"Madam," replied the Earl proudly, but sadly, "from the hour my eyes first opened on the light, I have never trembled; and now I swear to thee, by the joys of heaven and the terrors of hell, thou shalt NEVER leave Dunbar but as the bride of Bothwell!"
And turning, he retired abruptly.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CRY.
She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd;
She is a woman, therefore may be won.
Titus Andronicus.
That night, in his private apartment, Bothwell drank deeply with Ormiston and Bolton.
The storm still raged without; the dash of the waves on the bluffs, their clangour in the caverns below, and the mournful moaning of the wind as it swept round the battlements above, were heard incessantly; but the fire burned merrily on the broad flagged hearth; the hounds yawned lazily as they stretched themselves before it; a supper of mutton sottens, broiled capon, a solan goose, and pout-pie, lay untouched on a buffet, which two oak wyverns upheld on their outspread wings.
The bright wines of Rochelle and Bordeaux sparkled as they were poured from great Flemish jugs into the elaborately chased silver maizers, from which the Earl and his friends were drinking—and drinking, as we have said, deeply; Bolton, to drown the memory of a deed that was likely to drive him distracted; Bothwell, to obtain nerve for whatever might ensue; and Hob Ormiston, to please himself, and keep them company. After a pause—
"Courage, brave Bothwell!" he exclaimed, striking the Earl on the shoulder; "for thou seemest the chosen son of the fickle little goddess."
"Fortune has been smiling on me of late; but, as I have told thee, I begin to scorn her favour since the rejection of my suit by Mary."