A crowd of horrible thoughts filled the mind of Bolton; but, above all, two were most palpable before him—the image of Mariette as she had been when he loved her of old, and the gibbet.
Behind this ill-omened spot, the landscape to the eastward was level, extending to the seashore; here and there low clumps of coppice and the rocks of Restalrig broke its horizontal outline. The sky was all of a cloudless white tint; there were no stars, there was no moon; but against that cold pale background, the trees and the beam of the gallows stood forth in strong relief and black outline.
On the right towered up the rocky Calton, a dark and undistinguishable mass.
A number of full-fed gleds and monstrous ravens, who built their nests in the sycamores, were perched on the beam of the gallows, where they clapped their dusky wings, and cawed and screamed as the disturber of their feast approached.
Two skeletons were swinging there in the night wind; and the remains of two other beings, evidently fresh from the hands of the doomster, swung beside them. One was headless and handless; but, by its bulk and vast conformation, Hepburn knew the body to be that of Black Hob of Ormiston.
The other, which was of much shorter stature and slighter make, hung by the neck vibrating in the passing wind, which swayed it round and waved its long dark hair.
Fearfully, tremblingly, and scarcely daring to breathe, Hepburn of Bolton drew near it.
One glance sufficed him, and he rushed from the spot to return no more.
Yes! there are sighs for the bursting heart, And tears for the sleepless eye; But tears and sighs and sympathy, Are luxuries unknown to _me_. The wretch immured in the dungeon-keep May snatch an hour’s repose; And dream of home and the light of heaven Ere he wake to misery’s throes; If _Hope_ with her radiant light be there— I mate with the swarthy fiend Despair! _Vedder._
Here, for a page or so, we resume the MSS. of the reverend and worthy Magister Absalom Beyer.
About this period, his diary, journal, or history (which you will), for it partakes of them all, suddenly breaks off, and there are left but a few fragments, referring to a later period.
One records the baptism of the sixth son of Anna and Konrad, whom King Frederick, for his valour in capturing a Lubeck frigate that ravaged the shores of Bergen, had created Count of Saltzberg, Lord of Welsöö, and governor of Bergenhuis; and the garrulous Magister records that this baptismal ceremony, at which he officiated, and which was celebrated with great splendour, was the seventh anniversary of that joyous day on which he had blessed the nuptial ring of Anna and Konrad in the old cathedral of the bishopric of Bergen; and he further records the quantity of ale, wine, and dricka imbibed on the occasion, and the loads of venison, bread, and bergenvisch, eaten by the tenantry at the baptism of young Hans (for so baby the sixth was named); and how he screamed and kicked when the holy water fell on him, till he nearly sprang from his carved cradle, which was hollowed like a boat in the Norse fashion, lined with moss and velvet, and was borne by Christina Slingebunder, who had found her way from Westeray back to Bergen.