But to return from this digression, which was necessary, as the hermit is about to be introduced with due formality to the reader, we may briefly state that the gay Earl, notwithstanding all his eloquence and powers of persuasion, which were very great, failed to prevail on Anna Rosenkrantz to make an unconditional elopement with him; nor would her pride and self-esteem permit her to trust implicitly to one whom she knew to have earned at Copenhagen the dubious reputation of a finished gallant and accomplished courtier.
Much as she loved him, and—notwithstanding her inconstancy to Konrad, she loved him well—Anna could not so utterly sacrifice the name and honour of her family, or be so oblivious of that delicacy which a Norwegian maiden so seldom forgets; and thus, though Bothwell urged with all the oily eloquence that love, ardour, and gallantry lent him, the danger of that delay which would sacrifice him to Rosenkrantz, who in three days, by the king's mandate, would be compelled to make him a prisoner, Anna only wept, and would not—could not—consent to accompany him, unless—
"Unless we are wedded; is it not so, dearest Anna?" said the handsome noble, as she reclined helplessly and in tears on his bosom, within an alcove of the terrace that overlooked the bay.
Anna made no reply.
"Decide, dearest, decide!" urged the Earl, pointing to his ship that was now gallantly riding in the fiord, with her white canvass half unloosed, and glimmering white in the faint twilight of the northern evening. "Decide! for by the express command of the governor, your uncle, I must be far beyond yon blue horizon ere the sun rises; and then thou wilt see me no more!"
Anna sobbed bitterly, and she thought of the triumph the rejected Konrad might feel and display, if the Earl sailed without her. Proud, and perhaps not a little artful, her heart was torn by love, doubt, and anguish; and her answers were very incoherent.
"Oh! what would my uncle Rosenkrantz say, if"——
"I have bade adieu to Rosenkrantz, and he deems me already on board. Since the arrival of King Frederick's mandate, he has been so full of vapour and dignity, that though I cannot but laugh at it, we can hold no further communication; and if, after my late proposal, which he so scornfully rejected, he knew I was here—and with thee"——
"True, true, we would be separated."
"And for ever! I know your scruples, dearest Anna," said the Earl tenderly; for, moved by her tears, and the utter abandonment in which she reclined on his breast, with her face half hidden by the bright masses of her hair, and by her position permitting soft glimpses of a full and beautiful bosom, he felt that he loved her with his whole heart; and that the troth he had plighted to Lady Gordon, the vengeance of the fierce Highland noble her brother, and the wrath or favour of the Scottish court, were all alike to be committed to oblivion. Love bore all before him victoriously for the time; and Bothwell, ever the creature of impulses, yielded to that of the moment.