Anna, we have said, was very sick and sorrowful. The Earl scarcely left the side of her couch in the little tapestried cabin; and though in her pallor and helplessness she was as beautiful as ever, the Magister Absalom records, in his stiff, dry way, that Bothwell could not resist the bitter and obtruding reflection, that it might have been better (considering the turn of fortune in his favour at home) if his vessel had not been driven into the harbour of Bergen, on the night in which this history opened.
In their bud he endeavoured to crush these ungenerous and ungrateful thoughts; but they recurred to him again and again, till one glance of Anna's pleading eyes, one smile of her pretty mouth, would put them all to flight, and he felt that he could brave both Huntly and the queen for her sake. Yet whenever he was alone, or beyond the immediate influence of her charms, ambition, as of old, began to whisper in his ear and to gnaw at his heart; pride and self-interest were on one hand--love and generosity on the other.
Though he did not as yet entirely repent his strange espousal of this fair northern girl, he foresaw that it would prove a formidable barrier to his gaining any permanent ascendency over the faction of Moray and Morton, as the principal strength of the Catholic lords consisted in their unanimity, which was certain of being at an end, whenever Huntly learned how Bothwell had broken his promise to his sister, Lady Jane Gordon.
Ormiston had mentally been making similar reflections; and when a dark cloud gathered on the broad and noble brow of Bothwell, or an expression of deep meditation veiled the brightness of his fine dark eyes, he knew well what visions were struggling for mastery in his bold and ambitious heart. But the knight never intruded a remark of his own; and remembering how often, when in the full glow of his new amour, the Earl had so scornfully rejected his more sage advice, he resolved quietly to let fate have its own way.
At the close of a stormy day, the isle of Westeray, like a dark blue cloud, arose from ocean on their lee. Dark and louring, the sky communicated its inky hue to the sea, which was flecked by spots of white, that marked the crests of the waves. Like snow, their surf was poured upon the jutting rocks and hidden reefs that fringe the island; and thus, when night closed in, a white line of breakers alone indicated where it lay.