"Thou wert about to throw it into the sea."
"St. Mary! but for its contents we must have sailed on a hopeless quest to France, to Italy, or to heaven knows where; for I am already too well known by evil repute throughout the most of Europe. But away, Ormiston, to the harbour. Seek David Wood, our wight skipper, and that red-breeched knave, Hans Knuber, who assists him. Let them have our Fleur-de-lys ready to sail. I will hie me to Anna, and 'tis not unlikely we may put to sea about dusk."
A smile was exchanged.
"Gramercy!" said the knight, "I hope she will not forget to bring her maid, who views my outward man with a favourable eye, so that we may all sail merrily together. Hey for hame! By cock and pie! I almost fancy myself at my ain tower-yett, with my broad banner displayed, and my stout horsemen behind me. Ho! for one headlong gallop by Ettrickshaws or Teviotside—Te Deum laudamus! God's blessing on our own land, that lies beyond sea, for it is like no other!" and whirling his bonnet round his head, more like a great schoolboy than a strong man of six feet eight inches, Ormiston with one bound sprang down the steep steps leading from the terrace to the shore; while the Earl, somewhat slowly and thoughtfully for so ardent a lover, returned to the presence of Anna, who, piqued by his long and unceremonious absence, was pleased to receive him with a pouting lip and a clouded brow, which his caresses soon dispelled.
CHAPTER X
THE HERMIT OF BERGEN.
When fortune makes the match, she rages,
And forsakes the unequal pair;
But when love two hearts engages,
The kind god is ever there.
Regard not, then, high blood nor riches,
You that would his blessings have;
Let love, untaught, guide all your wishes.
Hymen should be Cupid's slave.
Sir Charles Sedley.
The Reformation had been accomplished in Denmark and Norway, during the reign of Frederick I., about thirty years before the period of which we write. It had made great progress among the simple and half barbarian Norse, who, though they had laid the ancient hierarchy in the dust, received nothing equal in exchange; and consequently the codes of religion and morality lay lightly on the necks of the people.
A Catholic church was still permitted at Gluckstadt; the title of bishop, the auricular confessional, the crucifix, and other Romish rites and ceremonies, were still retained, though the government was avowedly and essentially Lutheran. Some persons adhered rigidly to the ancient form of worship, others to the new; but many more took a middle and very convenient course, and for a time believed in—nothing.
It was while matters were in this state, particularly in the province of Aggerhuis—that a half-crazed monk, who had belonged to a suppressed monastery in Fuhnen, and whose brain was said to have been turned by the severities to which he had been subjected, by the ecclesiastical superintendent of the reformed church in that diocese, became an anchorite, and undisputed occupant of a cavern on the fiord, near the castle of Bergen. The fame of his austerity, the severity of his penances, and the circumstance of his having made his dwelling in a cavern which for ages had been the reputed habitation of Zernebok, an evil demon, whose name is familiar to the Norse, had been quite enough to procure him a fame beyond the province of Aggerhuis. By night the fishermen shuddered, crossed themselves, and sedulously avoided the long ray of light that streamed from the mouth of his deep cavern upon the glassy waters of the bay; for, notwithstanding his reputation for sanctity and holiness on the one hand, he was dreaded for possessing various supernatural and unpriestly attributes on the other.