"And with the father of Hans Knuber, who left his axe resting against it one evening, in the summer of 1540?"
"An invisible hand hurled it after him, and broke both his legs."
"And Gustaf Slingbunder, who pursued a fox into its branches, was bewitched by the demon in such wise, that he ran in a circle round the tree for six days and nights, till his bones dropped asunder."
"Saint Olaus be with us!"
Erick Rosenkrantz and Sueno continued to gaze at each other in great consternation, while Bothwell looked at them alternately with astonishment, till the blast of a horn at the gate arrested their attention, and a Danish archer approached, to inform his excellency the Governor of Aggerhuis, that a royal messenger from Copenhagen required an audience.
"So this unmannerly boor hath rejected my suit!" muttered the haughty Earl, as he turned away; "mine—by St. Paul! I can scarcely believe my senses. If my roué friends d'Elboeuff or Coldinghame heard of it, they would cast a die to decide which was the greater fool—Bothwell or Rosenkrantz. Rejected! Be it so; but to have this damsel on my own terms shall now be my future care."
CHAPTER IX.
LORD HUNTLY'S LETTER.
All self-command is now gone by,
E'er since the luckless hour when she
Became a mirror to my eye,
Whereon I gazed complacently.
Thou, fatal mirror! where I spy
Love's image.
Bernard de Pentadour.
Anna, who might have formed some excuse for Konrad, (whom she supposed to have voluntarily expatriated himself, as he threatened,) maintained a silence on the subject of their last interview, and, wholly occupied with her new and glittering lover, troubled herself no more about the old one.