A lonely rider was at this same hour of the night traversing the storm-beaten forest that lay below Marienberg. His cloak clung dripping round him; his horse's hoofs were inaudible on the soaking moss and he rode noiselessly forward towards a red, glowing spot in the distance, which looked to him like a little heap of burning charcoal shining dimly through the damp night air. He was not deceived, and a woman close by it lay with a child who vainly endeavoured to keep up the smouldering fire. The woman was lying on the bare earth, the child knelt close by, and the rider was startled as he caught sight of her face lighted up by the ruddy glow, and her large eyes which reflected the flame she strove to fan with her breath.
At this instant the midnight toll sounded out from the tower on the mountain, the woman raised her arm and shrieked in a piercing voice, "Aye! ring away! If there is a God in Heaven that is your knell. On the heath, in the wilderness, in the wood--thus may you all die as I am dying; may your house fall as my hovel fell. May despair rend your hearts, and remorse scorch your brains as they have mine."
"Mother, mother, do not curse, it is a sin, you yourself said so," implored the little girl, clasping the woman's outstretched hand with a soothing gesture.
"It is only what they have done," complained the woman. "Oh, I was pious and good like you once; I would have been content if only they would have let me see Donatus for one hour."
The rider pulled up his horse behind the bushes, and dismounted to listen.
"Only one hour," she went on, "in return for a whole ruined life-time! But even that they would not grant me--not even that. No, let me be, I have nothing but curses that I can fling at their heads; give me an arm to strike with, and I will spare my words."
"Woman," cried a voice suddenly behind her, "here is the arm you need to carry out your curse, I am just in the mood for such a task!"
The child started up in alarm at seeing the grim looking man, and fled to the other side of her mother.
The woman gazed thoughtfully at the stranger; something in his face struck her, but she could not tell what. The rider tied up his horse, and flung himself down on his cloak by the woman's side.
"Your rage is against the monks of Marienberg; what have they done to you?"
And the woman told him at full length all that had happened from the beginning, how she had lost her child and her husband for the sake of the strange infant, and how she had loved him so much all the same, that she would willingly have sacrificed everything if only she might have clasped him once to her heart, and have made her last confession to him. But not even that would they grant her, a dying woman. They had driven the little girl from the door, and called her an adder. Ah! and there was a great weight on her mind about the girl too, and now the child must perish miserably; for when she was dead there would be no one to care for her in all the wide world.
The stranger looked absently at the child; he paused for a moment as if the large, tawny-brown eyes with their dark, meeting brows had struck him; but another idea possessed him wholly.
"And you do not know who the boy was that you nursed?" he asked almost breathlessly.
"No, they did not tell me."
"Do not you know either where he was brought from?"
"Yes," said the nurse, "a lay-brother of Saint Valentine's was there when I went, who had brought him to Marienberg."
The man vehemently grasped the woman's wasted arm.
"Do you not remember his name?"
"I do not know it, my lord, no one told me. But he was very old, and must be dead long since."
"Saint Valentine's," repeated the stranger between his teeth. "Indeed, Saint Valentine's--there perhaps I might find a trace," and he started up in haste to remount his horse; but the woman clutched him by the sleeve,
"My lord, my lord," she cried, "for God's sake! you will not leave us in our misery--and my child, the poor orphan--My hour is near--Have pity on the child or she must starve."
The knight flung a gold-piece into the sick woman's lap. "Here, that is all I carry with me in case of emergency; now, keep me no longer."
But she clung to him in her dying agony, "Gold is of no use to us, what does the child know of gold; wicked men may take it from her, and then she will be as helpless as ever. Shelter, my lord, and protection for the innocent! Oh, my lord, she is not my child, she is a child of sin; but the child is pure, my lord, as pure as the dew, as innocent as the fawn in the forest. I have brought her up in decency and the fear of God. Take charge of her, she is of noble blood; her mother was a lady, and the knight, her husband, was so long away in the field that she thought he was dead; then she fell into trouble. And the child's father--God save his soul--was a minnesänger at Count Albert's court, and the child has come by many gifts through him; she can sing and is full of pretty tunes, and hidden things are revealed to her. You would find her a joy to you, my lord."
The dark-looking man struck his hand against his forehead with a loud and scornful laugh.
"It serves me right! I cast out my own flesh and blood, and in exchange I get a bastard; now I am searching again for my own outcast child, and again, oh! mocking Fate, you fling the bastard scornfully into my lap. Ay, Thou art just, Thou severe God, and Thy ways are past finding out."
The woman and the girl looked in alarm at the powerful man; but after a pause he spoke more calmly,
"I am the Count of Reichenberg," he said, "whose guilty wife gave this child into your charge."
"Great God!" cried the nurse, crossing herself. "Do not harm her, my lord, she could not help it."
The count's gaze gradually softened as he looked at the girl's childish beauty.
"No, you cannot help it. You have your mother's eyes, but they are not false like hers. I forgave her on her death-bed, and how could I be cruel to you? By Heaven, the child bewitches me as her mother did before her. Be off with your sick nurse there to Reichenberg; you shall no longer wander about homeless. Give this ring to the warder as a token that I have sent you, and that he is to take you in to the castle, and take care of you. I shall come after you later, but first I have important work to do in this neighbourhood."
"Thank you, my lord, and may God reward you," cried the nurse, who was almost bewildered by such unexpected good fortune; "I cannot get so far, for I feel my end is near, but the child--I will send her to you at once."
But the little girl shook her head, and threw the ring from her.
"No," she said, "I will not go with the strange man, I will stay with you, mother."
"Child, do not be foolish; when I am dead, what then?"
"Then I will stay with the angel, he will take care of me."
"Oh, you silly child!" wailed the woman. "He cannot help you, for he is only a man, and is himself shut up a prisoner among the monks there."
"Then I will go to the blessed maidens that they may set him free," said the child confidently.
The Count had not been listening to the last words; he had thrown himself on horseback and set off again--away through wind and weather, straight across country, over roots and broken branches in fevered haste, to the heath of Mals, and he raised his fist threateningly at the convent on the height where the gleaming windows shone far out over the dark scene around.
Up in the convent all were astir. The monks were assembled for a solemn and fearful task; they were sitting in judgment on a breach of their holy rule--the crime of self-mutilation--of which Donatus was guilty.
This wasculpa gravis, punishable by the heaviest penance that could be inflicted.
One word could absolve the criminal; he had only to say that one of the priests had ordered the deed, that he had done it in obedience to a superior command; but this word he did not speak, for his guilt would then fall on that other one, and he would have none but himself bear his cross.
And he, that other who could save him, he spoke not. The lips of both remained sealed. If Donatus had still had eyes, the cruel instigator of the crime might well have blenched before the silent appeal with which his victim turned to him; but those eyes were gone which might have spoken, and the bloodstained bandage concealed even the unspoken anguish stamped on the pale brow.
The enquiry was ended, the sentence only was wanting; the monks stood in a half-circle round the Abbot who supported himself on the arms of his chair; his hands trembled, his face was as pale as death. The younger brethren covered their faces and wept; Donatus waited in humble resignation for the sentence to be pronounced.
Three times the Abbot rose, three times his voice failed him--at last he spoke.
"Seeing that the holy rule of Saint Benedict strictly forbids any follower of his to lay violent hands upon himself, in that he is no longer his own but belongs to the holy Church, and, as such, may not injure himself any more than any sacred vessel, garment, altar, temple or whatever else is the Church's property--
"Seeing that you, unhappy child, have been instructed and indoctrinated in that holy rule and have wittingly sinned against it out of your own pride of judgment as to what is best, and have thus rendered yourself unfit to do the Church that service for which God had especially chosen you--
"Seeing that by the commission of this deed, you have rebelled against the will of your spiritual and temporal superiors and so are guilty of the gravest disobedience--
"We declare and pronounce that, as a terrible example to the votaries of all Orders and at all times you--" here again his voice failed and he had to draw a long breath, "that you shall be imprisoned to all perpetuity in the Convent dungeon."
Donatus bowed his head in silence--the Abbot sank back in his chair and clasped his hands over his face which was bathed in tears. One single inarticulate sob broke from all the conclave; only Correntian stood unmoved and his eyes were fixed upon the prisoner. A long silence followed; over their heads stared the fixed stony face of Duty--that pitiless divinity--suppressing every outward expression of the sorrow that filled their shrinking hearts.
At last the Abbot rose and turning to Correntian with an awful and reproachful look,
"You, Correntian," he said, "may fill the office of executioner and lead him away--for not one of us could bear it."
And, just as he had long ago snatched him from his nurse's arms, ruthlessly and without delay Correntian grasped the blind man's arm--to tear him from the last hearth of humanity that was open to him--from the midst of the brotherhood. Donatus obediently turned to follow him.
"Forgive us!" cried the sobbing group of monks, "We only do our duty."
The blind man spread out his arms as though he would clasp them all in one embrace, "If I had eyes to weep, my brethren, it should be for you all and not for myself."
The Abbot could contain himself no longer; with a cry of anguish he flung himself upon Donatus; "My son, my son--why have you done this to me?"
The youth sank into his arms with unutterable affection and they stood in close embrace through a long silence.
But even these loving arms, which had once rescued him from Correntian's iron grip, could not save him now; that iron hand tore him from them and led him away--an unresisting prey. Correntian remained the victor.
"Let us mourn and fast for forty days, my brethren, as for one that is dead," said the Abbot to the conclave. "And send for brother Eusebius--why is he not here?--He must bind up that poor boy's eyes to the best of his skill--the law does not forbid that," and as he spoke he tottered and put out his hand to cling to the man nearest to him--the strong man's powers were spent and the brethren had to support him, or he would have fallen.
Correntian led his victim down the slippery dungeon stair; two of the convent servants followed him with hand-cuffs. They reached the damp vault in silence. Correntian led his prisoner to a bed made of a heap of straw in a corner, close to which, riveted to the wall, were the rings to which he was to be fastened.
"Chains too?" said Donatus; and in the tone in which he spoke these two words there was something which penetrated even Correntian's hard heart to that secret human core, which up to this minute no lament, no dying sigh of any mortal had ever touched; but he strangled the emotion before it found birth, and said calmly, "So it must be."
"If it is possible," said Donatus humbly, "spare me that--Yet, not my will but thine be done."
"So it must be," repeated Correntian, and the lad was silent. Only once he pressed his hand on the bandage which covered his burning sockets, then he submissively held out his trembling hands for the chains; it was quickly done, the irons were riveted and the servants went away. The two monks were alone.
"Now you have indeed preserved yourself from temptation!" cried Correntian, as Donatus dropped his fettered hands without a sound of lamentation passing his lips. "Martyr! open the eyes of your soul, the crown is hanging above your head!"
Donatus fell on his knees before the terrible monk and folding his weary, iron-bound hands as if in prayer, he exclaimed, "Now, now, I understand you."
"Donatus!" cried Correntian, as if his lifelong torpor was suddenly unpent in a lava-flood of extasy--his eye flashed, his pulses throbbed, his breast heaved--"At one word from me you would have been exempt from this fearful punishment--and I was silent. Donatus, tell me, have I been your salvation or your ruin?"
"My salvation and I thank you!" groaned Donatus, and a terrible smile of bliss passed over his drawn lips; he feebly grasped Correntian's hands; the damp walls, like an open grave, echoed back his words: "I thank you."
Correntian hastily threw his arms round the unconscious boy as he sank to the ground; for the first time in his life a human form rested on his breast, and with the first rays of morning, which fell on him through the slit in the wall, high above him, the first ray of love sparkled in the stern master's eyes and was merged in the martyr's crown that shone on the disciple's head.
Morning dawned slowly over the heath of Mals and the dismal tolling of the bell of Saint Valentine's proclaimed far and wide that one of the brethren lay at the point of death. It was brother Florentinus, the grey-haired watchman, who for more than half a century had lived in constant warfare with the deadly and inhospitable powers of the moor, and whose tender and protecting hand had snatched from them their storm-beaten victims. How old he was no man knew--but it must be near on a century; yet Death found it no easy task to crush the life that had defied a thousand snowstorms. He lay close to the chimney, breathing painfully, his dim eyes fixed on the dingy painting of Saint Valentine. His withered body was like a dried up mummy, his hands and feet were already stiff and cold, but his hardly-drawn breath still fanned the trembling flame. It seemed as though he were waiting for something; and yet what should he be waiting for? He had closed his account with the world.
The lonely rider was scouring across the moor from Burgeis at the maddest pace to which he could urge his horse. He too heard the knell, and without accounting to himself for the impulse, he struck his spurs into the horse that started forward with great leaps--he felt that hemustreach the Hospice before the tolling ceased; before the unknown life was extinct that was in that hour wrestling with death.
The dying man listened to the beating of the hoofs and turned his eyes to the door.
"He is come," he said in a faint, hollow voice.
"Who?" asked the brethren who knelt round him in prayer.
At this instant there was a violent knocking at the door; the old man raised himself with a wonderful exertion of strength.
"Open quickly," he said. The astonished brethren obeyed him, and in walked the rider clanking and clattering, straight up to the dying man; it was in vain that the brethren signed to him to be silent and not to disturb the dying man's rest.
"You are old enough--maybe you are he!" cried the Count roughly, and he threw himself on a stool by the old man's couch. "You must not die--you must speak with me."
The old man bowed his trembling head. "It is well, it is well," he muttered feebly, "I have thought of him a great deal--and it was a sin. We meant it well--but we all must err."
"Do you know me?" asked the knight in astonishment.
"Aye, aye--you will find him again--I know, I know." The Count began to be frightened at the old man.
"How do you know?" he asked.
"She has appeared to me twice--again this very night and announced to me that you would come to fetch him."
"She--who?" asked the Count with increasing emotion.
"She, the Countess--the angel of Ramüss."
"Do not make him talk," said one of the brethren, coming up to the Count. "What good can the wanderings of a dying man do you?"
"Silence!" thundered the Count so loud that the sick man started, "Let him speak or I will make you all dumb for the rest of your days."
The brethren stood helpless and consulting each other in whispers.
"Did you know the Lady of Reichenberg?" asked the Count, bending over Florentinus.
"Did I know her--Why she lay here, where I am lying--she and the baby-boy."
"The boy?" repeated the knight, and his heart laboured sorely; but he controlled himself to listen to the sick man, whose breathing grew weaker and weaker, that he might hear the words he might speak before it had altogether ceased. "The boy--where have you put him?"
"Up there--at Marienberg--they kept him--but the mother has given me no peace--three times has she come to me and said, 'Give him his son again'--"
The last words grew fainter--the Count felt as if his head would burst with its throbbing. He bowed his ear over the dying lips, they still moved mechanically--
"Do not die--do not die," he implored him in anxious expectation--"Only say his name--the name they gave the boy in the convent--"
The dying man's lips moved and muttered as though to say "Do--" but he could no more, his breath failed him. The Count took him in his arms and raised his head--he would not let him die--he must pronounce that name on which all depended.
"Don--Don--" he stammered, and his very pulses stood still while listened.
"--nat--" murmured Florentinus with a last effort.
"Donatus!" cried the Count, no longer master of himself.
The dying man bowed assent--a peaceful smile overspread his face and his head fell back--no more now than a noble marble image.
The Count's blood boiled as he looked at the peaceful corpse; it mounted to his forehead and hands till his veins stood out like cords, and his eyes were ominously blood-shot.
The brethren were in the utmost terror. "He was talking nonsense, my Lord, do not believe what he said, he had long been childish." But it was of no use. The Count, without vouchsafing them a glance, walked straight out of the house, flung himself on horseback and rode madly off, the blood trickling from the flanks of his tired beast--towards Marienberg.
"Oh! luckless day!" cried the Abbot, when the brethren who had gone to seek Eusebius brought down his dead body from the western tower.
"Oh! luckless day!" was echoed by the brethren, who from the upper hall had seen a rider spring from a horse which fell down dead at the door. It was Count Reichenberg. Grim rage sat on his brow, grim rage had ridden the noble horse to death, grim rage flapped her angry wings above his head as he knocked at the door with the hilt of his sword.
"Open, in the name of God!" said the Abbot; he divined what it was that hung over him and that nothing now could avert.
He stood in the middle of the still convent-yard, immovable as a statue, and the brethren gathered round him as round the pillar which upheld them all.
The Count walked silently up to him, his white lips trembling with such violent agitation that he had to control himself before he could speak. The Abbot quietly awaited what he might say, while the Count included him and the whole circle of monks in one glance of hatred, for which his tongue could find no adequate expression. At last he muttered between his teeth,
"And dare you actually look me in the face--can you bear that I should look at you? You liars and hypocrites--do you not tremble before me?"
"We tremble before no just man," said the Abbot, "for our consciences are pure. As to the unjust--them the Lord will punish."
"Spare your words!" cried the Count. "Every breath of your throat is a falsehood."
"My Lord Count," said the Abbot, "do you believe that we--"
"Believe!" interrupted the Count, "I believe nothing--I know.--Do you understand? Since my visit with the Duke I have lurked round your convent. The nurse whom you maltreated betrayed the track; the old man at Saint Valentine's has confessed. He is dead and he made his last confession tome."
At those words, which fell upon them like a thunderbolt, the brethren turned pale and were dumb. Now was God's judgment come upon them. But with a comprehension of the danger came resignation; if they had sinned, God might punish them--if they had done right, He would surely help them.
"Where is my son?" cried the Count impatiently, glancing round at the whole circle of monks.
"My Lord, at this moment he is doing penance for a heavy sin," said the Abbot in an uncertain voice.
"What sin?" asked the Count.
"A breach of obedience to the rules of our Order," explained the Abbot.
"Obedience! that is at an end! A Count of Reichenberg owes obedience to no man!"
"He is not a Count of Reichenberg--he is a brother of our Order; he has taken the vows and he cannot be absolved from them."
"It was a forced vow, against all law and justice--he was cheated into it!" shouted the Count. "I was lately with the Bishop of Chur and informed myself on the subject. If you refuse to give the boy up to me, I will accuse you before the Pope himself, and you will be laid under an interdict. For, as the Bishop told me, that is the law; Pope Celestin III. decreed that the decisions of the Church in Council at Toledo and Aix-la-Chapelle should come into force again, and that no Order might receive a child before he was of age without the consent of his parents. And will you hold him to a vow thus surreptitiously extorted from him--will you assert your claim to stolen goods? Am I not his father and did I ever give my consent to his becoming a monk? Answer!"
The brethren had come to a rapid understanding among themselves in Latin.
"Well and good, my Lord," replied the Abbot, "you speak truly, and according to the letter of the law you are in your rights when you require at our hands that which is your own. The only question is this: is that still yours which you threw away of your own free will and abandoned to destruction? I know very well that such an incredible instance of a perverted nature is not provided for by any law, and if you appeal against us the judgment will be in your favour; but, my Lord Count, you were no doubt also informed that the same Canon law permits young people when they come to full years of discretion to enter an order without their parents' consent. Are you or are you not aware of that?"
"Yes," said the Count, biting his lip.
"Well then, my Lord," continued the Abbot, "you may punish us according to the letter of the law, for that wherein we have sinned against the letter of the law--but you cannot break the vows your son has taken, for he is now of age and if he now renews them, he is answerable to the law."
"But he will not renew them now that his father is here to fetch him home to splendour and dominion," said the Count confidently. "Only bring him here and let me speak to him myself, and put my patience to no farther proof. A Reichenberg can never learn to wait."
Again a few Latin words passed from mouth to mouth in a low whisper.
"If it please you to follow us into the refectory and refresh yourself with a cool draught, my Lord," said the Abbot. "You are exhausted and everything, whatever it may be, is better done when men have rested and strengthened themselves with a cup of wine."
"Very good--let us go in; and send me the young Count that he may empty the first bowl with his father," said the Count, somewhat pacified, for he thought the monks' opposition was broken, and his newly awakened fatherly feeling made his heart beat impatiently for the son to whom he must now make up for the neglect of twenty-one long years. So they went into the refectory where bread and wine had been set ready; still the Count would touch nothing,
"My son," said he; "first fetch my son."
The monks looked at each other in their difficulty; God had forsaken them--no farther escape was possible. After another short consultation father Correntian went "to fetch him." The Abbot stood like a condemned criminal at the foot of the cross on which he is to be crucified; "God help us! have mercy on our wrong-doing! Thou who canst read the heart, Thou knowest we meant it rightly!" Thus he prayed silently.
The brethren were one and all incapable of speech. "When the father sees the state of his son--what will happen?" That was the thought that filled every mind.
But Correntian came back alone.
"Your son refuses to appear," he said. "He has this very hour renewed his oath never to quit the cloister--and he will not see you."
Reichenberg laughed loud and wildly.
"You silly fellow! you crazy fool! Do you suppose that I--the Count of Reichenberg--can be sent home like a blockhead, with such an answer as that? Aye, you may glare at me with your wolfish eyes--they cannot pierce my mailed breast. Fetch the boy, on the spot--or I will search the building for him through and through."
"He must come, there is no help for it;" the Abbot whispered to Correntian. "You are not afraid that we cannot rely upon him now, when this severe punishment--"
Correntian smiled. "Be easy," he said; then turning to Reichenberg, "I will bring him to you, that he may tell you himself--then you will believe me."
The Count paced the room with long strides; was it near at last--this consummation--did he at last see the term set to half a life-time of remorse and goading despair? Oh! when he held his son in his arms, in those strong arms, nothing should tear him from them--he would make up for everything.
Minute after minute passed, louder and faster beat the father's heart--more and more shrank the terrified souls of the monks--"How will it end?"
Now--now close to the door--the footsteps of two men--but slow, much too slow for the father's eager impatience. Reichenberg rushed to the door to meet him--the monks turned away not to witness the terrible scene. There stood the longed for son, pale and wasted, and his face covered with a blood-stained bandage. The father tottered back--his eyes fixed, petrified with horror at this vision of suffering. But no! this is not he, he is deceived; this is not Donatus. "Donatus!" he cried, with a choked utterance, "Donatus, my son--where is he?"
"I am here," answered the youth. The father, to convince himself, snatched away the bandage from his face--his son was before him--eyeless!
A cry broke from the strong man that made the monks' blood run cold; "Blind--blinded--my son--blinded. Who has done it?"
"I myself," said the young monk, in a firm voice.
"You--yourself? and why?" groaned the miserable father.
"Because it was God's will."
There was a moment of silence; not one of the monks dared utter a word of consolation. But the torrent of blood that for a moment had been checked in its flow in the heart of the betrayed father, rushed wildly on again, and he turned on the monks in terrible fury,
"This then--this is what you have made of my son! Executioners--murderers! A father's pride mutilated and disfigured--the last scion of an illustrious race! Woe to you! God shall requite you sorely for this service."
"Count Reichenberg," said the Abbot, "we are innocent of this blood, nor are your son's eyes upon our conscience, for indeed they were the sunshine of our gloomy walls and everyone of us would willingly have given his own in lieu of his."
"Spare your speeches, Abbot, I do not believe them. Even if you have not yourselves been the executioners your accursed teaching has done it. Put out your eyes to serve God! Aye, that is your priestly notion of a hero. If you had given the boy a well-tempered sword in his hand that, for my part, he could have used against your enemies, he would never have committed such an outrage on himself! Oh God! great God, here I stand before Thy face; Thou knowest all my iniquity, Thou knowest wherein I have sinned--but the sorrow that is now rending my heart was of no purpose of Thine--no God can be so cruel--but only man." And he beat his brow in a frenzy of rage as if he would strike himself dead with his own hand.
Meanwhile the blind man stood by in silence, his hands folded, his head sunk on his breast; a picture so touching that even the strong man's heart was melted to pity. "What shall I do?" he went on. "I am a lonely, childless man and you are a poor, maimed creature, a dishonour to the chivalrous house of Reichenberg--still you are my own blood and I feel that I can love you with all your infirmities. I will take you with me--Come, and like a beggar who picks up pot-sherds, I will gather up the remnants of my ruined race and carry them home under my roof--to weep over them. Come, my son." His voice broke as he spoke. "Your father will lay aside shield and spear and turn sick-nurse to tend the last of his race till we are carried out of the decaying house to which we two belong." And he took hold of his son's arm to lead him away with him; but the blind man stood as if rooted to the spot, not a foot did he stir to follow his father.
The Count looked at him as if he could not believe it.
"My son!" he shouted in his ear, and he shook his arm as if to rouse him from a stupor, "my son--it is your father who calls you."
"Forgive me," said Donatus wearily, for fever induced by the wounds was beginning to exhaust his strength, "but that is not my father's voice."
"In God's name do not you hear me? It is I--your father--Reichenberg," urged the Count.
The blind youth shook his head. "I have no father but the Abbot."
"Donatus!" shrieked the Count, "are you in your senses?" He turned to the Abbot, "If any earthly bond is still sacred in your eyes--tell him what a son owes to his father."
"Donatus," said the Abbot, "you are this man's son--it is to him that you owe your existence in the world! According to all human rights and duties you belong to him--according to the rights and duties of our Order you belong to us.--You are of age and free to choose--Choose."
All eyes were fixed on Donatus. He felt for the Abbot's hand, "My father," he said, "I can have but one choice; to live or die with you."
"Son, son!" cried Reichenberg. "Is all your nature subverted? Can you repel your real father for the sake of a stranger who did not beget you?"
"My Lord," said Donatus, "how can you say you are my father, when you have never dealt with me as a father? while these have treated me as you ought to have done. How can you talk to me and chide me for loving them and calling them father, when I have never known any other father?"
Reichenberg's eyes fell; "You speak the truth," he replied. "I have erred and sinned grievously towards you; an evil spirit possessed my senses--but of that God is the judge and not you. The children may not be their parents' judges, for the ties of blood are sacred and no law can tear them asunder."
"My lord, I am dedicated to Heaven--I recognise no ties of blood--"
"And is this the doctrine in which you have brought up my child? Almighty God! it would have been better for him if the wild beasts had devoured him! The son renounces his father who comes remorsefully to atone for his past crime. Oh! it is hideous, and I turn from you in horror! You are not men, you are stones--stones of that proud edifice under which the whole earth groans, and all wholesome life must perish.--And you, blind shade, out of which they have wrung the very blood and marrow, can you reconcile it to your creed of mercy to plunge a dagger in cold blood into the heart of a father who opens his arms to you with eager longing, and cries for atonement as a hart for the water-brooks,--to renounce him when he would fain lead you home under the roof of your ancestors?"
Donatus drew himself up; his father quailed before him.
"My lord," said he, "the winter-night sky was my parental roof; the bare earth was my cradle; the snow-storm sweeping down from the heights gave me the first fatherly kiss. Hunger and cold, exhaustion and death were the nurses that tended your wife in her need. Pitying love came in monk's garb through the night, and snow, and storm, and snatched the deserted woman and child from the cruel earth, and carried them home, and warmed them, and laid them on a soft bed. And when my mother succumbed to her miseries, again they were monks--these whom you see here--that made me a cradle in the name of Him who is Love. They have carried me in their arms, they have sheltered and tended me, and watched over me all my life; and shall I leave them and follow a stranger only because an accidental tie of blind nature binds me to him? My lord, sooner could I tear all love out of my heart, as I have torn out my eyes, than do such a thing!"
The Count had listened to the words of the son he had lost with apparent composure, but he now said to the Abbot in a sullen tone, and with lips that were white with anger,
"That will do; command him to follow me without resistance, or mischief will come of all this."
The Abbot drew back a step. "I cannot," he said; "I desired him to choose, I cannot compel him."
The Count grew paler and colder.
"Then I will compel him," he answered. "Send down to the village for a strong horse that may carry me and the boy."
"My lord," urged the Abbot, "you surely will not against his will--"
"Do you think I will entreat him any longer? He must obey, willingly or not; he is my son, and he belongs to me," and with a rapid movement he snatched the enfeebled boy from the midst of the brethren, and threw his mailed arm round his slight form. "Sooner would I throw you to the wolves, unnatural child, than leave you here with these monks, and come what may, I will carry you away."
"Oh, God, help me!" cried the blind man, and in an instant the brethren had flung themselves on the father, and freed the son; the solitary man was forced to yield to numbers. Donatus clung to the Abbot and Correntian who supported him. The Count drew his sword.
"You will have it!" he cried. "Then take it," and he flew like an infuriated wild boar on the unarmed group, so that the foremost recoiled in terror.
"A sword, a sword!" Donatus heard them shout, and he understood what was happening. In an instant he drew a blood-stained weapon from under his robe--the compasses that he had taken from Eusebius--and he turned the two sharp points against his breast.
"Father!" he shouted above the tumult, "if indeed you are my father, will you kill your own son? See this steel which has already pierced my eyes; I will this instant plunge it into my heart if you touch a hair of one of my brethren!"
Reichenberg dropped his sword, and for an instant struggled for breath; then he raised his arm again, and the words poured from his lips like a fiery torrent. "You have conquered! Your strength is so great, so unfathomable that it is vain for man to fight against it. But still you are of flesh and blood, and still you can die! Then hear my solemn oath. In seven days, when the moon changes, I will return with a force, strong enough to destroy you and the whole body of your lansquenets, to rase your convent even with the earth. So bethink yourselves: if by that time you have not turned the heart of the son to his father, if you do not give him up willingly, I will mutilate you as you have mutilated my son; I will rend every tie of humanity as you have rent them by dividing the son from his father; I will trample on your sacred rights as you have trampled on the holy rights of nature. Blood for blood, and struggle for struggle! I will require at your hands the heart and the eyes of my son, and you shall answer to me for them."
"Count Reichenberg, we do not tremble at your threats," said the Abbot proudly. "You may indeed destroy a poor and helpless monastery, and murder a handful of unarmed monks, but you know very well that a whole world would rise up to avenge us, and, even if you conquered that, our holy Father can hurl an anathema at you which will overwhelm you to all eternity, and which you cannot escape from in this world or the next."
"And do you believe," cried the Count with a wild laugh, "do you believe that I quail before curse and ban?--Do you believe that I can fear hell when such wrath as mine is boiling in my veins?--Do you believe that I care for Heaven--for Heaven whose revolting indifference has let every earthly evil fall upon me?--for Heaven that did not annihilate you all rather than leave this poor young son of a noble house to blind himself for your doctrines? Woe upon you! But there is still a power that you know not of--because you have never felt as men feel, and that is a father's vengeance; neither death nor damnation can terrify that!"
He turned towards the door. "So I say again, bethink yourselves; in seven days I shall return and perform my oath--You yourselves have taught me that an oath must be kept."
The door closed with a slam--while the brethren, pale with fear, were still looking after their grim enemy.
"My brethren," said the Abbot, clasping Donatus in his arms, "this our brother has proved himself such as never a man before him. He might have escaped the severest penance by following his father, and we gave him his choice. He has chosen perpetual imprisonment and chains, and has refused freedom and happiness. My brethren, when we consider this our disciple's greatness of soul, we must say that we have done right. And they to whom the Lord vouchsafes such fruition will not be abandoned in their time of need--for this youth's sake. He will stand by us."
"By the help of this youth--aye, truly--but not if you put him in prison," said a voice behind the door. It was brother Wyso who had slipped in from the infirmary, somewhat paler and leaner than of yore, but in as good spirits as ever.
"I wonder you were not smothered long since in your own fat!" muttered Correntian between his teeth.
"Have you heard what threatens us?" asked the Abbot.
"I was standing behind the door. I kept myself discreetly hidden, for when he slashed about him with his sword it struck me that my whole head might be of more service to you than the half."
"What do you mean?" asked the Abbot.
"We are lost--lost even if we had reared a whole garden-full of such holy fruit for the Lord. Why! did you ever see a tree escape the lightning because its fruit was good? Has not the Almighty let many a cloister perish for all that it seemed a pity? Think of our convent at Schuls that was burnt to the ground, and yet it was no man's fault! But this time you yourselves are in fault! You should have listened to me when I warned you; now it has come upon you. The Count of Reichenberg neither can nor will forgive you. Either you must give the boy up to him--" a cry of horror interrupted him, but he proceeded with his speech undisturbed--"or he will hack you in pieces with your protectors and your handful of people, so that at the last day there will be no knowing the bones of priest and peasant apart. There is one, only one, who can save us--Donatus!"
"And how is that?" asked the Abbot.
"Do you not remember how he bewitched the Duchess, and how she said, 'Send this lad to me and whatsoever you desire shall be granted.'"
"Aye, aye!" murmured the brethren, beginning to understand him. "But she will turn from him in horror, now."
"Nonsense! if he pleased her then when he had his pious eyes, he will please her twice as much now because he has put them out for piety's sake. Such a thing melts a woman's heart with pity. The Duchess is now staying at Münster--Count Reichenberg is ruled by the Duke and he is ruled by the Duchess--send the boy to her and she will help us."
"It seems to me brethren, that brother Wyso's counsel is good," said the Abbot.
"Listen to me," cried Correntian; but the excited monks would listen to him no longer.
"No, no; Wyso is right; none but Donatus can help us, Donatus shall go to the Duchess at Münster."
"My son--you can save us, will you venture on this journey?" asked the Abbot.
Donatus kissed his hand. "My father may dispose of me as he will and whatever he does is well."
"Well then, my son--there is indeed no other way--set forth. You do it for us--your brethren--and for God. You will get there and back again in two days; but then, my son, your punishment shall be remitted, for you have this day ransomed yourself by an act of fidelity which outweighs a whole life-time of penance."
"Donatus," said Correntian in a low voice, "once again the Evil One sends you forth. Are you strong enough?"
"Strong!" Donatus smiled--a strange and bitter smile.
"What can the world do to me now! I am blind."