Philip Rollo; or, the Scottish Musketeers, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by James Grant

Book the Seventh.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE PASS OF OLDENBURG.

Here again, as at Boitzenburg and elsewhere, the desperate duty of keeping Tilly in check until Duke Bernard's Danish forces were re-embarked, was reserved for the Highlanders of the regiment of Strathnaver. Well did the duke know, that if they failed, no other troops could perform this all but hopeless and most arduous duty. Bent on cutting off the retreat of our able and valiant leader, Tilly was marching all his force against that little peninsula, the neck of which is occupied by the venerable Oldenburg.

In the pass or hollow way through which the high-road wound, we threw up a strong barricade or redoubt of earth and turf, embrasured for six pieces of cannon, with the talus sloped for musketry; a ditch lay in front, and in the angle a small sallyport, by which our troop of pistoliers could pass out and retire again. We had this small troop of horse to assist us if compelled to retire; for it was then becoming customary to post squadrons of cavalry between platoons of infantry—a tactique first adopted by the Swedes after their great defeat in 1614.

We made the place very strong, flanked it out to give a cross fire, and availed ourselves of some ruinous walls, the fragments of an ancient fort—old perhaps as the days of Dan, the supposed founder of the Danish monarchy. The whole day we toiled, and with evening saw our barricade completed, then we rested for a time from our labours, which included the demolition of several houses for materials to construct the work, and the usual appropriation of their furniture for fuel to make ourselves comfortable.

On this evening—the last which many were doomed to see—the sun set gloriously. Sinking behind crimson bars, like an orb of burning gold, it lingered long in the shining west, for the scenery was level, or gently undulated, and interspersed by clumps of pale green birch and darker beech, and little marshy lakes, where the wild-goose and the snow-white swan were floating as yet undisturbed. Towards the pass where we were posted, the sunlight stole along the verdant hollows, tinging with a deep purple flush the little stream which last night had saved us, and was now gliding on without obstruction, and stealing imperceptibly towards the Baltic. The horizon was all of a violet hue; the spire of Oldenburg seemed a cone of flame, and the ocean a mirror of blue and gold. The corn was waving in yellow ear; the heather moss was in purple flower, just as we might see it in our own dear mountain home; the honey-bee was floating over the wild-flowers that grew by the wayside; while the woodlark and goldfinch sang in the scattered coppice, and the brown sparrow and the robin redbreast twittered on the green hedges. I remember that Ernestine told me a beautiful old German legend about that honest bird the robin, and how its breast first became reddened by flying against the side of our wounded Saviour, when bleeding upon the cross. It is an ancient and pretty legend, and, like others, will soon be forgotten.

In the warm sunshine, I lay on the grassy sward reflecting on the deadly struggle which was about to ensue, and had inevitably to be encountered before I could have the least chance of again seeing Ernestine.

I might be carried on board, wounded perhaps, to be again under her tender care; or I might perhaps be placed on board another vessel; or, more likely than, either, I might be left behind, shot in the pass, to lie there—left unburied by the Imperialists; left, like too many of our brave men, to gorge the maws of the wolf and the raven.

Amid this gloomy reverie, I heard the drums beat and the pipes sound the gathering; all my dark thoughts were forgotten in a moment; I fastened my plaid, drew my sword, and sprang up to lead my company to its duty.

The Imperialists were coming on, and now were less than half a mile distant; the head of the first column was marching straight towards us, as we could distinctly perceive by the cloud of dust which rolled along the roadway, and the brightness of their arms, which, as they were advancing, reflected the sun's rays steadily and perpendicularly, for it is necessary to march with arms shouldered when the matches are lighted. If the glitter of arms is varied and uncertain, outposts may always be assured that the enemy are retiring.

Galled by our six pieces of cannon, which every moment ploughed frightful lanes through their deep formation, three heavy columns came on, leaving a long train of killed and wounded behind them. The din of this cannonade brought out the other wing of our regiment from Heilinghafen to support us.

Loud and long blew Torquil Gorm, our piper-major and his companions; and, as the wild pibroch of Mackay floated over the level country, we heard the drums of the Imperialists beating in defiance and reply. By the aid of his Galileo glass, Sir Donald, our colonel, discovered that the attacking column was the ferocious regiment of Merodé, with the red cross and black eagle on its colours.

Their cannon slew many of our men; the first struck was my ensign, Hugh Rose of Kilravock, whose leg was torn off immediately below the kilt, by the ball of a spirole, or serpentine gun, and he was carried to the rear across the Lochaber axes of Phadrig Mhor and Sergeant M'Gillvray; but the brave boy's spirit never quailed, and he frequently cried,

"Stand by the white banner—the brattach bane! Stand by the Scottish cross, my brave comrades! I shall march with you on a wooden stump yet."

"Children of the Gael," cried our colonel in Gaëlic; "keep shoulder to shoulder; here is the white banner of Clan Aoidh—blow your matches—guard your pans—give fire!"

Like a stream of red light, the rapid musketry poured death over the summit of the dark earthen bank, and we saw the Imperialists falling over each other, like fish shaken out of a net; while the thirsty soil literally smoked with their Austrian blood. There was a momentary pause! But the ranks were closed up; the colours were bent forward, and their officers with brandished pikes and rapiers led them on. A lurid streak of fire ran along their ranks; closely and simultaneously it flashed from all the levelled muzzles, and a hail-storm of bullets was poured against us, but they generally sank thick and fast into the breastwork, or swept harmlessly over our heads. A few rattled among our helmets, and I heard a heavy clattering on my right and left, as a few of our soldiers fell prone with all their accoutrements on the ground.

On pressed the undaunted foe with tumultuous shouts; with standards waving and hoarse drums beating rapidly, they spread before us like a glittering mass, and our men fired point-blank into it, being sure, as the colonel said, that "every bullet would kill more than its man."

"To your duty! to your duty! my brave hearts of Strathnaver! level low, and level surely!" exclaimed our colonel, waving his sword over the parapet, his scarlet plaid and rich Spanish doublet making him the aim of a hundred muskets. "They break, but they do not recoil; they are again advancing. Well done, men of Lochnaver-side—my father's people! To your duty, clan Aoidh, clan Vurich, and clan Chattan!" he added, to compliment and encourage the men of the various tribes who composed the regiment.

Ian, M'Coll of that Ilk, Munro of Culcraigie, M'Kenzie of Kildon, and others, imitated his example; and a wild Highland cheer responded to the bold chieftain of Mackay, the hero of a hundred feudal conflicts and daring creaghs; while the rattle of brass buts and ramrods, the casting about of muskets, with the incessant and rapid fire volleyed over the breastwork, evinced how arduously our soldiers fought; and every time the smoke cleared away, we saw the brave pikemen of Camargo, and the hardy musketeers of Merodé writhing on the ground, and rolling over each other in their agony. In many places there were others who lay still enough indeed.

Led by officers of the most heroic courage and devoted zeal,—among whom I recognised the Count of Carlstein, conspicuous by his brilliant armour, red plume, and beautiful horse, brandishing Ironhewer—again the first column flung themselves like a living sea against the redoubt, and leaped into the rough trench, officers and musketeers, pikemen and halberdiers, pell-mell, with standards, scaling-ladders, axes, and sledge-hammers.

"Pikes against stormers," cried Sir Donald; "pikemen to the front—shoulder to shoulder, my children! Fire, musketeers!—fire low, and push with your pikes, my gallant pikemen! The bullet misses, but the pike never. To your duty, my brave duinewassals—my true Scottish cavaliers! Claymore—claymore and biodag!"

Loaded to their muzzles with musket-shot and grape, our cannon, swept the ditch, and cleared it of all but the dead and the dying, who lay there in frightful heaps, with their maimed bodies and torn armour drenched in that red current which the thirsty soil imbibed. Again and again they came on, and again and again we repelled them—maintaining the pass against them for two hours with the most desperate valour.

Thrice I saw the count—the brave father of Ernestine—fall, when, struck by successive shots, his horse sank under him; but he seemed to have a charmed life, and thrice his noble horse was again dragged to its feet by the assistance of Count Kœningheim, his aide-de-camp, whose sword-arm was tied up by a blood-stained scarf. Thus was the contest continued until our men became exhausted by casting about their muskets, and their bandoleers were emptied.

We then fell back and gave place to our left wing under Ian; again the fury of the Imperialists was severely curbed, and again the deadly strife was renewed with them, till the encumbered ditch was almost piled breast-high with dead. For every Highlandman who lay killed or wounded behind the redoubt, at least ten Austrians lay before it; for in showers our cannon shot tore through their dense ranks, which were eight and twelve deep, an ancient order of battle which Tilly obstinately retained, and which is coeval with the wars of Julius Caesar.

To me this carnage was nothing then; my blood was fairly roused, and the poor shattered fragments of humanity that lay in the trench, were of little more moment than the fallen leaves of a forest. Yet I could recall the time when I had shuddered at the puncture of a doctor's lancet; but none save an old soldier can know how (for a time) such scenes will harden the human heart.

We formed in rear of the left wing, and almost beyond musket-shot; but our hearts were still on fire, and again we longed to join in that fierce strife before us. The sun had set; but the moon was rising from the Baltic to aid the long lingering twilight of the north, and above the clouds of snow-white smoke which enveloped the sconce, the pass, and the assailing columns, we saw the black ravens floating in mid-air; for these dire birds had learned to know the sound that usually preceded their ghastly banquets.

Our dead and wounded lay around us thickly; and among the former, I found my poor young ensign, Hugh Rose. He lay within three feet of a bright brooklet, which gurgled among the long grass and the wild-flowers. Left to bleed to death, the unhappy sufferer had evidently expired in a futile attempt to reach the water, and many others who had crawled so far lay dead within it; thus, crimsoned with their blood, that flower-bordered rivulet soon became a hideous puddle; yet therein our wounded and weary would still continue to slake their thirst, crowding and jostling each other as they drank out of their helmets and hands.

As I viewed this painful scene by the cold glare of the moon, I thought of the old Danish ballad of the great battle at Chalons, where the vassal kings of Attila, the scourge of God, fought against the warriors of Ætius; for it is related that there a similar incident occurred.

Meanwhile, the roar of musketry continued in front, and the brave men of our left wing, under my valiant kinsman the major, kept the foe in check until the night was fairly set in, when Rittmaster Hume of Carrolside, colonel of the Scottish pistoliers, arrived from Duke Bernard with an order for us to retire, as his troops, horses, and cannon were all re-embarked, but this was afterwards proved to be a mistake. Immediately upon this our cannon were spiked to render them useless—a fashion first introduced by Gaspar Vimercalus of Bremen; the redoubt was abandoned; our left wing fell back double quick, and formed with the right into one solid square, with the pikes without, the musketeers and colours within.

We retired as fast as we could, aware that if the Imperial cavalry and artillery got through the barricade at the pass, all would be over with us; as the former would inevitably cut us to pieces if we formed line, and the other might slaughter us by whole companies if we retreated in square.

With yells of fierce triumph, like a pack of unkennelled blood-hounds, we could perceive the regiments of Merodé and Camargo swarming over the deserted breastwork, where their helmets and weapons flashed and glittered in the moonlight as they formed in some order and pursued us double quick.

At that decisive moment they received a sudden check; for the gallant Baron of Klosterfiord, taking advantage of their partial formation, advanced against them with his troop, which was principally composed of sturdy Holsteiners.

"Holstein, Holstein!" cried the baron, rising in his stirrups and brandishing his sword.

"Holstein Glaube! Holstein Glaube!" cried the pistoliers, and with plumes of white horse-hair waving on their steel helmets, and the blue blades of their rapiers flashing in the moonlight, they swept forward; and their heavy horses—the large, dark, glossy bays of Holstein and Jutland—burst headlong into the Austrian ranks, and rode right through them. There was a tremendous crash—a yell—a horrible confusion, and a flashing of swords; then a discharge of fire-arms was followed by the sound of a trumpet, and the brave pistoliers rejoined us at a hand gallop, leaving only a few of their number behind them. It was, indeed, a brilliant charge!

Captains M'Kenzie of Kildon, the Red M'Alpine, Sir Patrick Mackay, and the laird of Tulloch, with Lieutenant Stuart, and five ensigns, were severely wounded in this affair; so many officers had been killed that we had scarcely enough left to command our pikes; and the colonel's own company, which was almost entirely composed of young duinewassals, or Highland cavaliers of good family, was literally reduced to a skeleton.

Between us and the enemy it was now a race for who should first reach Heilinghafen; but in rapidity of movement they were no match for the barekneed men of the Scottish mountains.

CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE NIGHT OF HORRORS AT HEILINGHAFEN.

Without firing another shot, we reached Heilinghafen, and found the town in a state of unparalleled uproar. Terrified by the noise of the cannon and musketry at Oldenburg, and still more by the rapid advance of the enemy, the mariners of the Danish and Scottish ships, with their masters and mates, would not leave their anchorage to haul inshore and embark the troops, who were all crowded on the beach and mole—officers and soldiers, horse and foot, women, baggage, and pioneers, pikemen and musketeers, without formation or discipline, and struck with a panic by the vicinity of the foe—a panic which our appearance, as we advanced in dense column towards the beach or pier, with arms sloped and matches lighted, increased.

I thought of Ernestine and Gabrielle; where were they amid all that frightful commotion?

The enemy were close at our heels; there was not a moment to be lost between deciding upon instant embarkation, or a surrender of the whole eight thousand men to Count Tilly. Duke Bernard and his bravest and most distinguished officers, even the Baron Karl and Rittmaster Hume, had lost all authority, for a terror of the victorious Imperialists bore all before it; and there, as if to tantalize us, was our fleet lying in the roadstead, with the loosened sails glimmering in the broad moonlight, which shed a blaze of splendour on the wide blue Baltic.

A mole, or broad pier of stone, which jutted out into the sea, was densely crowded by a column of cavalry, nearly a thousand German Reitres and Danish lancers, who were waiting the approach of two large vessels, the Scottish Crown of Leith, and a Dane, whose crews, more courageous than others, were fast warping inwards, and had approached within fifty yards of the shore. A shout of rage burst from our ranks, when we found ourselves compelled to halt before this hopelessly disorganized mass.

"Duke of Saxe-Weimar," said our colonel to the general, "after holding the pass of Oldenburg for the whole evening against ten thousand men, are my brave soldiers—the children of my tribe—to fall into the hands of the foe, because these Danish cowards will neither fight nor flee!"

"Taunt me not, Sir Donald Mackay," replied the brave Bernard, lifting the umbriere of his helmet by one hand, and reining in Raven, his fiery war-horse, by the other; "for they have sealed their own doom—not I. But they have covered with disgrace the name I have won me on two-and-twenty battle-fields."

"Seven hundred brave hearts yet remain to you," replied the stately chief, who was an old comrade of the duke, "and these will embark your excellency, or perish on the shore."

"By the grey stone of M'Gregor, we will!" added M'Alpine, who led the first company.

"Dioul! it was well said, stout colonel," said Ian; "shall we be the victims of these hen-hearted cowards! Are these figures in iron, women or slaves?"

"Let us clear the pier of the horsemen! Let us attack and cut to pieces this band of cowards who bar the way!" cried McAlpine.

"Let us form square and fire on them," said M'Kenzie of Kildon.

"But they will charge us," added another officer.

"Dioul!" said Tan; "let us charge them, and then their blood be on their own heads. Hark—by the Holy Iron! there are the cannoniers of the enemy."

"Pikemen to the front—to the front against horsemen!" cried Sir Donald in a voice of thunder, while high in his stirrups he raised his towering form; "heed not the wolves behind—but bear away those sheep in front! Shoulder to shoulder, Highlandmen—forward, charge!"

At this terrible moment the yell of our pibroch, and the distant boom of the Imperial cannon, were but additional spurs to us. Formed in line, eight ranks deep, the whole breadth of the mole, our pikemen rushed like a hedge of steel upon the mass of mailed horsemen, whose officers strove, but vainly, to put them in some order to resist an attack so unexpected.

"Draw swords—unsling carbines! blow matches—goad flanks! Denmark! Denmark! Vivat Christian IV!" we heard them exclaiming, and endeavouring by the unsparing use of their swords to enforce obedience, but in vain. The horses in front recoiled madly upon those in rear, and in two minutes the unwieldy crowd was driven over the shelving edge of the open pier, headlong into the water, where they fell in piles over each other surging heavily down, horses and riders, for our charge was so fatally victorious that the old Count of Rantzau alone escaped.

The fiery temperament of the Highland soldier admirably calculates him for the assault and charge; thus, in every battle since the field of Luncarty, a charge of clans has been irresistible. In the onset, the fierce enthusiasm spreads along the line from heart to heart, like wild-fire or lightning; for if the impetuous rush and shock of falling headlong, and weapon in hand, among the ranks of a shrinking foe, will kindle a blaze of chivalry even in the dullest heart, how much must it inspirit and inspire a race of hereditary soldiers, like the clans of the Scottish Gael!

Along the side of the pier, on both hands, the scene was literally awful!

Heilinghafen was now in flames; for the Duke, like a wise general, to prevent the foe from finding shelter, had fired the old wooden town in six places, and thus six columns or sheets of fire shed a livid blaze of light upon the harbour, where in a seething mass of foam—the result of their frantic efforts—a thousand armed horses and their mailed riders were drowning or struggling for life. Among the froth and surf, the men clung wildly to each other, and to their horses, sinking in groups, and rising singly to disappear again. The cries of the despairing and the drowning, the splashing of their futile struggles for life, as they swam or sank among a mass of maddened chargers, terrified by the blood-red blaze shed from the burning town upon the water, were piteous in the extreme. The commotion made by them in the surf, actually rolled it in billows on the shore—billows which soon became tinged with blood; for the Imperial cavalry, which now came up with a few light falconets, cruelly opened a fire upon this frightful chaos, and thus the few of the Danish horsemen who might have escaped the waves and a watery grave, perished under the shower of iron poured upon them from the shore.

Our soldiers made a halt, and a half-smothered cry of pity rose from their ranks; for these drowning troopers had been our comrades in more than one encounter.

At that moment a man appeared at the edge of the mole, to which he had scrambled up—Heaven alone knows how—and with a light hatchet he hewed with furious zeal to sever the warps by which the ships were approaching to save us.

"Bandolo, the spy!" I exclaimed, recognising my Schönberg trader in the canvass doublet. "By Heaven, it is Bandolo!"

Gillian M'Bane, Donald M'Vurich, and another soldier, levelled their muskets; all fired at once, and with a yell Bandolo tumbled headlong into the water, to swell the list of the drowning.

"Ah—spy and assassin—thou art gone at last!" thought I.

"Captain Rollo, the enemy's horse are close upon us. Cover our rear with your company until Duke Bernard is on board," said Sir Donald, as he passed me on foot, dragging by the bridle his snorting charger.

Aided by a temporary gangway, our soldiers crowded on board the first ship that reached the mole; and, in token that she was ours, Sir Donald planted the Scottish ensign on her poop.

Though they were fired at by the panic-stricken Danes, who crowded the beach in thousands, two regiments of Austrian horsemen swept along the pier to cut us off; but with my company of musketeers I boldly confronted them. Ian, M'Alpine, Phadrig Mhor, and stout sergeant M'Gillvray were close by my side, and we all fell on with pike and musket, like true Scottish hearts. M'Alister of Lairgie, a poor young ensign, who had lost Kildon's company in the confusion and joined mine, was shot dead; but I snatched from him the Brattach Bane, the white banner of Mackay, as he fell into the water, and, throwing myself forward with it in my left hand, and a cocked pistol in my right—

"Gentlemen and comrades!" I exclaimed, "if you would not lose your honour, defend this standard, for thus far shall the enemy come—but no farther." I placed the staff between two stones of the pier, and a fresh conflict began around it. I was the aim of a hundred pistols; but, though horsemen seldom or never hit their mark, the bullets tore the standard to pieces.

Conspicuous among the black-mailed Reitres, I recognised the Count of Carlstein in his polished steel, with his scarlet plume, the golden fleece at his breast, and his beautiful charger Bellochio streaming with blood.

"On—on, Kœningheim!" we heard this splendid soldier exclaiming as he brandished his sword—the famous Ironhewer (so often mentioned in the Svedish Intelligencer.) "Charge with your lancers and Reitres! To the left—to the left; upon the Danes and down with them, but spare the poor lads in tartan! Close up—close up! forward Kœningheim, for my daughters are on board one of those very vessels!"

How my heart beat at these words, which I heard distinctly amid the hellish uproar around me and below.

On came the Reitres and lancers mingled, their armour dimmed by blood and dew; on—on, seeming like men and horses of black marble, when seen between us and the red blaze of the town, now sheeted with flame, in their rear. There was a shock, as with levelled weapons and bare knees on the ground, our pikemen met them like a wall; then sharp swords rang on polished helmets; bright lances reeking with blood flashed in the air, as they were thrust, withdrawn, and thrust again; banners rustled and bullets whistled; musketry rattled and cannon boomed along the echoing beach; while the dull roar of the conflagration, and the last cries of the still drowning horsemen, made up a medley of horrors which no mortal pen could ever relate, or pencil portray.

From the poop and forecastle our musketeers, under Kildon and Culcraigie, now opened a fire upon the Austrian horsemen, levelling right over our heads, while our drums were beating for us to retreat on board, that the warp might be cut or cast off.

"On—on, Kœningheim! On, Halbert Cunningham of the Boortree-haugh!" I heard the count again crying, but in his own mother tongue; for in the excitement of the moment, his German passed away. "Let us spare, if we can, our kindly Scots; but press on—thou to recover thine affianced wife—I my daughters. To your pistols, my Reitres, and fire on the Danish mariners; to your pistols!"

All my company were now on board save myself and a few more. All at once I found myself beneath this brave soldier of fortune, who, in his rage and anxiety to recover his daughters; had forced a passage to the very gunnel of the ship. By one downward blow his sword broke mine; his next would have been through me; but I sprang upon him and grasped Ironhewer by the blade, which almost cut my gloves and hands to boot. To the very edge of the pier he spurred his plunging horse, and, in striving to shake me from his sword, kicked me repeatedly with his heavy jackboots, which were strongly ribbed with iron; for, in his blind efforts to thrust me into the water, it was evident that he never recognised me.

"Count, count!" I exclaimed, hanging wildly on his sword; but in a moment I was free, for by one blow of his ponderous Highland blade, Ian almost clove asunder the head of his already wounded horse. Then, with its rider, the dying Bellochio fell heavily into the water, while Phadrig Mhor like a giant grasped me by the plaid, and half dragged, half threw me on board of the ship. "Save him, Ian!" I exclaimed; "let us save him at least—he is the father of Ernestine!"

"The father of—who do you say?" asked Ian and Phadrig.

"Ernestine——"

"Who is she?—but it is too late—too late—he is swept away! If he were Father Adam, or Father Time himself, we could not save him; away with the warp—out sweeps—hurrah!" cried twenty voices.

At that moment a horseman in full armour galloped madly along the mole; burst through the Austrians like a thunderbolt; and dealing a deadly blow at Kœningheim, who tried to intercept him, then urged his horse to a frantic leap, and bounded on board of the ship, which was already in motion, and receding from the pier! It was one of the most daring feats of horsemanship ever performed!

"It is the duke—Bernard of Saxe-Weimar!" cried a hundred voices, all expressive of astonishment.

What a scene did the water around us exhibit! Here and there a drowned or dying horse drifted past, with the rider's spurred boots still in the saddle, though perhaps his whole body was reversed and below water; a few kettle-drums were floating about like anchor-buoys; here and there rose and sank a gauntleted hand or a helmeted head; and, thick as rushes on a mountain lake, the demi-pikes and cavalry standards were floating on the surge.

Swimming near a dead horse, we saw one solitary trooper, who cried to us to save him.

His horse was white, and the drenched plume in his helmet was red. It was the count, and Ian recognised him; this was fortunate, for a severe bruise, obtained I know not how, incapacitated me from rendering the least assistance at that time.

"For your sake, Philip, I will save him," said my gallant cousin; "a brave soldier is ever grateful; but now, while I souse me overboard, make our master-mariner lay his foreyard to the wind."

Ian threw off his helmet and cuirass, tied a cord to his waist, sprang over and swam to the sinking veteran, whom he saved from a miserable death. The count had Eisenhauer grasped firmly in his hand; but poor Bellochio had gone to feed the fishes of the Sound.

The moment the count and his rescuer were both on board, we bore away; and, by the dying blaze of Heilinghafen, could perceive the wreck of Duke Bernard's army surrender their horses, their cannon, colours, drums, and themselves to the Imperialists—in all thirty-six troops of horse, and five strong regiments of Danish and German Infantry. Rittmaster Hume's Scottish pistoliers, who had preserved their discipline, cut a passage towards Flensburg in triumph; but of the foot, the regiment of Strathnaver had alone escaped!

CHAPTER XL.
WE SAIL FOR THE ISLES OF DENMARK.

By this stroke of misfortune, forty stand of Danish colours, even those of Karl's pistoliers (gules with the nettle-leaf of Holstein), became the trophies of Count Tilly; and the fertile provinces of Holstein, with north and south Juteland, were lost by King Christian, whose operations from that day until the great siege of Stralsund, were but a series of flights. The wreck of his own army retired across the Little Belt, while another column of infantry, which had escaped to the northern promontory of Juteland, and passed the Lïïmfiord into Yendsyssel, were there forced to lay down their arms; and, for a time, the Austrian eagle spread his wings from the banks of the Elbe to the shores of the Skager Rack.

The ship on board of which we—with the general—had so fortunately escaped, was the Anna Catharina, so named after the queen of Denmark, and built by Sinclair, a Scottish ship-builder, who was then master of the Danish dockyards. She was a large ship with two flush decks, a forecastle, and poop adorned with three gigantic lanterns; she had thirty ports for demi-culverins, and elsewhere carried twenty falconets; with these, Ian and some of our cavaliers sent an occasional shot at the shore as the yards were squared, and before a western breeze we bore away from Holstein for the Danish Isles, with our prow turned towards the Little Belt.

Cleaning their arms, stanching wounds, cooking, laughing, and making light of the past danger, our soldiers crowded the fore-decks; but in the great cabin, full of deep and bitter thoughts, Bernard of Saxe-Weimar sat writing to the king a sad detail of the loss of his troops and territories.

Around him, on couches, on lockers, on gun-carriages, and on the floor, were a number of Highland officers, many of them severely wounded, resting after the toils of the late contests at Oldenburg and Heilinghafen; and on their bronzed faces, their dark tartans, and battered armour, the light of an iron lamp fell fitfully, as it flickered and swung from a beam of the deck above. Near the duke sat the master, a short, thickset man, red-bearded and sunburned, wearing a flat fur cap, and enormous pair of crimson breeches. He had a keg of schnaps under his arm, and from it he was liberally filling the quaighs of those around him.

"Thy name?" said the duke abruptly, laying down his pen.

"Nickelas Valdemar, your excellency," replied the skipper, humbly removing his fur cap, being somewhat startled by the abruptness of the duke's manner.

"Kneel down, sir," said Bernard, unsheathing his sword.

"I beseech your excellency to spare me—to pardon me, if—if——" faltered the poor man, tottering down on his knees, and eyeing the bright blade askance with startled eyes; "if—if," he paused again.

"If what, sir—dost think I am going to kill thee?"

"If I was too long of hauling inshore; but I assure your excellency that the wind was right ahead——"

"Nay, my good man, better late than never. Of all my coward fleet, thou and yonder gallant Scot didst alone warp shoreward, and saved me with the help of this brave regiment; for that good deed I dub thee knight—arise, Sir Nickelas Valdemar!"

"Knight Valdemar!" reiterated the honest skipper, drawing up his punchy figure to the full extent of its short height, and taking a complacent view of himself from his red beard to his brass shoe-buckles. "Knight Valdemar!—oh, your excellency! what news this will be for my poor old mother, who sells tallow and pitch at Helsingör. I shall now carry my pennant through the Sound at the mainmast-head, like the king himself or any other knight of the Dannebrog—and who shall say me nay? not the admiral of Zeeland himself. Knight Valdemar!—oh, your excellency——"

"Your ship is named——"

"The Anna Catharina, your excellency."

"Oh—did you receive on board the prisoners I sent you yesterday morning?"

"Four in number—yes, your excellency."

"The Count of Carlstein would pay his respects to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar," said Ian, entering unhelmeted, and leading in the brave Imperialist, who had now somewhat recovered from the effect of his dangerous immersion.

"The Count of Carlstein, now colonel-general of the Imperial horse! I knew not that a soldier so renowned in arms was our prisoner," replied the duke, rising; and then they saluted each other with the utmost politeness.

"We meet under different circumstances now than when last we met, Saxe-Weimar," said the count, with a smile.

"Yes, at Lütter, just below the castle wall. I was at the head of my German cavalry, and you——"

"At the head of Cronenborg's invincibles."

"We had a tough two hours of it with pistol and spada," said the duke, laughing; "but remember that now, saved as you have been from drowning, Count of Carlstein, you are not to be considered as our prisoner. Go—I free you; retain that sword which you have ever drawn with honour against us, and unransomed rejoin your victorious soldiers on the first opportunity; for us, they are too fatally victorious. To-day I have lost my dukedom, and to-morrow Denmark may lose her crown."

"A thousand thanks, gallant Bernard! This is so like the modern mirror of chivalry we consider you; like that gallant warrior who defended himself amid the flight and carnage at Lütter with the strength and valour of Achilles. But I will not hold my freedom so cheap, and from this hour you must consider my castle and town of Geizar in Bohemia your own. It may repay you; but how can I repay the debt of eternal gratitude I owe unto this gallant Scottish gentleman—my countryman—my friend;" said the count, taking the hands of Ian in his own; "for in a moment of unparalleled peril, at the risk of his own life, he saved mine from amid that mass of drowning Danes and plunging chargers. Ha—I have here another friend!" he added, in our own Scottish tongue, as he turned to me; for, dubious of how he might greet me, I stood a little back from the group, and leaned upon a handsome sword M'Alpine had given me. "By my soul, young sir! you nearly ruined me with Count Tilly, by that escapade at Luneburg. What the deuce were you doing under the auld carle's bed? He vowed by all the saints of Rome that I had a design to assassinate him."

"I entered the chamber of Tilly by mistake," said I; "and my blundering follower, in his fear and confusion, crept under the bod."

"And now, sirs," said the count, as he suddenly changed countenance; "may I ask if you know aught of two ladies who, with their servants, were yesterday taken prisoners by a patrol of Klosterfiord's pistoliers?"

"They were delivered to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar," replied Sir Donald Mackay.

"Duke, duke! these ladies are my daughters," said the count—with a faltering accent.

"They have been treated as such," replied the duke, "and I rejoice, count, in being able by one graceful act of kindness to draw a veil over the horrors of to-night."

The duke suddenly drew back a double door, revealing another cabin beyond, where we saw two ladies seated together, half embraced, and near a table lighted by a lamp.

"Ernestine—Gabrielle!" cried the count. He sprang forward, and, with a mingled cry of surprise and joy, his daughters threw their arms around him.

The keen blue eyes of the gallant Bernard glistened, and with much good feeling he softly closed the door upon this tender scene.

CHAPTER XLI.
ON BOARD THE GOOD SHIP ANNA CATHARINA.

As I ascended to the upper deck my heart was full of joy, at the thought that Ernestine, whom I had considered all but lost to me for ever, was so suddenly restored; that her father was with us, and that we were now all together sailing quietly on the Danish waters, and far from the rival he had proposed—that Count Kœningheim, whom—though he was a brave and honest fellow—I cordially wished at the bottom of the Red Sea.

The first sentiment that Ernestine had awakened within me returned with renewed force; the sound of her voice—one glimpse of that well-remembered form—had recalled it all, as it were, from the depth of my heart, and I felt that I loved her as she deserved to be loved. But the count, her father!—the thought of him gave me an unpleasant twinge. What would he, a Catholic, an Imperialist, a noble and high military officer under that ambitious Emperor who had bestowed upon him so many princely gifts, think of me loving his daughter; for I was but a poor soldier of fortune—a captain of musketeers, under the unfortunate King of Denmark.

My heart sank at the comparison; but I reflected that the count was brave, generous, and not indisposed to love me: that he, too, had probably left our Scottish hills, a poor cavalier with no other inheritance than his sword: and that my birth and blood were perhaps as good as his own. My heart rose again at these thoughts, and now I looked towards the shore.

The wind had changed. We were lying a westward course, and had run about fifteen Danish miles; the lights of the burning town had disappeared upon our larboard quarter, and we were now off the mouth of the bay of Kiel; the glassy sea and the level shores within it, lay sleeping in the moonlight, in the cold white lustre of which our sails shone like new-fallen snow. Here and there, to mark a promontory or a shoal, a great beacon of coals or other fuel was blazing on the summit of a cairn or an ancient tower, and shedding a long and tremulous line of light upon the heaving water.

As we passed the mouth of the Kielerfiord, we saw afar off the capital of Holstein, with its spires; for the pure blue of the northern sky made all beneath it, distinct to us, as at noonday, and what a change of scene was that quiet shore, with its gentle slopes, its thatched farm-houses and green islets, its clumps of waving trees and glassy water, all steeped in the silver splendour of a full autumnal moon, when compared to the carnage and the horrors I had witnessed a few hours before!

The pride of my profession sank in my breast, and a disgust at war almost arose within me. For a moment I wondered not at the old Danish story of Adolphus IV., the conquering Count of Holstein, who, in the thirteenth century, exchanged in old age his armour for the cassock of a mendicant friar, and, surrendering all he possessed to God and the poor, begged his bread from door to door through the streets of yonder town, his capital of Kiel; and I sorrowfully reflected that in another day the victorious legions of Tilly would spread over these fair districts like a desolating flood.

Like a courteous noble and gallant soldier, Duke Bernard resigned the great cabin to the count and his daughters; and he supped with us that night on salted Hamburgh beef and Rostock beer. We drank deep bickers to the health of Christian IV.; to our countrywoman the fair Queen of Bohemia; and to the confusion of those Imperialists, against whom the little power of Denmark was struggling so fruitlessly; and the lights of Skovbye were shining on the waters of the Lesser Belt before we rolled ourselves in our plaids, and lay down to sleep on the hard planks of the lower deck; for there—as in the field—the officer could fare no better than the private musketeer.

Next morning the wind blew freshly from the shore; the water was rough, and the Anna Catharina lurched heavily.

A message from the count and his daughters, invited Ian and me to join them at breakfast in the great cabin; and we put ourselves in the best attire that circumstances would permit. We were still in our fighting doublets. Phadrig Mhor, with a piece of buff belt, polished our corslets and gorgets till they shone like mirrors; we adjusted our plaids and garters, curled our long love-locks, gave our mustaches a trim, and presented ourselves at the cabin door. I heard my heart beating.

"The brave gentleman who saved me from a frightful death," said the count, presenting Ian to his daughters, who hastened towards him with their eyes full of tears, and their young hearts brimming with gratitude.

Ernestine, at all times self-possessed, presented her pretty hand with the air of a princess; but the more impulsive or less guarded Gabrielle clasped Ian's hands in her own, and kissed them before he could prevent her.

"'Tis well that a certain Moina is not here," thought I; "for the young lady might have good reason to be jealous."

"And here is that other brave soldier who was the means of nearly drowning me," continued the laughing count; "our old friend, Herr Kombeek, as Gabrielle calls him."

"I am lost," thought I. "They will never forgive me for that, count," I said; "on my honour I did all that man could do to avoid you. I grasped your sword at the risk of having my hands cut off, and cried aloud to you. I knew not that you recognised me," I added, at the recollection of how he had striven to throw me into the water.

"Nor did I, my brave friend, until the moment when my poor horse Bellochio was cloven through the head by your major's broadsword, and then I fell over the pier. My dear fellow, I do but jest. We met there, not like friends as we do now, but as enemies in our harness—enemies under banner and baton; and what would it have mattered then if you had shot me, instead of wounding Merodé's captain-lieutenant, for I saw your pistol bring him down!"

"Shot you—you, count!" I reiterated with a shudder, as I glanced at Ernestine. "Oh! I should never have forgiven myself for so unfortunate an act—not even until my dying hour."

"Tush—heed it not, captain; let us to breakfast, and dismiss all memory of the last night's camisado, with its contingent horrors. Let us converse about poor old Scotland, and tell me whether our unwise king and valiant kirk are likely to be embroiled."

On such a topic, I alone could afford any information. Ian, as a Highland gentleman, disliking, or perhaps disdaining, the Lowlanders, neither cared for nor knew of any thing that passed beyond the Highland frontier;—the fishing and hunting expeditions of his clan, and the endless feuds and intrigues of his neighbours the Grants, and Frazers, their creaghs, battles, and lawsuits, had sufficiently occupied his attention to prevent him entering into politics; though to please our kinsman, M'Coll of that Ilk, he had once marched five hundred claymores as far as the Garioch to fight the Gordons of Huntly.

Eminently handsome and noble in aspect and bearing, he was the beau-ideal of a Scottish chief; and, had his heart not been left in his own beloved glen, I might have found him a formidable though unintentional rival; for the fair sisters chatted with him without cessation, and as their conversation was maintained in a strange compound of German and Spanish, mingled with our own language, the medley and its mistakes excited frequent and immoderate bursts of merriment.

The breakfast passed, and my breast expanded with delight, for I found myself firmly established as the friend of the count and his two charming daughters, and every hour we were on board increased this intimacy; for in a ship there are innumerable little attentions which gentlemen may, and must, bestow upon a lady, thus affording a thousand opportunities for kind and graceful services, which cannot be offered upon the land. On board of ship, ladies are naturally restless; thus, if Ernestine wished to enjoy the fresh air on deck, my arm was immediately proffered, and we clambered to the weather quarter. There she got her dress wetted, and her pretty mouth filled by the salt spray.

Then we slid to leeward, where the water came in through the gun-ports and scupper-holes, causing her infinite alarm.

Then she wished to be below again, and we descended once more to the cabin; but no sooner was my fair charge safely deposited on the sofa, than the rolling of the vessel, the creaking of the timbers, the scraping of the gun-slides, and the noise on deck, made her sick, and she longed to reach the poop again. At last, as the strait narrowed, the wind blew right ahead, and the high-pooped vessel laboured heavily, shipping many a tremendous wave; the fair prisoners became too ill to remain on deck; we sat chatting in the cabin, playing chess and ombre at intervals, or watching from the little windows of the stern the sunlight fading on the Isle of Alsen. The rolling of the ship increased; but even then, under all these disadvantageous circumstances, I could not help being struck by the different appearance of the sisters.

Gabrielle, being fair and blue-eyed, appeared pale and languid; the brightness of her expression had faded, and the rosy tinge of her cheek had died.

The dark orbs of Ernestine—those magnificent eyes, which she inherited from her mother, a lady of Spanish Flanders—still presented their wonted fire and brilliance. Gabrielle's gentle spirit sank; she became fearful, docile, and child-like; but when the ship lurched, the wind freshened, when chairs and tables went crashing all to leeward, when the loose cannon-shot rolled from side to side, and the weather-guns strained their lashings until the ringbolts almost started from the stancheons, the proud Ernestine—wilful, and perhaps unmanageable at other times—laughed at her sister's terror.

Then the count praised her firmness, calling her his brave girl, and Gabrielle his poor little baby.

Every moment increased the respect and tenderness, the vague sensation of mingled joy and sadness, with which the merit and beauty of Ernestine had first inspired me; and I felt, that if she had not already divined my important secret, I could not conceal it very long. A hundred times I was on the point of recalling to her memory—or rather, seeking to resume—our last conversation, and my farewell to her at Luneburg. I was certain she could not have forgotten it; but now an unconquerable timidity repressed me.

Being young, and but a plain soldier, I was naturally backward. One moment I resolved to let events develop themselves, and the next to declare my passion to the count and to her; but there was a polished dignity—a terrible air of self-possession about them both—that put all my resolutions completely to rout; for the fear of her refusal, the memory of his preference for Count Kœningheim, and his promise to him, damped my rising courage, and I felt that I would rather, a thousand times, have faced a brigade even of Lowland pikes, than ventured on a subject which seemed so distant from their thoughts, though it involved my whole future happiness and fate.

"The count might ask," I reflected, "where are your estates?" I could but lay a hand on my sword, and "Here—with this blade I clothe and feed myself." "And your home, Master Philip?"—"Wherever the colours of my regiment happen to be." These soldier-like answers would assuredly do very well for a baggage-wife, but were scarcely suited to the present purpose; and so I cogitated, until I—poor devil!—made myself as miserable as it was possible to be.

Without any determination being come to on my part, four days passed, and the Anna Catharina came to anchor close by the wooden pier of Assens, in the isle of Funen. We had lost much time in touching at various ports inquiring for the residence of the king, of whose exact locality we had some doubts. The whole regiment prepared at once for disembarkation, while Duke Bernard sent an officer (Red Angus M'Alpine) to the king, who was then residing in an old castle near the small town of Assens, with a hastily prepared despatch, announcing the loss of his division, and his arrival with the wreck or remnant thereof—the Scottish invincibles of Sir Donald Mackay.

His letter (which I afterwards transcribed from the Svedish Intelligencer) was in that style of military brevity which so delighted the brave spirits of that sanguinary war.

"To the most excellent Prince, Christian IV., King of Denmark, of the Goths and Vandals; Duke of Sleswig, Holstein, Stormar, and Ditmarsch; Earl of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst; Knight of the Garter, the Dannebrog, and Elephant—these,

"Comrade and Confederate,—Ruined by their own cowardice, the soldiers of my division have surrendered to the Emperor, and taken service under his standard. All are lost save the Scottish regiment of Strathnaver.

"BERNARD OF WEIMAR."

CHAPTER XLII,
THE RITTERSAAL.

It was autumn now.

The day was dark and stormy; a grey sky spread its cold background beyond the picturesque gables and wooden fronts of the old houses of Assens. The solemn storks had all disappeared to warmer latitudes; rain, and even sleet, poured down into the narrow and muddy streets; a variety of tints were spreading over the woods; the beeches were becoming yellow, but the hardy pine of the north yet wore unchanged its dark and wiry foliage. All betokened gloom and the misfortunes that threatened Denmark, as we landed in the boats of Sir Nickelas Valdemar, and marched into the town with drums beating and colours flying.

It was a dilapidated place, very little of it having survived the warlike operations of old John of Rantzau, who, ninety years before, had routed there the army of Christopher, Duke of Oldenburg, slain Güstaf Troll, archbishop of Upsala, and levelled nearly all Assens to the ground. In the houses that remained, our soldiers were billeted by the burgomaster; while Duke Bernard, with all the officers, the count and his daughters, repaired to the adjacent castle, to be presented to the king and court.

The Scottish musketeers of the Lord Spynie, and the Danish guards, with their kettle-drummer beating on his famous silver drum, received us with all honour at the castle gate; and many a hand was held out from the ranks of Spynie, to grasp ours in warm welcome as we passed them. The brass culverins boomed from a cavalier before the gate, as a salute to our colonel and the Duke of Saxe-Weimar.

"Ah! my old trooper, dost thou smell powder again?" said he, stroking Haven, his curveting horse, which was led by a page, for, in compliment to the ladies, this gallant prince accompanied us on foot.

He gave his arm to the Count of Carlstein; ungloved I led Ernestine by the hand; Ian led Gabrielle; Sir Donald and our brother officers followed in a group behind us; and the whole were marshalled forward to the Bittersaal, or saloon of the knights, where the king awaited us.

Through folding-doors of carved oak, ushers in the royal livery admitted us to this magnificent old hall, at the upper end of which, under a canopy and upon a dais, stood King Christian, with a glittering group of courtiers.

Grotesquely carved in stone, many a column and corbel projected from the wall; from thence sprung the arched roof; between were hangings of leather embossed with gold arabesques, which had assumed a sombre brown by age. The arched fireplace, within whose vast recess a company might have dined, had around it stone benches on three sides, as in our ancient towers at home; in the centre, a pile of pine roots and Meinel logs were crackling and blazing in an enormous basket of iron.

Above the king's crimson canopy hung the moth-eaten remnant of the miraculous Dannebrog, the far-famed banner of Denmark, which was said to have been sent by the pope, for Waldemar II. to unfurl against the Pagans of Livonia; but which was taken by the warlike Ditmarsches in the war of 1580, and retaken from them by the valiant Frederick II.

A flood of crimson and yellow light fell from the painted windows on the king and his group, which, from the length of our interview, I had every means of observing. Christian was plainly attired in a military undress of buff, with gold trimmings, and buff gloves edged with gold; over one shoulder was his scarf of silk; over the other was the broad blue riband; under his left arm was a broad beaver hat edged with rich galloon; his neck was encircled by a chain of gold, at which hung the order of the Elephant, bearing on its back a silver tower studded with diamonds, and full of armed men. A black silk patch concealed the loss of his left eye, which had been destroyed by a splinter in one of those naval battles which have rendered his memory so dear to Denmark. Near him stood his queen, Anna Catharina, of the House of Brandenburg, a fair and somewhat florid-looking German, and another lady whom he had wedded with the left hand, according to the usage of the times—a fairer and more beautiful Dane, whose peculiar position imparted a gentle and retiring expression to her soft features; though that position was deemed so far from equivocal, that he created her Countess of Fehmarn (the Saraos of the north), and one of her daughters was espoused by the grand-master, Corfitz Ulfeld.

The venerable queen-mother was also present; she was a grave and stately old dame, attired in a long fardingale of scarlet taffeta, with a stomacher studded with diamonds, and her grey hair highly frizzled. Near the king were the Counts of Rantzau and Aschefeld; the Barons of Nybourg, Alsen, Fœyœ, and others (for there are but two titles of nobility in Denmark); all of these were grim-looking riders, clad in armour of a fashion considerably older than I had ever seen worn in Scotland. Rantzau was Lord of Elmeshorne and Bredenburg, that castle which old Dunbar had defended so valiantly. The grand chancellor, the mareschal of the court, and the Liveknecht, with several other gentlemen, wore the large medal of the Knights of the Armed Hand, an order of twelve created by Christian ten years before in the castle of Kolding, on his being chosen general of the circle of Lower Saxony.

The ladies remained near the queen, and, like the Danish gentlewomen in general, they were graceful, fair-haired, blue-eyed, softly-featured, and exquisitely feminine; but there were neither fire, loftiness, nor dignity about them. They seemed gentle and languishing; and in truth, tall Ian with his giant plume, red M'Alpine with his crape scarf, Sir Donald with his swarthy visage, and all our bare-kneed Scottish officers, occupied much more of their attention than the splendid cavaliers of the court.

"Such an engaging air—what a beautiful dark girl!" I heard King Christian say as Ernestine appeared. He spoke to old Rantzau, his Liveknecht, or squire of the body, who as such could never be without his sword, or far from the royal person; "her eyes sparkle like lance-heads—yet they are soft as a summer-moon."

"Though war hath left your majesty but one eye, it is a sharp one for beauty," replied his grim old comrade; "but I would prefer her fair sister, with those mild and sweet blue eyes, and the rich Madonna hair."

At these somewhat too audible remarks, the sisters coloured deeply, and the ladies near Anna Catharina whispered together, and tittered behind their fans.

Though her attire was plain (for Karl's pistoliers had made somewhat free with her baggage at Oldenburg), there was something striking and triumphant in the beauty of Ernestine. On finding herself the object of so many eyes, that gazed with curiosity and scrutiny, she assumed a proud bearing, which I can liken only to that of a stately Arab horse; while poor little Gabrielle quailed, coloured, and drooped her long eyelashes in the most charming confusion; for with much that was noble and graceful, she had in her nature more that was timid and infantile.

The gallant Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, wearing in his helmet the glove of his future bride, a German princess of Dourlach, led forward the Count of Carlstein, saying—

"Allow me to present to your majesty one of the bravest of the Imperial officers—the colonel-general of the German cavalry."

"A brave soldier is always welcome here—even though an enemy," replied Christian, with a haughty bow, to which the count replied by another quite as haughty. "Duke, I have received your fatal despatch, and M'Alpine the Scottish captain has told me all—all—and more than I could have wished to hear. And these ladies, count, are your daughters?"

"In my ardour to rescue whom, I this day stand before your majesty a prisoner," replied the count.

"Nay," said Christian; "Duke Bernard, I understand, has but anticipated me. Saved from that mass of drowning cowards at Heilinghafen, you are not a prisoner, but a freeman, and must retain the sword my general returned to you—Ironhewer, the theme of so many camp songs. But enough of this—lead forward these fair girls. By the Dannebrog! John of Rantzau, they are beautiful as summer flowers!"

On being presented, Ernestine and Gabrielle were about to kneel, when the brave king anticipated them, by kneeling and kissing their hands.

Anna Catharina smiled disdainfully, and threw a furtive glance at the drooping Countess of Fehmarn, her rival of the left-hand. A gleam of pleasure passed over the features of Carlstein, and he said, while his eyes moistened——

"Your majesty does my poor girls infinite honour."

"Nay, count, I stand as a soldier before them; but as a king before you. We cannot pay too much homage to beauty. I have said, count, that you are free, and you may, when you please, rejoin the Imperialists."

"I owe your majesty a thousand thanks; but, with these two girls, how can I now, unattended, pursue a journey so long and so difficult—through hostile Juteland?"

"Ah—that is true!" grumbled old Rantzau, rubbing his thick beard; "der teufels braden!"

"Count of Carlstein," said the old queen-dowager, in high Dutch, "alone you may rejoin your comrades, but these poor maidens could never survive the toil and danger of such a journey."

"True—madam—true!" said the count.

"Where you go, father, Ernestine will go, too," said his eldest daughter, with a proud smile, as she clasped her hands upon his arm.

"And I, too," said Gabrielle, clinging to him on the other side.

"I thank you, my brave girls; but I see that now we must indeed part—and I thank your majesties for your sympathy," said the count, with a sad smile. "Would to Heaven that I had listened to the advice of the good empress when at Vienna, and left in her charge, my motherless girls! But we have never been separated; they would accompany me, even beyond the Elbe, for such is the dear wilfulness of one, and such the affection of both. I am a soldier of fortune, royal lady. In these and other wars I have fed myself with my sword. In the camps and cities of strangers, far from my own home, I felt that I had one wherever my daughters were; my whole soul is bound up in these two girls, and through a thousand dangers God has spared me for their sakes—spared me to protect and love them—as I feel assured that he will spare me from a thousand more."

The count paused, and his voice trembled. It was a fine scene. Old John of Rantzau rubbed his beard again; the queen gazed immoved, with a stolid expression on her German face; but she whom the king loved best, the Countess of Fehmarn, was visibly affected, and drew nearer to her these two little girls, who were all but princesses, and, who alone of all that glittering group remained by her side—for she was their mother.

"After the freedom so graciously bestowed by this kingly duke, and ratified by a princely king," said Carlstein, "my honour requires that I should immediately rejoin my troops, who are now without any other leader than the Count of Merodé; but my daughters—my daughters——"

"Count," said the aged queen-mother again, as Carlstein paused, "I am about to retire to my own castle of Nyekiöbing in the isle of Laaland; permit your daughters to go with me, and I will protect them as if they were my own until this hapless war is ended, or until you can again receive them."

"Madam, it is a gracious offer, and worthy of her who is the mother of a gallant monarch—one whom future times shall tell of," replied the count. "Kneeling, madam, I thank you from my soul—nay, Ernestine, look neither sad nor proud," he added in a whisper, "for it must be so;" and from some protest she was about to make, she was awed to silence by her father's firmness and the presence in which she stood.

"My fairest one," said the brave king, "you have heard what her majesty, our august mother, proposes. You are at liberty to go, and your gallant father may accompany you. From Laaland he can more easily rejoin his victorious comrades; and, if our poor Denmark is conquered, he may still more easily rejoin you at Nyekiöbing."

The king smiled as he said this; but old John of Rantzau, and those fierce Danes who felt their scars of Lütter smart, twirled their red mustaches, and eyed the count with hostility and hatred.

And now, by the invitation of the queen-dowager, Ernestine, her father, and sister were led away to another part of the castle. Queen Anna Catharina, the Countess of Fehmarn, with all their ladies, followed, and I felt sadly that Ernestine was about to be secluded from me; but she gave me a kind farewell glance on retiring through the folding-doors of the Rittersaal—a glance that sank deep in my heart, and made it leap with joy.

The moment they were all gone, a cloud descended upon the brow of Christian IV.; he turned towards the duke and us, and, striking together his gauntleted hands, exclaimed bitterly—

"Bernard! Bernard! oh what a disastrous week this has been. I concealed my grief before that proud Imperialist and his daughters—but my heart bleeds for Denmark; and now I see nothing but flight from isle to isle—defeat, disgrace, and death! Oh! after all I have endured for Denmark, the battles I have fought by sea and land, the friends I have lost, the blood I have shed, the treasure I have spent, and the territories I have lost, has it come to this?"

"It seems to be the will of Heaven," replied the duke, gloomily, "that those savage Imperialists should triumph over us, and subvert the Protestant religion of northern Europe. I have lost my dukedom, and am now an outcast; eleven of my brothers have bled in this war, for we are the hereditary and irreconcilable enemies of the House of Hapsburg. Tilly's troops are invincible; but I say unto your majesty, that had your Danes and my Germans behaved as these Scottish troops have done, the old Jesuit had told another story at Vienna."

"I thank you, gentleman," said the king, bowing to us. "Adversity is the school for soldiers and for kings; but if I suffer, Herr Donald," he added, taking our colonel by the hand, "it is in the cause of your countrywoman, my fair niece, the queen of Bohemia, who, unfortunately for herself and Protestant Europe, is the wife of a coward—the chief of a race of cowards and gluttons—who can neither fight for her, nor his electoral hat. The main column of my army is retreating fast through Juteland, and will be taken; I still have Glückstadt, where Sir David Drummond, with the Laird of Craigie's pikemen and two of Nithsdale's regiments keep the foe in check,—but that too may fall. My God! I feel the crown my brave father left me totter on my brow; but let me hope that my soul is still too soldierly to mourn departed state or empty greatness. I have now but twenty thousand men; Tilly with thirty thousand has overspread the duchies, and Wallenstein with a hundred thousand has marched against us from Hungary. Every ally has abandoned me—all on whose aid I relied when I engaged in this unequal war; and Gustavus of Sweden yet lingers in his capital, I know not why. The God we fight for, gives and takes away—and I bless his name not the less. I have still my sword, Duke Bernard; and if I cannot win me a name like my brave forefathers, Thierri the Fortunate, or Gerhard the Warlike, my fleet still remains, and after every inch of Danish ground is drenched in Danish blood and lost, I will commit myself to the ocean, like those Vikingr from whom I am descended. Better are the wild waves they loved so well, and the pure air of the wide Baltic, or the stormier Northern Sea, than the Austrian prisons of Ferdinand of Hapsburg!"

"It is said like a gallant king," replied the proud chief who led us; "the cause of the Scottish princess caused Denmark these disasters, and we, as Scottish soldiers, ought cheerfully to die for your majesty."

"Well, gentlemen and comrades, as the proverb has it, Enough for the day is the evil thereof; between us and Juteland there yet rolls the same sea wherein the Emperor Otto I. flung his lance, as the limits of his invasion against King Harald Blaatand. The Imperialists are yet far distant from our gates; so let us to dinner, comrades, and drink in German wine and Juteland beer to the hope of better times, and to the memory of those brave men who have fallen so unavailingly at Lütter, at Bredenburg, and the Boitze."

CHAPTER XLIII.
MARCH FOR THE CASTLE OF NYEKIÖBING.

On the following day it was announced that Sir Donald was to leave us for Scotland, where he meant to recruit for the battalion among his own clan, and others that were friendly to him; that Ian, as lieutenant-colonel, was to command the regiment, which was to be broken into detachments; two companies were to remain at Assens, three companies in other parts of Funen, and four, under Ian, were to march for, and occupy the Isle of Laaland, which was the dowery of the queen-mother, and was now endangered by the capture of Fehmarn by the Imperialists, who always considered it the key of Denmark.

On the morning parade our colonel informed us of this separation, at which our soldiers grieved sorely, for every man loved and revered him as a father; and the regiment was like a band of brethren, as every regiment should be—a clan, or one great family; one half of its members were kinsmen, being Mackays, and reared in the same strath where the Naver flows. This arrangement touched me deeply too, fearing that I would now be separated from Ernestine; that I might never see her again; and that thus all my hopes would be crushed in the bud. I gazed eagerly after her, as, with the ladies of the court—for the king and queen were present—she passed along our line while arms were presented, the colours lowered, and the pipes played Mackay's salute. After being joined by Duke Bernard, whom the king embraced and kissed in the old German fashion (as I had often seen a couple of bearded cuirassiers do, to the astonishment of our Highlandmen), Christian and the colonel went down the ranks, addressing some words of compliment or congratulation to every officer; for all had done their devoir like gallant men. He paused before me, observing that I was very young, and was posted three paces in front of the line as commanding a company.

"Cavalier," said he—for, like Gustavus Adolphus, that was his favourite phrase when not speaking Danish—"your company shall be marched to Laaland, to quarter at Nyekiöbing, and guard our royal mother."

In profound salute I lowered the point of my claymore, and felt my heart dance with joy; for it was to Laaland that Ernestine and her sister were to accompany the old queen-dowager.

"I thank your majesty for this choice," said Sir Donald; "the youth is my own peculiar care, assigned to me by his father, an old knight of Cromartie, who sent him to the German wars, because——" I trembled with anger, lest Sir Donald had caught the story of that rascally spoon; "because he was the only lad of spirit in the family."

"Well, he shall march to Nyekiöbing," said the frank monarch, with a wink of his solitary eye, and a dry and peculiar cough, a sure sign that some deep idea was fermenting in his honest brain. He then whispered something to Sir Donald, gave his steel tassettes a slap, and laughed heartily. A sly smile twinkled in the dark eyes of the Highland chief, and the blood mounted to my temples.

What could this by-play mean?

I trembled lest the proud Ernestine should discover or observe it, for she was quite near us, and I afterwards learned that it had direct reference to herself: for these good souls—though one was a haughty Highland chief, and the other an ambitious king—in openness of heart, in honesty of purpose, and goodness of intent, were pure soldiers.

"Captain Rollo," said the king with a smile, "it is agreed that you shall guard the castle of Nyekiöbing," and he passed on to Captain M'Kenzie (Kildon), who commanded the next company.

Attended by her ladies, Queen Anna Catharina next went down the line on foot, and suspended with her own white hands, at every officer's neck, a silver medal attached to a blue riband. These had been lately struck at Glückstadt by the king's order, to commemorate his undertaking the defence of the Protestant religion. One side bore a man in armour, grasping a naked sword in one hand, in the other a Bible, and inscribed for Religion and Liberty. On the other was a lighted candle, half burned, encircled by the legend,

Christianus IV. Dan. Norv. Vand. Goth. Rex.

To every soldier a rixdollar was given to drink his majesty's health.

That evening a ship—the Scottish Crown of Leith—was lying off Assens, about to sail for poor old Schottland (as they name her in that part of the world.) The colonel was to sail next day; and all who could write were busy inditing letters to their friends, parents, and lovers at home—all but myself, who had none that cared much to hear from me. That was a sad and bitter reflection. Even the scrivener of the regiment was busy transferring to paper the regards, remembrances, promises, and prize-money of those who could handle their swords better than their pens. Ian wrote a letter to his Moina, and thereafter appended to it remembrances from half the soldiers of my company to their friends in Strathdee, condolences to the parents of the brave who had fallen, with a request that the names of Phadrig Mhor, Diarmid M'Gillvray, and other gallant men whom he mentioned, should be inscribed on the kirk-doors for three successive Sundays—the greatest ambition and glory of the poor Highland soldier when far from his native glen.

Next morning Sir Donald sailed for Scotland, to bring succour to the king, and urge his desperate state upon the government at Edinburgh. We saw his vessel as she bore northwards down the Belt, while the four companies under Ian paraded by sunrise and prepared to march across the Isle of Funen with sealed orders, which he was to open at Rodbye. Attended by the count's daughters and many other ladies on horseback, with pages and riders in the royal livery, the queen-mother rode forth from the archway of the castle, and we all received her with presented arms.

Ernestine and Gabrielle were gracefully attired in light blue riding-habits laced with silver, with hats and feathers suitable to their age; but the old queen wore the dress of Christian III.'s time, and was cased in a long straight stomacher, all fenced about with bars of whalebone, and thick enough to have turned a sword-thrust. On each side her fardingdale jutted out, and over all she had an enormous riding-skirt of crimson cloth, with a pair of those voluminous sleeves which Stubbs the Englishman condemned in the Anatomy of Abuses (written in the days of his queen, Elizabeth). Like her coif and ruff, these were all stiffened, as the quaint Stubbs saith when reprehending the attire of women, "in that liquid matter called starch, wherein the devil hath learned them to wash and dive their ruffs, which, on being dry, will then stand stiff and inflexible about their necks;" and, like Master Stubbs, in truth I have known more than one gay cavalier who got his nose scratched by coming too close to those same ruffs, which hedge round a pretty face as sweyne's feathers do a square of infantry.

By the queen's bridle rode the Count of Carlstein; his daughters on their Danish nags came curveting behind, and waved their whips to us as they passed. Ernestine, all blooming and smiling, was in high spirits, and her drooping black feather shaded her beautiful face. She let a rose drop from her hand. I hurried from my place to restore it; then a sudden thought made me crave permission to retain it.

"No great boon, Herr," said she, "as it is all over dust now, and has lost half its leaves; nevertheless, if its poor remains will be such a source of gratification to you, I make you welcome to them," and, whipping up her horse, she darted after the group of equestrians, who were now fast leaving us behind.

"Keep at the head of your company, cousin Philip," said Ian drily, "and do not spoil your tartans by picking old flowers out of the dust."

"I would have picked it up under a shower of musketry, Ian," said I.

"Dioul!" he replied, laughing; "'tis more than I would do, even for Moina: there are bounds to love, but none to folly. A shower of musketry! Zounds, I do not think I would leave my ranks under that, to pick up the crown of Scotland if it lay at my feet!"

It was a beautiful autumn morning, and every thing around me seemed in unison with the lightness of my own heart. A warm summer had brought on an early harvest, and every where the grain had been hastily reaped and gathered by the husbandman, who trembled at the rapid approach of an irresistible foe. A strong fragrance arose from the fresh morning earth; the sunshine was warm, yet tempered by the cool breeze that came from the azure waters of the Lesser Belt, that stretched away into dim and far obscurity on our right. In our rear lay Assens with its castle, and on our left the landscape spread out in long and verdant vistas, tinted by dun autumnal hues; its faded green being interspersed by newly ploughed fields of rich brown land, the furrows of which glistened in the sun, while the water left in them by the recent rains, glittered in long and silvery lines.

From these the sun exhaled a hazy vapour, making somewhat obscure the more distant objects, and even those which were nearer at hand. Thus, at times, we saw in opaque outline the sturdy figure of a well-fed Danish boor, who was turning up the glistening soil with a plough of ancient fashion, drawn by two fat brindled kine, with curving horns and switching tails, around which the clouds of gnats were dancing; and there, between the stilts of his plough, the clod-pated boor would pause, and gaze at us with lack-lustre eyes as we marched past, four hundred strong, with our tartans waving, our arms and appointments glittering in the sun, while the hoarse drums rattled, and the wild war-pipes poured a Highland quick-step to the morning wind; for four hundred bare-kneed clansmen was a sight for a boor of Funen to remember, and describe to his grandchildren in after years to come.

"You are still looking after that blue skirt and black feather," said Ian, just as the queen and her group of attendants disappeared among the vapour far in front; "I pray you, kinsman, keep such vagaries as love out of your head."

"Love is an affair of the heart, Ian, and the head has nothing whatever to do with it."

"The greater is the pity, Philip; but allow me to advise——"

"You consider me a lover, and yet think I will take advice. Whoever heard of a lover that did so?"

"It is too true; but I hope you are not yet come to that. Love and its sentimentality are all nonsense in a true man of the sword."

"Ian!" I exclaimed; "and Moina——"

He coloured, and haughtily shook his eagle's plume.

"Moina is at home in Glen Mhor na' Albyn. Here, she would interfere with the performance of my duty to my colonel and the king. As it is, she rather aids them; for she is my guiding star in the hour of danger, and the wish that I may return worthy of the daughter of a brave chief, fires me to emulate the heroes of other times. On the long weary march, and in the dull lonely hours of the night; by the guard fire and the bivouac, or in the comfortless cantonment, with my plaid for a mantle, my sword for a pillow, I think of my brown-eyed Highland bride—I think of Moina Rose with sorrow and joy—sorrow that I am so far, far away from her, and joy that she loves me. Moina is a single-hearted and guileless mountain girl; to love her, is very different from the fancies now floating through your giddy brain, kinsman of mine. I am too true a son of the Gaël to regard strangers otherwise than with jealousy; and court ladies at best are slippery as eels. Remember how many dark-eyed maids at home are all looking for husbands, and ought to have the preference before all these foreign trumpery. There is the tall daughter of old Ferintosh, with her lint-white locks and a fair slice of land, with a good strong tower that, with six brass culverins, guards the highway to Milnbuy, and can levy a pretty good toll thereon; and there is little Oina Urquhart, the daughter of old Sir Thomas of Cromartie, whose dowery I know to be five hundred black cattle, which her spouse is to levy (if he can) among the clans in Ross; and Mary M'Alpine (Red Angus's cousin) whose tocher is still better; a castle in the Black Isle, with five hundred good claymores to defend it."

Without interruption, I permitted Ian to run on and enumerate all the heiresses in Nairn, Ross, and Cromartie, whose tochers consisted of short-legged cattle and long claymores, whinstones and fair purple heather; but the result was, that he put me into a very bad humour, which did not find vent until we entered Faaborg, after a march of about thirty Danish miles—a cannon-shot more or less.

The evening was closing as we marched in, and the church bells were ringing, as they are always rung about sunset in the Danish villages and towns.

We—the officers—were billeted by the Herredsfoged (or magistrate) on a tavern or hostelry named the Dannebrog, as it bore the Danish banner on its signboard. The roof of this place was (I remember) considerably depressed, as the host informed us with the utmost good faith and in a whisper, by the passage of King Waldemar, the wild huntsman, whose spectral train had swept over it on St. John's night, last year. He had just concluded his story when Will Lumsdaine, my lieutenant, came to inform me, that the ration of beer served out by the Herredsfoged to our company was only fit for swine.

"Have you told him so?" I asked.

"I did."

"And what was his reply?"

"That it was good enough for Scots."

"Air Muire!" cried Ian, buckling on his sword; "where is this fellow to be met with?"

"At his own house," replied Lumsdaine. "I would have punished him there; but I love not to draw on a man under his own roof-tree."

Now ensued a friendly contest about who should punish the Herredsfoged; Lumsdaine claimed the duty as the insult had been given to him; I claimed it as his senior, and Ian as mine. We tossed up a dollar, and the lot fell to me. I snatched up my sword, hurried away, and found my man smoking a pipe in his back garden.

"You are the Herredsfoged?" said I, drawing my claymore.

"I am," said he, with the utmost composure, for he was a strong fellow—a miller, and nearly a head taller than me. Requesting him to walk with me into a little plot which was screened by a privet hedge, I sternly commanded him to retract and apologise for his remarks anent the ration beer; but the Herredsfoged was a brave fellow, and swore by all the devils in Denmark, he would "never retract while there was a drop of blood in his heart!"

We then measured our swords, and fell on like a couple of wild Tartars; I received a scar on one of my bare knees, by an ill-parried thrust; and the second, by piercing my left arm, disabled me for a time from using my dirk; but at the third pass I ran him through the left side, close by the ribs, and flung him prostrate, with his weapon hand below him. Then with my sword at his throat, while he lay grovelling among his own tulips and broken flowerpots, I compelled him to retract, and repeating after me word for word, acknowledge "that the said beer was only fit for dogs or Danes." I then helped him into the house, and had his wound looked to. We marched next day, and all kept the story of the duel as secret as possible; for such encounters had been expressly forbidden by an edict of Christian IV. in 1618.

At Faaborg we found that the queen and her train had embarked for Laaland, and that nothing remained for us but to follow by the first shipping we could procure. For one night we occupied the little town, which has the waters of the Lesser Belt on one side, and those of deep marshes on the other. It had been burned in former wars by the army of Christian III., and now the greater portion of it consisted of ruins, encircling a shallow and unsheltered port.

About noon on the following day we disembarked on the isle of Longeland, in one of the towns of which we had a quarrel with the people. A merchant of the place having accused two of my company of pilfering a quantity of kirschwasser from his store in the market street, the Herredsfoged instituted a search, and with Sergeant Phadrig Mhor I went round the billets in person, but without discovering the wine, though in the quarters of Torquil Gorm, our piper-major, and Donald M'Vurich, a musketeer (our shoemaker), I saw a very suspicious-like liquid in a large tub, with some Highland brogues swimming on the surface thereof, and that liquid, the rogues told us next day, when on the march, was the very wine we were in search of, and that a good draught of it was still at our service; but as neither Phadrig nor I had any relish for wine flavoured by brogue leather, we declined their offer, with the threat of a good battooning if such tricks were ever discovered again.

Marching across that long and narrow isle, we took shipping in small sloops for Rodbye in Laaland, for whence (to my great disappointment) we found that the active old queen and her train had again departed before us; and we were a whole week travelling by land and water among these flat and sandy islands, before we drew up under our colours on the beach of Rodbye. There Ian opened his sealed orders, by which the king, fearing that the Imperialists might seize upon those isles, directed him to leave Kildon's company at Rodbye; those of Angus Roy, M'Alpine, Munro of Culcraigie, and Sir Patrick Mackay, were marched to the town of Mariboe, where they occupied an edifice that, in former times, had been a spacious convent, the walls of which were bordered by a beautiful lake; but we continued our route to the pleasant little isle of Falster, to guard the queen-mother in her own castle or jointure-house. There we arrived on Michaelmas-day, about sunset, wearied by our sea and land journey, and the long nights we had spent in open boats, exposed to the cold air of the Baltic.

Her majesty came forth with her train, in person, to welcome us to her castle of Nyekiöbing, and ordered a can of German wine to be served to every soldier; while the officers, i.e., Ian, Lumsdaine, and myself (for we had not yet an ensign), were invited to sup at the royal table.

Her castle was a strong and stately edifice, overlooking a regular and well-built town on the Guldborg-sound, a narrow passage usually studded with ships, as it is the way from the shores of Zealand to those of Germany. Every foot's-pace of this beautiful island, which teemed with fertility, was under cultivation, or covered with the richest copse wood; and from the castle windows we saw the stately beeches, brown with autumnal leaves, casting the evening shadows along the calm blue waters of the narrow sound. The only troops in the place were a few of the vassals or serfs, singularly clad in mail shirts like modern Tartars, or like the effigies on an antique tomb, and armed with the battle-axe, which, like the halbert, was of old the national weapon of the Danish islesmen. The good queen-mother had more of the frankness of an old German baroness about her than the frigid and empty dignity of courtly state. She sat at the head of her own table in the old castle hall; her steward, the Baron Fœyœ, a knight of the Armed Hand, a short, stout, and irritable old Dane, sat at the foot, and we enjoyed a merry and a sumptuous meal.

To my joy I found myself seated beside Ernestine, her father the count was opposite.

She perceived my arm in a sling, and immediately inquired the cause.

"It is a wound!" said I.

"A wound!—where and when did you receive it?" she asked, while I imagined with exultation that there was an ill-concealed expression of alarm depicted in her charming eyes.

"It is a secret!" said I, and knowing how a rencontre sets off a cavalier in the estimation of a pretty woman, I now resolved to make the most of mine.

"In what manner is it a secret, Herr?"

"Because, if divulged to King Christian, he would remember the law of 1618, and send me prisoner to Cronenborg."

"You have, then, fought a duel!"

"Hush—it was only a clean thrust with a rapier."

"And what did you fight about?"

"A lady!" I replied, laughing, and observing her narrowly.

"A lady!" she reiterated, unmoved as a rock, to my great disappointment.

"Nay, nay, Ernestine!" said I, "it was about nothing more than a can of beer."

"A reputable reason, certainly—a valuable commodity to peril one's life for!"

"Every other day I peril my life for the price of it, however; but a point of some importance was involved—a national insult." I then related my quarrel at Faaborg, and she declared that my indignation had been justly roused, but very improperly satisfied.

"But you must not speak of it, Ernestine—nor tell Gabrielle."

"Oh, fear not—your secret shall be kept!" said she.

I found that this story raised me higher in her favour, and I had the felicity of being helped by her to several things, while, to save all exertion of my poor wounded arm (of which I was very much inclined on this occasion to make the most), a servant in the red livery of Denmark cut my food for me, after which I could feed myself by one of those German forks with which the table was furnished.

The moment supper was over, we all shook hands and separated. As we parted, I raised my plaid and shewed Gabrielle where (in the breast of my doublet) I had preserved the withered rose, which had dropped from her sister's hand on the morning we had marched out of the east gate of Assens. I was too timid to make Ernestine aware that I had preserved this trivial gift; but hoped that Gabrielle would tell her to the letter, who was so gay and childlike, I could say more than I dared to Ernestine; for on her good or bad opinion hung the balance of my fate. My heart was too much interested in the stake to act boldly.

END OF VOL. I.

M'CORQUODALE AND CO., PRINTERS, LONDON—WORKS, NEWTON.