"And," whispered Anna, "and will you always love me as you do now?"
"O yes—ever and always!" replied the impassioned lover.
Ormiston whistled dubiously, and then continued his ditty—
"The Frog cam to the Myll doore,
And a low bow made he, O!
Saying, 'Gie, Sir Miller, a scrap o' thy store
To a Frog of gentle degree, O!'"
CHAPTER XII.
THE ISLE OF WESTERAY.
'Tis evening quick;——'tis night:——the rain
Is towing wide the fruitless main;
Thick, thick;—no sight remains the while
From the farthest Orkeny Isle,
No sight to seahorse or to seer,
But of a little pallid sail
That seems as if 'twould straggle near.
Leigh Hunt.
The course of the Earl's ship lay westward; but heavy gales blew her far to the north, and for many days she beat about in that tempestuous ocean which roars around the hundred Isles of Shetland, pouring its foam upon their bluff precipices and into the vast and resounding caverns that perforate their stern shores, many of which have never seen other inhabitants than the gigantic erne that built its nest in the cliffs, the wild horse that browsed on the moor, and the whiskered walrus that basked on the beach below.
On others lie the rude towers and dwellings of the hardy Udallers, the ruined forts and runic tombs of those old ocean kings, who were so long the terror of Britain, of Belgium, and of Gaul—the temples of the Druids, the uncouth crosses and gothic chapels of that later creed which Columba preached, and for which Saint Erick died—and the obelisks that mark the lonely graves of the old Kuldei overlook the reedy moors, the foaming maelstroms, and the rushing surges of the Ultima Thule.
For fourteen days dark grey clouds had overhung that struggling ship. The sullenness of the sailors at the continuance of an adverse wind was communicated to the Earl, who became petulant; for Anna and her attendant were very unwell, and nothing cures love so much as a dose of sea-sickness. On the fifteenth day the sun rose brightly from the ocean, and tipped with light the dreary hills of Unst; the clouds dispersed, a fair wind swept over the water, and the Fleur-de-lys bore away merrily for Westeray, an isle of Innistore, where stood the stronghold of Noltland, possessed by one of Bothwell's chief friends and adherents, Sir Gilbert Balfour, a powerful baron, and cadet of the house of Monkquhanny, in Fifeshire.