excessively tiresome; and yet I cannot help liking the little dame. Her eyes, St. Mary! how they shone! Ho, there, Calder! lead in this merman--this water-kelpie--and let us know what he would have of James Hepburn!"

*CHAPTER XIX.*

*THE REJECTED AND THE RIVAL.*

When fix'd to one, Love safe at anchor rides,
And dares the fury of the winds and tides;
But losing once that hold, to the wide ocean borne,
It drives at will, to every wave a scorn.
_Dryden._

Though the Earl spoke aloud with an air of careless bravado, he was not without sincere apprehension for the issue of this visit; and when contemplating what might ensue, if his rash and foolish espousal of the Norwegian lady became known to Lord Huntly, various dark ideas of threats, of dule-tree and dungeon, were suggested as the surest means of procuring silence. The malice and gibing of his highborn enemies at court--the queen's indignation--the countess' grief and anger--Huntly's pride and scorn!

"Devil!" muttered Bothwell, playing with his Parmese dagger; "it may be old Rosenkrantz himself! Would that Black Ormiston were here to advise me!"

His heart beat like lightning as footsteps crossed the antechamber; they came nearer; a hand grasped the arras, and the stranger (whom the pages had attired in one of Bothwell's own suits, but who still had his sword, dagger, and corselet) stooped as he entered, and stood erect before him, with head drawn back, his breast heaving, his eyes kindling, and his cheek flushing.

Save a fierce glance, no other greeting was exchanged between them.

"I see that the gay Lord of Bothwell has not forgotten me," said Konrad in French.

"The lover of Anna Rosenkrantz--Konrad of Saltzberg--here, within the walls of Bothwell!"

"Ay, proud noble, here!--beard to beard with thee; yet, believe me, had I known that the fortress, whose round towers rose so grimly above the river, were those of my greatest foe, I had rather have perished among its foaming waters than, given one cry for succour, save to God!"

"I disclaim all enmity, Sir Konrad--but, if this be thy spirit, why seek my presence? My gates are open, and thy course is free."

"I come but to thank thee for having saved a life which, though worthless now to me, I have for a time dedicated to the service of another."

"Thou didst save mine from the waves of the Skager Rack," said the Earl.

"Would to Heaven I had left thee to perish!" muttered Konrad, in a burst of anguish.

"Thou didst then establish a claim to my eternal gratitude, and I thank God that he hath this night enabled me to repay my debt. We are now equal."

"'Tis well! I would not be _thy_ debtor for all the silver in the mines of Bergen; thou art alike faithless and base--yea, Lord of Bothwell, I tell thee in thine own hall, that thou art a dishonoured villain."

The Earl started as if a serpent had stung him, and made a movement as if to sound his bugle.

"I am here beneath thy roof," continued Konrad; "within thy lofty towers and gates of strength, and I fearlessly repeat, that thou art the villain this sword shall one day proclaim thee, in the midst of assembled thousands."

"Thou art stark mad, young fellow!" said the Earl, making an effort to restrain his passion, from a sense of the injury he had done the speaker, and the deceit practised towards Anna, of whose escape and immediate vicinity he had not the most remote idea. "Konrad, I am aware that I have wronged thee deeply, for I have acted most unwittingly to thee, the part another acted once to me; for in my hot and ardent youth, I loved one who neglected me with a coquetry and a cruelty that, to this hour, have cast a shadow over my fortune and my days, I have loved many since then; but, as God knoweth, none with the ardour and passion that welled up in my boyish bosom for that young girl, my first and earliest love. Since then, a morbid and mischievous spirit has led me--in vengeance, as it were--to make women my playthings and my toys, each after each to be won, thrown aside, and forgotten, when I tired of them--yea, thrown aside like flowers whose perfume is gone."

Touched by the Earl's gentleness, the eyes of Konrad filled with tears; and, clasping his hands, he said with great bitterness--

"Oh! Lord of Bothwell, in pursuit of this ideal vengeance thou hast destroyed me."

"Forgive me," said the Earl, laying a hand kindly upon his shoulder; "forgive one who has endured all that you now feel; but, mark me, a time will come when thou wilt despise the woman who could so coldly desert thee for another."

"Oh, never!" said the young man earnestly--"never!"

"Remember the old saw that sayeth, 'There are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.' Thou art still young, Konrad; thy years"----

"Have scarcely numbered two-and-twenty, and already I am tired of life."

"Thou art mistaken; the old man may weary of existence, but the young man never. The ardour of thy love will die"----

"Never, my lord--I tell thee, never!"

"Ha! ha!--how, dost thou love her still?"

"God alone knows how deeply and how dearly."

"Jesu! after she hath so misused thee? This is indeed the love of romance," said the Earl, who thought he now saw some hope of ridding himself of Anna, and so doing both himself and her lover a service. "Well, Konrad, if thy passion is the same, and if Anna might be restored to thee"----

"What! now--when in heart and soul she is the wife of another? Never! Much as I love her still, though on her bended knees she implored that love, I swear to thee, Sir Earl, by God and St. Mary, I would withhold it! I love her, 'tis true--but oh! not with the same passion as of old. Thou hast rifled my flower of its perfume, and broken the chain that love and innocence cast around it. Though Anna still, she is no longer the Anna who was the idol of my first day-dreams. No, my lord, to me her love would now be but a mockery and an insult."

"By the mass! but I love thy spirit, and if I could be thy friend"----

"Friend!" reiterated Konrad with a bitter smile; "no, my lord--that thou never canst be!"

"Then what devilish errand brings thee now to Scotland?"

Konrad hesitated in replying, for he was so much in the Earl's power that some subterfuge was necessary.

"Is it to seek vengeance on me, or to compel me to do some manner of justice to thy false lemane?" asked Bothwell, haughtily.

"Justice? hast thou not wedded another after thy deliberate espousal of her?"

"Dost thou deem the mock blessing of yon mad hermit a spousal rite?" exclaimed the Earl, laughing; "what passed well enow for a marriage on the half-barbarian shores of thy native fiord, will scarcely be deemed one in this reformed land of stern superintendents, ruling elders, and wrathful ministers--ha! ha!"

Konrad repressed his rising passion, and his hand involuntarily sought the pommel of his dagger; but the recollection of Anna, lying helpless and faint among the ruins of the desolate Priory, made him adopt the less hostile course.

"I go to push my fortune under the banner of some of your border chiefs and turbulent nobles, for thou hast made me loathe the land of my birth, though there I have garnered up my heart; and sadly the memory of its dark blue hills and waving woods cometh ever to my mind; and if, Lord of Bothwell, in the strife that all men say will soon convulse this land, thou meetest Konrad of Saltzberg in his helmet--look well to thyself; for by the bones of Olaus! in that hour thou mayest need the best of thy mail and thy manhood to boot."

"Be it so!" replied the Earl with bold frankness. "If that time ever comes, Sir Konrad, the memory that I have wronged thee deeply will alone make me blench. But go thy way, and God be with thee! for Bothwell hall hath scarcely space enow to contain two such spirits as thou and I, even for one night. Ho, there!--French Paris, lead this gentleman to the gates. He is the first who hath rejected with scorn the proffered friendship of the house of Hepburn, and bent a dark brow on a lord of Bothwell under his own rooftree!"

*CHAPTER XX.*

*KONRAD AND THE COUNTESS.*

Oh, Bothwell bank! that blooms so bright
Beneath the sun of May;
The heaviest cloud that ever blew,
Is bound for you this day.
_Aytoune's Lays._

Konrad was now doubly anxious to return to Anna, on learning the dangerous nature of the predicament in which she was placed, and the sad truth that, beyond a doubt, the faithless Earl had really cast her off for ever, by his marriage with the Lady Jane Gordon. Under these circumstances, the young man knew how much there was to dread should she rashly seek the presence of the Earl, who might be compelled to adopt some dark and desperate course to silence her for ever, in dread of her accusations and clamour, which might so seriously injure his public character and domestic peace.

While the interview recorded in the last chapter was taking place, the Countess of Bothwell was sitting in her bower, with her dark eyes full of tears; for the manner of the stranger, and certain expressions uttered by the Earl, had roused her jealousy, and wounded her self-esteem. Old stories of Bothwell's innumerable intrigues and gallantries floated dimly and painfully through her mind, and her vivid imagination filled up a dark tableau of--she knew not what--but which her wilful and impetuous nature prompted her, at all risks, to fathom.

"Come hither, French Paris," she said to the youngest page, a pretty lad, who had been presented to the Earl by the young Queen Mary; "come hither," she continued, with one of her most engaging smiles. "Lead that strange man to my presence on the first opportunity; for I must see him before he leaves the castle!"

"Lady--the stranger?" stammered the lad.

"I said the stranger, sirrah! Didst thou not hear me?" she replied, pettishly.

"I dare not, lady; for it seemeth to my poor comprehension that there lurketh some mystery"----

"For that very reason, thou prevaricating little varlet, I wish to converse with him."

"I dare not, madam; for well thou knowest that our lord, the Earl, is not to be trifled with."

"'Tis mighty well, this, Master Paris! can I neither tempt nor oblige thee to obey me, and keep my secret?"

"Thou canst well do both, sweet madam," replied the gallant page, with a coy glance.

"Then here, thou little miser, are ten golden unicorns," said the Countess, taking her purse from her girdle; but the pert boy drew back, saying--

"How, Lady Bothwell! wouldst thou think to bribe the son of a French knight like the spawn of a rascally clown? If I am paid for keeping a secret, St Mary! 'twill be with no other coin than Cupid's."

The Countess reddened; but finding it necessary to humour the lad, who had her so completely in his power,--

"Thou forward imp!" she replied; "one may easily discern thy court education. I will give thee one kiss now, and another after I have seen this stranger. But see to it, sirrah, that thou art secret and sincere, or the kiss may be more fatal than that of Judas."

"Sweet lady!" replied the saucy boy, blushing with pleasure as the lip of the beautiful Countess touched his blooming cheek, "at the risk of my life will I serve thee; and in the hour I fail, may Heaven fail me!"

He sprang away, and, coiling himself up in his mantle, watched near the door of the Earl's chamber till he was summoned to lead forth the unwelcome visiter.

"Boy," said Konrad, "I will give thee a silver crown, if thou wilt lead to the first and nearest bridge that crosses yonder river."

"Fair sir, follow me!" said the page; and, cap in hand, by a narrow spiral stair, which ascended to the second story of the Valence tower, he led Konrad straight to the bower of the countess.

"Where art thou leading me, boy?" asked Konrad suspiciously; while keeping one hand on his dagger, and the other on the page's mantle, as they stumbled up the dark stair, through the slits of which the night wind blew on their faces, and they heard the endless rush of the adjacent Clyde.

"I lead thee where silence is best, else thou mayest come down with the aid of other legs than thine own."

"How, varlet! what jade trick is this?" exclaimed the young man with surprise, on being suddenly ushered into a magnificent little boudoir, where he found himself in presence of a lady.

"'Tis the Countess of Bothwell," whispered French Paris, "who would learn from thee"----

"What thou art not to hear," interrupted the Countess; "so, begone! and if thou wouldst keep that head on thy shoulders, retire behind the arras, and muffle it well in thy mantle."

French Paris immediately retired; and Konrad, whose anxiety for the safety of Anna (when he remembered the half-dying state in which he left her,) amounted now to agony, stood silent and confused, gazing with irresolution on the Countess. He bowed with the deepest respect; for her beauty and dignity, notwithstanding her diminutive stature, were very striking.

The position she occupied, and the splendour by which she was surrounded, contrasted forcibly, in his mind, with the forlorn condition of Anna Rosenkrantz, stretched on the couch of leaves among the ruins like a homeless outcast; and he felt, he scarcely knew why, a sentiment of hostility struggling with pity for the Countess.

Her large and oriental-like eyes dilated as she asked--

"Art thou the man whom my husband saved from the river?"

"I am, lady; but, had he known me, I had been left to perish amid its waters."

"Thou art quite a youth, and a handsome one, too--a Frenchman, I think?"

"Nay, noble lady, I am of old Norway in the distant north; but a good Catholic, as I see thou art by thy crucifix."

"Our religion is a bond of friendship in these dangerous days of obdurate heresy," said the Countess, whose eyes lighted up; "but wherefore sayest thou my lord would rather thou hadst perished, though he risked his life to save thee?"

"Because," replied the other with a lowering brow, "I am the bearer of a secret that if, unfolded to thee, would make the Lord Bothwell slay me, even if I stood with the grace-cup on his own hearthstone."

"And what is this secret?" she asked with a hauteur that was assumed to hide her trembling curiosity.

"Excuse my revealing it, lady, and let me begone, I pray you, for an agony of anxiety oppresses me. One day, perhaps, you may--you must know all!"

"Now--tell me now, I implore thee? Behold this ring; it contains four diamonds, each worth I know not how many angels"--

"I am a gentleman, and a captain of arblastiers under Frederick of Denmark, and to me your bribe is proffered in vain. I repeat, madam, that I must decline to reveal the secret."

"This is alike insolent and cruel!" said the Countess, raising her voice, while her dark eyes flashed, and her little hands were clenched. "Tell me this instant all thou knowest, or I will summon those who will make thee. I have a proud lord, and a jealous. Beware! Think what he may do if thou art found in my chamber at this hour. Now, the secret--the secret! Man, thy life is in my hands!" She seized a silver whistle that lay on the table--hand-bells were not then in use--and there was something so malevolent in the threat, and so serpent-like in the expression of her wild dark eyes, that Konrad was both startled and provoked. "The secret"----

"Is--That _thou art not_ Countess of Bothwell!" he replied, with quiet scorn.

"What hast thou dared to say?" she asked, in a breathless voice, and grew paler than marble.

"That thy husband is a villain, lady--a villain who hath deceived thee cruelly! He has another Countess, who shall one day claim him, and compel him to acknowledge her as such before the assembled peers of Scotland; for she is of noble birth in her own country, and the warlike King Frederick will not permit the honour of her house to be trifled with."

"Man, thou hast lied--oh, say thou hast lied! Oh, say that thou art mistaken!" said the Countess, in a low and broken voice, as she sank upon a settle with a ghastliness of face, which the darkness of her eyes and hair increased.

"I am not mistaken, lady. I swear to thee by every saint who is blessed in heaven, and by their shrines that are revered on earth, that I am _not_! He is solemnly espoused to Anna"----

"_Anna!_ 'tis the name he has muttered thrice in his sleep."

"Anna Rosenkrantz, a lady of Norway, who at this hour wears on her marriage finger the emerald ring which the hermit of Bergen blessed, and with which she was solemnly espoused."

"Sayest thou an emerald ring?" demanded the Countess, a sudden light flashing in her eyes, while her lips became more white and parched.

"Yea, lady, wherein the traitor had inscribed a legend, purporting that 'the gift and the giver were hers for ever.'"

The Countess uttered a wild cry, and threw her clasped hands above her head.

"Holy Mother look upon me, that my senses may be preserved! That ring was mine--my betrothal gift to him. He said 'twas lost during his exile; and with that gift (which my good and pious kinsman, the Bishop of Dunblane, blessed on our plighting day) he hath espoused another! But I will be avenged! and by the soul of my murdered father, who with his sword in his hand and the cross on his brow, fell on the field of Corrichie, I will raise through all Strathbolgie and Aboyne a cry for vengeance, that Scotland will long remember!"

"Against whom, lady?" asked Konrad, who had now a dash of the cynic in his manner. "The man thou lovest?"

But there was no reply. Exhausted by the fury of that tempest of passion, which convulsed a frame at all times too excitable and nervous, the Countess had become insensible; and then Konrad, full of the tenderest concern, was approaching, when French Paris, who had been listening intently to the whole interview, and now began to tremble for his own bones, raised the arras, and, plucking him by the sword, said--

"If thou valuest thy life, follow me and begone! Her cries have reached the hall, and already I hear the voice of the Earl."

They rushed down the secret stair to the postern, the arras barely closing over Konrad at one end of the bower chamber, when the astonished Earl raised it at the other.

*CHAPTER XXI.*

*DISAPPOINTMENT.*

Once more the gate behind me falls;
Once more before my face
I see the moulder'd abbey walls
That stand within the chase.
_Tennyson._

Konrad stood on Bothwell bank, the wooded declivity that sloped abruptly to the margin of the Clyde, in whose deep bosom the stars were now reflected; for all traces of the storm had died away, and the wet foliage of the woodlands was rustling in the soft west wind that blew from the darkened hills of Lanark.

High and sombre in its feudal strength and architectural pride, towered up the keep of Bothwell, and its grass-tufted barbican wall. Lights flashed through the casements of turret and corridor, and loud voices were heard calling clamorously in the echoing court.

"There lies thy path," said the page, pointing towards the river; "traverse its banks for about a mile till thou reachest the bridge of Bothwell. The hamlet of the same name is near it, and there thou canst pass the night."

"Is there no place nearer? consider again, good lad," said Konrad, thinking more for Anna than himself, as he slipped the promised crown into the page's hand.

"The warder of the bridge resides in a house above the archway, which is closed after nightfall. He keeps an hostelry which affordeth good up-putting both for men and horses; but mark me, fair sir! seek neither hamlet nor hostel to-night, for we know not what evil may come of thy plaguy interview with the countess. Keep in the woods, and lie _en perdu_ till daybreak, and then God speed thee!"

The postern closed, and Konrad stood alone.

A vague sense of danger impelled him to hurry from the vicinity of the castle; but he was less actuated by that motive than by his anxiety to rejoin Anna, from whom he had now been two hours absent, without procuring the succour she required so much.

He found the passage of the river open, for the warder had partaken somewhat freely of the potations of a traveller who had tarried there about curfew-time, and consequently he had forgotten to secure the barrier-gate that closed the roadway after dark, and which none could pass without paying toll, or drinking a can of ale at his hostel. Konrad passed on; and just as day was brightening in purple and orange on the distant hills, he began to ascend the eminence which was crowned by the ruined priory of the Augustines of Blantyre.

As day broke on the green woods of Bothwell, and the magnificent river, a hundred yards in breadth, that flowed in blue and silver light between them, no other silvan scene could surpass that landscape in beauty and romance. Contrasting strongly with the bright green of the summer forest, which was seen at intervals between the ivied buttresses and shattered windows of the gothic priory, rose Bothwell's broad round towers and ponderous ramparts, shining almost blood-red in the rising sun, being all built of ruddy-coloured stone. White and silvery, from the margin of the deep and crystal river, the morning mist curled up through the heavy foliage in a thousand fantastic shapes, and melted away in the thin air of the blue and balmy sky.

Hurrying among the grass-grown masses of the broken tombs and fallen walls, Konrad entered the vault where he had left Anna, and a pang shot through his bosom on beholding her lying at full length, still and motionless, on her bed of leaves. Her face seemed pale as death when viewed by the dim light that struggled through the arched chamber, from a little pointed window in the massive wall.

"If she should be dead!" he thought, as he stooped tenderly over her. "Ah! Heaven be thanked, she only sleeps!"

The contour and pallor of her beautiful fece, then attenuated by mental suffering and bodily fatigue, seemed almost sublime in the placidity of its aspect. Tears were oozing heavily from her long lashes, and her respirations were short and quick as her lover bent over her, and, taking one of her passive hands in his, pressed it gently to his lips.

Anna awoke, and started on beholding Konrad, whose attire had been changed; for the pages of the Earl had given him a sombre suit of black sarcenet in lieu of his wet garments.

"Konrad," she said faintly, "thou hast tarried long."

"Not one moment longer than I could avoid, dearest Anna! Thou canst not guess where I have been, and whom I have seen."

"Thou hast seen _him_," she replied, with a radiant face; "whom else couldst thou see that I care for?"

"I _have_ seen him, lady," said Konrad, over whose countenance there fell a deeper shade of melancholy. "I have seen him, and stood with him face to face in his own castle hall."

"Oh!" exclaimed Anna; and, half-clinging to Konrad's neck, she turned upon him a face and eyes that were radiant with eagerness and joy; "and what said he? what message sent he to me--to his well-loved Anna? why came he not himself?"

"Thou hast forgotten, Anna"----

"Ah! my God! yes--the story. He is still faithful to me--say that he is, dear Konrad!"

"Six months ago, with all formality and magnificence, he was married to another, and thou art no more remembered than the last year's snow."

"This must--must be some dreadful dream or fantasy!" said Anna, pressing her hands upon her temples.

"I have seen his bride."

"Is she beautiful?"

"Yes, singularly beautiful, and gentle, and winning."

"Hah!" muttered Anna sharply through the teeth, which were set like a vice.

Her face was pale and colourless. An expression of jealous bitterness, of anger, and reproach, were on her forehead, and sparkling in her eyes, which were almost white with an aspect of passion, such as Konrad had never before witnessed in her usually calm features; and, taking her hands in his, he said tenderly--

"Be composed, dearest Anna! for I never will forsake thee while hie remains; and even were I to die, my spirit, I am assured, will hover near thee still."

"_Thou!_" said she bitterly, as she snatched away her hands; "what art thou to me?"

The young man trembled, for at these cruel words a heavy palsy seemed to fall upon his heart.

"And where is his castle, Konrad?" she demanded abruptly.

"Behold!" he replied; and, drawing back a mass of the pendant ivy and wild-roses that overhung the entrance of the vault, he displayed the beautiful valley or dell, through which the noble Clyde, so broad, blue, and crystalline, was winding between its banks of lofty wood, and overlooked by the dark facade of Bothwell's princely stronghold.

Full on the long line of its crenelated rampart, on the strong round towers that the patriot Wallace, and "proud Pembroke's haughty Earl," had built, on its shining casements and lofty keep, overtopping the summer foliage and the morning mist, shone the warm splendour of the early sun. Anna gave one fixed and fierce glance at the edifice, and then arose with tottering steps, and wildness in her air and eyes.

"Whither wouldst thou, Anna?" said Konrad imploringly, retaining her hand.

"I am going to him"----

"To Bothwell?"

"I will--I shall see him once again, though only to expire at his feet. One interview may"----

"Dear Anna," said Konrad, who never for an instant, under all her petulance and neglect, altered his gentle and loverlike tone; "thou forgettest that he is wedded to another--a great lady of the land--and that thou art now but as a weed, a bramble in his path, to be crushed or thrown aside."

"Go to! Konrad--'tis but jealousy that makes thee speak thus."

"Thou wrongest me, Lady Anna; 'tis long since jealousy died within me. Oh! _that_ was an agony that could not last with life. Tarry but one hour, I implore--thou art so faint, Anna"----

"Dare you detain me, sir?"

"Go, then; and Bothwell's boorish warders and flippant pages will drive thee like some poor wanton from his gates; and think then--when with insult and opprobrium they are closed upon thee--what thy father, the brave old knight of Aggerhuis, who died with one hand on his sword and the other on the standard of the Lubeckers, would have felt, could he have thought that such an hour was reserved for the only daughter of that wife he loved so dearly."

"True--true!" replied Anna, giving way to a passionate burst of tears; for the mention of her parents subdued her. "O Mary! blessed mother of compassion, intercede for me! Inspire me with resignation and strength to endure my fate. Ah, pardon me, kind and good Konrad! for my heart is so torn by love and shame and indignation, that at times I know not what I say. From what I was in Frederick's court, to become what I am--a poor outcast on a foreign shore--an object of scorn to the proud, and pity to the good! Oh, how frightful! Be still kind to me, Konrad--and end my misery by putting thy poniard into the heart that so cruelly deceived thee."

Konrad was deeply moved by this passionate burst of grief; he leaned against a fragment of the ruin, and covered his face with his hands.

"Anna!" said he, after a pause; "bethink thee that Scotland hath a queen whose goodness of heart and gentleness of spirit are revered in every land save her own?"

"True! and at her feet will I pour forth my sorrow and my tears together. As a woman she will sympathize with me, and lend a kind ear to the story of my wrongs, Thou wilt go with me, Konrad?"

He kissed her hand again, and led her to the arch of the vault, and then they paused--for at that moment the blast of a bugle, clear and ringing, ascended from the bosky dell below the ruined Priory. Then the flash of steel was seen among the foliage, and a band of between forty and fifty men-at-arms on horseback, three abreast, having two swallow-tailed pennons displayed, and with their steel caps and tall uplifted lances glittering in the morning sun, swept at full gallop round the steep knoll on which the castle stood.

For a few minutes the reflection of their passing files was seen to glitter in the mirror-like bosom of the river, as horse and rider, spear and pennon, vanished among the apple bowers and birchen glades that clothed the braes of Bothwell.

Konrad felt instinctively that they were in pursuit of him; and, with a sadness and anxiety caused only by the reflection that, if he were slain, Anna would be friendless and desolate, he led her slowly from the ruins, and, hand in hand, the forlorn pair traversed the thickets of old and gnarled oak surrounding Blantyre Priory, and reached the rough and dusty highway which was to lead them--but how they knew not--to the court and palace of the Queen of Scotland.

*CHAPTER XXII.*

*THE COUNTESS JANE.*

What was once a source of pleasure,
Now becomes the cause of pain;
Day no more displays its treasure,
Endless night o'erspreads the plain:
The powers of nature and of art
Cease to charm the wounded heart.
_Sonnet by Queen Mary._

The Earl of Bothwell was more astonished than alarmed on finding his Countess insensible; but hastening forward with proper solicitude, he raised her from the ground, and the moment he did so she partially recovered.

Her deep dark eyes gave him one full, bright, sickening glance of sorrow and reproach, then she closed them again, and her head drooped over his shoulder.

Again she recovered suddenly, and, trembling in every limb, withdrew from the Earl's encircling arm, and cold, passionless, and rigid in feature as a statue, gazed steadily upon him for a moment, and, removing her wedding ring from the marriage finger, laid it on a little marble table that stood near her.

"Now, my Lord," said she, in a voice that struggled to be firm, "now, I have done with thee. Give this ring to _her_ who now wears my betrothal gift, and may she be happier than I have been! Oh! Bothwell, Bothwell! if ever"----

"Woman, art thou mad?" exclaimed the astonished noble, growing pale with surprise and increasing anger.

The Countess laughed bitterly.

"Mad!" she repeated, and pressed her little hands upon her throbbing temples. A strange light blazed in her dark eyes, that were liquid and swimming, though not one of the hot salt tears that trembled in them rolled over her pallid cheek. "Yes--I am mad! ha, ha!"

A shudder crept over Bothwell on hearing that ghastly laugh, and he said--

"Take up thy ring, Jane, for thy manner makes me tremble."

"Hah! doth it so? Oh, Bothwell! did I not love thee almost to adoration, I should spit upon thee! Thy ring--oh! never more shall ring of thine disgrace the hand of Lord Huntly's daughter. Where is the ring that I gave thee in exchange for _this_ on the day of our betrothal, when together we knelt before the Bishop of Dunblane, and the old man blessed us both? Oh, false and faithless! dishonourable and base!"----

"Speak louder, lady!" said the Earl, whose brow darkened with suppressed passion,--"speak louder, I pray thee! Let every groom and gossiping page hear how Bothwell and his Countess can bandy hard words in their quarrels, like two tavern brawlers. What a plague have I to do with thy quips and quirks?--thy freaks and wild fancies? Thou hast found thy tongue, (a wanion upon it!) pray, endeavour to recover thy temper also. Lady--by St. Paul thy best wits have gone woolgathering!"

"Oh! why didst thou wed me, Bothwell?" she exclaimed, in a passionate burst of grief, as she threw herself upon a cushioned settle, and covered her face with her hands. The Earl was touched; he approached, and bent over her.

"Jane, Jane!" he began, in a faltering voice.

"Why didst thou take me from hearts that loved me so well?"

Scorn curled the Earl's lip at this question, for he thought it referred regretfully to Lord Sutherland, who, in her girlish days, had been an assiduous admirer of the Countess. He replied coldly--

"I doubt not there are still hearts who love thee in Strathbolgie--and _Strathnaver_, too."

"Begone!" she exclaimed, in a voice that thrilled through him; for her terrible malady was then fast stealing upon her senses and energies. "Begone to thine Anna, and leave Jane of Gordon to die! Away--begone!--dost thou hear?" And, in the childish bitterness of her passion, she spat upon him.

The Earl withdrew a pace or two; rage crimsoned his features, and he rolled his eyes about for some object to vent his fury upon.

"Oh! why didst thou teach me to love thee?" continued the Countess in her piercing voice. "What led thee to woo and to wed me?"

"_Fatality!_" replied the Earl, with a cold and haughty smile. "Fatality! O woman! knowest thou not that every action of my life has been impelled by an overruling principle, which I could neither see, nor avert, nor avoid? and I know not on what other shoals and rocks of danger and intrigue, this current of my inevitable fete may hurry me. But I feel within me a solemn presentiment that this right hand shall yet do deeds at which the boldest hearts--and my own, too--shall be startled and dismayed."

"Away from me further; for now I see thou art tainted with the cursed heresies of Calvin. Fatality! This is not the Catholic doctrine thy pious mother, Agnes of Sinclair, instilled into thy mind. Now I no longer need to marvel at thy duplicity. Thou who art false to thy God, may well be false to me; or art thou growing mad, too? Away to Anna, and leave me!"

"Anna?"

"Yes, Anna--'tis the name thou hast often muttered in thy sleep, when, with a heart full of love, I lay waking and watching by thy side, and these evil dreams were my meed. Hence to thy Norwegian!"

"By St. Paul! this fellow, Konrad, hath been with thee! Ah, villain and traitor! beware how thou comest again within the reach of Bothwell's dagger. Ho, Hob of Ormiston!--John of Bolton!--Calder!--Paris!--ho there! What a blockhead, what a jack-a-lent I have been!"

The page appeared, and too frightened to remember his fee now, trembled in every limb at the domestic storm he had been partly the means of raising.

"Has any one had access to the Countess?" asked the Earl, with a terrible frown.

"None--none, my lord, that I know aught of."

"French Paris, thou art a subtle little villain, and hadst thou not been gifted to me, like a marmozet, by the Queen, I would have cracked thy head, as thy likeness would a nut, to obtain the truth! Have the lairds of Ormiston or Bolton returned yet?"

"This moment only, my lord. They are in the hall, and in their armour yet."

"Let their stout jackmen hie to horse again, and bid them look well to girth and spur-leather; so, while I arm me, boy, send the knights hither."

While Bothwell hurriedly buckled on a suit of armour that was lying near--for, as we said elsewhere, no man could with safety venture a yard from his own door unarmed--the Countess lay on the crimson settle, with her face covered by her hands, over which her long black hair was flowing in disorder.

The clank of armed heels and steel scabbards in the antechamber, heralded the approach of the knights, and their mail flashed as the heavy arras was drawn aside, and they stood before the Earl.

"The Norwegian hath been here!" whispered the latter to Ormiston.

"How--who?"

"Konrad of Saltzberg--thou rememberest him," he added aloud; "and he hath bewitched the Countess--a French sorcerer, Bolton, anent whom I will tell thee another time. Horse and spear! Thou, Ormiston, and I, must ride, scour the woods, and slay without reservation or remede if we find him. Nay, that were too cruel, perhaps; let us capture him, at all events. Tell your people, sirs, he is a tall fellow, with a long sword, a corselet, breeches and hosen of sable sarcenet. Twenty unicorns to the finder and capturer!"

"We must breathe our steeds first," said Ormiston, as he drew the clasps and buckles of the Earl's armour; "we have had a tough night's work with Clelland and Lauchope. They stood it stoutly, with a hundred lances and fifty archers a-side. We have had a raid on Bothwell-muir that will make a noise among the justiciary lords at Edinburgh."

"And how came these knaves to quarrel?"

"Because, at Candlemas last, one took precedence of the other in crossing Calder brig."

"A just cause and a proper for three hundred blockheads to tilt at each other's throats! And how comest thou, Hob, to lift lance in this wise feud?"

"Because I count kindred with Clelland."