The World's Greatest Books - Volume 4 Part 45

His actions were quick, and his persuasions, to the love-sick Anna, irresistible. That evening the two were wedded by a crazy hermit who dwelt among the rocks of the fjord, and Anna, without a word of farewell to her kin, left her native land, it might be for ever.

A stormy voyage brought the ship to Westeray, in Shetland. Bothwell escorted Anna to the castle of Noltland; and as she landed at the pier, a young man sprang forward and helped her across the plank. She felt agitated, she knew not why; she looked at the man's face, but it was concealed. It was Konrad. He had fallen over a cliff, had been carried out to sea on a plank, had been picked up by a ship which had carried him to Shetland, and had taken service with the castellan of Noltland.

The unexpected sight of Anna brought back his emotions to their starting-point, and recalled the poignancy of the hour in which he had realised that he had lost her.

_II.--Bothwell Castle_

"I have resolved!" exclaimed the earl, on the morning after their arrival at Noltland. "I would be worse than mad to forego the prospect of power by marring my union with the sister of Huntly."

"c.o.c.k and pie! now thou speakest like a man of mettle!" growled Hob.

"Anna is not my first love," mused the earl. "Have I not felt how feeble have been my sentiments for Anna, for Jane of Huntly, for all who have succeeded her whom I met in France long ago?"

"Then thou wilt sail----"

"Yes, like aeneas, leaving my Dido behind me."

With a pretence of the love he felt no longer, Bothwell bade Anna farewell, and left her to doubts which, as the months went on and his promise to return was not fulfilled, gradually rose to despair.

During the decline of a spring evening, as Anna wandered dejectedly on the battlements, Konrad stood before her for the first time since her arrival at Noltland.

"Konrad," she faltered, "thou here!"

"Anna--dear Anna!" exclaimed the unhappy young man. "I have tidings to tell thee. The false lord of Bothwell hath been espoused to the sister of Huntly!"

"And I--" gasped Anna.

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

Anna would have fallen backwards had Konrad not sprung to her a.s.sistance.

"Listen," he said, in a low voice. "If thou wouldst escape, an hour will set thee free."

"Yes, land me once in Scotland, and I will make my way to Bothwell."

That night Anna was on a Norwegian vessel bound for Glasgow, and Konrad was with her. She could not, he knew, be his bride, but he could at least protect and cherish her, and strive to redress the wrongs she had suffered.

A storm was gathering above the lovely valley of the Clyde one June evening as two strangers--a man and a woman--plodded wearily towards Bothwell Castle. The woman became wholly exhausted; the man laid her gently down in shelter among the ruins of Blantyre Priory, and went on his errand alone. The storm had now burst, and the river was rising rapidly; but Konrad--for it was he--plunged into the raging waters, and strove to swim across. The current was too strong for him; he clung to an ash tree that projected over the stream, and was nearly exhausted when a man on the bank flung down his mantle and poniard, plunged in, and dragged him to the sh.o.r.e.

Konrad, almost senseless, was carried within the castle. When he had revived and was dressed in dry garments, he was brought before his rescuer--it was Bothwell himself.

"I thank thee," said Konrad proudly, "for saving my life."

"Thou didst save mine. We are now equal," replied the earl.

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

"Thou art stark mad!" cried the earl. Then he went on, "Konrad, I have wronged thee deeply. In my youth I loved one who neglected me as cruelly as thou hast been neglected, and since then a mischievous spirit of vengeance, as it were, has led me to make women my playthings, to be won and thrown aside. I love thy spirit, Konrad. If I could be thy friend----"

"Never!" cried Konrad. "I come not for friendship, but for justice to Anna! Hast thou not wedded another after thine espousal of her?"

"Dost thou deem the mock blessing of yon mad hermit a spousal rite?"

exclaimed the earl, laughing.

Konrad repressed his pa.s.sion.

"I go to push my fortune with your turbulent border chiefs; and if, in the strife that will soon convulse this land, thou meetest Konrad of Salzberg, look well to thyself!"

"Go thy way, and G.o.d be with thee!" replied the earl. "Thou art the first who hath bent a dark brow on a lord of Bothwell under his own roof-tree."

Konrad returned to Anna, and in the ruined priory told her how Bothwell was false to her. Anna's grief was dreadful to behold.

"Anna," said Konrad, after a pause, "Scotland hath a queen whose goodness of heart is revered in every land save her own."

"True; and at her feet will I pour forth my sorrow and my tears together."

So the two traversed the thickets around the priory, and reached the broad highway, which was to lead them at length to Edinburgh.

_III.--Mary Queen of Scots_

But it was long ere Anna looked upon the face of the queen. At the Red Lion Inn in Edinburgh her beauty struck the eye of the Earl of Morton, the factious, proud, and ferocious a.s.sociate of Moray in all the dark intrigues of that craftiest of Scottish statesmen. Morton promised that Anna should be entrusted to a lady of fair repute, and soon presented to the queen. Konrad trusted him, little knowing that the repute of Dame Alison Craig, Anna's new guardian, was anything but fair, and set forth for the Border.

It was to Sir John Elliot of Park that he offered the service of his sword, for it was against this turbulent borderer, who had just raided Northumberland, and threatened the peace of the two kingdoms, that Bothwell was advancing with the army of Queen Mary. Now garrisoning some solitary peel-tower, now hiding in some unfathomed cavern, now issuing with uplifted lance from the haggs of some deep moss, Konrad engaged with ardour in every desperate foray, and his daring made him the idol of the wild spirits around him. In every deed of arms one thought was in his mind--to come within a lance-length of Bothwell.

Long and fierce was the struggle, but it ended as a fight so unequal was bound to end. John of Park was slain, refusing with his dying breath to surrender, and Konrad was carried, a half-senseless captive to Bothwell's castle of Hermitage. Even then the earl spared his life. He lay in a hideous den, in pitch darkness and dead silence broken only by the splash of drops of fetid water that fell from the slimy arch of the vault.

No token reached him of what was happening above; and an event happened there that had vast influence on Bothwell's future. Across the hills to Hermitage rode the Queen of Scots herself. The sight of her stirred in Bothwell's heart an emotion he had never wholly conquered, for she, Mary herself, was his first love of the bygone days in France. He had begun to realise that he loved her still; he knew the coldness of her relations with the dissolute and unfaithful Darnley, her husband; now she had come to Hermitage.

"Jesu Maria!" cried the queen, as Bothwell, with beating heart, paused in the conversation. "Have you lost your tongue?"

"Nay, madame--my heart."

"That is very serious; but search for another."

"I want no other," replied the earl, in a trembling voice, "but _thine_!"

"Lord Bothwell," she said, with a hauteur that froze her admirer, "thou art in a dream."

"Pardon me, I pray you--"

"I do pardon thee," replied the queen, with a calm smile; but added, significantly, "I think 'tis time I was riding from Hermitage."

So ended the famous visit to Hermitage, which was interpreted throughout Scotland as a token of Mary's love for her favourite earl.

Konrad, a month afterwards, was sent to Edinburgh and confined in the old tower of Holyrood, awaiting trial as a Border outlaw. Bothwell himself soon followed, and celebrated his return by a wild revel in company with Hob of Ormiston and other choice spirits.