The snow melted, the torrent became a flood, then contracted itself, but was still a broad stream, when one spring afternoon Ebbo showed his brother some wains making for the ford, adding, “It cannot be rightly passable. They will come to loss. I shall get the men together to aid them.”
He blew a blast on his horn, and added, “The knaves will be alert enough if they hope to meddle with honest men’s luggage.”
“See,” and Friedel pointed to the thicket to the westward of the meadow around the stream, where the beech trees were budding, but not yet forming a full mass of verdure, “is not the Snake in the wood? Methinks I spy the glitter of his scales.”
“By heavens, the villains are lying in wait for the travellers at our landing-place,” cried Ebbo, and again raising the bugle to his lips, he sent forth three notes well known as a call to arms. Their echoes came back from the rocks, followed instantly by lusty jodels, and the brothers rushed into the hall to take down their light head-pieces and corslets, answering in haste their mother’s startled questions, by telling of the endangered travellers, and the Schlangenwald ambush. She looked white and trembled, but said no word to hinder them; only as she clasped Friedel’s corslet, she entreated them to take fuller armour.
“We must speed the short way down the rock,” said Ebbo, “and cannot be cumbered with heavy harness. Sweet motherling, fear not; but let a meal be spread for our rescued captives. Ho, Heinz, ’tis against the Schlangenwald rascals. Art too stiff to go down the rock path?”
“No; nor down the abyss, could I strike a good stroke against Schlangenwald at the bottom of it,” quoth Heinz.
“Nor see vermin set free by the Freiherr,” growled Koppel; but the words were lost in Ebbo’s loud commands to the men, as Friedel and Hatto handed down the weapons to them.
The convoy had by this time halted, evidently to try the ford. A horseman crossed, and found it practicable, for a waggon proceeded to make the attempt.
“Now is our time,” said Ebbo, who was standing on the narrow ledge between the castle and the precipitous path leading to the meadow. “One waggon may get over, but the second or third will stick in the ruts that it leaves. Now we will drop from our crag, and if the Snake falls on them, why, then for a pounce of the Eagle.”
The two young knights, so goodly in their bright steel, knelt for their mother’s blessing, and then sprang like chamois down the ivy-twined steep, followed by their men, and were lost to sight among the bushes and rocks. Yet even while her frame quivered with fear, her heart swelled at the thought what a gulf there was between these days and those when she had hidden her face in despair, while Ermentrude watched the Debateable Ford.
She watched now in suspense, indeed, but with exultation instead of shame, as two waggons safely crossed; but the third stuck fast, and presently turned over in the stream, impelled sideways by the efforts of the struggling horses. Then, amid endeavours to disentangle the animals and succour the driver, the travellers were attacked by a party of armed men, who dashed out of the beechwood, and fell on the main body of the waggons, which were waiting on the bit of bare shingly soil that lay between the new and old channels. A wild mêlée was all that Christina could see—weapons raised, horses starting, men rushing from the river, while the clang and the shout rose even to the castle.
Hark! Out rings the clear call, “The Eagle to the rescue!” There they speed over the meadow, the two slender forms with glancing helms! O overrun not the followers, rush not into needless danger! There is Koppel almost up with them with his big axe—Heinz’s broad shoulders near. Heaven strike with them! Visit not their forefathers’ sin on those pure spirits. Some are flying. Some one has fallen! O heavens! on which side? Ah! it is into the Schlangenwald woods that the fugitives direct their flight. Three—four—the whole troop pursued! Go not too far! Run not into needless risk! Your work is done, and gallantly. Well done, young knights of Adlerstein! Which of you is it that stands pointing out safe standing-ground for the men that are raising the waggon? Which of you is it who stands in converse with a burgher form? Thanks and blessings! the lads are safe, and full knightly hath been their first emprise.
A quarter of an hour later, a gay step mounted the ascent, and Friedel’s bright face laughed from his helmet: “There, mother, will you crown your knights? Could you see Ebbo bear down the chief squire? for the old Snake was not there himself. And whom do you think we rescued, besides a whole band of Venetian traders to whom he had joined himself? Why, my uncle’s friend, the architect, of whom he used to speak—Master Moritz Schleiermacher.”
“Moritz Schleiermacher! I knew him as a boy.”
“He had been laying out a Lustgarten for the Romish king at Innspruck, and he is a stout man of his hands, and attempted defence; but he had such a shrewd blow before we came up, that he lay like one dead; and when he was lifted up, he gazed at us like one moon-struck, and said, ‘Are my eyes dazed, or are these the twins of Adlerstein, that are as like as face to mirror? Lads, lads, your uncle looked not to hear of you acting in this sort.’ But soon we and his people let him know how it was, and that eagles do not have the manner of snakes.”
“Poor Master Moritz! Is he much hurt? Is Ebbo bringing him up hither?”
“No, mother, he is but giddied and stunned, and now must you send down store of sausage, sourkraut, meat, wine, and beer; for the wains cannot all cross till daylight, and we must keep ward all night lest the Schlangenwalden should fall on them again. Plenty of good cheer, mother, to make a right merry watch.”
“Take heed, Friedel mine; a merry watch is scarce a safe one.”
“Even so, sweet motherling, and therefore must Ebbo and I share it. You must mete out your liquor wisely, you see, enough for the credit of Adlerstein, and enough to keep out the marsh fog, yet not enough to make us snore too soundly. I am going to take my lute; it would be using it ill not to let it enjoy such a chance as a midnight watch.”
So away went the light-hearted boy, and by and by Christina saw the red watch-fire as she gazed from her turret window. She would have been pleased to see how, marshalled by a merchant who had crossed the desert from Egypt to Palestine, the waggons were ranged in a circle, and the watches told off, while the food and drink were carefully portioned out.
Freiherr Ebbo, on his own ground, as champion and host, was far more at ease than in the city, and became very friendly with the merchants and architect as they sat round the bright fire, conversing, or at times challenging the mountain echoes by songs to the sound of Friedel’s lute. When the stars grew bright, most lay down to sleep in the waggons, while others watched, pacing up and down till Karl’s waggon should be over the mountain, and the vigil was relieved.
No disturbance took place, and at sunrise a hasty meal was partaken of, and the work of crossing the river was set in hand.
“Pity,” said Moritz, the architect, “that this ford were not spanned by a bridge, to the avoiding of danger and spoil.”
“Who could build such a bridge?” asked Ebbo.
“Yourself, Herr Freiherr, in union with us burghers of Ulm. It were well worth your while to give land and stone, and ours to give labour and skill, provided we fixed a toll on the passage, which would be willingly paid to save peril and delay.”
The brothers caught at the idea, and the merchants agreed that such a bridge would be an inestimable boon to all traffickers between Constance, Ulm, and Augsburg, and would attract many travellers who were scared away by the evil fame of the Debateable Ford. Master Moritz looked at the stone of the mountain, pronounced it excellent material, and already sketched the span of the arches with a view to winter torrents. As to the site, the best was on the firm ground above the ford; but here only one side was Adlerstein, while on the other Ebbo claimed both banks, and it was probable that an equally sound foundation could be obtained, only with more cost and delay.
After this survey, the travellers took leave of the barons, promising to write when their fellow-citizens should have been sounded as to the bridge; and Ebbo remained in high spirits, with such brilliant purposes that he had quite forgotten his gloomy forebodings. “Peace instead of war at home,” he said; “with the revenue it will bring, I will build a mill, and set our lads to work, so that they may become less dull and doltish than their parents. Then will we follow the Emperor with a train that none need despise! No one will talk now of Adlerstein not being able to take care of himself!”
Letters came from Ulm, saying that the guilds of mercers and wine merchants were delighted with the project, and invited the Baron of Adlerstein to a council at the Rathhaus. Master Sorel begged the mother to come with her sons to be his guest; but fearing the neighbourhood of Sir Kasimir, she remained at home, with Heinz for her seneschal while her sons rode to the city. There Ebbo found that his late exploit and his future plan had made him a person of much greater consideration than on his last visit, and he demeaned himself with far more ease and affability in consequence. He had affairs on his hands too, and felt more than one year older.
The two guilds agreed to build the bridge, and share the toll with the Baron in return for the ground and materials; but they preferred the plan that placed one pier on the Schlangenwald bank, and proposed to write to the Count an offer to include him in the scheme, awarding him a share of the profits in proportion to his contribution. However vexed at the turn affairs had taken, Ebbo could offer no valid objection, and was obliged to affix his signature to the letter in company with the guildmasters.
It was despatched by the city pursuivants—
The only men who safe might ride;Their errands on the border side;
The only men who safe might ride;Their errands on the border side;
and a meeting was appointed in the Rathhaus for the day of their expected return. The higher burghers sat on their carved chairs in the grand old hall, the lesser magnates on benches, and Ebbo, in an elbowed seat far too spacious for his slender proportions, met a glance from Friedel that told him his merry brother was thinking of the frog and the ox. The pursuivants entered—hardy, shrewd-looking men, with the city arms decking them wherever there was room for them.
“Honour-worthy sirs,” they said, “no letter did the Graf von Schlangenwald return.”
“Sent he no message?” demanded Moritz Schleiermacher.
“Yea, worthy sir, but scarce befitting this reverend assembly.” On being pressed, however, it was repeated: “The Lord Count was pleased to swear at what he termed the insolence of the city in sending him heralds, ‘as if,’ said he, ‘the dogs,’ your worships, ‘were his equals.’ Then having cursed your worships, he reviled the crooked writing of Herr Clerk Diedrichson, and called his chaplain to read it to him. Herr Priest could scarce read three lines for his foul language about the ford. ‘Never,’ said he, ‘would he consent to raising a bridge—a mean trick,’ so said he, ‘for defrauding him of his rights to what the flood sent him.’”
“But,” asked Ebbo, “took he no note of our explanation, that if he give not the upper bank, we will build lower, where both sides are my own?”
“He passed it not entirely over,” replied the messenger.
“What said he—the very words?” demanded Ebbo, with the paling cheek and low voice that made his passion often seem like patience.
“He said—(the Herr Freiherr will pardon me for repeating the words)—he said, ‘Tell the misproud mongrel of Adlerstein that he had best sit firm in his own saddle ere meddling with his betters, and if he touch one pebble of the Braunwasser, he will rue it. And before your city-folk take up with him or his, they had best learn whether he have any right at all in the case.’”
“His right is plain,” said Master Gottfried; “full proofs were given in, and his investiture by the Kaisar forms a title in itself. It is mere bravado, and an endeavour to make mischief between the Baron and the city.”
“Even so did I explain, Herr Guildmaster,” said the pursuivant; “but, pardon me, the Count laughed me to scorn, and quoth he, ‘asked the Kaisar for proof of his father’s death!’”
“Mere mischief-making, as before,” said Master Gottfried, while his nephews started with amaze. “His father’s death was proved by an eye-witness, whom you still have in your train, have you not, Herr Freiherr?”
“Yea,” replied Ebbo, “he is at Adlerstein now, Heinrich Bauermann, called the Schneiderlein, a lanzknecht, who alone escaped the slaughter, and from whom we have often heard how my father died, choked in his own blood, from a deep breast-wound, immediately after he had sent home his last greetings to my lady mother.”
“Was the corpse restored?” asked the able Rathsherr Ulrich.
“No,” said Ebbo. “Almost all our retainers had perished, and when a friar was sent to the hostel to bring home the remains, it appeared that the treacherous foe had borne them off—nay, my grandfather’s head was sent to the Diet!”
The whole assembly agreed that the Count could only mean to make the absence of direct evidence about a murder committed eighteen years ago tell in sowing distrust between the allies. The suggestion was not worth a thought, and it was plain that no site would be available except the Debateable Strand. To this, however, Ebbo’s title was assailable, both on account of his minority, as well as his father’s unproved death, and of the disputed claim to the ground. The Rathsherr, Master Gottfried, and others, therefore recommended deferring the work till the Baron should be of age, when, on again tendering his allegiance, he might obtain a distinct recognition of his marches. But this policy did not consort with the quick spirit of Moritz Schleiermacher, nor with the convenience of the mercers and wine-merchants, who were constant sufferers by the want of a bridge, and afraid of waiting four years, in which a lad like the Baron might return to the nominal instincts of his class, or the Braunwasser might take back the land it had given; whilst Ebbo himself was urgent, with all the defiant fire of youth, to begin building at once in spite of all gainsayers.
“Strife and blood will it cost,” said Master Sorel, gravely.
“What can be had worth the having save at cost of strife and blood?” said Ebbo, with a glance of fire.
“Youth speaks of counting the cost. Little knows it what it saith,” sighed Master Gottfried.
“Nay,” returned the Rathsherr, “were it otherwise, who would have the heart for enterprise?”
So the young knights mounted, and had ridden about half the way in silence, when Ebbo exclaimed, “Friedel”—and as his brother started, “What art musing on?”
“What thou art thinking of,” said Friedel, turning on him an eye that had not only something of the brightness but of the penetration of a sunbeam.
“I do not think thereon at all,” said Ebbo, gloomily. “It is a figment of the old serpent to hinder us from snatching his prey from him.”
“Nevertheless,” said Friedel, “I cannot but remember that the Genoese merchant of old told us of a German noble sold by his foes to the Moors.”
“Folly! That tale was too recent to concern my father.”
“I did not think it did,” said Friedel; “but mayhap that noble’s family rest equally certain of his death.”
“Pfui!” said Ebbo, hotly; “hast not heard fifty times how he died even in speaking, and how Heinz crossed his hands on his breast? What wouldst have more?”
“Hardly even that,” said Friedel, slightly smiling.
“Tush!” hastily returned his brother, “I meant only by way of proof. Would an honest old fellow like Heinz be a deceiver?”
“Not wittingly. Yet I would fain ride to that hostel and make inquiries!”
“The traitor host met his deserts, and was broken on the wheel for murdering a pedlar a year ago,” said Ebbo. “I would I knew where my father was buried, for then would I bring his corpse honourably back; but as to his being a living man, I will not have it spoken of to trouble my mother.”
“To trouble her?” exclaimed Friedel.
“To trouble her,” repeated Ebbo. “Long since hath passed the pang of his loss, and there is reason in what old Sorel says, that he must have been a rugged, untaught savage, with little in common with the gentle one, and that tender memory hath decked him out as he never could have been. Nay, Friedel, it is but sense. What could a man have been under the granddame’s breeding?”
“It becomes not thee to say so!” returned Friedel. “Nay, he could learn to love our mother.”
“One sign of grace, but doubtless she loved him the better for their having been so little together. Her heart is at peace, believing him in his grave; but let her imagine him in Schlangenwald’s dungeon, or some Moorish galley, if thou likest it better, and how will her mild spirit be rent!”
“It might be so,” said Friedel, thoughtfully. “It may be best to keep this secret from her till we have fuller certainty.”
“Agreed then,” said Ebbo, “unless the Wildschloss fellow should again molest us, when his answer is ready.”
“Is this just towards my mother?” said Friedel.
“Just! What mean’st thou? Is it not our office and our dearest right to shield our mother from care? And is not her chief wish to be rid of the Wildschloss suit?”
Nevertheless Ebbo was moody all the way home, but when there he devoted himself in his most eager and winning way to his mother, telling her of Master Gottfried’s woodcuts, and Hausfrau Johanna’s rheumatism, and of all the news of the country, in especial that the Kaisar was at Lintz, very ill with a gangrene in his leg, said to have been caused by his habit of always kicking doors open, and that his doctors thought of amputation, a horrible idea in the fifteenth century. The young baron was evidently bent on proving that no one could make his mother so happy as he could; and he was not far wrong there.
Friedel, however, could not rest till he had followed Heinz to the stable, and speaking over the back of the old white mare, the only other survivor of the massacre, had asked him once more for the particulars, a tale he was never loth to tell; but when Friedel further demanded whether he was certain of having seen the death of his younger lord, he replied, as if hurt: “What, think you I would have quitted him while life was yet in him?”
“No, certainly, good Heinz; yet I would fain know by what tokens thou knewest his death.”
“Ah! Sir Friedel; when you have seen a stricken field or two, you will not ask how I know death from life.”
“Is a swoon so utterly unlike death?”
“I say not but that an inexperienced youth might be mistaken,” said Heinz; “but for one who had learned the bloody trade, it were impossible. Why ask, sir?”
“Because,” said Friedel, low and mysteriously—“my brother would not have my mother know it, but—Count Schlangenwald demanded whether we could prove my father’s death.”
“Prove! He could not choose but die with three such wounds, as the old ruffian knows. I shall bless the day, Sir Friedmund, when I see you or your brother give back those strokes! A heavy reckoning be his.”
“We all deem that line only meant to cross our designs,” said Friedel. “Yet, Heinz, I would I knew how to find out what passed when thou wast gone. Is there no servant at the inn—no retainer of Schlangenwald that aught could be learnt from?”
“By St. Gertrude,” roughly answered the Schneiderlein, “if you cannot be satisfied with the oath of a man like me, who would have given his life to save your father, I know not what will please you.”
Friedel, with his wonted good-nature, set himself to pacify the warrior with assurances of his trust; yet while Ebbo plunged more eagerly into plans for the bridge-building, Friedel drew more and more into his old world of musings; and many a summer afternoon was spent by him at the Ptarmigan’s Mere, in deep communings with himself, as one revolving a purpose.
Christina could not but observe, with a strange sense of foreboding, that, while one son was more than ever in the lonely mountain heights, the other was far more at the base. Master Moritz Schleiermacher was a constant guest at the castle, and Ebbo was much taken up with his companionship. He was a strong, shrewd man, still young, but with much experience, and he knew how to adapt himself to intercourse with the proud nobility, preserving an independent bearing, while avoiding all that haughtiness could take umbrage at; and thus he was acquiring a greater influence over Ebbo than was perceived by any save the watchful mother, who began to fear lest her son was acquiring an infusion of worldly wisdom and eagerness for gain that would indeed be a severance between him and his brother.
If she had known the real difference that unconsciously kept her sons apart, her heart would have ached yet more.
Thestone was quarried high on the mountain, and a direct road was made for bringing it down to the water-side. The castle profited by the road in accessibility, but its impregnability was so far lessened. However, as Ebbo said, it was to be a friendly harbour, instead of a robber crag, and in case of need the communication could easily be destroyed. The blocks of stone were brought down, and wooden sheds were erected for the workmen in the meadow.
In August, however, came tidings that, after two amputations of his diseased limb, the Kaisar Friedrich III. had died—it was said from over free use of melons in the fever consequent on the operation. His death was not likely to make much change in the government, which had of late been left to his son. At this time the King of the Romans (for the title of Kaisar was conferred only by coronation by the Pope, and this Maximilian never received) was at Innspruck collecting troops for the deliverance of Styria and Carinthia from a horde of invading Turks. The Markgraf of Wurtemburg sent an intimation to all the Swabian League that the new sovereign would be best pleased if their homage were paid to him in his camp at the head of their armed retainers.
Here was the way of enterprise and honour open at last, and the young barons of Adlerstein eagerly prepared for it, equipping their vassals and sending to Ulm to take three or four men-at-arms into their pay, so as to make up twenty lances as the contingent of Adlerstein. It was decided that Christina should spend the time of their absence at Ulm, whither her sons would escort her on their way to the camp. The last busy day was over, and in the summer evening Christina was sitting on the castle steps listening to Ebbo’s eager talk of his plans of interesting his hero, the King of the Romans, in his bridge, and obtaining full recognition of his claim to the Debateable Strand, where the busy workmen could be seen far below.
Presently Ebbo, as usual when left to himself, grew restless for want of Friedel, and exclaiming, “The musing fit is on him!—he will stay all night at the tarn if I fetch him not,” he set off in quest of him, passing through the hamlet to look for him in the chapel on his way.
Not finding Friedel there, he was, however, some way up towards the tarn, when he met his brother wearing the beamy yet awestruck look that he often brought from the mountain height, yet with a steadfast expression of resolute purpose on his face.
“Ah, dreamer!” said Ebbo, “I knew where to seek thee! Ever in the clouds!”
“Yes, I have been to the tarn,” said Friedel, throwing his arm round his brother’s neck in their boyish fashion. “It has been very dear to me, and I longed to see its gray depths once more.”
“Once! Yea manifold times shalt thou see them,” said Ebbo. “Schleiermacher tells me that these are no Janissaries, but a mere miscreant horde, even by whom glory can scarce be gained, and no peril at all.”
“I know not,” said Friedel, “but it is to me as if I were taking my leave of all these purple hollows and heaven-lighted peaks cleaving the sky. All the more, Ebbo, since I have made up my mind to a resolution.”
“Nay, none of the old monkish fancies,” cried Ebbo, “against them thou art sworn, so long as I am true knight.”
“No, it is not the monkish fancy, but I am convinced that it is my duty to strive to ascertain my father’s fate. Hold, I say not that it is thine. Thou hast thy charge here—”
“Looking for a dead man,” growled Ebbo; “a proper quest!”
“Not so,” returned Friedel. “At the camp it will surely be possible to learn, through either Schlangenwald or his men, how it went with my father. Men say that his surviving son, the Teutonic knight, is of very different mould. He might bring something to light. Were it proved to be as the Schneiderlein avers, then would our conscience be at rest; but, if he were in Schlangenwald’s dungeon—”
“Folly! Impossible!”
“Yet men have pined eighteen years in dark vaults,” said Friedel; “and, when I think that so may he have wasted for the whole of our lives that have been so free and joyous on his own mountain, it irks me to bound on the heather or gaze at the stars.”
“If the serpent hath dared,” cried Ebbo, “though it is mere folly to think of it, we would summon the League and have his castle about his ears! Not that I believe it.”
“Scarce do I,” said Friedel; “but there haunts me evermore the description of the kindly German chained between the decks of the Corsair’s galley. Once and again have I dreamt thereof. And, Ebbo, recollect the prediction that so fretted thee. Might not yon dark-cheeked woman have had some knowledge of the East and its captives?”
Ebbo started, but resumed his former tone. “So thou wouldst begin thine errantry like Sir Hildebert and Sir Hildebrand in the ‘Rose garden’? Have a care. Such quests end in mortal conflict between the unknown father and son.”
“I should know him,” said Friedel, enthusiastically, “or, at least, he would know my mother’s son in me; and, could I no otherwise ransom him, I would ply the oar in his stead.”
“A fine exchange for my mother and me,” gloomily laughed Ebbo, “to lose thee, my sublimated self, for a rude, savage lord, who would straightway undo all our work, and rate and misuse our sweet mother for being more civilized than himself.”
“Shame, Ebbo!” cried Friedel, “or art thou but in jest?”
“So far in jest that thou wilt never go, puissant Sir Hildebert,” returned Ebbo, drawing him closer. “Thou wilt learn—as I also trust to do—in what nameless hole the serpent hid his remains. Then shall they be duly coffined and blazoned. All the monks in the cloisters for twenty miles round shall sing requiems, and thou and I will walk bareheaded, with candles in our hands, by the bier, till we rest him in the Blessed Friedmund’s chapel; and there Lucas Handlein shall carve his tomb, and thou shalt sit for the likeness.”
“So may it end,” said Friedel, “but either I will know him dead, or endeavour somewhat in his behalf. And that the need is real, as well as the purpose blessed, I have become the more certain, for, Ebbo, as I rose to descend the hill, I saw on the cloud our patron’s very form—I saw myself kneel before him and receive his blessing.”
Ebbo burst out laughing. “Now know I that it is indeed as saith Schleiermacher,” he said, “and that these phantoms of the Blessed Friedmund are but shadows cast by the sun on the vapours of the ravine. See, Friedel, I had gone to seek thee at the chapel, and meeting Father Norbert, I bent my knee, that I might take his farewell blessing. I had the substance, thou the shadow, thou dreamer!”
Friedel was as much mortified for the moment as his gentle nature could be. Then he resumed his sweet smile, saying, “Be it so! I have oft read that men are too prone to take visions and special providences to themselves, and now I have proved the truth of the saying.”
“And,” said Ebbo, “thou seest thy purpose is as baseless as thy vision?”
“No, Ebbo. It grieves me to differ from thee, but my resolve is older than the fancy, and may not be shaken because I was vain enough to believe that the Blessed Friedmund could stoop to bless me.”
“Ha!” shouted Ebbo, glad to see an object on which to vent his secret annoyance. “Who goes there, skulking round the rocks? Here, rogue, what art after here?”
“No harm,” sullenly replied a half-clad boy.
“Whence art thou? From Schlangenwald, to spy what more we can be robbed of? The lash—”
“Hold,” interposed Friedel. “Perchance the poor lad had no evil purposes. Didst lose thy way?”
“No, sir, my mother sent me.”
“I thought so,” cried Ebbo. “This comes of sparing the nest of thankless adders!”
“Nay,” said Friedel, “mayhap it is because they are not thankless that the poor fellow is here.”
“Sir,” said the boy, coming nearer, “I will tellyou—youI will tell—not him who threatens. Mother said you spared our huts, and the lady gave us bread when we came to the castle gate in winter, and she would not see the reiters lay waste your folk’s doings down there without warning you.”
“My good lad! What saidst thou?” cried Ebbo, but the boy seemed dumb before him, and Friedel repeated the question ere he answered: “All the lanzknechts and reiters are at the castle, and the Herr Graf has taken all my father’s young sheep for them, a plague upon him. And our folk are warned to be at the muster rock to-morrow morn, each with a bundle of straw and a pine brand; and Black Berend heard the body squire say the Herr Graf had sworn not to go to the wars till every stick at the ford be burnt, every stone drowned, every workman hung.”
Ebbo, in a transport of indignation and gratitude, thrust his hand into his pouch, and threw the boy a handful of groschen, while Friedel gave warm thanks, in the utmost haste, ere both brothers sprang with headlong speed down the wild path, to take advantage of the timely intelligence.
The little council of war was speedily assembled, consisting of the barons, their mother, Master Moritz Schleiermacher, Heinz, and Hatto. To bring up to the castle the workmen, their families, and the more valuable implements, was at once decided; and Christina asked whether there would be anything left worth defending, and whether the Schlangenwalden might not expend their fury on the scaffold, which could be newly supplied from the forest, the huts, which could be quickly restored, and the stones, which could hardly be damaged. The enemy must proceed to the camp in a day or two, and the building would be less assailable by their return; and, besides, it was scarcely lawful to enter on a private war when the imperial banner was in the field.
“Craving your pardon, gracious lady,” said the architect, “that blame rests with him who provokes the war. See, lord baron, there is time to send to Ulm, where the two guilds, our allies, will at once equip their trained bands and despatch them. We meanwhile will hold the knaves in check, and, by the time our burghers come up, the snake brood will have had such a lesson as they will not soon forget. Said I well, Herr Freiherr?”
“Right bravely,” said Ebbo. “It consorts not with our honour or rights, with my pledges to Ulm, or the fame of my house, to shut ourselves up and see the rogues work their will scatheless. My own score of men, besides the stouter masons, carpenters, and serfs, will be fully enough to make the old serpent of the wood rue the day, even without the aid of the burghers. Not a word against it, dearest mother. None is so wise as thou in matters of peace, but honour is here concerned.”
“My question is,” persevered the mother, “whether honour be not better served by obeying the summons of the king against the infidel, with the men thou hast called together at his behest? Let the count do his worst; he gives thee legal ground of complaint to lay before the king and the League, and all may there be more firmly established.”
“That were admirable counsel, lady,” said Schleiermacher, “well suited to the honour-worthy guildmaster Sorel, and to our justice-loving city; but, in matters of baronial rights and aggressions, king and League are wont to help those that help themselves, and those that are over nice as to law and justice come by the worst.”
“Not the worst in the long run,” said Friedel.
“Thine unearthly code will not serve us here, Friedel mine,” returned his brother. “Did I not defend the work I have begun, I should be branded as a weak fool. Nor will I see the foes of my house insult me without striking a fair stroke. Hap what hap, the Debateable Ford shall be debated! Call in the serfs, Hatto, and arm them. Mother, order a good supper for them. Master Moritz, let us summon thy masons and carpenters, and see who is a good man with his hands among them.”
Christina saw that remonstrance was vain. The days of peril and violence were coming back again; and all she could take comfort in was, that, if not wholly right, her son was far from wholly wrong, and that with a free heart she could pray for a blessing on him and on his arms.
Bythe early September sunrise the thicket beneath the pass was sheltering the twenty well-appointed reiters of Adlerstein, each standing, holding his horse by the bridle, ready to mount at the instant. In their rear were the serfs and artisans, some with axes, scythes, or ploughshares, a few with cross-bows, and Jobst and his sons with the long blackened poles used for stirring their charcoal fires. In advance were Master Moritz and the two barons, the former in a stout plain steel helmet, cuirass, and gauntlets, a sword, and those new-fashioned weapons, pistols; the latter in full knightly armour, exactly alike, from the gilt-spurred heel to the eagle-crested helm, and often moving restlessly forward to watch for the enemy, though taking care not to be betrayed by the glitter of their mail. So long did they wait that there was even a doubt whether it might not have been a false alarm; the boy was vituperated, and it was proposed to despatch a spy to see whether anything were doing at Schlangenwald.
At length a rustling and rushing were heard; then a clank of armour. Ebbo vaulted into the saddle, and gave the word to mount; Schleiermacher, who always fought on foot, stepped up to him. “Keep back your men, Herr Freiherr. Let his design be manifest. We must not be said to have fallen on him on his way to the muster.”
“It would be but as he served my father!” muttered Ebbo, forced, however, to restrain himself, though with boiling blood, as the tramp of horses shook the ground, and bright armour became visible on the further side of the stream.
For the first time, the brothers beheld the foe of their line. He was seated on a clumsy black horse, and sheathed in full armour, and was apparently a large heavy man, whose powerful proportions were becoming unwieldy as he advanced in life. The dragon on his crest and shield would have made him known to the twins, even without the deadly curse that passed the Schneiderlein’s lips at the sight. As the armed troop, out-numbering the Adlersteiners by about a dozen, and followed by a rabble with straw and pine brands, came forth on the meadow, the count halted and appeared to be giving orders.
“The ruffian! He is calling them on! Now—” began Ebbo.
“Nay, there is no sign yet that he is not peacefully on his journey to the camp,” responded Moritz; and, chafing with impatient fury, the knight waited while Schlangenwald rode towards the old channel of the Braunwasser, and there, drawing his rein, and sitting like a statue in his stirrups, he could hear him shout: “The lazy dogs are not astir yet. We will give them a réveille. Forward with your brands!”
“Now!” and Ebbo’s cream-coloured horse leapt forth, as the whole band flashed into the sunshine from the greenwood covert.
“Who troubles the workmen on my land?” shouted Ebbo.
“Who you may be I care not,” replied the count, “but when I find strangers unlicensed on my lands, I burn down their huts. On, fellows!”
“Back, fellows!” called Ebbo. “Whoso touches a stick on Adlerstein ground shall suffer.”
“So!” said the count, “this is the burgher-bred, burgher-fed varlet, that calls himself of Adlerstein! Boy, thou had best be warned. Wert thou true-blooded, it were worth my while to maintain my rights against thee. Craven as thou art, not even with spirit to accept my feud, I would fain not have the trouble of sweeping thee from my path.”
“Herr Graf, as true Freiherr and belted knight, I defy thee! I proclaim my right to this ground, and whoso damages those I place there must do battle with me.”
“Thou wilt have it then,” said the count, taking his heavy lance from his squire, closing his visor, and wheeling back his horse, so as to give space for his career.
Ebbo did the like, while Friedel on one side, and Hierom von Schlangenwald on the other, kept their men in array, awaiting the issue of the strife between their leaders—the fire of seventeen against the force of fifty-six.
They closed in full shock, with shivered lances and rearing, pawing horses, but without damage to either. Each drew his sword, and they were pressing together, when Heinz, seeing a Schlangenwalder aiming with his cross-bow, rode at him furiously, and the mêlée became general; shots were fired, not only from cross-bows, but from arquebuses, and in the throng Friedel lost sight of the main combat between his brother and the count.
Suddenly however there was a crash, as of falling men and horses, with a shout of victory strangely mingled with a cry of agony, and both sides became aware that their leaders had fallen. Each party rushed to its fallen head. Friedel beheld Ebbo under his struggling horse, and an enemy dashing at his throat, and, flying to the rescue, he rode down the assailant, striking him with his sword; and, with the instinct of driving the foe as far as possible from his brother, he struck with a sort of frenzy, shouting fiercely to his men, and leaping over the dry bed of the river, rushing onward with an intoxication of ardour that would have seemed foreign to his gentle nature, but for the impetuous desire to protect his brother. Their leaders down, the enemy had no one to rally them, and, in spite of their superiority in number, gave way in confusion before the furious onset of Adlerstein. So soon, however, as Friedel perceived that he had forced the enemy far back from the scene of conflict, his anxiety for his brother returned, and, leaving the retainers to continue the pursuit, he turned his horse. There, on the green meadow, lay on the one hand Ebbo’s cream-coloured charger, with his master under him, on the other the large figure of the count; and several other prostrate forms likewise struggled on the sand and pebbles of the strand, or on the turf.
“Ay,” said the architect, who had turned with Friedel, “’twas a gallant feat, Sir Friedel, and I trust there is no great harm done. Were it the mere dint of the count’s sword, your brother will be little the worse.”
“Ebbo! Ebbo mine, look up!” cried Friedel, leaping from his horse, and unclasping his brother’s helmet.
“Friedel!” groaned a half-suffocated voice. “O take away the horse.”
One or two of the artisans were at hand, and with their help the dying steed was disengaged from the rider, who could not restrain his moans, though Friedel held him in his arms, and endeavoured to move him as gently as possible. It was then seen that the deep gash from the count’s sword in the chest was not the most serious injury, but that an arquebus ball had pierced his thigh, before burying itself in the body of his horse; and that the limb had been further crushed and wrenched by the animal’s struggles. He was nearly unconscious, and gasped with anguish, but, after Moritz had bathed his face and moistened his lips, as he lay in his brother’s arms, he looked up with clearer eyes, and said: “Have I slain him? It was the shot, not he, that sent me down. Lives he? See—thou, Friedel—thou. Make him yield.”
Transferring Ebbo to the arms of Schleiermacher, Friedel obeyed, and stepped towards the fallen foe. The wrongs of Adlerstein were indeed avenged, for the blood was welling fast from a deep thrust above the collar-bone, and the failing, feeble hand was wandering uncertainly among the clasps of the gorget.
“Let me aid,” said Friedel, kneeling down, and in his pity for the dying man omitting the summons to yield, he threw back the helmet, and beheld a grizzled head and stern hard features, so embrowned by weather and inflamed by intemperance, that even approaching death failed to blanch them. A scowl of malignant hate was in the eyes, and there was a thrill of angry wonder as they fell on the lad’s face. “Thou again,—thou whelp! I thought at least I had made an end of thee,” he muttered, unheard by Friedel, who, intent on the thought that had recurred to him with greater vividness than ever, was again filling Ebbo’s helmet with water. He refreshed the dying man’s face with it, held it to his lips, and said: “Herr Graf, variance and strife are ended now. For heaven’s sake, say where I may find my father!”
“So! Wouldst find him?” replied Schlangenwald, fixing his look on the eager countenance of the youth, while his hand, with a dying man’s nervous agitation, was fumbling at his belt.
“I would bless you for ever, could I but free him.”
“Know then,” said the count, speaking very slowly, and still holding the young knight’s gaze with a sort of intent fascination, by the stony glare of his light gray eyes, “know that thy villain father is a Turkish slave, unless he be—as I hope—where his mongrel son may find him.”
Therewith came a flash, a report; Friedel leaped back, staggered, fell; Ebbo started to a sitting posture, with horrified eyes, and a loud shriek, calling on his brother; Moritz sprang to his feet, shouting, “Shame! treason!”
“I call you to witness that I had not yielded,” said the count. “There’s an end of the brood!” and with a grim smile, he straightened his limbs, and closed his eyes as a dead man, ere the indignant artisans fell on him in savage vengeance.
All this had passed like a flash of lightning, and Friedel had almost at the instant of his fall flung himself towards his brother, and raising himself on one hand, with the other clasped Ebbo’s, saying, “Fear not; it is nothing,” and he was bending to take Ebbo’s head again on his knee, when a gush of dark blood, from his left side, caused Moritz to exclaim, “Ah! Sir Friedel, the traitor did his work! That is no slight hurt.”
“Where? How? The ruffian!” cried Ebbo, supporting himself on his elbow, so as to see his brother, who rather dreamily put his hand to his side, and, looking at the fresh blood that immediately dyed it, said, “I do not feel it. This is more numb dulness than pain.”
“A bad sign that,” said Moritz, apart to one of the workmen, with whom he held counsel how to carry back to the castle the two young knights, who remained on the bank, Ebbo partly extended on the ground, partly supported on the knee and arm of Friedel, who sat with his head drooping over him, their looks fixed on one another, as if conscious of nothing else on earth.
“Herr Freiherr,” said Moritz, presently, “have you breath to wind your bugle to call the men back from the pursuit?”
Ebbo essayed, but was too faint, and Friedel, rousing himself from the stupor, took the horn from him, and made the mountain echoes ring again, but at the expense of a great effusion of blood.
By this time, however, Heinz was riding back, and a moment his exultation changed to rage and despair, when he saw the condition of his young lords. Master Schleiermacher proposed to lay them on some of the planks prepared for the building, and carry them up the new road.
“Methinks,” said Friedel, “that I could ride if I were lifted on horseback, and thus would our mother be less shocked.”
“Well thought,” said Ebbo. “Go on and cheer her. Show her thou canst keep the saddle, however it may be with me,” he added, with a groan of anguish.
Friedel made the sign of the cross over him. “The holy cross keep us and her, Ebbo,” he said, as he bent to assist in laying his brother on the boards, where a mantle had been spread; then kissed his brow, saying, “We shall be together again soon.”
Ebbo was lifted on the shoulders of his bearers, and Friedel strove to rise, with the aid of Heinz, but sank back, unable to use his limbs; and Schleiermacher was the more concerned. “It goes so with the backbone,” he said. “Sir Friedmund, you had best be carried.”
“Nay, for my mother’s sake! And I would fain be on my good steed’s back once again!” he entreated. And when with much difficulty he had been lifted to the back of his cream-colour, who stood as gently and patiently as if he understood the exigency of the moment, he sat upright, and waved his hand as he passed the litter, while Ebbo, on his side, signed to him to speed on and prepare their mother. Long, however, before the castle was reached, dizzy confusion and leaden helplessness, when no longer stimulated by his brother’s presence, so grew on him that it was with much ado that Heinz could keep him in his saddle; but, when he saw his mother in the castle gateway, he again collected his forces, bade Heinz withdraw his supporting arm, and, straightening himself, waved a greeting to her, as he called cheerily; “Victory, dear mother. Ebbo has overthrown the count, and you must not be grieved if it be at some cost of blood.”
“Alas, my son!” was all Christina could say, for his effort at gaiety formed a ghastly contrast with the gray, livid hue that overspread his fair young face, his bloody armour, and damp disordered hair, and even his stiff unearthly smile.
“Nay, motherling,” he added, as she came so near that he could put his arm round her neck, “sorrow not, for Ebbo will need thee much. And, mother,” as his face lighted up, “there is joy coming to you. Only I would that I could have brought him. Mother, he died not under the Schlangenwald swords.”
“Who? Not Ebbo?” cried the bewildered mother.
“Your own Eberhard, our father,” said Friedel, raising her face to him with his hand, and adding, as he met a startled look, “The cruel count owned it with his last breath. He is a Turkish slave, and surely heaven will give him back to comfort you, even though we may not work his freedom! O mother, I had so longed for it, but God be thanked that at least certainty was bought by my life.” The last words were uttered almost unconsciously, and he had nearly fallen, as the excitement faded; but, as they were lifting him down, he bent once more and kissed the glossy neck of his horse. “Ah! poor fellow, thou too wilt be lonely. May Ebbo yet ride thee!”
The mother had no time for grief. Alas! She might have full time for that by and by! The one wish of the twins was to be together, and presently both were laid on the great bed in the upper chamber, Ebbo in a swoon from the pain of the transport, and Friedel lying so as to meet the first look of recovery. And, after Ebbo’s eyes had re-opened, they watched one another in silence for a short space, till Ebbo said: “Is that the hue of death on thy face, brother?”
“I well believe so,” said Friedel.
“Ever together,” said Ebbo, holding his hand. “But alas! My mother! Would I had never sent thee to the traitor.”
“Ah! So comes her comfort,” said Friedel. “Heard you not? He owned that my father was among the Turks.”
“And I,” cried Ebbo. “I have withheld thee! O Friedel, had I listened to thee, thou hadst not been in this fatal broil!”
“Nay, ever together,” repeated Friedel. “Through Ulm merchants will my mother be able to ransom him. I know she will, so oft have I dreamt of his return. Then, mother, you will give him our duteous greetings;” and he smiled again.
Like one in a dream Christina returned his smile, because she saw he wished it, just as the moment before she had been trying to staunch his wound.
It was plain that the injuries, except Ebbo’s sword-cut, were far beyond her skill, and she could only endeavour to check the bleeding till better aid could be obtained from Ulm. Thither Moritz Schleiermacher had already sent, and he assured her that he was far from despairing of the elder baron, but she derived little hope from his words, for gunshot wounds were then so ill understood as generally to prove fatal.
Moreover, there was an undefined impression that the two lives must end in the same hour, even as they had begun. Indeed, Ebbo was suffering so terribly, and was so much spent with pain and loss of blood, that he seemed sinking much faster than Friedel, whose wound bled less freely, and who only seemed benumbed and torpid, except when he roused himself to speak, or was distressed by the writhings and moans which, however, for his sake, Ebbo restrained as much as he could.
To be together seemed an all-sufficient consolation, and, when the chaplain came sorrowfully to give them the last rites of the Church, Ebbo implored him to pray that he might not be left behind long in purgatory.
“Friedel,” he said, clasping his brother’s hand, “is even like the holy Sebastian or Maurice; but I—I was never such as he. O father, will it be my penance to be left alone when he is in paradise?”
“What is that?” said Friedel, partially roused by the sound of his name, and the involuntary pressure of his hand. “Nay, Ebbo; one repentance, one cross, one hope,” and he relapsed into a doze, while Ebbo murmured over a broken, brief confession—exhausting by its vehemence of self-accusation for his proud spirit, his wilful neglect of his lost father, his hot contempt of prudent counsel.
Then, when the priest came round to Friedel’s side, and the boy was wakened to make his shrift, the words were contrite and humble, but calm and full of trust. They were like two of their own mountain streams, the waters almost equally undefiled by external stain—yet one struggling, agitated, whirling giddily round; the other still, transparent, and the light of heaven smiling in its clearness.
The farewell greetings of the Church on earth breathed soft and sweet in their loftiness, and Friedel, though lying motionless, and with closed eyes, never failed in the murmured response, whether fully conscious or not, while his brother only attended by fits and starts, and was evidently often in too much pain to know what was passing.
Help was nearer than had been hoped. The summons despatched the night before had been responded to by the vintners and mercers; their train bands had set forth, and their captain, a cautious man, never rode into the way of blows without his surgeon at hand. And so it came to pass that, before the sun was low on that long and grievous day, Doctor Johannes Butteman was led into the upper chamber, where the mother looked up to him with a kind of hopeless gratitude on her face, which was nearly as white as those of her sons. The doctor soon saw that Friedel was past human aid; but, when he declared that there was fair hope for the other youth, Friedel, whose torpor had been dispelled by the examination, looked up with his beaming smile, saying, “There, motherling.”
The doctor then declared that he could not deal with the Baron’s wound unless he were the sole occupant of the bed, and this sentence brought the first cloud of grief or dread to Friedel’s brow, but only for a moment. He looked at his brother, who had again fainted at the first touch of his wounded limb, and said, “It is well. Tell the dear Ebbo that I cannot help it if after all I go to the praying, and leave him the fighting. Dear, dear Ebbo! One day together again and for ever! I leave thee for thine own sake.” With much effort he signed the cross again on his brother’s brow, and kissed it long and fervently. Then, as all stood round, reluctant to effect this severance, or disturb one on whom death was visibly fast approaching, he struggled up on his elbow, and held out the other hand, saying, “Take me now, Heinz, ere Ebbo revive to be grieved. The last sacrifice,” he further whispered, whilst almost giving himself to Heinz and Moritz to be carried to his own bed in the turret chamber.
There, even as they laid him down, began what seemed to be the mortal agony, and, though he was scarcely sensible, his mother felt that her prime call was to him, while his brother was in other hands. Perhaps it was well for her. Surgical practice was rough, and wounds made by fire-arms were thought to have imbibed a poison that made treatment be supposed efficacious in proportion to the pain inflicted. When Ebbo was recalled by the torture to see no white reflection of his own face on the pillow beside him, and to feel in vain for the grasp of the cold damp hand, a delirious frenzy seized him, and his struggles were frustrating the doctor’s attempts, when a low soft sweet song stole through the open door.
“Friedel!” he murmured, and held his breath to listen. All through the declining day did the gentle sound continue; now of grand chants or hymns caught from the cathedral choir, now of songs of chivalry or saintly legend so often sung over the evening fire; the one flowing into the other in the wandering of failing powers, but never failing in the tender sweetness that had distinguished Friedel through life. And, whenever that voice was heard, let them do to him what they would, Ebbo was still absorbed in intense listening so as not to lose a note, and lulled almost out of sense of suffering by that swan-like music. If his attendants made such noise as to break in on it, or if it ceased for a moment, the anguish returned, but was charmed away by the weakest, faintest resumption of the song. Probably Friedel knew not, with any earthly sense, what he was doing, but to the very last he was serving his twin brother as none other could have aided him in his need.
The September sun had set, twilight was coming on, the doctor had worked his stern will, and Ebbo, quivering in every fibre, lay spent on his pillow, when his mother glided in, and took her seat near him, though where she hoped he would not notice her presence. But he raised his eyelids, and said, “He is not singing now.”
“Singing indeed, but where we cannot hear him,” she answered. “‘Whiter than the snow, clearer than the ice-cave, more solemn than the choir. They will come at last.’ That was what he said, even as he entered there.” And the low dove-like tone and tender calm face continued upon Ebbo the spell that the chant had left. He dozed as though still lulled by its echo.
Thestar and the spark in the stubble! Often did the presage of her dream occur to Christina, and assist in sustaining her hopes during the days that Ebbo’s life hung in the balance, and he himself had hardly consciousness to realize either his brother’s death or his own state, save as much as was shown by the words, “Let him not be taken away, mother; let him wait for me.”
Friedmund did wait, in his coffin before the altar in the castle chapel, covered with a pall of blue velvet, and great white cross, mournfully sent by Hausfrau Johanna; his sword, shield, helmet, and spurs laid on it, and wax tapers burning at the head and feet. And, when Christina could leave the one son on his couch of suffering, it was to kneel beside the other son on his narrow bed of rest, and recall, like a breath of solace, the heavenly loveliness and peace that rested on his features when she had taken her last long look at them.
Moritz Schleiermacher assisted at Sir Friedmund’s first solemn requiem, and then made a journey to Ulm, whence he returned to find the Baron’s danger so much abated that he ventured on begging for an interview with the lady, in which he explained his purpose of repairing at once to the imperial camp, taking with him a letter from the guilds concerned in the bridge, and using his personal influence with Maximilian to obtain not only pardon for the combat, but authoritative sanction to the erection. Dankwart of Schlangenwald, the Teutonic knight, and only heir of old Wolfgang, was supposed to be with the Emperor, and it might be possible to come to terms with him, since his breeding in the Prussian commanderies had kept him aloof from the feuds of his father and brother. This mournful fight had to a certain extent equalized the injuries on either side, since the man whom Friedel had cut down was Hierom, one of the few remaining scions of Schlangenwald, and there was thus no dishonour in trying to close the deadly feud, and coming to an amicable arrangement about the Debateable Strand, the cause of so much bloodshed. What was now wanted was Freiherr Eberhard’s signature to the letter to the Emperor, and his authority for making terms with the new count; and haste was needed, lest the Markgraf of Wurtemburg should represent the affray in the light of an outrage against a member of the League.
Christina saw the necessity, and undertook if possible to obtain her son’s signature, but, at the first mention of Master Moritz and the bridge, Ebbo turned away his head, groaned, and begged to hear no more of either. He thought of his bold declaration that the bridge must be built, even at the cost of blood! Little did he then guess of whose blood! And in his bitterness of spirit he felt a jealousy of that influence of Schleiermacher, which had of late come between him and his brother. He hated the very name, he said, and hid his face with a shudder. He hoped the torrent would sweep away every fragment of the bridge.
“Nay, Ebbo mine, wherefore wish ill to a good work that our blessed one loved? Listen, and let me tell you my dream for making yonder strand a peaceful memorial of our peaceful boy.”
“To honour Friedel?” and he gazed on her with something like interest in his eyes.
“Yes, Ebbo, and as he would best brook honour. Let us seek for ever to end the rival claims to yon piece of meadow by praying this knight of a religious order, the new count, to unite with us in building there—or as near as may be safe—a church of holy peace, and a cell for a priest, who may watch over the bridge ward, and offer the holy sacrifice for the departed of either house. There will we place our gentle Friedel to be the first to guard the peace of the ford, and there will we sleep ourselves when our time shall come, and so may the cruel feud of many generations be slaked for ever.”
“In his blood!” sighed Ebbo. “Ah! would that it had been mine, mother. It is well, as well as anything can be again. So shall the spot where he fell be made sacred, and fenced from rude feet, and we shall see his fair effigy keeping his armed watch there.”
And Christina was thankful to see his look of gratification, sad though it was. She sat down near his bed, and began to write a letter in their joint names to Graf Dankwart von Schlangenwald, proposing that thus, after the even balance of the wrongs of the two houses, their mutual hostility might be laid to rest for ever by the consecration of the cause of their long contention. It was a stiff and formal letter, full of the set pious formularies of the age, scarcely revealing the deep heart-feeling within; but it was to the purpose, and Ebbo, after hearing it read, heartily approved, and consented to sign both it and those that Schleiermacher had brought. Christina held the scroll, and placed the pen in the fingers that had lately so easily wielded the heavy sword, but now felt it a far greater effort to guide the slender quill.
Moritz Schleiermacher went his way in search of the King of the Romans, far off in Carinthia. A full reply could not be expected till the campaign was over, and all that was known for some time was through a messenger sent back to Ulm by Schleiermacher with the intelligence that Maximilian would examine into the matter after his return, and that Count Dankwart would reply when he should come to perform his father’s obsequies after the army was dispersed. There was also a letter of kind though courtly condolence from Kasimir of Wildschloss, much grieving for gallant young Sir Friedmund, proffering all the advocacy he could give the cause of Adlerstein, and covertly proffering the protection that she and her remaining son might now be more disposed to accept. Christina suppressed this letter, knowing it would only pain and irritate Ebbo, and that she had her answer ready. Indeed, in her grief for one son, and her anxiety for the other, perhaps it was this letter that first made her fully realize the drift of those earnest words of Friedel’s respecting his father.
Meantime the mother and son were alone together, with much of suffering and of sorrow, yet with a certain tender comfort in the being all in all to one another, with none to intermeddle with their mutual love and grief. It was to Christina as if something of Friedel’s sweetness had passed to his brother in his patient helplessness, and that, while thus fully engrossed with him, she had both her sons in one. Nay, in spite of all the pain, grief, and weariness, these were times when both dreaded any change, and the full recovery, when not only would the loss of Friedel be every moment freshly brought home to his brother, but when Ebbo would go in quest of his father.
For on this the young Baron had fixed his mind as a sacred duty, from the moment he had seen that life was to be his lot. He looked on his neglect of indications of the possibility of his father’s life in the light of a sin that had led to all his disasters, and not only regarded the intended search as a token of repentance, but as a charge bequeathed to him by his less selfish brother. He seldom spoke of his intention, but his mother was perfectly aware of it, and never thought of it without such an agony of foreboding dread as eclipsed all the hope that lay beyond. She could only turn away her mind from the thought, and be thankful for what was still her own from day to day.
“Art weary, my son?” asked Christina one October afternoon, as Ebbo lay on his bed, languidly turning the pages of a noble folio of the Legends of the Saints that Master Gottfried had sent for his amusement. It was such a book as fixed the ardour a few years later of the wounded Navarrese knight, Inigo de Loyola, but Ebbo handled it as if each page were lead.
“Only thinking how Friedel would have glowed towards these as his own kinsmen,” said Ebbo. “Then should I have cared to read of them!” and he gave a long sigh.
“Let me take away the book,” she said. “Thou hast read long, and it is dark.”
“So dark that there must surely be a snow-cloud.”
“Snow is falling in the large flakes that our Friedel used to call winter-butterflies.”
“Butterflies that will swarm and shut us in from the weary world,” said Ebbo. “And alack! when they go, what a turmoil it will be! Councils in the Rathhaus, appeals to the League, wranglings with the Markgraf, wise saws, overweening speeches, all alike dull and dead.”
“It will scarce be so when strength and spirit have returned, mine Ebbo.”
“Never can life be more to me than the way to him,” said the lonely boy; “and I—never like him—shall miss the road without him.”
While he thus spoke in the listless dejection of sorrow and weakness, Hatto’s aged step was on the stair. “Gracious lady,” he said, “here is a huntsman bewildered in the hills, who has been asking shelter from the storm that is drifting up.”
“See to his entertainment, then, Hatto,” said the lady.
“My lady—Sir Baron,” added Hatto, “I had not come up but that this guest seems scarce gear for us below. He is none of the foresters of our tract. His hair is perfumed, his shirt is fine holland, his buff suit is of softest skin, his baldric has a jewelled clasp, and his arblast! It would do my lord baron’s heart good only to cast eyes on the perfect make of that arblast! He has a lordly tread, and a stately presence, and, though he has a free tongue, and made friends with us as he dried his garments, he asked after my lord like his equal.”
“O mother, must you play the chatelaine?” asked Ebbo. “Who can the fellow be? Why did none ever so come when they would have been more welcome?”
“Welcomed must he be,” said Christina, rising, “and thy state shall be my excuse for not tarrying longer with him than may be needful.”
Yet, though shrinking from a stranger’s face, she was not without hope that the variety might wholesomely rouse her son from his depression, and in effect Ebbo, when left with Hatto, minutely questioned him on the appearance of the stranger, and watched, with much curiosity, for his mother’s return.
“Ebbo mine,” she said, entering, after a long interval, “the knight asks to see thee either after supper, or to-morrow morn.”
“Then a knight he is?”
“Yea, truly, a knight truly in every look and gesture, bearing his head like the leading stag of the herd, and yet right gracious.”
“Gracious to you, mother, in your own hall?” cried Ebbo, almost fiercely.
“Ah! jealous champion, thou couldst not take offence! It was the manner of one free and courteous to every one, and yet with an inherent loftiness that pervades all.”
“Gives he no name?” said Ebbo.
“He calls himself Ritter Theurdank, of the suite of the late Kaisar, but I should deem him wont rather to lead than to follow.”
“Theurdank,” repeated Eberhard, “I know no such name! So, motherling, are you going to sup? I shall not sleep till I have seen him!”
“Hold, dear son.” She leant over him and spoke low. “See him thou must, but let me first station Heinz and Koppel at the door with halberts, not within earshot, but thou art so entirely defenceless.”
She had the pleasure of seeing him laugh. “Less defenceless than when the kinsman of Wildschloss here visited us, mother? I see for whom thou takest him, but let it be so; a spiritual knight would scarce wreak his vengeance on a wounded man in his bed. I will not have him insulted with precautions. If he has freely risked himself in my hands, I will as freely risk myself in his. Moreover, I thought he had won thy heart.”
“Reigned over it, rather,” said Christina. “It is but the disguise that I suspect and mistrust. Bid me not leave thee alone with him, my son.”
“Nay, dear mother,” said Ebbo, “the matters on which he is like to speak will brook no presence save our own, and even that will be hard enough to bear. So prop me more upright! So! And comb out these locks somewhat smoother. Thanks, mother. Now can he see whether he will choose Eberhard of Adlerstein for friend or foe.”
By the time supper was ended, the only light in the upper room came from the flickering flames of the fire of pine knots on the hearth. It glanced on the pale features and dark sad eyes of the young Baron, sad in spite of the eager look of scrutiny that he turned on the figure that entered at the door, and approached so quickly that the partial light only served to show the gloss of long fair hair, the glint of a jewelled belt, and the outline of a tall, well-knit, agile frame.
“Welcome, Herr Ritter,” he said; “I am sorry we have been unable to give you a fitter reception.”
“No host could be more fully excused than you,” said the stranger, and Ebbo started at his voice. “I fear you have suffered much, and still have much to suffer.”
“My sword wound is healing fast,” said Ebbo; “it is the shot in my broken thigh that is so tedious and painful.”
“And I dare be sworn the leeches made it worse. I have hated all leeches ever since they kept me three days a prisoner in a ’pothecary’s shop stinking with drugs. Why, I have cured myself with one pitcher of water of a raging fever, in their very despite! How did they serve thee, my poor boy?”
“They poured hot oil into the wound to remove the venom of the lead,” said Ebbo.
“Had it been my case the lead should have been in their own brains first, though that were scarce needed, the heavy-witted Hans Sausages. Why should there be more poison in lead than in steel? I have asked all my surgeons that question, nor ever had a reasonable answer. Greater havoc of warriors do they make than ever with the arquebus—ay, even when every lanzknecht bears one.”
“Alack!” Ebbo could not help exclaiming, “where will be room for chivalry?”
“Talk not old world nonsense,” said Theurdank; “chivalry is in the heart, not in the weapon. A youth beforehand enough with the world to be building bridges should know that, when all our troops are provided with such an arm, then will their platoons in serried ranks be as a solid wall breathing fire, and as impregnable as the lines of English archers with long bows, or the phalanx of Macedon. And, when each man bears a pistol instead of the misericorde, his life will be far more his own.”
Ebbo’s face was in full light, and his visitor marked his contracted brow and trembling lip. “Ah!” he said, “thou hast had foul experience of these weapons.”