I longed for the morrow, which was to free me from my duty, and leave me at liberty to unravel the mystery which surrounded my beauty, and to punish the insolence of Roskilde, who had so openly trifled with my simplicity, and against whom I had conceived a most unmitigated aversion. Night, as it drew on, brought with it the sensations of irksome annoyance; for by the crowds which were passing into the Platz, I conjectured that my pretty actress was again upon that brilliant platform, with a thousand eyes bent in admiration on her graceful figure, her flowing dress and floating hair, her pure brow, and the star of light that beamed upon it; but, restrained by the strict order about spies in the city, I could not visit the theatre to behold her again, or hear that soft voice, which memory brought ever and anon so palpably to my ear.
The sun had set, and the storks retired to their nests on gable-nook and chimney-top; the canals turned from pale yellow to a muddy brown, and then became white, as the moon, partly obscured by a thin veil of gauzy mist, rose behind the square tower of the great church, and threw its black shadow far across the waters of the Elbe. That broad river seemed then, by the moonlight reflected from fleecy clouds, white and spotless as milk; but the shadows of its shores were black and opaque, for its depths gave back the strong and clear, but inverted, outline of every chimney-head and pointed roof—of every tree, and boat, and barge—just as one may see them in the pictures of the Low Country masters.
A vault of the fortifications was appropriated for the guardroom of the officer on duty at the wooden tower (or the Tower of Rats, as it should have been named), and there I sat ruminating, and watching the figures of the changing embers, which burned on the stone hearth, and endeavouring to decipher (by the light of a candle, which stood in an iron holder on the fir table) the innumerable caricatures of the Emperor Ferdinand, of Count Tilly, of Count Carlstein, and the Duke of Friedland, with which my predecessors had disfigured the plastered walls, frequently representing the whole four hanging on one gallows, held up by the devil, from whose mouth proceeded scrolls full of Danish invectives and low German ribaldry.
I then betook me to reading Captain Jean de Beaugue's Histoire de la Guerre D'Ecosse, with his campaigns there in 1548 and 1549, and had become deeply interested in the assault made by M. de la Mothe Ronge with his arquebussiers, and the chief of the Kerrs with his clan, upon the Tower of Pherniherst, and its garrison of English archers, whom they cruelly cut to pieces, making literally and savagely a foot-ball of their commander's head, when I was interrupted by my sergeant, Diarmed M'Gillvray, a cadet of the family of Drumnaglas, who came to inform me that Gillian M'Bane (a short and thickset clansman from the braes of Rannoch), who was sentinel at the tower-gate, had captured a very suspicious-looking personage; and that, as Gillian was sorely puzzled to know whether he had taken a man, woman, or goblin, Diarmed begged I would come with him to the post.
On arriving at the archway, the strong gate of which was closed all save the klinket, or wicket of three palisades, we found Gillian M'Bane swelling with importance, and standing on his guard, with his musket charged breast high, and ever and anon he blew the match, the lurid light of which glowed on his dark tartans, his steel cap, red beard, and brick-red face, shedding a crimson glow over them all; and he was uttering hoarse threats in Gaëlic, for the dress and face of the prisoner he had made, were fully calculated at least to startle and perplex his unsophisticated mind.
I immediately perceived the captured person to be a woman, who wore a mask of purple velvet, which, though a common enough article of apparel in the cities of the Lowlands, had never been seen so far north as the Black Mountain, or the shores of the Uisc Dhu. Hence the alarm of Gillian, on beholding a purple face with two eyes that shone through it like stars. The female, who was rather undersized, wore an enormous French hood, a plain buffin gown, and green silk apron, like the smart little wife of a citizen of Holstein.
"You have a pass I presume, from the governor, Sir David Drummond?"
"I have left it at home," replied the little mask, in German nearly as bad as my own, but in a tone that made me start.
"You are of Sleswig, I think?"
"Si, señor—that—that is—Mein Herr," she added with evident consternation. My heart seemed to rise to my lips!