"The fishermen call me the Hermit of the Rock. When I lived in the world I had another name. I was Saint Olaf of Norway."
"Now, God keep the poor hermit!" said Ormiston; "five hundred years have come and gone since that blessed preacher and converter of these wild lands from paganrie to the true faith, rested from his holy labours."
"Five hundred years!—thou sayest right well. All that time have I dwelt in this cavern, where I shall perhaps dwell five hundred more; but lead forward thy friends."
"Blessed Jupiter!" muttered Ormiston, as he hurried away, "methought the tying of this pretended nuptial knot was likely to cost more trouble than the untying of those on the enchanted cord. What, ho! my Lord of Bothwell."
"Odsbody!" exclaimed the Earl, "thou hast tarried long enough in all conscience. Is the occupant of this place man or woman?"
"Neither, by Jove! I think him half saint, half Satan, and wholly intolerable."
Anna trembled, and her attendant shrieked with terror, when they were lifted on the ledge of the rock that led to this uncouth dwelling. The seamen, whom the Earl had no wish should witness a ceremony which he might one day prefer to have forgotten, he desired imperatively to remain by their oars, and, as they were all his own vassals, they dared not to disobey.
"You will not follow me unless you hear my bugle blown, in sign that we are in some peril; and, by St. Andrew, the place looks perilous enough! But take courage, dearest Anna!" he whispered, "for I am with thee!"
Anna answered only by tears, and kept her face hidden within her hood. Her fears, and those of Christina Slingbunder, were no way allayed by the appalling aspect of Saint Olaf—the hermit of whom they had heard so many tremendous tales; and even Bothwell, as thorough a daredevil as ever drew sword, was startled for a moment; but, pressing Anna closer to him, he advanced at once to the hermit—and, in virtue of the vows he had once pronounced, requested him to unite them in marriage, and bestow his benediction upon them.
Tall Ormiston held his bonnet before his mouth; for a broad laugh spread over his dark and burly visage when he saw the Earl kneeling before this uncouth priest, whose insanity was so evident that even he, a border baron, felt some shame and reluctance at the profanity and folly of the adventure. When viewed by the light of the pine fire, that at times died away and anon shot up redly and fitfully, the aspect of this wild man of the rock, with his attenuated legs and arms clad in a gaberdine of seal-skin, his long and bushy beard glistening tremulously in the flame like streaming silver, his deeply sunk yet sparkling eyes of most unearthly blue—gave him all the appearance of a half crazed scald or saga from the frozen caves of Iceland—he seemed so spectral, so shadowy, and so like the wavering vision of a dreamer.