As a proof that he still lived, she displayed Sir Patrick's treasured letter, which had fallen at her feet attached to an arrow, shot, she knew not by whom, as she walked one day by the margin of the isle on which the castle stands; but her sister tore the missive from her hands, stigmatized it as a vile forgery, and rent it to fragments, which she trampled under foot in presence of her bower maidens. Then the sombre earl swore his deepest oath that, if the bearer could be discovered, he would soon be dangling from the gallows knob above the gate. So Murielle, in new happiness, prayed for the safety of her lover, while his ship bore merrily across the summer sea towards the coast of Flanders. Meantime the earl, to perfect his political intrigues with Albany, to make his sure peace with Pope Eugene IV., who had privately disapproved of his marriage while publicly dispensing him, resolved to visit Rome. He was not without hope, by change of scene and distance from home, to divert the mind of Murielle, and bend her to his purpose. He prepared a brilliant train of knights and followers, and took with him the abbot of Tongland, who volunteered to smooth over all difficult matters at the Vatican, and who hoped, moreover, as he displayed a mighty parchment, that, "before he returned to the wilds of Galloway, the master of lies and iniquity, the father of all evil and evil devices, should once more have become a pure spirit, clad in a shining raiment." CHAPTER XXII. THE LOWLANDS OF HOLLAND. To Norroway, to Norroway, Out owre the saut seas' foam; The King o' Norroway's daughter, 'Tis thou maun bring her home! OLD BALLAD. Though the season was summer, the _St. Regulus_ of Pittenweem did not cross the German Ocean without peril; for one night, and during the following day, there blew a tempest from the south-east, which drove her so far from her course, that the tacking to and fro of a whole week were required ere she could regain the lost distance; for the reader must bear in mind that the high-pooped, high-prowed, and low-waisted craft of those days, were very different from the screw-propellers and iron clippers of the present age; and heavily they lumbered along, with Dutch lee-boards, basketed tops, their spritsail-yards, jack-staffs, and other ponderous hamper. So, when the gale abated, the _St. Regulus_ was off the coast of England, and the tall, surf-beaten cliff, with the old castle of Scarborough, were seen in the distance, as the red rays of the morning sun fell on them from the eastern sky. And now, as the _St. Regulus_ squared her yards to bear up for Sluys, a new danger presented itself.