James Grant

“ He will marry that woman—and never have one thought for me, who love him so well; my memory will pass away like the last year's leaves. I hope she is good and beautiful—for he deserves a bride who is both. Yes—yes, dear Ernestine—let us leave this place; for I long for another still more solitary, where, unseen, I may give myself up to grief, and die."
"I have met men at Vienna who did not believe that a woman could love, my poor little lamb, Gabrielle!"
"Not love? How little they knew us! And who were they?"
"Wallenstein, the Duke of Friedland, was one—the Count Merodé another." ”

“ A glazed expression stole over the ferocious eyes of Bandolo; they seemed to roll on vacancy, and the terror of Ernestine was redoubled.
"Gold—yes, gold!" he muttered; "when gold is spread before me, when a poniard is in my hand, I am mad! I am no longer myself! Something like a red curtain descends between me and the sun, bathing in redness all before my eyes. A hand passes over my heart—there is a whisper in my ears; it is destroy—destroy and be rich! Then I can see nothing before me, above me, and below me, but blood—red blood in pouring torrents, but spotted with sparkling stars ”

“ I should die of shame if I thought that any one save you had heard this avowal—this humiliating avowal—or knew my terrible secret!"
"That you love a heedless cavalier—ha, ha, Gabrielle!"
"Do not laugh. I would to Heaven, Ernestine, that I had never met this man—that we had remained at Luneburg, as our dear father wished. And his Moina—how he loves her! He often praises her to me, and without perceiving that every word is like a death stab. Happy Moina!"
Moina! I was thunderstruck. The gentle, the pining Gabrielle loved Ian Dhu, whose chivalric heart was faithfully devoted to another. ”

“ Oh, Gabrielle—Gabrielle, come hither, you little devil, and kiss me!"
At that moment the shrill low whistle of Bernhard sounded beneath the window, and made Gabrielle start.
"So you will not come to me—eh? Ah—true love is always modest and retiring—it likes mystery, too! How good to think that I have had you under lock and key for so many weeks, and not one of my merry rascals—even Count John of Brisgaü or Jehan de Vart—have found you out! Come to me, I tell you, or I shall lose patience; one kiss, little one—only one." ”

“ Terrified by this threat, Ernestine remained silent for a time.
He uttered a succession of savage chuckles; then whistled a bolero, and resumed his swinging to and fro on the stool and his beloved portmanteau, eyeing his prisoner all the time as a cat does a mouse.
"Bandolo—Herr or Señor—for I know not by which to address you," said Ernestine; "you are said to love gold as a fish loves water, or flowers the sun."
"As flowers love water, or a fish the sun—what a fine simile! ha! ha!" said Bandolo, who was rapidly becoming tipsy; "Well—what if I do?" ”

“ Count of Carlstein, you are, like myself, a cavalier of fortune, and know that we have seldom other inheritance than our fathers' swords, and know assuredly that our honour is the very breath of our nostrils. While one Scottish musketeer can stand by my side, and while one stone of Stralsund remains upon another, I will never surrender, and Wallenstein can only have the city when the last soldier and the last stone have fallen together! ”

“ I have to punish Carlstein, for riding over me like a dog in the streets of Vienna, without a word of pity, because he knew me to be Bandolo. (Ha! did not that name bring one thought of terror to his haughty heart?) I have to punish the Scottish Captain Rollo, for wounding, discovering, and disarming me—for insulting me, and crossing my purposes, and marring my profits on a hundred occasions; last of all, I am not to be outwitted by a mere animal like thee; and thus I rob thee of thy ducats, and avenge myself like Bandolo the Spaniard—like the man I have always been! ”

“ Rupert-with-the-Red-plume!" cried a hundred voices, in every varying accent of astonishment.
"Ay, gentlemen, your countryman! no longer, I fear, Rupert Count of Carlstein, but simply old Philip Rollo, the soldier of fortune that fate saw him thirty years ago. By one blow of my sword—the same which, not a minute ago, unhorsed that mighty, ambitious, and intolerable tyrant, the Duke of Friedland—I have demolished one of the fairest fortunes that ever a stanch soldier secured by the toil and dangers of a life that can never be lived again. ”

“ Dear Gabrielle! I loved her like a younger sister, and felt alike hostile and indignant at this unknown Moina, who had rendered Ian so invulnerable to her many attractions.
"Ian will go home to his own mountains—those blue mountains he talks so much of; and he will marry—yes, Ernestine," continued Gabrielle, "he will marry this Moina. He cannot love me. Oh! I fear he would rather despise me if he knew how much I loved him."
"Despise!—you, the Count of Carlstein's daughter!" ”

“ The memory of that Di Donich will never die but with myself; and in token of the sorrow, the bitterness, and remorse I have endured, for the barbarity of my revenge, and the unwitting death of the poor child I loved, I have worn this scarf of crape, and on many a field and in many a breach, since the battle of the White Mountain, where the walls of Prague rang to the slogan of the Scottish musketeers, down to the battle of Semigallia, when, under the gallant Gustavus, we cut the Poles to pieces, I have worn this mark of mourning. ”

“ Captain Rollo, I love those girls as if they were my own sisters—for they are good, amiable, winning, and indeed most loveable; yet withal, and notwithstanding Carlstein's kind intentions, believe me I have no more idea of marriage than of flying in the air. Oh no! I shall never marry! I do not think that the world possesses a daughter of Eve who could tempt me to forsake the camp for her bower, or the head of my regiment for the poor pastime of dangling at her skirt. Fortunately, it is not far from this to Fredricksort, and Gabrielle shall be freed even if we must take the place by storm. ”

“ Remember how many generations of our ancestors, all brave men, who loved the battle as a pastime, are this day looking down upon you from the place of the good man's reward in heaven."
"Dirk and claymore! dirk and claymore!" cried our men, and the shout was heard above the roar of the musketry.
"Yes!" said Ian emphatically, as he shook his lofty plumes; "in Heaven's name let it be dirk and claymore! I would rather meet those fellows hand to hand, in the good old Highland fashion, than by bandying bullets from behind a stone-dyke. Let us this day save Stralsund, or perish with her!" ”

“ Beyond it rose the headland called the cape of Stubbenkamer, against whose base of rock the Baltic rolled its waves; and between us and the moon, like a deep basin girdled in by the wooded hills, lay the Black Lake, overlooked by the cavern which, as the Jesuit had assured me, was occupied by Bandolo, and lay directly opposite the path by which we approached its bank.
"Softly now, Phadrig," said I; "we are right upon the trail of the wolf; keep under the foliage, for although the lake is a quarter of a mile broad, he may detect us by the light of that beautiful moon." ”

“ Suddenly, like a mighty gorge between two black mountains, the clouds were divided in heaven; a lambent light edged with brilliance their torn and rugged outlines, and the forked lightning was shot from the opening, like long red arrows of fire.
For a moment, while these levin brands were lighting earth and heaven with their ghastly glare, we could distinctly perceive the bastions of the ravelin, and the ranks of the regiment; for all its bonnets of steel, and bright musket-barrels, glittered in the gleam above the stone parapet and redoubts of turf. ”

“ It seemed as if the lofty spirit of Ernestine was stung by the strange avowal of poor Gabrielle, and she wept with her; but her tears were those of pride and mortification.
Lovers never dream that others can discern their passion; and thin though the disguise may be that usually veils it, so admirably had Gabrielle concealed her secret thoughts, that none could have suspected them, and honest Ian least of all. ”

“ I repeat, sirs, ye have no right to seize me—I belong to God, and not to man. I belong neither to Wallenstein nor Tilly—to Christian nor Gustavus—I serve heaven and not earth——"
"Calm yourself, reverend sir," said I, approaching and taking him by the hand; "make way, gentlemen—'tis my friend, Father Ignatius, brother of my old preceptor, Dominie Daidle of Cromartie; one to whom I owe a reprieve from an unjust and shameful death." ”

“ Full of scorn and fear, Ernestine gazed at him as she would have gazed at a serpent. Anger and horror alternately rendered her silent and motionless. At times she could scarcely believe that all she saw and heard was real—that she was so completely in the power of this man, the touch of whose hand—that hand so often dipped in human blood—struck a chill through her. Was she really awake? Was it not all a hideous dream, from which she would awake to find herself by her sister's side, in their little bed-chamber at Nyekiöbing? ”

“ For the sake of Ernestine," I added, in a loud and earnest whisper, "let this be a drawn conflict—for if I am slain she will be without a protector."
"Villain!" he exclaimed, with fierce joy, "art thou the Captain Rollo?"
"The same, at your service, count," said I, as our blades were pressed hard against each other; "but why so bitter an epithet to a brother Scot, for such I should be, though under a different banner?" ”

“ Nothing could surpass the bravery on both sides; one fighting for glory—the other for their lives, honour, and religion.
In the heat of the conflict, Lord Huntly had his horse shot under him, and Halbert Gordon, who, with all his faults, was brave as a lion, quickly slew Campbell of Auchinbreck, and remounted the earl on that gentleman's steed. At that moment, Kenneth Logie, who, with the coolness of a spectator, had been watching the conflict, reserving his strength and his wrath for Gordon, uttered a wild yell of rage and grief, and rushed upon him. ”

“ The Swedish fleet lay at anchor in the Sound to receive the regiment, which my heart bled to leave.
The good ship Scottish Crown, with all her sails loose, and a spring upon her cable, waited to receive us.
On one side lay the deserted trenches and dismantled batteries of the discomfited Wallenstein; here lay a brass cannon with the moss upon its muzzle; there a mound, where the fresh grass sprouted above the calm repose of the dead, and the autumn flowers expanded in the morning sunshine. ”