The setting sun was gilding the copper roofs of the four large turrets or corner towers of Cronborg, and throwing their shadows far upon the azure waters of the Sound, then dotted by the white sails of many a passing ship. I remember to have seen an original letter, written from this castle, by his Majesty James VI. to Alexander Lord Spynie, anent the erection of the bishopric of Moray into a temporal lordship.*
* The letter referred to by Captain Rollo, is now among the Denmylne MSS.
Five casemated bastions faced the landward, and one, mounted with cannons-royale, swept the narrow gate, where Christian IV. had again begun to levy an ocean toll upon the ships of all nations. Except those of the Scots, who were in alliance with Denmark, every vessel lowered her topsail, and showed her flag for five minutes, or a cannon-shot came booming upon her from Cronborg. This toll was originally exacted on account of certain buoys, by which the Danish government marked the dangerous shoals, and for certain lights burned upon the coast by night. Previous to 1582, England paid a rose-noble for every ship that passed the Sound, and her vessels lowered their topsails; but in consequence of the double marriages and ancient friendship between Denmark and Scotland, the ships of the latter nation passed the fort with St. Andrew's ensign flying and all their sails set.
At the gate of Helsingör, we were met by our colonel, Sir Donald Mackay, who with five hundred good recruits had arrived from Scotland three days previous. As we marched in, with pipes sounding, drums beating, and colours flying, these recruits mingled with our ranks, in search of friends and relations, brothers and kinsmen, and there arose a clamour of joyous congratulations, mingled with exclamations of sorrow, for many a man who was missing, and whom the new-comers had hoped to see and to greet.
Some inquired for brothers and fathers, and were answered that they were lying in their graves at Bredenburg, the Boitze, at Eckernfiörd, or other places. These announcements cast a shadow over their obstreperous joy; while the news they brought us from Scotland were of the most varied description, and led us to believe, that erelong all our swords and our valour would be required to vindicate the rights and the dignity of Scotland against her native prince, and his meddling subjects of England.
Sir Donald handed me a letter from Dominie Daidle, who had prayed him, when passing through Cromartie, to deliver it to me, "if he found me in the body." It was written, as the Dominie said, by the express order of the laird, my father, who (poor man!) was no deacon at penmanship.
All were in good health at Craigrollo; all congratulated me on my promotion to the command of a company, and so forth. Even my father was beginning to take an interest in my success, and regretted my absence. "The muckle spune——" but here the Dominie had drawn his pen through the words, as if he had changed his mind, and went on with other information. My three brothers had recently had some hard work in recovering certain herds of our cattle, which had been borrowed, sans leave, by the caterans of the Black Isle. In this service, Finlay had received a slash from an axe, and Farquhar a dab from a biodag; but, thanks to Providence, and the salves of old Mhona Toshach, the poor lads were doing well. Then came all the news of the district. Urquhart of Cromartie had won his famous plea anent his niece's tocher before the Lords of Session; but as the lord justice-general was his kinsman, auld Sir Thomas was aye fortunate in his pleas. Dalblair had come down the burn-side with four-and-twenty Hielandmen, and burned the tower of his auld enemy, Camstrairy; but had been put to the horn, and was now fled from the kingdom to France or England. The laird of Brea had burned the clachan of St. Martin's, because Gilbert Blakhal, a seminary priest, had been hiding there, and so forth. Then came various messages to soldiers of the regiment. "Tell Alister Glas from Kessock, that his mother received the fifty dollars that he sent; and that his father, puir bodach! mistook another man's kye for his own, and bade farewell to this world at Crieff, last Lammas-tide. Tell Rori Beg, from Brea, that his sister went off with the Egyptians to the Lowlands, and has not since been heard of; but the laird swears he will hang every man and mother's son of them that pass this way in future, for she was the bonniest lass on the barony. Tell Gillian M'Bane, that his brother, the sailor, has been seized and made a slave by the cruel pirates of Barbary, with twenty other mariners of the good ship Bon Accord, of Aberdeen, but we raised a subscription here to buy him off, and the laird has given twenty crowns Scots towards the gude work. Kynnoch, the provost of Forres, was burned yesterday as a warlock and traitor.
"There are doleful troubles brewing in the south," continued the dominie, "and a war with England is confidently looked for. Maist men wish it, for there are sic swarms o' idle callants biding about every hall and homestead—and war must come; for flying rumour saith, that our Scottish clergy have petitioned the king against the Five obnoxious Articles of Perth, and that he hath urged the Archbishop of St. Andrews to enforce the Episcopal order. The cloud gathers, and the storm groweth. A little while, and we shall see the one darken, and the other burst over the length and breadth of the land. Mark me, Master Philip, a day of dule is coming, when all those gallant Scots who are now fighting the battles of Denmark, Sweden, Bohemia, and Almainie, will be summoned home to protect (against the king and the aggressive English) that holy kirk which Knox and Wishart founded, and those institutions which our forefathers transmitted to us—even as we are bound to transmit them unimpaired to our posterity."
In fact, the acuteness of my old dominie enabled him to perceive those storms then darkening the horizon of Scottish politics, but which, to more superficial observers, were as yet invisible.
Since the death of Gabrielle, Ernestine had become more than ever impatient and anxious to rejoin her father, who (as the king informed her) was now at Stralsund, in command of a brigade of cavalry, and who probably supposed that all this time his daughters had been safely at Falster with the old queen-dowager.