WINTER QUARTERS--THE SECRET OF GABRIELLE.
Time rolled away; we did not, as Ian expected, go to Fehmarn. Winter
stole on, and one day of snow was succeeded by another. The queen
and court rode out in sledges, or on horses shod with jagged shoes;
our soldiers vegetated like the weeds on the ramparts. The old queen
told us endless stories of James VI. and of her daughter's marriage,
and went regularly every Sunday to the church of Nyekiöbing, where
worship was celebrated after the Lutheran fashion. There was a fine
organ. After service, the preacher was wont to come out of the
pulpit and enter the choir, where he muttered a prayer, after the
fashion of a low mass, which used to make Lieutenant Lumsdaine, who
was a stanch Presbyterian, twirl his mustaches, and own (though he
thought the organ infinitely preferable to the bagpipe then used in
his parish kirk of Invergellie) that Lutheranism, as practised in
Denmark, was another name for Catholicism. After service, the queen
usually rode back in state, seated upon a pillion behind the Baron
Fœyœ.
In the evenings we had a little ball, and danced to the flute and
tabor, or, at times, to the great war-pipe of Torquil Gorm, which
shook the dust from the rafters of the hall. At times, the old queen
told us legends of the Trolds, or of the imps that haunted the
ancient church of Nyekiöbing.
Like every old building in the Danish isles, it had a _nis_ (or
brownie) attached to it. This spirit kept the seats clean and swept
the aisles, arranged the cushions and dusted the pulpit. He was
seldom seen at these duties, but was known to wear a green dress and
conical red hat, which on the feast of St. Michael he regularly
exchanged for a broad Spanish beaver, which overshadowed the whole of
his squat figure. He was called the _kirckegrim_, and for his use a
basin of groute was deposited every night in the vestry, by the wife
of the beadle. Once this was omitted, and the spirit, in revenge,
turned all her holiday garments into clouted rags. King Waldemar,
the wild huntsman, was another source of many a legend, to which all
the old queen's listeners gave implicit faith.
"Every night he rides across Laaland at this season," the queen would
say, "and sweeps over the Möens-klint."
"I, myself, have heard him approaching," the Baron Fœyœ would
add in corroboration; "once on St. John's night, when crossing the
rocky ridges of the Möens-klint, I heard on the midnight wind a
shouting and winding of horns, the barking of dogs, and the rushing
sound of a mighty wind, coming up as from the waters of the
Grön-sünd."
"And you knew the approach of Waldemar," said the old queen, all
attention, as we drew our chairs closer round the glowing hearth--"of
the wild huntsman?"
"My heart seemed frozen within me, and when the spirit passed before
me, as the book of Job saith, 'the hair of my flesh stood up.' A
storm of wind swept over the dark ridges of the Möens-klint, there
was a gleam of lightning, and in the passing flash I saw the
coal-black hounds of Waldemar, with long red tongues hanging out of
their foam-covered mouths, as they ran snuffing and questing among
the grass."
"And what aspect had Waldemar?" asked twenty voices in whispers.
"The aspect of a gigantic shadow, brandishing a hunting-sword; and
his horse was but a shadow, for the stars shone through them both as
they swept into the hollow, and I heard the clatter of farm-gates,
the crackle of roofs, and the crash of chimneys, as the infernal
train sped over Klintholun and vanished in the distance."
Told by the winter fire, while the night wind rumbled hollowly in the
vast tunnelled chimney of the old castle hall, some of these wild
legends were more impressive than any relation of mine can make them.
My company lay in winter quarters at the fort of Nyekiöbing for four
months, during a most severe winter, in which (after having had the
extremity of summer heat) we had to endure the extremity of cold.
Over our cuirasses we wore doublets of fur or sheepskin, and my
soldiers of course retained their tartan kilts, to the astonishment
of the Danes, who were ignorant of the actual warmth and comfort of
the Scottish garb; for one accustomed to it, feels less cold in his
knees than other men do in their faces. The Guhlborg Sound was
frozen over; even the Baltic was clothed with ice, which stood, as it
seemed, in silent waves, and covered by long accumulated snow. All
the adjacent isles, Möen, Nyord, and Bogöe, were covered with the
same white mantle, and we travelled between them on sledges; but the
cold was so much more severe than even the most hardy of our men were
accustomed to, that I am sure they spent nearly all their pay in
potent corn brandy.
All the courtiers were muffled to their noses in Russian sables; for
though in summer they rather loved the French fashions, they were
compelled in winter to resume the well-furred and more picturesque
costume of the Danish isles.
Unmarked by any event, save the half-pagan festivities at Yule-tide,
the four months glided pleasantly and joyously away; for a day never
passed without some hours of it being spent in the society of
Ernestine, and the more I knew of her, the more did I love her, for
in her manner there was so much that was winning and charming. There
was a piquant raciness and vivacity in her mode of expression that
were very attractive, though her occasional bursts of pride and
temper were a little perplexing; but the graces of mind I discovered
in Ernestine, gave me cause to rejoice in the hour that I first
became known to her. When I looked back to that moonlight night by
the northern shore of the Elbe, where first I met the count near the
gates of Glückstadt, conducting to him the little spy Prudentia, and
where I received from him the gold chain to which so singular an
interest attached, as having been the communion cup of Knox and
Calvin, it seemed remarkable that now I should be so intimate with
his daughters--the received lover of one--the acknowledged relation
of both.
One can "make love" more readily, I think, in a foreign language than
in ours. Every other tongue, even the Lowland Scottish, the Gaëlic
and the Irish, teem with expressions of tenderness which the English
language does not possess. Consequently the phrase, "How much I love
you," could easily be said in German to Ernestine, or, in the
language of her Spanish mother; it did not sound nearly so tremendous
as in plain English.
Gabrielle was the only alloy to our happiness: she pined, became
low-spirited, and longed incessantly to return to Vienna or to
Luneburg--to see her father--to leave at least Nyekiöbing; and as the
winter wore away, and spring drew near, this morbid melancholy
increased. We thought the dreary view of the snow-clad isles and
frozen sea, the leafless woods and black pine forests, rendered her
spirits low and dulled her old vivacity; or that perhaps it was the
grim castle, which certes was dreary enough, for it had served many
generations of the house of Oldenburg--generations who had passed
away like the casual inmates of an hostel, without their names being
remembered in the place of their abode. The winter winds sighed
through the doors, and waved the heavy tapestries, which depicted the
loves of King Waldemar and _Torve Lille_, the little lady of the
enchanted ring; while the melancholy cries of the horned owl were
heard incessantly from the turrets of the weatherbeaten keep.
"I am not surprised that Gabrielle finds this old castle dull," said
I one day to Ernestine; "but, for your presence here, I should have
found it dreary enough too."
I observed that, whenever I spoke of Gabrielle's melancholy, the
cheek of Ernestine reddened, and she changed the subject with an
abruptness that evinced there was some secret in it; but what that
secret was I could not divine.
Yule-tide passed; on Christmas-eve the queen ordered all the gates
and doors to be thrown open, that there might remain nothing to
obstruct the stormy career of the wild huntsman, if he came that
way--but Waldemar never came.
The months of snow glided on, and the spring of 1628 approached; but
in that solitary Danish isle we heard little of the war which the
valiant and unfortunate king was fruitlessly maintaining by outfalls,
boat excursions, sudden landings on the coast of Holstein and
Juteland, and as sudden embarkations; always with severe loss to the
small but brave force of Scottish and French infantry, which yet
adhered to his desperate fortunes.
Vegetating at Nyekiöbing, we almost forgot that we were soldiers.
Ian was so impatient to be gone, that he frequently vowed he would
make an offer of his sword to Gustavus Adolphus, whose army was
almost entirely led by Scottish officers, whom peace with England had
compelled to court the smiles of fortune in a foreign camp, where
many of them had risen to the rank of nobles; such as Spence of that
Ilk, who became Count of Orcholm; Douglas of Whittinghame, who became
Count of Schonengen; while the Laird of Dalserf and many others rose
to be barons of Sweden and Finland.
The charming society of Ernestine had somewhat tempered in me,
perhaps, that restless craving for glory and adventure which animates
a true soldier of fortune. Thus I was perfectly content, and the
winter months were passed in quiet happiness; for she had promised to
unite her fortunes with mine when the war ceased, and her father's
consent was obtained. When the war ceased! That, indeed, would have
tried the patience of honest Job, for the great _Thirty_ Years' war
was only then in its infancy.
The poor old queen-dowager was so kind and good, so affable and
motherly, and bore her diminished fortune with such philosophical
equanimity of temper, that it was impossible not to love and respect
her; but she prosed sometimes, and inflicted upon us interminable
stories of Holger Danske, King Waldemar, and Lille Torve, and
repeated the profound sayings of that pedantic blockhead, her
son-in-law, the King of Scotland.*
* The pen has been drawn through this in the original. In 1694, Lord
Molesworth gave an account of Denmark similar to that which follows.
It proved so offensive to the Danes, that their king demanded, by his
ambassador, the author's head, from King William of Orange.
During my residence at Nyekiöbing, I discovered why King Christian,
the patron of poetry and the drama, employed so many Scots, Irish,
German, and French soldiers of fortune to fight his battles; for,
unlike the Holsteiners, the majority of his subjects had really lost
much of their ancient bravery, and, being somewhat addicted to
cheating, were, as usual with the false, full of mistrust of others.
In short, they loved not to wage war, while they could get so many
gallant Scots and Irishmen to wage it for them; but, oppressed by its
consequences, poverty and poor fare were every where apparent. The
slavish boors fed on roots, rye-bread, and salted fish; the burghers
or citizens on lean flesh, stock-fish, bacon, and bad cheese. When
the land is sold, the men, their wives and children who inhabit it,
go with the freehold, like the trees and walls thereon. Their songs
bore a strong resemblance to the old ballads sung by our Border
harpers; and I have no doubt that many of those ancient lays which
the Goths brought out of the East, and which Tacitus mentions in his
account of the Germans, might be traced among our Scottish hills,
where the wandering bards of other times have brought them from
Denmark.
I found them great vaunters, too, those Danes. It was their frequent
boast that they were the conquerors of England, and this is graven on
the tombs of many of their kings. Thus at Roskilde, on the graves of
Harold VII., of Sueno III., and others, they are always designated
_Rex Daciæ, Angliæ et Norvegiæ_. Being Scots, we could not quarrel
with these assumptions, as they did not concern us; the Baron
Fœyœ in particular, when the schnaps or corn brandy were more
potent than usual, was a vehement upholder of the ancient Danish
glory, of which Ian was always somewhat sceptical.
"I assure you it is a fact, Herr Rollo," the baron would say,
counting on his fingers; "we have defeated the Swedes in twenty-two
pitched battles, and made them swear allegiance to four-and-twenty of
our kings. We have overthrown the Norsemen in thirty-two battles.
Russia has paid tribute to eight of our monarchs; we have conquered
Ireland eight, and England ten times. Canute IV. conquered Livonia,
and Helgo won Saxony by his sword; while Courland, Esthonia, and
Prussia, have all, at various times, belonged to the Danish crown."
"Thank God, and the stout hearts of our fathers, these conquering
Danes never found aught but their graves on Scottish ground!" Ian
would retort with a grim look; "and you may see them yet, Herr Baron,
on the battle-fields of Crail, Cru-dane, and Luncarty; but I marvel
much that the descendants of these enterprising rovers, are unable to
hold yonder poor peninsula of Juteland against the soldiers of
Wallenstein, Tilly, and Merodé."
From our dreamy mode of passing the time, we were roused to our
active military labours by the opening spring; and, from leading the
quiet life of a very Dutchman, I was soon to become immersed in a
succession of the most stirring incidents.
The season was that which at home in Britain we call spring; but in
those northern isles of Denmark the snow lay thick upon the land, and
with its dreary sheets the white field-ice covered all the Baltic and
the Guldborg Sound; for that infallible authority who exists every
where, the oldest inhabitant of Nyekiöbing, could not remember a
season so cold or so severe. From my windows, which overlooked the
Sound on one side, and the castle garden on the other, the view was
intensely desolate and dreary.
The fortress was very old, and my chamber was hung with faded
tapestry, representing the martyrdom of Erik Plogpenning, and his
ghastly body gashed with fifty-six wounds; my bed was an immense
antique four-poster of the most alarming dimensions, old perhaps as
the days of Holger Danske, and completely shrouded by curtains of
sombre blue velvet. A tall wardrobe and cabinet of walnut wood, a
table and two chairs of oak, all curiously and somewhat barbarously
carved, made up the furniture; while the stone fireplace was so
capacious, that within it I could stand upright with my bonnet on.
And so thick were the walls, that even at noonday, but a dim light
straggled through the strongly barred and deeply embayed windows.
A mound--doubtless the barrow in which reposed the bones of some bold
Cimbric warrior--lay under the castle wall. Therein as the Baron
Fœyœ told me, dwelt a vast number of little Trolds, all clad in
green dresses, with heavy ungainly persons, long noses, crooked
backs, and red caps. He averred having seen them at a festival on St
John's night; when the mound opened, its womb seemed full of light,
and there, around a dead man's skeleton, were the little Trolds seen
dancing, drinking fairy wine out of limpet shells, and keeping in
thrall the wife of Heinrich Vüg (the Royal gateward), whom they had
spirited away, and who had not the power to return to her spouse;
though he frequently heard her wailing, when, in the calm summer
evenings, he sat on the summit of the mound, smoking his long pipe,
and reflecting that, all things considered, his bereavement was not
so hard that it could not be borne patiently.
One evening in March, when the snow lay deep around the castle, and,
except the woods of leafless beech, or here and there a clump of dark
green pine, every thing was mantled over with it; I sat at one of my
windows, which I had opened to see more clearly the prospect of the
Sound, where many a ship lay frozen in, with her high poop and
snow-mantled yards casting a long shadow on the expanse of ice.
I was buried in reverie; my mind was endeavouring to pierce the
clouds that rested on the future; for though the progress of my love
affair was indeed most fortunate, the chances of a happy conclusion
were, as yet, distant and vague; and, of all things in this world,
there is nothing I dislike more than suspense.
The sun was setting, and its cold yellow lustre fell upon a stone
terrace immediately below my window; there, in a sheltered place, and
well muffled up in dresses of warm red cloth, trimmed with ample furs
of Muscovite sable, Ernestine sat with Gabrielle, conversing in low
and earnest tones. They had been there for a considerable time,
before a sudden exclamation of the first made me aware of their
vicinity. I had not the least intention of listening, for I had too
keen a sense of honour to do so, though we have known it to be the
favourite resort of romancers and players, to make even their best
bred cavaliers acquainted with what it was never intended they should
know; but a burst of surprise and anguish from Ernestine, and its
tenor, chained me to the spot, and, think of it what you will, I was
compelled to remain and listen.
"Gabrielle! oh, Gabrielle! what is this you tell me? I will leave
this place at all risks--we must--we shall! Nay, nay! talk not of
danger or of difficulty; for we will launch a boat and put forth
together, rather than expose you to this humiliating--this miserable
infatuation!"
"Oh, spare me, dear sister!" urged the plaintive voice of Gabrielle.
"I do not reproach you, Gabrielle!" said Ernestine, affectionately
drawing her sister's drooping head upon her breast, and embracing it
with her arm.
"Ernestine, is it a sin to love?"
"Not as your spotless heart loves!" replied the elder sister, kissing
her; while a bright smile of affection sparkled in her mild dark eyes.
"It must be--else whence this sense of mingled shame and
mortification?"
"We shall leave this ill-omened island, Gabrielle. We must depart
for Vienna--I have still money enough; but oh, what a distance to
travel alone! Surely, we shall find some safe conductor, at least,
to the opposite shore, where the Imperialists have garrisoned every
town. At all risks, my poor little dove, I will free you from this
danger; so dry your tears, Gabrielle, and weep no more."
But Gabrielle's tears fell faster.
"Oh, Ernestine! I should die of shame if I thought that any one save
you had heard this avowal--this humiliating avowal--or knew my
terrible secret!"
"That you love a heedless cavalier--ha, ha, Gabrielle!"
"Do not laugh. I would to Heaven, Ernestine, that I had never met
this man--that we had remained at Luneburg, as our dear father
wished. And his Moina--how he loves her! He often praises her to
me, and without perceiving that every word is like a death stab.
Happy Moina!"
Moina! I was thunderstruck. The gentle, the pining Gabrielle loved
Ian Dhu, whose chivalric heart was faithfully devoted to another.
This was the source of that secret sadness which had so much
astonished and alarmed us. Innocent and guileless, her heart had
guarded in its pure recesses this deep love, which sprang from a
gratitude to her father's brave preserver. Sincerely I pitied
Gabrielle, for I knew that her love was hopeless; and a thousand
little expressions of eye, changes of voice and manner, which, in my
pre-occupation with Ernestine, had passed unobserved at the time, now
flashed upon my memory. Dear Gabrielle! I loved her like a younger
sister, and felt alike hostile and indignant at this unknown Moina,
who had rendered Ian so invulnerable to her many attractions.
"Ian will go home to his own mountains--those blue mountains he talks
so much of; and he will marry--yes, Ernestine," continued Gabrielle,
"he will marry this Moina. He cannot love me. Oh! I fear he would
rather despise me if he knew how much I loved him."
"Despise!--you, the Count of Carlstein's daughter!" said her sister,
whose eyes kindled.
"He saved our dear father's life," said Gabrielle, with a sad smile;
"'twas that which first opened my heart unto him. He will marry that
woman--and never have one thought for me, who love him so well; my
memory will pass away like the last year's leaves. I hope she is
good and beautiful--for he deserves a bride who is both. Yes--yes,
dear Ernestine--let us leave this place; for I long for another still
more solitary, where, unseen, I may give myself up to grief, and die."
"I have met men at Vienna who did not believe that a woman could
love, my poor little lamb, Gabrielle!"
"Not love? How little they knew us! And who were they?"
"Wallenstein, the Duke of Friedland, was one--the Count Merodé
another."
"Merodé--ah, frightful!" said Gabrielle with a shudder. "What could
he know of love?"
"It was once said that he loved you, and that your rejection drove
him to those excesses which have made him and his regiment a European
proverb."
"He--the wretched libertine--who is said to have three wives shut up
at his castle in the Black Forest of Thuringia! He--a horror to his
own kinsman as to his enemies! How could you speak of him,
Ernestine? oh, how unlike _him_ whose image, as if by fascination,
fills up my whole mind. Sister, I admire, not alone his handsome
figure or fine military eye; but his bold and manly spirit, his free
and gallant bearing. When we return to Vienna, I will go to a
convent, sister; I think I have the vocation of which you once used
to speak. It has left you, and come to me. My heart swells with
pride when I see him, Ernestine. How his tall eagle's-plume overtops
all others here! (I am sure I have got the vocation, sister.) He
jests and laughs so kindly, and I jest in return, to hide the deadly
secret that preys upon my spirit; for until she is beloved a woman
cannot love. Oh, Ernestine--Ernestine! do not think me mad or
immodest; but kiss me, dear sister, for I assure you I am neither; I
am still your dear little sister--the same Gabrielle. How happy you
must be to have some one who loves you! There are times when
jestingly he kisses my hand because we are cousins; and, as his
kinswoman, in his brave heart he loves me like a little sister. But,
oh! he knows not the swell of passion excited by his voice, by his
approach, by his touch, and how the kiss he prints in play upon my
hand sinks into my inmost heart, and makes it tremulous with joy.
But he passes away to others, and then the darkness, the gloom, and
desolation again sink over me."
"It is an infatuation!"
"Kiss me, Ernestine--for you have been a mother to me since my poor
mother died. Kiss me, dear sister, for I am indeed very miserable!"
It seemed as if the lofty spirit of Ernestine was stung by the
strange avowal of poor Gabrielle, and she wept with her; but her
tears were those of pride and mortification.
Lovers never dream that others can discern their passion; and thin
though the disguise may be that usually veils it, so admirably had
Gabrielle concealed her secret thoughts, that none could have
suspected them, and honest Ian least of all.
Time rolled on, and the month of March was passing away.
Daily I could perceive how the secret I had heard was preying upon
the mind of Gabrielle, and blanching her thin, wan cheek. She lived
without hope--without a future to look forward to; and when Ian spoke
with joy of his return home at the close of the war (now soon
expected by a treaty of which a whisper reached us), I saw that his
thoughtless words sunk like iron into the poor girl's soul.
She gradually subsided into a calm but profound state of melancholy,
and begged to be removed from Nyekiöbing, that she might enter a
German convent; but the sea around us was yet closed by the frozen
waves of the field-ice. Ernestine and I could alone see into the
depths of her heart; and even Ernestine knew not that I had overheard
their secret.
As for Ian Dhu, I thought he was blind not to perceive, when he
approached Gabrielle, how her blue eyes sparkled, how her fair cheek
flushed, and then waxed deadly pale, while her voice trembled when
she answered him; but about the middle of the month a courier came
from the king requiring his presence at Assens, and he left us by the
port of Skielbye, where the ice had partly left an open passage
between the floes.
Ernestine was pleased to see him depart; but after that event the
mild eyes of Gabrielle became more sad, and her cheek more blanched.
Deep thoughts preyed like deathly weariness or an incurable sorrow
upon her soul. It was the "worm in the bud."
Poor Gabrielle!--like a young flower deprived of sunshine and air,
was withering away; and I feared the unhappy girl would die--though
people never die of love.
But a crisis was at hand.