All that day the town remained quiet, and all day the Waldgrave and my lady walked to and fro in the sunshine; or my lady sat working on one of the stone seats, while he built castles in the air, which she knocked down with a sly word or a merry glance. Fraulein Anna, always with the big book, flitted from door to door, like an unquiet spirit. The sentries dozed at their posts, old Jacob in his chair in the guard-room, the cannons under their breech-clouts. If this could be said to be a state of siege, it was the most gentle and joyous one paladin ever shared or mistress imagined.
But no message reached us from the town, and that disturbed me. Half a dozen times I went to the wall and, leaning over it, listened. Each time I came away satisfied. All seemed quiet; the market-place rather fuller perhaps than on common days, the hum of life more steady and persistent; but neither to any great extent. Despite this I could not shake off a feeling of uneasiness. I remembered certain faces I had seen in the town, grim faces lurking in corners, seen over men's shoulders or through half-open doors; and a dog barking startled me, the shadow of a crow flying over the court made me jump a yard.
Night only added to my nervousness. I doubled all the guards, stationing two men at the town-wicket and two at the stable-gate, which leads to the bridge. And not content with these precautions, though the Waldgrave laughed at them and me, I got out of bed three times in the night, and went the round to assure myself that the men were at their posts.
When morning came without mishap, but also without bringing any overture from the town, the Waldgrave laughed still more loudly. But my lady looked grave. I did not dare to interfere or give advice--having been once admitted to say my say--but I felt that it would be a serious thing if the forty-eight hours elapsed and the town refused to make amends. My lady felt this too, I think; and by-and-by she held a council with the Waldgrave; and about midday my lord came to me, and with a somewhat wry face bade me have the prisoners conducted to the parlour.
He sent 'me at the same time on an errand to another part of the castle, and so I cannot say what passed. I believe my lady dealt with the two very firmly; reiterating her judgment of the day before, and only adding that in clemency she had thought better of imprisoning them, and would now suffer them to go to their homes, in the hope that they would use their influence to save the town from worse trouble.
I met the two crossing the terrace on their way to the gate and was struck by something peculiar in their aspect. Master Hofman was all of a tremble with excitement and eagerness to be gone. His fat, half-moon of a face shone with anxiety. He stuttered when he tried to give me good day as I passed; and he seemed to have eyes only for the gate, dragging his smaller companion along by the arm, and more than once whispering in his ear as if to adjure him not to waste a moment.
The little Minister, on the other hand, hung back and marched slowly, his face wearing a look of triumph which showed very plainly--or so I construed it--that he regarded his release in the light of a victory. His sallow cheeks were flushed, and his eyes gleamed spitefully as he looked from side to side. He held himself bolt upright, with a square Bible clasped to his breast, and as he passed me he could not refrain from a characteristic outbreak. Doubtless to bridle himself before my lady had almost choked him. He laughed in my face. 'Dry bones!' he cackled. 'And mouths that speak not!'
'Speak plainly yourself, Master Dietz,' I answered, for I have never thought ministers more than other men. 'Then perhaps I shall be able to understand you.'
'Sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal!' he replied, cracking his fingers in my face and laughing triumphantly.
He would have said more, I imagine; but at that moment the Burgomaster fell bodily upon him, and drove him by main force through the gate which had been opened. Outside even, he made some attempts to return and defy us, crying out 'Whited sepulchres!' and the like. But the steps were narrow and steep, and Hofman stood like a feather bed in the way, and presently he desisted. The two stumbled down together and we saw no more of them.
The men about me laughed; but I had reason for thinking it far from a laughing matter, and I hastened into the house that I might tell my lady. When I entered the parlour, however, where I found her with the Waldgrave and Fraulein Anna, she held up her hand to check me. She and the Waldgrave were laughing, and Fraulein Anna, half shy and half sullen, was leaning against the table looking at the floor, with her cheeks red.
'Come,' my lady was saying, 'you were with him half an hour, Anna. You can surely tell us what you talked about. Don't be afraid of Martin. He knows all our secrets.'
'Or perhaps we are indiscreet,' the Waldgrave said gravely, but with a twinkle in his eye. 'When a young lady visits a gentleman in captivity, the conversation should be of a tender nature.'
'Which shows, sir, that you know little about it,' Fraulein Anna answered indignantly. 'We talked of Voetius.'
'Dear me!' my lord said. 'Then Master Dietz knows Voetius?'
'He does not. He said he considered such pagan learning useless,' Fraulein Anna answered, warming with her subject. 'That it tended to pride, and puffed up instead of giving grace. I said that he only saw one side of the matter.'
'In that resembling me,' my lord murmured.
My lady repressed him with a look. 'Yes,' she said pleasantly. 'And what then, Anna?'
'And that he might be wrong in this, as in other matters. He asked me what other matters,' Fraulein Max continued, growing voluble, and almost confident, as she reviewed the scene. 'I said, the inferiority of women to men. He said, yes, he maintained that, following Peter Martyr. Well, I said he was wrong, and so was Peter Martyr. "But you do not convince me," he answered. "You say that I am wrong on this as on other points. Cite a point, then, on which I am wrong." "You know no Greek, you know no Oriental tongue, you know no Hebrew!" I retorted. "All pagan learning," he said. "Cite a point on which I am wrong. I am not often wrong. Cite a point on which I am confessedly wrong." So'--Fraulein Anna laughed a little, excited laugh of pleasure--'I thought I would take him at his word, and I said, "Will you abide by that? If I show you that you have been wrong, that you have been deceived only to-day, will you acknowledge that Peter Martyr was wrong?" He said, oh yes, he would, if I could convince him. I said, "Exemplum! You came here because you were afraid of our cannon. Granted? Yes. Well, our cannon are cracked. They arebrutum fulmen--an empty threat. We could not fire them, if we would. So there, you see, you were wrong." Well, on that----'
But what Master Dietz said on that, and what she answered, we never knew, for the Waldgrave, bounding from the table, with a crash which shook the room, swore a very pagan oath.
'Himmel!' he cried in a voice of passion. 'The woman has ruined us! Do you understand, Countess? She has told them! And they have taken the news to the town!'
'I do understand,' my lady said softly, but with a paling face. 'By this time it is known.'
'Known! Yes; and our shutting up that poisonous little snake will only make him the more bitter!' my lord answered, striking the table a great blow in his wrath. 'We are undone! Oh, you idiot, you idiot!' and breaking off suddenly he turned to Fraulein Max, who stood weeping and trembling by the table. 'Why did you do it?'
'Hush!' my lady said nobly; and she put her arm round Fraulein Anna. 'She is so absent. It was my fault. I should not have let her see them. Besides, she did not know that they were going to be released. And it is done now, and cannot be undone. The question is, what ought we to do?'
'Yes, what?' my lord cried bitterly, with a glance at the culprit, which showed that he was very far from forgiving her. 'I am sure I do not know, any more than the dog there!'
My lady looked at me anxiously.
'Well, Martin,' she said, 'what do you say?'
But I had nothing to say, I felt myself at a loss. I knew, better than any of them, the Minister's sour nature, and I had seen with my own eyes the state of resentment and rage in which he had left us. His news would fall like a spark dropped on powder. The town, brooding in gloom, foreboding, and terror, would in a moment blaze into fierce wrath. Every ruffian who had felt his neck endangered by the Countess's sentence, every family that had lost a member in the late riot, every one who had an old grievance to avenge, or a new object to gain, would in an hour be in arms; while those whose advantage lay commonly on the side of order might stand aloof now--some at the instance of Dietz, and others through timidity and that fear of a mob which exists in the mind of every burgher. What, then, had we to expect? My lady must look to have her authority flouted--that for certain; but would the matter end with that? Would the disorder stop at the foot of the steps?
'I think we are safe enough here, if your excellency asks me,' I said, after a moment's thought. 'A dozen men could hold the wicket-gate against a thousand.'
'Safe!' my lady cried in a tone of surprise. 'Yes, Martin, safe! But what of those who look to me for protection? Am I to stand by and see the law defied? Am I to----' She paused. 'What is that?' she said in a different tone, raising her hand for silence.
She listened, and we listened, looking at one another with meaning eyes; and in a moment she had her answer. Through the open windows, with the air and sunshine, came a sound which rose and fell at intervals. It was the noise of distant cheering. Full and deep, leaping up again and again, in insolent mockery and defiance, it reached us where we stood in the quiet room, and told us that all was known. While we still listened, another sound, nearer at hand, broke the inner stillness of the house--the tramp of a hurrying foot on the stairs. Old Jacob thrust in his head and looked at me.
'You can speak,' I said.
'There is something wrong below,' he muttered, abashed at finding himself in the presence.
'We know it, Jacob,' my lady said bravely. 'We are considering how to right it. In the mean time, do you go to the gates, my friend, and see that they are well guarded.'
'We could send to Hesse-Cassel,' the Waldgrave suggested, when we were again alone.
'It would be useless,' my lady answered. 'The Landgrave is at Munich with the King of Sweden; so is Leuchtenstein.'
'If Leuchtenstein were only at home----'
'Ah!' the Countess answered with a touch of impatience; 'but then he is not. If he were--well, even he could scarcely make troops where there are none.'
'There are generally some to be hired,' the Waldgrave answered. 'What if we send to Halle, or Weimar, and inquire? A couple of hundred pikes would settle the matter.'
'God forbid!' my lady answered with a shudder. 'I have heard enough of the doings of such soldiers. The town has not deserved that.'
The Waldgrave looked at me, and slightly shrugged his shoulders; as much as to say that my lady was impracticable. But I, agreeing with every word she said, only loved her the more, and could make him no answer, even if my duty had permitted it. I hastened to suggest that, the castle being safe, the better plan was to wait, keeping on our guard, and see what happened; which, indeed, seemed also to be the only course open to us.
My lady saw this and agreed; I withdrew, to spend the rest of the day in a feverish march between the one gate and the other. We could muster no more than twelve effective men, including the Waldgrave; and though these might suffice for the bare defence of the place, which had only two assailable points, the paucity of our numbers kept me in perpetual fear. I knew my lady's proud nature so well that I dreaded humiliation for her as I might have feared death for another; with a terror which made the possibility of her capture by the malcontents a misery to me, a nightmare which would neither let me rest nor sleep.
My lord soon recovered his spirits. In an hour or two he was as buoyant and cheerful as before, dividing the blame of thecontretempsbetween Fraulein Anna and myself, and hinting that if he had been left to manage the matter, the guilty would have suffered, and Dietz not gone scot-free. But I trembled. I did not see how we could be surprised; I thought it improbable that the townsfolk would try to effect anything against us; impossible that they should succeed. Yet, when the stern swell of one of Luther's hymns rose from the town at sunset, and I remembered how easily men's hearts were inflamed by those strains; and again, when a huge bonfire in the market-place dispelled the night, and for hours kept the town restless and waking, I shuddered, fearing I knew not what. I will answer for it, my lady, who never ceased to wear a cheerful countenance, did not sleep that night one half so ill as I.
And yet I was caught napping. A little before daybreak, when all was quiet, I went to take an hour's rest. I had lain down, and, as far as I could judge later, had just fallen into a doze, when a tremendous shock, which made the very walls round me tremble, drew me to my feet as if a giant hand had plucked me from the bed. A crashing sound, mingled with the shiver of falling glass, filled the air. For a few seconds I stood trembling and bewildered in the middle of the room--in the state of disorder natural to a man rudely awakened. I could not on the instant collect myself or comprehend what had happened. Then, in a flash, the fears of the day returned to my mind, and springing to the door, half-dressed as I was, I ran down to the courtyard.
Some of the servants were already there, a white-cheeked, panic-stricken group of men and women intermixed; but, for a moment, I could get no answer to my questions. All spoke at once, none knew. Then--it was just growing light--from the direction of the stable-gate a man came running out of the dusk with a half-pike on his shoulder.
'Quick!' he cried. 'This way, give me a musket.'
'What is it?' I answered, seizing him by the arm.
'They have blown up the bridge--the bridge over the ravine!' he replied, panting. 'Quick, a gun! A part is left, and they are hacking it down!'
In a moment I saw all. 'To your posts!' I shouted. 'And the women into the house! See to the wicket-gate, Jacob, and do not leave it!' Then I sprang into the guardhouse and snatched down a carbine, three or four of which hung loaded in the loops. The sentry who had brought the news seized another, and we ran together through the stable court and to the gate, four or five of the servants following us.
Elsewhere it was growing light. Here a thick cloud of smoke and dust still hung in the air, with a stifling reek of powder. But looking through one of the loopholes in the gate, I was able to discern that the farther end of the bridge which spanned the ravine was gone--or gone in part. The right-hand wall, with three or four feet of the roadway, still hung in air, but half a dozen men, whose figures loomed indistinctly through a haze of dust and gloom, were working at it furiously, demolishing it with bars and pickaxes.
At that sight I fell into a rage. I saw in a flash what would happen if the bridge sank and we were cut off from all exit except through the town-gate. The dastardly nature of the surprise, too, and the fiendish energy of the men combined to madden me. I gave no warning and cried out no word, but thrusting my weapon through the loophole aimed at the nearest worker, and fired.
The man dropped his tool and threw up his arms, staggered forward a couple of paces, and fell sheer over the broken edge into the gulf. His fellows stood a moment in terror, looking after him, but the sentry who had warned me fired through the other loophole, and that started them. They flung down their tools and bolted like so many rabbits. The smoke of the carbine was scarce out of the muzzle, before the bridge, or what remained of it, was clear.
I turned round and found the Waldgrave at my elbow. 'Well done!' he said heartily. 'That will teach the rascals a lesson!'
I was trembling in every limb with excitement, but before I answered him, I handed my gun to one of the men who had followed me. 'Load,' I said,' and if a man comes near the bridge, shoot him down. Keep your eye on the bridge, and do nothing else until I come back.'
Then I walked away through the stable-court with the Waldgrave; who looked at me curiously. 'You were only just in time,' he said.
'Only just,' I muttered.
'There is enough left for a horse to cross.'
'Yes,' I answered, 'to-day.'
'Why to-day?' he asked, still looking at me. I think he was surprised to see me so much moved.
'Because the rest will be blown up to-night,' I answered bluntly. 'Or may be. How can we guard it in the dark? It is fifty paces from the gate. We cannot risk men there--with our numbers.'
'Still it may not be,' he said. 'We must keep a sharp look-out.'
'But if itis?' I answered, halting suddenly, and looking him full in the face. 'If it is, my lord?' I continued. 'We are provisioned for a week only. It is not autumn, you see. Then the pickle tubs would be full, the larder stocked, the rafters groaning, the still-room supplied. But it is May, and there is little left. The last three days we have been thinking of other things than provisions; and we have thirty mouths to feed.'
The Waldgrave's face fell. 'I had not thought of that,' he said. 'The bridge gone, they may starve us, you mean?'
'Into submission to whatever terms they please,' I answered. 'We are too few to cut our way through the town, and there would be no other way of escape.'
'What do you advise, then?' he asked, drawing me aside with a flustered air. 'Flight?'
'A horse might cross the bridge to-day,' I said.
'But any terms would be better than that!' he replied with vehemence.
'What if they demand the expulsion of the Catholic girl, my lord, whom the Countess has taken under her protection?'
'They will not!' he said.
'They may,' I persisted.
'Then we will not give her up.'
'But the alternative--starvation?'
'Pooh! It will not come to that!' he answered lightly. 'You leap before you reach the stile.'
'Because, my lord, there will be no leaping if we do reach it.'
'Nonsense!' he cried masterfully. 'Something must be risked. To give up a strong place like this to a parcel of clodhoppers--it is absurd! At the worst we could parley.'
'I do not think my lady would consent to parley.'
'I shall say nothing to her about it,' he answered. 'She is no judge of such things.'
I had been thinking all the while that he had that in his mind, and on the spot I answered him squarely that I would not consent. 'My lady must know all,' I said, 'and decide for herself.'
He started, looking at me with his face very red. 'Why, man,' he said, 'would you browbeat me?'
'No, my lord,' I said firmly, 'but my lady must know.'
'You are insolent!' he cried, in a passion. 'You forget yourself, man, and that your mistress has placed me in command here!'
'I forget nothing, my lord,' I answered, waxing firmer. 'What I remember is that she is my mistress.'
He glared at me a moment, his face dark with anger, and then with a contemptuous gesture he left me and walked twice or thrice across the court. Doubtless the air did him good, for presently he came back to me. 'You are an ill-bred meddler!' he said with his head high, 'and I shall remember it. But for the present have your way. I will tell the Countess and take her opinion.'
He went into the house to do it, and I waited patiently in the courtyard, watching the sun rise and all the roofs grow red; listening to the twittering of the birds, and wondering what the answer would be. I had not set myself against him without misgiving, for in a little while all might be in his hands. But fear for my mistress outweighed fears on my own account; and in the thought of her shame, should she awake some morning and find herself trapped, I lost thought of my own interest and advancement. I have heard it said that he builds best for himself who builds for another. It was so on this occasion.
He came back presently, looking thoughtful, as if my lady had talked to him very freely, and shown him a side of her character that had escaped him. The anger was clean gone from his face, and he spoke to me without embarrassment; in apparent forgetfulness that there had been any difference between us. Nor did I ever find him bear malice long.
'The Countess decides to go,' he said, 'either to Cassel or Frankfort, according to the state of the roads. She will take with her Fraulein Max, her two women, and the Catholic girl, and as many men as you can horse. She thinks she may safely leave the castle in charge of old Jacob and Franz, with a letter directed to the Burgomaster and council, throwing the responsibility for its custody on them. When do you think we should start?'
'Soon after dark this evening,' I answered, 'if my lady pleases.'
'Then that decides it,' he replied carelessly, the dawn of a new plan and new prospects lighting up his handsome face. 'See to it, will you?'
Night is like a lady's riding-mask, which gives to the most familiar features a strange and uncanny aspect. When to night are added silence and alarm, and that worst burden of all, responsibility--responsibility where a broken twig may mean a shot, and a rolling stone capture, where in a moment the evil is done--then you have a scene and a time to try the stoutest.
To walk boldly into a wall of darkness, relying on daylight knowledge, which says there is no wall; to step over the precipice on the faith of its depth being shadow--this demands nerve in those who are not used to the vagaries of night. But when the darkness may at any instant belch forth a sheet of flame; when every bush may hide a cowardly foe and every turn a pitfall, and there are women in company and helpless children, then a man had need to be an old soldier or forest-born, if he would keep his head cool, and tell one horse from another by the sound of its hoofs.
We started about eight, and started well. The Waldgrave and half a dozen men crossed first on foot, and took post to protect the farther end of the bridge. Then I led over the horses, beginning with the four sumpter beasts. Satisfied after this that the arch remained uninjured, and that there was room and to spare, I told my lady, and she rode over by herself on Pushka. Marie Wort tripped after her with the child in her arms. Fraulein Max I carried. My lady's women crossed hand in hand. Then the rest. So like a troop of ghosts or shadows, with hardly a word spoken or an order given, we flitted into the darkness, and met under the trees, where those who had not yet mounted got to horse. Led by young Jacob, who knew every path in the valley and could find his way blindfold, we struck away from the road without delay, and taking lanes and tracks which ran beside it, presently hit it again a league or more beyond the town and far on the way.
That was a ride not to be forgotten. The night was dark. At a distance the dim lights of the town did not show. The valley in which we rode, and which grows straighter as it approaches the mouth and the river, seemed like a black box without a lid. The wind, laden with mysterious rustlings and the thousand sad noises of the night, blew in our faces. Now and then an owl hooted, or a branch creaked, or a horse stumbled and its rider railed at it. But for the most part we rode in silence, the women trembling and crossing themselves--as most of our people do to this day, when they are frightened--and the men riding warily, with straining eyes and ears on the stretch.
Before we reached the ford, which lies nearly eight miles from the castle, the Waldgrave, who had his place beside my lady, began to talk; and then, if not before, I knew thathislove for her was a poor thing. For, being in high spirits at the success of our plan--which he had come to considerhisplan--and delighted to find himself again in the saddle with an adventure before him, he forgot that the matter must wear a different aspect in her eyes. She was leaving her home--the old rooms, the old books, and presses and stores, the duties, stately or simple, in which her life had been passed. And leaving them, not in the daylight, and with a safe and assured future before her, but by stealth and under cover of night, with a mind full of anxious questionings!
To my lord it seemed a fine thing to have the world before him; to know that all Germany beyond the Werra was convulsed by war, and a theatre wherein a bold man might look to play his part. But to a woman, however high-spirited, the knowledge was not reassuring. To one who was exchanging her own demesne and peace and plenty for a wandering life and dependence on the protection of men, it was the reverse.
So, while my lord talked gaily, my lady, I think, wept; doing that under cover of darkness and her mask, which she would never have done in the light. He talked on, planning and proposing; and where a true lover would have been quick to divine the woman's weakness, he felt no misgiving, thrilled with no sympathy. Then I knew that he lacked the subtle instinct which real love creates; which teaches the strong what it is the feeble dread, and gives a woman the daring of a man.
As we drew near the ford, I dropped back to see that all crossed safely. Pushka, I knew, would carry my lady over, but some of the others were worse mounted. This brought me abreast of the Catholic girl, though the darkness was such that I recognized her only by the dark mass before her, which I knew to be the child. We had had some difficulty in separating her from Steve, and persuading her that the man ran no risk where he lay; otherwise she had behaved admirably. I did not speak to her, but when I saw the gleam of water before us, and heard the horses of the leaders begin to splash through the shallows, I leant over and took hold of the boy.
'You had better give him to me,' I said gruffly. 'You will have both hands free then. Keep your feet high, and hold by the pommel. If your horse begins to swim leave its head loose.'
I expected her to make a to-do about giving up the child; but she did not, and I lifted it to the withers of my horse. She muttered something in a tone which sounded grateful, and then we splashed on in silence, the horses putting one foot gingerly before the other; some sniffing the air with loud snorts and outstretched necks, and some stopping outright.
I rode on the upstream side of the girl, to break the force of the water. Not that the ford is dangerous in the daytime (it has been bridged these five years), but at night, and with so many horses, it was possible one or another might stray from the track; for the ford is not straight, but slants across the stream. However, we all passed safely; and yet the crossing remains in my memory.
As I held the child before me--it was a gallant little thing, and clung to me without cry or word--I felt something rough round its neck. At the moment I was deep in the water, and I had no hand to spare. But by-and-by, as we rode out and began to clamber up the farther bank, I laid my hand on its neck, suspecting already what I should find.
I was not mistaken. Under my fingers lay the very necklace which Peter had described to me with so much care! I could trace the shape and roughness of the walnuts. I could almost count them. Even of the length of the chain I could fairly judge. It was long enough to go twice round the child's neck.
As soon as I had made certain, I let it be, lest the child should cry out; and I rode on, thinking hard. What, I wondered, had induced the girl to put the chain round its neck at that juncture? She had hidden it so carefully hitherto, that no eye but Peter's, so far as I could judge, had seen it. Why this carelessness now, then? Certainly it was dark, and, as far as eyes went, the chain was safe. But round her own neck, under her kerchief, where it had lain before, it was still safer. Why had she removed it?
We had topped the farther bank by this time, and were riding slowly along the right-hand side of the river; but I was still turning this over in my mind, when I heard her on a sudden give a little gasp. I knew in a moment what it was. She had bethought her where the necklace was. I was not a whit surprised when she asked me in a tremulous tone to give her back the child.
'It is very well here,' I said, to try her.
'It will trouble you,' she muttered faintly.
'I will say when it does,' I answered.
She did not answer anything to that, but I heard her breathing hard, and knew that she was racking her brains for some excuse to get the child from me. For what if daylight came and I still rode with it, the necklace in full view? Or what if we stopped at some house and lights were brought? Or what, again, if I perceived the necklace and took possession of it!
This last idea so charmed me--I was in a grim humour--that my hand was on the necklace, and almost before I knew what I was doing, I was feeling for the clasp which fastened it. Some fiend brought the thing under my fingers in a twinkling. The necklace seemed to fall loose of its own accord. In a moment it was swinging and swaying in my hand. In another I had gathered it up and slid it into my pouch.
The trick was done so easily and so quickly that I think some devil must have helped me; the child neither moving nor crying out, though it was old enough to take notice, and could even speak, as children of that age can speak--intelligibly to those who know them, gibberish to strangers.
I need not say that I never meant to steal a link of the thing. The temptation which moved me was the temptation to tease the girl. I thought this a good way of punishing her. I thought, first to torment her by making her think the necklace gone; and then to shame her by producing it, and giving it back to her with a dry word that should show her I understood her deceit.
So, even when the thing was done, and the chain snug in my pocket, I did not for a while repent, but hugged myself on the jest and smiled under cover of the darkness. I carried the child a mile farther, and then handed it down to Marie, with an appearance of unconsciousness which it was not very hard to assume, since she could not see my face. But doubtless every yard of that mile had been a torture to her. I heard her sigh with relief as her arms closed round the boy. Then, the next moment I knew that she had discovered her loss. She uttered a sobbing cry, and I heard her passing her hands through the child's clothing, while her breath came and went in gasps.
She plucked at her bridle so suddenly that those who rode behind ran into us. I made way for them to pass.
'What is it?' I said roughly. 'What is the matter?'
She muttered under her breath, with her hands still searching the child, that she had lost something.
'If you have, it is gone,' I said bluntly. 'You would hardly find a hayrick to-night. You must have dropped it coming through the ford?'
She did not answer, but I heard her begin to sob, and then for the first time I felt uncomfortable. I repented of what I had done, and wished with all my heart that the chain was round the child's neck again. 'Come, come,' I said awkwardly, 'it was not of much value, I suppose. At any rate, it is no good crying over it.'
She did not answer; she was still searching. I could hear what she was doing, though I could not see; there were trees overhead, and it was as much as I could do to make out her figure. At last I grew angry, partly with myself, partly with her. 'Come,' I said roughly, 'we cannot stay here all night. We must be moving.'
She assented meekly, and we rode on. But still I heard her crying; and she seemed to be hugging the child to her, as if, now the necklace was gone, she had nothing but the boy left. I tried to see the humour in the joke as I had seen it a few minutes before, but the sparkle had gone out of it, I felt that I had been a brute. I began to reflect that this girl, a stranger and helpless, in a strange land, had nothing upon which she could depend but these few links of gold. What wonder, then, if she valued them; if, like all other women, she hid them away and fibbed about them; if she wept over them now they were gone?
Of course it was in my power in a moment to bring them back again; and nothing had seemed easier, a few minutes before, than to hand them back--with a little speech which should cover her with confusion and leave me unmoved. Now, though I wished them round her neck again with all the good-will in life, and though to effect my wish I had only to do what I had planned--only to stretch out my hand with that word or two--I sat in my saddle hot and tongue-tied, my fingers sticking to the chain.
Her grief had somehow put a new face on the matter. I could not bear to confess that I had caused it wantonly and for a jest. The right words would not come, while every moment which prolonged the silence between us made the attempt seem more hopeless, the task more difficult; till, like the short-sighted craven I was, I thrust back the chain into my pocket, and, determining to take some secret way of restoring it, put off the crisis.
In a degree I was hurried to this decision by our arrival at the place where we were to rest. This was an outlying farm belonging to Heritzburg and long used by the family, when journeying to Cassel. Alas! when we came to it, cold, shivering, and hungry, we found it ruined and tenantless, with war's grim brand so deeply stamped upon the face of everything that even the darkness of night failed to hide the scars. I had not expected this, and for a while I forgot the necklace in anxiety for my lady's comfort. I had to get lights and see fires kindled, to order the disposal of the horses, to unpack the food: for we found no scrap, even of fodder for the beasts, in the grimy, smoke-stained barn, which I had known so well stored. Nor was the house in better case. Bed and board were gone, and half the roof. The door lay shattered on the threshold, the window-frames, smashed in wanton fury, covered the floor. The wind moaned through the empty rooms; here and there water stood in puddles. Round the hearth lay broken flasks, and rottingdébris, and pewter plates bent double-- the relics of the ravager's debauch.
We walked about, with lights held above our heads, and looked at all this miserably enough. It was our first glimpse of war, and it silenced even the Waldgrave. As for my mistress, I well remember the look her face wore, when I left her standing with her women, who were already in tears, in the middle of the small chamber assigned to her. I had known her long enough to be able to read the look, and to be sure that she was wondering whether it would always be so now. Had she exchanged Heritzburg, its peace and comfort, for such nights as these, divided between secret flittings and lodgings fit only for the homeless and wretched?
But neither by word nor sign did she betray her fears; and in the morning she showed a face that vied with the Waldgrave's in cheerfulness. Our horses had had little exercise of late and were in poor condition for travelling. We gave them, therefore, until noon to rest, and a little after that hour got away; one and all, I think--with the exception perhaps of Marie Wort--in better spirits. The sun was high, the weather fine, the country on either side of us woodland, with fine wild prospects. Hence we saw few signs of the ravages which were sure to thrust themselves on the attention wherever man's hand appeared. We could forget for the moment war, and even our own troubles.
We proposed to reach the little village of Erbe by sunset, but darkness overtook us on the road. The track, overgrown and narrowed by spring shoots, was hard to follow in daylight; to attempt to pursue it after nightfall seemed hopeless. We had halted, therefore, and the Waldgrave and my lady were considering whether we should camp where we were, or pick our way to a more sheltered spot, when young Jacob, who was leading, cried out that he saw the glimmer of a camp-fire some way off among the trees. The news threw our party into the greatest doubt. My lady was for stopping where we were, the Waldgrave for going on. In the end the latter had his way, and it was agreed that we should join the company before us, or at any rate parley with them and learn their intentions. Accordingly we shook up our tired horses and moved cautiously forward.
The distant gleam which had first caught Jacob's eye soon widened into a warm and ruddy glow, in which the polished beech-trunks stood up like the pillars of some great building. Still drawing nearer, we saw that there were two fires built a score of paces apart, in a slight hollow. Round the one a number of men were moving, whose black figures sometimes intervened between us and the blaze. Two or three dogs sprang up and barked at us, and a horse neighed out of the darkness beyond. The other fire seemed at first sight to be deserted; but as the dogs ran towards us, still barking, first one man, then another, rose beside it, and stood looking at us. The arrival of a second party in such a spot was no doubt unexpected.
Judging that these two were the leaders of the party, I went forward to announce my lady's rank. One of the men, the shorter and younger, a man of middle height and middle age and dark, stern complexion, came a few paces to meet me.
'Who are you?' he said bluntly, looking beyond me at those who followed.
'The Countess Rotha of Heritzburg, travelling this way to Cassel,' I answered; 'and with her, her excellency's kinsman, the noble Rupert, Waldgrave of Weimar.'
The stranger's face lightened strangely, and he laughed. 'Take me to her,' he said.
Properly I should have first asked him his name and condition; but he had the air, beyond all things, of a man not to be trifled with, and I turned with him.
My lady had halted with her company a score of paces from the fire. I led him to her bridle.
'This,' I said, wondering much who he was, 'is her excellency the Countess of Heritzburg.'
My lady looked at him. He had uncovered and stood before her, a smile that was almost a laugh in his eyes. 'And I,' he said, 'have the honour to be her excellency's humble and distant cousin, General John Tzerclas, sometimes called, of Tilly.'
As the stranger made his announcement, I chanced to turn my eyes on the Waldgrave's face; and if there was one thing more noteworthy at the moment than the speaker's air of perfect and assured composure, it was my lord's look of chagrin. I could imagine that this sudden and unexpected discovery of a kinsman was little to his mind; while the stranger's manner was as little calculated to reconcile him to it. But there was something more than this. I fancy that from the moment he heard Tzerclas' name he scented a rival.
My lady, on the other hand, did not disguise her satisfaction. 'I am pleased to make your acquaintance,' she exclaimed, looking at the stranger with frank surprise. 'Your name, General Tzerclas, has long been known to me. But I was under the impression that you were at present in command of a body of Saxon troops in Bohemia.'
'My troops, such as they are, lie a little nearer,' he answered, smiling; 'so near that they and their leader are equally at your service, Countess.'
'For the present I shall be content to claim your hospitality only,' my lady answered lightly. 'This is my cousin, the Waldgrave Rupert.'
'Of Weimar?' the general said, bowing.
'Of Weimar, sir,' the young lord answered.
The stranger said no more, but saluting him with a kind of careless punctilio, took hold of my lady's rein and led her horse forward into the firelight.
While he assisted her to dismount I had time to glance round; and the cheerful glow of the fire, which disclosed arms and accoutrements and camp equipments flung here and there in splendid profusion, did not blind me to other appearances less pleasant. Indeed, that very profusion did something to open my eyes to those appearances, and thereby to the nature of the men amongst whom we had come. The glittering hilts and battered plate, the gaudy cloaks and velvet housings which I saw lying about the roots of the trees, seemed to smack less of a travellers' camp than a robbers' bivouac; while the fierce, swarthy faces which clustered round the farther fire, reminded me of nothing so much as of the swash-buckling escort which had more than once accompanied Count Tilly to Heritzburg. Then, indeed, under the old tiger's paw Tilly's riders had been as lambs. But we were not now at Heritzburg, nor was Count Tilly here. And whether these knaves would be as amenable in the greenwood, whether the Waldgrave had not done us all an ill service when he voted for moving on, were questions I had a difficulty in answering to my satisfaction; the more as, even before we were off our horses, the rude stare the men fixed on my lady raised my choler.
On the other hand their leader's bearing left nothing to be desired. He welcomed my mistress to the camp with perfect good breeding, the Waldgrave with civility. He hastened the preparation of supper, and in every way seemed bent on making us comfortable; sending his knaves to and fro with a hearty good-will, which showed that whoever stood in awe of them, he did not.
Meanwhile, I had a third fire kindled a score of paces away, where a small thicket held out the hope of privacy, and here I placed our women, bidding three or four of the steadier men remain with them. The injunction was scarcely needed however. Our servants were simple fellows born in Heritzburg. They eyed with shyness and awe the swaggering airs and warlike demeanour of Tzerclas' followers, and would not for a year's wages have intruded on their circle without invitation.
The moment I had seen to this I returned to my lady, and then for the first time I had an opportunity of examining our host. A man of middle height, sinewy and well-formed, with an upright carriage, he looked from head to foot the model of a soldier of fortune, and moved with a careless grace, which spoke of years of manly exercise. His face was handsome, cold, dark, stern; the nose prominent, the forehead high and narrow. Trimly pointed moustachios and a small pointed beard, both perfectly black, gave him a peculiar and somewhat cynical aspect; and nothing I ever witnessed of his dealings with his troops led me to suppose that this belied the man. He could be, as he was now, courteous, polished, almost genial. I judged that he could be also the reverse. He was richly, even splendidly, dressed, and seemed to be about forty years of age.
My lady sent me for Fraulein Max, who had been overlooked, and was found cowering beside the newly kindled fire in company with Marie Wort and the women. Though I think she had only herself to thank for her effacement, she was inclined to be offended. But I had no time to waste on words, and disregarding her ill temper I brought her, feebly sniffing, to my lady, who introduced her to her new-found kinsman.
'Pardon me,' he said, looking negligently round him. 'That reminds me. I, too, have a presentation to make. Where is--oh yes, here is friend Von Werder. I thought, my friend,' he continued, addressing the other and older man whom we had seen by his fire, 'that you had disappeared as mysteriously as you came. Herr von Werder, Countess, was my first chance guest to-night. You are the second.'
He spoke in a tone of easy patronage, with his back half turned to the person he mentioned. I looked at the man. He seemed to be over fifty years old, tall, strong, and grey-moustachioed. And that was almost all I could see, for, as if acknowledging an inferiority, and admitting that the terms on which he had been with his host were now altered, he had withdrawn himself a pace from the fire. Sitting on the opposite side of it near the outer edge of light and wearing a heavy cloak, he disclosed little of his appearance, even when he rose in acknowledgment of my lady's salute.
'Herr von Werder is not travelling with you, then?' my lady said; chiefly, I think, for the sake of saying something that should include the man.
'No, he is not of my persuasion,' the general answered in the same tone of good-natured contempt. 'Whither are you bound, my friend?' he continued, glancing over his shoulder and throwing a note of command into his voice. 'I did not ask you, and you did not tell me.'
'I am going north,' the stranger answered in a husky tone. 'It may be as far as Magdeburg, general.'
'And you come from?'
'Last, sir? Frankfort.'
'Well, as you say last, whence before that?'
'The Rhine Bishoprics.'
'Ah! Then you have seen something of the war? If you were there before it swept into Bavaria, that is. But a truce to this,' he continued. 'Here is supper. I beg you not to judge of my hospitality by this night's performance, Countess. I hope to entertain you more fittingly before we part.'
Though he made this apology, the supper needed none. Indeed, it was such as made me stare--there in the forest--and was served in a style and with accompaniments I little expected to find in a soldiers' camp. Silver dishes and chased and curious flagons, flasks of old Rhenish and Burgundy, glass from Nuremberg, a dozen things which made my lady's road equipage seem poor and trifling, appeared on the board. And the cooking was equal to the serving. The wine had not gone round many times before the Waldgrave lost his air of reserve. He complimented our host, expressed his surprise at the excellence of the entertainment, asked with a laugh how it was done, and completely resumed his usual manner. Perhaps he talked a little too freely, a little too fast, and viewed by the other's side, he grew younger.
What my lady saw or thought as she sat between the two men it was impossible to say, but she seemed in high spirits. She too talked gaily and laughed often; and doubtless the novelty of the scene, the great fires, the dark background, the burnished trunks of the beeches, the bizarre splendour of the feast, the laughter and snatches of song which came from the other fire, were well calculated to excite and amuse her.
'These are not all your troops?' I heard her ask.
'Not quite,' the general answered drily. 'My men lie six hours south of us. I hope that you will do me the honour of reviewing them to-morrow.'
'You are marching south, then?'
'Yes. Everything and every one goes south this year.'
'To join the King of Sweden?'
'Yes,' the general answered, holding out his silver cup to be filled, and for that reason perhaps speaking very deliberately, 'to join the King of Sweden--at Nuremberg. But you have not yet told me, countess,' he continued, 'why you are afield. This part is not in a very settled state, and I should have thought that the present time was----'
'A bad one for travelling?' my lady answered. 'Yes. But, I regret to say, Heritzburg is not in a very settled state either.' And thereon, without dwelling much on the cause of her troubles, she told him the main facts which had led to her departure.
I saw his lip curl and his eyes flicker with scorn. 'But had you no gunpowder?' he said, turning to the Waldgrave.
'We had, but no cannon,' he answered confidently.
'What of that?' the general retorted icily. 'I would have made a bomb, no matter of what, and fired it out of a leather boot hooped with cask-irons! I would have had half a dozen of their houses burning about their ears before they knew where they were, the insolents!'
The Waldgrave looked ashamed of himself. 'I did not think of that,' he said; and he hastened to hide his confusion in his glass.
'Well, it is not too late,' General Tzerclas rejoined, showing his teeth in a smile. 'If the Countess pleases, we will soon teach her subjects a lesson. I am not pushed for time. I will detach four troops of horse and return with you to-morrow, and settle the matter in a trice.'
But my lady said that she would not have that, and persisted so firmly in her refusal that though he pressed the offer upon her, and I could see was keenly interested in its acceptance, he had to give way. The reasons she put forward were the loss of his time and the injury to his cause; the real one consisted, I knew, in her merciful reluctance to give over the town to his troops, a reluctance for which I honoured her. To appease him, however, for he seemed inclined to take her refusal in bad part, she consented to go out of her way to visit his camp.
At this point my lady sent me on an errand to her women, which caused me to be away some minutes. When I came back I found that a change had taken place. The Waldgrave was speaking, and, from his heated face and the tone of his voice, it was evident that the old wine which had begun by opening his heart had ended by rousing his pugnacity.
'Pooh! I protestin toto!' he said as I came up. 'I deny it altogether. You will tell me next that the Germans are worse soldiers than the Swedes!'
'Pardon me, I did not say so,' General Tzerclas answered. The wine had taken no effect on him, or perhaps he had drunk less. He was as suave and cold as ever.
'But you meant it!' the younger man retorted.
'No, I did not mean it,' the general answered, still unmoved. 'What I said was that Germany had produced no great commander in this war, which has now lasted thirteen years.'
'Prince Bernard of Weimar, my kinsman!' the Waldgrave cried.
'Pardon me,' Tzerclas replied politely. 'Pardon me again if I say that I do not think he has earned that title. He is a soldier of merit. No more.'
'Wallenstein, then?'
'You forget. He is a Bohemian.'
'Count Tilly, then?'
'A Walloon,' the general answered with a shrug. 'The King of Sweden? A Swede, of course.'
'A German by the mother's side,' my lady said with a smile.
'As you, Countess, are a Walloon,' Tzerclas answered with a low bow. 'Yet doubtless you count yourself a German?'
'Yes,' she said, blushing. 'I am proud to do so.'
What courteous answer he would have made to this I do not know. She had scarcely spoken before a deep voice on the farther side of the fire was heard to ask 'What of Count Pappenheim?'
The speaker was Von Werder, who had long sat so modestly silent that I had forgotten his presence. He seemed scarcely to belong to the party; though Fraulein Max, who sat on the Waldgrave's left hand, formed a sort of link stretched out towards him. Tzerclas had forgotten him too, I think, for he started at the sound of his voice and gave him but a curt answer.
'He is no general,' he said sharply. 'A great leader of horse he is; great at fighting, great at burning, greatest at plundering. No more.'
'It seems that you allow no merit in a German!' the Waldgrave cried with a sneer. He had drunk too much.
But Tzerclas was not to be moved. There was something fine in the toleration he extended to the younger man. 'Not at all,' he said quietly. 'Yet I am of opinion that, even apart from arms, Germany has shown since the beginning of this war few men of merit.'
'The Duke of Bavaria,' the same deep voice beyond the fire suggested.
'Maximilian?' Tzerclas answered. This time he did not seem to resent the stranger's interference. 'Yes, he is something of a statesman. You are right, my friend. He and Leuchtenstein, the Landgrave's minister--he too is a man. I will give you those two. But even they play second parts. The fate of Germany lies in no German hands. It lies in the hands of Gustavus Adolphus and Oxenstierna, Swedes; of Wallenstein, a Bohemian; of--I know not who will be the next foreigner.'
'That is all very well; but you are a foreigner yourself,' the Waldgrave cried.
'Yes, I am a Walloon,' Tzerclas said, still quietly, though this time I saw his eyes flicker. 'It is true; why should I deny it? You represent the native, and I the foreign element. The Countess stands between us, representing both.'
The Waldgrave rose with an oath and a flushed face, and for a moment I thought that we were going to have trouble. But he remembered himself in time, and sitting down again in silence, gazed sulkily at the fire.
The movement, however, was enough for my lady. She rose to her feet to break up the party; and turning her shoulder to the offender, began to thank General Tzerclas for his entertainment. This made the Waldgrave, who was compelled to stand by and listen, look more sulky than ever; but she continued to take no notice of him, and though he remained awkwardly regarding her and waiting for a word, as long as she stood, she went away without once turning her eyes on him. The general snatched a torch from me and lighted her with his own hand to our part of the camp, where he took a respectful leave of her; adding, as he withdrew, that he would march at any hour in the morning that might suit her, and that in all things she might command his servants and himself.
He had sent over for her use a small tent, provided originally, no doubt, for his own sleeping quarters; and we found that in a hundred other ways he had shown himself thoughtful for her comfort. She stood a moment looking about her with satisfaction; and when she turned to dismiss me, there was, or I was mistaken, a gleam of amusement in her eye. After all, she was a woman.