"Ahoy, my captain! thou'st seen her to-day, I warrant."
"Who?" asked Howard, fretfully.
"The lady—our prisoner, who hath never set her pretty foot on our wetted deck since that misty night we were off Tay mouth."
"How could she do so, when the wind hath blown a tempest since, and we have shipped an ocean and more of this bitter Scottish sea? She is low in heart, and sunk in health and spirit—poor little damsel—my heart bleeds for her!"
"And yearns for her too—is it not so, Edmund Howard?"
"It yearns in vain, then," said Howard, with a sigh; "for she is impregnable."
"Faith she must be if thou has failed in getting the weather-gage of her; thou hast been kind to her as father, brother, and lover, all in one," continued the talkative lieutenant; "and I doubt not, she will make such a report of thee to old King Harry as may win thee a pair of golden spurs."
"A stout fellow who wears a sword and faces salt water—a Howard least of all—should not owe his spurs to a petticoat, John o'Lynne," said his captain, coldly; "but I would to Heaven she had never set foot on board the Harry; and I hope its heaviest malison will fall on yonder villanous Scots who are plotting this poor girl's ruin, and who brought her to us—on Borthwick more than all! That night his face was white as our flag; but one day I hope to see it turn blue as a Scot's one!"
Then, the coast which is now covered by one of the most thriving burghs of regality in Scotland, was lonely and somewhat bare. The high promontories, the level shore, the old castle of the Lairds of Phillorth, the older church which was their burial place; the green Mormond Hill, with thickets of fine oak and dense clumps of red-stemmed Scottish firs, composed the scenery of the bay, in which the waves rolled blue and calmly, notwithstanding the storm that flecked with foam the sea without.
For several days the gale continued, and for these days the English ships rode at their anchors, without their crews molesting the shore, or being molested from thence: for it happened that the old Baron of Phillorth was marching with his chief, the Lord Lovat, and all his retainers, to join the king's host; so that none were left behind to guard his lady and their tower but old men and boys. Moreover, although Barton had been slain in the Downs, and Lord Angus had ravaged all Northumberland, the kingdoms of Scotland and England were rather in a state of suspicion and alarm, than of war, as the wary Henry VII. had no wish for that event, being anxious to cement the bonds of an offensive and defensive alliance by the projected marriage of Rothesay with his daughter, the voluptuous Margaret Tudor.