"In the days when I was young, generous, and unspotted in honour and faith, I was alternately the tool and the plaything of a woman, of that female fiend, Catherine of Medicis, who saw my love for—pshaw! since then I have grown wiser. I have, as we say at chess, turned the tables upon the sex, and view them merely as the objects of my pleasure—the tools of my ambition. Yet I feel that I am on the eve of taking a step, that, however cruel, must make or mar my fortune."
"Fortune! defy her, and the fickle jade will favour thee. I love a bold fellow, who, with his helmet on his brow and a whinger by his side, becomes the artificer of his own fortune."
"Ah! could we but have a glimpse through that thick veil that ever involves the future. Hast thou ever read Cicero?"
"Nay, thank God! I never could read aught save my missal, and, without spelling, very little of that; but since 1560, when missal and mass went out of fashion together, I have done nothing in that way. But this book"——
"'Tis a man, Marcus Tullius Cicero, an illustrious Roman."
"A sorcerer, by his name, I doubt not; well, and what said he?"
"There is a fine passage in his works, wherein he speaks of the capability of seeing effects in their causes; and supposes that Priam, and Pompey, and Cæsar, had each laid before them their pages in the great book of fate, in the noonday of their prosperity—ere the first fell with his Troy, ere the second was defeated at Pharsalia, and the third perished by the dagger of Brutus. But I warrant thou canst not fathom this."
"No—an it had been a winepot I might; but, cock and pie! 'tis all Greek to me. See! yonder cometh Sir Gilbert from the shore to announce that our ship is ready; and so, once more, my Lord, let us seaward, ho!"
The sun was setting that evening on the Firth of Westeray. Its impetuous waves, that rolled in saffron and purple, broke in golden breakers crested with silver surf upon the shining rocks. The distant peaks of Rousay were bathed in yellow light, but, mellowed by distance, the sea lay cold and blue around their bases. The sky was clear and cloudless, and the purity of the atmosphere imparted many beautiful tints to the ocean, that rolled its restless tides around these lonely isles. Like a white bird floating on the distant azure, afar off at the horizon's verge, a sail was visible from the keep of Noltland about sunset. It was the Fleur-de-lys, that had borne Bothwell away from the arms of Anna Rosenkrantz. The whole day, with tear-swollen eyes, she had watched its course through the Firth of Westeray; now it had diminished to a speck in the distance, and ere the sun dipped into the Atlantic, had disappeared behind the fertile Isle of Eglise-oy, where then, as now, the pyramidal spire of the chapel of Saint Magnus rose above the verdant holms, as a landmark to the fishers of the isles.
As slowly the sail vanished round that dim and distant promontory, a low cry almost of despair burst from Anna, and she clung to the weeping Christina. The waiting-woman wept from mere sympathy; but the grief of her mistress (sudden, like all her impulses) was of that violent kind which can only find relief in tears and loud ejaculations.