His black locks curled shortly over a pale and noble forehead; his eyes were intensely dark, and the hue of his thick mustaches and short peaked beard formed a strong contrast to the whiteness of his half bare chest, which was pale as the marble of Paros.
"A good morning, my Lord!" said Anna with a delightful smile, while Christina addressed herself to Ormiston; "I hope your dreams have been pleasant?"
"Then they must have been delightful," she replied with gaiety, eluding the Earl, who endeavoured to possess her hand. "And you have slept well?"
"On this downy couch I could not have reposed otherwise than well, lady."
"I am glad you appreciate what is all the work of my own fair hands; for know, sir, that this quilt of eider-down was the last essay of my perseverance and industry."
"Thou seest I am not one to hide my candle under a bushel."
"By the wheel of St. Catherine!" said the Earl, smiling as he smoothed down the quilt, which was entirely made of soft feathers from the breast of the eider-duck, woven into bright and beautiful patterns; "there is something very adorable in the idea of reposing under what your pretty fingers have wrought!"
"Konrad scaled the highest cliffs that overhang the fiord to bring me these feathers. Poor Konrad! He has clambered for me, where not even Jans Thorson or the boldest man on the bay would dare to climb, even to win his daily bread."
"And who is this Konrad?" asked Bothwell, suspiciously.
"He who--permit me to say---saved you from the ocean last night; and but for whom, perhaps, you had now been in heaven."
"St. Mary forefend it had not been a warmer place!"
"I have brought you our morning grace-cup," said Anna, placing it in his hand; "drink to the prosperity of the Lords of Welsöö, my lord, and let me begone, for I have my uncle, Sir Erick, and others, to visit with the same gift."
The Earl promptly kissed her hand, and emptied the cup, thus displaying the difference between his open nature and that of Ormiston, who, being ever on the alert against treachery and surprise, declined tasting the ale, until, as a compliment, Christina Slingbunder first put it to her rosy lips, after which he drained the goblet at one gulp, and clasping the buxom damsel in his arms imprinted a kiss upon each of her cheeks, for which she roundly boxed his ears; and, when the ladies had withdrawn, both he and the Earl lay back in their beds, bursting with laughter, for Ormiston exercised his wit in various jests on this unusual visit--jests which the modest Magister Absalom Beyer has failed or declined to record.