BOTHWELL, VOLUME I (continued 3)

At this probability a darker frown gathered on the brow of Bothwell; for, though half tired of Anna, and wholly repenting of his intrigue with her, he felt a pang at the idea of another supplanting his image in her heart.

"Thou art but a cold-blooded and iron-hearted mosstrooper, Hob," said he; "one inured to rapine and cruelty; nursled and nurtured among wilds and morasses, and thirty years of incessant feud and foray, stouthrief and bloodshed, and cannot judge of my feelings in this matter. I will myself see Anna, and break the matter to her—bid her adieu, and will meet thee here, if thou tarriest for me."

"See her, and be lost! one smile—one tender word—a few tears—will seal thy fate; and while thou playest the lover and the laggard here at Westeray, Morton, Lindesay, and their allies, aided by the English Queen, regain place and power, and reverse thy pardon and recall. Yonder lieth the Fleur-de-lys, with her canvass flapping in the friendly gale, that streams her pennons towards the Caithness coast. Be wise—be wary; away, and see not Anna again!"

"Trust me, Ormiston. In my youth I was the plaything of a proud, a cold, and calculating beauty; the slave of her charms and caprice in hall and bower—the upholder of her name and loveliness amid the dust and blood of the battle and tiltyard; but these follies have passed with the years and the passion that produced them; and now thou shalt see, that, like that woman, I can be cold as ice, and impassible as marble, when my interest jars with my love. In half an hour I will meet thee here; till then, adieu!"

One of the numerous boys, who fed like the dogs on the offals at the hall-table of the great island baron, conducted the Earl to the chamber of Anna. He was little, but strong and active as a deer. His whole attire was a kilt of brown stuff belted about him, a sealskin vest, and the leathern fillet confining the masses of his thick red hair, which, from the hour of his birth, a comb had never touched. Leading the way, he sprang like a squirrel up the steps of the great stair, his bare and sinewy legs taking three steps at a time.

The space and magnificence of the staircase made the Earl pause as he ascended, notwithstanding the bitter thoughts that oppressed him. The great stone column upon which the steps turn, is a yard in diameter, and has a capital decorated with a statue of the Bishop of Orkney, Thomas de Tulloch. The nature of the times of which we write, was evinced by the architecture of this grand stair; for, at every turn of the ascent, there are concealed loopholes pointing inwards, to gall the foe who might penetrate thus far; while, at the summit, there is still remaining the guard-room, where five or six islesmen, who formed the body-guard of Balfour, clad in their shirts of mail, and armed with bow and battle-axe, lay stretched on the stone benches dozing listlessly, like sleepy dogs.

The Earl stood within the apartment where Anna had passed the night; it was wainscoted with fir-wood, and on the centre of each pannel was carved a quaint device, the design of some rude genius of the Orcadian Isles. These were principally of a religious nature, and the hands and feet of our Saviour, pierced by the nail-holes and encircled by a crown of thorns, appeared alternately with the otter-head of Balfour, and satyr-like visages that grinned from bunches of gothic leaves. The stone fireplace was surmounted by a bishop's mitre, and a fire of driftwood was still smouldering on the hearth.

Christina, who had been watching her mistress, retired on the entrance of the Earl.

He approached the bed where Anna, still oppressed by the illness and lassitude consequent to her voyage, was reposing and slumbering soundly, unaware that her lover was bending over her.

Raised upon a dais, and having a heavy wooden canopy supported by four grotesque columns, the bed resembled a gothic tomb rather than a couch, and Anna might have passed for a statue, as her face and bosom were white as Parian marble. On each cheek her hair fell in heavy braids, which glowed like bars of gold when the rays of the morning sun streamed through the embrasured casement on her placid face.

More than usual was revealed of a bosom that, in its whiteness and roundness, was, like that face, surpassing beautiful. The colour came and went in the cheek of the Earl, and he became irresolute as he gazed upon her. He sighed deeply, and, animated by a sudden tenderness, pressed his lip to her cheek; she awoke, and twined her arms around him.

"My dear Lord!" said she, in a faint voice, "so thou art come to me again!"

"I have come, Anna, but to bid thee farewell." Her large eyes dilated with sudden alarm and grief.

"I told thee, Anna, that in Orkney we might have to separate for a time, ere I could convey thee to my household and my home. The wind is blowing right across the stormy Frith toward the mainland of Scotland, and though love cries ho! my skipper is urgent, and still more so is stern necessity. Farewell for a time—for a brief time, sweet Anna, I must leave thee," continued the Earl kissing her repeatedly to pacify her.

Her beauty was very alluring, and until that moment he knew not how deep was his passion for her.

"In that busy world of turmoil and intrigue on which thou art about to re-enter—I will be forgotten. Thou mayest not return to me, and I—I will"——

"What?"

"Die!"

"Speak not, think not thus, dearest Anna!" replied Bothwell, who felt his resolution wavering, though the thoughts of ambition and the taunts of Ormiston urged him on the path he had commenced. "We must separate—but we must meet again."

"Well, be it so!" she said, bending her eyes that were blinded with tears upon him; "but O, Bothwell! thou art dearer to me than life, and knowest all that I have sacrificed for thee,—home—friends—myself—every thing"——

"True—true, Anna;" he was touched to the soul by her manner and accent.

"Then leave me not—but take me with thee. I will go happily in the meanest disguise thou mayest assign me—O, I will never be discovered!"

"It may not be, Anna; it is impossible. By St. Paul! I tell thee it is impossible at present."

"In the confidence of thy love I have been dreaming a pleasant dream, and now perhaps am waking from it. Wilt thou love me in thine absence as thou dost now?"

"After my solemn espousal of thee before that holy hermit—canst thou doubt it?" rejoined the Earl, in a voice that faltered with very shame, though to Anna it seemed that grief had rendered it tremulous in tone. The supposed emotion inspired her with sudden confidence in him, and she said—

"Go—and never again will I suspect thy love; but oh! when wilt thou return to me?"

"By Yule-tide, dear Anna, if I am in life;" and, kissing her once again, he hurried from her presence like one who had been guilty of a crime, and—returned no more!

"Oh! how base, how ignoble is this duplicity!" he exclaimed on rejoining Hob Ormiston, who with folded arms had been leaning on the parapet, whistling the "Hunts of Cheviot" to wile away the time. "She weeps so bitterly at my departure, and speaks so trustingly of my return, that my heart is wrung with the misery my damnable deceit and criminal ambition will bring upon her."

"Whew! yet she cared not to deceive one who loved her earlier, longer, and better than thee."

"True," replied the Earl; he became silent for a moment, and while the idea of her ever having loved another caused a pang of mortification in his breast, it was mingled with a coldness from which he drew a consolation for the part he was about to act.

"By cock and pie!" continued Hob, pursuing the advantage his sophistry had gained; "ten thousand women should never stand in my path. I never pursued love so fast as to lose a stirrup by the way; and what the foul fiend matters it whether thou weddest Jane Gordon or not? Thou canst still come and see thy Norwegian sometimes, and I warrant ye Sir Gilbert will prevent her from feeling thine absence much. He is a courtier of jolly King James the Fifth; and he, as thou knowest, kept a dame at every hunting lodge to manage the household. Ha! nay, nay, do not chafe; 'tis but marrying the Lady Jane, and handfasting the Lady Anna; and methinks I need not cite examples among our nobility and knighthood."

"In the days when I was young, generous, and unspotted in honour and faith, I was alternately the tool and the plaything of a woman, of that female fiend, Catherine of Medicis, who saw my love for—pshaw! since then I have grown wiser. I have, as we say at chess, turned the tables upon the sex, and view them merely as the objects of my pleasure—the tools of my ambition. Yet I feel that I am on the eve of taking a step, that, however cruel, must make or mar my fortune."

"Fortune! defy her, and the fickle jade will favour thee. I love a bold fellow, who, with his helmet on his brow and a whinger by his side, becomes the artificer of his own fortune."

"Ah! could we but have a glimpse through that thick veil that ever involves the future. Hast thou ever read Cicero?"

"Nay, thank God! I never could read aught save my missal, and, without spelling, very little of that; but since 1560, when missal and mass went out of fashion together, I have done nothing in that way. But this book"——

"'Tis a man, Marcus Tullius Cicero, an illustrious Roman."

"A sorcerer, by his name, I doubt not; well, and what said he?"

"There is a fine passage in his works, wherein he speaks of the capability of seeing effects in their causes; and supposes that Priam, and Pompey, and Cæsar, had each laid before them their pages in the great book of fate, in the noonday of their prosperity—ere the first fell with his Troy, ere the second was defeated at Pharsalia, and the third perished by the dagger of Brutus. But I warrant thou canst not fathom this."

"No—an it had been a winepot I might; but, cock and pie! 'tis all Greek to me. See! yonder cometh Sir Gilbert from the shore to announce that our ship is ready; and so, once more, my Lord, let us seaward, ho!"

The sun was setting that evening on the Firth of Westeray. Its impetuous waves, that rolled in saffron and purple, broke in golden breakers crested with silver surf upon the shining rocks. The distant peaks of Rousay were bathed in yellow light, but, mellowed by distance, the sea lay cold and blue around their bases. The sky was clear and cloudless, and the purity of the atmosphere imparted many beautiful tints to the ocean, that rolled its restless tides around these lonely isles. Like a white bird floating on the distant azure, afar off at the horizon's verge, a sail was visible from the keep of Noltland about sunset. It was the Fleur-de-lys, that had borne Bothwell away from the arms of Anna Rosenkrantz. The whole day, with tear-swollen eyes, she had watched its course through the Firth of Westeray; now it had diminished to a speck in the distance, and ere the sun dipped into the Atlantic, had disappeared behind the fertile Isle of Eglise-oy, where then, as now, the pyramidal spire of the chapel of Saint Magnus rose above the verdant holms, as a landmark to the fishers of the isles.

As slowly the sail vanished round that dim and distant promontory, a low cry almost of despair burst from Anna, and she clung to the weeping Christina. The waiting-woman wept from mere sympathy; but the grief of her mistress (sudden, like all her impulses) was of that violent kind which can only find relief in tears and loud ejaculations.

Near her stood one of Sir Gilbert's retainers, clad in a long shirt of mail, such as was then common in the Orcades; he was leaning on his long axe, and regarding her attentively through the horizontal slit in his salade, a species of helmet with an immovable visor which completely concealed the face; but beneath the impassible front of that iron casque, were features distorted by the grief and anguish that wrung the wearer's generous heart. He was Konrad, who, thus disguised, had the mortification of beholding the wildness of her grief for another.

Often he made a motion, as if to approach her, and as often retired; for though on one hand the most sincere pity urged him to comfort her, the invidious whispers of anger and disdain on the other, together with the necessity of preserving his incognito, withheld him. And there, scarcely a lance's length apart, were the lover and his idol, with the night descending on their sorrows.

From Rousay's hills, and on the distant sea, the sunlight died away. The Firth of Westeray turned from saffron to purple, and from purple to the darkest blue, in whose vast depths were reflected the star-studded firmament, till the moon arose, and then once more its waters rolled in light of the purest silver; and each breaker, as its impetuous wrath was poured upon the bluffs of basalt, fell back into the ocean a shower of brilliants.

CHAPTER XV.

DOUBT AND DESPAIR.

Antony ——————— How I loved,

Witness ye nights and days, and all ye hours

That danced away with down upon your feet,

As all your business were to count my passion.

All for Love, or the World well lost.

Yule-tide came—and passed away.

Three months rolled on, and in that time Anna heard no tidings of Bothwell.

Those who, like her, have waited in all the agony of anxiety and love, degenerating into fear and doubt, can alone know how long those weary months appeared.

In that lonely island her amusements were few. Kind-hearted, honest, and bluff in manner, Sir Gilbert Balfour, though having been something of a courtier in his youth, had gradually acquired much of that rude austerity, with which the Reformation had impressed the manners of the Scottish people, and, being unable to converse with his fair prisoner either in French or Norse, he soon abandoned in despair any attempts to soothe her melancholy, either by signs or condolences offered in the Scottish tongue, which was quite unknown to her.

She soon grew tired of watching the sails that now and then appeared in the narrow strait between Rousay and Westeray. At first she had been wont to hail them with delight, and to watch their approach with a beating heart, full of hope that each successive one might be his returning to her; but hope and exultation died away together, when the ship passed on towards her Scandinavian home; and then she thought of old Sir Erick Rosenkrantz, sitting lonely in his hall at Bergen; and bitter were the tears she wept, at the memory of that kind old face she might never behold again.

The walrus and the sea-dog, that at times arose in droves from the waves, with their round heads breasting the foam; the vast whale that floundered in the shallows, and blew clouds of water in the air; the shoals of finless porpoises, that rushed through the surge like a flock of ocean devils, failed, after a time, to interest or amuse her. Week succeeded week;—there were days of storm, when the grey clouds and the white mists came down from the Arctic circle; when the waves roared and foamed through the narrow strait, and the lightning flashed afar off among the heath-clad hills of Rousay—days of cloudless sunshine, or of listless calm, succeeded each other; and nothing marked the time, which passed by unmarked, even as the wind that swept over the pathless ocean,—but there came no word of Bothwell. The spring of 1566 approached, and all hope in the bosom of Anna began to die away.

Konrad still preserved his incognito most rigidly; but though life seemed to stagnate on the little Isle of Westeray, and in its great but dreary baronial castle, the world beyond it was busy as ever. One night a messenger arrived from the lieutenant-governor of Kirkwall, bearing despatches for Sir Gilbert, who, without taking leave of Anna, but merely giving strict orders to his bailie, that "she was to be kept in sure ward, and treated with every respect," had thrown himself on board a small crayer, and sailed for the mainland of Orkney.

Then passing fishermen brought rumours of civil war and bloodshed—of battles fought and castles stormed; and Anna, when she heard the name of Bothwell, looked anxiously in the faces of those around her, to read in their expression those tidings she was dying with eagerness to learn, but which it was impossible for her to gather from the barbarous, and half Gaelic half Pictish, jargon of the speakers.

The festival of Easter passed away—summer drew on; yet Bothwell did not come, and then the heart of poor Anna began to sicken within her.

The evening was declining drearily, as many others had declined, on Westeray.

A prey to the deepest dejection, Anna reclined on a stone seat in an angle of the battlement, through an embrasure of which she was watching the setting sun. Christina sat near her on the steps of this stone sofa, and her eyes were anxiously fixed on the pallid face of her mistress, whose fine but humid eyes were bent on the distant horizon; but their expression was dreamy, sad, and vacant. The eyes of another were fixed on her, with an intensity of which she was unaware; and indeed she knew not that any one was near save her female attendant.

Leaning against the battlement, and but a few paces distant, stood Konrad of Saltzberg, clad in the same long shirt of mail, and wearing the same salade that have already been described. For more than an hour he had been regarding Anna as a lover alone could have regarded her; but she was thinking only of her absent Earl, and watching the passing ships.

Many had been visible that day; for the vessels of Elizabeth, the English queen, were then sailing to the shores of Iceland, where her people had been permitted by the Danish king to fish for cod. The sun was dipping into the Atlantic, and, when half his circle was hidden by the horizon, the crimsoned waves became as an ocean of blushing wine, but their breakers were glittering in green and gold where they burst on the rocky beach of the isle.

The sun set; his rays died away from land and sea; the pink that edged the changing clouds, and the flush that reddened the water, grew paler and yet more pale, and the stars began to twinkle in the yet sunny blue of the sky. The last white sail, diminished to the size of a nautilus, had faded away in the distance, and Anna covered her face with her hands, and wept; from beneath the lappets of her little velvet cap, her bright hair fell forward in masses, and Konrad, though he saw not her tears, felt all his sympathy and his old love glow within him.

Resolving at all risks to discover himself, he removed his salade and advanced towards her. Anna raised her head at the clink of the shirt of mail, and, starting up, gazed upon him with astonishment while clinging to the parapet, for her strength almost left her. She would have become paler were it possible; but she was already so colourless, that death could not have made her more so.

Konrad expected a greater ebullition of fear, or joy, or astonishment, at his presence and safety; but Anna, who imagined he had merely expatriated himself from Aggerhuis, according to his threat at their last interview, expressed only the latter emotion in her features; and Konrad could not help feeling a little piqued, at her supposed indifference to the dangers he had run, and the watery grave he had so miraculously escaped.

"Konrad," she faltered—"thou here!"

"Anna, dear Anna!" exclaimed the unhappy young man, deeply moved by the sound of her voice, which, like an old and beloved air, stirred the inmost chords of his heart. "I did not expect to hear your lips again utter my name so tenderly."

He covered his eyes with his hand, and then the girl in turn was moved; she laid her hand gently on his arm, but he trembled so much that she withdrew it.

"Poor Konrad! you seem indeed changed; your eyes are hollow, and your cheek—it is very pale!"

"I have endured great grief; God alone knoweth how much agony has been concentrated in a heart that felt too narrow to contain it."

"I do pity thee, Konrad!"

"It is too late now. Thou didst love me once, Anna, and I feel bitterly how cold a substitute is pity. Oh! thou alone wert the link that bound me to the world; the link is snapped, and I am very desolate now!"

Anna sighed. She would have said forgive me; but her pride forbade it.

"The memory of hopes that are blighted, and wishes that were futile, presses heavily on me now," continued Konrad, whose brave spirit seemed to be completely broken; "and, at times, I feel nothing but despair."

"Ah, Konrad!" she replied, with a sickly attempt to smile, "in a few years we learn to laugh at the love of our youth, just as we do at an old-fashioned dress."

"With some it may be so, and 'tis a sad reflection; but, oh Anna! (pardon me repeating that well-loved name as of old,) in all my dreams of the future, I had so entwined our lives, and thoughts, and feelings, into one—I had so long viewed thee as my—my wife—that"——

"I must listen no more to this," said Anna, turning away with a reddening cheek.

"Thou art angry with me; but there was a time—and hast thou forgotten it quite?—when that word wife fell otherwise on thine ear. I trifle, lady. I have tidings to tell thee."

"I will not—I cannot—listen."

"For Heaven sake and your own, hear me!"

"This is alike sinful and insulting—this from the captain of my uncle's archers! Leave me, Konrad of Saltzberg!"

"By my past grief, by my blighted hope and present sorrow, I conjure thee, Anna, to hear me! I would speak to you of this man"——

"My husband?"

"The Lord of Bothwell," said Konrad, with a smile of scorn.

"Hah—well!" continued Anna in a breathless voice, while all her pride and petulance became immediately merged in intense eagerness.

"Thou hast not heard from him since his departure for the court of Scotland?"

"No—not one message hath come to Noltland, at least so sayeth the castellan."

"The castellan hath lied!" replied Konrad, with sparkling eyes; "he hath heard daily, and knows that this false Earl, whom he is now going to join and assist, hath been espoused, with every magnificence, to the sister of the Lord Huntly."

"And I—I"—gasped Anna.

"Thou art a captive for life in this island castle."

Anna clasped her hands passionately above her head, and would have fallen backward had not Konrad sprung to her assistance; but, unable to trust himself with the part of upholding her almost inanimate form, he seated her gently, and hung over her with the utmost tenderness.

"Konrad," she said, with pale and quivering lips, but firm and tearless earnestness; "thou, thou didst never deceive me in word, in deed, or thought—say, how didst thou learn this?"

"How, matters not—'tis the sad verity."

"Thou triflest!" she said, with sudden passion and stamping her foot, while her eyes filled with tears, and she endeavoured to control the unutterable anguish that was expressed in every feature. "From whom, I demand, heardst thou these evil tidings?"

"From Hans Knuber, Lady Anna," replied Konrad, lowering his voice. "He trades, as thou knowest, with certain udallers of Shetland and Orkney, and this night his little crayer, the Skottefruin, (for so has he named her to please the Scots,) is about to sail for the river Clyde. The night is closing—if thou wouldst escape, an hour will set thee free."

"I do not—O no! I cannot—believe this tale; yet I will go with Hans—and whither? Is not anywhere better than this island prison? Yes—land me once in Scotland, and I will soon make my way to Bothwell."

"Thou art perhaps without money, and knowest not the Scottish tongue."

"Love and despair will sustain me without the first, and I shall soon acquire the second. How I will upbraid, how I will implore him; but he cannot have deceived me—Hans must be mistaken."

"But if he is not," said Konrad, piqued at the excess of her regard for another.

"Then I will throw myself at the feet of his sovereign; she is a woman, and, feeling as a woman, will do me justice."

"Wherever thou goest, Anna, permit me to be thy protector; and I will go, for am I not wedded to thee in spirit—thy brother, thy friend, if I cannot be thy lover? Unhappy one! thou dost now experience for another, the pangs that I endured for thee; thou who didst betray me, art now in thy turn betrayed. But think not, gentle one, that I upbraid thee," he continued, on seeing that she wept bitterly, "for now I am thy brother, Anna, since God denies me to be more; and by his blessed name I swear that I will lead, protect, and avenge thee! Come—be once again the daughter of stout old Svend of Aggerhuis, the conqueror of Lubeck—be once again a Norwegian!"

Like a ray of sunlight across a cold sky, a faint and sickly smile spread over Anna's face, and she kissed the hand of Konrad, who was deeply moved by the humility of the action.

"In an hour the night will be dark; have all prepared for flight, and then I will meet thee here. Meanwhile I go to Hans."

"Ah! if Hans should be mistaken, and Bothwell returning find me gone."

"Honest Hans is not mistaken; for Bothwell's marriage is known throughout all Scotland and the isles. Bethink thee, Anna! Hans' ship is bound for the Clyde, a river of that country, and he tells me that Bothwell's princely dwelling overlooks that very water; thus, with him, thou goest direct to the castle gates of thy deceiver."

"Enough! enough! Come triumph or death, despair or joy, I will go with thee. Away to Hans; bid him hasten our departure; he knows how well I can reward him when we are at home in dear Norway. In an hour from this time, Konrad, I will meet thee here."

As she hurried away, accompanied by her attendant, who had withdrawn during this painful interview, Konrad gazed wistfully after her, and, clasping his hands, convulsively muttered—

"O Anna! by what fatality did I ever love thee?".......

That night the moon shone brightly upon the strait of Westeray, and the snow-white sails of the Norwegian ship were bellying in the breeze that curled the impetuous waves. Above, was the blue and star-studded sky; below, was the shining sea. Afar off, the full-orbed moon was rising like a silver shield from the ocean, and between lay a black speck—it was the Keep of Noltland.

On their lee lay the isle of Eglise-oy, with its green holms and yellow sands shining in the merry light of the summer moon, that turned to silver and emerald the waves that murmured on its pebbled shore.

A bell was heard to toll in the distance; its tone was deep and solemn, as it swung in the vaulted spire of old St. Magnus' church, that crowned a rocky headland. It was the signal of nocturnal prayer; for in those remote isles God was still worshipped as of old—the new creed of the Reformers, the clang of their hammers and levers, had been as yet unheard.

The outline of the old gothic church, with its solid tower and pointed spire, stood darkly out in bold relief upon the sea-beat promontory; the stars gleamed through the painted windows of its vaulted aisles; beneath, the waves were rolling in light, and the deep tones of the nocturnal bell were mingled with their hollow murmur.

Hans doffed his Elsinore cap, and prayed for the intercession of the friend and patron of the Orcadian mariner, Saint Tradewell of Papay; while Anna, in attendance to the distant call to prayer, knelt down on the deck with her crucifix and rosary.

Konrad was beside her.

She prayed intently for herself and for Bothwell, but Konrad offered up his orisons for her alone.

CHAPTER XVI.

BLANTYRE PRIORY.

I fain would sing, but will be silent now,

For pain is sitting on my Lover's brow;

And he would hear me, and though silent, deem

I pleased myself, but little thought of him,

While of nought else I think; to him I give

My spirit, and for him alone I live.

Pop. Poetry of Servia.

An evening of June was closing upon the "apple-bowers" of Clydesdale and the woods of Bothwellhaugh, when two pedestrians, a male and a female, pursued the ancient Roman way, that by a high and narrow bridge of one arch, which had been constructed by the warriors of Agricola, spanned the stream named the South Calder, a tributary of the Clyde. Fair in complexion and athletic in figure, the young man was attired somewhat like a lowland yeoman. He wore a plain black breastplate and headpiece, for at that time in Scotland, no man ever ventured beyond his own door without armour; he carried a sealskin wallet and pouch, and was armed with a sword, dagger, and quarterstaff. His breeches and hose were of coarse red sarcenet, his gloves and boots of yellow buff.

He partly led and partly supported the companion of his journey, a young lady, whose unusually pale complexion had been rendered yet more pallid by fatigue; but her velvet hood being well drawn forward, almost concealed her features. Though light and graceful, her figure was veiled in one of those ample plaids of purple and blue check which were then (and for two hundred years after) so common in the Lowlands of Scotland. She wore it over her head, and pinned under the chin, from whence it fell over her shoulders and enveloped her whole form. Her white gloves were fringed with black lace, and her wrists and arms, where visible, were remarkably white and delicate.

Konrad and Anna—for doubtless the reader has recognised them—were wearied and covered with dust, having travelled on foot from the old Stockwell bridge of Glasgow. The commercial capital of the West was then but a small trading town, clustered round the great church, which, four hundred years before, the pious David had founded on the bank of the Molendinar burn.

There the crayer of Hans Knuber had anchored, and was discharging her cargo of tar and stockfish, for which Hans received in exchange cottons, and silks, and tanned leather, which he sold to the best advantage in the cities on the Baltic; and there Anna heard the sequel of Konrad's tidings, and the confirmation of Bothwell's falsehood beyond a doubt.

They found themselves in Clydesdale almost penniless; but, rough and turbulent though the times were, neither in baron's hall nor peasant's cottage were food, fire, and shelter, refused to the wayfarer or the unfortunate; and in the assumed character of French travellers on their way to court, to seek the patronage of Le Crocque, the ambassador of Charles IX., or the Marquis d'Elboeuff, they had reached the district of Bothwell with comparative ease and safety. Though the mass of the people, under terror of the act of 1555, "Anent speaking evill of the Maist Christian Kingis subjectis," and that of the following year, which defined the naturalization of the French in Scotland, treated all strangers with respect, Anna and Konrad were frequently reviled at wayside hostels as "massmongers and idolaters, worshippers of Baal, and followers of the shavelings of hell!" for Anna had the temerity and enthusiasm to wear openly on her bosom, that emblem against which, by word and deed, the preachers of the Reformation had poured forth their wrath and fury—a crucifix.

Evening was closing, and the woods of Bothwellhaugh were throwing their darkening shadows on the winding Calder. The foliage was in all the vivid green of July, and the perfume of the summer blossoms from the groves of apple-trees loaded the balmy air. The day had been one of intense heat; there was not a breath of wind upon the uplands, every leaf was still, and nothing was stirring save the busy gnats, that revolved in swarms where the sunlight pierced the leafy vistas.

So still was the atmosphere, that nothing was heard save the gurgle of the glittering stream, or the hum of the mountain bees as they floated over the grass, and sought the wild violets and pansies that grew in the dewy shades.

The sunlight died away along the deep glen sides, that were fringed with leafy woodlands; on trees bending with foliage and fruit, on the white-walled and moss-roofed cottages, with their light smoke curling through the coppice, on the river that glided past, placidly in one part, hoarse and brawling between its scaured banks in another, on rocks tufted with purple heather, or yellow with ripening corn, fell the dying sunlight, blending all with hazy softness, till the last rays faded from the tree-tops and the castle turrets, that overlooked them; and then, as the blue sky became veiled by dun clouds, which the set sun edged with the most brilliant golden light, the air became dense and oppressive, and a dusky crimson tinged the whole woodland scenery with the hue of blood. Perched on its rifted rock, the old square tower of Clelland turned to brick red; the Calder flowed below like a stream of purple wine, and the beechwood copse became like a grove of the red-leaved ilex.

The atmosphere soon became darker; a few heavy drops of rain plashed on the dusty causeway of the Roman road, and spread wide circles on the wooded stream that flowed beneath the bridge; the tops of the lofty trees were tossed, as the wind arose, and the summer thunder rumbled among the green and russet hills that overlook the fruitful valley of the Clyde.

"A storm is gathering, Anna!" said Konrad, gazing tenderly on her pale features; "and thou art growing faint and weary. Overtasked as it has been, thy little strength is completely exhausted; let me beseech thee once again to pause. There is a tower yonder that overhangs the river; and there, I doubt not, due hospitality will be gladly extended to two poor and unfriended foreigners!"

"No—no! On—on!" muttered Anna.

"We are, I believe, yet far from our destination; and, ere it is reached, thou wilt assuredly die of fatigue!"

"Then, O God! grant that it may be at Bothwell's castle gate!" said Anna, bursting into a passion of tears; "that the sight of my silent corpse might upbraid him with his perfidy. Assure me that he will behold me lying dead upon his threshold, and I will yield up my soul without a sigh. Life hath no longer any charm for me!"

"Nor for me!" murmured Konrad; but how different was the tone! The girl spoke in all the bitterness of rage; the young man with the accents of desolation. Anna read the emotion in his eyes, as she glanced hurriedly and pityingly upon him; and, repressing her own grief, still continued to totter forward. The feebleness of her steps became more and more apparent; but her spirit was strong and indomitable.

As they descended into the bosky woodlands, the red lightning began to gleam behind the trunks of the distant trees, and the Calder, as it jarred between ledges of rock, became covered with white foam. These signs of a coming tempest caused them to hasten on, and with both hands the trembling Anna clung to Konrad's arm. The woods grew dark as the plumes of a hearse, and the starless sky was crowded with masses of inky vapour;—but there was one dense cloud that came up from the westward, and in it the whole fury of the storm seemed to be concentrated. Onward it came, laying the corn flat to the earth, while the strong trees bent like willows beneath its sulphureous breath; for it was charged with all the electric fluid of the summer storm.

Konrad paused, and looked upward.

For a moment the aspect of the heavens was magnificent!

Forth from the bosom of that dark cloud broke one broad flash of forky lightning, resplendent, green, and lurid. For an instant it lit the whole firmament, and the earth beneath it, revealing the tossing forests and deep broad waters of Clyde, which was covered with snow-white foam, and poured on between its steep and wooded banks, making one bold sweep round Bothwell's dark red towers, that rose above them in massive magnificence.

In strong outline, tower and turret stood forth against the flaming sky, the lightning seeming to play among their summits, and all the leaves of Bothwell's blooming bank gleamed like filigree-work—but for an instant, and then all became darkness.

Another flash, brighter than the first, revealed the opposite bank of the stream, and the ruins of Blantyre Priory. Brightly, for a moment, pinnacle and pointed window, buttress and battlement, gleamed in the phosphorescent light—but to fade away; and then terrifically the thunder rolled along the beautiful and winding valley of the Clyde.

All became still—and though the foliage was agitated, the wind had passed away. Nothing was heard save the rush of the river, and the ceaseless hiss of the drenching rain, as noisily and heavily it poured down on the broad summer leaves.

Stunned for a moment by the thunder-peal, Konrad, in the confusion of the time, had thrown an arm round Anna as if to protect her, while she in turn clung to him convulsively for support; and even in that moment of consternation, the warm embrace of that loved bosom sent through his a thrill of pain and delight.

The thick foliage still protected them from the rain; but the necessity of seeking other shelter became immediately apparent, for Anna, exhausted by terror and fatigue, was almost speechless. Konrad supported her up the ascent, which is crowned by the ruins of Blantyre Priory; and there, in that desolate place, which the lightning had revealed to them, he found a place of shelter, under the arch of a vault, where the ivy clung and the wallflower flourished, for the place was utterly ruined. Seven years had elapsed since the sons of rapine and reformation had been there.

The gloom of the ruins impressed Konrad with a horror that he could scarcely repress; for thick and fast on his glowing fancy, came many a dark and terrible legend of the wild and frozen north—but the danger of Anna compelled him to think of other things.

The rain and the wind were over; the thunder had died away on the distant hills, and nothing was heard now but the rush of the adjacent stream, and the patter of the heavy drops as they fell from the overcharged foliage on the flattened grass. Occasional stars gleamed through the pointed windows and shattered walls of the Priory, and the long creeping ivy waved mournfully to and fro. The edifice was much dilapidated; for the sacrilegious builders of many a barn and cottage, had torn the best stones from the places where they had rested for ages, and where, doubtless, the pious Alexander II. deemed they would remain for ever; now the wild-rose, the sweetbrier, and the mountain ash grew thickly in the hospitium, where of old the sick were tended and the poor were fed—in the chapel aisles where the good had prayed, and the dead of ages lay.

Anna had become almost insensible; and, from being animated by activity and energy, had become passive in spirit and supine in body. The change had affrighted Konrad; her pulses beat like lightning, and her hands and brow were burning. Gently, as if she had been a sick child, he laid her in a corner of that vaulted apartment, which appeared to have been a cellar of the Priory. There the strewn and crisped leaves of the last autumn lay thick and soft, and thinking only of death, in her utter exhaustion of mind and body, she made no reply to his tender and reiterated inquiries.

Konrad adjusted her damp dress over her beautiful person, and, full of solicitude and anxiety, seated himself near her. He listened—her breath was becoming fainter and more rapid; excessive fatigue and over-excitement had evidently done their worst upon her tender frame.

"Oh, how thy hands burn!" said Konrad, as he took them in his with the fondness of other days. "Speak, Anna—for the love of mercy speak to me!"

"I am very pettish and ungracious," she said faintly; "but forgive me, Konrad. I deserve not thy care—leave me to die; for God, I think, has deserted me!"

"Ah, speak not thus, Anna! God will never desert one so good—so gentle as thee. Hath he not led us to this chamber, where we are safe from the wind, and the rain, and the chill night-dew? but here thou canst not pass a night. The storm hath died away—one effort more"——

"I cannot rise, Konrad," said Anna, in a breathless voice.

"Then I must fly for succour!"

"No—no—O, do not leave me! I will die of terror; there may be demons, and wolves, and bears in these Scottish woods, as in those at home."

"But thou hast thy piece of the blessed cross, Anna. I go but to wind my bugle for succour at the foot of the hill, and surely some one in yonder castle by the river, will hear and attend to me."

"Then hasten, for my heart is sickening, and my strength is failing fast with the fever that burns within me."

Konrad sprang to his feet in an agony of anxiety.

"Oh Bothwell, Bothwell!" said Anna; "my dear lord—may heaven forgive thee, freely as I do, all the misery and suffering thou hast caused to this poor heart!"

These words fell like ice on the young man's heart, and he said hurriedly—

"Be of good cheer, and pray to thy patron, the mother of the virgin—I will bring thee succour anon."

"Konrad," said Anna, in her low, soft voice, "my words have stung thee, for thine accent is changed. Pardon me!" she added tremulously, "and remember that I, too, am desolate now. Dost thou cease to love me? Am not I thy sister, Konrad?"

"Thou art, indeed!" replied her lover, whose heart was crushed by his emotion; "and I regard thee with a love more pure and pitying than ever. I am thy friend, Anna—a lover no longer."

"Then, Konrad, kiss and forgive me—for I may die ere thou returnest."

Konrad trembled. A gush that cannot be described—sorrow, love, agony, and despair, swelled up in his breast on hearing this singular and artless request, and, stooping down, he pressed his lips to hers long and passionately.

It was the first time he had ever kissed her, and it was a strange salute.

Anna's lips were burning and parched—Konrad's were cold and quivering, while a palsy seemed to possess his heart; but he sprang from her side, vaulted over the ruined wall, and, giddy with the whirl of his thoughts, rushed down the hill to the margin of the river, and wound his bugle furiously.

Deep, broad, and rapid, between its steep and beautifully wooded banks, the noble Clyde was flowing at his feet, and the bright stars were twinkling in its depth. Afar off, at one end of the silvan dell, the moon was rising red and fiery after the recent storm, and full on the imposing façade of the neighbouring castle fell its fitful gleam.

Flanked by two enormous circular towers of massive dark red stone, it presented a bold front to the south, and overlooked the wooded declivity so famed in song, as—

"Bothwell'e bank that bloom'd so fair."

around which, like a great moat, the girdling Clyde made one bold sweep.

The area of this vast and princely fortress, where, in other years, the Norman knights of Aymer of Valence, and the bonneted vassals of Archibald the Grim, kept watch and wassail, occupies a space of two hundred and thirty feet; towering with its magnificent battlements above the river on one side, and overlooking a beautiful lawn on the other. It occupies the most prominent and picturesque locality amid all the scenery traversed by the Clyde.

Darkly in the fitful light loomed the tourelles of the keep, and the ramparts of the Valence and Wallace towers, and darkly fell their giant shadows on the bosom of the starlit river. Amid its gloomy mass Konrad saw lights twinkling from windows strongly grated and deeply recessed in the thick walk; but the gates were closed, and the bridges up. Now—how different from then—

"The tufted grass lines Bothwell's ancient hall,

The fox peeps cautious from the ruin'd wall;

Where once proud Moray, Clydesdale's ancient lord,

A mimic sovereign, held the festive board."

Ignorant that the stately castle before him was the stronghold of his rival, again and again Konrad poured the shrill blasts of his ivory bugle to the gusty wind; and, finding that he was unheard or unheeded by the inmates, his anxiety to procure aid for Anna would admit of no longer delay, and heavily encumbered as he was with half armour, he threw himself into the river, and, with his sword in his teeth, endeavoured to swim over. Though a strong, active, and practised swimmer, he no sooner found himself buffeting the fierce current of that rapid river, than an invocation to God burst from his lips; for he was swept away like a reed by the violence and impetuosity of the summer speat.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE COUNTESS OF BOTHWELL.

Load roars the north round Bothwell hall,

And fast descends the pattering rain;

But streams of tears yet faster fall,

From thy blue eyes, O bonny Jane!

Hark! hark! I hear the mournful yell,

The wraiths of angry Clyde complain;

But sorrow bursts with louder swell.

From thy toft heart, O bonny Jane!

M. G. Lewis.

Within the stateliest chamber of that stately castle sat James, Earl of Bothwell, and his countess Jane, the bride of a few months. The apartment was long and lofty; in the daytime it was lighted by six grated windows that overlooked Bothwell bank, but now it was lit by two gigantic gilded chandeliers of wax candles. The ceiling was of panelled oak, and the floor was of the same material, but lozenged, and minutely jointed. The walls were completely hung with tapestry (made by the Countess of old Earl Adam, who fell at Flodden), and represented on one side the "Hunts of Cheviot," so famed in ancient song; and on the other, the miracles of the blessed St. Bothan, the cousin and successor of St. Colme of Iona. The spaces between were filled up by gorgeous flower-pieces, and the armorial coats of the Earl's alliances on trees covered with shields; but chief of all appeared the blazon of the house of Hailes. Now little known, the arms of Bothwell are worth recording, as they appeared above the stone chimney of that apartment. Gules on a cheveron argent, two Scottish lions rending an English rose, (which had been the characteristic cognisance of Patrick Hepburn of Hailes at the great battle of Otterburn,) quartered azure with a golden ship; three cheveronels on a field ermine for the lordship of Soulis, with a bend azure for Vauss, lord of Dirltoun. His shield was supported by two lions gardant, crested by a horse's head bridled, and bearing on an escroll the motto—

Keepe Tryste.

The whole of this gorgeous armorial blazon was upborne by a gilded anchor, significant of Bothwell's office as Lord High Admiral of Scotland and the Isles.

Though the season was summer, a fire burned on the marble hearth; for the stone chambers of those ancient dwellings were often cold and chilly. Two silver lamps, lighted with perfumed oil, and having each a golden tassel appended to them, hung on each side of the mantelpiece, by the same chains that, ten years before, had swung them before St. Bothan's shrine, in Blantyre Priory. Their odour was mingled with that of the fresh flowers that, in vases of Italian glass, were piled upon the cabinets, and diffused a delightful fragrance through that noble apartment.

A wine vase, or flask of Venetian crystal, grained with gold, and of that peculiar fashion then very common in the dwellings of the Scottish noblesse, (so common, indeed, that the Regent Moray was wont to have them broken before visiters in a spirit of pure vanity,) stood upon the table, and the glow of its purple contents was thrown on the silver cups, the grapes, that were piled in baskets of mother-of-pearl, and the embossed salvers of confections that stood around it.

The Earl, richly attired, as when we last saw him, in a suit that admirably displayed the strength and symmetry of his limbs, was lounging on an ottoman, or low-cushioned settle, with his feet on a deer's skin, and seemed wholly occupied in caressing a large wiry hound of the Scottish breed, while the Countess had played to him on her ghittern, and sung that song so common at the court of Mary, but of which the title alone is known to us now—

"My love is layed upone ane knycht."

The old game of Troy had succeeded; and then they paused a while to listen to the fury of the storm that has been described hi the preceding chapter; and, during the pause, we will take a view of this fair and unfortunate lady, who was sacrificed by her lover and brother to the evil spirit of statecraft and ambition. But when Bothwell gazed on her, which he did from time to time, his dark eyes filled with softness, as hers did with love and languor.

The outline of her little figure (for she was of low stature) was singularly graceful, as she half reclined on the seat of crimson velvet, with the deep colour of which her neck and arms contrasted so admirably. Her eyes were of the deepest and most sparkling black; and when they dilated at times, seemed almost larger than her cherry mouth.

She was a gentle and excitable creature.

The fineness of her nervous temperament, might have been read in the thinness and exquisite fairness of her skin, in the slender blue veins of her snowy temples, and the lustre of her large dark orbs, which, with every emotion of joy, tenderness, or grief, seemed to swim in tears. Her very laughter had something strangely clear, ringing, and hysterical in it. Her small white hand, at which the Earl almost unconsciously gazed more than at the diagram of the game, from its thinness and delicacy, was alike indicative of her nature and disposition.

Jane of Huntly was every way the belle-ideal of that description of high-born beauty, upon whose soft cheek not even the wind of heaven had been permitted to blow "too roughly."

She was richly attired in black velvet, flowered with silver thread; her raven hair was braided with a string of pearls, and wreathed in a coronal round her head; while a necklace of Scottish topazes and Arran stones, set in gold, sparkled on her bosom and sustained a silver crucifix, the dying gift of the stout Earl her father, who, four years before, had fallen in his armour on the battle-field of Corrichie.

When Bothwell gazed upon his countess, there was more of admiration, perhaps, than love in his expression. He loved her well enough after the fashion of the world, but not so devotedly and well as that gentle being deserved. Anna had almost been forgotten; his flexible heart had been so frittered away among his innumerable loves, that he seemed to have become incapable of any lasting impression. However, he loved his bride better than he expected; for, as we have before stated, this marriage had, on his part, been strictly one of policy.

At times when Jane's dark eyes met his with their clear full gaze, there was a keen and searching expression in their starlike depth, that made the reckless noble quail, he knew not why; but her whole soul seemed to light them up with a vivid expression that troubled him.

"Another flash—and another!" she exclaimed, watching the lightning and clasping her hands, while her swimming eyes glittered with childlike joy. "Oh, mother of God!—how beautiful—how brilliant! Ah, that I were among the woods where the lightning is flashing, or at the linn where the Clyde is pouring in foam from the rocks!"

"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 façade 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"——