So the two traversed the thickets around the priory, and reached the broad highway, which was to lead them at length to Edinburgh.
III.--Mary Queen of Scots
But it was long ere Anna looked upon the face of the queen. At the Red Lion Inn in Edinburgh her beauty struck the eye of the Earl of Morton, the factious, proud, and ferocious associate of Moray in all the dark intrigues of that craftiest of Scottish statesmen. Morton promised that Anna should be entrusted to a lady of fair repute, and soon presented to the queen. Konrad trusted him, little knowing that the repute of Dame Alison Craig, Anna's new guardian, was anything but fair, and set forth for the Border.
It was to Sir John Elliot of Park that he offered the service of his sword, for it was against this turbulent borderer, who had just raided Northumberland, and threatened the peace of the two kingdoms, that Bothwell was advancing with the army of Queen Mary. Now garrisoning some solitary peel-tower, now hiding in some unfathomed cavern, now issuing with uplifted lance from the haggs of some deep moss, Konrad engaged with ardour in every desperate foray, and his daring made him the idol of the wild spirits around him. In every deed of arms one thought was in his mind--to come within a lance-length of Bothwell.
Long and fierce was the struggle, but it ended as a fight so unequal was bound to end. John of Park was slain, refusing with his dying breath to surrender, and Konrad was carried, a half-senseless captive to Bothwell's castle of Hermitage. Even then the earl spared his life. He lay in a hideous den, in pitch darkness and dead silence broken only by the splash of drops of fetid water that fell from the slimy arch of the vault.
No token reached him of what was happening above; and an event happened there that had vast influence on Bothwell's future. Across the hills to Hermitage rode the Queen of Scots herself. The sight of her stirred in Bothwell's heart an emotion he had never wholly conquered, for she, Mary herself, was his first love of the bygone days in France. He had begun to realise that he loved her still; he knew the coldness of her relations with the dissolute and unfaithful Darnley, her husband; now she had come to Hermitage.
"Jesu Maria!" cried the queen, as Bothwell, with beating heart, paused in the conversation. "Have you lost your tongue?"
"Nay, madame--my heart."
"That is very serious; but search for another."
"I want no other," replied the earl, in a trembling voice, "but thine!"