But harmless and decorous as all this was, it may be that the citizens of other towns where merriment was not the natural birthright, as in the case of the Seldwylians, would have deemed it a trifle beyond the proper limits. The spiced May wine which was served the guests had been mingled in its elements according to ancient usage, but just as in their joy itself there was a bit too much license, so also there was a trifle too much honey in the drink. The hands of the young girls lay perhaps somewhat too frequently upon the shoulders of the youths, and now and then, without meaning any harm, a couple would quickly kiss and part, and this without playing at blind man's buff, as do the philistines of our days under similar conditions. In short, what these young people of Seldwyla lacked in their diversion was the gift of attracting without seeming to; but with this gift, on the other hand, Dietegen, as a regulation Ruechensteiner, was plentifully endowed. For although he was already in love, he fled like fire from the fondling and caressing which with these Seldwyla couples was by now rather freely indulged in, and preferred to keep himself out of the danger line. All the bolder and provoking was Kuengolt who, in her childish ignorance and after the manner of half-grown girls, did not know how to control her affections, and who went to look up the frigid youth. She discovered him seated in the shadow of a group of darksome trees, and sat down beside him, seizing his hand and playfully twining his fingers. When he submitted to that and even, gently and almost in a fatherly way, spun her ringlets in his palm, the girl at once put her arms around his neck and caressed him with the innocence but also with the abandon of a child, whereas in truth it was already the maiden that spoke out of her. Dietegen, however, no longer a child, essayed to use his maturer judgment for both of them, and thus was strenuously trying to loosen her hold on him, when his fostermother, the chief forester's wife, came joyously running up to the bench, and noticed with particular pleasure how matters stood apparently.
"That is right," she cried, "that you, too, are of accord," and she embraced them both tightly. "I hope and trust, my dearest daughter, that you will love and cherish Dietegen with all your might. He is deserving indeed, my child, that he not only has found a new home in our house, but that you, too, will give him a home in your little heart. And you, dear Dietegen, will, I know, at all times be a true and faithful protector and guardian to my little Kuengolt. Never leave her out of your sight, for your eyes are keen and observant."
"He is nobody's but mine, and has been for long," said Kuengolt to this, and she kissed him boldly and lightly upon the cheek, half like a bride and half as a child caresses a kitten which belongs to it. But now the situation for the poor bashful youth, thus hemmed in between mother and daughter, became unbearable, and he flushed and awkwardly loosened their combined hold of him, stepping back a few paces to escape their blandishments. But Kuengolt, in her wilful mood, pursued him laughing, and when in his retreat from her he came into close proximity to the pretty mother, the latter jestingly caught him by the arm, saying: "Here he is, my little daughter, now come and hold him fast."
When thus entrapped anew by them, his heart beat excitedly, and while finding himself thus wooed, so to speak, by both feminine tempters, he at the same time felt intensely his lonesome condition in the world. The odd conceit overcame him that he was a lost soul shaken from the tree of life, which while cherished by soft hands, was nevertheless to be forever deprived of its own existence and individuality, a state of mind which with callow youths thus beset may be more frequent than commonly supposed. Therefore, a prey to two conflicting emotions equally powerful, of which one necessarily excluded the other, his strong sense of personal freedom struggling within his breast with the new-born sentiment of tender regard, he stood mute and trembling, half in rebellion against the sudden intimate aggression of the two women, and half strongly inclined to draw the young girl into his arms and to overwhelm her with caresses. His Ruechenstein blood was against him. While he loved the mother with a wholesouled and most grateful devotion, her thoughtless encouragement of him to play a lover's part towards her daughter seemed to him strange and unbecoming. He looked upon himself as really Kuengolt's property, as truly belonging to her by reason of her having saved his forfeited life. But at the same time he felt himself seriously responsible for her moral conduct, for her maiden chastity and her correct manners, and when now Kuengolt strove to kiss him on the mouth, he said to her, in perfect good humor but withal in the tone of a crabbed schoolmaster: "You are really still too young for things of that kind. This is not suitable for your age."
At these words the girl paled with shame and annoyance. Without another syllable she turned away and joined once more the throng of merrymakers, where she danced and sprang about recklessly a few times, and then sat down a little distance away by herself, with a face that betrayed clearly how hurt she was at the rebuff.
The chief forester's wife smilingly stroked the strict young moralist's cheek, saying: "Well, well, you are certainly very strict. But the more faithfully you will one day take care of my child. Give me your promise never to desert her! Only don't forget, we Seldwyla folk are all of us rather gay and debonair, and it is possible that in being so we sometimes do not think enough of the future."
Dietegen's eyes grew wet, and he gave her his hand in solemn vow. Then she conducted him back to the others. But Kuengolt turned her back on him, and instead in real grief gazed into the mild May night.
He on his part now marveled at himself. Strange, now of a sudden this girl whom but a minute before he had misnomed a mere child, was old and grown-up enough to cause him, the moralizing youth, love pangs. For sad and confused he too stood now aside and felt still more ashamed than the girl herself.
"What ails you? Why do you look so sorrowful?" asked the forester, when he in the best humor in the world now approached the group. But Kuengolt at the question broke into passionate tears, and exclaimed before everybody: "He was a gift to me by the judges when he was really nothing but a poor lifeless corpse, and I have reawakened him to life. And therefore he has no right to sit in judgment on me, but rather I alone am his judge. And he must do everything I want, and when I love to kiss him it is his business to simply keep still and let me do it."
They all laughed at this odd statement, but the mother took Dietegen's hand and led him to the child, saying: "Come, make up with her and let her kiss you once more. Later on you, also, shall be her master, and shall do as you see fit in such matters."
Blushing deeply because of the many onlookers, Dietegen offered his mouth to the girl, and she seized him by his curls, quite in a frenzy, and kissed him hard, more in wrath than in love, and then, having once more thrown him a look that betrayed anger, she quickly turned on her heels and dashed away in such haste that her golden ringlets fluttered in the night air and in passing brushed his face.
But now the reluctant fire of love had also been kindled in his own young soul, and soon after he left the throng and went in search of rash Kuengolt, striding rapidly and gazing all about for her. At last he discovered her on the other side of the house where she sat dreamily at the well, and was playing with the amber beads of her necklace. Advancing quickly he seized both her hands, compressed them in his vigorous right, and then laid his left on her shoulder so that she shuddered, and said: "Listen, child, I shall not permit you to trifle with me. From to-day on you are just as much my own property as I am yours, and no other man shall have you living. Keep that in mind when some day you will be grown up."
"Oh, you big old man," she murmured slowly and smiled at him, but pallor had overspread her features. "You indeed are mine, but not I yours. However, you need not mind that, because I don't think I'll ever let you go!"
So saying she rose and went, without first looking at her old playfellow once more, over to the other side of the house.
But this was not all. The forester's wife caught a cold in the suddenly chilled air of this very May night, and an insidious disease grew out of it which carried her off within a few months. On her deathbed she grieved much about her husband and her child, and expressed great anxiety on their behalf. She also denied till her last breath the real cause of her illness and death, deeming it scarcely a fit thing for a housewife and a mother to thus go out of life merely because of a surfeit of riotous pleasure.
But while she thus lay lifeless in the house, all that had loved her mourned for her; indeed the whole town did so, for she had not had a single enemy in the world. Her widowed husband wept at night in his bed, and at daytime he spoke never a word, but only from time to time stepped up to the coffin in which she lay so still and peaceful, looking and looking at his sweet partner, and then, shaking his head, slowly walking off again.
He had a heavy wreath of young pine twigs fashioned for her and placed it on the bier. Kuengolt heaped a perfect mountain of wildflowers on top of that, and thus the graceful form of the dead was borne down from the hillside to the church below, followed by the bereaved family and a crowd of relatives, friends and members of the household.
After the burial the chief forester took all the mourners to the tavern, where he had caused a bounteous meal in honor of the dead to be prepared, according to ancient custom. The roast venison for it, a capital roebuck, and two fine grouse, he had shot himself, grieving all the while at the loss he had sustained. And when the gorgeously feathered birds now appeared on the long board he minded him again of the dense grove of mighty oak and maple, high up on the mountain side, in which she had sat awaiting his return from the chase, and in which he, his heart full of love of her who now rested in the cool ground, had many a time been stalking the deer. The image of her stood before his thoughts like life itself. But yet he was not to be left long to brooding, for strict laws of custom called for his active services as host on this occasion. When the claret from France and the golden malmsey had been uncorked and poured into capacious goblets, and the heavy table been loaded with sweets and cakes that scented the precious spices from the Indies, the guests grew lively and clamorous, and he had to propose and answer many a toast, despite his sincere mourning, and the noise soon drowned the still voice within him. Life and death were twin brothers in those days of our forbears.
The forester was seated at table between Kuengolt and Dietegen, and these two because of his tall and broad-backed person were unable to catch a look of one another save by bending over or behind him, and this neither of them wished to do for decency's sake, for they were the only ones who among this crowd of buzzing guests remained sad and serious. Across the board from him sat a cousin, a lady of about thirty named Violande.
This lady indeed could not well be overlooked, for she wore a singular costume, one which did not seem fit for a person satisfied with her lot, a person living in happy circumstances, but rather one who is restless and hollow of heart. Yet she was handsome, and knew well how to impress people with her charms, but ever and anon something selfish and mendacious would flash out of her handsome eyes that destroyed all these efforts at enforced amiability.
When but fourteen she had already been in love with the forester, her cousin, merely because amongst those young men that came before her vision he was the best-looking and the tallest and strongest. He, however, had never noticed the preference shown for him. Indeed he had not given a thought to this overyoung cousin of his, since his serious choice lay altogether among the more adult persons of the other sex, and wavered among several of these. Full of envy and jealousy, this unmature cousin, though, was already so skilled in feminine intrigue as to be able to destroy the chances of two or three young women that the forester had looked upon with favor, using for that purpose that poisonous weapon, gossip and backbiting. Always when he was on the point of proposing to a beauty that had won his regard, this sly half-woman skillfully understood how to spread rumors calculated to entangle the two, fictitious words uttered by one or the other seeming to show mutual dislike, or something equally efficacious in bringing about a rupture. If her designs miscarried with him, why then she spun her threads so as to make the other believe that the swain was false or fickle, full of guile or not dependable. Thus it came to pass repeatedly that without his ever discovering the author the lady of his suit would suddenly swerve and leave him out in the cold, while another, of whom he had never thought in that connection, would as quickly show him her favor--all owing to the arts of this Macchiavell in petticoats. And then impatiently and disgustedly he would turn his back on both the willing and the unwilling and plunge once more for a spell into his easy bachelordom. In this way it was that, one after the other, all his wooings came to nought, until he at last happened to meet the mild and amiable lady that subsequently became his spouse. This one, though, kept hold of him, since she was just as guileless as he himself, and all the artifices and stratagems of the little witch were in vain. Yea, she never even noticed the other's cleverest schemes, simply because she kept her eyes all the time fixed upon him she loved. And indeed he too had been grateful to her for her singlemindedness, and held her all the years of their happy union as a jewel of rare price.
Violande, however, when she saw the man whose love she had aspired to married, after all, to another had not given up the frequent use of her talent for mischiefmaking, for fear she might get out of practice. The older she grew the more artistic became her endeavors in that line, but without success for herself, since she remained a spinster, and since even the men themselves whom by her wiles she had alienated from other women turned away from her as from a dangerous person, feeling in their hearts only contempt and hatred for her. Then it was she turned her face heavenwards, giving it out that she was on the point of entering a convent and becoming a nun. But she changed her mind in the last hour, and instead of a convent entered a house devoted to some holy order, but such a one as would permit her, in case the chance of becoming a wife should unexpectedly present itself to her, to leave it. Thus she disappeared for years from view, since she was in the habit of going from one town to another at short intervals, and nowhere feeling rested or contented. Suddenly, when the forester's wife was lying sick to death, she reappeared again, in Seldwyla, and in worldly dress, and so it had come about that here she was as one of the guests at this funeral celebration, seated opposite the widower.
She put restraint on her restlessness, and now and then looked modest and almost childlike, and when the women rose and walked about in couples, the while the men remained seated at table drinking and talking, she went up to Kuengolt, kissed her on both cheeks, and made friends with her. The half-grown girl felt honored by these advances of a semi-clerical woman, one who had apparently great knowledge of the world and had been about a good deal, and so these two were at once involved in a long and intimate conversation, as though they had known each other all their lives. When the company broke up Kuengolt asked her father to invite Violande to his house, in order to manage the big household, a task for which she herself felt not equal and entirely too young and inexperienced. The forester whose mood at that moment was a curious compound of mourning and vinous elation, and whose thoughts still belonged altogether to his departed wife, raised no objection to this request, although he did not care much for his cousin and thought her a queer sort of person.
Thus in a day or two Violande made her formal entrance into the widower's house, and had sense enough to take the place of the dead wife at the hearth with judicious modesty and not without a spice of sentimentality, the reflection no doubt occurring to her that here she was at last, after long wanderings, where the desires of her first youth seemed at last on the point of being realized. Without undue elation she opened the closets and presses of her predecessor, examining in detail their contents: linen and homespun cloth piled up in orderly rows, and provisions of every kind arranged for instant or occasional use, such as preserved fruit, vegetables, mushrooms, stored away in carefully tied-up pots; many flitches of bacon and salted beef and pork, smoked hams and potted venison, and hundreds of bunches of flax hung up to dry under the ceilings of the roof. Her heart beat at a more lively gait when inspecting all these domestic riches speaking so eloquently of the forester's easy circumstances, and almost tenderly she handled these hundreds of vessels and receptacles, dreaming of a near housewifely future. And in this peaceable frame of mind she remained for a number of weeks. But then her old restlessness seized her again. It had to find a vent. And so she began to turn everything topsy-turvy, starting with the pots and kettles, each of which she assigned to a new place, mingling the big and little, shoving about the bolts of linen and cloth, entangling the flax carded and uncarded, and when she finally had done all this she had also managed to seriously interfere with human affairs in the house, upsetting them as much as she dared.
Since it was her design to become, after all, the forester's wife, so as to acquire a more dignified and assured position in life, it became clear to her that what above all would be necessary was to part permanently Kuengolt and Dietegen, as to whose inclination for each other she had soon satisfied herself. For she argued quite correctly that Dietegen, once he married Kuengolt, would doubtless become the forester's successor, and thus not only remain permanently in the house, but that in that case the forester himself, in view of his strong affection for the memory of his departed wife, would never wed again. But, she reasoned, if both the children in some way could be made to shun the house, it would be much more likely that the forester would marry again, feeling lonesome all by himself.
And as now, as she discovered, Kuengolt every day grew handsomer and more womanly, she took care to make the girl constantly conscious both of her own beauty and of the gifts of her mind, as well as to further develop in her an inborn leaning towards coquetry. To do the latter she skillfully manipulated Kuengolt's natural vanity, insinuating to her that every young man with whom she came in contact was smitten with her charms and a ready suitor for her hand and love, and this with such success that Kuengolt actually learned to look upon all the youths of her acquaintance solely from the point of view whether they readily acknowledged her preëminence in beauty and intellectual gifts or not, while by her shrewd maneuvers Violande on the other hand made every one of all these young men think that the girl's affections were centered wholly upon himself.
Another trick used by Violande with the same end in view was to cultivate social intercourse with a number of other young girls of marriageable age, who were frequently invited to the house for parties to which young men were encouraged to come, and under her guidance and leadership there was much courting and gallivanting going on at these meetings. Thus it came about that Kuengolt, when less than sixteen, had already assembled around her a circle of unquiet young people, each more or less an expert in playing the love game as a species of delightful sport.
In the pursuance of her one aim Violande, too, arranged all sorts of festivities, great and small, at the house, and there was mongering in scandal, stories more or less compromising this or that couple or individual, many quarrels and much noise and singing and music or dancing, and it was usually the most objectionable of the customary guests on these occasions that were also the boldest and most foolish, and at the same time the most difficult to get rid of.
All these things were not to Dietegen's taste. At first he was a mere onlooker, indifferent and still in the grasp of his sincere and deep mourning for the death of his fostermother, making a melancholy face which to a growing youth is not the most becoming. But when all these pleasure-mad young people were rather amused by a seriousness which seemed unsuitable to his age, and as Kuengolt herself took the same attitude towards him, the youth tried to revenge himself by awkward attempts at dignified silence. But these tactics were even less successful, and ended one day with Dietegen's clearly perceiving that he among them all was out of tune. In fact, on one occasion he observed Kuengolt seated in the midst of a group of scornful youths all of whom were deriding him and she, instead of disapproving, evidently siding with them against him.
When Dietegen had experienced this, he turned silently away, and from that day on avoided the whole company. Anyway, he had now attained the age when vigorous youths begin to think of making strong men of themselves. Upon the holding upon which stood the forester's house there was, from time immemorial laid the duty of maintaining three or four fully equipped fighting men, and this obligation the forester himself had always carried out most scrupulously. With great pleasure he found that Dietegen, shot up straight and nimble, would soon fill the same fine armor in which he had once hoped to see his own son.
Thus Dietegen with other young gamekeepers and helpers on lengthy winter evenings went to fencing school, where he learned to make proper use of the shorter weapons, according to the methods of his home, and during the spring and summer seasons he spent many a Sunday or holiday upon spacious fields or forest clearings where the youths of the district learned to march in closed formations for hours at a stretch, and to attack, leaping broad trenches by the aid of their long spears, and in every other way to render their bodies supple, active and strong, or else, perhaps, to practice the new art of the musketeer whose weapon is loaded with powder and shot.
Since by all these changes mentioned above life in the forester's house altered greatly, and since particularly the feminine doings there disturbed him sadly, although he paid scant attention to the latter, it happened that he little by little acquired the habit of frequenting the taverns where his townsfellows met much oftener than had been the case during his married life. And while absenting himself from the childish folly practiced at his own house, he succumbed to the maturer folly of men, and it would happen now and then that he would carry his head like a heavy burden, but always upright, to his forest home as late as midnight or more.
Things went on in this way until, on a sunny St. John's Day, a network of events began to close in.
The forester himself went to town to the headquarters of his guild, where on that festive day all were summoned to attend the settlement of important affairs concerning the craft, to conclude with a great annual feast, and he intended to remain and join there in the carousal until the advance of night.
Dietegen on his part went to the sharpshooter's meeting place, intending to spend the whole long midsummer's day in perfecting himself as a marksman. The other assistants of the forester and his servants of the household also went their own way, the one to visit his relatives some distance across the country, another to the dance with his sweetheart, and the third to the holiday fair to buy himself cloth for a new coat and a pair of shoes.
So the women were sitting all by themselves in the house, not at all delighted with the rude manner in which the men had left them to their own devices, but yet eyeing every passer-by and peering out at the sunny landscape in the hope that some guests would show up and with their help a festivity of their own might be arranged.
As a suitable preparation for that or any contingency they began to bake spice cakes and prepare all sorts of sweets, and they brewed a huge bowlful of heady May wine flavored with honey and herbs, so as to be ready for either chance comers or to offer a night cup to the men returning home. Next they decked themselves in holiday finery, and ornamented head and bosom with flowers, while other young maidens, bidden to join them in a feminine festival time, one after the other also came from town, and even the very last and least of the serving maids belonging to the household was freshly attired to look her best.
Under broadspreading linden trees, right in front of the house, the table was set for a dainty meal, the westering sun sending his last golden rays like a benediction abroad over town and valley.
There the women now were seated about the table, relishing all the good things prepared for them, and soon the chorus of them were intoning folk-songs with melodious voices, songs telling in many stanzas of the delights and despair of love, songs like that of the two royal children, or "There dallied a knight with his maiden dear," and similar ones. All the tunes sounded the longing of love-lorn hearts, the faith kept or broken, the eternal drama of passion. Far out into the evening the sweet voices were carrying, alluring, inviting. The birds nesting up in the dense foliage of the linden trees, after being silenced for a spell, now joined in, rivaling their human competitors, and from over in the forest other feathered songsters assisted. But suddenly another band of choristers could be heard above the din. That new volume of sound came floating down the mountain side, a mingling of male voices with the more strident notes of fiddle and tabor pipes. A troop of youths had come from Ruechenstein, and this instant issued from the edge of the woods. Thus they came, striding along the path that led past the forester's home down to the valley, a number of musicians at their head. There was the son of the burgomaster of Ruechenstein, rather a madcap and therefore a great exception to the overwhelming majority of his townsfolk, who clearly dominated the noisy throng. Having left the university abroad, he had brought with him a few fellow-students after his own heart, among them being a couple of divinity students and a young and jolly monk, as well as Hans Schafuerli, the council scribe, or secretary, of Ruechenstein, who was a scrawny, bent figure of a man, with a mighty hunchback and a long rapier. He was the last of the train, all walking singly because of the narrow path.
But when they set eyes on the row of singing ladies, their own music ceased, and they stood all there, listening attentively to the charming tune. However, the ladies likewise became mute, being surprised and wishful to see what now was going to happen. Violande alone retained her presence of mind, and stepped to the burgomaster's son, who in turn saluted her with elaborate courtesy, and telling her that he with his friends purposed to pay a flying and amusing visit to the merry neighboring town, in order to spend St. John's Day in a manner agreeable to them all. But, he continued, having had the good fortune to meet with these ladies in this unhoped-for way, they counted on the pleasure of a dance with them, if they might make so bold as to offer themselves as partners, in all honor and decency.
Within the space of a few minutes these formalities had been complied with, and the dance was in full swing on the floor of the big banqueting hall of the forester's house. Kuengolt led with the burgomaster's son, Violande with the jolly monk, and the other ladies with the young scholars. But the most expert and ardent dancer proved to be the hunchback scribe. And despite his crooked back this valiant devotee of the terpsichorean art understood marvelously well how to advance and retreat with his long shanks in the maze, these legs of his seeming to begin right below his chin.
But Kuengolt's humor was no joyous one, and when Violande whispered to her to aim at the conquest of the burgomaster's son, in order to become herself one day the mistress of Ruechenstein, she remained frigid and indifferent. But suddenly she perceived the herculean efforts of the artful hunchback, and this extraordinary sight restored her spirits, so that she laughed with all her heart. And she instantly demanded to dance with the crooked monster. Indeed it looked like a scene in a curious fairy tale, to see her graceful figure, clad in green and the head set off by a wreath of ruby roses, flitting to and fro in the arms of the ghastly scribe, his hump covered with vivid scarlet.
But swiftly her mind altered. From the scribe she flew into the arms of the monk, and from those into the keeping of the young students, so that within less than half an hour she had taken a turn or two with each one of the young strangers. All of these now centered their gaze upon the beautiful damsel, while the other young women present attempted in vain to recapture their partners.
Violande seeing the state of the case, quickly summoned all the couples to the table beneath the lindens, to rest there for a while and to be hospitably entertained. She placed the whole company most judiciously, each young man next a damsel, and Kuengolt beside the burgomaster's son.
But Kuengolt was tormented by a craving to see all these young men subject to her will and under the complete influence of her charms. She exclaimed that she herself wished to wait upon her guests, and hastened into the house to get more wine. There she quickly and surreptitiously found her way into Violande's chamber, where she rummaged in her clothes press. In an hour of mutual confidences Violande had shown her a small phial and told her that this contained a philtre, or love potion, called "Follow Me." Whoever should drink its contents when served by the hand of a woman, would inevitably become her slave and victim, being bound to follow her even to death's door. True, Violande had added, there was not contained in that potion any of the strong and dangerous poison denominated Hippomanes, brewed from the liquor obtained from the frontal excrescence of a first-born foal, but rather it came from the small bones of a green frog that had been placed upon an ants' nest and cleanly scraped and gnawed off by these insects, until ready for occult use. But all the same, Violande had stated, this preparation was potent enough to turn the heads of a half dozen of obstreperous men. She herself, Violande said, had obtained the philtre from a nun whose whilom lover had succumbed to the pest before the philtre had had time to work, so that she, the nun, had resigned herself to a convent life, and now Violande had possession of this sovereign remedy without knowing exactly what to do with it. For she did not dare to throw it away for fear of the unknown consequences.
This phial Kuengolt now found after some search, and poured its contents into the jug of wine she carried, and with a beating heart she hastened outside to her guests. She bade the youths all quaff their drink inasmuch as she would offer to them a new and sweet spice wine, and when serving out the contents of the jug she knew how to contrive matters in such wise that not a drop of the fluid remained. To accomplish this she had first evenly distributed wine into all the goblets, and afterwards poured something more into each man's, in every instance sending an alluring glance into the soul of every swain, so that the sorcery should have its full effect, as she thought.
But indeed the magical workings of the philtre really consisted in these impartially and enticingly subdivided glances of her roguish eye, so that the youths all vied, blind and selfish with passion, to gain her sole favor, as will always happen when a goal striven for by all in common lies temptingly there for the boldest and luckiest to achieve.
All the young men without exception participated in this love game, leaving their partners rudely to themselves, and the latter, feeling deeply the disgrace and humiliation of being outstripped by Kuengolt, paled with anger and disappointment, casting their eyes down and vainly trying to cover their defeat by a whispered conversation amongst themselves. Even the monk suddenly abandoned a dusky serving maid whom but a moment before he had embraced tenderly, while the haughty scribe, the hunchback, with energetic steps crowded out the burgomaster's son who at that instant held Kuengolt's lovely hand in his own, caressing it subtly.
But Kuengolt showed no favors to any one in particular. Cold as an icicle she remained towards each and every one of her young guests, and like a smooth snake she glided about among them, with head and senses cool. And when she saw that thus she held them all in the hollow of her hand, she even attempted to reconcile anew the other women, speaking pleasantly to them and urging them to return to the table.
Darkness had fallen. The stars glinted high in the heavens, and the sickle of the new moon stood above the forest, but this gentle light now was wiped out by the gleaming and wavering flames of a huge St. John's bonfire that had been lighted up on the summit of a lone hill by the peasant population, visible from afar.
"Let us all go and look at this bonfire," cried Kuengolt. "The way to it is short and pleasant through the woods! But we must have it done as beseems us all--the women and girls first, and the young men in the rear."
And so it was done. Pitch torches lighted up the path for them, and song cheered the company.
Violande alone had remained behind as custodian of the house, but more especially to await the coming of the chief forester. For she, too, meant to make her catch that day. And she had not long to wait. He came in the roused mood of a toper, and with his senses only partly under control. When he saw the tables under the lindens before the house, he sat down and called for a sleeping draught at Violande's hands.
Without loss of time she went to do his bidding. But she also first disappeared into her own room to get the small vial containing the love potion which she meant to serve the man who had scorned her so far. However, her hasty search for it was fruitless. Neither did she discover it in Kuengolt's chamber, whither instant suspicion had driven her. For the truth was that that serving maid who had been carelessly pushed aside by the monk when Kuengolt had triumphed over her rivals, had picked it up on the stairs where it had been cast by the haughty girl.
But Violande lost no time in searching further. Instead she made his cup all the stronger and sweeter, and then she bent over the man of her choice while he slowly and rapturously emptied the tankard. Violande was dressed for the occasion. She wore over her skirt a tunic of pale gold, the edges and seams picked out in red, and allowing her delicate white skin to peep forth here and there. Her bosom heaved stormily and she showed a tenderly caressing humor. Thus she leaned on the table in close proximity to him.
"Ah indeed, cousin," said the forester, when accidentally he cast a glance in her direction, "how handsome you look to-night."
At these words she smiled happily and looked full at him with eyes that spoke eloquently, saying: "Do you indeed like my looks? Well, it has taken you a long time to find that out. If you only knew for how many years, in fact, ever since I was a child, I have cherished you in my heart."
That had a greater effect on the good man than any love potion made of frog's bones, and he seemed to see before his eyes dim recollections. Of a pretty girl child he dreamed, and now he saw her before him at his side, a matured beauty in the full development of her womanly charms, and it was as if she had come to him from a far distance, bringing to him unsolicited the splendid gift of her fine person. His generous heart became entangled with his excited senses, and reshaped and formulated all sorts of enticing images. Through his hazy brain in its vinous exaltation there floated a Violande who suddenly had been metamorphosed into a winsome being that, after all manner of sufferings, had been offered to his arms as something that to embrace and call his would not only make herself happy but would likewise entrust to his care a chaste and loving woman that would render himself happy once more. The memory of his dead wife paled for the nonce before this glittering picture.
He seized her hand, fondled her cheeks, and said: "We are not yet old, dear Cousin Violande! Will you become my wife?"
And since she left her hand in his grasp, and bent nearer to him, this time, seeing at last the realization of her ambition, actually glowing with her new-found bliss, he loosened the bridal ring of his wife from the handle of his dagger where since her death he had worn it, and placed the trinket on Violande's finger. She thereupon pressed her own face against the leonine and ruddy countenance of her middle-aged lover, and the two embraced tenderly and kissed under the whispering linden trees which were stirred by the night breeze. The shrewd man, ordinarily of such sound judgment, thought he had discovered the sovereign blessing of life itself.
At this moment Dietegen returned home, bearing his weapons in his hand. Since he went towards the house across the greensward, the fond couple did not hear his approach, and he saw with confusion and amazement the whole scene. Shamed and reddening, he retired as quietly as he could, so that they did not notice him, and he went around the whole house, in order to make his entrance by the back door. But while still on his way he heard suddenly loud calling and noise as though someone were in peril and hot dispute. Without a moment's hesitation Dietegen hurried off in the direction of the hubbub. And soon he found the same company that had ere now left the house in the happiest humor in a terrible uproar.
It seemed that the young men, half-crazed by the strong wine and by jealousy of each other, on their way back from the St. John's bonfire, being now mingled with the young women, had begun to quarrel among themselves. From words they had come to daggers drawn, and more than one was bleeding from serious wounds. But just the very moment of his arrival he had seen the Ruechenstein scribe furiously attacking the burgomaster's son, and running him through with his long rapier. The victim, also with sword in hand, lay prone on the grass and was just giving up the ghost. The others, unaware of this, had seized each other by the throats, and the women were shrieking and calling loudly for help. Only Kuengolt stood there pale as death but watching the horrible scene with open mouth.
"Kuengolt, what is up here?" asked Dietegen, when he had made her out. She shuddered at his address, but looked as though relieved. However, he now vigorously began to interfere, and by dint of rough handling of some of the worst fire-eaters he soon succeeded in separating the struggling and cursing mass. Then he pointed to the dead youth on the ground, and that sobered them even more quickly than his remonstrances. Then they all stared like mutes upon the dead man and upon the grim hunchback, who seemed to have lost his wits completely.
In the meanwhile some peasants from the neighborhood as well as the homecoming gamekeepers from the forestry had appeared on the scene, and these bound securely the raging Schafuerli, the murderous scribe, and arrested the remainder of the Ruechensteiners.
And that was a bad morning that now followed. The forester was engaged to the wicked Violande, and his head buzzed unmercifully. One dead Ruechensteiner lay in the house, and the rest of them were kept in the dungeon. Before the noon hour had tolled a delegation from Ruechenstein, with the burgomaster himself, the father of the slain, at its head, had arrived in order to inquire carefully into the whole matter and to demand strict justice and punishment of the guilty.
But already the imprisoned secretary of the Ruechenstein council, the grim Schafuerli, knowing that his neck was in peril, had made a deposition in his tower in which he charged responsibility for the whole bad business upon the women of Seldwyla whom they had met on the previous day, and more especially upon Kuengolt, whom he accused of sorcery and black art.
That maid servant who had become disgruntled for a cause mentioned before had passed on the empty vial that had contained Violande's philtre, to the monk, and the latter had hastened to put it into the hands of the scribe, who now used it as a powerful weapon.
To the grave dismay of the Seldwylians the whole matter in the course of that first day even turned against the forester's daughter and against his household. Everybody in those days, and not alone in Seldwyla, firmly believed in sorcery and love potions, and the members of the Ruechenstein delegation behaved so menacingly and hinted at such terrible reprisals that the popularity and the respect in which the forester was held could not prevent the imprisonment of Kuengolt, especially as he was still severely suffering from his excesses of the previous day, and felt like one paralyzed.
She instantly made a full confession, being more dead than alive from terror, and Schafuerli and his boon companions were liberated. And then the Ruechensteiners made the formal demand to have the girl delivered up to them for adequate atonement, since she had injured a number of their townsfolk and caused the death of one of them. This, however, was not conceded to them, and then the Ruechensteiners departed in an angry mood, threatening dire reprisals. The body of the burgomaster's son they took along. But when later on they heard that the Seldwyla authorities had sentenced the girl but to a twelvemonth's mild incarceration, the ancient enmity which had slept for a number of years now reawakened, and it became a perilous adventure for any Seldwylian to be caught on Ruechenstein soil.
Now the town of Seldwyla counted as a fit penalty for misdeeds which according to their notions were reckoned among the lighter ones and which consequently required no severe treatment, not imprisonment proper but rather the awarding of the culprits to persons that became responsible for their further conduct. In the custody of such persons the culprits remained during the length of the sentence, and these custodians were held to employ them suitably and to feed and shelter them adequately. This mode of punishment was used most often with women or youthful persons. Thus, then, Kuengolt, too, was taken to one of the chambers of the town hall, and there she was to be auctioned off, at least her services and keep. And before that ceremony she had to submit to being publicly exhibited there.
The forester, whose sunny humor had altogether disappeared with these trials, said sighing to Dietegen that it was a hard thing for him to go to the town hall and watch there in behalf of his daughter, but somebody surely must be there of her family during these bitter hours.
Then Dietegen said: "I will go in your stead; that is, if I am good enough for it in your opinion."
His patron shook hands with him. "Yes, do it!" he said, "and I will thank you for it."
So Dietegen went where some of the councilmen were seated and a few persons willing to take charge of the prisoner. He had girded his sword around his loins, and had a manly and rugged air about him.
And when Kuengolt was led inside, white as chalk and deeply chagrined, and was to stand in front of the table, he swiftly pulled up a chair and made her sit down in it, he placing himself behind and putting his hand on the back of it. She had looked up at him surprised, and now sent him a glance fraught with a painful smile. But he apparently paid no heed looking straight on over her head, severe of mien.
The first who made a bid for her custody was the town piper, a drunkard, who had been sent by his poor wife in order to help increase their receipts a bit. This, she calculated, was all the more to be expected because Kuengolt would probably receive from her home all sorts of good things to eat, and these, she considered, they would secure wholly or in part.
"Do you want to go to the town piper's house?" Dietegen curtly asked the girl. After attentively regarding the red-nosed and half-drunken fellow, she said: "No." And the piper, with a blissful smile, remarked laughing: "Good, that suits me too," and toddled off on shaking legs.
Next an old furrier and capmaker made a bid, since he thought he could utilize Kuengolt very handily in sewing and making a goodly profit out of her services. But this man had a large sore on his thigh, and this he was greasing and plastering with salve all day long, and also a growth the size of a chicken's egg on the top of his pate, so that Kuengolt had already been afraid of him when she passed his shop as a child going to school. When, therefore, Dietegen put the query to her whether she was willing to go to his house, and the girl decidedly negatived that, the man went off loudly venting his spleen. He grumbled and growled like a bear whose honeycomb has been snatched away.
Now a money changer stepped up, one who was notorious both for his greed and usurious avarice and for his lewdness. But scarcely had that one leveled his red eyes upon her, and opened his wry mouth for a bid, when Dietegen motioned him off with a threatening gesture, even without asking the terrified girl herself.
And now there were left but a few more, decent and respectable citizens, people against whom nothing could be urged reasonably, and it was these between whom the final choice and decision lay. The smallest bid was made by the gravedigger of the cemetery next the town cathedral, a quiet and good man, who also possessed an excellent wife and, so he thought, a suitable place where to keep such a prisoner in safe custody, and who certainly had already had charge of several other prisoners before.
To this man, then, Kuengolt was given in charge, and was taken at once to his house which was situated between the cemetery and a side street. Dietegen went along in order to see how she would be housed. It turned out that her quarters would be an open, small antechamber of the house itself, immediately adjoining the graveyard and only separated from it by an iron fence. There, as it seemed, the sexton was in the habit of keeping his prisoners during the warm season of the year, while for the winter he simply admitted them into his own dwelling room, a slender chain fastening them to the tile stove.
But when Kuengolt found herself in her prison and was separated merely by a fence from the graves of the dead, moreover saw near by the old deadhouse filled with skulls and bones, she began to tremble and begged they would not leave her there all through the night. But the sexton's wife who was just dragging in a straw mattress and a blanket, and also hid the sight of the graves by suspending a curtain, answered that this request could not be listened to, and that her new abode would be wholesome for her moral welfare and as a means of repenting her sins. And she could not be shaken in this resolve.
But Dietegen replied: "Be quiet, Kuengolt, for I am not afraid of the dead or of any spook, and I will come here every night and keep watch in front of the iron fence until you, too, will no longer fear."
He said this, however, in an aside to her, so that the woman could not overhear it, and then he left for home. There he found the saddened forester who had just reached an understanding with Violande that they would not celebrate their wedding until after Kuengolt's release from prison and after the scandal created by the occurrence should have had time to blow over. During all their discussion of the matter Violande kept still as a mouse, glad that she as the prime author of the whole mischief should have escaped all the consequences, for the magical philtre had been hers, as we know.
When the early hours of evening were over and midnight approaching, Dietegen began to make good his promise. He started unobserved, took his sword and a flask of choice wine along, and climbed from the high slope down into the valley and so to town, and there he swung himself fearlessly over the graveyard wall, strode across the graves themselves, and at last stood in front of Kuengolt's new abode. She sat breathlessly and shaking with fright upon her straw mattress, behind the curtain, and listened with freezing blood to every noise, even the slightest, that struck her ear. For even before this ghostly hour of twelve she had undergone several convulsions of dread and unreasoning fear. In the deadhouse, for instance, a cat had slyly climbed over the bones, and these had clattered somewhat. Then also the night wind had moved the bushes growing over the tombs, so that they made a weird noise, and the iron rooster that served as a weather vane on top of the church roof had creaked mysteriously, making an awful sound never heard in daytime. So that the girl was in a frenzy of terror.
When she therefore heard the steps nearing more and more, Kuengolt had a new fit of fright, and shook like a leaf. But when he stretched his hands through the iron bars of the fence and pushed back the curtain, so that the full moon lit up the whole dark space around her, and in a low voice called her name, she rose quickly, ran in his direction and stretched out both hands to him.
"Dietegen!" she exclaimed, and burst into tears, the first she had been able to shed since that ominous day; for until that hour she had lived as though smitten with paralysis, dazed and benumbed.
Dietegen, however, did not take her hand, but instead handed her the flask of wine, saying: "Here, take a mouthful! It will do you good."
So she drank, and also ate of the dainty wheaten bread of her father's house that he had brought along. And by and by her courage was restored, and when she clearly perceived that he had no mind to converse any more with her, she retired silently to her couch and cried without a stop, till at last she sank into a quiet sleep.
But he, the young man, in his narrow youthful ideas and in his inexperience of real life had made up his mind that she was a being turned completely to wickedness and evil, and one that was unable to do right. And he served as her sentinel during this and other nights, seating himself upon an ancient gravestone leaning against the wall solely out of regard for her departed mother and because she had saved his own life.
Kuengolt slept until sunrise, and when she awoke and looked about she observed that Dietegen had softly stolen away.
Thus one night after another passed, and he faithfully watched and guarded her, for he indeed held the belief that the place was not without danger for anyone without a good conscience and shaken with fear. But each time he brought her something of a relish along, and often he would ask her what she desired for herself, and he would carry out her wishes if at all justifiable.
He also came when it rained or stormed, missing not a single night, and on those nights when, according to the popular superstitions then universally held, the dead walked and which were considered particularly perilous to the living, he came all the more promptly.
Kuengolt on her part by and by managed to arrange things so that during the daytime she had her curtain drawn, in order, as she said, to conceal herself from the curious who went to the cemetery to spy on her, but in reality to sleep, for she preferred to remain awake at night, to keep her faithful sentinel in view all the time, and to ponder the things that had brought her there, and how he had conducted himself towards her these last few years. But Dietegen knew nothing of all this, believing her to be sound asleep.
She felt herself engrossed with a new and unexpected happiness, and while he diligently kept watch over her during the hours of darkness, she enjoyed his mere presence, and all her thinking was of him. She had no slightest suspicion that he judged her so harshly, and was living in hopes that she could reestablish her claim on him, seeing that he proved so faithful to her. Her father, however, did not share her dreams. He visited her at least once every week, and when she on these occasions nearly always shyly mentioned Dietegen's name, and he marked that she indeed had again turned to him in her thoughts, he would sigh and groan in spirit, because while also wishing for a union of those two, and feeling convinced that his fine foster son alone was able to again rehabilitate his daughter, it appeared highly improbable to him that Dietegen would wish to woo a witch that had been punished for her uncanny doings by his fellow citizens, and as it seemed to him, justly.
In the meantime another caller had put in an appearance with Kuengolt, no less a person than the secretary of the council of Ruechenstein himself.
This highly enterprising and venturesome hunchback was unable to forget the beautiful being on whose account he had committed murder. The blood coursed through his veins more rapidly than in those of a normally shaped fellow, and waking or sleeping her image did not lose its hold on him. His belief was that the image of this witch dwelt in his heart by virtue of her black art, and that it was shooting along within his blood vessels as does a frail boat in a powerful storm, all in a magical way.
The more he reflected the more convinced he became of this, and since he had daring enough and to spare, he finally made up his mind to seek alleviation of his tortures from the primal source, the witch herself. At the Capuchin monastery, where he had first gone for a ghostly cure, he had failed, and thus one moonless, dark night he started out, across the mountain and as far as the cemetery where he knew her to be kept a captive.
Kuengolt heard his approaching steps. Since it was not yet the hour when Dietegen used to come, and also because these steps did not seem to be his, she took fright and hid behind the curtain. But Schafuerli now lighted a candle he had brought along, and thrust his hand with it through the aperture, searching the dark space with his eager eyes until he had finally discovered her crouched in a corner.
"Come here, witch maid," he muttered excitedly, "and give me both thine hands and that scarlet mouth of thine. For thou must quench the fire thou hast caused."
The girl was frightened beyond words. By his crooked shape she had recognized him in the dusky half-light, and the recollection of the sufferings this misshapen recreant had occasioned her, together with the repugnant presence of the man himself, drove her almost to madness. Powerless to utter a sound, she sank down trembling in every limb.
Seeing this, the bold knave began to shake the iron bars of her grate, and since it was by no means very strong but rather intended only for the keeping of less vigorous prisoners, it began to yield, and he was about to tear it out of its staples. But just that instant Dietegen arrived on the scene. To notice the whole proceeding and to seize the madman firmly by the shoulder was the work of a flash. The enraged scribe yelled like one possessed, and was for drawing his poniard. But Dietegen kept an iron hold on him, grasping his hands and wrestling with him until the humpback owned himself beaten. Then Dietegen was uncertain whether to hand the maddened creature over to the authorities or to let him go. Not knowing the circumstances of the case and unwilling to cause new complications for Kuengolt, he finally allowed the scribe to escape, warning him, however, on pain of death, not to return again to the place. Next Dietegen woke the sexton and induced him, since autumn with its cool nights was approaching, to afford shelter to his prisoner henceforth within his own dwelling, in order to avert repetition of a scene like the one of that night.
Therefore Kuengolt that very night was taken inside, and secured by a light chain to the foot of the stove. The latter was a trim structure built of green tiling and showing in raised outlines the biblical story of the creation of man and his fall from grace. At the four corners of this stove there stood the four greater prophets upon twisted pillars, and the whole of it formed a somewhat attractive monument. Against it and tied to it by her gyves Kuengolt now lay stretched out on a bench for her couch.
She was glad of having obtained a more sheltered spot, and more still of having been rescued out of the hands of this evil hunchback, and she ascribed the whole of Dietegen's efforts to his devoted feelings for her, and this despite the fact that he had not spoken a syllable to her through it all and had gone away immediately after the new arrangements had been effected.
When, however, Kuengolt had thus been installed in a more convenient place, a new admirer of her charms turned up in the person of a chaplain whose duties obliged him to attend to a number of small matters in the church building close by, and to whose obligations it also belonged to offer ghostly counsel and consolation to the sick or imprisoned. This young priest came, once Kuengolt was an inmate of the gravedigger's household, more and more frequently, not only to exorcise her and to expel from her soul all inclination towards magic, sorcery and witchcraft, but also to enjoy incidentally her rare feminine charms and beauty. He strenuously endeavored to dissuade her from using any more love philtres and similar means forbidden by the canons of the Church, but in doing so became thoroughly imbued with her physical attractions.
For of late, that is, since these trials had overtaken her, the maiden had wonderfully grown in beauty. She had become a more mature, slender and spiritualized being, albeit pallor had succeeded her former healthy complexion, and her eyes now shone with a gentle and lovely fire, encircled with a shadow of sadness.
Save for her being tied to the foot of the warm stove, she was being treated in every respect like a member of the sexton's family, among the members of which there were several children, and when the chaplain came to visit her, he was usually regaled with a tankard of ale or a flask of drinkable wine, these being supplied by the forester, Kuengolt's father. But whenever the reverend divine had sufficiently indulged in his admonishments, had partaken of the refreshment provided for him, and still remained behind, evidently to enjoy the society of the charming penitent, there would be some queer goings-on. For the chaplain would squeeze and caress the pretty hand of his spiritual daughter, would sigh and groan audibly, and then Kuengolt, comparing this sniffling priest in her thoughts with the stately and handsome Dietegen whom she considered in truth her lover, was prone to scoff at the inconspicuous Levite, but in a good-natured and gentle manner.
In this way it came about that Kuengolt, after displaying all day long her cheerful and somewhat sportive disposition, would be the declared favorite of the sexton's household in the evening, the big family table invariably being pushed over towards her where she perforce sat tied to the stove. So also it was on New Year's Eve, and the young priest was one of the company, so that the sexton, his wife and children, together with the chaplain, were seated near the prisoned girl, all of them munching walnuts and sweet honey cakes, and Kuengolt having just laughed at something the priest had said, the latter meanwhile holding her hand, when Dietegen entered the room. He brought for his patron's daughter and his own whilom playmate some dainties from home. In coming he had yielded to the instinctive promptings of his heart, a mingling of pity, sympathy and affection, an unconscious longing for her company, and the desire had been strong within him to spend at least an hour that evening with her, this being the first time in her young life she had to pass away from home on a night like that.
But when he saw the merry scene and caught sight of the chaplain's caressing hand, his blood seemed to freeze within him, and he left her after just a couple of words in explanation of his mission, without any more ado. In going, perhaps unconsciously, Dietegen muttered as though to himself: "Forgotten is forgotten!"
Only now Kuengolt suddenly felt the full force and meaning of these words and of his previous devotion, and her heart seemed to stand still. Pale and faint she sank down on her bench at the stove, and the jolly gathering broke up. Even before the midnight bells tolled out the new year the light in the sexton's window was gone, and the girl was weeping bitter tears of sorrow.
From that night on she remained almost forgotten by the forester and his household. Great days were on the way. The Swiss federation was humming like a beehive with war's alarum. Those events were in the making which in history are known as the Burgundian War.
When spring had come and the great day of Grandison approached, the town of Seldwyla, too, like Ruechenstein and many others, sent her embattled citizens into the field, and it was for the forester as well as for Dietegen a happy release to be able to leave the disturbed harmony and comfort of the house and to step into the clear, rugged atmosphere of war.
With firm tread they both went along with their banner, though perhaps more silent than most, and joined with the other hurrying detachments the mighty battle array of the federated Swiss allies, coming most opportunely to the armed aid of the latter.
Like unto an iron garden stood the long square of the fighting men, and in its midst waved the standards and pennons of the cantons and towns there represented. In serried ranks they stood, many thousands of them, each in his independence and reliability again a world in himself; in fearlessness and will each could depend on his neighbor, and yet all of them together, after all, but a throng of fallible human beings.
There was the spendthrift and the light-hearted side by side with the curmudgeon and the cautious, each awaiting the hour of supreme sacrifice. The quarrelsome and the peaceable had to stay on with equal patience. He whose heart was heavy within his bosom was no more taciturn than the talkative and the braggart. The poor and indigent stood in equal pride next to the wealthy and domineering. Whole squares made up of neighbors ordinarily disagreeing were here one single unit. And envy or jealousy held spear or halberd as manfully and firmly as did generosity or reconciliation, and unjust as just aimed for the nonce both of them to fulfil the duty immediately urgent. Whoever had done with life and meant to sacrifice without regrets the mean remnant of it, was no more or less than the reckless red-cheeked youth upon whom his mother had built all her hope and in whom rested the future. The morose submitted without protest to the silly sallies of the jester or buffoon, and the latter on his part saw without ridicule the prosaic conceits of the small-souled philistine.
Next to the banner of Seldwyla was visible that of Ruechenstein, so that the serried ranks of the inimicable neighbors closely touched each other, and the forester who was leader of a section of his fellow citizens and formed the cornerstone of their whole formation, was the very neighbor of the council scribe of Ruechenstein, who on his part stood at the tail end of one of the ranks of his townsmen. But at this hour not one of them all seemed to recall reasons for differences or to remember the past. Dietegen was among the sharpshooters and "lost fellows," somewhat outside these regimental formations, and was already in the very heat of combat when the main body of the Swiss suddenly began to move and to plunge right into the midst of battle, in order to administer a stupendous defeat upon one of the most brilliant warrior-princes and his luxurious and splendid army, and to drive him to ignominous flight like a fabled king.
In the pressure of the hard-fought battle the forester with some of his gamekeepers had been separated by Burgundian cavalry from his banner and now fought his way through the latter, but only to encounter on the other side enemy foot soldiery. In meeting his new foe the doughty warrior set to work hewing and carving out for himself a roomy corner of his own, and he had already achieved this task when through this new opening a belated and spent cannon ball from the hosts of Charles the Bold came smashing and crushed the broad manly chest of the man, so that within another moment or two he had found in peace his eternal rest, and nothing more troubled him.
When Dietegen, sound and hearty, returned from the fight and from following the fleeing Burgundians, inquiring for his friend and father, he found his body after but a short search, and he buried him together with his trusty sword within the mighty roots of a far-spreading oak, not far from the battlefield on the edge of a grove.
Then he returned home with the remainder of the Swiss hosts, and because of his intrepidity and the ability shown by him during the campaign he was by the town authorities made provisional chief forester, and was given the house that had been his home for so long as his new abode and to supervise the assistants. With the death of his dear old patron his household had been dissolved. His savings and accumulated wealth had vanished during the last few years preceding his death, owing to careless management, and now Kuengolt had nothing left in the world save her own self and the care of Dietegen, provided he was able to give it, for he himself was but poor. She sat day after day at her stove, leaning her cheeks against its tiles representing, in four or five groups that recurred around the whole surface, the loss of Paradise, the creation of Adam and of Eve, the Tree of Knowledge, and the expulsion at last from their blessed abode. When the girl's face ached from the rough imprint of these raised images, she shifted it by turning to the next series, always and always contemplating them, and between the intervals shedding tears over her lot. But even then she could sometimes not help laughing outright when her glance traveled to that scene showing the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. For by reason of the potter's inadvertence this picture had been so modelled as to give to Adam instead of a real navel on his abdomen, a round little button and this protuberance repeating itself twentyfold on the surface of the stove excited unfailingly her playful humor, though it also heightened her discomfort when leaning against it.
In the midst of her fit of laughter, however, at this harmless blunder poor Kuengolt was invariably overcome by the weight of her misery, which would constrict heart and throat alike, and this conflict of thought and impressions produced a keen physical pain, so that her eyes grew wet and her face would look like that of a person wanting to sneeze yet unable to. So that at last she avoided looking at all at this particular group.
Meanwhile the great battle of Murten had also been fought, and at the same time Kuengolt's term of imprisonment was ended. Dietegen had given instructions for herself and Violande to keep house provisionally at the forestry lodge. Violande of late had become rather modest, contrite and well-behaved, for to her feminine sense of pride it had been a great gratification that the late forester, although he had postponed the wedding indefinitely and perhaps unduly, yet had wooed her and proposed marriage. But Dietegen himself did not remain at home. On the contrary, he drifted back and forth at the various scenes of the great war that had not yet ended.
And it must be owned that he, too, during all these troublous times, was not without faults. The rude customs of war, combined with the ever gnawing grief of what he had lost of his one-time hopes, had molded him afresh, so that a certain savagery and relentlessness had crept into the very fibre of his being. He joined that throng of adventurous young lads who under the name of "The Giddy Life" had started out on their own behalf to force the town of Geneva to pay out that amount of ransom which in the peace treaty was specified as its share. Out of Burgundian booty that had fallen to him he had had luxurious garments fashioned for himself. Trailing behind the banner of the Wild Boar (token of the aforementioned wild brotherhood) he wore a magnificent surcoat of roseate Burgundian damask, and the cross of the Swiss Federation on chest and back was made of heavy argent stuff and trimmed with seed pearls. His broad velvet hat was all about covered by a load of waving ostrich plumes, taken from knightly plunder in camps stormed during the campaign. Poniard and sword were suspended from costly girdles ornamented with blood-red rubies or emeralds. And beside a ponderous musket he carried a long spear which he used to balance himself with when striding along. His broad shoulders and straight, sinewy body looked formidable when his hawk eyes peered forth under his beplumed hat at a cowardly braggart or in order to strike terror in controversy. He was fond those days of seizing perhaps a shrieking maid by her braids, glancing a moment at her startled face, and then letting her go again at a venture.
Dressed up in this gorgeous style he had also, before joining the companions of The Giddy Life, paid a short call at the forestry lodge of Seldwyla. He was the very image of a nobly descended, pure-blooded warrior, so bold and strong, elastic and sure of himself he seemed.
When Kuengolt saw him thus, receiving from him just one short cold smile in passing, such as stern war had fixed on his features, her eyes were dazzled. And while subsequently he was in foreign parts she loved nothing better than to ponder the past and to live over in her thoughts the happy days of her childhood. And almost at all times her recollection dwelt upon that hour up on the steep slope where the Seldwyla ladies had caressed and fondled little Dietegen, clad in nothing but his poor sinner's shift and just escaped from an ignominious death; how they had crowned him with wildflowers, and made him their darling. Then she would hasten up to the summit of that hill, and would scan the far horizon towards the Southwest where, as people said, that unconquerable throng of youths, with him amongst them, was doing deeds of valor.
But in that same mountainous landscape, bifurcated as it was by the Ruechenstein territorial limits, that ominous scribe, Schafuerli, was frequently roaming about. This man was still thirsting for revenge because of the injury done his soul and his reputation alike, as he deemed; for though he had escaped that time any penalty he was yet looked upon with disfavor by most of the Ruechenstein citizens on account of the homicide committed by him. He still lived in hopes, therefore, of making amends by capturing the "witch" and turning her over for expiation to the authorities of his home town. When then one day poor Kuengolt was seated carelessly upon the very boundary line stone, deep in her meditations, with her feet resting on Ruechenstein soil, the vengeful hunchback quickly stepped out from some bushes, and assisted by a municipal guard, took her prisoner and brought her securely bound to Ruechenstein itself. And there she had to submit a second time to a penal trial for having with her witchery caused the death, wholly unatoned according to their notions, of the burgomaster's son.
In Seldwyla there was, notably in those stirring war times, nobody who felt at all any obligation to interfere in her behalf, even if there had been much of a hope for her. Hence the rumor soon spread that Kuengolt's life would soon pay the forfeit.
And it was Violande, once false and wicked, who now alone began to bestir herself for the rescue of her young relative. Pity and repentance moved her to the resolve to go in search of the only human being from whom prompt aid might be expected. Thus she went off, being on her errand night and day, ever going in a southwesterly direction, in order to find that band of overbold adventurers yclept "The Giddy Life," with Dietegen in their midst, as she knew. And since rumor was at all times quite busy with that mettlesome brotherhood she soon found herself in the right neighborhood, and at last came across Dietegen himself, just as he was throwing dice for money and booty with some of his hardy companions in a tavern.
Violande at once let him know about the ill-starred excursion of Kuengolt and about the danger now threatening her on the part of the Ruechensteiners, and against her own expectation he listened attentively. But his reply was discouraging.
"I am powerless to do anything in this case," he remarked, rather coldly. "For this is a matter of law, and since the Seldwyla people themselves do not choose to intervene, I should not be able to find even ten trusty comrades-in-arms to follow me and help free the child."