The summit of the rocks of Bergen, and the square tower that crowned them, were shining snow-white in its splendour, but their base was hidden in more than Cimmerian gloom; for though the bright moonlight tipped the eminences and peaks of the far off mountain, the darkness of midnight rested on the bosom of the still fiords and bays that rolled in shadow a thousand feet below them.
From the murky obscurity of a mass of granite, that overhung the deepest part of the fiord, where the rocks descended like a wall abruptly to their foundations, many fathoms under the surface of the water, a faint and flickering light, that gleamed redly and fitfully, directed the steersman to the uncouth dwelling of this hermit of the sea. A sudden angle of the rocks revealed it, and the oarsmen found themselves close to a low-browed cavern, that receded away into the heart of the granite cliffs that overhung the surf.
A seaman made fast the boat, by looping a rope round a pinnacle of rock near the narrow ledge, where the fishermen of Bergen usually left such alms and offerings as fear or piety impelled them to bestow on the hermit, whom they alike dreaded and respected. On these rocks the sea-dogs basked in summer, and shared the hermit's food in winter, when they crawled through the crevices in the ice, that for six months of the year covered the water of the bay.
The Scottish mariners, who did not altogether like their vicinity to the abode of this mysterious personage, cowered together, conversing in low whispers; and their swarthy visages seemed to vary from brown to crimson, in the red smoky light that gushed at times from the mouth of the rugged cavern, as the ocean wind blew through it. Bothwell, who could not for a moment quit the trembling Anna, requested Hob of Ormiston to acquaint the recluse with the nature of the boon they had come to crave of him.
Participating in the fears of the mariners, Hob evidently did not admire venturing on this mission alone. On one hand, a powerful curiosity prompted him; on the other, a childish superstition, incident to the age, withheld him: but he was a bold fellow, whose scruples of any kind never lasted long, and in a minute he had loosened his long sword in its sheath, looked to the wheel-lock of his dague, and sprung up the rocks. His tall feather was seen to stoop for a moment as he entered the cavern, and made signs of the cross as he advanced; for though the Laird of Ormiston, like most of the lesser barons in Scotland for a generation or two after 1540, professed no particular creed, any ideas he had of religion appertained to the Church of Rome--therefore the aspect of the cavern, as he penetrated, was singularly adapted to make a deep impression on his mind.