SONG.Wander with me, loved one, loved one,Wander with me where none can see;Through the wood,By the flood,Under the greenwood tree.Wander with me, loved one, loved one,Wander with me where none can hear;Where none is nigh,But the birds that fly,And the timid and silent deer.Wander with me, loved one, loved one.Wander with me where none can mark;Where the leaves green,Our love shall screen,In their bower 'twixt light and dark.Wander with me, loved one, loved one,And a tale to thee I'll tell,Which, if thy heartWith mine takes part,Shall please thine ear right well.
Wander with me, loved one, loved one,
Wander with me where none can see;
Through the wood,By the flood,
Under the greenwood tree.
Wander with me, loved one, loved one,
Wander with me where none can hear;
Where none is nigh,But the birds that fly,
And the timid and silent deer.
Wander with me, loved one, loved one.
Wander with me where none can mark;
Where the leaves green,Our love shall screen,
In their bower 'twixt light and dark.
Wander with me, loved one, loved one,
And a tale to thee I'll tell,
Which, if thy heartWith mine takes part,
Shall please thine ear right well.
As he ended, the casement, which was partly open, was drawn fully back, and the head of a gay, light-hearted girl, one of Adelaide's attendants, was thrust forth with a laughing countenance, exclaiming, "Get ye gone, you vile singer! no one can rest in peace for your harsh voice. Methought it was a raven or a daw cawing on the battlements, and our lady cannot read her missal for hearing thee talk of thy 'loved one, loved one.'"
"Nay, let him alone," said Adelaide, advancing to the window; "I love music, Bertha; 'tis that thou canst not sing a note thyself that makes thee jealous. Sing on, if thou wilt, Ferdinand; I would listen to you with right good will, but that I promised Father George to come down to the shrine to-day; and I must read before I go."
She said no more, and did not even look at him while she spoke, but the gay girl Bertha's eyes twinkled with an arch smile upon her lips, as if she guessed more than either the lady or her lover suspected. Ferdinand replied little, but slowly moved away: and in about ten minutes after he might be seen going forth from the castle gates, and taking the road which led away in a different direction from the chapel in the wood.
The reader need not be told that in every portion of life, in all life's doings, in everything moral and physical, there are circuitous paths; nor that nine times out of ten, when a man seems to be doing one thing, he is doing another. It is a sad truth, a bitter dark reality; so much so, indeed, that those who have watched man's ways most closely, will best understand the force and beauty of the words which the inspired writer uses,--"a man without a shadow of turning"--to express all that we should be, and are not. However, in that deep wood that cloaked the side of the hills, there were nearly as many crooked paths and tortuous roads as in human life. Ferdinand took his path to the north, the chapel lay to the south. The watchman saw him go, and thought no more of it; but the keen eye of the gay girl Bertha marked him also, and she smiled. Some half hour after, when her young mistress went out alone, and bent her steps towards the chapel, Bertha laughed.
About an hour and a half after Ferdinand's song had ceased, the door of the chapel, which had been closed, opened, and two figures came forth under the green shadow of the forest leaves. The first was that of Adelaide of Ehrenstein, and her face bore tokens of recent agitation. By her side appeared good Father George, with his head uncovered, and no staff in his hand. He was speaking with the lady, earnestly but gently, and he still continued to walk on with her for some yards up the hill. More than once, as they went, Adelaide's eyes were turned to either side of the path, as if she feared or expected some interruption, and though she said not a word to indicate what was passing in her heart, the good Father marked the sort of anxiety she seemed to feel, and at length paused, saying, "Well, my child, I will go with you no farther. You will be quite safe on your way back; and if you attend to my voice, and follow my counsel, you might be happy yourself, and save others worlds of pain."
He did not pause for a reply, but turned, and re-entered the chapel, leaving Adelaide to pursue her way through the wood, with almost every path of which she had been familiar from infancy. Nevertheless, as she went, she still continued to look timidly round. She did not go far alone, however, for just as she passed the first turning, which hid the chapel from the eye, there was a step near, and Ferdinand was by her side.
"Oh, Ferdinand!" she said, "I am terrified. What is it you want to say? If any one were to find me here with you alone, what would they think?--and my father, if he heard it, it would bring destruction on your head too."
"Fear not, fear not," replied her lover; "turn into this path with me, dear Adelaide, it will bring you as quickly to the castle as the other, and we can speak there more freely."
His fair companion hesitated; but taking her hand in his, he led her gently forward, though not without a glowing cheek and eyes cast down. It was a small footway, which horses could not travel, and wound with many a turn up to the top of the high hill on which the castle stood. The short green mountain turf, the broken masses of rock here and there, the straggling boughs reaching across, and the wild flowers springing uncrushed, even in the midst of the path, showed that it was trodden by no very frequent feet. The green branches crossing on high shaded it from the sun; except when, about the hour of noon, his searching rays poured down, slept on a mossy bank here and there, or chequered the grass with dancing light and shade. The dove and the wood-pigeon murmured overhead, the breeze sighed faintly through the leaves, and the nightingale--still in song--trilled his rich notes upon many a bough above. There was a tenderness and yet a freshness in the air; there was a calming and softening light upon the way; there was a loveliness and a promise, and a wooing gentleness in the whole scene, that fitted it well for lovers and for love. The voice of nature seemed counselling affection; the aspect of all things harmonized with the passion in each of those two young hearts; and though Ferdinand was not skilled enough in the mystery of association to have chosen that scene as one likely to melt and touch the heart he sought to make his own, yet he could not have found one on the whole earth better adapted for the tale he had to tell. He lost no time ere he told it; and though his words were ardent--ay, and even impassioned--yet there was a gentleness in his whole tone, a soft and deprecating look upon his countenance, a tenderness as well as a warmth in all he said, which prevented the young and timid woman's heart from feeling much of that sort of apprehension with which it often shrinks from the first touch of love. Brought up with him almost from her childhood, unlearned in the ways of the world, left nearly to solitude since her mother's death, with no other companion in her girlhood but him who walked beside her, and loving him with a love that had still increased, Adelaide felt it less strange to listen to such words from him, than she would have done with any other human being. She felt it less difficult, too, to reply to him, timidly, yet frankly, not concealing what she felt, even when she did not speak it.
He told her how long he had loved,--for a few short years, or even months, were long in their short lives. He told her how the affection of the boy had grown into the passion of the man; how the fraternal tenderness of early life had warmed into the ardent affection of maturity. He told her, too, how hope had been first illumined in his heart by light that seemed to shine forth from hers; how words that she had spoken without feeling their full import, had bid him not despair; how smiles from her lips, and rays from her eyes, had nourished and expanded the flower of love in his bosom. He went on to relate how he had trembled, and feared, and doubted, and hesitated, when he first became conscious of the full strength of all his sensations; how he had put a guard upon himself; how he had refrained from seeing her alone; how he had resisted many a temptation; but how the power of the passion within had overcome all prudent care, and had made him more than once speak words of tenderness, in spite of every effort to restrain them. With the rich, wild imagery of a warm and glowing imagination, and of a heart full of eager affection, he depicted the pangs he had endured, the struggles he had undergone, the cares and anxieties which had been his companions during the day, the bitter and despairing thoughts which had haunted him through the night. But at length he explained how hope had dawned upon him; how assurance and comfort had been given him the night before; and how one, upon whom they could both depend, had encouraged him to persevere, and held out mysterious hopes of fortune and success.
He did not, indeed, pursue his tale evenly to the close; for more than once his fair companion murmured a few words of compassion for what he had suffered, of anxiety for his safety, of doubt regarding the future; all of which were very sweet, for all showed him too happily, too brightly, that he was loved in return; and when at length he referred to his conversation with the priest, and to the expectations which had been held out, she looked eagerly up in his face, replying without disguise, "So he said to me, Ferdinand. He spoke of strange and mysterious things; of my fate and that of my house being linked to yours by an unseen tie; which, if it were broken, would bring ruin on us all. I could not understand him. I doubted, for I could scarcely believe such happy tidings true."
She paused and coloured, as soon as the words were spoken; and blushed more deeply still when he asked, "Then they were happy, dear Adelaide?"
"You do not doubt it," she murmured, after a moment's silence. "But at all events," she continued--suddenly turning from the question--"my mother told me, the very last time she held me in her arms, to trust to what he might say; and now he bids me give myself to you, without fear or doubt. I know not what to think."
"Think that he directs you right, dear Adelaide," replied her lover eagerly; "and oh! follow his guidance, and the guidance of your own heart."
She was silent for some minutes, walking on by his side, till at length he asked, "Will you not promise, Adelaide, will you not promise to be mine?"
"How can I--how dare I?" she answered. "Without my father's will, what good were my promise, Ferdinand?"
"All, everything to me," answered her lover; "for that promise once given you would not break it, dear one. Who can tell what your father may design? Who can tell that he may not some day seek to drive you to a marriage with one you hate; or, at best, can never love? But that promise once given to me, would be strength to you, my beloved, as well as comfort and assurance to myself. It would be the rainbow of my life; a pledge that there would be no more destruction of all hopes. Oh! dear girl, do not refuse me; give me back comfort and joy; give me back light and sunshine; give me that security against all I dread; give we that support in danger, that consolation in affliction, that object of endeavour and of hope. Were it but the voice of a lover, Adelaide, you might well hesitate, you might well doubt; but one who has no passion to serve, who is calmer, alas! than I can be; who knows more than we know, and judges more wisely than we can judge--one for whom your dear mother bespoke your confidence; one whom you promised her to trust and to rely on he urges you as strongly even as I do, and bids you follow the course in which love would lead, not for my sake alone, but for your own also."
They had reached a spot, by this time, where the wood fell back a little from the path on one side, and a low, rocky bank appeared on the other, crowned with old beeches. A spring of bright, clear water welled from the stone, filling a basin that some careful hand had carved below; while above, in a little niche, was placed a figure of the Virgin, with the infant Saviour in her arms; and Ferdinand, extending his hand towards the well, added earnestly, "Here I, at least, Adelaide, saw that dear lady for the last time; here she taught us to kneel down and pray together, not many days before she laid that injunction upon you. And now, dear Adelaide, now you will not refuse me now you will follow the counsel to which she pointed--and promise to be mine."
There was love in her heart, there was a voice in her own bosom spoke more eloquently than his; she wavered--she yielded. He saw the colour come and go; he saw the bright eyes full of tears; he saw the lip quiver, and he cried, "Oh! promise, promise, Adelaide!"
"Well, I do," she murmured; and at the same instant a voice near seemed to say, "Promised, promised!"
Both started and looked round, but nothing was to be seen. The clear light streamed through the trees on the top of the bank, suffering the eye to see for some way between their trunks; the open space behind was considerable, and no place of concealment appeared to be near.
"It was but the echo, dearest," said Ferdinand; and pronouncing a word or two sharply, there was a slight return of the sound. Adelaide was not satisfied, however, and laying her hand upon his arm, she said in a low tone, "Come away, come away. Oh, Heaven! if any one should have discovered us!"
"No fear, no fear, dearest," replied her lover, walking on by her side. "But to guard against discovery for the future, Adelaide, we must devise some means of communication. Is there any one near you, whom you can trust, my beloved?"
"No one but Bertha," answered the lady: "I can trust her, I am sure, for she is good and true; but yet I do not think I could ever make up my mind to speak to her on the subject first."
Ferdinand mused for a moment or two, with a smile upon his lips; and then replied, "I almost suspect, Adelaide, that Bertha will not require much information. If I might judge by her look to-day, she's already aware of more than you suspect."
"Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Adelaide, "do not say so. If she is, my conduct must have been very imprudent."
"Her eye may have been very keen," replied her companion; "but if you think you can trust her, I will speak to her upon the subject myself--cautiously and carefully, you know, dear one, so as not to tell her more than is necessary at once; but, indeed, I can foresee many circumstances in which we shall have absolute need of some one to aid us--of some one who can give tidings of each to the other, when all opportunity of private intercourse may be denied us."
"You must judge, Ferdinand, you must judge," answered Adelaide; "but, indeed, I fear I have done wrong already, and tremble to look forward to the coming time. And now, leave me, dear Ferdinand. We are near the castle, and you ought not to go with me further. Every step agitates and terrifies me, and I would fain seek my own chamber, and think."
Still Ferdinand lingered, however, for some time longer; still he detained his fair companion; nor would he part with her till love's first caress was given, and the bond between them sealed upon her lips. But at length Adelaide withdrew her hand, half smiling, half chiding, and hurried away, leaving him to follow some time after. When she reached the castle, she passed the room where she had before been sitting, catching with a glowing cheek a gay, arch look that Bertha directed towards her; and entering her bed-room, cast herself upon her knees and prayed, while tears of agitation and alarm, both at her own sensations, and at what she had promised, rolled over the dark lashes of her eyes, and trickled down her cheek. Young love is ever timid; but in her case there were other feelings which moved her strongly and painfully. She was not satisfied with her own conduct; she feared she had done wrong; and for that one day she acted the part of a severe censor on herself. True, her father's demeanour little invited confidence; true, he was often harsh and severe, even to her; true, from him she could expect no consideration for her wishes or for her feelings; but yet he was her father, the one whom she was bound to love and to obey; and her own heart would not altogether acquit her, even though love pleaded eloquently on her behalf. I have said that she thus felt and suffered for that one day; for, as will be seen hereafter, a strange and sudden change came over her, and with no apparent reason, she soon gave herself up unboundedly to the full influence of, her attachment. The human heart is a strange thing; but very often, for visible effects which seem unaccountable, there are secret causes sufficient for all. In our dealings with the world, and with each of our fellow-men, we are too often unjust, not so much from judging wrongly, as from judging at all. "Man can but judge from what he knows," is the common cry of those who find themselves fearfully wrong when all is explained; but the question which each should ask himself is, "Am I called upon to judge at all?" and too often the reply would be, "Judge not, and thou shalt not be judged; condemn not, and thou shalt not be condemned." Sufficient, surely, is the awful responsibility of judging, when duty or self-defence forces it upon us; how terrible, then, the weight when we undertake to decide unnecessarily upon the conduct of others, without seeing the circumstances, without hearing the evidence, without knowing the motives,--and yet we do it every day, and every hour, in our deeds, in our words, and in our thoughts, lacking that true charity of the heart that thinketh no evil. But man has become a beast of prey: the laws prevent him from tearing his fellows with his teeth, and the human tiger preys upon them in his thoughts.
There are men who rise from a low station to a throne; and it certainly must be a grand and triumphant sensation which they experience when first they sit in the seat of sovereignty, and feel their brows pressed by the golden circlet of command, with the great objects of ambition all attained, the struggle up the steep ascent to power accomplished, and the end reached for which they have fought, and laboured, and watched through many a weary day and night. But the exultation of that moment, great as it may be, is nothing to that which fills the heart of youth in the first moment of successful love. The new-throned usurper must be well-nigh weary of repeated triumphs; for the step to the throne is but the last of many a fatiguing footfall in the path of ambition. He, too, must foresee innumerable dangers and difficulties round; for the experience of the past must teach him that in his race there is no goal, that the prize is never really won, that he may have distanced all others, but that he must still run on. Not so with the lover in the early hours of his success; his is the first step in the course of joy, and the brightest, because the first. Fresh from all the dreams of youth, it is to him the sweetest of realities; unwearied with the bitter task of experience, he has the capability of enjoyment as well as the expectation of repose. The brightness of the present spreads a veil of misty light over all that is threatening in the future; and the well of sweet waters in the heart seems inexhaustible.
With what a different step Ferdinand of Altenburg trod the halls of the castle on his return; with what a different view he looked on all things round him! The gloomy towers, the shadowy chambers, the long, cheerless corridors, seemed full of light; and there was a gay and laughing spirit in his heart which had not been there since love first became its tenant. He could have jested, he could have sported like a child; but, alas! there was no one to jest or sport with, for not more than five or six men were left in the castle after the train of the Count and the little band of Seckendorf had departed. Adelaide, too, remained in her own apartments, whither he dared not venture; and none of the two or three girls who attended upon her, and who, with an elderly dame, whose principal function appeared to be to quarrel with the chief butler, formed all the female inmates of Ehrenstein, ventured forth for nearly two hours after his return. Bertha, indeed, looked at him once, as he paced the battlements below the windows of the room in which she sat, but maliciously kept the casement closed, suspecting, perhaps, that he had had enough enjoyment for one day. Anxious to speak with her, and to carry out his plan for making her the means of communicating with her mistress, Ferdinand, as he turned back again, ventured to make her a sign to join him; but Bertha took no notice, and plied her busy hands on the embroidery frame where she sat, without seeming even to see him.
The poor lover's first happy day promised but a dull passing. Those were not days of many books; and perhaps, in the whole extent of the castle, not more than four or five were to be found. But Ferdinand could not have read, even had they been to be procured, for his whole thoughts were in that busy and excited state, in which it was impossible to fix his mind with attention upon anything but his own fate and projects. He went the whole round of the castle; then he saw that everything was in order; he spoke to the men who were in the execution of their daily duties; and often as he went, he fell into a fit of thought, where fancy rapt him far away, wandering in bright sunny lands, side by side with her he loved. At length, returning to the corridor above, through which he knew that both Adelaide and Bertha must pass, if either came forth from the ladies' apartments, he stationed himself at one of the windows, and continued to gaze out over the wide extent of forest, and hill, and dale, which the prospect presented. All was silent and quiet. A dreamy stillness hung over the whole place; the sunshine itself seemed to sleep quietly over the motionless masses of the trees, and never was there an hour or a scene in which a young lover might indulge the glittering visions of imagination, with less to distract or interrupt his thoughts.
The last four-and-twenty hours had been busy ones in Ferdinand's life--busy in emotions, if not in action; and they had been varied too by many a change of sensation, by much despondency, by awe and by fear, and by hope and joy. But if the truth must be told, it was only on the hope and joy that his mind dwelt. The strange and fearful scenes through which he had passed the night before were forgotten, or at least not thought of; the sorrows that were past gave but a sort of shadowy relief to the bright aspect of the present; difficulties, impediments, dangers, were unheeded or unseen.
For not more than half an hour, however, was he suffered thus to dream; for, at the end of that time, the door at which he had looked up as he passed on the preceding night was opened and closed; and turning quickly round he saw Bertha gliding down the corridor towards the top of the staircase. She laid her finger on her lips as she passed him; and, without speaking, he followed were she led.
The gay girl took her way to the battlements on the shady side of the castle, to which few of the rooms of the building were turned; there she paused, and looked gaily at Ferdinand, with her dark eyes sparkling, and her pretty little lip curling with fun and malice. "Impudent young man," she said, as he joined her, "how can you do such things? first singing a love song under my window, and then making me a sign to come and join you. I'm a great deal too good-natured, and too tender thus to indulge you. If our lady were to find out that we were lovers, she would tell her father and then we should soon both be sent out of the castle."
She spoke as gravely as she could; and though her gay look might eye some indication of what was passing within, yet Bertha's eyes were always such merry ones, that Ferdinand felt not a little embarrassed how to answer what perhaps might be a jest, but which might yet be serious also. She enjoyed his perplexity for a moment or two, and then asked in a sharp tone, "Well, Sir, why don't you speak if you have anything to say? If you don't, I must give you something to talk about. Tell me, Sir, what is it has made my mistress so sad since she went out and met you in the wood?"
"Sad is she?" exclaimed Ferdinand, alarmed; "I know nought that should make her sad."
"Well, she is," replied Bertha; "for she's shut up in her own room, and Theresa compassionately looked through the keyhole, and told us she was weeping."
"Good Heaven!" exclaimed Ferdinand, still hesitating whether he should acknowledge that he had met Adelaide or not. "Nothing I have ever done could give her pain."
"Well, don't look so terrified, Sir lover," answered Bertha; "there are a thousand other things beside pain that make women weep; sometimes joy, sometimes fright; and perhaps it is the last in this case."
"But why should she fear?" asked Ferdinand.
"Nay, that you know best," replied Bertha. "You've neither of you thought fit to tell me anything about it; but you had a great deal better; for, if you don't, depend upon it you'll get yourselves into all manner of difficulties and dangers. You are both of you as imprudent and as ignorant of such matters as if you were twelve years old; and I should not wonder if you were to have yourself strangled for making love to your lord's daughter, and to get her either shut up in a convent, or married in haste to some fierce old baron, who may maltreat her, as my good and noble lord, the Count, used his poor wife."
"Nay, now you are trying to tease me, pretty Bertha," replied Ferdinand of Altenburg. "As I see you know a great deal, I may as well tell you all; and I will, if you can be serious; but if you go on in jest with me, I will jest with you, and may find means to tease you too."
"Nay, am not jesting at all," answered Bertha, more gravely; "all I have said is true enough: and I can tell you I have been in a great fright for you both for some time. For during the last month I have been terrified every day lest others should see what was plain enough to my eyes. Do you consider what it is you are doing, and what sort of a man our lord is--that he would no more hesitate to put you to death in the castle-ditch than to eat his breakfast?"
"He dare not," answered Ferdinand, boldly. "He may do that with a serf or a vassal, perhaps; but I am neither the one nor the other, and as noble as he is."
All women love daring, and the youth's answer pleased his companion well; yet she could not help jesting him a little upon what she called his pride. "Oh, yes, you're a gentleman born!" she said; "you have made us all know that. But now, Ferdinand, talk a little reason, and don't pretend to say what our lord dare do, or dare not do. He dare do many a thing, and has before now, which perhaps neither I nor you dream of. But in a word, young gentleman--for I must not stop long--I have seen for some time all that is going on here, and would have given a great deal to stop it, but I did not know how; and now it is too late. The only thing to be thought of at present is, what is to come of all this? On my life! my knees shake when I think of it; and I am not apt to be afraid of a little adventure either. What is it that you two propose to do?"
To say the truth, this was a question for which Ferdinand was not at all prepared with an answer. He had laid out, indeed, no distinct plan of action. Youth and love are strange reliers upon circumstances, and he replied simply, "To go on loving, I suppose."
"Oh, that plan will never do," answered Bertha, laughing. "You can't stop there. In the first place, you would neither of you be content to go on loving like a couple of turtles in two separate cages all your lives; and besides, things would soon happen to drive you out of such idleness of love. Any day of the week, any lord may think fit to marry his daughter; and what would she and you do then? I must think of some plan for you, poor things; for I see you are not fit to devise any for yourselves."
"The only plan, my pretty Bertha; to be followed at present," answered Ferdinand, after a moment's thought, "is for you to befriend us, and give us help as far as you can, in whatever circumstances may occur; to let me know everything that happens to your lady that I do not see; and I will take care that you shall know everything that occurs to me, in order that it may be communicated to her. I am sure it is your wish to serve her, Bertha; she loves you dearly, and has such confidence in you that she told me I might confide in you implicitly."
"I would serve her with my heart's blood," replied the girl, warmly; "though Heaven forbid that I should have to do so," she added, laughing; "for I would a great deal rather have that heart's blood where it is, and see her happy too, poor girl. But, heigho! I don't know how that's to be done, and if I am to be the messenger between you, Master Ferdinand, there will be nothing for it but for you to make love to me; or, at least, to get the people of the castle to think you are so doing."
"Oh, that won't be a very difficult task, Bertha," replied the young man, with a gallant look. "And all we can do is to watch events, and to take advantage of them as they arise--at least till we have further counsel from Father George as to how we ought to act."
"Oh, is Father George in the secret?" cried Bertha, clapping her hands joyfully; "then there is hope. The lord of the abbey against the lord of the castle will always beat in the end. But what says the good Father?"
"He says everything to encourage us," answered Ferdinand, "and, unlike you, fair Bertha, nothing to discourage."
"He knows more than I do," replied Bertha, "more than any of us; and he has some reason, I'll warrant. I wish to Heaven I could see him; but I dare not go down so far, for fear I should be missed. He was with our poor lady in her last hours, and doubtless could tell a tale if he would--well, well, men are strange creatures. I wonder women are such fools as to make themselves their slaves--I'll never marry--not I; for I never yet saw the man that was not as soft as a dormouse while he was courting, and as hard as a hyena when he was married. But there comes old Seckendorf riding up through the wood--I must away, for he's the greatest old tell-tale in the world, with the gossiping tongue of a grandmother, the spite of a monkey, and the heart of a wolf."
"Stay, stay, Bertha," cried the young gentleman. "If we are to seem lovers, you know, it is as well that the old man should see us; and if he catches sight of you walking here with me, without perceiving who it is distinctly, he may fancy it is Adelaide, and make mischief there."
"Ah, you treacherous boy!" cried the gay girl, "that is a true specimen of all men. To shield yourself and your love of the hour you would have all the risk and the blame fall upon me, though Heaven knows I am hazarding enough to serve you. The more faith and truth we poor things have, the more ready are you to sacrifice us. It seems quite natural and right, does it not, that I should, just as an honour and a pleasure, fall into blame with my lord, and seem your light of love to blind him to your mad passion for his daughter."
"But you yourself proposed, I should make the people think that you, Bertha, are the object I am seeking," replied Ferdinand; "and now when I propose to follow that very plan you accuse me of ingratitude, wavering to and fro like an aspen leaf."
"Am I not a woman?" cried Bertha, laughing; "have I not a right to waver? If you are to make love to me, I tell you, I will change fifty times a day; when I pout, you shall call my lips budding roses; when I smile, you shall call my brow, heaven; when I cry, you shall say my eyes are like the April sky. Now, I am not in the humour for being made love to, so I have more than a mind to run away and leave you as a morsel for old Seckendorf's grinders--at least, those he has left."
"Nay, nay, dear Bertha," cried Ferdinand, pressing to her side as he saw the horsemen coming near; "if not for mine, for your sweet mistress's sake, play out the part you have undertaken."
"The mystery must not be a long one, then, Master Ferdinand," answered Bertha; "and, for modesty, keep a little farther off, for although I do not very much mind that people should say I listened to a love story--there being no great harm in that--I would rather they did not think it too warm a one, for women have a character to lose, though men have none worth keeping."
"But then, dear Bertha, it is understood that you will befriend us," said her companion, "and will keep our secret, and give us all sorts of information and advice."
"Aye, aye," answered Bertha, "I must risk putting my hand into the bee-hive and being stung to death, to get you to the honey. I am older than either of you, and ought to know better, but you are two such poor imprudent things, that if I did not help you, one would die of a broken heart, and the other of a broken neck, very soon, so I must even run the risk. But I will have some talk with Father George, very soon, for if he does not give me some assurance and comfort, I shall dream of nothing but being strangled every night. Here they come, here they come; Seckendorf and his gang. Heaven and earth! what have they got all those horses loaded with? they must have been plundering Neustadt. Now, cannot you make me a fine speech, Master Ferdinand, swearing love and eternal constancy, such as you men tickle poor girls' ears with, just to let old Seckendorf see you in the act of protestation?"
"I would give you a kiss, pretty Bertha," replied Ferdinand, gaily, "and that would do better, only you told me not to come near."
"Oh, that would be too close, a great deal," answered Bertha, laughing. "There, he sees us--hark! he is calling out to us I will run away as if in a fright, and let him see my face as I go."
She did as she proposed, and in a moment after the old knight came riding along under the battlements calling up to Ferdinand with a loud laugh, "Ha, ha, you young dog, that's what you staid at home for, to chat with pretty Bertha on the walls!"
"No great harm in that, Seckendorf," replied Ferdinand, leaning over to speak to him. "I dare say you have done such a thing before now, yourself; and will do it again many a time. Both she and I like a walk in the free air, better than being stifled in the castle all day long. And why shouldn't we take it together?"
"If that were all, why didn't you go on the side, where folks could see you?" replied the old man, still merry. "No, no, youngster, I am too old a campaigner for that. However, it's no business of mine. We've made a glorious forage. The rogues did not expect to be called upon in such a hurry, so that all the capons were strutting before the door; aye, and geese too. How many geese have we got, Martin?"
"Nineteen, Sir," answered the man; and the old knight was riding on, when Ferdinand called after him, laughing, "Why, that's the number of your troop, Seckendorf!"
The other shook his fist at him good-humouredly enough; for his heart was expanded by the success of his expedition, and to say the truth, Bertha had done him but scanty justice. He was a thorough old German knight of the times--a character which had generally more or less of the reiter in it--as ignorant as a boor of everything but war, brave as a lion, superstitious in a high degree, bloody when enraged or opposed, rapacious as any beast of prey, and holding fast by the old maxim, that anything is justifiable in love or war. Far from thinking the worse, therefore, of Ferdinand, if he had made love to all Adelaide's maids together, he would only have considered it a very laudable method of employing his idle hours, and would never have thought of reporting it to the Count as a matter of blame. He looked upon deceiving a poor girl with tales of love, or beating a boor nearly to death who resisted any unjust demand, as one of the privileges of a soldier and a gentleman, which it was not only just but expedient to exercise from time to time, to keep such rights from falling into desuetude; and after he entered the castle, turning his thoughts to other affairs, he gave no more attention to the proceedings of Bertha and Ferdinand, only jesting the young man for a moment upon his love-making; and declaring that he had shown bad taste, for that Theresa was by far the prettier girl of the two.
"That's because you are as black yourself as one of the andirons," answered Ferdinand, "and therefore you think every fair-faced girl with flaxen hair a perfect beauty. I dare say you've said sweet things enough to Theresa, and, therefore, I wouldn't for the world try to spoil your game, if you won't spoil mine."
"Pooh, nonsense; I've given up love these twenty years," said Seckendorf, "but I won't meddle with your affairs. I wouldn't mar a nice little plot of love for half the lands of Ehrenstein--so go on your own way, I'll not interfere."
"Upon your honour?" asked Ferdinand.
"Upon my knighthood," replied the old man. "So long as you do your duty as a soldier, I not meddle with your love affairs. But on my life, I'm mighty hungry, for I've had nothing but a flagon of wine since I went, and I can never wait till supper-time."
"Do not be afraid," answered Ferdinand, "I made the cook put by for you at dinner, the whole of a roast chine of roebuck, though Metzler and Herman looked at it as if their very eyes would have eaten it. I knew you would come home like a wolf."
"That's a good boy, that's a good boy," answered the old knight, "I won't forget you for that. You shall have the skinning of a fat village some day all to yourself; but I'll go and get theReh-braten, for I could eat my fingers." And away he went, to satisfy his appetite, which was at all times one of the best.
An hour or two went by, and it was drawing towards night, when Seckendorf, after having appeased the cravings of hunger, was walking up and down the ordinary hall, for want of anything else to do. Indeed, the piping time of peace to a soldier of his stamp was a very dull period, especially at that season of the year, when many of the sports of the field are forbidden; and any little incident that broke the monotony of the castle life was a great relief. There was nobody in the hall but himself; and he was cursing the slow flight of time, and thinking the Count very long upon the road home, when the lifting of the door latch made him turn his head, and he instantly exclaimed, with a hoarse laugh, "Ha! who are you looking for, Mrs. Bertha? Ferdinand is not here."
"I was looking for you, Sir," answered Bertha, with perfect composure, at the same time walking up to him. "I do not think my lady is at all well," she continued, "she has been moping by herself all day, and says her head aches."
"Ah! that's bad, that's bad," answered Seckendorf: "no one should have a headache but a boy of sixteen who has been drunk overnight. But what can I do, pretty Bertha; I'm no leech, and am more accustomed to bleeding men than bleeding women?"
"Ay, but Sir Knight, you can send down to the chapel, where one of the monks will be found. They all know something of leechcraft; and if Father George is there, he knows a great deal."
"But it's growing dark," said Seckendorf. "The gates must be shut in ten minutes, and we want all the men we have about the place. Better wait till the Count comes back, and if she should be very bad, I'll tell you what you must do; mull half a pint of Zeller wine; put plenty of spice in, and a spoonful or two of honey. Let her drink that down at one draught,--that will cure her. It is just what cured me the only time I ever had a headache."
"Ay, but what would cure you might kill our lady," replied Bertha, who did not at all approve of the prescription. "I pray you, Herr von Seckendorf, send down one of the men to the good Father. What would you say if this were to turn out a fever after you refused to send for help?"
"A fever!" cried Seckendorf, "what has she done to get a fever? She has neither ridden fifty or sixty miles in a hot sun, nor lain out all night in a damp marsh; nor drunk three or four quarts of wine to heat her blood--Well, if I must send, I must; but mind, I do it with no good will, for I don't like to send any of the men out after gates closing."
Thus saying, he put his head out of the door, calling till the whole building echoed again: "Martin, Martin--Martin, I say;" and then returning to Bertha's side, he continued, "I don't think much of the monks. They can't be such holy men as people say, else they'd keep the wood clear of spirits and devils, and things of that kind. Why one of the men, who was looking out from the turret during the storm last night, vows he saw some kind of apparition just down below the chapel, fencing with the lightning, and playing at pitch and toss with balls of fire. Then all in a minute he vanished away.--Ah! Martin, you must go down to the chapel in the wood, and tell the priest to come up and see the lady Adelaide, who is ill; so let him bring his lancet with him."
"Nonsense," cried Bertha, "she will need no bleeding; you soldiers think of nothing but blood."
The man Martin dropped his bead, and did not at all seem to like the task; but then gave a look through the window to the sky and walked away, grumbling something which was neither heard by the old knight nor the young damsel. Bertha having performed her errand, was then tripping away; but Seckendorf caught her hand, saying, in a honied tone, "Stay a bit, my pretty maid, and chat with me, as you did with young Ferdinand this morning."
"No, indeed," cried Bertha, trying to withdraw her hand; "that was in the free air and sunshine, not in a dark hall--let me go, Sir." But the next moment her eyes fixed upon something at the further end of the long room, and giving a loud scream she started back.
Seckendorf let go her hand, and turned round to look in the same direction, where two doors opened into the opposite sides of the hall. Both apparently were closed, but yet, from the one to the other he distinctly perceived a tall shadowy form, clothed in long garments, stalk slowly across, and disappear. The old man who would willingly have confronted a whole host of mortal enemies, and plunged his horse into a forest of spikes, now stood rooted to the ground, with his teeth chattering and his knees shaking, a thousand-fold more terrified than the young girl beside him. Bertha seized the opportunity to hasten away to her mistress's apartments; and Seckendorf, who called after her in vain, thought the line of her retreat by the door behind them so excellent, that he followed as soon as he could regain strength to go.
Never in Seckendorf's life had he so eagerly desired companionship as when he quitted the hall; but companionship he could not find, of the kind and quality that befitted his rank and station. The old ritter would have felt himself degraded by associating with the common soldiers, or anybody who had not von before his name; but Ferdinand he could not find; his companion, old Karl von Mosbach, had accompanied the Count, with all the other persons of gentle birth who filled the various anomalous offices which then existed in the household of a high nobleman; and not even a crossbow-man, who, as was generally admitted, had a right to sit down to table with a knight, could be discovered by our worthy friend, as he went grumbling through the castle.
"Hundert Schwerin!" he exclaimed; "to think of my seeing the ghost! Santa Maria! who'd have ever fancied it would have come into the hall? It looked to me, mighty like our poor dear lady that's gone, only it had a long beard, and was six foot high. I wonder if our good lord did put her out of the way, as some people think!--What could it want in the hall? Very saucy of an apparition to show itself there, unless it were at meal times, when, poor thing! it might want something to eat and drink. It must be cold and hungry work to go shivering about all night in vaults and passages, and to sneak back to its hiding-hole at daylight. I'd rather stand sentry on the northern'st tower in the middle of January. I wonder if I shall ever be a ghost! I should not like it at all. I'll have this one laid, however, if it costs me five crowns out of my own pocket; for we shan't be safe in our rooms, if it goes on in this way, unless we huddle up five or six together, like young pigs in a sty. Donner! where can that young dog, Ferdinand, be? I won't tell him what I've seen, for he'll only laugh; but I'll call him to talk about the Lady Adelaide; he's very fond of her, and will like to hear about her being ill;" and, raising his voice, with these friendly intentions, he called up the stairs which led to the young gentleman's room,--"Ferdinand! Ferdinand!--I want you, scapegrace!"
"What is it, ritter?" answered the voice of Ferdinand from above; "I'm busy, just now; I'll come in a minute."
"But I want you now," answered Seckendorf, who was determined not to be left longer without society than was necessary;--"Come hither and speak to me, or I will come to you."
Ferdinand said a word or two to some one above, and then came unwillingly down the stairs.
"Ah, wild one!" said the old knight, "what would you have given to be in my place just now? I've had a chat with pretty mistress Bertha, just between light and dark, in the hall."
"Indeed!" answered Ferdinand. "I dare say it was very innocent, Seckendorf; and so was my chat with her on the battlements. But what might she want with you?"
"Why, the Lady Adelaide is very ill," replied Seckendorf.
"Ill!" exclaimed Ferdinand, in a tone of much alarm. "What, the Lady Adelaide! She seemed quite well this morning."
"Ay, but women change like the wind," said Seckendorf; "and she's ill now, however; so I've sent down to the chapel for the priest to come up and say what's to be done for her."
"Why, Father George is in my room now," replied Ferdinand, "giving me good counsel and advice."
"Send him down, then,--send him down, quick," said Seckendorf; "and then come and talk with me: I've a good deal to say."
Ferdinand sped away with a much more rapid step than that which had brought him thither, and returned in a few seconds with the good priest, whose face, as far as Seckendorf could see it, in the increasing darkness, expressed much less alarm than that which the lover's countenance had displayed.
"'Tis nothing,--'tis nothing," he said, after speaking with the old knight for a moment, on the lady's illness; "some trifle that will soon pass. But I will go and see;" and, accompanied by Ferdinand and the old soldier as far as the door of Adelaide's apartments, he went in without ceremony.
While he remained,--and he staid for more than an hour, Ferdinand and Seckendorf continued walking up and down the corridor, and only went beyond it to order the hall and the passages to be lighted. Their conversation was entirely of the Lady Adelaide and her illness; for though, with the invariable garrulity of one who had seen a marvel, Seckendorf more than a dozen times approached the subject of the apparition, ready to pour the whole tale into Ferdinand's ear, notwithstanding all his resolutions to the contrary, the young man was still more occupied with the thoughts of his fair lady's state, than the old knight with the memory of the ghost, and he ever turned back to that topic just when the whole history was about to be related. Then Seckendorf would discourse learnedly upon calentures and fevers, hot and cold, describe the humours that ferment in man's blood, and tell what are the vapours that rise from their fermentation; shake his head and declare that it was a wondrous pity young girls should be so given phthisick, which often carried them off in the flower of their age, and the lustre of their beauty; and, shaking his head when he pronounced Adelaide's name, would declare that she looked sadly frail of late, doubting whether she would last another winter. But as all this--though it served to torment in a terrible manner the heart of the young lover--would probably not prove very entertaining to the reader, we will pass over the further particulars till the good father's return. By this time, to Seckendorf's great comfort and consolation, there was as much light shed through the corridor, from a great crescet at one end and a lantern at the other, as the passages of the castle ever displayed. It was not very brilliant, indeed, but sufficiently so to show that Father George's countenance was perfectly cheerful and calm; and in answer to the eager questions of Ferdinand, and the less anxious inquiries of the old knight, he said,--"Oh, the lady is better; 'tis but a little passing cloud, and she will be as well as ever ere the morning."
"Have you let her blood?" asked Seckendorf.
"Nay, no need of that," answered Father George. "Her illness came but from some melancholy fumes, rising from the heart to the head. That I have remedied, and she is better already,--but I must hasten back, for I may be needed at the chapel."
"Stay, stay, good father," cried the old knight; "I have something to ask of you. I will go with you to the gate;" and walking on with Father George, he entertained him with an account of the apparition he had seen in the hall, and besought him to take the most canonical means of laying the unwelcome visitant, by the heels, in the Red Sea; or if that could not be done for a matter of five or ten crowns, at least to put up such prayers on his behalf, as would secure him against any farther personal acquaintance with it.
Father George smiled quietly at the old knight's tale, and assured him he would do his best in the case, after due consideration. Then, hastening away, he passed down the hill, and just reached the door of his temporary dwelling, when the sound of many horses' feet, coming up from below, announced the return of the Count to Ehrenstein. Father George, however, did not wait to salute the nobleman as he passed, or to communicate to him the fact of his daughter's illness, but entered his little cell, and closing the door listened for a moment or two as the long train passed by, and then lighted his lamp.
In the mean time the Count rode on, with somewhat jaded horses, and at a slow pace, looking to the right and left, through the dim obscurity of the night, as if he, too, were not altogether without apprehensions of some terrible sight presenting itself. More than once he struck his horse suddenly with the spur, and not one word did he interchange with any of his followers, from the time he crossed the bridge till he arrived at the Castle gates. He was met under the archway by Seckendorf and Ferdinand, theSchlossvogt, or castle bailiff, and two or three of the guard. But he noticed no one except the old knight, whom he took by the arm, and walked on with him into the hall.
"What news, Seckendorf?" he said. "Has anything happened since I went?"
"Ay, two or three things, my lord," replied Seckendorf. "In the first place, the lady Adelaide has been ill, headachy, and drooping, like a sick falcon."
"Pooh! some woman's ailment, that will be gone to-morrow," replied the Count.
"Ay, so says Father George, whom I sent for, to see her," answered Seckendorf. And finding that his lord paid very little attention to the state of his daughter's health, he went on to give him an account of his foraging expedition in the morning, dwelling long and minutely upon the number of ducks, capons, geese, sheep, and lambs, which he had obtained, and dilating somewhat at large upon his conversation with sundry retainers and vassals of the Count whom he had summoned in the course of his ride to present themselves at the castle on the following day.
Such details of all that was said by the peasantry were usually very much desired by the Count, whose jealous and suspicious disposition made him eager to glean every little indication of the feelings and sentiments of the people towards him, but on the present occasion Seckendorf's long-winded narrative seemed to weary and irritate him, and after many not very complimentary interjections, he stopped him, saying, "There, there, that will do; there will be enough, doubtless, both of geese and asses, capons and boors;" and he remained standing with his eyes fixed upon the ground, in thought.
"I fear, my good lord," said the bluff old soldier, who generally took the liberty of saying what he liked, "that you have not been very successful in your expedition; for you seem to have come home in a mighty ill humour--I suppose the money isn't so much as you expected."
"No, no; it is not that," answered the Count, "I never expected any till this morning, so it is all pure gain, and a good large sum too, when it arrives. Heaven send it come safe! for Count Frederick has not brought it with him, but trusted it to some of the lazy merchants of Pisa.--No, no, it isn't that, Seckendorf. But there are things I love not about this place. By Heaven! I have a great mind to take a torch, set fire to yon old rafters, and burn the whole of it to the ground."
"Better do that to your enemy's mansion than your own," answered Seckendorf, drily, and a good deal surprised at his lord's vehemence.
"Ay, but my enemy has a house that won't burn," answered the Count. "You can't burn the grave, Seckendorf,--that's a vain effort. What I mean is, that these stories of spirits and unearthly beings wandering here and there around us, oppress me, Seckendorf. Why should I call them stories? Have I not seen? Do I not know?"
"Ay, and I have seen, too," answered Seckendorf; "but I never knew you had, my good lord."
"Why, this very night," continued the Count, grasping his arm tight, and speaking in a low tone, "as I came through the woods, wherever I turned my eyes, I saw nought but dim figures, flitting about amongst the trees; none distinct enough to trace either form or feature, but still sufficiently clear to show that the tale of the peasants and the women is but too true--."
"Peasants and women, Sir!" cried Seckendorf. "Knights and soldiers, too, if you please. Why, within the last two months, ghosts have been as plenty in the castle as holly berries on the hills. 'Tis but this very night, that, as I stood talking to Bertha about her lady's illness, here where we now stand--just in the twilight, between day and night--a tall, lank figure, in long, thin, flowing robes,--it might be in a shroud, for ought I know--crossed from that door to that, and disappeared. We both of us saw it, for her scream made me turn round. So you see the very hall itself is not safe. There should always be a tankard of red wine standing here--for I've heard that spirits will not come near red wine."
"Methinks we should soon find plenty of ghosts to drink it," answered the Count, with a bitter laugh. "But it is very strange. I have done nought to merit this visitation."
"Something must be done to remedy it, my good lord," replied Seckendorf, "that is clear, or they will drive us out of this hall as they drove us out of the old one--That's to say, I suppose it was the ghosts drove us out of that; for though you did not say why you left it, all men suspected you had seen something."
The Count took a step or two backwards and forwards in the room, and then pausing opposite to Seckendorf, he replied, "No, my good friend, I saw nought there but in fancy. Yet was the fancy very strong! Each time I stood in that hall alone, it seemed as if my brother came and stood beside me; walked as I walked; and when I sat, placed himself opposite, glaring at me with the cold glassy eyes of death. It was fancy--I know it was fancy; for once I chased the phantom back against the bare cold wall, and there it disappeared; but yet the next night it was there again.--Why should it thus torment me," he continued vehemently. "I slew him not; I ordered no one to slay him; I have done him no wrong." And he walked quickly up and down the room again, while Seckendorf followed more slowly, repeating,
"Well, my good lord, it's clear something must be tried to stop this, or we shan't get soldiers to stay in the castle. The rascals don't mind fighting anything of flesh and blood, but they are not fond of meeting with a thing when they don't know what it is. So I thought it the best way to speak with Father George about it, and ask him to lay my ghost--I've had enough of it, and don't wish to see such a thing any more."
"You did wrong--you did wrong, Seckendorf," answered his lord. "I do not wish these monks to meddle, they will soon be fancying that some great crime has been committed, and putting us all to penance, if not worse. We must find means to lay the ghost ourselves--spirit or devil, or whatever it may be."
"Well, then, my good lord, the only way is to laugh at it," answered Seckendorf. "I dare say one may become familiar with it in time, though it's ugly enough at first. One gets accustomed to everything, and why not to a ghost? We'll jest at him; and if he comes near me, I'll throw the stool at his head, and see if that will lay him--I am very sorry I spoke to Father George, if it displeases you; but, however, there's not much harm done, for the grey gowns of the abbey know everything that goes on; and the devil himself can't conceal his game from them."
"Too much, too much," answered the Count; "they're the pests of the land, prying and spying, and holding their betters in subjection. We are but the vassals of these monks, Seckendorf; and if I had my will, I'd burn their rookery about their ears."
"Ah, here comes Karl von Mosbach," cried Seckendorf, glad to escape giving an answer to his lord's diatribe against the monks, for whom he retained all the superstitious veneration of an earlier period. "Ay, and the Lady Adelaide, too! Why, bless your beautiful eyes, yon girl there told me you were ill, fair lady!"
"I have been somewhat indisposed, but I am well again now," answered Adelaide, advancing to her father. The Count, however, took little notice of her, calling Bertha to him, and making her give an account of what she and Seckendorf had seen.
"Fancy, fancy, my dear father," cried Adelaide, when the girl had done, laughing much more joyously than was her wont. "These tales are told and listened to, till the eyes become accomplices of the imagination, and both combine to cheat us. Bertha came down in the grey twilight, to say that I was ill; and I will warrant, went trembling along the dark passages, and taking every suit of armour, and every shadow through the window, of soldier or of warder passing without, for a grim spirit in a shroud."
"Nay, nay, dear lady," cried Bertha, and was about to defend herself, but the Count cut her short, turning to his daughter with a smile, and saying, "So these tales have not infected your fancy, Adelaide. You have no fears of ghosts or spirits?"
"Not I, indeed," answered the lady. "First, because I have never seen them, and next, because I know they would not hurt me, if I did. If they be unsubstantial they cannot harm me; and if I be innocent, they would not seek to do so, if they could. I fear them not, my father, and I only pray, if any are seen more, I may be called to behold them too."
The fair girl spoke more boldly and more lightly than she usually did, and through the rest of the evening the same cheerful spirit did not leave her. Seated with her father at the last meal of the day, she cheered him with conversation, and asked many a question regarding Count Frederick of Leiningen, and those he brought in his train.
"There is none that will fit thee for a husband, I fear, my child," replied the Count who for the time had caught a portion of his daughter's gaiety. "They are all bluff old soldiers, like Seckendorf or Mosbach there. Even his very jester is white-headed, and his dwarf like a withered pippin."
"Methinks it would not be easy to jest if one were old," said Adelaide. "Gravity and age, I have always thought twin sisters."
"No, no," replied the Count, "that is because you know nought of the world, dear girl. Why Count Frederick himself is just the same gay, joyous soul as ever, and is as old as I am, or a year older. Now, I dare say, to your young eyes, I seem to have reached a vast antiquity, for it is only in looking back that space seems short. It appears but yesterday that I was a boy."
"Nay, I do not think you so very old," replied his daughter, smiling, "when I set you against Seckendorf, you seem but a youth."
"But when you compare me with Ferdinand," replied her father, laughing, "I am quite an old man. Is it not so, child?"
Adelaide neither answered nor coloured, as might have been perhaps expected, but smiled faintly and fell into thought; for it is wonderful what a vast chain of associations is very often spread out before the mind, by a few very simple words; and those associations are nine times out of ten totally different from any that the speaker intended to awaken.
It was so in this case. The comparison of her lover's light and active youth, with the gay rose upon the cheek, the glossy unchanged hair, the movements full of elastic life, the eye lighted up with that heart's fire, which, like the watcher's lamp, grows slowly dimmer with each passing hour, and her pale, thoughtful father, with his stern look, his rigid air, his hair thickly scattered with the snow of time, went on to take in the two elder men where the progress of decay had passed its first stage; and at each step her fancy halted to ask, "And will he whom I love soon be like this--and this?" Her father had said, it seemed but yesterday that he was a boy; and Adelaide thought, "It may be but to-morrow ere I look back upon these days and feel the same." From time to time a sudden consciousness of the great truth, that mortal life is but a point amidst eternity, seems to burst upon us and is then lost again--the whisper of an angel drowned in the tumult of earthly hopes and fears.
Before she had roused herself from her reverie, Seckendorf had taken up the conversation, saying, "And so, my good lord, Count Frederick is as gay and jovial as ever? I remember you and him, and the late Count, your brother, all curly headed boys together--two merry ones and one grave one; for you were always more serious than the rest."
"Because I had less cause for merriment," replied the Count, with a cloud coming over his brow. "They wanted to make a priest of me at that time, Seckendorf; and it was not to my taste--But do not let us talk of those days. The past is always a sad subject. You will see our friend to-morrow; for he will be here ere nightfall, and may stop a week or more, so that we must have all things prepared. The great hall, too, must be made ready; for we shall not have room here. The casements must be mended early to-morrow; and the dust cleaned off the walls and banners."
Seckendorf did not answer, but looked at the Count stedfastly, with an inquiring air, in reply to which his lord nodded, saying, "It must be done."
"By my faith! my good lord," cried Karl von Mosbach, "you won't get many people willing to do it; for every one says that the hall is haunted; and we love not even passing by the door."
"We will have it sprinkled with holy water," replied the Count, somewhat bitterly; "but do not tell me that any of my men will refuse to obey my orders, or I will shame you all by a girl."
There was no reply; and the Count demanded angrily, addressing himself to none in particular, "Are you afraid? Here, Adelaide, will you undertake to deck the hall with flowers, and strew the floor with rushes?"
"Willingly, willingly, my dear father," answered the fair girl; "and you shall see how gaily I will trick it out."
"I beseech you, my lord, to pardon me," said Ferdinand, "but I am not afraid at all to obey anything that you command; and I can very well spare the Lady Adelaide the trouble in the hall; if she will but wreathe the garlands for me."
"You have a heart of steel, good youth," replied the Count; "what if I tell you now to go and bring me the banner which hangs between the shields at the farther end of the hall?"
"I will do it at once, my lord," replied Ferdinand, rising.
The Count fixed his eyes upon him, and Adelaide also gazed at him earnestly. The young man's cheek might lose a shade of colour; but still he seemed perfectly willing; and his lord nodded, saying, "Go!"
"I must take a light, or I may not be able to get down the banner," replied Ferdinand.
"The moon shines clear through the casements," answered the Count. "You will need no other light."
The young man made no reply, but drew his sword-belt a little forward and walked calmly to the door. One or two of the men followed him out of the room; not with the intention of accompanying him; for none of them very much liked the task, but merely with the idle curiosity of seeing him cross the passages and enter the hall. In a minute or two they returned; and one of them said, "He has got in, my lord, but whether he will come out again, I can't tell."
"Got in!" repeated the Count, "What do you mean, Ernst?"
"Why, we watched him from the stone steps," replied the soldier, "and he lifted the latch and shook the door, but at first it would not open. After a while, however, it was suddenly flung back, and in he went."
"Did he close it behind him?" asked the Count, and Adelaide gazed anxiously on the man's face, in expectation of his answer.
"Some one did," replied the soldier, "but I can't tell whether it was he or not."
Thus saying he took his seat again at the table, and all remained silent for several minutes, waiting with different degrees of anxiety for the result.
"The boy is mad," murmured Seckendorf, to himself, after two or three more minutes had elapsed; and then he added aloud, "Hundred thousand! we must not leave this lad to be strangled by the ghosts, or devils, or whatever they are, my lord."
"I will go myself," replied the Count, rising from the table; "let those who will, follow me."
"Stay, let us get some torches," cried Karl von Mosbach.
But just at that moment there was a clang which shook the whole castle; and while the party assembled gazed on each other's faces in doubt and consternation, the door of the hall in which they were was thrown quickly open, and Ferdinand entered bearing a banner in his hand. His face was very pale; but his brow was stern and contracted, and advancing direct towards the Count, who had come down from the step on which his table was raised, he laid the banner before him.
His lord gazed from the banner to his face, and from his face back to the banner, which was torn and soiled, and stained in many places with blood. "How is this?" he exclaimed, at length. "This is not what I sent you for!"
"This is the banner, my lord," replied Ferdinand; "which was hanging between the two shields at the farther end of the hall, over your chair of state."
Old Seckendorf bent down over the tattered silk, on which was embroidered a lion with its paw upon a crescent; and as he did so, he murmured, with a shake of the head, "Your brother's banner, Sir, which he carried with him to the East."
"What have you seen?" demanded the Count, sinking his voice, and fixing his eyes upon the young man's countenance.
"Not now, my lord," replied Ferdinand, in the same low tone; "another time, when you are alone, and have leisure."
The Count made no reply, but seated himself at the table, and leaned his head thoughtfully upon his hand for a moment or two, while the rest of the party remained in groups around, some gazing from a distance at the banner, some looking at it more closely, but none speaking in a louder tone than a low whisper. It was not, indeed, that they were kept silent by any ceremonious respect for their lord; for those were days of much homely freedom of demeanour; and that distance and reserve did not exist between a chief and his followers which a higher and more fastidious state of civilization has introduced. But there was a feeling of awe approaching to terror, in the bosoms of all, which oppressed them in their speech. Each asked himself, what could this mysterious event mean? how had the banner come where it was found? what did it all portend? for none, in those days of superstition, doubted that the event which had just taken place was an omen of others yet to come. The pale cheek with which Ferdinand of Altenburg had returned, too, and his grave stern look, as he stood by the table where he had lately been sitting, attracted observation, and led every one to believe that there was more to be told, though they had not heard his reply to their lord's question.
At length, however, to the surprise of all, the Count suddenly shook off his gloomy and abstracted look, and pushed across the flagon of choice wine, which stood at his right, to his young follower, saying, with a laugh, "Come, drink a cup of wine to me, Ferdinand the ghost-queller. By the Lord! there is not a braver man amongst us than thou art, boy. Would to Heaven! that all here would follow thine example. I, for one, will do so, and think no more of these strange things than if they were but the whisperings of the wind through the trees. Drink, good youth! drink."
Ferdinand filled a cup and drank to his lord; and the next moment the Count rose again, exclaiming, "Now, to bed, to bed, we must all be up by cock-crow for our preparations. I will sup in the old hall to-morrow, if all the devils on the earth or under it should be its tenants;" and thus saying he left the room, followed quickly by Ferdinand, who did not choose to undergo the questionings of his comrades. The others remained for a few minutes, shaking the wise head and commenting gravely; and then by threes and fours quitted the hall, and retired to rest; but there was much oil burned in the Castle of Ehrenstein that night.