"He says, if this breeze continues, we will be past Frederick's-vaern by sunrise."
"All the better, Hob," replied the Earl, as he lifted Anna on board; "but I hope he hath our demi-culverins cast loose, and a few yeomen in their armour, in case of surprisal."
"Right—dost thou not see I am in harness?" said Ormiston, making his steel glove clatter on his corselet; for, save the head, his whole bulky frame was completely armed. The eight seamen who pulled the boat were all clad in pyne doublets, and armed with swords and daggers, and they wore the national head-dress, the broad bonnet of blue worsted, adorned with a silver coronet and horse's head—the Earl's crest.
"Now, my stout varlets," said their lord, "dip, and away!"
"Away for the ship!" added Ormiston.
"Nay, for the hermit's grotto under yonder rocks, where thou seest a light now gleaming on the water. Away, and a golden angel on the best oar!"
Ormiston gave a low whistle, expressive of surprise and pity at the folly of his friend, and endeavoured, by a series of somewhat unceremonious caresses, to console the sobbing and half-frightened Christina, who had begun to weep most obstreperously; but he knew enough of the Earl's temperament to be aware that any remark was now futile; and in reality, as he cared not a rush whether he married the Norwegian or not, he resolved to let matters run their course.
All sat silent, and nothing was heard but the interjections of the waiting-woman, and the suppressed breathing of the stout oarsmen, as the boat strained and creaked when their sinewy efforts shot her out into midstream. Anna reclined against the shoulder of the Earl, with her face hidden in a satin hood, and his mantle of crimson velvet rolled around her.
Now rising in her silvery glory from the sea, the broad round moon, with a splendour impossible to describe, aided the brightness of the northern night. One broad gleam of steady radiance extended up the fiord from the horizon to the shore; and when, like a black speck, the boat shot across it, the breakers of the distant ocean, like wavelets of silver, were seen rising and falling afar off, amid the liquid light.
The summit of the rocks of Bergen, and the square tower that crowned them, were shining snow-white in its splendour, but their base was hidden in more than Cimmerian gloom; for though the bright moonlight tipped the eminences and peaks of the far off mountain, the darkness of midnight rested on the bosom of the still fiords and bays that rolled in shadow a thousand feet below them.