“ Till morning, I will rest me in this, my castle of Dunbar; and to-morrow in Holyrood will seek a sure vengeance for the raid of to-night."
"Sayest thou so, madam?" replied the Earl, whose proud heart fired for a moment at her scorn; "then thine will be the greater remorse."
"Remorse? mon Dieu!" said Mary, laughing.
"Ah, madam! why didst thou encourage me to love thee?"
"I encourage you!" reiterated the Queen with astonishment. "Mother Mary! thou ravest. Never! never! I needed not to encourage men to love me." ”

“ For all thou hast made me endure for the past two years—from my heart—from my soul, I forgive thee, and I pray that thou mayest be happy. Anna—dearest Anna—I am going far away from the hills and woods of Bergen, to join the Lubeckers, or perhaps the Knights of Rhodes in their warfare in the distant East, for I have doomed myself to exile; but I still regard thee as I did, when we were in yon far isle of Westeray—as my sister—as my friend. As we first met in this old castle hall, when thou wert but a guileless girl and I a heedless boy, so shall we now part. All is forgotten—all is forgiven. ”

“ The stars were veiled in vapour; the moon was sailing through masses of flying cloud, and, by its fitful light, Konrad, as he unclosed his heavy eyes, could perceive a boat approaching. It contained two figures, which, as they were between him and the light, appeared in dark and opaque outline.
They were Bothwell and Hepburn of Bolton; both were masked as usual to the mustache, and wore their mantles up to their chins.
"If we are not too late," said the first, as they approached; "perhaps this act of mercy may be an atonement—yea, in somewise a small atonement—ha! heardst thou that cry?" ”

“ I have no wish to harm thee; but beware, for thou hast to deal with ruined and outlawed men, whom toil by sea—a narrow escape from a superior force, that hath pursued and driven us into these waters—starvation, and Heaven knows what more—have rendered desperate—so beware thee, Sir Skipper, or I will hang thee at thine own mast-head!"
"And who art thou, robber and pirate! that I, a free trader, should unclose my hatches at thy bidding on the open sea?" cried Hans in broken Scottish, as he flourished his club within an inch of the speaker's nose. ”

“ All human memory is freighted with care and sad remembrance"——
"But few with such remorse as mine."
"This contrition and grief are good," replied the priest, as, with kindling eyes, he pointed upwards to Heaven; "by perishing thou shalt be preserved, and die but to be renewed for ever, and in such glory as the mind of angels can alone conceive; for He who is above us, beareth aloft those scales, from which, on one hand, he metes out eternal life to the good and contrite—on the other, the eternal punishment to the unrepentant."
"Thou hast been lately in Scotland," said the Earl abruptly. ”

“ Assume thy sword and helmet again. Thou hast the world before thee, with a fair wind; and what matters it leaving a false woman and a slighted love behind? Cheerily, ho! Master Konrad; a love that is easily won is lightly lost."
"False as this girl has been to me, Hans, there are times when her bright smile and her winning voice, and all the memory of our happy early days, come back to me in their first freshness and joy, and my soul melts within me. Then, Hans—in moments like these—I feel that, were she repentant, I could love her as of old. ”

“ A strange fatality has woven our adventures together. Thou didst save me once from the waves of this very ocean, when last for my sins I was traversing these Norwegian seas; and I saved thee twice from drowning—first in the crystal Clyde, under the windows of my own castle of Bothwell; and once again when thou wert chained like a baited bear to yonder pillar in the North Loch of Edinburgh. But come," added the Earl, clapping him on the shoulder; "let us be friends; are the faith or falsehood of a woman matters for two brave men to quarrel about?" ”

“ We have likened the dense mass that filled the High Street to a sea, and so like the waves of a sea, when agitated by a stormy wind, was that mass urged in one direction towards this new victim, whom they demanded of both Morton and Lindesay to be given up to their summary vengeance. The windows were crowded to excess; and at the great square casement of his mansion, overlooking the Netherbow, was seen the grave and serious face of Knox the Reformer, with his portentous beard and Geneva cap, and beside him Master George Buchanan, with his stern visage and towering brow. ”

“ Poor Hans now with dismay beheld a great foreign banner displayed; but though he knew it not, Konrad immediately recognised the cheverons and lions of Bothwell, and he perceived that the figure on the bow was the Earl's coroneted crest, a white horse's-head, with a gilded bridle; and one glance at the lofty sides, the grim cannon tier, and gigantic poop of the Scottish frigate, and her gunnels lined by pikemen and arquebusiers in their steel caps and coats-of-mail, sufficed to shew him that he was again completely in the power of his ancient enemy ”

“ Konrad of Saltzberg, I pledged my word to land thee on thy native shore, and even in this moment of dread I will redeem it, or perish with thee. Leap with a bold heart, and a ready will, and gain our boat if thou canst, albeit that it is laden so heavily."
Aware that the chance was a last one, Konrad, who could swim like a duck, sprang at once into the waters of his native fiord, and, rising a short distance from the boat, was pulled in by the athletic Ormiston. Then the oars were dipped in the frothy water, and, urged by wind and tide, the laden boat shot away from the desolate wreck. ”

“ Go to! What a miserable thing is this! to see a strong and proud man the slave of a passion such as thine—a love so wild, so daring, so misdirected; his heart and soul absorbed by a wayward woman, who perhaps secretly prizes, though she outwardly affects to despise, the acquisition."
"Silence, I tell thee!" replied the Earl through his clenched teeth; but Ormiston saw, by the deep flush in his cheek—by the light that sparkled in his eye, and the tremour that passed over his frame, how deep was the impression his words had made. ”

“ Paul! we find kenned faces wherever we go;" said Ormiston to Bolton; "this old sea-dog hath brought us to the right haven. We will have free-house and free-hold here, I doubt not."
"Madam," said the stout captain of the Biornen, bowing as low as his great paunch and long basket-hilted espadone would permit him, "allow me to introduce to you the terrible pirate who, for the last month, has been the terror of our Fiords, and the scourge of the Sound, and whom we find to be no other than the great Earl of Bothwell, with whose astounding misdeeds all Europe has been ringing." ”

“ He was always conferring secretly with the knights and barons of his train; he kept his vassals ever on the alert, and never went abroad without being completely armed, to prevent a surprise; but daily and hourly, slowly and surely, like an advancing and overwhelming tide, the suspicions of the people grew and waxed stronger, till, clamorously, it burst in one deep hoarse shout against him, and a hundred thousand tongues said, "Thou art the man!"
"Malediction on these presumptuous churls!" said the Earl angrily to Ormiston, as they met near the palace gate on the day after Darnley's funeral. ”

“ The scene changed—she was standing timidly, irresolute, and pale, on the shores of her half-barbarized native land; again she appeared—it was with the diadem of the Bruces on her brow, and the orb of the Alexanders on her sceptre, as she presided over the first of her factious parliaments, in the ancient hall of the Scottish estates. He saw her standing with the triumphant Darnley at the altar of Sancte Crucis, with more in her air and eye of the timid bride than the stately queen, blushing and abashed by the side of her handsome and exulting vassal. ”

“ Take another maizer of the Rochelle, while I leave thee to ponder over what I have said, for the night wears apace."
"Begone, in God's name! and take Bolton with thee, for I would be alone."
The powerful Ormiston bore away the lieutenant of the archers as if he had been a child, and the Earl was left to his own reflections.
"He is right—he is right! To hesitate is to fall—delay is fraught with danger; and to pause, is to be immediately overwhelmed by the recoil of that fatality of which I have taken the lead. But—but—curse thee, Ormiston! ”

“ The towering forecastle of the bilged ship was highest above the water, and to that Konrad, after seeing poor Hans Knuber washed from his side, to be dashed again and again a lifeless corpse upon the brow of the reef, clung with all the energy of despair, clambering up step by step, clutching the ruin of spars and cordage that hung over it, till he reached the iron rail enclosing the top, which he embraced with both arms, and looked down upon the scene of terror and desolation presented by the lower half of the wreck, which was submerged in water. ”

“ Nay; but thy faintness of heart will now, at the eleventh hour, destroy all those who follow thy banner by knight's service and captainrie; by fear of Chatelherault and hatred of Lennox. Let Mary once be thine, and she dare not punish, but rather, for the reparation of her own honour, will be compelled to wed thee. Think of her alluring loveliness; and to be so near thee—so completely in thy power. Hah! art thou a child—a love-sick frightened boy—to sit there with that lackadaisy visage, when the woman thou lovest so madly is almost within arm's length? ”

“ Fatal sorceress, thou still smilest upon me with scorn. In undoing thee, I have perhaps but undone myself; though from this time our fates and lives are entwined together; for, bethink thee, for very dread of what may ensue, for very shame, and for the reparation of thine own honour, thou canst not destroy me. Yet can I read in thine eye, that thou hast visions of the dungeon, the block, the axe, the dismembered limbs, and the severed head of Bothwell, spiked on yonder city cross to welter in the midnight dew, and broil in the noonday sun—hah! ”

“ He paused, and the blood rushed to his brow at meeting even him at such a moment.
"Ha—whither goest thou?" he asked.
"To the tower of Black Agnes," replied Bothwell in a husky voice, while he staggered from his emotions, and the effects of the wine.
"Thou darest then at last to act like a man."
"Like a fiend, if my fate wills it! What may I not dare now, after all I have dared and done? But hark!" said the Earl, as a ghastly pallor overspread his face; "didst thou hear?" ”

“ Though a bold man and a bad one, thou hast fought as became a Scottish noble, and I can respect valour wherever I find it. I had resolved to chain thee neck and heels, like a villanous pirate; but trusting to thine honour, that thou wilt not attempt to compromise me by escaping, I will permit thee to retain thy sword, to be at liberty, and to receive all due courtesy, till thou art committed to the custody of the king's garrison at Bergen. ”

“ No! hence shalt thou never go but with Bothwell at thy bridle rein, with his banner before, his knights around, and his spearmen behind thee. What has hurried me on, step by step, in the terrible career on which my destiny has driven me—from being the leader of the Scottish peers, esteemed in council as in battle, respected by mine equals, loved by my vassals, and feared by mine enemies—what hath made me, from being all this, a man whose name will perhaps be remembered in the land with reprobation, with curses, and with bitterness—what, but thy beauty, thy fatal beauty? ”

“ Woman! what hast thou dared to say? Dost thou forget that I am a Scottish duke—the consort of a queen—the governor of a kingdom?"
"No!" replied Anna bitterly, while her eyes flashed with rage and jealousy, though every sentiment of love was long since dead; "and neither have I forgotten that thou art a regicide and a betrayer, who from this hour shall have meted out to him the stern measures he so ruthlessly dealt to others. ”

“ Thy name?"
"James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, and Duke of Orkney, Knight of the Thistle, and Governor of the Kingdom of Scotland!" replied the Earl, drawing himself up with an aspect of dignity and pride, that was not lost upon the portly Norseman and his helmeted officers.
"Unhappy lord!" replied Christian Alborg, making a profound reverence; "I have heard of thine evil fame, and envy thee not the grandeur of thy titles." ”

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

“ Full on the massive ramparts of the city, tufted with weeds and blackened by the smoke of years, fell that sudden glow, revealing the strong embrasures that stretched away into far obscurity, the grim bastel-house close by, with its deep-mouthed gunport and peering culverin—on the ivied aisles of Mary's lonely kirk—on the shattered tower of the Dominicans—and displaying even for a gleam the distant woods of Merchiston. ”

“ The scenery was very fine, for the country was then more thickly wooded almost than now, and afar off shone the rugged outline of Edinburgh, rearing up on its ridgy hills, with the great square spire of its cathedral, and the lofty towers and bastel-houses of its castle, clustering on lofty and perpendicular rocks. Close by the road, arose the double peaks of Craiglockhart; one covered with pastures of emerald green, the other bluff with whin-tufted basalt, and crowned with gloomy firs; while, following its winding and devious course, the Leith brawled and gurgled over its pebbled bed. ”

“ The cold statesman bowed with one of his inexplicable smiles as he reined back his horse; and then, by the command of Bothwell, the whole train set forward at a furious pace, which the Earl had no wish to diminish, for the double purpose of avoiding the alternate questions, threats, and intreaties of the queen, and escaping the fury of a sudden storm, that, with singular rapidity, had converted that beautiful evening into one of darkness and gloom. ”

“ A woman—a widow—a catholic—without a husband—she could never have governed Protestant Scotland, crowded as it was with rapacious peers and turbulent serfs, inured to blood and blows; and now, after all that had occurred at Dunbar, and after being so completely abandoned by her people to Bothwell's mercy for twelve weary days, no foreign prince, no Scottish noble or gentleman of honour, and indeed no man, save he who had wronged her, would seek her hand. ”

“ But there even, in their native seas, the fame and terror of the outlawed Earl had gone before them; and many a dismasted and many a shattered hull, with bloodstained decks and broken hatches, rolling on the Skager Back or stranded on the rocks of the fiord, attested the recklessness of that desperate noble and his followers, who were now at war with all mankind.
"I pray to Heaven we may meet this bold marauder, now that our keel is ploughing our own waters," said Konrad, whose old Norwegian spirit flashed up in his bosom at the sight of his native hills. ”

“ Pale, blue, and sulphury, it flashed in the north and east, dashing its forky strength between the masses of cloud, gleaming on the darkened water, and revealing the bleak outline of the Calton—the high and fantastic mansions of the city, among whose black summits the levin-bolts seemed playing and dancing—to be tossed from chimney to turret, and from turret to tower—leaping from hand to hand, ere they flashed away into obscurity, or cast one lurid glare on the gorge behind the church that, for four hundred years, covered the grave of Mary of Gueldres and of Zutphen. ”

“ To feign thus, would be to commit foul treason against her whom I will ever remember with loyalty and love, while Heaven, permits me to live. Here we part at last, stout Hob, perhaps to meet no more. If ever again thou treadest on Scottish ground, remember that in serving her thou servest Bothwell. Farewell to thee, Bolton, thou man of gloomy thoughts; and farewell thou, stout Hay of Tallo; for I fear me much, that God's vengeance for that night in the Kirk-of-Field is coming surely and heavily upon us all. ”

“ Bethink thee, the queen hath the wardship of many a fair heiress, and may bestow on thee a handsome wife."
"Bah! like my Lord of Morton, I care not for a handsome wife"—
"Unless she belong to another," said Ormiston, coarsely closing the sentence.
"By the rood! a good jest and a merry," laughed Bothwell; but Morton's olive cheek glowed with anger.
"Be not chafed, my lord," said Ormiston; "by cock and pie! I spoke but in boon fellowship. Drink with me! This Rochelle is famously spiced, and stirred with a rosemary sprig for good-luck."
"Does Master Ainslie warrant it old?" ”