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+Project Gutenberg Etext of The Dove in the Eagle's Nest, by Yonge
+#7 in our series by Charlotte M. Yonge
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+Title: The Dove in the Eagle's Nest
+
+Author: Charlotte M. Yonge
+
+Release Date: March, 2002  [Etext #3139]
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+
+
+THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST
+
+by Charlotte M. Yonge
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+
+In sending forth this little book, I am inclined to add a few
+explanatory words as to the use I have made of historical personages.
+The origin of the whole story was probably Freytag's first series of
+pictures of German Life:  probably, I say, for its first commencement
+was a dream, dreamt some weeks after reading that most interesting
+collection of sketches.  The return of the squire with the tidings of
+the death of the two knights was vividly depicted in sleep; and,
+though without local habitation or name, the scene was most likely to
+have been a reflection from the wild scenes so lately read of.
+
+In fact, waking thoughts decided that such a catastrophe could hardly
+have happened anywhere but in Germany, or in Scotland; and the
+contrast between the cultivation in the free cities and the savagery
+of the independent barons made the former the more suitable region
+for the adventures.  The time could only be before the taming and
+bringing into order of the empire, when the Imperial cities were in
+their greatest splendour, the last free nobles in course of being
+reduced from their lawless liberty, and the House of Austria
+beginning to acquire its preponderance over the other princely
+families.
+
+M. Freytag's books, and Hegewisch's History of Maximilian, will, I
+think, be found fully to bear out the picture I have tried to give of
+the state of things in the reign of the Emperor Friedrich III., when,
+for want of any other law, Faust recht, or fist right, ruled; i.e. an
+offended nobleman, having once sent a Fehde-brief to his adversary,
+was thenceforth at liberty to revenge himself by a private war, in
+which, for the wrong inflicted, no justice was exacted.
+
+Hegewisch remarks that the only benefit of this custom was, that the
+honour of subscribing a feud-brief was so highly esteemed that it
+induced the nobles to learn to write!  The League of St. George and
+the Swabian League were the means of gradually putting down this
+authorized condition of deadly feud.
+
+This was in the days of Maximilian's youth.  He is a prince who seems
+to have been almost as inferior in his foreign to what he was in his
+domestic policy as was Queen Elizabeth.  He is chiefly familiar to us
+as failing to keep up his authority in Flanders after the death of
+Mary of Burgundy, as lingering to fulfil his engagement with Anne of
+Brittany till he lost her and her duchy, as incurring ridicule by his
+ill-managed schemes in Italy, and the vast projects that he was
+always forming without either means or steadiness to carry them out,
+by his perpetual impecuniosity and slippery dealing; and in his old
+age he has become rather the laughing-stock of historians.
+
+But there is much that is melancholy in the sight of a man endowed
+with genius, unbalanced by the force of character that secures
+success, and with an ardent nature whose intention overleapt
+obstacles that in practice he found insuperable.  At home Maximilian
+raised the Imperial power from a mere cipher to considerable weight.
+We judge him as if he had been born in the purple and succeeded to a
+defined power like his descendants.  We forget that the head of the
+Holy Roman Empire had been, ever since the extinction of the Swabian
+line, a mere mark for ambitious princes to shoot at, with everything
+expected from him, and no means to do anything.  Maximilian's own
+father was an avaricious, undignified old man, not until near his
+death Archduke of even all Austria, and with anarchy prevailing
+everywhere under his nominal rule.  It was in the time of Maximilian
+that the Empire became as compact and united a body as could be hoped
+of anything so unwieldy, that law was at least acknowledged, Faust
+recht for ever abolished, and the Emperor became once more a real
+power.
+
+The man under whom all this was effected could have been no fool;
+yet, as he said himself, he reigned over a nation of kings, who each
+chose to rule for himself; and the uncertainty of supplies of men or
+money to be gained from them made him so often fail necessarily in
+his engagements, that he acquired a shiftiness and callousness to
+breaches of promise, which became the worst flaw in his character.
+But of the fascination of his manner there can be no doubt.  Even
+Henry VIII.'s English ambassadors, when forced to own how little they
+could depend on him, and how dangerous it was to let subsidies pass
+through his fingers, still show themselves under a sort of
+enchantment of devotion to his person, and this in his old age, and
+when his conduct was most inexcusable and provoking.
+
+His variety of powers was wonderful.  He was learned in many
+languages--in all those of his empire or hereditary states, and in
+many besides; and he had an ardent love of books, both classical and
+modern.  He delighted in music, painting, architecture, and many arts
+of a more mechanical description; wrote treatises on all these, and
+on other subjects, especially gardening and gunnery.  He was the
+inventor of an improved lock to the arquebus, and first divined how
+to adapt the disposition of his troops to the use of the newly-
+discovered fire-arms.  And in all these things his versatile head and
+ready hand were personally employed, not by deputy; while coupled
+with so much artistic taste was a violent passion for hunting, which
+carried him through many hairbreadth 'scapes.  "It was plain," he
+used to say, "that God Almighty ruled the world, or how could things
+go on with a rogue like Alexander VI. at the head of the Church, and
+a mere huntsman like himself at the head of the Empire."  His bon-
+mots are numerous, all thoroughly characteristic, and showing that
+brilliancy in conversation must have been one of his greatest charms.
+It seems as if only self-control and resolution were wanting to have
+made him a Charles, or an Alfred, the Great.
+
+The romance of his marriage with the heiress of Burgundy is one of
+the best known parts of his life.  He was scarcely two-and-twenty
+when he lost her, who perhaps would have given him the stability he
+wanted; but his tender hove for her endured through life.  It is not
+improbable that it was this still abiding attachment that made him
+slack in overcoming difficulties in the way of other contracts, and
+that he may have hoped that his engagement to Bianca Sforza would
+come to nothing, like so many others.
+
+The most curious record of him is, however, in two books, the
+materials for which he furnished, and whose composition and
+illustration he superintended, Der Weise King, and Theurdank, of both
+of which he is well known to be the hero.  The White, or the Wise
+King, it is uncertain which, is a history of his education and
+exploits, in prose.  Every alternate page has its engraving, showing
+how the Young White King obtains instruction in painting,
+architecture, language, and all arts and sciences, the latter
+including magic--which he learns of an old woman with a long-tailed
+demon sitting, like Mother Hubbard's cat, on her shoulder--and
+astrology.  In the illustration of this study an extraordinary figure
+of a cross within a circle appears in the sky, which probably has
+some connection with his scheme of nativity, for it also appears on
+the breast of Ehrenhold, his constant companion in the metrical
+history of his career, under the name of Theurdank.
+
+The poetry of Theurdank was composed by Maximilian's old writing-
+master, Melchior Pfinznig; but the adventures were the Kaisar's own,
+communicated by himself, and he superintended the wood-cuts.  The
+name is explained to mean "craving glory,"--Gloriaememor.  The
+Germans laugh to scorn a French translator, who rendered it
+"Chermerci."  It was annotated very soon after its publication, and
+each exploit explained and accounted for.  It is remarkable and
+touching in a man who married at eighteen, and was a widower at
+twenty-two, that, in both books, the happy union with his lady love
+is placed at the end--not at the beginning of the book; and in
+Theurdank, at least, the eternal reunion is clearly meant.
+
+In this curious book, Konig Romreich, by whom every contemporary
+understood poor Charles of Burgundy--thus posthumously made King of
+Rome by Maximilian, as the only honour in his power, betroths his
+daughter Ehrenreich (rich in honour) to the Ritter Theurdank.  Soon
+after, by a most mild version of Duke Charles's frightful end, Konig
+Romreich is seen on his back dying in a garden, and Ehrenreich (as
+Mary really did) despatches a ring to summon her betrothed.
+
+But here Theurdank returns for answer that he means first to win
+honour by his exploits, and sets out with his comrade, Ehrenhold, in
+search thereof.  Ehrenhold never appears of the smallest use to him
+in any of the dire adventures into which he falls, but only stands
+complacently by, and in effect may represent Fame, or perhaps that
+literary sage whom Don Quixote always supposed to be at hand to
+record his deeds of prowess.
+
+Next we are presented with the German impersonation of Satan as a
+wise old magician, only with claws instead of feet, commissioning his
+three captains (hauptleutern), Furwitz, Umfallo, and Neidelhard, to
+beset and ruin Theurdank.  They are interpreted as the dangers of
+youth, middle life, and old age--Rashness, Disaster, and Distress (or
+Envy).  One at a time they encounter him,--not once, but again and
+again; and he has ranged under each head, in entire contempt of real
+order of time, the perils he thinks owing to each foe.  Furwitz most
+justly gets the credit of Maximilian's perils on the steeple of Ulm,
+though, unfortunately, the artist has represented the daring climber
+as standing not much above the shoulders of Furwitz and Ehrenhold;
+and although the annotation tells us that his "hinder half foot"
+overhung the scaffold, the danger in the print is not appalling.
+Furwitz likewise inveigles him into putting the point (schnabel) of
+his shoe into the wheel of a mill for turning stone balls, where he
+certainly hardly deserved to lose nothing but the beak of his shoe.
+This enemy also brings him into numerous unpleasant predicaments on
+precipices, where he hangs by one hand; while the chamois stand
+delighted on every available peak, Furwitz grins malevolently, and
+Ehrenhold stands pointing at him over his shoulder.  Time and place
+are given in the notes for all these escapes.  After some twenty
+adventures Furwitz is beaten off, and Umfallo tries his powers.  Here
+the misadventures do not involve so much folly on the hero's part--
+though, to be sure, he ventures into a lion's den unarmed, and has to
+beat off the inmates with a shovel.  But the other adventures are
+more rational.  He catches a jester--of admirably foolish expression-
+-putting a match to a powder-magazine; he is wonderfully preserved in
+mountain avalanches and hurricanes; reins up his horse on the verge
+of an abyss; falls through ice in Holland and shows nothing but his
+head above it; cures himself of a fever by draughts of water, to the
+great disgust of his physicians, and escapes a fire bursting out of a
+tall stove.
+
+Neidelhard brings his real battles and perils.  From this last he is
+in danger of shipwreck, of assassination, of poison, in single
+combat, or in battle; tumults of the people beset him; he is
+imprisoned as at Ghent.  But finally Neidelhard is beaten back; and
+the hero is presented to Ehrenreich.  Ehrenhold recounts his
+triumphs, and accuses the three captains.  One is hung, another
+beheaded, the third thrown headlong from a tower, and a guardian
+angel then summons Theurdank to his union with his Queen.  No doubt
+this reunion was the life-dream of the harassed, busy, inconsistent
+man, who flashed through the turmoils of the early sixteenth century.
+
+The adventures of Maximilian which have been adverted to in the story
+are all to be found in Theurdank, and in his early life he was
+probably the brilliant eager person we have tried in some degree to
+describe.  In his latter years it is well known that he was much
+struck by Luther's arguments; and, indeed, he had long been conscious
+of need of Church reform, though his plans took the grotesque form of
+getting himself made Pope, and taking all into his own hands.
+
+Perhaps it was unwise to have ever so faintly sketched Ebbo's career
+through the ensuing troubles; but the history of the star and of the
+spark in the stubble seemed to need completion; and the working out
+of the character of the survivor was unfinished till his course had
+been thought over from the dawn of the Wittenberg teaching, which
+must have seemed no novelty to an heir of the doctrine of Tauler, and
+of the veritably Catholic divines of old times.  The idea is of the
+supposed course of a thoughtful, refined, conscientious man through
+the earlier times of the Reformation, glad of the hope of cleansing
+the Church, but hoping to cleanse, not to break away from her--a hope
+that Luther himself long cherished, and which was not entirely
+frustrated till the re-assembly at Trent in the next generation.
+Justice has never been done to the men who feared to loose their hold
+on the Church Catholic as the one body to which the promises were
+made.  Their loyalty has been treated as blindness, timidity, or
+superstition; but that there were many such persons, and those among
+the very highest minds of their time, no one can have any doubt after
+reading such lives as those of Friedrich the Wise of Saxony, of
+Erasmus, of Vittoria Colonna, or of Cardinal Giustiniani.
+
+April 9, 1836.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I:  MASTER GOTTFRIED'S WORKSHOP
+
+
+
+The upper lattices of a tall, narrow window were open, and admitted
+the view, of first some richly-tinted vine leaves and purpling
+grapes, then, in dazzling freshness of new white stone, the lacework
+fabric of a half-built minster spire, with a mason's crane on the
+summit, bending as though craving for a further supply of materials;
+and beyond, peeping through every crevice of the exquisite open
+fretwork, was the intensely blue sky of early autumn.
+
+The lower longer panes of the window were closed, and the glass,
+divided into circles and quarrels, made the scene less distinct; but
+still the huge stone tower was traceable, and, farther off, the slope
+of a gently-rising hill, clothed with vineyards blushing into autumn
+richness.  Below, the view was closed by the gray wall of a court-
+yard, laden with fruit-trees in full bearing, and inclosing paved
+paths that radiated from a central fountain, and left spaces between,
+where a few summer flowers still lingered, and the remains of others
+showed what their past glory had been.
+
+The interior of the room was wainscoted, the floor paved with bright
+red and cream-coloured tiles, and the tall stove in one corner
+decorated with the same.  The eastern end of the apartment was
+adorned with an exquisite small group carved in oak, representing the
+carpenter's shop at Nazareth, with the Holy Child instructed by
+Joseph in the use of tools, and the Mother sitting with her book,
+"pondering these things in her heart."  All around were blocks of
+wood and carvings in varying states of progress--some scarcely shaped
+out, and others in perfect completion.  And the subjects were equally
+various.  Here was an adoring angel with folded wings, clasped hands,
+and rapt face; here a majestic head of an apostle or prophet; here a
+lovely virgin saint, seeming to play smilingly with the instrument of
+her martyrdom; here a grotesque miserere group, illustrating a fairy
+tale, or caricaturing a popular fable here a beauteous festoon of
+flowers and fruit, emulating nature in all save colour; and on the
+work-table itself, growing under the master's hand, was a long
+wreath, entirely composed of leaves and seed-vessels in their quaint
+and beauteous forms--the heart-shaped shepherd's purse, the mask-like
+skull-cap, and the crowned urn of the henbane.  The starred cap of
+the poppy was actually being shaped under the tool, copied from a
+green capsule, surmounted with purple velvety rays, which, together
+with its rough and wavy leaf, was held in the hand of a young maiden
+who knelt by the table, watching the work with eager interest.
+
+She was not a beautiful girl--not one of those whose "bright eyes
+rain influence, and judge the prize."  She was too small, too slight,
+too retiring for such a position.  If there was something lily-like
+in her drooping grace, it was not the queen-lily of the garden that
+she resembled, but the retiring lily of the valley--so purely,
+transparently white was her skin, scarcely tinted by a roseate blush
+on the cheek, so tender and modest the whole effect of her slender
+figure, and the soft, downcast, pensive brown eyes, utterly
+dissimilar in hue from those of all her friends and kindred, except
+perhaps the bright, quick ones of her uncle, the master-carver.
+Otherwise, his portly form, open visage, and good-natured
+stateliness, as well as his furred cap and gold chain, were
+thoroughly those of the German burgomaster of the fifteenth century;
+but those glittering black eyes had not ceased to betray their
+French, or rather Walloon, origin, though for several generations
+back the family had been settled at Ulm.  Perhaps, too, it was
+Walloon quickness and readiness of wit that had made them, so soon as
+they became affiliated, so prominent in all the councils of the good
+free city, and so noted for excellence in art and learning.  Indeed
+the present head of the family, Master Gottfried Sorel, was so much
+esteemed for his learning that he had once had serious thoughts of
+terming himself Magister Gothofredus Oxalicus, and might have carried
+it out but for the very decided objections of his wife, Dame Johanna,
+and his little niece, Christina, to being dubbed by any such surname.
+
+Master Gottfried had had a scapegrace younger brother named Hugh, who
+had scorned both books and tools, had been the plague of the
+workshop, and, instead of coming back from his wandering year of
+improvement, had joined a band of roving Lanzknechts.  No more had
+been heard of him for a dozen or fifteen years, when he suddenly
+arrived at the paternal mansion at Ulm, half dead with intermittent
+fever, and with a young, broken-hearted, and nearly expiring wife,
+his spoil in his Italian campaigns.  His rude affection had utterly
+failed to console her for her desolated home and slaughtered kindred,
+and it had so soon turned to brutality that, when brought to
+comparative peace and rest in his brother's home, there was nothing
+left for the poor Italian but to lie down and die, commending her
+babe in broken German to Hausfrau Johanna, and blessing Master
+Gottfried for his flowing Latin assurances that the child should be
+to them even as the little maiden who was lying in the God's acre
+upon the hillside
+
+And verily the little Christina had been a precious gift to the
+bereaved couple.  Her father had no sooner recovered than he returned
+to his roving life, and, except for a report that he had been seen
+among the retainers of one of the robber barons of the Swabian Alps,
+nothing had been heard of him; and Master Gottfried only hoped to be
+spared the actual pain and scandal of knowing when his eyes were
+blinded and his head swept off at a blow, or when he was tumbled
+headlong into a moat, suspended from a tree, or broken on the wheel:
+a choice of fates that was sure sooner or later to befall him.
+Meantime, both the burgomeister and burgomeisterinn did their utmost
+to forget that the gentle little girl was not their own; they set all
+their hopes and joys on her, and, making her supply the place at once
+of son and daughter, they bred her up in all the refinements and
+accomplishments in which the free citizens of Germany took the lead
+in the middle and latter part of the fifteenth century.  To aid her
+aunt in all house-wifely arts, to prepare dainty food and varied
+liquors, and to spin, weave, and broider, was only a part of
+Christina's training; her uncle likewise set great store by her sweet
+Italian voice, and caused her to be carefully taught to sing and play
+on the lute, and he likewise delighted in hearing her read aloud to
+him from the hereditary store of MSS. and from the dark volumes that
+began to proceed from the press.  Nay, Master Gottfried had made
+experiments in printing and wood-engraving on his own account, and
+had found no head so intelligent, no hand so desirous to aid him, as
+his little Christina's, who, in all that needed taste and skill
+rather than strength, was worth all his prentices and journeymen
+together.  Some fine bold wood-cuts had been produced by their joint
+efforts; but these less important occupations had of late been set
+aside by the engrossing interest of the interior fittings of the
+great "Dome Kirk," which for nearly a century had been rising by the
+united exertions of the burghers, without any assistance from
+without.  The foundation had been laid in 1377; and at length, in the
+year of grace 1472, the crown of the apse had been closed in, and
+matters were so forward that Master Gottfried's stall work was
+already in requisition for the choir.
+
+"Three cubits more," he reckoned.  "Child, hast thou found me fruits
+enough for the completing of this border?"
+
+"O yes, mine uncle.  I have the wild rosehip, and the flat shield of
+the moonwort, and a pea-pod, and more whose names I know not.  But
+should they all be seed and fruit?"
+
+"Yea, truly, my Stina, for this wreath shall speak of the goodly
+fruits of a completed life."
+
+"Even as that which you carved in spring told of the blossom and fair
+promise of youth," returned the maiden.  "Methinks the one is the
+most beautiful, as it ought to be;" then, after a little pause, and
+some reckoning, "I have scarce seed-pods enough in store, uncle;
+might we not seek some rarer shapes in the herb-garden of Master
+Gerhard, the physician?  He, too, might tell me the names of some of
+these."
+
+"True, child; or we might ride into the country beyond the walls, and
+seek them.  What, little one, wouldst thou not?"
+
+"So we go not far," faltered Christina, colouring.
+
+"Ha, thou hast not forgotten the fright thy companions had from the
+Schlangenwald reitern when gathering Maydew?  Fear not, little
+coward; if we go beyond the suburbs we will take Hans and Peter with
+their halberts.  But I believe thy silly little heart can scarce be
+free for enjoyment if it can fancy a Reiter within a dozen leagues of
+thee."
+
+"At your side I would not fear.  That is, I would not vex thee by my
+folly, and I might forget it," replied Christina, looking down.
+
+"My gentle child!" the old man said approvingly.  "Moreover, if our
+good Raiser has his way, we shall soon be free of the reitern of
+Schlangenwald, and Adlerstein, and all the rest of the mouse-trap
+barons.  He is hoping to form a league of us free imperial cities
+with all the more reasonable and honest nobles, to preserve the peace
+of the country.  Even now a letter from him was read in the Town Hall
+to that effect; and, when all are united against them, my lords-
+mousers must needs become pledged to the league, or go down before
+it."
+
+"Ah! that will be well," cried Christina.  "Then will our wagons be
+no longer set upon at the Debateable Ford by Schlangenwald or
+Adlerstein; and our wares will come safely, and there will be wealth
+enough to raise our spire!  O uncle, what a day of joy will that be
+when Our Lady's great statue will be set on the summit!"
+
+"A day that I shall scarce see, and it will be well if thou dost,"
+returned her uncle, "unless the hearts of the burghers of Ulm return
+to the liberality of their fathers, who devised that spire!  But what
+trampling do I hear?"
+
+There was indeed a sudden confusion in the house, and, before the
+uncle and niece could rise, the door was opened by a prosperous
+apple-faced dame, exclaiming in a hasty whisper, "Housefather, O
+Housefather, there are a troop of reitern at the door, dismounting
+already;" and, as the master came forward, brushing from his furred
+vest the shavings and dust of his work, she added in a more furtive,
+startled accent, "and, if I mistake not, one is thy brother!"
+
+"He is welcome," replied Master Gottfried, in his cheery fearless
+voice; "he brought us a choice gift last time he came; and it may be
+he is ready to seek peace among us after his wanderings.  Come
+hither, Christina, my little one; it is well to be abashed, but thou
+art not a child who need fear to meet a father."
+
+Christina's extreme timidity, however, made her pale and crimson by
+turns, perhaps by the infection of anxiety from her aunt, who could
+not conceal a certain dissatisfaction and alarm, as the maiden, led
+on either side by her adopted parents, thus advanced from the little
+studio into a handsomely-carved wooden gallery, projecting into a
+great wainscoated room, with a broad carved stair leading down into
+it.  Down this stair the three proceeded, and reached the stone hall
+that lay beyond it, just as there entered from the trellised porch,
+that covered the steps into the street, a thin wiry man, in a worn
+and greasy buff suit, guarded on the breast and arms with rusty
+steel, and a battered helmet with the vizor up, disclosing a weather-
+beaten bronzed face, with somewhat wild dark eyes, and a huge
+grizzled moustache forming a straight line over his lips.  Altogether
+he was a complete model of the lawless Reiter or Lanzknecht, the
+terror of Swabia, and the bugbear of Christina's imagination.  The
+poor child's heart died within her as she perceived the mutual
+recognition between her uncle and the new comer; and, while Master
+Gottfried held out his hands with a cordial greeting of "Welcome,
+home, brother Hugh," she trembled from head to foot, as she sank on
+her knees, and murmured, "Your blessing, honoured father."
+
+"Ha?  What, this is my girl?  What says she?  My blessing, eh?  There
+then, thou hast it, child, such as I have to give, though they'll
+tell thee at Adlerstein that I am more wont to give the other sort of
+blessing!  Now, give me a kiss, girl, and let me see thee!  How now!"
+as he folded her in his rough arms; "thou art a mere feather, as
+slight as our sick Jungfrau herself."  And then, regarding her, as
+she stood drooping, "Thou art not half the woman thy mother was--she
+was stately and straight as a column, and tall withal."
+
+"True!" replied Hausfrau Johanna, in a marked tone; "but both she and
+her poor babe had been so harassed and wasted with long journeys and
+hardships, that with all our care of our Christina, she has never
+been strong or well-grown.  The marvel is that she lived at all."
+
+"Our Christina is not beautiful, we know," added her uncle,
+reassuringly taking her hand; "but she is a good and meek maiden."
+
+"Well, well," returned the Lanzknecht, "she will answer the purpose
+well enough, or better than if she were fair enough to set all our
+fellows together by the ears for her.  Camilla, I say--no, what's her
+name, Christina?--put up thy gear and be ready to start with me to-
+morrow morning for Adlerstein."
+
+"For Adlerstein?" re-echoed the housemother, in a tone of horrified
+dismay; and Christina would have dropped on the floor but for her
+uncle's sustaining hand, and the cheering glance with which he met
+her imploring look.
+
+"Let us come up to the gallery, and understand what you desire,
+brother," said Master Gottfried, gravely.  "Fill the cup of greeting,
+Hans.  Your followers shall be entertained in the hall," he added.
+
+"Ay, ay," quoth Hugh, "I will show you reason over a goblet of the
+old Rosenburg.  Is it all gone yet, brother Goetz?  No?  I reckon
+there would not be the scouring of a glass left of it in a week if it
+were at Adlerstein."
+
+So saying, the trooper crossed the lower room, which contained a huge
+tiled baking oven, various brilliantly-burnished cooking utensils,
+and a great carved cupboard like a wooden bedstead, and, passing the
+door of the bathroom, clanked up the oaken stairs to the gallery, the
+reception-room of the house.  It had tapestry hangings to the wall,
+and cushions both to the carved chairs and deep windows, which looked
+out into the street, the whole storey projecting into close proximity
+with the corresponding apartment of the Syndic Moritz, the goldsmith
+on the opposite side.  An oaken table stood in the centre, and the
+gallery was adorned with a dresser, displaying not only bright
+pewter, but goblets and drinking cups of beautifully-shaped and
+coloured glass, and saltcellars, tankards, &c. of gold and silver.
+
+"Just as it was in the old man's time," said the soldier, throwing
+himself into the housefather's chair.  "A handful of Lanzknechts
+would make short work with your pots and pans, good sister Johanna."
+
+"Heaven forbid!" said poor Johanna under her breath.  "Much good they
+do you, up in a row there, making you a slave to furbishing them.
+There's more sense in a chair like this--that does rest a man's
+bones.  Here, Camilla, girl, unlace my helmet!  What, know'st not
+how?  What is a woman made for but to let a soldier free of his
+trappings?  Thou hast done it!  There!  Now my boots," stretching out
+his legs.
+
+"Hans shall draw off your boots, fair brother," began the dame; but
+poor Christina, the more anxious to propitiate him in little things,
+because of the horror and dread with which his main purpose inspired
+her, was already on her knees, pulling with her small quivering hands
+at the long steel-guarded boot--a task to which she would have been
+utterly inadequate, but for some lazy assistance from her father's
+other foot.  She further brought a pair of her uncle's furred
+slippers, while Reiter Hugh proceeded to dangle one of the boots in
+the air, expatiating on its frail condition, and expressing his
+intention of getting a new pair from Master Matthias, the sutor, ere
+he should leave Ulm on the morrow.  Then, again, came the dreaded
+subject; his daughter must go with him.
+
+"What would you with Christina, brother?" gravely asked Master
+Gottfried, seating himself on the opposite side of the stove, while
+out of sight the frightened girl herself knelt on the floor, her head
+on her aunt's knees, trying to derive comfort from Dame Johanna's
+clasping hands, and vehement murmurs that they would not let their
+child be taken from them.  Alas! these assurances were little in
+accordance with Hugh's rough reply, "And what is it to you what I do
+with mine own?"
+
+"Only this, that, having bred her up as my child and intended
+heiress, I might have some voice."
+
+"Oh! in choosing her mate!  Some mincing artificer, I trow, fiddling
+away with wood and wire to make gauds for the fair-day!  Hast got him
+here?  If I like him, and she likes him, I'll bring her back when her
+work is done."
+
+"There is no such person as yet in the case," said Gottfried.
+"Christina is not yet seventeen, and I would take my time to find an
+honest, pious burgher, who will value this precious jewel of mine."
+
+"And let her polish his flagons to the end of her days," laughed Hugh
+grimly, but manifestly somewhat influenced by the notion of his
+brother's wealth.  "What, hast no child of thine own?" he added.
+
+"None, save in Paradise," answered Gottfried, crossing himself.  "And
+thus, if Christina should remain with me, and be such as I would have
+her, then, brother, my wealth, after myself and my good housewife,
+shall be hers, with due provision for thee, if thou shouldst weary of
+thy wild life.  Otherwise," he added, looking down, and speaking in
+an under tone, "my poor savings should go to the completion of the
+Dome Kirk."
+
+"And who told thee, Goetz, that I would do ought with the girl that
+should hinder her from being the very same fat, sourkrout-cooking,
+pewter-scrubbing housewife of thy mind's eye?"
+
+"I have heard nothing of thy designs as yet, brother Hugh, save that
+thou wouldst take her to Adlerstein, which men greatly belie if it be
+not a nest of robbers."
+
+"Aha! thou hast heard of Adlerstein!  We have made the backs of your
+jolly merchants tingle as well as they could through their well-lined
+doublets!  Ulm knows of Adlerstein, and the Debateable Ford!"
+
+"It knows little to its credit," said Gottfried, gravely; "and it
+knows also that the Emperor is about to make a combination against
+all the Swabian robber-holds, and that such as join not in it will
+fare the worse."
+
+"Let Kaiser Fritz catch his bear ere he sells its hide!  He has never
+tried to mount the Eagle's Ladder!  Why, man, Adlerstein might be
+held against five hundred men by sister Johanna with her rock and
+spindle!  'Tis a free barony, Master Gottfried, I tell thee--has
+never sworn allegiance to Kaiser or Duke of Swabia either!  Freiherr
+Eberhard is as much a king on his own rock as Kaiser Fritz ever was
+of the Romans, and more too, for I never could find out that they
+thought much of our king at Rome; and, as to gainsaying our old
+Freiherr, one might as well leap over the abyss at once."
+
+"Yes, those old free barons are pitiless tyrants," said Gottfried,
+"and I scarce think I can understand thee aright when I hear thee say
+thou wouldst carry thy daughter to such an abode."
+
+"It is the Freiherr's command," returned Hugh.  "Look you, they have
+had wondrous ill-luck with their children; the Freiherrinn Kunigunde
+has had a dozen at least, and only two are alive, my young Freiherr
+and my young Lady Ermentrude; and no wonder, you would say, if you
+could see the gracious Freiherrinn, for surely Dame Holda made a
+blunder when she fished her out of the fountain woman instead of man.
+She is Adlerstein herself by birth, married her cousin, and is
+prouder and more dour than our old Freiherr himself--fitter far to
+handle shield than swaddled babe.  And now our Jungfrau has fallen
+into a pining waste, that 'tis a pity to see how her cheeks have
+fallen away, and how she mopes and fades.  Now, the old Freiherr and
+her brother, they both dote on her, and would do anything for her.
+They thought she was bewitched, so we took old Mother Ilsebill and
+tried her with the ordeal of water; but, look you, she sank as
+innocent as a puppy dog, and Ursel was at fault to fix on any one
+else.  Then one day, when I looked into the chamber, I saw the poor
+maiden sitting, with her head hanging down, as if 'twas too heavy for
+her, on a high-backed chair, no rest for her feet, and the wind
+blowing keen all round her, and nothing to taste but scorched beef,
+or black bread and sour wine, and her mother rating her for foolish
+fancies that gave trouble.  And, when my young Freiherr was bemoaning
+himself that we could not hear of a Jew physician passing our way to
+catch and bring up to cure her, I said to him at last that no doctor
+could do for her what gentle tendance and nursing would, for what the
+poor maiden needed was to be cosseted and laid down softly, and fed
+with broths and possets, and all that women know how to do with one
+another.  A proper scowl and hard words I got from my gracious Lady,
+for wanting to put burgher softness into an Adlerstein; but my old
+lord and his son opened on the scent at once.  'Thou hast a
+daughter?' quoth the Freiherr.  'So please your gracious lordship,'
+quoth I; 'that is, if she still lives, for I left her a puny infant.'
+'Well,' said my lord, 'if thou wilt bring her here, and her care
+restores my daughter to health and strength, then will I make thee my
+body squire, with a right to a fourth part of all the spoil, and feed
+for two horses in my stable.'  And young Freiherr Eberhard gave his
+word upon it."
+
+Gottfried suggested that a sick nurse was the person required rather
+than a child like Christina; but, as Hugh truly observed, no nurse
+would voluntarily go to Adlerstein, and it was no use to wait for the
+hopes of capturing one by raid or foray.  His daughter was at his own
+disposal, and her services would be repaid by personal advantages to
+himself which he was not disposed to forego; in effect these were the
+only means that the baron had of requiting any attendance upon his
+daughter.
+
+The citizens of old Germany had the strongest and most stringent
+ideas of parental authority, and regarded daughters as absolute
+chattels of their father; and Master Gottfried Sorel, though he alone
+had done the part of a parent to his niece, felt entirely unable to
+withstand the nearer claim, except by representations; and these fell
+utterly disregarded, as in truth every counsel had hitherto done,
+upon the ears of Reiter Hugh, ever since he had emerged from his
+swaddling clothes.  The plentiful supper, full cup of wine, the
+confections, the soft chair, together perhaps with his brother's
+grave speech, soon, however, had the effect of sending him into a
+doze, whence he started to accept civilly the proposal of being
+installed in the stranger's room, where he was speedily snoring
+between two feather beds.
+
+Then there could be freedom of speech in the gallery, where the uncle
+and aunt held anxious counsel over the poor little dark-tressed head
+that still lay upon good Johanna's knees.  The dame was indignant and
+resolute:  "Take the child back with him into a very nest of
+robbers!--her own innocent dove whom they had shielded from all evil
+like a very nun in a cloister!  She should as soon think of yielding
+her up to be borne off by the great Satan himself with his horns and
+hoofs."
+
+"Hugh is her father, housewife," said the master-carver.
+
+"The right of parents is with those that have done the duty of
+parents," returned Johanna.  "What said the kid in the fable to the
+goat that claimed her from the sheep that bred her up?  I am ashamed
+of you, housefather, for not better loving your own niece."
+
+"Heaven knows how I love her," said Gottfried, as the sweet face was
+raised up to him with a look acquitting him of the charge, and he
+bent to smooth back the silken hair, and kiss the ivory brow; "but
+Heaven also knows that I see no means of withholding her from one
+whose claim is closer than my own--none save one; and to that even
+thou, housemother, wouldst not have me resort."
+
+"What is it?" asked the dame, sharply, yet with some fear.
+
+"To denounce him to the burgomasters as one of the Adlerstein
+retainers who robbed Philipp der Schmidt, and have him fast laid by
+the heels."
+
+Christina shuddered, and Dame Johanna herself recoiled; but presently
+exclaimed, "Nay, you could not do that, good man, but wherefore not
+threaten him therewith?  Stand at his bedside in early dawn, and tell
+him that, if he be not off ere daylight with both his cut-throats,
+the halberdiers will be upon him."
+
+"Threaten what I neither could nor would perform, mother?  That were
+a shrewish resource."
+
+"Yet would it save the child," muttered Johanna.  But, in the
+meantime, Christina was rising from the floor, and stood before them
+with loose hair, tearful eyes, and wet, flushed cheeks.  "It must be
+thus," she said, in a low, but not unsteady voice.  "I can bear it
+better since I have heard of the poor young lady, sick and with none
+to care for her.  I will go with my father; it is my duty.  I will do
+my best; but oh! uncle, so work with him that he may bring me back
+again."
+
+"This from thee, Stina!" exclaimed her aunt; "from thee who art sick
+for fear of a lanzknecht!"
+
+"The saints will be with me, and you will pray for me," said
+Christina, still trembling.
+
+"I tell thee, child, thou knowst not what these vile dens are.
+Heaven forfend thou shouldst!" exclaimed her aunt.  "Go only to
+Father Balthazar, housefather, and see if he doth not call it a
+sending of a lamb among wolves."
+
+"Mind'st thou the carving I did for Father Balthazar's own oratory?"
+replied Master Gottfried.
+
+"I talk not of carving!  I talk of our child!" said the dame,
+petulantly.
+
+"Ut agnus inter lupos," softly said Gottfried, looking tenderly,
+though sadly, at his niece, who not only understood the quotation,
+but well remembered the carving of the cross-marked lamb going forth
+from its fold among the howling wolves.
+
+"Alas!  I am not an apostle," said she.
+
+"Nay, but, in the path of duty, 'tis the same hand that sends thee
+forth," answered her uncle, "and the same will guard thee."
+
+"Duty, indeed!" exclaimed Johanna.  "As if any duty could lead that
+silly helpless child among that herd of evil men, and women yet
+worse, with a good-for-nothing father, who would sell her for a good
+horse to the first dissolute Junker who fell in his way."
+
+"I will take care that he knows it is worth his while to restore her
+safe to us.  Nor do I think so ill of Hugh as thou dost, mother.
+And, for the rest, Heaven and the saints and her own discretion must
+be her guard till she shall return to us."
+
+"How can Heaven be expected to protect her when you are flying in its
+face by not taking counsel with Father Balthazar?"
+
+"That shalt thou do," replied Gottfried, readily, secure that Father
+Balthazar would see the matter in the same light as himself, and
+tranquillize the good woman.  It was not yet so late but that a
+servant could be despatched with a request that Father Balthazar, who
+lived not many houses off in the same street, would favour the
+Burgomeisterinn Sorel by coming to speak with her.  In a few minutes
+he appeared,--an aged man, with a sensible face, of the fresh pure
+bloom preserved by a temperate life.  He was a secular parish-priest,
+and, as well as his friend Master Gottfried, held greatly by the
+views left by the famous Strasburg preacher, Master John Tauler.
+After the good housemother had, in strong terms, laid the case before
+him, she expected a trenchant decision on her own side, but, to her
+surprise and disappointment, he declared that Master Gottfried was
+right, and that, unless Hugh Sorel demanded anything absolutely
+sinful of his daughter, it was needful that she should submit.  He
+repeated, in stronger terms, the assurance that she would be
+protected in the endeavour to do right, and the Divine promises which
+he quoted from the Latin Scriptures gave some comfort to the niece,
+who understood them, while they impressed the aunt, who did not.
+There was always the hope that, whether the young lady died or
+recovered, the conclusion of her illness would be the term of
+Christina's stay at Adlerstein, and with this trust Johanna must
+content herself.  The priest took leave, after appointing with
+Christina to meet her in the confessional early in the morning before
+mass; and half the night was spent by the aunt and niece in preparing
+Christina's wardrobe for her sudden journey.
+
+Many a tear was shed over the tokens of the little services she was
+wont to render, her half-done works, and pleasant studies so suddenly
+broken off, and all the time Hausfrau Johanna was running on with a
+lecture on the diligent preservation of her maiden discretion, with
+plentiful warnings against swaggering men-at-arms, drunken
+lanzknechts, and, above all, against young barons, who most assuredly
+could mean no good by any burgher maiden.  The good aunt blessed the
+saints that her Stina was likely only to be lovely in affectionate
+home eyes; but, for that matter, idle men, shut up in a castle, with
+nothing but mischief to think of, would be dangerous to Little Three
+Eyes herself, and Christina had best never stir a yard from her
+lady's chair, when forced to meet them.  All this was interspersed
+with motherly advice how to treat the sick lady, and receipts for
+cordials and possets; for Johanna began to regard the case as a sort
+of second-hand one of her own.  Nay, she even turned it over in her
+mind whether she should not offer herself as the Lady Ermentrude's
+sick-nurse, as being a less dangerous commodity than her little
+niece:  but fears for the well-being of the master-carver, and his
+Wirthschaft, and still more the notion of gossip Gertrude Grundt
+hearing that she had ridden off with a wild lanzknecht, made her at
+once reject the plan, without even mentioning it to her husband or
+his niece.
+
+By the time Hugh Sorel rolled out from between his feather beds, and
+was about to don his greasy buff, a handsome new suit, finished point
+device, and a pair of huge boots to correspond, had been laid by his
+bedside.
+
+"Ho, ho!  Master Goetz," said he, as he stumbled into the Stube, "I
+see thy game.  Thou wouldst make it worth my while to visit the
+father-house at Ulm?"
+
+"It shall be worth thy while, indeed, if thou bringest me back my
+white dove," was Gottfried's answer.
+
+"And how if I bring her back with a strapping reiter son-in-law?"
+laughed Hugh.  "What welcome should the fellow receive?"
+
+"That would depend on what he might be," replied Gottfried; and Hugh,
+his love of tormenting a little allayed by satisfaction in his buff
+suit, and by an eye to a heavy purse that lay by his brother's hand
+on the table, added, "Little fear of that.  Our fellows would look
+for lustier brides than yon little pale face.  'Tis whiter than ever
+this morning,--but no tears.  That is my brave girl."
+
+"Yes, father, I am ready to do your bidding," replied Christina,
+meekly.
+
+"That is well, child.  Mark me, no tears.  Thy mother wept day and
+night, and, when she had wept out her tears, she was sullen, when I
+would have been friendly towards her.  It was the worse for her.
+But, so long as thou art good daughter to me, thou shalt find me good
+father to thee;" and for a moment there was a kindliness in his eye
+which made it sufficiently like that of his brother to give some
+consolation to the shrinking heart that he was rending from all it
+loved; and she steadied her voice for another gentle profession of
+obedience, for which she felt strengthened by the morning's orisons.
+
+"Well said, child.  Now canst sit on old Nibelung's croup?  His back-
+bone is somewhat sharper than if he had battened in a citizen's
+stall; but, if thine aunt can find thee some sort of pillion, I'll
+promise thee the best ride thou hast had since we came from
+Innspruck, ere thou canst remember."
+
+"Christina has her own mule," replied her uncle, "without troubling
+Nibelung to carry double."
+
+"Ho! her own!  An overfed burgomaster sort of a beast, that will turn
+restive at the first sight of the Eagle's Ladder!  However, he may
+carry her so far, and, if we cannot get him up the mountain, I shall
+know what to do with him," he muttered to himself.
+
+But Hugh, like many a gentleman after him, was recusant at the sight
+of his daughter's luggage; and yet it only loaded one sumpter mule,
+besides forming a few bundles which could be easily bestowed upon the
+saddles of his two knappen, while her lute hung by a silken string on
+her arm.  Both she and her aunt thought she had been extremely
+moderate; but his cry was, What could she want with so much?  Her
+mother had never been allowed more than would go into a pair of
+saddle-bags; and his own Jungfrau--she had never seen so much gear
+together in her life; he would be laughed to scorn for his
+presumption in bringing such a fine lady into the castle; it would be
+well if Freiherr Eberhard's bride brought half as much.
+
+Still he had a certain pride in it--he was, after all, by birth and
+breeding a burgher--and there had been evidently a softening and
+civilizing influence in the night spent beneath his paternal roof,
+and old habits, and perhaps likewise in the submission he had met
+with from his daughter.  The attendants, too, who had been pleased
+with their quarters, readily undertook to carry their share of the
+burthen, and, though he growled and muttered a little, he at length
+was won over to consent, chiefly, as it seemed, by Christina's
+obliging readiness to leave behind the bundle that contained her
+holiday kirtle.
+
+He had been spared all needless irritation.  Before his waking,
+Christina had been at the priest's cell, and had received his last
+blessings and counsels, and she had, on the way back, exchanged her
+farewells and tears with her two dearest friends, Barbara Schmidt,
+and Regina Grundt, confiding to the former her cage of doves, and to
+the latter the myrtle, which, like every German maiden, she cherished
+in her window, to supply her future bridal wreath.  Now pale as
+death, but so resolutely composed as to be almost disappointing to
+her demonstrative aunt, she quietly went through her home partings;
+while Hausfrau Johanna adjured her father by all that was sacred to
+be a true guardian and protector of the child, and he could not
+forbear from a few tormenting auguries about the lanzknecht son-in-
+law.  Their effect was to make the good dame more passionate in her
+embraces and admonitions to Christina to take care of herself.  She
+would have a mass said every day that Heaven might have a care of
+her!
+
+Master Gottfried was going to ride as far as the confines of the free
+city's territory, and his round, sleek, cream-coloured palfrey, used
+to ambling in civic processions, was as great a contrast to raw-
+boned, wild-eyed Nibelung, all dappled with misty grey, as was the
+stately, substantial burgher to his lean, hungry-looking brother, or
+Dame Johanna's dignified, curled, white poodle, which was forcibly
+withheld from following Christina, to the coarse-bristled, wolfish-
+looking hound who glared at the household pet with angry and
+contemptuous eyes, and made poor Christina's heart throb with terror
+whenever it bounded near her.
+
+Close to her uncle she kept, as beneath the trellised porches that
+came down from the projecting gables of the burghers' houses many a
+well-known face gazed and nodded, as they took their way through the
+crooked streets, many a beggar or poor widow waved her a blessing.
+Out into the market-place, with its clear fountain adorned with
+arches and statues, past the rising Dome Kirk, where the swarms of
+workmen unbonneted to the master-carver, and the reiter paused with
+an irreverent sneer at the small progress made since he could first
+remember the building.  How poor little Christina's soul clung to
+every cusp of the lacework spire, every arch of the window, each of
+which she had hailed as an achievement!  The tears had well-nigh
+blinded her in a gush of feeling that came on her unawares, and her
+mule had his own way as he carried her under the arch of the tall and
+beautifully-sculptured bridge tower, and over the noble bridge across
+the Danube.
+
+Her uncle spoke much, low and earnestly, to his brother.  She knew it
+was in commendation of her to his care, and an endeavour to impress
+him with a sense of the kind of protection she would require, and she
+kept out of earshot.  It was enough for her to see her uncle still,
+and feel that his tenderness was with her, and around her.  But at
+last he drew his rein.  "And now, my little one, the daughter of my
+heart, I must bid thee farewell," he said.
+
+Christina could not be restrained from springing from her mule, and
+kneeling on the grass to receive his blessing, her face hidden in her
+hands, that her father might not see her tears.
+
+"The good God bless thee, my child," said Gottfried, who seldom
+invoked the saints; "bless thee, and bring thee back in His own good
+time.  Thou hast been a good child to us; be so to thine own father.
+Do thy work, and come back to us again."
+
+The tears rained down his cheeks, as Christina's head lay on his
+bosom, and then with a last kiss he lifted her again on her mule,
+mounted his horse, and turned back to the city, with his servant.
+
+Hugh was merciful enough to let his daughter gaze long after the
+retreating figure ere he summoned her on.  All day they rode, at
+first through meadow lands and then through more broken, open ground,
+where at mid-day they halted, and dined upon the plentiful fare with
+which the housemother had provided them, over which Hugh smacked his
+lips, and owned that they did live well in the old town!  Could
+Christina make such sausages?
+
+"Not as well as my aunt."
+
+"Well, do thy best, and thou wilt win favour with the baron."
+
+The evening began to advance, and Christina was very weary, as the
+purple mountains that she had long watched with a mixture of fear and
+hope began to look more distinct, and the ground was often in abrupt
+ascents.  Her father, without giving space for complaints, hurried
+her on.  He must reach the Debateable Ford ere dark.  It was,
+however, twilight when they came to an open space, where, at the foot
+of thickly forest-clad rising ground, lay an expanse of turf and rich
+grass, through which a stream made its way, standing in a wide
+tranquil pool as if to rest after its rough course from the
+mountains.  Above rose, like a dark wall, crag upon crag, peak on
+peak, in purple masses, blending with the sky; and Hugh, pointing
+upwards to a turreted point, apparently close above their heads,
+where a star of light was burning, told her that there was
+Adlerstein, and this was the Debateable Ford.
+
+In fact, as he explained, while splashing through the shallow
+expanse, the stream had changed its course.  It was the boundary
+between the lands of Schlangenwald and Adlerstein, but it had within
+the last sixty years burst forth in a flood, and had then declined to
+return to its own bed, but had flowed in a fresh channel to the right
+of the former one.  The Freiherren von Adlerstein claimed the ground
+to the old channel, the Graffen von Schlangenwald held that the river
+was the landmark; and the dispute had a greater importance than
+seemed explained from the worth of the rushy space of ground in
+question, for this was the passage of the Italian merchants on their
+way from Constance, and every load that was overthrown in the river
+was regarded as the lawful prey of the noble on whose banks the
+catastrophe befell.
+
+Any freight of goods was anxiously watched by both nobles, and it was
+not their fault if no disaster befell the travellers.  Hugh talked of
+the Schlangenwald marauders with the bitterness of a deadly feud, but
+manifestly did not breathe freely till his whole convoy were safe
+across both the wet and the dry channel.
+
+Christina supposed they should now ascend to the castle; but her
+father laughed, saying that the castle was not such a step off as she
+fancied, and that they must have daylight for the Eagle's Stairs.  He
+led the way through the trees, up ground that she thought mountain
+already, and finally arrived at a miserable little hut, which served
+the purpose of an inn.
+
+He was received there with much obsequiousness, and was plainly a
+great authority there.  Christina, weary and frightened, descended
+from her mule, and was put under the protection of a wild, rough-
+looking peasant woman, who stared at her like something from another
+world, but at length showed her a nook behind a mud partition, where
+she could spread her mantle, and at least lie down, and tell her
+beads unseen, if she could not sleep in the stifling, smoky
+atmosphere, amid the sounds of carousal among her father and his
+fellows.
+
+The great hound came up and smelt to her.  His outline was so-
+wolfish, that she had nearly screamed:  but, more in terror at the
+men who might have helped her than even at the beast, she tried to
+smooth him with her trembling hand, whispered his name of "Festhold,"
+and found him licking her hand, and wagging his long rough tail.  And
+he finally lay down at her feet, as though to protect her.
+
+"Is it a sign that good angels will not let me be hurt?" she thought,
+and, wearied out, she slept.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II:  THE EYRIE
+
+
+
+Christina Sorel awoke to a scene most unlike that which had been wont
+to meet her eyes in her own little wainscoted chamber high in the
+gabled front of her uncle's house.  It was a time when the imperial
+free towns of Germany had advanced nearly as far as those of Italy in
+civilization, and had reached a point whence they retrograded
+grievously during the Thirty Years' War, even to an extent that they
+have never entirely recovered.  The country immediately around them
+shared the benefits of their civilization, and the free peasant-
+proprietors lived in great ease and prosperity, in beautiful and
+picturesque farmsteads, enjoying a careless abundance, and keeping
+numerous rural or religious feasts, where old Teutonic mythological
+observances had received a Christian colouring and adaptation.
+
+In the mountains, or around the castles, it was usually very
+different.  The elective constitution of the empire, the frequent
+change of dynasty, the many disputed successions, had combined to
+render the sovereign authority uncertain and feeble, and it was
+seldom really felt save in the hereditary dominions of the Kaiser for
+the time being.  Thus, while the cities advanced in the power of
+self-government, and the education it conveyed, the nobles,
+especially those whose abodes were not easily accessible, were often
+practically under no government at all, and felt themselves
+accountable to no man.  The old wild freedom of the Suevi, and other
+Teutonic tribes, still technically, and in many cases practically,
+existed.  The Heretogen, Heerzogen, or, as we call them, Dukes, had
+indeed accepted employment from the Kaiser as his generals, and had
+received rewards from him; the Gerefen, or Graffen, of all kinds were
+his judges, the titles of both being proofs of their holding
+commissions from, and being thus dependent on, the court.  But the
+Freiherren, a word very inadequately represented by our French term
+of baron, were absolutely free, "never in bondage to any man,"
+holding their own, and owing no duty, no office; poorer, because
+unendowed by the royal authority, but holding themselves infinitely
+higher, than the pensioners of the court.  Left behind, however, by
+their neighbours, who did their part by society, and advanced with
+it, the Freiherren had been for the most part obliged to give up
+their independence and fall into the system, but so far in the rear,
+that they ranked, like the barons of France and England, as the last
+order of nobility.
+
+Still, however, in the wilder and more mountainous parts of the
+country, some of the old families of unreduced, truly free Freiherren
+lingered, their hand against every man, every man's hand against
+them, and ever becoming more savage, both positively and still more
+proportionately, as their isolation and the general progress around
+them became greater.  The House of Austria, by gradually absorbing
+hereditary states into its own possessions, was, however, in the
+fifteenth century, acquiring a preponderance that rendered its
+possession of the imperial throne almost a matter of inheritance, and
+moreover rendered the supreme power far more effective than it had
+ever previously been.  Freidrich III. a man still in full vigour, and
+with an able and enterprising son already elected to the succession,
+was making his rule felt, and it was fast becoming apparent that the
+days of the independent baronies were numbered, and that the only
+choice that would soon be left them would be between making terms and
+being forcibly reduced.  Von Adlerstein was one of the oldest of
+these free families.  If the lords of the Eagle's Stone had ever
+followed the great Konrads and Freidrichs of Swabia in their imperial
+days, their descendants had taken care to forget the weakness, and
+believed themselves absolutely free from all allegiance.
+
+And the wildness of their territory was what might be expected from
+their hostility to all outward influences.  The hostel, if it
+deserved the name, was little more than a charcoal-burner's hut,
+hidden in the woods at the foot of the mountain, serving as a
+halting-place for the Freiherren's retainers ere they attempted the
+ascent.  The inhabitants were allowed to ply their trade of charring
+wood in the forest on condition of supplying the castle with
+charcoal, and of affording a lodging to the followers on occasions
+like the present.
+
+Grimy, half-clad, and brawny, with the whites of his eyes gleaming
+out of his black face, Jobst the Kohler startled Christina terribly
+when she came into the outer room, and met him returning from his
+night's work, with his long stoking-pole in his hand.  Her father
+shouted with laughter at her alarm.
+
+"Thou thinkest thyself in the land of the kobolds and dwarfs, my
+girl!  Never mind, thou wilt see worse than honest Jobst before thou
+hast done.  Now, eat a morsel and be ready--mountain air will make
+thee hungry ere thou art at the castle.  And, hark thee, Jobst, thou
+must give stable-room to yon sumpter-mule for the present, and let
+some of my daughter's gear lie in the shed."
+
+"O father!" exclaimed Christina, in dismay.
+
+"We'll bring it up, child, by piecemeal," he said in a low voice, "as
+we can; but if such a freight came to the castle at once, my lady
+would have her claws on it, and little more wouldst thou ever see
+thereof.  Moreover, I shall have enough to do to look after thee up
+the ascent, without another of these city-bred beasts."
+
+"I hope the poor mule will be well cared for.  I can pay for--" began
+Christina; but her father squeezed her arm, and drowned her soft
+voice in his loud tones.
+
+"Jobst will take care of the beast, as belonging to me.  Woe betide
+him, if I find it the worse!"--and his added imprecations seemed
+unnecessary, so earnest were the asseverations of both the man and
+his wife that the animal should be well cared for.
+
+"Look you, Christina," said Hugh Sorel, as soon as he had placed her
+on her mule, and led her out of hearing, "if thou hast any gold about
+thee, let it be the last thing thou ownest to any living creature up
+there."  Then, as she was about to speak--"Do not even tell me.  I
+WILL not know."  The caution did not add much to Christina's comfort;
+but she presently asked, "Where is thy steed, father?"
+
+"I sent him up to the castle with the Schneiderlein and Yellow
+Lorentz," answered the father.  "I shall have ado enough on foot with
+thee before we are up the Ladder."
+
+The father and daughter were meantime proceeding along a dark path
+through oak and birch woods, constantly ascending, until the oak grew
+stunted and disappeared, and the opening glades showed steep, stony,
+torrent-furrowed ramparts of hillside above them, looking to
+Christina's eyes as if she were set to climb up the cathedral side
+like a snail or a fly.  She quite gasped for breath at the very
+sight, and was told in return to wait and see what she would yet say
+to the Adlerstreppe, or Eagle's Ladder.  Poor child! she had no
+raptures for romantic scenery; she knew that jagged peaks made very
+pretty backgrounds in illuminations, but she had much rather have
+been in the smooth meadows of the environs of Ulm.  The Danube looked
+much more agreeable to her, silver-winding between its green banks,
+than did the same waters leaping down with noisy voices in their
+stony, worn beds to feed the river that she only knew in his grave
+breadth and majesty.  Yet, alarmed as she was, there was something in
+the exhilaration and elasticity of the mountain air that gave her an
+entirely new sensation of enjoyment and life, and seemed to brace her
+limbs and spirits for whatever might be before her; and, willing to
+show herself ready to be gratified, she observed on the freshness and
+sweetness of the air.
+
+"Thou find'st it out, child?  Ay, 'tis worth all the feather-beds and
+pouncet-boxes in Ulm; is it not?  That accursed Italian fever never
+left me till I came up here.  A man can scarce draw breath in your
+foggy meadows below there.  Now then, here is the view open.  What
+think you of the Eagle's Nest?"
+
+For, having passed beyond the region of wood they had come forth upon
+the mountain-side.  A not immoderately steep slope of boggy, mossy-
+looking ground covered with bilberries, cranberries, &c. and with
+bare rocks here and there rising, went away above out of her ken; but
+the path she was upon turned round the shoulder of the mountain, and
+to the left, on a ledge of rock cut off apparently on their side by a
+deep ravine, and with a sheer precipice above and below it, stood a
+red stone pile, with one turret far above the rest.
+
+"And this is Schloss Adlerstein?" she exclaimed.
+
+"That is Schloss Adlerstein; and there shalt thou be in two hours'
+time, unless the devil be more than usually busy, or thou mak'st a
+fool of thyself.  If so, not Satan himself could save thee."
+
+It was well that Christina had resolution to prevent her making a
+fool of herself on the spot, for the thought of the pathway turned
+her so dizzy that she could only shut her eyes, trusting that her
+father did not see her terror.  Soon the turn round to the side of
+the mountain was made, and the road became a mere track worn out on
+the turf on the hillside, with an abyss beneath, close to the edge of
+which the mule, of course, walked.
+
+When she ventured to look again, she perceived that the ravine was
+like an enormous crack open on the mountain-side, and that the stream
+that formed the Debateable Ford flowed down the bottom of it.  The
+ravine itself went probably all the way up the mountain, growing
+shallower as it ascended higher; but here, where Christina beheld it,
+it was extremely deep, and savagely desolate and bare.  She now saw
+that the Eagle's Ladder was a succession of bare gigantic terraces of
+rock, of which the opposite side of the ravine was composed, and on
+one of which stood the castle.  It was no small mystery to her how it
+had ever been built, or how she was ever to get there.  She saw in
+the opening of the ravine the green meadows and woods far below; and,
+when her father pointed out to her the Debateable Ford, apparently
+much nearer to the castle than they themselves were at present, she
+asked why they had so far overpassed the castle, and come by this
+circuitous course.
+
+"Because," said Hugh, "we are not eagles outright.  Seest thou not,
+just beyond the castle court, this whole crag of ours breaks off
+short, falls like the town wall straight down into the plain?  Even
+this cleft that we are crossing by, the only road a horse can pass,
+breaks off short and sudden too, so that the river is obliged to take
+leaps which nought else but a chamois could compass.  A footpath
+there is, and Freiherr Eberhard takes it at all times, being born to
+it; but even I am too stiff for the like.  Ha! ha!  Thy uncle may
+talk of the Kaiser and his League, but he would change his note if we
+had him here."
+
+"Yet castles have been taken by hunger," said Christina.
+
+"What, knowest thou so much?--True!  But look you," pointing to a
+white foamy thread that descended the opposite steeps, "yonder beck
+dashes through the castle court, and it never dries; and see you the
+ledge the castle stands on?  It winds on out of your sight, and forms
+a path which leads to the village of Adlerstein, out on the other
+slope of the mountains; and ill were it for the serfs if they
+victualled not the castle well."
+
+The fearful steepness of the ground absorbed all Christina's
+attention.  The road, or rather stairs, came down to the stream at
+the bottom of the fissure, and then went again on the other side up
+still more tremendous steeps, which Hugh climbed with a staff,
+sometimes with his hand on the bridle, but more often only keeping a
+watchful eye on the sure-footed mule, and an arm to steady his
+daughter in the saddle when she grew absolutely faint with giddiness
+at the abyss around her.  She was too much in awe of him to utter cry
+or complaint, and, when he saw her effort to subdue her mortal
+terror, he was far from unkind, and let her feel his protecting
+strength.
+
+Presently a voice was heard above--"What, Sorel, hast brought her!
+Trudchen is wearying for her."
+
+The words were in the most boorish dialect and pronunciation, the
+stranger to Christina's ears, because intercourse with foreign
+merchants, and a growing affectation of Latinism, had much refined
+the city language to which she was accustomed; and she was surprised
+to perceive by her father's gesture and address that the speaker must
+be one of the lords of the castle.  She looked up, and saw on the
+pathway above her a tall, large-framed young man, his skin dyed red
+with sun and wind, in odd contrast with his pale shaggy hair,
+moustache, and beard, as though the weather had tanned the one and
+bleached the other.  His dress was a still shabbier buff suit than
+her father had worn, but with a richly-embroidered belt sustaining a
+hunting-horn with finely-chased ornaments of tarnished silver, and an
+eagle's plume was fastened into his cap with a large gold Italian
+coin.  He stared hard at the maiden, but vouchsafed her no token of
+greeting--only distressed her considerably by distracting her
+father's attention from her mule by his questions about the journey,
+all in the same rude, coarse tone and phraseology.  Some amount of
+illusion was dispelled.  Christina was quite prepared to find the
+mountain lords dangerous ruffians, but she had expected the graces of
+courtesy and high birth; but, though there was certainly an air of
+command and freedom of bearing about the present specimen, his
+manners and speech were more uncouth than those of any newly-caught
+apprentice of her uncle, and she could not help thinking that her
+good aunt Johanna need not have troubled herself about the danger of
+her taking a liking to any such young Freiherr as she here beheld.
+
+By this time a last effort of the mule had climbed to the level of
+the castle.  As her father had shown her, there was precipice on two
+sides of the building; on the third, a sheer wall of rock going up to
+a huge height before it reached another of the Eagle's Steps; and on
+the fourth, where the gateway was, the little beck had been made to
+flow in a deep channel that had been hollowed out to serve as a moat,
+before it bounded down to swell the larger water-course in the
+ravine.  A temporary bridge had been laid across; the drawbridge was
+out of order, and part of Hugh's business had been to procure
+materials for mending its apparatus.  Christina was told to dismount
+and cross on foot.  The unrailed board, so close to the abyss, and
+with the wild water foaming above and below, was dreadful to her;
+and, though she durst not speak, she hung back with an involuntary
+shudder, as her father, occupied with the mule, did not think of
+giving her a hand.  The young baron burst out into an unrestrained
+laugh--a still greater shock to her feelings; but at the same time he
+roughly took her hand, and almost dragged her across, saying, "City
+bred--ho, ho!"  "Thanks, sir," she strove to say, but she was very
+near weeping with the terror and strangeness of all around.
+
+The low-browed gateway, barely high enough to admit a man on
+horseback, opened before her, almost to her feelings like the gate of
+the grave, and she could not help crossing herself, with a silent
+prayer for protection, as she stepped under it, and came into the
+castle court--not such a court as gave its name to fair courtesy,
+but, if truth must be told, far more resembling an ill-kept, ill-
+savoured stable-yard, with the piggeries opening into it.  In
+unpleasantly close quarters, the Schneiderlein, or little tailor,
+i.e. the biggest and fiercest of all the knappen, was grooming
+Nibelung; three long-backed, long-legged, frightful swine were
+grubbing in a heap of refuse; four or five gaunt ferocious-looking
+dogs came bounding up to greet their comrade Festhold; and a great
+old long-bearded goat stood on the top of the mixen, looking much
+disposed to butt at any newcomer.  The Sorel family had brought
+cleanliness from Flanders, and Hausfrau Johanna was scrupulously
+dainty in all her appointments.  Christina scarcely knew how she
+conveyed herself and her blue kirtle across the bemired stones to the
+next and still darker portal, under which a wide but rough ill-hewn
+stair ascended.  The stables, in fact, occupied the lower floor of
+the main building, and not till these stairs had ascended above them
+did they lead out into the castle hall.  Here were voices--voices
+rude and harsh, like those Christina had shrunk from in passing
+drinking booths.  There was a long table, with rough men-at-arms
+lounging about, and staring rudely at her; and at the upper end, by a
+great open chimney, sat, half-dozing, an elderly man, more rugged in
+feature than his son; and yet, when he roused himself and spoke to
+Hugh, there was a shade more of breeding, and less of clownishness in
+his voice and deportment, as if he had been less entirely devoid of
+training.  A tall darkly-robed woman stood beside him--it was her
+harsh tone of reproof and command that had so startled Christina as
+she entered--and her huge towering cap made her look gigantic in the
+dim light of the smoky hall.  Her features had been handsome, but had
+become hardened into a grim wooden aspect; and with sinking spirits
+Christina paused at the step of the dais, and made her reverence,
+wishing she could sink beneath the stones of the pavement out of
+sight of these terrible personages.
+
+"So that's the wench you have taken all this trouble for," was
+Freiherrinn Kunigunde's greeting.  "She looks like another sick baby
+to nurse; but I'll have no trouble about her;--that is all.  Take her
+up to Ermentrude; and thou, girl, have a care thou dost her will, and
+puttest none of thy city fancies into her head."
+
+"And hark thee, girl," added the old Freiherr, sitting up.  "So thou
+canst nurse her well, thou shalt have a new gown and a stout
+husband."
+
+"That way," pointed the lady towards one of the four corner towers;
+and Christina moved doubtfully towards it, reluctant to quit her
+father, her only protector, and afraid to introduce herself.  The
+younger Freiherr, however, stepped before her, went striding two or
+three steps at a time up the turret stair, and, before Christina had
+wound her way up, she heard a thin, impatient voice say, "Thou saidst
+she was come, Ebbo."
+
+"Yes, even so," she heard Freiherr Eberhard return; "but she is slow
+and town-bred.  She was afraid of crossing the moat."  And then both
+laughed, so that Christina's cheeks tingled as she emerged from the
+turret into another vaulted room.  "Here she is," quoth the brother;
+"now will she make thee quite well."
+
+It was a very bare and desolate room, with no hangings to the rough
+stone walls, and scarcely any furniture, except a great carved
+bedstead, one wooden chair, a table, and some stools.  On the bare
+floor, in front of the fire, her arm under her head, and a profusion
+of long hair falling round her like flax from a distaff, lay wearily
+a little figure, beside whom Sir Eberhard was kneeling on one knee.
+
+"Here is my sisterling," said he, looking up to the newcomer.  "They
+say you burgher women have ways of healing the sick.  Look at her.
+Think you you can heal her?"
+
+In an excess of dumb shyness Ermentrude half rose, and effectually
+hindered any observations on her looks by hiding her face away upon
+her brother's knee.  It was the gesture of a child of five years old,
+but Ermentrude's length of limb forbade Christina to suppose her less
+than fourteen or fifteen.  "What, wilt not look at her?" he said,
+trying to raise her head; and then, holding out one of her wasted,
+feverish hands to Christina, he again asked, with a wistfulness that
+had a strange effect from the large, tall man, almost ten years her
+elder, "Canst thou cure her, maiden?"
+
+"I am no doctor, sir," replied Christina; "but I could, at least,
+make her more comfortable.  The stone is too hard for her."
+
+"I will not go away; I want the fire," murmured the sick girl,
+holding out her hands towards it, and shivering.
+
+Christina quickly took off her own thick cloth mantle, well lined
+with dressed lambskins, laid it on the floor, rolled the collar of it
+over a small log of wood--the only substitute she could see for a
+pillow--and showed an inviting couch in an instant.  Ermentrude let
+her brother lay her down, and then was covered with the ample fold.
+She smiled as she turned up her thin, wasted face, faded into the
+same whitey-brown tint as her hair.  "That is good," she said, but
+without thanks; and, feeling the soft lambswool:  "Is that what you
+burgher-women wear?  Father is to give me a furred mantle, if only
+some court dame would pass the Debateable Ford.  But the
+Schlangenwaldern got the last before ever we could get down.  Jobst
+was so stupid.  He did not give us warning in time; but he is to be
+hanged next time if he does not."
+
+Christina's blood curdled as she heard this speech in a weak little
+complaining tone, that otherwise put her sadly in mind of Barbara
+Schmidt's little sister, who had pined and wasted to death.  "Never
+mind, Trudchen," answered the brother kindly; "meantime I have kept
+all the wild catskins for thee, and may be this--this--SHE could sew
+them up into a mantle for thee."
+
+"O let me see," cried the young lady eagerly; and Sir Eberhard,
+walking off, presently returned with an armful of the beautiful
+brindled furs of the mountain cat, reminding Christina of her aunt's
+gentle domestic favourite.  Ermentrude sat up, and regarded the
+placing out of them with great interest; and thus her brother left
+her employed, and so much delighted that she had not flagged, when a
+great bell proclaimed that it was the time for the noontide meal, for
+which Christina, in spite of all her fears of the company below
+stairs, had been constrained by mountain air to look forward with
+satisfaction.
+
+Ermentrude, she found, meant to go down, but with no notion of the
+personal arrangements that Christina had been wont to think a needful
+preliminary.  With all her hair streaming, down she went, and was so
+gladly welcomed by her father that it was plain that her presence was
+regarded as an unusual advance towards recovery, and Christina feared
+lest he might already be looking out for the stout husband.  She had
+much to tell him about the catskin cloak, and then she was seized
+with eager curiosity at the sight of Christina's bundles, and
+especially at her lute, which she must hear at once.
+
+"Not now," said her mother, "there will be jangling and jingling
+enough by and by--meat now."
+
+The whole establishment were taking their places--or rather tumbling
+into them.  A battered, shapeless metal vessel seemed to represent
+the salt-cellar, and next to it Hugh Sorel seated himself, and kept a
+place for her beside him.  Otherwise she would hardly have had seat
+or food.' She was now able to survey the inmates of the castle.
+Besides the family themselves, there were about a dozen men, all
+ruffianly-looking, and of much lower grade than her father, and three
+women.  One, old Ursel, the wife of Hatto the forester, was a bent,
+worn, but not ill-looking woman, with a motherly face; the younger
+ones were hard, bold creatures, from whom Christina felt a shrinking
+recoil.  The meal was dressed by Ursel and her kitchen boy.  From a
+great cauldron, goat's flesh and broth together were ladled out into
+wooden bowls.  That every one provided their own spoon and knife--no
+fork--was only what Christina was used to in the most refined
+society, and she had the implements in a pouch hanging to her girdle;
+but she was not prepared for the unwashed condition of the bowls, nor
+for being obliged to share that of her father--far less for the
+absence of all blessing on the meal, and the coarse boisterousness of
+manners prevailing thereat.  Hungry as she was, she did not find it
+easy to take food under these circumstances, and she was relieved
+when Ermentrude, overcome by the turmoil, grew giddy, and was carried
+upstairs by her father, who laid her down upon her great bed, and
+left her to the attendance of Christina.  Ursel had followed, but was
+petulantly repulsed by her young lady in favour of the newcomer, and
+went away grumbling.
+
+Nestled on her bed, Ermentrude insisted on hearing the lute, and
+Christina had to creep down to fetch it, with some other of her
+goods, in trembling haste, and redoubled disgust at the aspect of the
+meal, which looked even more repulsive in this later stage, and to
+one who was no longer partaking of it.
+
+Low and softly, with a voice whence she could scarcely banish tears,
+and in dread of attracting attention, Christina sung to the sick
+girl, who listened with a sort of rude wonder, and finally was lulled
+to sleep.  Christina ventured to lay down her instrument and move
+towards the window, heavily mullioned with stone, barred with iron,
+and glazed with thick glass; being in fact the only glazed window in
+the castle.  To her great satisfaction it did not look out over the
+loathsome court, but over the opening of the ravine.  The apartment
+occupied the whole floor of the keep; it was stone-paved, but the
+roof was boarded, and there was a round turret at each angle.  One
+contained the staircase, and was that which ran up above the keep,
+served as a watch-tower, and supported the Eagle banner.  The other
+three were empty, and one of these, which had a strong door, and a
+long loophole window looking out over the open country, Christina
+hoped that she might appropriate.  The turret was immediately over
+the perpendicular cliff that descended into the plain.  A stone
+thrown from the window would have gone straight down, she knew not
+where.  Close to her ears rushed the descending waterfall in its leap
+over the rock side, and her eyes could rest themselves on the green
+meadow land below, and the smooth water of the Debateable Ford; nay--
+far, far away beyond retreating ridges of wood and field--she thought
+she could track a silver line and, guided by it, a something that
+might be a city.  Her heart leapt towards it, but she was recalled by
+Ermentrude's fretfully imperious voice.
+
+"I was only looking forth from the window, lady," she said,
+returning.
+
+"Ah! thou saw'st no travellers at the Ford?" cried Ermentrude,
+starting up with lively interest.
+
+"No, lady; I was gazing at the far distance.  Know you if it be
+indeed Ulm that we see from these windows?"
+
+"Ulm?  That is where thou comest from?" said Ermentrude languidly.
+
+"My happy home, with my dear uncle and aunt!  O, if I can but see it
+hence, it will be joy!"
+
+"I do not know.  Let me see," said Ermentrude, rising; but at the
+window her pale blue eyes gazed vacantly as if she did not know what
+she was looking at or for.
+
+"Ah! if the steeple of the Dome Kirk were but finished, I could not
+mistake it," said Christina.  "How beauteous the white spire will
+look from hence!"
+
+"Dome Kirk?" repeated Ermentrude; "what is that?"
+
+Such an entire blank as the poor child's mind seemed to be was
+inconceivable to the maiden, who had been bred up in the busy hum of
+men, where the constant resort of strange merchants, the daily
+interests of a self-governing municipality, and the numerous
+festivals, both secular and religious, were an unconscious education,
+even without that which had been bestowed upon her by teachers, as
+well as by her companionship with her uncle, and participation in his
+studies, taste and arts.
+
+Ermentrude von Adlerstein had, on the contrary, not only never gone
+beyond the Kohler's hut on the one side, and the mountain village on
+the other, but she never seen more of life than the festival at the
+wake the hermitage chapel there on Midsummer-day.  The only strangers
+who ever came to the castle were disbanded lanzknechts who took
+service with her father, or now and then a captive whom he put to
+ransom.  She knew absolutely nothing of the world, except for a
+general belief that Freiherren lived there to do what they chose with
+other people, and that the House of Adlerstein was the freest and
+noblest in existence.  Also there was a very positive hatred to the
+house of Schlangenwald, and no less to that of Adlerstein
+Wildschloss, for no reason that Christina could discover save that,
+being a younger branch of the family, they had submitted to the
+Emperor.  To destroy either the Graf von Schlangenwald, or her
+Wildschloss cousin, was evidently the highest gratification
+Ermentrude could conceive; and, for the rest, that her father and
+brother should make successful captures at the Debateable Ford was
+the more abiding, because more practicable hope.  She had no further
+ideas, except perhaps to elude her mother's severity, and to desire
+her brother's success in chamois-hunting.  The only mental culture
+she had ever received was that old Ursel had taught her the Credo,
+Pater Noster, and Ave, as correctly as might be expected from a long
+course of traditionary repetitions of an incomprehensible language.
+And she knew besides a few German rhymes and jingles, half Christian,
+half heathen, with a legend or two which, if the names were
+Christian, ran grossly wild from all Christian meaning or morality.
+As to the amenities, nay, almost the proprieties, of life, they were
+less known in that baronial castle than in any artisan's house at
+Ulm.  So little had the sick girl figured them to herself, that she
+did not even desire any greater means of ease than she possessed.
+She moaned and fretted indeed, with aching limbs and blank weariness,
+but without the slightest formed desire for anything to remove her
+discomfort, except the few ameliorations she knew, such as sitting on
+her brother's knee, with her head on his shoulder, or tasting the
+mountain berries that he gathered for her.  Any other desire she
+exerted herself to frame was for finery to be gained from the spoils
+of travellers.
+
+And this was Christina's charge, whom she must look upon as the least
+alien spirit in this dreadful castle of banishment!  The young and
+old lords seemed to her savage bandits, who frightened her only less
+than did the proud sinister expression of the old lady, for she had
+not even the merit of showing any tenderness towards the sickly girl,
+of whom she was ashamed, and evidently regarded the town-bred
+attendant as a contemptible interloper.
+
+Long, long did the maiden weep and pray that night after Ermentrude
+had sunk to sleep.  She strained her eyes with home-sick longings to
+detect lights where she thought Ulm might be; and, as she thought of
+her uncle and aunt, the poodle and the cat round the stove, the maids
+spinning and the prentices knitting as her uncle read aloud some
+grave good book, most probably the legend of the saint of the day,
+and contrasted it with the rude gruff sounds of revelry that found
+their way up the turret stairs, she could hardly restrain her sobs
+from awakening the young lady whose bed she was to share.  She
+thought almost with envy of her own patroness, who was cast into the
+lake of Bolsena with a millstone about her neck--a better fate,
+thought she, than to live on in such an abode of loathsomeness and
+peril.
+
+But then had not St. Christina floated up alive, bearing up her
+millstone with her?  And had not she been put into a dungeon full of
+venomous reptiles who, when they approached her, had all been changed
+to harmless doves?  Christina had once asked Father Balthazar how
+this could be; and had he not replied that the Church did not teach
+these miracles as matters of faith, but that she might there discern
+in figure how meek Christian holiness rose above all crushing
+burthens, and transformed the rudest natures.  This poor maiden-
+dying, perhaps; and oh! how unfit to live or die!--might it be her
+part to do some good work by her, and infuse some Christian hope,
+some godly fear?  Could it be for this that the saints had led her
+hither?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III:  THE FLOTSAM AND JETSAM OF THE DEBATEABLE FORD
+
+
+
+Life in Schloss Adlerstein was little less intolerable than
+Christina's imagination had depicted it.  It was entirely devoid of
+all the graces of chivalry, and its squalor and coarseness, magnified
+into absurdity by haughtiness and violence, were almost
+inconceivable.  Fortunately for her, the inmates of the castle
+resided almost wholly below stairs in the hall and kitchen, and in
+some dismal dens in the thickness of their walls.  The height of the
+keep was intended for dignity and defence, rather than for
+habitation; and the upper chamber, with its great state-bed, where
+everybody of the house of Adlerstein was born and died, was not
+otherwise used, except when Ermentrude, unable to bear the oppressive
+confusion below stairs, had escaped thither for quietness' sake.  No
+one else wished to inhabit it.  The chamber above was filled with the
+various appliances for the defence of the castle; and no one would
+have ever gone up the turret stairs had not a warder been usually
+kept on the roof to watch the roads leading to the Ford.  Otherwise
+the Adlersteiners had all the savage instinct of herding together in
+as small a space as possible.
+
+Freiherrin Kunigunde hardly ever mounted to her daughter's chamber.
+All her affection was centred on the strong and manly son, of whom
+she was proud, while the sickly pining girl, who would hardly find a
+mate of her own rank, and who had not even dowry enough for a
+convent, was such a shame and burthen to her as to be almost a
+distasteful object.  But perversely, as it seemed to her, the only
+daughter was the darling of both father and brother, who were ready
+to do anything to gratify the girl's sick fancies, and hailed with
+delight her pleasure in her new attendant.  Old Ursel was at first
+rather envious and contemptuous of the childish, fragile stranger,
+but her gentleness disarmed the old woman; and, when it was plain
+that the young lady's sufferings were greatly lessened by tender
+care, dislike gave way to attachment, and there was little more
+murmuring at the menial services that were needed by the two maidens,
+even when Ermentrude's feeble fancies, or Christina's views of dainty
+propriety, rendered them more onerous than before.  She was even
+heard to rejoice that some Christian care and tenderness had at last
+reached her poor neglected child.
+
+It was well for Christina that she had such an ally.  The poor child
+never crept down stairs to the dinner or supper, to fetch food for
+Ermentrude, or water for herself, without a trembling and shrinking
+of heart and nerves.  Her father's authority guarded her from rude
+actions, but from rough tongues he neither could nor would guard her,
+nor understand that what to some would have been a compliment seemed
+to her an alarming insult; and her chief safeguard lay in her own
+insignificance and want of attraction, and still more in the modesty
+that concealed her terror at rude jests sufficiently to prevent
+frightening her from becoming an entertainment.
+
+Her father, whom she looked on as a cultivated person in comparison
+with the rest of the world, did his best for her after his own views,
+and gradually brought her all the properties she had left at the
+Kohler's hut.  Therewith she made a great difference in the aspect of
+the chamber, under the full sanction of the lords of the castle.
+Wolf, deer, and sheep skins abounded; and with these, assisted by her
+father and old Hatto, she tapestried the lower part of the bare grim
+walls, a great bear's hide covered the neighbourhood of the hearth,
+and cushions were made of these skins, and stuffed from Ursel's
+stores of feathers.  All these embellishments were watched with great
+delight by Ermentrude, who had never been made of so much importance,
+and was as much surprised as relieved by such attentions.  She was
+too young and too delicate to reject civilization, and she let
+Christina braid her hair, bathe her, and arrange her dress, with
+sensations of comfort that were almost like health.  To train her
+into occupying herself was however, as Christina soon found, in her
+present state, impossible.  She could spin and sew a little, but
+hated both; and her clumsy, listless fingers only soiled and wasted
+Christina's needles, silk, and lute strings, and such damage was not
+so easily remedied as in the streets of Ulm.  She was best provided
+for when looking on at her attendant's busy hands, and asking to be
+sung to, or to hear tales of the active, busy scenes of the city
+life--the dresses, fairs, festivals, and guild processions.
+
+The gentle nursing and the new interests made her improve in health,
+so that her father was delighted, and Christina began to hope for a
+return home.  Sometimes the two girls would take the air, either, on
+still days, upon the battlements, where Ermentrude watched the
+Debateable Ford, and Christina gazed at the Danube and at Ulm; or
+they would find their way to a grassy nook on the mountain-side,
+where Christina gathered gentians and saxifrage, trying to teach her
+young lady that they were worth looking at, and sighing at the
+thought of Master Gottfried's wreath when she met with the asphodel
+seed-vessels.  Once the quiet mule was brought into requisition; and,
+with her brother walking by her, and Sorel and his daughter in
+attendance, Ermentrude rode towards the village of Adlerstein.  It
+was a collection of miserable huts, on a sheltered slope towards the
+south, where there was earth enough to grow some wretched rye and
+buckwheat, subject to severe toll from the lord of the soil.  Perched
+on a hollow rock above the slope was a rude little church, over a
+cave where a hermit had once lived and died in such odour of sanctity
+that, his day happening to coincide with that of St. John the
+Baptist, the Blessed Freidmund had acquired the credit of the lion's
+share both of the saint's honours and of the old solstitial feast of
+Midsummer.  This wake was the one gaiety of the year, and attracted a
+fair which was the sole occasion of coming honestly by anything from
+the outer world; nor had his cell ever lacked a professional
+anchorite.
+
+The Freiherr of his day had been a devout man, who had gone a
+pilgrimage with Kaiser Friedrich of the Red Beard, and had brought
+home a bit of stone from the council chamber of Nicaea, which he had
+presented to the little church that he had built over the cavern.  He
+had named his son Friedmund; and there were dim memories of his days
+as of a golden age, before the Wildschlossen had carried off the best
+of the property, and when all went well.
+
+This was Christina's first sight of a church since her arrival,
+except that in the chapel, which was a dismal neglected vault, where
+a ruinous altar and mouldering crucifix testified to its sacred
+purpose.  The old baron had been excommunicated for twenty years,
+ever since he had harried the wains of the Bishop of Augsburg on his
+way to the Diet; and, though his household and family were not under
+the same sentence, "Sunday didna come abune the pass."  Christina's
+entreaty obtained permission to enter the little building, but she
+had knelt there only a few moments before her father came to hurry
+her away, and her supplications that he would some day take her to
+mass there were whistled down the wind; and indeed the hermit was a
+layman, and the church was only served on great festivals by a monk
+from the convent of St. Ruprecht, on the distant side of the
+mountain, which was further supposed to be in the Schlangenwald
+interest.  Her best chance lay in infusing the desire into
+Ermentrude, who by watching her prayers and asking a few questions
+had begun to acquire a few clearer ideas.  And what Ermentrude wished
+had always hitherto been acquiesced in by the two lords.
+
+The elder baron came little into Christina's way.  He meant to be
+kind to her, but she was dreadfully afraid of him, and, when he came
+to visit his daughter, shrank out of his notice as much as possible,
+shuddering most of all at his attempts at civilities.  His son she
+viewed as one of the thickwitted giants meant to be food for the
+heroism of good knights of romance.  Except that he was fairly
+conversant with the use of weapons, and had occasionally ridden
+beyond the shadow of his own mountain, his range was quite as limited
+as his sister's; and he had an equal scorn for all beyond it.  His
+unfailing kindness to his sister was however in his favour, and he
+always eagerly followed up any suggestion Christina made for her
+pleasure.
+
+Much of his time was spent on the child, whose chief nurse and
+playmate he had been throughout her malady; and when she showed him
+the stranger's arrangements, or repeated to him, in a wondering,
+blundering way, with constant appeals to her attendant, the new tales
+she had heard, he used to listen with a pleased awkward amazement at
+his little Ermentrude's astonishing cleverness, joined sometimes with
+real interest, which was evinced by his inquiries of Christina.  He
+certainly did not admire the little, slight, pale bower-maiden, but
+he seemed to look upon her like some strange, almost uncanny, wise
+spirit out of some other sphere, and his manner towards her had none
+of the offensive freedom apparent in even the old man's patronage.
+It was, as Ermentrude once said, laughing, almost as if he feared
+that she might do something to him.
+
+Christina had expected to see a ruffian, and had found a boor; but
+she was to be convinced that the ruffian existed in him.  Notice came
+up to the castle of a convoy of waggons, and all was excitement.
+Men-at-arms were mustered, horses led down the Eagle's Ladder, and an
+ambush prepared in the woods.  The autumn rains were already swelling
+the floods, and the passage of the ford would be difficult enough to
+afford the assailants an easy prey.
+
+The Freiherrinn Kunigunde herself, and all the women of the castle,
+hurried into Ermentrude's room to enjoy the view from her window.
+The young lady herself was full of eager expectation, but she knew
+enough of her maiden to expect no sympathy from her, and loved her
+well enough not to bring down on her her mother's attention; so
+Christina crept into her turret, unable to withdraw her eyes from the
+sight, trembling, weeping, praying, longing for power to give a
+warning signal.  Could they be her own townsmen stopped on the way to
+dear Ulm?
+
+She could see the waggons in mid-stream, the warriors on the bank;
+she heard the triumphant outcries of the mother and daughter in the
+outer room.  She saw the overthrow, the struggle, the flight of a few
+scattered dark figures on the farther side, the drawing out of the
+goods on the nearer.  Oh! were those leaping waves bearing down any
+good men's corpses to the Danube, slain, foully slain by her own
+father and this gang of robbers?
+
+She was glad that Ermentrude went down with her mother to watch the
+return of the victors.  She crouched on the floor, sobbing,
+shuddering with grief and indignation, and telling her beads alike
+for murdered and murderers, till, after the sounds of welcome and
+exultation, she heard Sir Eberhard's heavy tread, as he carried his
+sister up stairs.  Ermentrude went up at once to Christina.
+
+"After all there was little for us!" she said.  "It was only a wain
+of wine barrels; and now will the drunkards down stairs make good
+cheer.  But Ebbo could only win for me this gold chain and medal
+which was round the old merchant's neck."
+
+"Was he slain?" Christina asked with pale lips.
+
+"I only know I did not kill him," returned the baron; "I had him down
+and got the prize, and that was enough for me.  What the rest of the
+fellows may have done, I cannot say."
+
+"But he has brought thee something, Stina," continued Ermentrude.
+"Show it to her, brother."
+
+"My father sends you this for your care of my sister," said Eberhard,
+holding out a brooch that had doubtless fastened the band of the
+unfortunate wine-merchant's bonnet.
+
+"Thanks, sir; but, indeed, I may not take it," said Christina,
+turning crimson, and drawing back.
+
+"So!" he exclaimed, in amaze; then bethinking himself,--"They are no
+townsfolk of yours, but Constance cowards."
+
+"Take it, take it, Stina, or you will anger my father," added
+Ermentrude.
+
+"No, lady, I thank the barons both, but it were sin in me," said
+Christina, with trembling voice.
+
+"Look you," said Eberhard; "we have the full right--'tis a seignorial
+right--to all the goods of every wayfarer that may be overthrown in
+our river--as I am a true knight!" he added earnestly.
+
+"A true knight!" repeated Christina, pushed hard, and very indignant
+in all her terror.  "The true knight's part is to aid, not rob, the
+weak."  And the dark eyes flashed a vivid light.
+
+"Christina!" exclaimed Ermentrude in the extremity of her amazement,
+"know you what you have said?--that Eberhard is no true knight!"
+
+He meanwhile stood silent, utterly taken by surprise, and letting his
+little sister fight his battles.
+
+"I cannot help it, Lady Ermentrude," said Christina, with trembling
+lips, and eyes filling with tears.  "You may drive me from the
+castle--I only long to be away from it; but I cannot stain my soul by
+saying that spoil and rapine are the deeds of a true knight."
+
+"My mother will beat you," cried Ermentrude, passionately, ready to
+fly to the head of the stairs; but her brother laid his hand upon
+her.
+
+"Tush, Trudchen; keep thy tongue still, child!  What does it hurt
+me?"
+
+And he turned on his heels and went down stairs.  Christina crept
+into her turret, weeping bitterly and with many a wild thought.
+Would they visit her offence on her father?  Would they turn them
+both out together?  If so, would not her father hurl her down the
+rocks rather than return her to Ulm?  Could she escape?  Climb down
+the dizzy rocks, it might be, succour the merchant lying half dead on
+the meadows, protect and be protected, be once more among God-fearing
+Christians?  And as she felt her helplessness, the selfish thoughts
+passed into a gush of tears for the murdered man, lying suffering
+there, and for his possible wife and children watching for him.
+Presently Ermentrude peeped in.
+
+"Stina, Stina, don't cry; I will not tell my mother!  Come out, and
+finish my kerchief!  Come out!  No one shall beat you."
+
+"That is not what I wept for, lady," said Christina.  "I do not think
+you would bring harm on me.  But oh!  I would I were at home!  I
+grieve for the bloodshed that I must see and may not hinder, and for
+that poor merchant."
+
+"Oh," said Ermentrude, "you need not fear for him!  I saw his own
+folk return and lift him up.  But what is he to thee or to us?"
+
+"I am a burgher maid, lady," said Christina, recovering herself, and
+aware that it was of little use to bear testimony to such an auditor
+as poor little Ermentrude against the deeds of her own father and
+brother, which had in reality the sort of sanction Sir Eberhard had
+mentioned, much akin to those coast rights that were the temptation
+of wreckers.
+
+Still she could not but tremble at the thought of her speech, and
+went down to supper in greater trepidation than usual, dreading that
+she should be expected to thank the Freiherr for his gift.  But,
+fortunately, manners were too rare at Adlerstein for any such
+omission to be remarkable, and the whole establishment was in a state
+of noisy triumph and merriment over the excellence of the French wine
+they had captured, so that she slipped into her seat unobserved.
+
+Every available drinking-horn and cup was full.  Ermentrude was
+eagerly presented with draughts by both father and brother, and
+presently Sir Eberhard exclaimed, turning towards the shrinking
+Christina with a rough laugh, "Maiden, I trow thou wilt not taste?"
+
+Christina shook her head, and framed a negative with her lips.
+
+"What's this?" asked her father, close to whom she sat.  "Is't a
+fast-day?"
+
+There was a pause.  Many were present who regarded a fast-day much
+more than the lives or goods of their neighbours.  Christina again
+shook her head.
+
+"No matter," said good-natured Sir Eberhard, evidently wishing to
+avert any ill consequence from her.  "'Tis only her loss."
+
+The mirth went on rough and loud, and Christina felt this the worst
+of all the miserable meals she had partaken of in fear and trembling
+at this place of her captivity.  Ermentrude, too, was soon in such a
+state of excitement, that not only was Christina's womanhood bitterly
+ashamed and grieved for her, but there was serious danger that she
+might at any moment break out with some allusion to her maiden's
+recusancy in her reply to Sir Eberhard.
+
+Presently however Ermentrude laid down her head and began to cry--
+violent headache had come on--and her brother took her in his arms to
+carry her up the stairs; but his potations had begun before hers, and
+his step was far from steady; he stumbled more than once on the
+steps, shook and frightened his sister, and set her down weeping
+petulantly.  And then came a more terrible moment; his awe of
+Christina had passed away; he swore that she was a lovely maiden,
+with only too free a tongue, and that a kiss must be the seal of her
+pardon.
+
+A house full of intoxicated men, no living creature who would care to
+protect her, scarce even her father!  But extremity of terror gave
+her strength.  She spoke resolutely--"Sir Eberhard, your sister is
+ill--you are in no state to be here.  Go down at once, nor insult a
+free maiden."
+
+Probably the low-toned softness of the voice, so utterly different
+from the shrill wrangling notes of all the other women he had known,
+took him by surprise.  He was still sober enough to be subdued,
+almost cowed, by resistance of a description unlike all he had ever
+seen; his alarm at Christina's superior power returned in full force,
+he staggered to the stairs, Christina rushed after him, closed the
+heavy door with all her force, fastened it inside, and would have
+sunk down to weep but for Ermentrude's peevish wail of distress.
+
+Happily Ermentrude was still a child, and, neglected as she had been,
+she still had had no one to make her precocious in matters of this
+kind.  She was quite willing to take Christina's view of the case,
+and not resent the exclusion of her brother; indeed, she was unwell
+enough to dread the loudness of his voice and rudeness of his
+revelry.
+
+So the door remained shut, and Christina's resolve was taken that she
+would so keep it while the wine lasted.  And, indeed, Ermentrude had
+so much fever all that night and the next day that no going down
+could be thought of.  Nobody came near the maidens but Ursel, and she
+described one continued orgie that made Christina shudder again with
+fear and disgust.  Those below revelled without interval, except for
+sleep; and they took their sleep just where they happened to sink
+down, then returned again to the liquor.  The old baroness repaired
+to the kitchen when the revelry went beyond even her bearing; but all
+the time the wine held out, the swine in the court were, as Ursel
+averred, better company than the men in the hall.  Yet there might
+have been worse even than this; for old Ursel whispered that at the
+bottom of the stairs there was a trap-door.  Did the maiden know what
+it covered?  It was an oubliette.  There was once a Strasburg
+armourer who had refused ransom, and talked of appealing to the
+Kaiser.  He trod on that door and--Ursel pointed downwards.  "But
+since that time," she said, "my young lord has never brought home a
+prisoner."
+
+No wonder that all this time Christina cowered at the discordant
+sounds below, trembled, and prayed while she waited on her poor young
+charge, who tossed and moaned in fever and suffering.  She was still
+far from recovered when the materials of the debauch failed, and the
+household began to return to its usual state.  She was soon
+restlessly pining for her brother; and when her father came up to see
+her, received him with scant welcome, and entreaties for Ebbo.  She
+knew she should be better if she might only sit on his knee, and lay
+her head on his shoulder.  The old Freiherr offered to accommodate
+her; but she rejected him petulantly, and still called for Ebbo, till
+he went down, promising that her brother should come.
+
+With a fluttering heart Christina awaited the noble whom she had
+perhaps insulted, and whose advances had more certainly insulted her.
+Would he visit her with his anger, or return to that more offensive
+familiarity?  She longed to flee out of sight, when, after a long
+interval, his heavy tread was heard; but she could not even take
+refuge in her turret, for Ermentrude was leaning against her.
+Somehow, the step was less assured than usual; he absolutely knocked
+at the door; and, when he came in, he acknowledged her by a slight
+inclination of the head.  If she only had known it, this was the
+first time that head had ever been bent to any being, human or
+Divine; but all she did perceive was that Sir Eberhard was in neither
+of the moods she dreaded, only desperately shy and sheepish, and
+extremely ashamed, not indeed of his excess, which would have been,
+even to a much tamer German baron, only a happy accident, but of what
+had passed between himself and her.
+
+He was much grieved to perceive how much ground Ermentrude had lost,
+and gave himself up to fondling and comforting her; and in a few days
+more, in their common cares for the sister, Christina lost her newly-
+acquired horror of the brother, and could not but be grateful for his
+forbearance; while she was almost entertained by the increased awe of
+herself shown by this huge robber baron.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV:  SNOW-WREATHS WHEN 'TIS THAW
+
+
+
+Ermentrude had by no means recovered the ground she had lost, before
+the winter set in; and blinding snow came drifting down day and
+night, rendering the whole view, above and below, one expanse of
+white, only broken by the peaks of rock which were too steep to
+sustain the snow.  The waterfall lengthened its icicles daily, and
+the whole court was heaped with snow, up even to the top of the high
+steps to the hall; and thus, Christina was told, would it continue
+all the winter.  What had previously seemed to her a strangely door-
+like window above the porch now became the only mode of egress, when
+the barons went out bear or wolf-hunting, or the younger took his
+crossbow and hound to provide the wild-fowl, which, under Christina's
+skilful hands, would tempt the feeble appetite of Ermentrude when she
+was utterly unable to touch the salted meats and sausages of the
+household.
+
+In spite of all endeavours to guard the windows and keep up the fire,
+the cold withered the poor child like a fading leaf, and she needed
+more and more of tenderness and amusement to distract her attention
+from her ailments.  Christina's resources were unfailing.  Out of the
+softer pine and birch woods provided for the fire, she carved a set
+of draughtsmen, and made a board by ruling squares on the end of a
+settle, and painting the alternate ones with a compound of oil and
+charcoal.  Even the old Baron was delighted with this contrivance,
+and the pleasure it gave his daughter.  He remembered playing at
+draughts in that portion of his youth which had been a shade more
+polished, and he felt as if the game were making Ermentrude more hike
+a lady.  Christina was encouraged to proceed with a set of chessmen,
+and the shaping of their characteristic heads under her dexterous
+fingers was watched by Ermentrude like something magical.  Indeed,
+the young lady entertained the belief that there was no limit to her
+attendant's knowledge or capacity.
+
+Truly there was a greater brightness and clearness beginning to dawn
+even upon poor little Ermentrude's own dull mind.  She took more
+interest in everything:  songs were not solely lullabies, but she
+cared to talk them over; tales to which she would once have been
+incapable of paying attention were eagerly sought after; and, above
+all, the spiritual vacancy that her mind had hitherto presented was
+beginning to be filled up.  Christina had brought her own books--a
+library of extraordinary extent for a maiden of the fifteenth
+century, but which she owed to her uncle's connexion with the arts of
+wood-cutting and printing.  A Vulgate from Dr. Faustus's own press, a
+mass book and breviary, Thomas a Kempis's Imitation and the Nuremburg
+Chronicle all in Latin, and the poetry of the gentle Minnesinger and
+bird lover, Walther von Vogelweide, in the vernacular:  these were
+her stock, which Hausfrau Johanna had viewed as a foolish
+encumbrance, and Hugh Sorel would never have transported to the
+castle unless they had been so well concealed in Christina's kirtles
+that he had taken them for parts of her wardrobe.
+
+Most precious were they now, when, out of the reach of all teaching
+save her own, she had to infuse into the sinking girl's mind the
+great mysteries of life and death, that so she might not leave the
+world without more hope or faith than her heathen forefathers.  For
+that Ermentrude would live Christina had never hoped, since that
+fleeting improvement had been cut short by the fever of the wine-cup;
+the look, voice, and tone had become so completely the same as those
+of Regina Grundt's little sister who had pined and died.  She knew
+she could not cure, but she could, she felt she could, comfort,
+cheer, and soften, and she no longer repined at her enforced sojourn
+at Adlerstein.  She heartily loved her charge, and could not bear to
+think how desolate Ermentrude would be without her.  And now the poor
+girl had become responsive to her care.  She was infinitely softened
+in manner, and treated her parents with forms of respect new to them;
+she had learnt even to thank old Ursel, dropped her imperious tone,
+and struggled with her petulance; and, towards her brother, the
+domineering, uncouth adherence was becoming real, tender affection;
+while the dependent, reverent love she bestowed upon Christina was
+touching and endearing in the extreme.
+
+Freiherr von Adlerstein saw the change, and congratulated himself on
+the effect of having a town-bred bower woman; nay, spoke of the
+advantage it would be to his daughter, if he could persuade himself
+to make the submission to the Kaiser which the late improvements
+decided on at the Diet were rendering more and more inevitable.  NOW
+how happy would be the winner of his gentle Ermentrude!
+
+Freiherrinn von Adlerstein thought the alteration the mere change
+from child to woman, and felt insulted by the supposition that any
+one might not have been proud to match with a daughter of Adlerstein,
+be she what she might.  As to submission to the Kaiser, that was mere
+folly and weakness--kaisers, kings, dukes, and counts had broken
+their teeth against the rock of Adlerstein before now!  What had come
+over her husband and her son to make them cravens?
+
+For Freiherr Eberhard was more strongly convinced than was his father
+of the untenableness of their present position.  Hugh Sorel's reports
+of what he heard at Ulm had shown that the league that had been
+discussed at Regensburg was far more formidable than anything that
+had ever previously threatened Schloss Adlerstein, and that if the
+Graf von Schlangenwald joined in the coalition, there would be
+private malice to direct its efforts against the Adlerstein family.
+Feud-letters or challenges had been made unlawful for ten years, and
+was not Adlerstein at feud with the world?
+
+Nor did Eberhard look on the submission with the sullen rage and
+grief that his father felt in bringing himself to such a declension
+from the pride of his ancestors.  What the young Baron heard up
+stairs was awakening in him a sense of the poorness and narrowness of
+his present life.  Ermentrude never spared him what interested her;
+and, partly from her lips, partly through her appeals to her
+attendant, he had learnt that life had better things to offer than
+independence on these bare rocks, and that homage might open the way
+to higher and worthier exploits than preying upon overturned waggons.
+
+Dietrich of Berne and his two ancestors, whose lengthy legend
+Christina could sing in a low, soft recitative, were revelations to
+him of what she meant by a true knight--the lion in war, the lamb in
+peace; the quaint oft-repeated portraits, and still quainter cities,
+of the Chronicle, with her explanations and translations, opened his
+mind to aspirations for intercourse with his fellows, for an
+honourable name, and for esteem in its degree such as was paid to Sir
+Parzival, to Karl the Great, or to Rodolf of Hapsburgh, once a
+mountain lord like himself.  Nay, as Ermentrude said, stroking his
+cheek, and smoothing the flaxen beard, that somehow had become much
+less rough and tangled than it used to be, "Some day wilt thou be
+another Good Freiherr Eberhard, whom all the country-side loved, and
+who gave bread at the castle-gate to all that hungered."
+
+Her brother believed nothing of her slow declension in strength,
+ascribing all the change he saw to the bitter cold, and seeing but
+little even of that alteration, though he spent many hours in her
+room, holding her in his arms, amusing her, or talking to her and to
+Christina.  All Christina's fear of him was gone.  As long as there
+was no liquor in the house, and he was his true self, she felt him to
+be a kind friend, bound to her by strong sympathy in the love and
+care for his sister.  She could talk almost as freely before him as
+when alone with her young lady; and as Ermentrude's religious
+feelings grew stronger, and were freely expressed to him, surely his
+attention was not merely kindness and patience with the sufferer.
+
+The girl's soul ripened rapidly under the new influences during her
+bodily decay; and, as the days lengthened, and the stern hold of
+winter relaxed upon the mountains, Christina looked with strange
+admiration upon the expression that had dawned upon the features once
+so vacant and dull, and listened with the more depth of reverence to
+the sweet words of faith, hope and love, because she felt that a
+higher, deeper teaching than she could give must have come to mould
+the spirit for the new world to which it was hastening.
+
+
+"Like an army defeated,
+The snow had retreated,"
+
+
+out of the valley, whose rich green shone smiling round the pool into
+which the Debateable Ford spread.  The waterfall had burst its icy
+bonds, and dashed down with redoubled voice, roaring rather than
+babbling.  Blue and pink hepaticas--or, as Christina called them,
+liver-krauts--had pushed up their starry heads, and had even been
+gathered by Sir Eberhard, and laid on his sister's pillow.  The dark
+peaks of rock came out all glistening with moisture, and the snow
+only retained possession of the deep hollows and crevices, into which
+however its retreat was far more graceful than when, in the city, it
+was trodden by horse and man, and soiled with smoke.
+
+Christina dreaded indeed that the roads should be open, but she could
+not love the snow; it spoke to her of dreariness, savagery, and
+captivity, and she watched the dwindling stripes with satisfaction,
+and hailed the fall of the petty avalanches from one Eagle's Step to
+another as her forefathers might have rejoiced in the defeat of the
+Frost giants.
+
+But Ermentrude had a love for the white sheet that lay covering a
+gorge running up from the ravine.  She watched its diminution day by
+day with a fancy that she was melting away with it; and indeed it was
+on the very day that a succession of drifting showers had left the
+sheet alone, and separated it from the masses of white above, that it
+first fully dawned upon the rest of the family that, for the little
+daughter of the house, spring was only bringing languor and sinking
+instead of recovery.
+
+Then it was that Sir Eberhard first really listened to her entreaty
+that she might not die without a priest, and comforted her by passing
+his word to her that, if--he would not say when--the time drew near,
+he would bring her one of the priests who had only come from St.
+Ruprecht's cloister on great days, by a sort of sufferance, to say
+mass at the Blessed Friedmund's hermitage chapel.
+
+The time was slow in coming.  Easter had passed with Ermentrude far
+too ill for Christina to make the effort she had intended of going to
+the church, even if she could get no escort but old Ursel--the sheet
+of snow had dwindled to a mere wreath--the ford looked blue in the
+sunshine--the cascade tinkled merrily down its rock--mountain
+primroses peeped out, when, as Father Norbert came forth from saying
+his ill-attended Pentecostal mass, and was parting with the infirm
+peasant hermit, a tall figure strode up the pass, and, as the
+villagers fell back to make way, stood before the startled priest,
+and said, in a voice choked with grief, "Come with me."
+
+"Who needs me?" began the astonished monk.
+
+"Follow him not, father!" whispered the hermit.  "It is the young
+Freiherr.--Oh have mercy on him, gracious sir; he has done your noble
+lordships no wrong."
+
+"I mean him no ill," replied Eberhard, clearing his voice with
+difficulty; "I would but have him do his office.  Art thou afraid,
+priest?"
+
+"Who needs my office?" demanded Father Norbert.  "Show me fit cause,
+and what should I dread?  Wherefore dost thou seek me?"
+
+"For my sister," replied Eberhard, his voice thickening again.  "My
+little sister lies at the point of death, and I have sworn to her
+that a priest she shall have.  Wilt thou come, or shall I drag thee
+down the pass?"
+
+"I come, I come with all my heart, sir knight," was the ready
+response.  "A few moments and I am at your bidding."
+
+He stepped back into the hermit's cave, whence a stair led up to the
+chapel.  The anchorite followed him, whispering--"Good father,
+escape!  There will be full time ere he misses you.  The north door
+leads to the Gemsbock's Pass; it is open now."
+
+"Why should I baulk him?  Why should I deny my office to the dying?"
+said Norbert.
+
+"Alas! holy father, thou art new to this country, and know'st not
+these men of blood!  It is a snare to make the convent ransom thee,
+if not worse.  The Freiherrinn is a fiend for malice, and the
+Freiherr is excommunicate."
+
+"I know it, my son," said Norbert; "but wherefore should their child
+perish unassoilzied?"
+
+"Art coming, priest?" shouted Eberhard, from his stand at the mouth
+of the cave.
+
+And, as Norbert at once appeared with the pyx and other appliances
+that he had gone to fetch, the Freiherr held out his hand with an
+offer to "carry his gear for him;" and, when the monk refused, with
+an inward shudder at entrusting a sacred charge to such unhallowed
+hands, replied, "You will have work enow for both hands ere the
+castle is reached."
+
+But Father Norbert was by birth a sturdy Switzer, and thought little
+of these Swabian Alps; and he climbed after his guide through the
+most rugged passages of Eberhard's shortest and most perpendicular
+cut without a moment's hesitation, and with agility worthy of a
+chamois.  The young baron turned for a moment, when the level of the
+castle had been gained, perhaps to see whether he were following, but
+at the same time came to a sudden, speechless pause.
+
+On the white masses of vapour that floated on the opposite side of
+the mountain was traced a gigantic shadowy outline of a hermit, with
+head bent eagerly forward, and arm outstretched.
+
+The monk crossed himself.  Eberhard stood still for a moment, and
+then said, hoarsely,--"The Blessed Friedmund!  He is come for her;"
+then strode on towards the postern gate, followed by Brother Norbert,
+a good deal reassured both as to the genuineness of the young Baron's
+message and the probable condition of the object of his journey,
+since the patron saint of her race was evidently on the watch to
+speed her departing spirit.
+
+Sir Eberhard led the way up the turret stairs to the open door, and
+the monk entered the death-chamber.  The elder Baron sat near the
+fire in the large wooden chair, half turned towards his daughter, as
+one who must needs be present, but with his face buried in his hands,
+unable to endure the spectacle.  Nearer was the tall form of his
+wife, standing near the foot of the bed, her stern, harsh features
+somewhat softened by the feelings of the moment.  Ursel waited at
+hand, with tears running down her furrowed cheeks.
+
+For such as these Father Norbert was prepared; but he little expected
+to meet so pure and sweet a gaze of reverential welcome as beamed on
+him from the soft, dark eyes of the little white-checked maiden who
+sat on the bed, holding the sufferer in her arms.  Still less had he
+anticipated the serene blessedness that sat on the wasted features of
+the dying girl, and all the anguish of labouring breath.
+
+She smiled a smile of joy, held up her hand, and thanked her brother.
+Her father scarcely lifted his head, her mother made a rigid curtsey,
+and with a grim look of sorrow coming over her features, laid her
+hand over the old Baron's shoulder.  "Come away, Herr Vater," she
+said; "he is going to hear her confession, and make her too holy for
+the like of us to touch."
+
+The old man rose up, and stepped towards his child.  Ermentrude held
+out her arms to him, and murmured -
+
+"Father, father, pardon me; I would have been a better daughter if I
+had only known--"  He gathered her in his arms; he was quite past
+speaking; and they only heard his heavy breathing, and one more
+whisper from Ermentrude--"And oh! father, one day wilt thou seek to
+be absolved?"  Whether he answered or not they knew not; he only gave
+her repeated kisses, and laid her down on her pillows, then rushed to
+the door, and the passionate sobs of the strong man's uncontrolled
+nature might be heard upon the stair.  The parting with the others
+was not necessarily so complete, as they were not, like him, under
+censure of the Church; but Kunigunde leant down to kiss her; and, in
+return to her repetition of her entreaty for pardon, replied, "Thou
+hast it, child, if it will ease thy mind; but it is all along of
+these new fancies that ever an Adlerstein thought of pardon.  There,
+there, I blame thee not, poor maid; it thou wert to die, it may be
+even best as it is.  Now must I to thy father; he is troubled enough
+about this gear."
+
+But when Eberhard moved towards his sister, she turned to the priest,
+and said, imploringly, "Not far, not far!  Oh! let them," pointing to
+Eberhard and Christina, "let them not be quite out of sight!"
+
+"Out of hearing is all that is needed, daughter," replied the priest;
+and Ermentrude looked content as Christina moved towards the empty
+north turret, where, with the door open, she was in full view, and
+Eberhard followed her thither.  It was indeed fully out of earshot of
+the child's faint, gasping confession.  Gravely and sadly both stood
+there.  Christina looked up the hillside for the snow-wreath.  The
+May sunshine had dissolved it; the green pass lay sparkling without a
+vestige of its white coating.  Her eyes full of tears, she pointed
+the spot out to Eberhard.  He understood; but, leaning towards her,
+told, under his breath, of the phantom he had seen.  Her eyes
+expanded with awe of the supernatural.  "It was the Blessed
+Friedmund," said Eberhard.  "Never hath he so greeted one of our race
+since the pious Freiherrinn Hildegarde.  Maiden, hast thou brought us
+back a blessing?"
+
+"Ah! well may she be blessed--well may the saints stoop to greet
+her," murmured Christina, with strangled voice, scarcely able to
+control her sobs.
+
+Father Norbert came towards them.  The simple confession had been
+heard, and he sought the aid of Christina in performing the last
+rites of the Church.
+
+"Maiden," he said to her, "thou hast done a great and blessed work,
+such as many a priest might envy thee."
+
+Eberhard was not excluded during the final services by which the soul
+was to be dismissed from its earthly dwelling-place.  True, he
+comprehended little of their import, and nothing of the words, but he
+gazed meekly, with uncovered head, and a bewildered look of sadness,
+while Christina made her responses and took her part with full
+intelligence and deep fervour, sorrowing indeed for the companion who
+had become so dear to her, but deeply thankful for the spiritual
+consolation that had come at last.  Ermentrude lay calm, and, as it
+were, already rapt into a higher world, lighting up at the German
+portions of the service, and not wholly devoid of comprehension of
+the spirit even of the Latin, as indeed she had come to the border of
+the region where human tongues and languages are no more.
+
+She was all but gone when the rite of extreme unction was completed,
+and they could only stand round her, Eberhard, Christina, Ursel, and
+the old Baroness, who had returned again, watching the last
+flutterings of the breath, the window thrown wide open that nothing
+might impede the passage of the soul to the blue vault above.
+
+The priest spoke the beautiful commendation, "Depart, O Christian
+soul."  There was a faint gesture in the midst for Christina to lift
+her in her arms--a sign to bend down and kiss her brow--but her last
+look was for her brother, her last murmur, "Come after me; be the
+Good Baron Ebbo."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V:  THE YOUNG FREIHERR
+
+
+
+Ermentrude von Adlerstein slept with her forefathers in the vaults of
+the hermitage chapel, and Christina Sorel's work was done.
+
+Surely it was time for her to return home, though she should be more
+sorry to leave the mountain castle than she could ever have believed
+possible.  She entreated her father to take her home, but she
+received a sharp answer that she did not know what she was talking
+of:  the Schlangenwald Reitern were besetting all the roads; and
+moreover the Ulm burghers had taken the capture of the Constance wine
+in such dudgeon that for a retainer of Adlerstein to show himself in
+the streets would be an absolute asking for the wheel.
+
+But was there any hope for her?  Could he not take her to some
+nunnery midway, and let her write to her uncle to fetch her from
+thence?
+
+He swore at woman's pertinacity, but allowed at last that if the
+plan, talked of by the Barons, of going to make their submission to
+the Emperor at Linz, with a view to which all violence at the ford
+had ceased, should hold good, it might be possible thus to drop her
+on their way.
+
+With this Christina must needs content herself.  Poor child, not only
+had Ermentrude's death deprived her of the sole object of her
+residence at Schloss Adlerstein, but it had infinitely increased the
+difficulties of her position.  No one interfered with her possession
+of the upper room and its turrets; and it was only at meal times that
+she was obliged to mingle with the other inhabitants, who, for the
+most part, absolutely overlooked the little shrinking pale maiden but
+with one exception, and that the most perplexing of all.  She had
+been on terms with Freiherr Eberhard that were not so easily broken
+off as if she had been an old woman of Ursel's age.  All through his
+sister's decline she had been his comforter, assistant, director,
+living in intercourse and sympathy that ought surely to cease when
+she was no longer his sister's attendant, yet which must be more than
+ever missed in the full freshness of the stroke.
+
+Even on the earliest day of bereavement, a sudden thought of Hausfrau
+Johanna flashed upon Christina, and reminded her of the guard she
+must keep over herself if she would return to Ulm the same modest
+girl whom her aunt could acquit of all indiscretion.  Her cheeks
+flamed, as she sat alone, with the very thought, and the next time
+she heard the well-known tread on the stair, she fled hastily into
+her own turret chamber, and shut the door.  Her heart beat fast.  She
+could hear Sir Eberhard moving about the room, and listened to his
+heavy sigh as he threw himself into the large chair.  Presently he
+called her by name, and she felt it needful to open her door and
+answer, respectfully,
+
+"What would you, my lord?"
+
+"What would I?  A little peace, and heed to her who is gone.  To see
+my father and mother one would think that a partridge had but flown
+away.  I have seen my father more sorrowful when his dog had fallen
+over the abyss."
+
+"Mayhap there is more sorrow for a brute that cannot live again,"
+said Christina.  "Our bird has her nest by an Altar that is lovelier
+and brighter than even our Dome Kirk will ever be."
+
+"Sit down, Christina," he said, dragging a chair nearer the hearth.
+"My heart is sore, and I cannot bear the din below.  Tell me where my
+bird is flown."
+
+"Ah! sir; pardon me.  I must to the kitchen," said Christina,
+crossing her hands over her breast, to still her trembling heart, for
+she was very sorry for his grief, but moving resolutely.
+
+"Must?  And wherefore?  Thou hast nought to do there; speak truth!
+Why not stay with me?" and his great light eyes opened wide.
+
+"A burgher maid may not sit down with a noble baron."
+
+"The devil!  Has my mother been plaguing thee, child?"
+
+"No, my lord," said Christina, "she reeks not of me; but"--steadying
+her voice with great difficulty--"it behoves me the more to be
+discreet."
+
+"And you would not have me come here!" he said, with a wistful tone
+of reproach.
+
+"I have no power to forbid you; but if you do, I must betake me to
+Ursel in the kitchen," said Christina, very low, trembling and half
+choked.
+
+"Among the rude wenches there!" he cried, starting up.  "Nay, nay,
+that shall not be!  Rather will I go."
+
+"But this is very cruel of thee, maiden," he added, lingering, "when
+I give thee my knightly word that all should be as when she whom we
+both loved was here," and his voice shook.
+
+"It could not so be, my lord," returned Christina with drooping,
+blushing face; "it would not be maidenly in me.  Oh, my lord, you are
+kind and generous, make it not hard for me to do what other maidens
+less lonely have friends to do for them!"
+
+"Kind and generous?" said Eberhard, leaning over the back of the
+chair as if trying to begin a fresh score.  "This from you, who told
+me once I was no true knight!"
+
+"I shall call you a true knight with all my heart," cried Christina,
+the tears rushing into her eyes, "if you will respect my weakness and
+loneliness."
+
+He stood up again, as if to move away; then paused, and, twisting his
+gold chain, said, "And how am I ever to be what the happy one bade
+me, if you will not show me how?"
+
+"My error would never show you the right," said Christina, with a
+strong effort at firmness, and retreating at once through the door of
+the staircase, whence she made her way to the kitchen, and with great
+difficulty found an excuse for her presence there.
+
+It had been a hard struggle with her compassion and gratitude, and,
+poor little Christina felt with dismay, with something more than
+these.  Else why was it that, even while principle and better sense
+summoned her back to Ulm, she experienced a deadly weariness of the
+city-pent air, of the grave, heavy roll of the river, nay, even of
+the quiet, well-regulated household?  Why did such a marriage as she
+had thought her natural destiny, with some worthy, kind-hearted
+brother of the guild, become so hateful to her that she could only
+aspire to a convent life?  This same burgomaster would be an
+estimable man, no doubt, and those around her were ruffians, but she
+felt utterly contemptuous and impatient of him.  And why was the
+interchange of greetings, the few words at meals, worth all the rest
+of the day besides to her?  Her own heart was the traitor, and to her
+own sensations the poor little thing had, in spirit at least,
+transgressed all Aunt Johanna's precepts against young Barons.  She
+wept apart, and resolved, and prayed, cruelly ashamed of every start
+of joy or pain that the sight of Eberhard cost her.  From almost the
+first he had sat next her at the single table that accommodated the
+whole household at meals, and the custom continued, though on some
+days he treated her with sullen silence, which she blamed herself for
+not rejoicing in, sometimes he spoke a few friendly words; but he
+observed, better than she could have dared to expect, her test of his
+true knighthood, and never again forced himself into her apartment,
+though now and then he came to the door with flowers, with mountain
+strawberries, and once with two young doves.  "Take them, Christina,"
+he said, "they are very like yourself;" and he always delayed so long
+that she was forced to be resolute, and shut the door on him at last.
+
+Once, when there was to be a mass at the chapel, Hugh Sorel, between
+a smile and a growl, informed his daughter that he would take her
+thereto.  She gladly prepared, and, bent on making herself agreeable
+to her father, did not once press on him the necessity of her return
+to Ulm.  To her amazement and pleasure, the young Baron was at
+church, and when on the way home, he walked beside her mule, she
+could see no need of sending him away.
+
+He had been in no school of the conventionalities of life, and, when
+he saw that Hugh Sorel's presence had obtained him this favour, he
+wistfully asked, "Christina, if I bring your father with me, will you
+not let me in?"
+
+"Entreat me not, my lord," she answered, with fluttering breath.
+
+She felt the more that she was right in this decision, when she
+encountered her father's broad grin of surprise and diversion, at
+seeing the young Baron help her to dismount.  It was a look of
+receiving an idea both new, comical, and flattering, but by no means
+the look of a father who would resent the indignity of attentions to
+his daughter from a man whose rank formed an insuperable barrier to
+marriage.
+
+The effect was a new, urgent, and most piteous entreaty, that he
+would find means of sending her home.  It brought upon her the
+hearing put into words what her own feelings had long shrunk from
+confessing to herself.
+
+"Ah!  Why, what now?  What, is the young Baron after thee?  Ha! ha!
+petticoats are few enough up here, but he must have been ill off ere
+he took to a little ghost like thee!  I saw he was moping and
+doleful, but I thought it was all for his sister."
+
+"And so it is, father."
+
+"Tell me that, when he watches every turn of that dark eye of thine--
+the only good thing thou took'st of mine!  Thou art a witch, Stina."
+
+"Hush, oh hush, for pity's sake, father, and let me go home!"
+
+"What, thou likest him not?  Thy mind is all for the mincing
+goldsmith opposite, as I ever told thee."
+
+"My mind is--is to return to my uncle and aunt the true-hearted
+maiden they parted with," said Christina, with clasped hands.  "And
+oh, father, as you were the son of a true and faithful mother, be a
+father to me now!  Jeer not your motherless child, but protect her
+and help her."
+
+Hugh Sorel was touched by this appeal, and he likewise recollected
+how much it was for his own interest that his brother should be
+satisfied with the care he took of his daughter.  He became convinced
+that the sooner she was out of the castle the better, and at length
+bethought him that, among the merchants who frequented the Midsummer
+Fair at the Blessed Friedmund's Wake, a safe escort might be found to
+convey her back to Ulm.
+
+If the truth were known, Hugh Sorel was not devoid of a certain
+feeling akin to contempt, both for his young master's taste, and for
+his forbearance in not having pushed matters further with a being so
+helpless, meek, and timid as Christina, more especially as such
+slackness had not been his wont in other cases where his fancy had
+been caught.
+
+But Sorel did not understand that it was not physical beauty that
+here had been the attraction, though to some persons, the sweet,
+pensive eyes, the delicate, pure skin, the slight, tender form, might
+seem to exceed in loveliness the fully developed animal comeliness
+chiefly esteemed at Adlerstein.  It was rather the strangeness of the
+power and purity of this timid, fragile creature, that had struck the
+young noble.  With all their brutal manners reverence for a lofty
+female nature had been in the German character ever since their
+Velleda prophesied to them, and this reverence in Eberhard bowed at
+the feet of the pure gentle maiden, so strong yet so weak, so wistful
+and entreating even in her resolution, refined as a white flower on a
+heap of refuse, wise and dexterous beyond his slow and dull
+conception, and the first being in whom he had ever seen piety or
+goodness; and likewise with a tender, loving spirit of consolation
+such as he had both beheld and tasted by his sister's deathbed.
+
+There was almost a fear mingled with his reverence.  If he had been
+more familiar with the saints, he would thus have regarded the holy
+virgin martyrs, nay, even Our Lady herself; and he durst not push her
+so hard as to offend her, and excite the anger or the grief that he
+alike dreaded.  He was wretched and forlorn without the resources he
+had found in his sister's room; the new and better cravings of his
+higher nature had been excited only to remain unsupplied and
+disappointed; and the affectionate heart in the freshness of its
+sorrow yearned for the comfort that such conversation had supplied:
+but the impression that had been made on him was still such, that he
+knew that to use rough means of pressing his wishes would no more
+lead to his real gratification than it would to appropriate a snow-
+bell by crushing it in his gauntlet.
+
+And it was on feeble little Christina, yielding in heart, though not
+in will, that it depended to preserve this reverence, and return
+unscathed from this castle, more perilous now than ever.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI:  THE BLESSED FRIEDMUND'S WAKE
+
+
+
+Midsummer-Day arrived, and the village of Adlerstein presented a most
+unusual spectacle.  The wake was the occasion of a grand fair for all
+the mountain-side, and it was an understood thing that the Barons,
+instead of molesting the pedlars, merchants, and others who attended
+it, contented themselves with demanding a toll from every one who
+passed the Kohler's hut on the one side, or the Gemsbock's Pass on
+the other; and this toll, being the only coin by which they came
+honestly in the course of the year, was regarded as a certainty and
+highly valued.  Moreover, it was the only time that any purchases
+could be made, and the flotsam of the ford did not always include all
+even of the few requirements of the inmates of the castle; it was the
+only holiday, sacred or secular, that ever gladdened the Eagle's
+Rock.
+
+So all the inmates of the castle prepared to enjoy themselves, except
+the heads of the house.  The Freiherr had never been at one of these
+wakes since the first after he was excommunicated, when he had
+stalked round to show his indifference to the sentence; and the
+Freiherrinn snarled out such sentences of disdain towards the
+concourse, that it might be supposed that she hated the sight of her
+kind; but Ursel had all the household purchases to make, and the
+kitchen underlings were to take turns to go and come, as indeed were
+the men-at-arms, who were set to watch the toll-bars.
+
+Christina had packed up a small bundle, for the chance of being
+unable to return to the castle without missing her escort, though she
+hoped that the fair might last two days, and that she should thus be
+enabled to return and bring away the rest of her property.  She was
+more and more resolved on going, but her heart was less and less
+inclined to departure.  And bitter had been her weeping through all
+the early light hours of the long morning--weeping that she tried to
+think was all for Ermentrude; and all, amid prayers she could scarce
+trust herself to offer, that the generous, kindly nature might yet
+work free of these evil surroundings, and fulfil the sister's dying
+wish, she should never see it; but, when she should hear that the
+Debateable Ford was the Friendly Ford, then would she know that it
+was the doing of the Good Baron Ebbo.  Could she venture on telling
+him so?  Or were it not better that there were no farewell?  And she
+wept again that he should think her ungrateful.  She could not
+persuade herself to release the doves, but committed the charge to
+Ursel to let them go in case she should not return.
+
+So tear-stained was her face, that, ashamed that it should be seen,
+she wrapped it closely in her hood and veil when she came down and
+joined her father.  The whole scene swam in tears before her eyes
+when she saw the whole green slope from the chapel covered with tents
+and booths, and swarming with pedlars and mountaineers in their
+picturesque dresses.  Women and girls were exchanging the yarn of
+their winter's spinning for bright handkerchiefs; men drove sheep,
+goats, or pigs to barter for knives, spades, or weapons; others were
+gazing at simple shows--a dancing bear or ape--or clustering round a
+Minnesinger; many even then congregating in booths for the sale of
+beer.  Further up, on the flat space of sward above the chapel, were
+some lay brothers, arranging for the representation of a mystery--a
+kind of entertainment which Germany owed to the English who came to
+the Council of Constance, and which the monks of St. Ruprecht's hoped
+might infuse some religious notions into the wild, ignorant
+mountaineers.
+
+First however Christina gladly entered the church.  Crowded though it
+were, it was calmer than the busy scene without.  Faded old tapestry
+was decking its walls, representing apparently some subject entirely
+alien to St. John or the blessed hermit; Christina rather thought it
+was Mars and Venus, but that was all the same to every one else.  And
+there was a terrible figure of St. John, painted life-like, with a
+real hair-cloth round his loins, just opposite to her, on the step of
+the Altar; also poor Friedmund's bones, dressed up in a new serge
+amice and hood; the stone from Nicaea was in a gilded box, ready in
+due time to be kissed; and a preaching friar (not one of the monks of
+St. Ruprecht's) was in the midst of a sermon, telling how St. John
+presided at the Council of Nicaea till the Emperor Maximius cut off
+his head at the instance of Herodius--full justice being done to the
+dancing--and that the blood was sprinkled on this very stone,
+whereupon our Holy Father the Pope decreed that whoever would kiss
+the said stone, and repeat the Credo five times afterwards, should be
+capable of receiving an indulgence for 500 years:  which indulgence
+must however be purchased at the rate of six groschen, to be bestowed
+in alms at Rome.  And this inestimable benefit he, poor Friar Peter,
+had come from his brotherhood of St. Francis at Offingen solely to
+dispense to the poor mountaineers.
+
+It was disappointing to find this profane mummery going on instead of
+the holy services to which Christina had looked forward for strength
+and comfort; she was far too well instructed not to be scandalized at
+the profane deception which was ripening fast for Luther, only thirty
+years later; and, when the stone was held up by the friar in one
+hand, the printed briefs of indulgence in the other, she shrunk back.
+Her father however said, "Wilt have one, child?  Five hundred years
+is no bad bargain."
+
+"My uncle has small trust in indulgences," she whispered.
+
+"All lies, of course," quoth Hugh; "yet they've the Pope's seal, and
+I have more than half a mind to get one.  Five hundred years is no
+joke, and I am sure of purgatory, since I bought this medal at the
+Holy House of Loretto."
+
+And he went forward, and invested six groschen in one of the papers,
+the most religious action poor Christina had ever seen him perform.
+Other purchasers came forward--several, of the castle knappen, and a
+few peasant women who offered yarn or cheeses as equivalents for
+money, but were told with some insolence to go and sell their goods,
+and bring the coin.
+
+After a time, the friar, finding his traffic slack, thought fit to
+remove, with his two lay assistants, outside the chapel, and try the
+effects of an out-of-door sermon.  Hugh Sorel, who had been hitherto
+rather diverted by the man's gestures and persuasions, now decided on
+going out into the fair in quest of an escort for his daughter, but
+as she saw Father Norbert and another monk ascending from the stairs
+leading to the hermit's cell, she begged to be allowed to remain in
+the church, where she was sure to be safe, instead of wandering about
+with him in the fair.
+
+He was glad to be unencumbered, though he thought her taste
+unnatural; and, promising to return for her when he had found an
+escort, he left her.
+
+Father Norbert had come for the very purpose of hearing confessions,
+and Christina's next hour was the most comfortable she had spent
+since Ermentrude's death.
+
+After this however the priests were called away, and long, long did
+Christina first kneel and then sit in the little lonely church,
+hearing the various sounds without, and imagining that her father had
+forgotten her, and that he and all the rest were drinking, and then
+what would become of her?  Why had she quitted old Ursel's
+protection?
+
+Hours of waiting and nameless alarm must have passed, for the sun was
+waxing low, when at length she heard steps coming up the hermit's
+cell, and a head rose above the pavement which she recognized with a
+wild throb of joy, but, repressing her sense of gladness, she only
+exclaimed, "Oh, where is my father!"
+
+"I have sent him to the toll at the Gemsbock's Pass," replied Sir
+Eberhard, who had by this time come up the stairs, followed by
+Brother Peter and the two lay assistants.  Then, as Christina turned
+on him her startled, terrified eyes in dismay and reproach for such
+thoughtlessness, he came towards her, and, bending his head and
+opening his hand, he showed on his palm two gold rings.  "There,
+little one," he said; "now shalt thou never again shut me out."
+
+Her senses grew dizzy.  "Sir," she faintly said, "this is no place to
+delude a poor maiden."
+
+"I delude thee not.  The brother here waits to wed us."
+
+"Impossible!  A burgher maid is not for such as you."
+
+"None but a burgher maid will I wed," returned Sir Eberhard, with all
+the settled resolution of habits of command.  "See, Christina, thou
+art sweeter and better than any lady in the land; thou canst make me
+what she--the blessed one who lies there--would have me.  I love thee
+as never knight loved lady.  I love thee so that I have not spoken a
+word to offend thee when my heart was bursting; and"--as he saw her
+irrepressible tears--"I think thou lovest me a little."
+
+"Ah!" she gasped with a sob, "let me go."
+
+"Thou canst not go home; there is none here fit to take charge of
+thee.  Or if there were, I would slay him rather than let thee go.
+No, not so," he said, as he saw how little those words served his
+cause; "but without thee I were a mad and desperate man.  Christina,
+I will not answer for myself if thou dost not leave this place my
+wedded wife."
+
+"Oh!" implored Christina, "if you would only betroth me, and woo me
+like an honourable maiden from my home at Ulm!"
+
+"Betroth thee, ay, and wed thee at once," replied Eberhard, who, all
+along, even while his words were most pleading, had worn a look and
+manner of determined authority and strength, good-natured indeed, but
+resolved.  "I am not going to miss my opportunity, or baulk the
+friar."
+
+The friar, who had meantime been making a few needful arrangements
+for the ceremony, advanced towards them.  He was a good-humoured,
+easy-going man, who came prepared to do any office that came in his
+way on such festival days at the villages round; and peasant
+marriages at such times were not uncommon.  But something now
+staggered him, and he said anxiously -
+
+"This maiden looks convent-bred!  Herr Reiter, pardon me; but if this
+be the breaking of a cloister, I can have none of it."
+
+"No such thing," said Eberhard; "she is town-bred, that is all."
+
+"You would swear to it, on the holy mass yonder, both of you?" said
+the friar, still suspiciously.
+
+"Yea," replied Eberhard, "and so dost thou, Christina."
+
+This was the time if ever to struggle against her destiny.  The friar
+would probably have listened to her if she had made any vehement
+opposition to a forced marriage, and if not, a few shrieks would have
+brought perhaps Father Norbert, and certainly the whole population;
+but the horror and shame of being found in such a situation, even
+more than the probability that she might meet with vengeance rather
+than protection, withheld her.  Even the friar could hardly have
+removed her, and this was her only chance of safety from the
+Baroness's fury.  Had she hated and loathed Sir Eberhard, perhaps she
+had striven harder, but his whole demeanour constrained and quelled
+her, and the chief effort she made against yielding was the reply, "I
+am no cloister maid, holy father, but--"
+
+The "but" was lost in the friar's jovial speech.  "Oh, then, all is
+well!  Take thy place, pretty one, there, by the door, thou know'st
+it should be in the porch, but--ach, I understand!" as Eberhard
+quietly drew the bolt within.  "No, no, little one, I have no time
+for bride scruples and coyness; I have to train three dull-headed
+louts to be Shem, Ham, and Japhet before dark.  Hast confessed of
+late?"
+
+"This morning, but--" said Christina, and "This morning," to her
+great joy, said Eberhard, and, in her satisfaction thereat, her
+second "but" was not followed up.
+
+The friar asked their names, and both gave the Christian name alone;
+then the brief and simple rite was solemnized in its shortest form.
+Christina had, by very force of surprise and dismay, gone through all
+without signs of agitation, except the quivering of her whole frame,
+and the icy coldness of the hand, where Eberhard had to place the
+ring on each finger in turn.
+
+But each mutual vow was a strange relief to her long-tossed and
+divided mind, and it was rest indeed to let her affection have its
+will, and own him indeed as a protector to be loved instead of
+shunned.  When all was over, and he gathered the two little cold
+hands into his large one, his arm supporting her trembling form, she
+felt for the moment, poor little thing, as if she could never be
+frightened again.
+
+Parish registers were not, even had this been a parish church, but
+Brother Peter asked, when he had concluded, "Well, my son, which of
+his flock am I to report to your Pfarrer as linked together?"
+
+"The less your tongue wags on that matter till I call on you, the
+better," was the stern reply.  "Look you, no ill shall befall you if
+you are wise, but remember, against the day I call you to bear
+witness, that you have this day wedded Baron Eberhard von Adlerstein
+the younger, to Christina, the daughter of Hugh Sorel, the Esquire of
+Ulm."
+
+"Thou hast played me a trick, Sir Baron!" said the friar, somewhat
+dismayed, but more amused, looking up at Eberhard, who, as Christina
+now saw, had divested himself of his gilt spurs, gold chain, silvered
+belt and horn, and eagle's plume, so as to have passed for a simple
+lanzknecht.  "I would have had no such gear as this!"
+
+"So I supposed," said Eberhard coolly.
+
+"Young folks! young folks!" laughed the friar, changing his tone, and
+holding up his finger slyly; "the little bird so cunningly nestled in
+the church to fly out my Lady Baroness!  Well, so thou hast a pretty,
+timid lambkin there, Sir Baron.  Take care you use her mildly."
+
+Eberhard looked into Christina's face with a smile, that to her, at
+least, was answer enough; and he held out half a dozen links of his
+gold chain to the friar, and tossed a coin to each of the lay
+brethren.
+
+"Not for the poor friar himself," explained Brother Peter, on
+receiving this marriage fee; "it all goes to the weal of the
+brotherhood."
+
+"As you please," said Eberhard.  "Silence, that is all!  And thy
+friary--?"
+
+"The poor house of St. Francis at Offingen for the present, noble
+sir," said the priest.  "There will you hear of me, if you find me
+not.  And now, fare thee well, my gracious lady.  I hope one day thou
+wilt have more words to thank the poor brother who has made thee a
+noble Baroness."
+
+"Ah, good father, pardon my fright and confusion," Christina tried to
+murmur, but at that moment a sudden glow and glare of light broke out
+on the eastern rock, illuminating the fast darkening little church
+with a flickering glare, that made her start in terror as if the
+fires of heaven were threatening this stolen marriage; but the friar
+and Eberhard both exclaimed, "The Needfire alight already!"  And she
+recollected how often she had seen these bonfires on Midsummer night
+shining red on every hill around Ulm.  Loud shouts were greeting the
+uprising flame, and the people gathering thicker and thicker on the
+slope.  The friar undid the door to hasten out into the throng, and
+Eberhard said he had left his spurs and belt in the hermit's cell,
+and must return thither, after which he would walk home with his
+bride, moving at the same time towards the stair, and thereby causing
+a sudden scuffle and fall.  "So, master hermit," quoth Eberhard, as
+the old man picked himself up, looking horribly frightened; "that's
+your hermit's abstraction, is it?  No whining, old man, I am not
+going to hurt thee, so thou canst hold thy tongue.  Otherwise I will
+smoke thee out of thy hole like a wild cat!  What, thou aiding me
+with my belt, my lovely one?  Thanks; the snap goes too hard for thy
+little hands.  Now, then, the fire will light us gaily down the
+mountain side."
+
+But it soon appeared that to depart was impossible, unless by forcing
+a way through the busy throng in the full red glare of the firelight,
+and they were forced to pause at the opening of the hermit's cave,
+Christina leaning on her husband's arm, and a fold of his mantle
+drawn round her to guard her from the night-breeze of the mountain,
+as they waited for a quiet space in which to depart unnoticed.  It
+was a strange, wild scene!  The fire was on a bare, flat rock, which
+probably had been yearly so employed ever since the Kelts had brought
+from the East the rite that they had handed on to the Swabians--the
+Beltane fire, whose like was blazing everywhere in the Alps, in the
+Hartz, nay, even in England, Scotland, and on the granite points of
+Ireland.  Heaped up for many previous days with faggots from the
+forest, then apparently inexhaustible, the fire roared and crackled,
+and rose high, red and smoky, into the air, paling the moon, and
+obscuring the stars.  Round it, completely hiding the bonfire itself,
+were hosts of dark figures swarming to approach it--all with a
+purpose.  All held old shoes or superannuated garments in their hands
+to feed the flame; for it was esteemed needful that every villager
+should contribute something from his house--once, no doubt, as an
+offering to Bel, but now as a mere unmeaning observance.  And shrieks
+of merriment followed the contribution of each too well-known article
+of rubbish that had been in reserve for the Needfire!  Girls and boys
+had nuts to throw in, in pairs, to judge by their bounces of future
+chances of matrimony.  Then came a shouting, tittering, and falling
+back, as an old boor came forward like a priest with something heavy
+and ghastly in his arms, which was thrown on with a tremendous shout,
+darkened the glow for a moment, then hissed, cracked, and emitted a
+horrible odour.
+
+It was a horse's head, the right owner of which had been carefully
+kept for the occasion, though long past work.  Christina shuddered,
+and felt as if she had fallen upon a Pagan ceremony; as indeed was
+true enough, only that the Adlersteiners attached no meaning to the
+performance, except a vague notion of securing good luck.
+
+With the same idea the faggots were pulled down, and arranged so as
+to form a sort of lane of fire.  Young men rushed along it, and then
+bounded over the diminished pile, amid loud shouts of laughter and
+either admiration or derision; and, in the meantime, a variety of
+odd, recusant noises, grunts, squeaks, and lowings proceeding from
+the darkness were explained to the startled little bride by her
+husband to come from all the cattle of the mountain farms around, who
+were to have their weal secured by being driven through the Needfire.
+
+It may well be imagined that the animals were less convinced of the
+necessity of this performance than their masters.  Wonderful was the
+clatter and confusion, horrible the uproar raised behind to make the
+poor things proceed at all, desperate the shout when some half-
+frantic creature kicked or attempted a charge wild the glee when a
+persecuted goat or sheep took heart of grace, and flashed for one
+moment between the crackling, flaring, smoking walls.  When one cow
+or sheep off a farm went, all the others were pretty sure to follow
+it, and the owner had then only to be on the watch at the other end
+to turn them back, with their flame-dazzled eyes, from going unawares
+down the precipice, a fate from which the passing through the fire
+was evidently not supposed to ensure them.  The swine, those special
+German delights, were of course the most refractory of all.  Some, by
+dint of being pulled away from the lane of fire, were induced to rush
+through it; but about half-way they generally made a bolt, either
+sidelong through the flaming fence or backwards among the legs of
+their persecutors, who were upset amid loud imprecations.  One huge,
+old, lean, high-backed sow, with a large family, truly feminine in
+her want of presence of mind, actually charged into the midst of the
+bonfire itself, scattering it to the right and left with her snout,
+and emitting so horrible a smell of singed bacon, that it might
+almost be feared that some of her progeny were anticipating the
+invention of Chinese roasting-pigs.  However, their proprietor,
+Jobst, counted them out all safe on the other side, and there only
+resulted some sighs and lamentations among the seniors, such as Hatto
+and Ursel, that it boded ill to have the Needfire trodden out by an
+old sow.
+
+All the castle live-stock were undergoing the same ceremony.
+Eberhard concerned himself little about the vagaries of the sheep and
+pigs, and only laughed a little as the great black goat, who had seen
+several Midsummer nights, and stood on his guard, made a sudden short
+run and butted down old Hatto, then skipped off like a chamois into
+the darkness, unheeding, the old rogue, the whispers that connected
+his unlucky hue with the doings of the Walpurgisnacht.  But when it
+came to the horses, Eberhard could not well endure the sight of the
+endeavours to force them, snorting, rearing, and struggling, through
+anything so abhorrent to them as the hedge of fire.
+
+The Schneiderlein, with all the force of his powerful arm, had hold
+of Eberhard's own young white mare, who, with ears turned back,
+nostrils dilated, and wild eyes, her fore-feet firmly planted wide
+apart, was using her whole strength for resistance; and, when a heavy
+blow fell on her, only plunged backwards, and kicked without
+advancing.  It was more than Eberhard could endure, and Christina's
+impulse was to murmur, "O do not let him do it;" but this he scarcely
+heard, as he exclaimed, "Wait for me here!" and, as he stepped
+forward, sent his voice before him, forbidding all blows to the mare.
+
+The creature's extreme terror ceased at once upon hearing his voice,
+and there was an instant relaxation of all violence of resistance as
+he came up to her, took her halter from the Schneiderlein, patted her
+glossy neck, and spoke to her.  But the tumult of warning voices
+around him assured him that it would be a fatal thing to spare the
+steed the passage through the fire, and he strove by encouragements
+and caresses with voice and hand to get her forward, leading her
+himself; but the poor beast trembled so violently, and, though making
+a few steps forward, stopped again in such exceeding horror of the
+flame, that Eberhard had not the heart to compel her, turned her head
+away, and assured her that she should not be further tormented.
+
+"The gracious lordship is wrong," said public opinion, by the voice
+of old Bauer Ulrich, the sacrificer of the horse's head.  "Heaven
+forfend that evil befall him and that mare in the course of the
+year."
+
+And the buzz of voices concurred in telling of the recusant pigs who
+had never developed into sausages, the sheep who had only escaped to
+be eaten by wolves, the mule whose bones had been found at the bottom
+of an abyss.
+
+Old Ursel was seriously concerned, and would have laid hold on her
+young master to remonstrate, but a fresh notion had arisen--Would the
+gracious Freiherr set a-rolling the wheel, which was already being
+lighted in the fire, and was to conclude the festivities by being
+propelled down the hill--figuring, only that no one present knew it,
+the sun's declension from his solstitial height?  Eberhard made no
+objection; and Christina, in her shelter by the cave, felt no little
+dismay at being left alone there, and moreover had a strange, weird
+feeling at the wild, uncanny ceremony he was engaged in, not knowing
+indeed that it was sun-worship, but afraid that it could be no other
+than unholy sorcery.
+
+The wheel, flaring or reddening in all its spokes, was raised from
+the bonfire, and was driven down the smoothest piece of green sward,
+which formed an inclined plane towards the stream.  If its course was
+smooth, and it only became extinguished by leaping into the water,
+the village would flourish; and prosperity above all was expected if
+it should spring over the narrow channel, and attempt to run up the
+other side.  Such things had happened in the days of the good
+Freiherren Ebbo and Friedel, though the wheel had never gone right
+since the present baron had been excommunicated; but his heir having
+been twice seen at mass in this last month great hopes were founded
+upon him.
+
+There was a shout to clear the slope.  Eberhard, in great earnest and
+some anxiety, accepted the gauntlet that he was offered to protect
+his hand, steadied the wheel therewith, and, with a vigorous impulse
+from hand and foot, sent it bounding down the slope, among loud cries
+and a general scattering of the idlers who had crowded full into the
+very path of the fiery circle, which flamed up brilliantly for the
+moment as it met the current of air.  But either there was an
+obstacle in the way, or the young Baron's push had not been quite
+straight:  the wheel suddenly swerved aside, its course swerved to
+the right, maugre all the objurgations addressed to it as if it had
+been a living thing, and the next moment it had disappeared, all but
+a smoky, smouldering spot of red, that told where it lay, charring
+and smoking on its side, without having fulfilled a quarter of its
+course.
+
+People drew off gravely and silently, and Eberhard himself was
+strangely discomfited when he came back to the hermitage, and,
+wrapping Christina in his cloak, prepared to return, so soon as the
+glare of the fire should have faded from his eyesight enough to make
+it safe to tread so precipitous a path.  He had indeed this day made
+a dangerous venture, and both he and Christina could not but feel
+disheartened by the issue of all the omens of the year, the more
+because she had a vague sense of wrong in consulting or trusting
+them.  It seemed to her all one frightened, uncomprehended dream ever
+since her father had left her in the chapel; and, though conscious of
+her inability to have prevented her marriage, yet she blamed herself,
+felt despairing as she thought of the future, and, above all, dreaded
+the Baron and the Baroness and their anger.  Eberhard, after his
+first few words, was silent, and seemed solely absorbed in leading
+her safely along the rocky path, sometimes lifting her when he
+thought her in danger of stumbling.  It was one of the lightest,
+shortest nights of the year, and a young moon added to the brightness
+in open places, while in others it made the rocks and stones cast
+strange elvish shadows.  The distance was not entirely lost; other
+Beltane fires could be seen, like beacons, on every hill, and the few
+lights in the castle shone out like red fiery eyes in its heavy dark
+pile of building.
+
+Before entering, Eberhard paused, pulled off his own wedding-ring,
+and put it into his bosom, and taking his bride's hand in his, did
+the same for her, and bade her keep the ring till they could wear
+them openly.
+
+"Alas! then," said Christina, "you would have this secret?"
+
+"Unless I would have to seek thee down the oubliette, my little one,"
+said Eberhard "or, what might even be worse, see thee burnt on the
+hillside for bewitching me with thine arts!  No, indeed, my darling.
+Were it only my father, I could make him love thee; but my mother--I
+could not trust her where she thought the honour of our house
+concerned.  It shall not be for long.  Thou know'st we are to make
+peace with the Kaiser, and then will I get me employment among
+Kurfurst Albrecht's companies of troops, and then shalt thou prank it
+as my Lady Freiherrinn, and teach me the ways of cities."
+
+"Alas!  I fear me it has been a great sin!" sighed the poor little
+wife.
+
+"For thee--thou couldst not help it," said Eberhard; "for me--who
+knows how many deadly ones it may hinder?  Cheer up, little one; no
+one can harm thee while the secret is kept."
+
+Poor Christina had no choice but submission; but it was a sorry
+bridal evening, to enter her husband's home in shrinking terror; with
+the threat of the oubliette before her, and with a sense of shame and
+deception hanging upon her, making the wonted scowl of the old
+baroness cut her both with remorse and dread.
+
+She did indeed sit beside her bridegroom at the supper, but how
+little like a bride! even though he pushed the salt-cellar, as if by
+accident, below her place.  She thought of her myrtle, tended in vain
+at home by Barbara Schmidt; she thought of Ulm courtships, and how
+all ought to have been; the solemn embassage to her uncle, the
+stately negotiations; the troth plight before the circle of
+ceremonious kindred and merry maidens, of whom she had often been
+one--the subsequent attentions of the betrothed on all festival days,
+the piles of linen and all plenishings accumulated since babyhood,
+and all reviewed and laid out for general admiration (Ah! poor Aunt
+Johanna still spinning away to add to the many webs in her walnut
+presses!)--then the grand procession to fetch home the bride, the
+splendid festival with the musicians, dishes, and guest-tables to the
+utmost limit that was allowed by the city laws, and the bride's hair
+so joyously covered by her matron's curch amid the merriment of her
+companion maidens.
+
+Poor child!  After she had crept away to her own room, glad that her
+father was not yet returned, she wept bitterly over the wrong that
+she felt she had done to the kind uncle and aunt, who must now look
+in vain for their little Christina, and would think her lost to them,
+and to all else that was good.  At least she had had the Church's
+blessing--but that, strange to say, was regarded, in burgher life
+before the Reformation, as rather the ornament of a noble marriage
+than as essential to the civil contract; and a marriage by a priest
+was regarded by the citizens rather as a means of eluding the need of
+obtaining the parent's consent, than as a more regular and devout
+manner of wedding.  However, Christina felt this the one drop of
+peace.  The blessings and prayers were warm at her heart, and gave
+her hope.  And as to drops of joy, of them there was no lack, for had
+not she now a right to love Eberhard with all her heart and
+conscience, and was not it a wonderful love on his part that had made
+him stoop to the little white-faced burgher maid, despised even by
+her own father?  O better far to wear the maiden's uncovered head for
+him than the myrtle wreath for any one else!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII:  THE SCHNEIDERLEIN'S RETURN
+
+
+
+The poor little unowned bride had more to undergo than her
+imagination had conceived at the first moment.
+
+When she heard that the marriage was to be a secret, she had not
+understood that Eberhard was by no means disposed to observe much
+more caution than mere silence.  A rough, though kindly man, he did
+not thoroughly comprehend the shame and confusion that he was
+bringing upon her by departing from his former demeanour.  He knew
+that, so enormous was the distance then supposed to exist between the
+noble and the burgher, there was no chance of any one dreaming of the
+true state of the case, and that as long as Christina was not taken
+for his wife, there was no personal danger for her from his mother,
+who--so lax were the morals of the German nobility with regard to all
+of inferior rank--would tolerate her with complacency as his
+favourite toy; and he was taken by surprise at the agony of grief and
+shame with which she slowly comprehended his assurance that she had
+nothing to fear.
+
+There was no help for it.  The oubliette would probably be the
+portion of the low-born girl who had interfered with the sixteen
+quarterings of the Adlerstein shield, and poor Christina never
+stepped across its trap-door without a shudder lest it should open
+beneath her.  And her father would probably have been hung from the
+highest tower, in spite of his shrewd care to be aware of nothing.
+Christina consoled herself with the hope that he knew all the time
+why he had been sent out of the way, for, with a broad grin that had
+made her blush painfully, he had said he knew she would be well taken
+care of, and that he hoped she was not breaking her heart for want of
+an escort.  She tried to extort Eberhard's permission to let him at
+least know how it was; but Eberhard laughed, saying he believed the
+old fox knew just as much as he chose; and, in effect, Sorel, though
+now and then gratifying his daughter's scruples, by serving as a
+shield to her meetings with the young Baron, never allowed himself to
+hear a hint of the true state of affairs.
+
+Eberhard's love and reverence were undiminished, and the time spent
+with him would have been perfectly happy could she ever have divested
+herself of anxiety and alarm; but the periods of his absence from the
+castle were very terrible to her, for the other women of the
+household, quick to perceive that she no longer repelled him, had
+lost that awe that had hitherto kept them at a distance from her, and
+treated her with a familiarity, sometimes coarse, sometimes spiteful,
+always hateful and degrading.  Even old Ursel had become half-
+pitying, half-patronizing; and the old Baroness, though not molesting
+her, took not the slightest notice of her.
+
+This state of things lasted much longer than there had been reason to
+expect at the time of the marriage.  The two Freiherren then intended
+to set out in a very short time to make their long talked-of
+submission to the Emperor at Ratisbon; but, partly from their German
+tardiness of movement, partly from the obstinate delays interposed by
+the proud old Freiherrinn, who was as averse as ever to the measure,
+partly from reports that the Court was not yet arrived at Ratisbon,
+the expedition was again and again deferred, and did not actually
+take place till September was far advanced.
+
+Poor Christina would have given worlds to go with them, and even
+entreated to be sent to Ulm with an avowal of her marriage to her
+uncle and aunt, but of this Eberhard would not hear.  He said the
+Ulmers would thus gain an hostage, and hamper his movements; and, if
+her wedding was not to be confessed--poor child!--she could better
+bear to remain where she was than to face Hausfrau Johanna.  Eberhard
+was fully determined to enrol himself in some troop, either Imperial,
+or, if not, among the Free Companies, among whom men of rank were
+often found, and he would then fetch or send for his wife and avow
+her openly, so soon as she should be out of his mother's reach.  He
+longed to leave her father at home, to be some protection to her, but
+Hugh Sorel was so much the most intelligent and skilful of the
+retainers as to be absolutely indispensable to the party--he was
+their only scribe; and moreover his new suit of buff rendered him a
+creditable member of a troop that had been very hard to equip.  It
+numbered about ten men-at-arms, only three being left at home to
+garrison the castle--namely, Hatto, who was too old to take; Hans,
+who had been hopelessly lame and deformed since the old Baron had
+knocked him off a cliff in a passion; and Squinting Matz, a runaway
+servant, who had murdered his master, the mayor of Strasburg, and
+might be caught and put to death if any one recognized him.  If
+needful the villagers could always be called in to defend the castle:
+but of this there was little or no danger--the Eagle's Steps were
+defence enough in themselves, and the party were not likely to be
+absent more than a week or ten days--a grievous length of time, poor
+Christina thought, as she stood straining her eyes on the top of the
+watch-tower, to watch them as far as possible along the plain.  Her
+heart was very sad, and the omen of the burning wheel so continually
+haunted her that even in her sleep that night she saw its brief
+course repeated, beheld its rapid fall and extinction, and then
+tracked the course of the sparks that darted from it, one rising and
+gleaming high in air till it shone like a star, another pursuing a
+fitful and irregular, but still bright course amid the dry grass on
+the hillside, just as she had indeed watched some of the sparks on
+that night, minding her of the words of the Allhallow-tide legend:
+"Fulgebunt justi et tanquam scintillae in arundinete discurrent"--a
+sentence which remained with her when awake, and led her to seek it
+out in her Latin Bible in the morning.
+
+Reluctantly had she gone down to the noontide meal, feeling, though
+her husband and father were far less of guardians than they should
+have been, yet that there was absolute rest, peace, and protection in
+their presence compared with what it was to be alone with Freiherrinn
+Kunigunde and her rude women without them.  A few sneers on her
+daintiness and uselessness had led her to make an offer of assisting
+in the grand chopping of sausage meat and preparation of winter
+stores, and she had been answered with contempt that my young lord
+would not have her soil her delicate hands, when one of the maids who
+had been sent to fetch beer from the cellar came back with startled
+looks, and the exclamation, "There is the Schneiderlein riding up the
+Eagle's Ladder upon Freiherr Ebbo's white mare!"
+
+All the women sprang up together, and rushed to the window, whence
+they could indeed recognize both man and horse; and presently it
+became plain that both were stained with blood, weary, and spent;
+indeed, nothing but extreme exhaustion would have induced the man-at-
+arms to trust the tired, stumbling horse up such a perilous path.
+
+Loud were the exclamations, "Ah! no good could come of not leading
+that mare through the Johannisfeuer."
+
+"This shameful expedition!  Only harm could befall.  This is thy
+doing, thou mincing city-girl."
+
+"All was certain to go wrong when a pale mist widow came into the
+place."
+
+The angry and dismayed cries all blended themselves in confusion in
+the ears of the only silent woman present; the only one that sounded
+distinctly on her brain was that of the last speaker, "A pale, mist
+widow," as, holding herself a little in the rear of the struggling,
+jostling little mob of women, who hardly made way even for their
+acknowledged lady, she followed with failing limbs the universal rush
+to the entrance as soon as man and horse had mounted the slope and
+were lost sight of.
+
+A few moments more, and the throng of expectants was at the foot of
+the hall steps, just as the lanzknecht reached the arched entrance.
+His comrade Hans took his bridle, and almost lifted him from his
+horse; he reeled and stumbled as, pale, battered, and bleeding, he
+tried to advance to Freiherinn Kunigunde, and, in answer to her hasty
+interrogation, faltered out, "Ill news, gracious lady.  We have been
+set upon by the accursed Schlangenwaldern, and I am the only living
+man left."
+
+Christina scarce heard even these last words; senses and powers alike
+failed her, and she sank back on the stone steps in a deathlike
+swoon.
+
+When she came to herself she was lying on her bed, Ursel and Else,
+another of the women, busy over her, and Ursel's voice was saying,
+"Ah, she is coming round.  Look up, sweet lady, and fear not.  You
+are our gracious Lady Baroness."
+
+"Is he here?  O, has he said so?  O, let me see him--Sir Eberhard,"
+faintly cried Christina with sobbing breath.
+
+"Ah, no, no," said the old woman; "but see here," and she lifted up
+Christina's powerless, bloodless hand, and showed her the ring on the
+finger.  Her bosom had been evidently searched when her dress was
+loosened in her swoon, and her ring found and put in its place.
+"There, you can hold up your head with the best of them; he took care
+of that--my dear young Freiherr, the boy that I nursed," and the old
+woman's burst of tears brought back the truth to Christina's s
+reviving senses.
+
+"Oh, tell me," she said, trying to raise herself, "was it indeed so?
+O say it was not as he said!"
+
+"Ah, woe's me, woe's me, that it was even so," lamented Ursel; "but
+oh, be still, look not so wild, dear lady.  The dear, true-hearted
+young lord, he spent his last breath in owning you for his true lady,
+and in bidding us cherish you and our young baron that is to be.  And
+the gracious lady below--she owns you; there is no fear of her now;
+so vex not yourself, dearest, most gracious lady."
+
+Christina did not break out into the wailing and weeping that the old
+nurse expected; she was still far too much stunned and overwhelmed,
+and she entreated to be told all, lying still, but gazing at Ursel
+with piteous bewildered eyes.  Ursel and Else helping one another
+out, tried to tell her, but they were much confused; all they knew
+was that the party had been surprised at night in a village hostel by
+the Schlangenwaldern, and all slain, though the young Baron had lived
+long enough to charge the Schneiderlein with his commendation of his
+wife to his mother; but all particulars had been lost in the general
+confusion.
+
+"Oh, let me see the Schneiderlein," implored Christina, by this time
+able to rise and cross the room to the large carved chair; and Ursel
+immediately turned to her underling, saying, "Tell the Schneiderlein
+that the gracious Lady Baroness desires his presence."
+
+Else's wooden shoes clattered down stairs, but the next moment she
+returned.  "He cannot come; he is quite spent, and he will let no one
+touch his arm till Ursel can come, not even to get off his doublet."
+
+"I will go to him," said Christina, and, revived by the sense of
+being wanted, she moved at once to the turret, where she kept some
+rag and some ointment, which she had found needful in the latter
+stages of Ermentrude's illness--indeed, household surgery was a part
+of regular female education, and Christina had had plenty of practice
+in helping her charitable aunt, so that the superiority of her skill
+to that of Ursel had long been avowed in the castle.  Ursel made no
+objection further than to look for something that could be at once
+converted into a widow's veil--being in the midst of her grief quite
+alive to the need that no matronly badge should be omitted--but
+nothing came to hand in time, and Christina was descending the
+stairs, on her way to the kitchen, where she found the fugitive man-
+at-arms seated on a rough settle, his head and wounded arm resting on
+the table, while groans of pain, weariness, and impatience were
+interspersed with imprecations on the stupid awkward girls who
+surrounded him.
+
+Pity and the instinct of affording relief must needs take the
+precedence even of the desire to hear of her husband's fate; and, as
+the girls hastily whispered, "Here she is," and the lanzknecht
+hastily tried to gather himself up, and rise with tokens of respect;
+she bade him remain still, and let her see what she could do for him.
+In fact, she at once perceived that he was in no condition to give a
+coherent account of anything, he was so completely worn out, and in
+so much suffering.  She bade at once that some water should be
+heated, and some of the broth of the dinner set on the fire; then
+with the shears at her girdle, and her soft, light fingers, she
+removed the torn strip of cloth that had been wound round the arm,
+and cut away the sleeve, showing the arm not broken, but gashed at
+the shoulder, and thence the whole length grazed and wounded by the
+descent of the sword down to the wrist.  So tender was her touch,
+that he scarcely winced or moaned under her hand; and, when she
+proceeded, with Ursel's help, to bathe the wound with the warm water,
+the relief was such that the wearied man absolutely slumbered during
+the process, which Christina protracted on that very account.  She
+then dressed and bandaged the arm, and proceeded to skim--as no one
+else in the castle would do--the basin of soup, with which she then
+fed her patient as he leant back in the corner of the settle, at
+first in the same somnolent, half-conscious state in which he had
+been ever since the relief from the severe pain; but after a few
+spoonfuls the light and life came back to his eye, and he broke out,
+"Thanks, thanks, gracious lady!  This is the Lady Baroness for me!
+My young lord was the only wise man!  Thanks, lady; now am I my own
+man again.  It had been long ere the old Freiherrinn had done so much
+for me!  I am your man, lady, for life or death!"  And, before she
+knew what he was about, the gigantic Schneiderlein had slid down on
+his knees, seized her hand, and kissed it--the first act of homage to
+her rank, but most startling and distressing to her.  "Nay," she
+faltered, "prithee do not; thou must rest.  Only if--if thou canst
+only tell me if he, my own dear lord, sent me any greeting, I would
+wait to hear the rest till thou hast slept."
+
+"Ah! the dog of Schlangenwald!" was the first answer; then, as he
+continued, "You see, lady, we had ridden merrily as far as Jacob
+Muller's hostel, the traitor," it became plain that he meant to begin
+at the beginning.  She allowed Ursel to seat her on the bench
+opposite to his settle, and, leaning forward, heard his narrative
+like one in a dream.  There, the Schneiderlein proceeded to say, they
+put up for the night, entirely unsuspicious of evil; Jacob Muller,
+who was known to himself, as well as to Sorel and to the others,
+assuring them that the way was clear to Ratisbon, and that he heard
+the Emperor was most favourably disposed to any noble who would
+tender his allegiance.  Jacob's liquors were brought out, and were
+still in course of being enjoyed, when the house was suddenly
+surrounded by an overpowering number of the retainers of
+Schlangenwald, with their Count himself at their head.  He had been
+evidently resolved to prevent the timely submission of the enemies of
+his race, and suddenly presenting himself before the elder Baron, had
+challenged him to instantaneous battle, claiming credit to himself
+for not having surprised them when asleep.  The disadvantage had been
+scarcely less than if this had been the case, for the Adlersteinern
+were all half-intoxicated, and far inferior in numbers--at least, on
+the showing of the Schneiderlein--and a desperate fight had ended by
+his being flung aside in a corner, bound fast by the ankles and
+wrists, the only living prisoner, except his young lord, who, having
+several terrible wounds, the worst in his chest, was left unbound.
+
+Both lay helpless, untended, and silent, while the revel that had
+been so fatal to them was renewed by their captors, who finally all
+sunk into a heavy sleep.  The torches were not all spent, and the
+moonlight shone into the room, when the Schneiderlein, desperate from
+the agony caused by the ligature round his wounded arm, sat up and
+looked about him.  A knife thrown aside by one of the drunkards lay
+near enough to be grasped by his bound hands, and he had just reached
+it when Sir Eberhard made a sign to him to put it into his hand, and
+therewith contrived to cut the rope round both hands and feet--then
+pointed to the door.
+
+There was nothing to hinder an escape; the men slept the sleep of the
+drunken; but the Schneiderlein, with the rough fidelity of a
+retainer, would have lingered with a hope of saving his master.  But
+Eberhard shook his head, and signed again to escape; then, making him
+bend down close to him, he used all his remaining power to whisper,
+as he pressed his sword into the retainer's hand, -
+
+"Go home; tell my mother--all the world--that Christina Sorel is my
+wife, wedded on the Friedmund Wake by Friar Peter of Offingen, and if
+she should bear a child, he is my true and lawful heir.  My sword for
+him--my love to her.  And if my mother would not be haunted by me,
+let her take care of her."
+
+These words were spoken with extreme difficulty, for the nature of
+the wound made utterance nearly impossible, and each broken sentence
+cost a terrible effusion of blood.  The final words brought on so
+choking and fatal a gush that, said the Schneiderlein, "he fell back
+as I tried to hold him up, and I saw that it was all at an end, and a
+kind and friendly master and lord gone from me.  I laid him down, and
+put his cross on his breast that I had seen him kissing many a time
+that evening; and I crossed his hands, and wiped the blood from them
+and his face.  And, lady, he had put on his ring; I trust the robber
+caitiff's may have left it to him in his grave.  And so I came forth,
+walking soft, and opening the door in no small dread, not of the
+snoring swine, but of the dogs without.  But happily they were still,
+and even by the door I saw all our poor fellows stark and stiff."
+
+"My father?" asked Christina.
+
+"Ay! with his head cleft open by the Graf himself.  He died like a
+true soldier, lady, and we have lost the best head among us in him.
+Well, the knave that should have watched the horses was as drunken as
+the rest of them, and I made a shift to put the bridle on the white
+mare and ride off."
+
+Such was the narrative of the Schneiderlein, and all that was left to
+Christina was the picture of her husband's dying effort to guard her,
+and the haunting fancy of those long hours of speechless agony on the
+floor of the hostel, and how direful must have been his fears for
+her.  Sad and overcome, yet not sinking entirely while any work of
+comfort remained, her heart yearned over her companion in misfortune,
+the mother who had lost both husband and son; and all her fears of
+the dread Freiherrinn could not prevent her from bending her steps,
+trembling and palpitating as she was, towards the hall, to try
+whether the daughter-in-law's right might be vouchsafed to her, of
+weeping with the elder sufferer.
+
+The Freiherrinn sat by the chimney, rocking herself to and fro, and
+holding consultation with Hatto.  She started as she saw Christina
+approaching, and made a gesture of repulsion; but, with the feeling
+of being past all terror in this desolate moment, Christina stepped
+nearer, knelt, and, clasping her hands, said, "Your pardon, lady."
+
+"Pardon!" returned the harsh voice, even harsher for very grief,
+"thou hast naught to fear, girl.  As things stand, thou canst not
+have thy deserts.  Dost hear?"
+
+"Ah, lady, it was not such pardon that I meant.  If you would let me
+be a daughter to you."
+
+"A daughter!  A wood-carver's girl to be a daughter of Adlerstein!"
+half laughed the grim Baroness.  "Come here, wench," and Christina
+underwent a series of sharp searching questions on the evidences of
+her marriage.
+
+"So," ended the old lady, "since better may not be, we must own thee
+for the nonce.  Hark ye all, this is the Frau Freiherrinn, Freiherr
+Eberhard's widow, to be honoured as such," she added, raising her
+voice.  "There, girl, thou hast what thou didst strive for.  Is not
+that enough?"
+
+"Alas! lady," said Christina, her eyes swimming in tears, "I would
+fain have striven to be a comforter, or to weep together."
+
+"What! to bewitch me as thou didst my poor son and daughter, and
+well-nigh my lord himself!  Girl!  Girl!  Thou know'st I cannot burn
+thee now; but away with thee; try not my patience too far."
+
+And, more desolate than ever, the crushed and broken-hearted
+Christina, a widow before she had been owned a wife, returned to the
+room that was now so full of memories as to be even more home than
+Master Gottfried's gallery at Ulm.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII:  PASSING THE OUBLIETTE
+
+
+
+Who can describe the dreariness of being snowed-up all the winter
+with such a mother-in-law as Freiherrinn Kunigunde?
+
+Yet it was well that the snow came early, for it was the best defence
+of the lonely castle from any attack on the part of the
+Schlangenwaldern, the Swabian League, or the next heir, Freiherr
+Kasimir von Adlerstein Wildschloss.  The elder Baroness had, at
+least, the merit of a stout heart, and, even with her sadly-reduced
+garrison, feared none of them.  She had been brought up in the faith
+that Adlerstein was impregnable, and so she still believed; and, if
+the disaster that had cut off her husband and son was to happen at
+all, she was glad that it had befallen before the homage had been
+paid.  Probably the Schlangenwald Count knew how tough a morsel the
+castle was like to prove, and Wildschloss was serving at a distance,
+for nothing was heard of either during the short interval while the
+roads were still open.  During this time an attempt had been made
+through Father Norbert to ascertain what had become of the corpses of
+the two Barons and their followers, and it had appeared that the
+Count had carried them all off from the inn, no doubt to adorn his
+castle with their limbs, or to present them to the Emperor in
+evidence of his zeal for order.  The old Baron could not indeed have
+been buried in consecrated ground, nor have masses said for him; but
+for the weal of her son's soul Dame Kunigunde gave some of her few
+ornaments, and Christina added her gold earrings, and all her scanty
+purse, that both her husband and father might be joined in the
+prayers of the Church--trying with all her might to put confidence in
+Hugh Sorel's Loretto relic, and the Indulgence he had bought, and
+trusting with more consolatory thoughts to the ever stronger dawnings
+of good she had watched in her own Eberhard.
+
+She had some consoling intercourse with the priest while all this was
+pending; but throughout the winter she was entirely cut off from
+every creature save the inmates of the castle, where, as far as the
+old lady was concerned, she only existed on sufferance, and all her
+meekness and gentleness could not win for her more than the barest
+toleration.
+
+That Eberhard had for a few hours survived his father, and that thus
+the Freiherrinn Christina was as much the Dowager Baroness as
+Kunigunde herself, was often insisted on in the kitchen by Ursel,
+Hatto, and the Schneiderlein, whom Christina had unconsciously
+rendered her most devoted servant, not only by her daily care of his
+wound, but by her kind courteous words, and by her giving him his
+proper name of Heinz, dropping the absurd nom de guerre of the
+Schneiderlein, or little tailor, which had been originally conferred
+on him in allusion to the valiant Tailorling who boasted of having
+killed seven flies at a blow, and had been carried on chiefly because
+of the contradiction between such a title and his huge brawny
+strength and fierce courage.  Poor Eberhard, with his undaunted
+bravery and free reckless good-nature, a ruffian far more by
+education than by nature, had been much loved by his followers.  His
+widow would have reaped the benefit of that affection even if her
+exceeding sweetness had not gained it on her own account; and this
+giant was completely gained over to her, when, amid all her sorrow
+and feebleness, she never failed to minister to his sufferings to the
+utmost, while her questions about his original home, and revival of
+the name of his childhood, softened him, and awoke in him better
+feelings.  He would have died to serve her, and she might have headed
+an opposition party in the castle, had she not been quite indifferent
+to all save her grief; and, except by sitting above the salt at the
+empty table, she laid no claim to any honours or authority, and was
+more seldom than ever seen beyond what was now called her own room.
+
+At last, when for the second time she was seeing the snow wreaths
+dwindle, and the drops shine forth in moisture again, while the
+mountain paths were set free by the might of the springtide sun, she
+spoke almost for the first time with authority, as she desired Heinz
+to saddle her mule, and escort her to join in the Easter mass at the
+Blessed Friedmund's Chapel.  Ursel heaped up objections; but so
+urgent was Christina for confession and for mass, that the old woman
+had not the heart to stop her by a warning to the elder Baroness, and
+took the alternative of accompanying her.  It was a glorious
+sparkling Easter Day, lovely blue sky above, herbage and flowers
+glistening below, snow dazzling in the hollows, peasants assembling
+in holiday garb, and all rejoicing.  Even the lonely widow, in her
+heavy veil and black mufflings, took hope back to her heart, and
+smiled when at the church door a little child came timidly up to her
+with a madder-tinted Easter egg--a gift once again like the happy
+home customs of Ulm.  She gave the child a kiss--she had nothing else
+to give, but the sweet face sent it away strangely glad.
+
+The festival mass in all its exultation was not fully over, when
+anxious faces began to be seen at the door, and whisperings went
+round and many passed out.  Nobody at Adlerstein was particular about
+silence in church, and, when the service was not in progress, voices
+were not even lowered, and, after many attempts on the part of the
+Schneiderlein to attract the attention of his mistress, his voice
+immediately succeeded the Ite missa est, "Gracious lady, we must
+begone.  Your mule is ready.  There is a party at the Debateable
+Ford, whether Schlangenwald or Wildschloss we know not yet, but
+either way you must be the first thing placed in safety."
+
+Christina turned deadly pale.  She had long been ready to welcome
+death as a peaceful friend; but, sheltered as her girlhood had been
+in the quiet city, she had never been brought in contact with
+warfare, and her nervous, timid temperament made the thought most
+appalling and frightful to her, certain as she was that the old
+Baroness would resist to the uttermost.  Father Norbert saw her
+extreme terror, and, with the thought that he might comfort and
+support her, perhaps mediate between the contending parties, plead
+that it was holy-tide, and proclaim the peace of the church, or at
+the worst protect the lady herself, he offered his company; but,
+though she thanked him, it was as if she scarcely understood his
+kindness, and a shudder passed over her whenever the serfs, hastily
+summoned to augment the garrison, came hurrying down the path, or
+turned aside into the more rugged and shorter descents.  It was
+strange, the good father thought, that so timorous and fragile a
+being should have her lot cast amid these rugged places and scenes of
+violence, with no one to give her the care and cherishing she so much
+required.
+
+Even when she crept up the castle stairs, she was met with an angry
+rebuke, not so much for the peril she had incurred as for having
+taken away the Schneiderlein, by far the most availing among the
+scanty remnant of the retainers of Adlerstein.  Attempting no answer,
+and not even daring to ask from what quarter came the alarm,
+Christina made her way out of the turmoil to that chamber of her own,
+the scene of so much fear and sorrow, and yet of some share of peace
+and happiness.  But from the window, near the fast subsiding waters
+of the Debateable Ford, could plainly be seen the small troop of
+warriors, of whom Jobst the Kohler had brought immediate
+intelligence.  The sun glistened on their armour, and a banner
+floated gaily on the wind; but they were a fearful sight to the
+inmates of the lonely castle.
+
+A stout heart was however Kunigunde's best endowment; and, with the
+steadiness and precision of a general, her commands rang out, as she
+arranged and armed her garrison, perfectly resolved against any
+submission, and confident in the strength of her castle; nay, not
+without a hope of revenge either against Schlangenwald or
+Wildschloss, whom, as a degenerate Adlerstein, she hated only less
+than the slayer of her husband and son.
+
+The afternoon of Easter Day however passed away without any movement
+on the part of the enemy, and it was not till the following day that
+they could be seen struggling through the ford, and preparing to
+ascend the mountain.  Attacks had sometimes been disconcerted by
+posting men in the most dangerous passes; but, in the lack of
+numbers, and of trustworthy commanders, the Freiherrinn had judged it
+wiser to trust entirely to her walls, and keep her whole force within
+them.
+
+The new comers could hardly have had any hostile intentions, for,
+though well armed and accoutred, their numbers did not exceed twenty-
+five.  The banner borne at their head was an azure one, with a white
+eagle, and their leader could be observed looking with amazement at
+the top of the watch-tower, where the same eagle had that morning
+been hoisted for the first time since the fall of the two Freiherren.
+
+So soon as the ascent had been made, the leader wound his horn, and,
+before the echoes had died away among the hills, Hatto, acting as
+seneschal, was demanding his purpose.
+
+"I am Kasimir von Adlerstein Wildschloss," was the reply.  "I have
+hitherto been hindered by stress of weather from coming to take
+possession of my inheritance.  Admit me, that I may arrange with the
+widowed Frau Freiherrinn as to her dower and residence."
+
+"The widowed Frau Freiherrinn, born of Adlerstein," returned Hatto,
+"thanks the Freiherr von Adlerstein Wildschloss; but she holds the
+castle as guardian to the present head of the family, the Freiherr
+von Adlerstein."
+
+"It is false, old man," exclaimed the Wildschloss; "the Freiherr had
+no other son."
+
+"No," said Hatto, "but Freiherr Eberhard hath left us twin heirs, our
+young lords, for whom we hold this castle."
+
+"This trifling will not serve!" sternly spoke the knight.  "Eberhard
+von Adlerstein died unmarried."
+
+"Not so," returned Hatto, "our gracious Frau Freiherrinn, the
+younger, was wedded to him at the last Friedmund Wake, by the special
+blessing of our good patron, who would not see our house extinct."
+
+"I must see thy lady, old man," said Sir Kasimir, impatiently, not in
+the least crediting the story, and believing his cousin Kunigunde
+quite capable of any measure that could preserve to her the rule in
+Schloss Adlerstein, even to erecting some passing love affair of her
+son's into a marriage.  And he hardly did her injustice, for she had
+never made any inquiry beyond the castle into the validity of
+Christina's espousals, nor sought after the friar who had performed
+the ceremony.  She consented to an interview with the claimant of the
+inheritance, and descended to the gateway for the purpose.  The court
+was at its cleanest, the thawing snow having newly washed away its
+impurities, and her proud figure, under her black hood and veil, made
+an imposing appearance as she stood tall and defiant in the archway.
+
+Sir Kasimir was a handsome man of about thirty, of partly Polish
+descent, and endowed with Slavonic grace and courtesy, and he had
+likewise been employed in negotiations with Burgundy, and had
+acquired much polish and knowledge of the world.
+
+"Lady," he said, "I regret to disturb and intrude on a mourning
+family, but I am much amazed at the tidings I have heard; and I must
+pray of you to confirm them."
+
+"I thought they would confound you," composedly replied Kunigunde.
+
+"And pardon me, lady, but the Diet is very nice in requiring full
+proofs.  I would be glad to learn what lady was chosen by my deceased
+cousin Eberhard."
+
+"The lady is Christina, daughter of his esquire, Hugh Sorel, of an
+honourable family at Ulm."
+
+"Ha!  I know who and what Sorel was!" exclaimed Wildschloss.  "Lady
+cousin, thou wouldst not stain the shield of Adlerstein with owning
+aught that cannot bear the examination of the Diet!"
+
+"Sir Kasimir," said Kunigunde proudly, "had I known the truth ere my
+son's death, I had strangled the girl with mine own hands!  But I
+learnt it only by his dying confession; and, had she been a beggar's
+child, she was his wedded wife, and her babes are his lawful heirs."
+
+"Knowest thou time--place--witnesses?" inquired Sir Kasimir.
+
+"The time, the Friedmund Wake; the place, the Friedmund Chapel,"
+replied the Baroness.  "Come hither, Schneiderlein.  Tell the knight
+thy young lord's confession."
+
+He bore emphatic testimony to poor Eberhard's last words; but as to
+the point of who had performed the ceremony, he knew not,--his mind
+had not retained the name.
+
+"I must see the Frau herself," said Wildschloss, feeling certain that
+such a being as he expected in a daughter of the dissolute lanzknecht
+Sorel would soon, by dexterous questioning, be made to expose the
+futility of her pretensions so flagrantly that even Kunigunde could
+not attempt to maintain them.
+
+For one moment Kunigunde hesitated, but suddenly a look of malignant
+satisfaction crossed her face.  She spoke a few words to Squinting
+Matz, and then replied that Sir Kasimir should be allowed to satisfy
+himself, but that she could admit no one else into the castle; hers
+was a widow's household, the twins were only a few hours old, and she
+could not open her gates to admit any person besides himself.
+
+So resolved on judging for himself was Adlerstein Wildschloss that
+all this did not stagger him; for, even if he had believed more than
+he did of the old lady's story, there would have been no sense of
+intrusion or impropriety in such a visit to the mother.  Indeed, had
+Christina been living in the civilized world, her chamber would have
+been hung with black cloth, black velvet would have enveloped her up
+to the eyes, and the blackest of cradles would have stood ready for
+her fatherless babe; two steps, in honour of her baronial rank, would
+have led to her bed, and a beaufet with the due baronial amount of
+gold and silver plate would have held the comfits and caudle to be
+dispensed to all visitors.  As it was, the two steps built into the
+floor of the room, and the black hood that Ursel tied over her young
+mistress's head, were the only traces that such etiquette had ever
+been heard of.
+
+But when Baron Kasimir had clanked up the turret stairs, each step
+bringing to her many a memory of him who should have been there, and
+when he had been led to the bedside, he was completely taken by
+surprise.
+
+Instead of the great, flat-faced, coarse comeliness of a German
+wench, treated as a lady in order to deceive him, he saw a delicate,
+lily-like face, white as ivory, and the soft, sweet brown eyes under
+their drooping lashes, so full of innocence and sad though thankful
+content, that he felt as if the inquiries he came to make were almost
+sacrilege.
+
+He had seen enough of the world to know that no agent in a clumsy
+imposition would look like this pure white creature, with her arm
+encircling the two little swaddled babes, whose red faces and bald
+heads alone were allowed to appear above their mummy-like wrappings;
+and he could only make an obeisance lower and infinitely more
+respectful than that with which he had favoured the Baroness nee von
+Adlerstein, with a few words of inquiry and apology.
+
+But Christina had her sons' rights to defend now, and she had far
+more spirit to do so than ever she had had in securing her own
+position, and a delicate rose tint came into her cheek as she said in
+her soft voice, "The Baroness tells me, that you, noble sir, would
+learn who wedded me to my dear and blessed lord, Sir Eberhard.  It
+was Friar Peter of the Franciscan brotherhood of Offingen, an agent
+for selling indulgences.  Two of his lay brethren were present.  My
+dear lord gave his own name and mine in full after the holy rite; the
+friar promising his testimony if it were needed.  He is to be found,
+or at least heard of, at his own cloister; and the hermit at the
+chapel likewise beheld a part of the ceremony."
+
+"Enough, enough, lady," replied Sir Kasimir; "forgive me for having
+forced the question upon you."
+
+"Nay," replied Christina, with her blush deepening, "it is but just
+and due to us all;" and her soft eyes had a gleam of exultation, as
+she looked at the two little mummies that made up the US--"I would
+have all inquiries made in full."
+
+"They shall be made, lady, as will be needful for the establishment
+of your son's right as a free Baron of the empire, but not with any
+doubt on my part, or desire to controvert that right.  I am fully
+convinced, and only wish to serve you and my little cousins.  Which
+of them is the head of our family?" he added, looking at the two
+absolutely undistinguishable little chrysalises, so exactly alike
+that Christina herself was obliged to look for the black ribbon, on
+which a medal had been hung, round the neck of the elder.  Sir
+Kasimir put one knee to the ground as he kissed the red cheek of the
+infant and the white hand of the mother.
+
+"Lady cousin," he said to Kunigunde, who had stood by all this time
+with an anxious, uneasy, scowling expression on her face, "I am
+satisfied.  I own this babe as the true Freiherr von Adlerstein, and
+far be it from me to trouble his heritage.  Rather point out the way
+in which I may serve you and him.  Shall I represent all to the
+Emperor, and obtain his wardship, so as to be able to protect you
+from any attacks by the enemies of the house?"
+
+"Thanks, sir," returned the elder lady, severely, seeing Christina's
+gratified, imploring face.  "The right line of Adlerstein can take
+care of itself without greedy guardians appointed by usurpers.  Our
+submission has never been made, and the Emperor cannot dispose of our
+wardship."
+
+And Kunigunde looked defiant, regarding herself and her grandson as
+quite as good as the Emperor, and ready to blast her daughter-in-law
+with her eyes for murmuring gratefully and wistfully, "Thanks, noble
+sir, thanks!"
+
+"Let me at least win a friendly right in my young cousins," said Sir
+Kasimir, the more drawn by pitying admiration towards their mother,
+as he perceived more of the grandmother's haughty repulsiveness and
+want of comprehension of the dangers of her position.  "They are not
+baptized?  Let me become their godfather."
+
+Christina's face was all joy and gratitude, and even the grandmother
+made no objection; in fact, it was the babes' only chance of a noble
+sponsor; and Father Norbert, who had already been making ready for
+the baptism, was sent for from the hall.  Kunigunde, meantime, moved
+about restlessly, went half-way down the stairs, and held council
+with some one there; Ursel likewise, bustled about, and Sir Kasimir
+remained seated on the chair that had been placed for him near
+Christina's bed.
+
+She was able again to thank him, and add, "It may be that you will
+have more cause than the lady grandmother thinks to remember your
+offer of protection to my poor orphans.  Their father and grandfather
+were, in very deed, on their way to make submission."
+
+"That is well known to me," said Sir Kasimir.  "Lady, I will do all
+in my power for you.  The Emperor shall hear the state of things;
+and, while no violence is offered to travellers," he added, lowering
+his tone, "I doubt not he will wait for full submission till this
+young Baron be of age to tender it."
+
+"We are scarce in force to offer violence," said Christina sighing.
+"I have no power to withstand the Lady Baroness.  I am like a
+stranger here; but, oh! sir, if the Emperor and Diet will be patient
+and forbearing with this desolate house, my babes, if they live,
+shall strive to requite their mercy by loyalty.  And the blessing of
+the widow and fatherless will fall on you, most generous knight," she
+added, fervently, holding out her hand.
+
+"I would I could do more for you," said the knight.  "Ask, and all I
+can do is at your service."
+
+"Ah, sir," cried Christina, her eyes brightening, "there is one most
+inestimable service you could render me--to let my uncle, Master
+Gottfried, the wood-carver of Ulm, know where I am, and of my state,
+and of my children."
+
+Sir Kasimir repeated the name.
+
+"Yes," she said.  "There was my home, there was I brought up by my
+dear uncle and aunt, till my father bore me away to attend on the
+young lady here.  It is eighteen months since they had any tidings
+from her who was as a daughter to them."
+
+"I will see them myself," said Kasimir; "I know the name.  Carved not
+Master Gottfried the stall-work at Augsburg?"
+
+"Yes, indeed!  In chestnut leaves!  And the Misereres all with fairy
+tales!" exclaimed Christina.  "Oh, sir, thanks indeed!  Bear to the
+dear, dear uncle and aunt their child's duteous greetings, and tell
+them she loves them with all her heart, and prays them to forgive
+her, and to pray for her and her little ones!  And," she added, "my
+uncle may not have learnt how his brother, my father, died by his
+lord's side.  Oh! pray him, if ever he loved his little Christina, to
+have masses sung for my father and my own dear lord."
+
+As she promised, Ursel came to make the babes ready for their
+baptism, and Sir Kasimir moved away towards the window.  Ursel was
+looking uneasy and dismayed, and, as she bent over her mistress, she
+whispered, "Lady, the Schneiderlein sends you word that Matz has
+called him to help in removing the props of the door you wot of when
+HE yonder steps across it.  He would know if it be your will?"
+
+"The oubliette!"  This was Frau Kunigunde's usage of the relative who
+was doing his best for the welfare of her grandsons!  Christina's
+whole countenance looked so frozen with horror, that Ursel felt as if
+she had killed her on the spot; but the next moment a flash of relief
+came over the pale features, and the trembling lip commanded itself
+to say, "My best thanks to good Heinz.  Say to him that I forbid it.
+If he loves the life of his master's children, he will abstain!  Tell
+him so.  My blessings on him if this knight leave the castle safe,
+Ursel." And her terrified earnest eyes impelled Ursel to hasten to do
+her bidding; but whether it had been executed, there was no knowing,
+for almost immediately the Freiherrinn and Father Norbert entered,
+and Ursel returned with them.  Nay, the message given, who could tell
+if Heinz would be able to act upon it?  In the ordinary condition of
+the castle, he was indeed its most efficient inmate; Matz did not
+approach him in strength, Hans was a cripple, Hatto would be on the
+right side; but Jobst the Kohler, and the other serfs who had been
+called in for the defence, were more likely to hold with the elder
+than the younger lady.  And Frau Kunigunde herself, knowing well that
+the five-and-twenty men outside would be incompetent to avenge their
+master, confident in her narrow-minded, ignorant pride that no one
+could take Schloss Adlerstein, and incapable of understanding the
+changes in society that were rendering her isolated condition
+untenable, was certain to scout any representation of the dire
+consequences that the crime would entail.  Kasimir had no near
+kindred, and private revenge was the only justice the Baroness
+believed in; she only saw in her crime the satisfaction of an old
+feud, and the union of the Wildschloss property with the parent stem.
+
+Seldom could such a christening have taken place as that of which
+Christina's bed-room was the scene--the mother scarcely able even to
+think of the holy sacrament for the horror of knowing that the one
+sponsor was already exulting in the speedy destruction of the other;
+and, poor little feeble thing, rallying the last remnants of her
+severely-tried powers to prevent the crime at the most terrible of
+risks.
+
+The elder babe received from his grandmother the hereditary name of
+Eberhard, but Sir Kasimir looked at the mother inquiringly, ere he
+gave the other to the priest.  Christina had well-nigh said,
+"Oubliette," but, recalling herself in time, she feebly uttered the
+name she had longed after from the moment she had known that two sons
+had been her Easter gift, "Gottfried," after her beloved uncle.  But
+Kunigunde caught the sound, and exclaimed, "No son of Adlerstein
+shall bear abase craftsman's name.  Call him Racher (the avenger);"
+and in the word there already rang a note of victory and revenge that
+made Christina's blood run cold.  Sir Kasimir marked her trouble.
+"The lady mother loves not the sound," he said, kindly.  "Lady, have
+you any other wish?  Then will I call him Friedmund."
+
+Christina had almost smiled.  To her the omen was of the best.  Baron
+Friedmund had been the last common ancestor of the two branches of
+the family, the patron saint was so called, his wake was her wedding-
+day, the sound of the word imported peace, and the good Barons Ebbo
+and Friedel had ever been linked together lovingly by popular memory.
+And so the second little Baron received the name of Friedmund, and
+then the knight of Wildschloss, perceiving, with consideration rare
+in a warrior, that the mother looked worn out and feverish, at once
+prepared to kiss her hand and take leave.
+
+"One more favour, Sir Knight," she said, lifting up her head, while a
+burning spot rose on either cheek.  "I beg of you to take my two
+babes down--yes, both, both, in your own arms, and show them to your
+men, owning them as your kinsmen and godsons."
+
+Sir Kasimir looked exceedingly amazed, as if he thought the lady's
+senses taking leave of her, and Dame Kunigunde broke out into
+declarations that it was absurd, and she did not know what she was
+talking of; but she repeated almost with passion, "Take them, take
+them, you know not how much depends on it."  Ursel, with unusual
+readiness of wit, signed and whispered that the young mother must be
+humoured, for fear of consequences; till the knight, in a good-
+natured, confused way, submitted to receive the two little bundles in
+his arms, while he gave place to Kunigunde, who hastily stepped
+before him in a manner that made Christina trust that her precaution
+would be effectual.
+
+The room was reeling round with her.  The agony of those few minutes
+was beyond all things unspeakable.  What had seemed just before like
+a certain way of saving the guest without real danger to her
+children, now appeared instead the most certain destruction to all,
+and herself the unnatural mother who had doomed her new-born babes
+for a stranger's sake.  She could not even pray; she would have
+shrieked to have them brought back, but her voice was dead within
+her, her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth, ringings in her ears
+hindered her even from listening to the descending steps.  She lay as
+one dead, when ten minutes afterwards the cry of one of her babes
+struck on her ear, and the next moment Ursel stood beside her, laying
+them down close to her, and saying exultingly, "Safe! safe out at the
+gate, and down the hillside, and my old lady ready to gnaw off her
+hands for spite!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX:  THE EAGLETS
+
+
+
+Christina's mental and bodily constitution had much similarity--
+apparently most delicate, tender, and timid, yet capable of a vigour,
+health, and endurance that withstood shocks that might have been
+fatal to many apparently stronger persons.  The events of that
+frightful Easter Monday morning did indeed almost kill her; but the
+effects, though severe, were not lasting; and by the time the last of
+Ermentrude's snow-wreath had vanished, she was sunning her babes at
+the window, happier than she had ever thought to be--above all, in
+the possession of both the children.  A nurse had been captured for
+the little Baron from the village on the hillside; but the woman had
+fretted, the child had pined, and had been given back to his mother
+to save his life; and ever since both had thriven perfectly under her
+sole care, so that there was very nearly joy in that room.
+
+Outside it, there was more bitterness than ever.  The grandmother had
+softened for a few moments at the birth of the children, with
+satisfaction at obtaining twice as much as she had hoped; but the
+frustration of her vengeance upon Kasimir of Adlerstein Wildschloss
+had renewed all her hatred, and she had no scruple in abusing "the
+burgher-woman" to the whole household for her artful desire to
+captivate another nobleman.  She, no doubt, expected that degenerate
+fool of a Wildschlosser to come wooing after her; "if he did he
+should meet his deserts."  It was the favourite reproach whenever she
+chose to vent her fury on the mute, blushing, weeping young widow,
+whose glance at her babies was her only appeal against the cruel
+accusation.
+
+On Midsummer eve, Heinz the Schneiderlein, who had all day been
+taking toll from the various attendants at the Friedmund Wake, came
+up and knocked at the door.  He had a bundle over his shoulder and a
+bag in his hand, which last he offered to her.
+
+"The toll!  It is for the Lady Baroness."
+
+"You are my Lady Baroness.  I levy toll for this my young lord."
+
+"Take it to her, good Heinz, she must have the charge, and needless
+strife I will not breed."
+
+The angry notes of Dame Kunigunde came up:  "How now, knave
+Schneiderlein!  Come down with the toll instantly.  It shall not be
+tampered with!  Down, I say, thou thief of a tailor."
+
+"Go; prithee go, vex her not," entreated Christina.
+
+"Coming, lady!" shouted Heinz, and, disregarding all further
+objurgations from beneath, he proceeded to deposit his bundle, and
+explain that it had been entrusted to him by a pedlar from Ulm, who
+would likewise take charge of anything she might have to send in
+return, and he then ran down just in time to prevent a domiciliary
+visit from the old lady.
+
+From Ulm!  The very sound was joy; and Christina with trembling hands
+unfastened the cords and stitches that secured the canvas covering,
+within which lay folds on folds of linen, and in the midst a rich
+silver goblet, long ago brought by her father from Italy, a few of
+her own possessions, and a letter from her uncle secured with black
+floss silk, with a black seal.
+
+She kissed it with transport, but the contents were somewhat chilling
+by their grave formality.  The opening address to the "honour-worthy
+Lady Baroness and love-worthy niece," conveyed to her a doubt on good
+Master Gottfried's part whether she were still truly worthy of love
+or honour.  The slaughter at Jacob Muller's had been already known to
+him, and he expressed himself as relieved, but greatly amazed, at the
+information he had received from the Baron of Adlerstein Wildschloss,
+who had visited him at Ulm, after having verified what had been
+alleged at Schloss Adlerstein by application to the friar at
+Offingen.
+
+Freiherr von Adlerstein Wildschloss had further requested him to make
+known that, feud-briefs having regularly passed between Schlangenwald
+and Adlerstein, and the two Barons not having been within the peace
+of the empire, no justice could be exacted for their deaths; yet, in
+consideration of the tender age of the present heirs, the question of
+forfeiture or submission should be waived till they could act for
+themselves, and Schlangenwald should be withheld from injuring them
+so long as no molestation was offered to travellers.  It was plain
+that Sir Kasimir had well and generously done his best to protect the
+helpless twins, and he sent respectful but cordial greetings to their
+mother.  These however were far less heeded by her than the coldness
+of her uncle's letter.  She had drifted beyond the reckoning of her
+kindred, and they were sending her her property and bridal linen, as
+if they had done with her, and had lost their child in the robber-
+baron's wife.  Yet at the end there was a touch of old times in
+offering a blessing, should she still value it, and the hopes that
+heaven and the saints would comfort her; "for surely, thou poor
+child, thou must have suffered much, and, if thou wiliest still to
+write to thy city kin, thine aunt would rejoice to hear that thou and
+thy babes were in good health."
+
+Precise grammarian and scribe as was Uncle Gottfried, the lapse from
+the formal Sie to the familiar Du went to his niece's heart.
+Whenever her little ones left her any leisure, she spent this her
+first wedding-day in writing so earnest and loving a letter as, in
+spite of mediaeval formality, must assure the good burgomaster that,
+except in having suffered much and loved much, his little Christina
+was not changed since she had left him.
+
+No answer could be looked for till another wake-day; but, when it
+came, it was full and loving, and therewith were sent a few more of
+her favourite books, a girdle, and a richly-scented pair of gloves,
+together with two ivory boxes of comfits, and two little purple silk,
+gold-edged, straight, narrow garments and tight round brimless lace
+caps, for the two little Barons.  Nor did henceforth a wake-day pass
+by without bringing some such token, not only delightful as
+gratifying Christina's affection by the kindness that suggested them,
+but supplying absolute wants in the dire stress of poverty at Schloss
+Adlerstein.
+
+Christina durst not tell her mother-in-law of the terms on which they
+were unmolested, trusting to the scantiness of the retinue, and to
+her own influence with the Schneiderlein to hinder any serious
+violence.  Indeed, while the Count of Schlangenwald was in the
+neighbourhood, his followers took care to secure all that could be
+captured at the Debateable Ford, and the broken forces of Adlerstein
+would have been insane had they attempted to contend with such
+superior numbers.  That the castle remained unattacked was attributed
+by the elder Baroness to its own merits; nor did Christina undeceive
+her.  They had no intercourse with the outer world, except that once
+a pursuivant arrived with a formal intimation from their kinsman, the
+Baron of Adlerstein Wildschloss, of his marriage with the noble
+Fraulein, Countess Valeska von Trautbach, and a present of a gay
+dagger for each of his godsons.  Frau Kunigunde triumphed a good deal
+over the notion of Christina's supposed disappointment; but the
+tidings were most welcome to the younger lady, who trusted they would
+put an end to all future taunts about Wildschloss.  Alas! the handle
+for abuse was too valuable to be relinquished.
+
+The last silver cup the castle had possessed had to be given as a
+reward to the pursuivant, and mayhap Frau Kunigunde reckoned this as
+another offence of her daughter-in-law, since, had Sir Kasimir been
+safe in the oubliette, the twins might have shared his broad lands on
+the Danube, instead of contributing to the fees of his pursuivant.
+The cup could indeed be ill spared.  The cattle and swine, the dues
+of the serfs, and the yearly toll at the wake were the sole resources
+of the household; and though there was no lack of meat, milk, and
+black bread, sufficient garments could scarce be come by, with all
+the spinning of the household, woven by the village webster, of whose
+time the baronial household, by prescriptive right, owned the lion's
+share.
+
+These matters little troubled the two beings in whom Christina's
+heart was wrapped up.  Though running about barefooted and
+bareheaded, they were healthy, handsome, straight-limbed, noble-
+looking creatures, so exactly alike, and so inseparable, that no one
+except herself could tell one from the other save by the medal of Our
+Lady worn by the elder, and the little cross carved by the mother for
+the younger; indeed, at one time, the urchins themselves would feel
+for cross or medal, ere naming themselves "Ebbo," or "Friedel."  They
+were tall for their age, but with the slender make of their foreign
+ancestry; and, though their fair rosy complexions were brightened by
+mountain mists and winds, their rapidly darkening hair, and large
+liquid brown eyes, told of their Italian blood.  Their grandmother
+looked on their colouring as a taint, and Christina herself had hoped
+to see their father's simple, kindly blue eyes revive in his boys;
+but she could hardly have desired anything different from the
+dancing, kindling, or earnest glances that used to flash from under
+their long black lashes when they were nestling in her lap, or
+playing by her knee, making music with their prattle, or listening to
+her answers with faces alive with intelligence.  They scarcely left
+her time for sorrow or regret.
+
+They were never quarrelsome.  Either from the influence of her
+gentleness, or from their absolute union, they could do and enjoy
+nothing apart, and would as soon have thought of their right and left
+hands falling out as of Ebbo and Friedel disputing.  Ebbo however was
+always the right hand.  THE Freiherr, as he had been called from the
+first, had, from the time he could sit at the table at all, been put
+into the baronial chair with the eagle carved at the back; every
+member of the household, from his grandmother downwards, placed him
+foremost, and Friedel followed their example, at the less loss to
+himself, as his hand was always in Ebbo's, and all their doings were
+in common.  Sometimes however the mother doubted whether there would
+have been this perfect absence of all contest had the medal of the
+firstborn chanced to hang round Friedmund's neck instead of
+Eberhard's.  At first they were entirely left to her.  Their
+grandmother heeded them little as long as they were healthy, and
+evidently regarded them more as heirs of Adlerstein than as
+grandchildren; but, as they grew older, she showed anxiety lest their
+mother should interfere with the fierce, lawless spirit proper to
+their line.
+
+One winter day, when they were nearly six years old, Christina,
+spinning at her window, had been watching them snowballing in the
+castle court, smiling and applauding every large handful held up to
+her, every laughing combat, every well-aimed hit, as the hardy little
+fellows scattered the snow in showers round them, raising their merry
+fur-capped faces to the bright eyes that "rained influence and judged
+the prize."
+
+By and by they stood still; Ebbo--she knew him by the tossed head and
+commanding air--was proposing what Friedel seemed to disapprove; but,
+after a short discussion, Ebbo flung away from him, and went towards
+a shed where was kept a wolf-cub, recently presented to the young
+Barons by old Ulrich's son.  The whelp was so young as to be quite
+harmless, but it was far from amiable; Friedel never willingly
+approached it, and the snarling and whining replies to all advances
+had begun to weary and irritate Ebbo.  He dragged it out by its
+chain, and, tethering it to a post, made it a mark for his snowballs,
+which, kneaded hard, and delivered with hearty good-will by his
+sturdy arms, made the poor little beast yelp with pain and terror,
+till the more tender-hearted Friedel threw himself on his brother to
+withhold him, while Matz stood by laughing and applauding the Baron.
+Seeing Ebbo shake Friedel off with unusual petulance, and pitying the
+tormented animal, Christina flung a cloak round her head and hastened
+down stairs, entering the court just as the terrified whelp had made
+a snap at the boy, which was returned by angry, vindictive pelting,
+not merely with snow, but with stones.  Friedel sprang to her crying,
+and her call to Ebbo made him turn, though with fury in his face,
+shouting, "He would bite me! the evil beast!"
+
+"Come with me, Ebbo," she said.
+
+"He shall suffer for it, the spiteful, ungrateful brute!  Let me
+alone, mother!" cried Ebbo, stamping on the snow, but still from
+habit yielding to her hand on his shoulder.
+
+"What now?" demanded the old Baroness, appearing on the scene.  "Who
+is thwarting the Baron?"
+
+"She; she will not let me deal with yonder savage whelp," cried the
+boy.
+
+"She!  Take thy way, child," said the old lady.  "Visit him well for
+his malice.  None shall withstand thee here.  At thy peril!" she
+added, turning on Christina.  "What, art not content to have brought
+base mechanical blood into a noble house?  Wouldst make slaves and
+cowards of its sons?"
+
+"I would teach them true courage, not cruelty," she tried to say.
+
+"What should such as thou know of courage?  Look here, girl:  another
+word to daunt the spirit of my grandsons, and I'll have thee scourged
+down the mountain-side!  On!  At him, Ebbo!  That's my gallant young
+knight!  Out of the way, girl, with thy whining looks!  What,
+Friedel, be a man, and aid thy brother!  Has she made thee a puling
+woman already?"  And Kunigunde laid an ungentle grasp upon Friedmund,
+who was clinging to his mother, hiding his face in her gown.  He
+struggled against the clutch, and would not look up or be detached.
+
+"Fie, poor little coward!" taunted the old lady; "never heed him,
+Ebbo, my brave Baron!"
+
+Cut to the heart, Christina took refuge in her room, and gathered her
+Friedel to her bosom, as he sobbed out, "Oh, mother, the poor little
+wolf!  Oh, mother, are you weeping too?  The grandmother should not
+so speak to the sweetest, dearest motherling," he added, throwing his
+arms round her neck.
+
+"Alas, Friedel, that Ebbo should learn that it is brave to hurt the
+weak!"
+
+"It is not like Walther of Vogelwiede," said Friedel, whose mind had
+been much impressed by the Minnesinger's bequest to the birds.
+
+"Nor like any true Christian knight.  Alas, my poor boys, must you be
+taught foul cruelty and I too weak and cowardly to save you?"
+
+"That never will be," said Friedel, lifting his head from her
+shoulder.  "Hark! what a howl was that!"
+
+"Listen not, dear child; it does but pain thee."
+
+"But Ebbo is not shouting.  Oh, mother, he is vexed--he is hurt!"
+cried Friedel, springing from her lap; but, ere either could reach
+the window, Ebbo had vanished from the scene.  They only saw the
+young wolf stretched dead on the snow, and the same moment in burst
+Ebbo, and flung himself on the floor in a passion of weeping.
+Stimulated by the applause of his grandmother and of Matz, he had
+furiously pelted the poor animal with all missiles that came to hand,
+till a blow, either from him or Matz, had produced such a howl and
+struggle of agony, and then such terrible stillness, as had gone to
+the young Baron's very heart, a heart as soft as that of his father
+had been by nature.  Indeed, his sobs were so piteous that his mother
+was relieved to hear only, "The wolf! the poor wolf!" and to find
+that he himself was unhurt; and she was scarcely satisfied of this
+when Dame Kunigunde came up also alarmed, and thus turned his grief
+to wrath.  "As if I would cry in that way for a bite!" he said.  "Go,
+grandame; you made me do it, the poor beast!" with a fresh sob.
+
+"Ulrich shall get thee another cub, my child."
+
+"No, no; I never will have another cub!  Why did you let me kill it?"
+
+"For shame, Ebbo!  Weep for a spiteful brute!  That's no better than
+thy mother or Friedel."
+
+"I love my mother!  I love Friedel!  They would have withheld me.
+Go, go; I hate you!"
+
+"Peace, peace, Ebbo," exclaimed his mother; "you know not what you
+say.  Ask your grandmother's pardon."
+
+"Peace, thou fool!" screamed the old lady.  "The Baron speaks as he
+will in his own castle.  He is not to be checked here, and thwarted
+there, and taught to mince his words like a cap-in-hand pedlar.
+Pardon!  When did an Adlerstein seek pardon?  Come with me, my Baron;
+I have still some honey-cakes."
+
+"Not I," replied Ebbo; "honey-cakes will not cure the wolf whelp.
+Go:  I want my mother and Friedel."
+
+Alone with them his pride and passion were gone; but alas! what
+augury for the future of her boys was left with the mother!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X:  THE EAGLE'S PREY
+
+
+
+"It fell about the Lammas tide,
+When moor men win their hay,"
+
+that all the serfs of Adlerstein were collected to collect their
+lady's hay to be stored for the winter's fodder of the goats, and of
+poor Sir Eberhard's old white mare, the only steed as yet ridden by
+the young Barons.
+
+The boys were fourteen years old.  So monotonous was their mother's
+life that it was chiefly their growth that marked the length of her
+residence in the castle.  Otherwise there had been no change, except
+that the elder Baroness was more feeble in her limbs, and still more
+irritable and excitable in temper.  There were no events, save a few
+hunting adventures of the boys, or the yearly correspondence with
+Ulm; and the same life continued, of shrinking in dread from the old
+lady's tyrannous dislike, and of the constant endeavour to infuse
+better principles into the boys, without the open opposition for
+which there was neither power nor strength.
+
+The boys' love was entirely given to their mother.  Far from
+diminishing with their dependence on her, it increased with the sense
+of protection; and, now that they were taller than herself, she
+seemed to be cherished by them more than ever.  Moreover, she was
+their oracle.  Quick-witted and active-minded, loving books the more
+because their grandmother thought signing a feud-letter the utmost
+literary effort becoming to a noble, they never rested till they had
+acquired all that their mother could teach them; or, rather, they
+then became more restless than ever.  Long ago had her whole store of
+tales and ballads become so familiar, by repetition, that the boys
+could correct her in the smallest variation; reading and writing were
+mastered as for pleasure; and the Nuremberg Chronicle, with its
+wonderful woodcuts, excited such a passion of curiosity that they
+must needs conquer its Latin and read it for themselves.  This World
+History, with Alexander and the Nine Worthies, the cities and
+landscapes, and the oft-repeated portraits, was Eberhard's study; but
+Friedmund continued--constant to Walther of Vogelweide.  Eberhard
+cared for no character in the Vulgate so much as for Judas the
+Maccabee; but Friedmund's heart was all for King David; and to both
+lads, shut up from companionship as they were, every acquaintance in
+their books was a living being whose like they fancied might be met
+beyond their mountain.  And, when they should go forth, like Dietrich
+of Berne, in search of adventures, doughty deeds were chiefly to fall
+to the lot of Ebbo's lance; while Friedel was to be their
+Minnesinger; and indeed certain verses, that he had murmured in his
+brother's ear, had left no doubt in Ebbo's mind that the exploits
+would be worthily sung.
+
+The soft dreamy eye was becoming Friedel's characteristic, as fire
+and keenness distinguished his brother's glance.  When at rest, the
+twins could be known apart by their expression, though in all other
+respects they were as alike as ever; and let Ebbo look thoughtful or
+Friedel eager and they were again undistinguishable; and indeed they
+were constantly changing looks.  Had not Friedel been beside him,
+Ebbo would have been deemed a wondrous student for his years; had not
+Ebbo been the standard of comparison, Friedel would have been in high
+repute for spirit and enterprise and skill as a cragsman, with the
+crossbow, and in all feats of arms that the Schneiderlein could
+impart.  They shared all occupations; and it was by the merest shade
+that Ebbo excelled with the weapon, and Friedel with the book or
+tool.  For the artist nature was in them, not intentionally excited
+by their mother, but far too strong to be easily discouraged.  They
+had long daily gazed at Ulm in the distance, hoping to behold the
+spire completed; and the illustrations in their mother's books
+excited a strong desire to imitate them.  The floor had often been
+covered with charcoal outlines even before Christina was persuaded to
+impart the rules she had learnt from her uncle; and her carving-tools
+were soon seized upon.  At first they were used only upon knobs of
+sticks; but one day when the boys, roaming on the mountain, had lost
+their way, and coming to the convent had been there hospitably
+welcomed by Father Norbert, they came home wild to make carvings like
+what they had seen in the chapel.  Jobst the Kohler was continually
+importuned for soft wood; the fair was ransacked for knives; and even
+the old Baroness could not find great fault with the occupation, base
+and mechanical though it were, which disposed of the two restless
+spirits during the many hours when winter storms confined them to the
+castle.  Rude as was their work, the constant observation and choice
+of subjects were an unsuspected training and softening.  It was not
+in vain that they lived in the glorious mountain fastness, and saw
+the sun descend in his majesty, dyeing the masses of rock with purple
+and crimson; not in vain that they beheld peak and ravine clothed in
+purest snow, flushed with rosy light at morn and eve, or contrasted
+with the purple blue of the sky; or that they stood marvelling at ice
+caverns with gigantic crystal pendants shining with the most magical
+pure depths of sapphire and emerald, "as if," said Friedel, "winter
+kept in his service all the jewel-forging dwarfs of the motherling's
+tales." And, when the snow melted and the buds returned, the ivy
+spray, the smiling saxifrage, the purple gentian bell, the feathery
+rowan leaf, the symmetrical lady's mantle, were hailed and loved
+first as models, then for themselves.
+
+One regret their mother had, almost amounting to shame.  Every
+virtuous person believed in the efficacy of the rod, and, maugre her
+own docility, she had been chastised with it almost as a religious
+duty; but her sons had never felt the weight of a blow, except once
+when their grandmother caught them carving a border of eagles and
+doves round the hall table, and then Ebbo had returned the blow with
+all his might.  As to herself, if she ever worked herself up to
+attempt chastisement, the Baroness was sure to fall upon her for
+insulting the noble birth of her sons, and thus gave them a triumph
+far worse for them than impunity.  In truth, the boys had their own
+way, or rather the Baron had his way, and his way was Baron
+Friedmund's.  Poor, bare, and scanty as were all the surroundings of
+their life, everything was done to feed their arrogance, with only
+one influence to counteract their education in pride and violence--a
+mother's influence, indeed, but her authority was studiously taken
+from her, and her position set at naught, with no power save what she
+might derive from their love and involuntary honour, and the sight of
+the pain caused her by their wrong-doings.
+
+And so the summer's hay-harvest was come.  Peasants clambered into
+the green nooks between the rocks to cut down with hook or knife the
+flowery grass, for there was no space for the sweep of a scythe.  The
+best crop was on the bank of the Braunwasser, by the Debateable Ford,
+but this was cut and carried on the backs of the serfs, much earlier
+than the mountain grass, and never without much vigilance against the
+Schlangenwaldern; but this year the Count was absent at his Styrian
+castle, and little had been seen or heard of his people.
+
+The full muster of serfs appeared, for Frau Kunigunde admitted of no
+excuses, and the sole absentee was a widow who lived on the ledge of
+the mountain next above that on which the castle stood.  Her son
+reported her to be very ill, and with tears in his eyes entreated
+Baron Friedel to obtain leave for him to return to her, since she was
+quite alone in her solitary hut, with no one even to give her a drink
+of water.  Friedel rushed with the entreaty to his grandmother, but
+she laughed it to scorn.  Lazy Koppel only wanted an excuse, or, if
+not, the woman was old and useless, and men could not be spared.
+
+"Ah! good grandame," said Friedel, "his father died with ours."
+
+"The more honour for him!  The more he is bound to work for us.  Off,
+junker, make no loiterers."
+
+Grieved and discomfited, Friedel betook himself to his mother and
+brother.
+
+"Foolish lad not to have come to me!" said the young Baron.  "Where
+is he?  I'll send him at once."
+
+But Christina interposed an offer to go and take Koppel's place
+beside his mother, and her skill was so much prized over all the
+mountain-side, that the alternative was gratefully accepted, and she
+was escorted up the steep path by her two boys to the hovel, where
+she spent the day in attendance on the sick woman.
+
+Evening came on, the patient was better, but Koppel did not return,
+nor did the young Barons come to fetch their mother home.  The last
+sunbeams were dying off the mountain-tops, and, beginning to suspect
+something amiss, she at length set off, and half way down met Koppel,
+who replied to her question, "Ah, then, the gracious lady has not
+heard of our luck.  Excellent booty, and two prisoners!  The young
+Baron has been a hero indeed, and has won himself a knightly steed."
+And, on her further interrogation, he added, that an unusually rich
+but small company had been reported by Jobst the Kohler to be on the
+way to the ford, where he had skilfully prepared a stumbling-block.
+The gracious Baroness had caused Hatto to jodel all the hay-makers
+together, and they had fallen on the travellers by the straight path
+down the crag.  "Ach! did not the young Baron spring like a young
+gemsbock?  And in midstream down came their pack-horses and their
+wares!  Some of them took to flight, but, pfui, there were enough for
+my young lord to show his mettle upon.  Such a prize the saints have
+not sent since the old Baron's time."
+
+Christina pursued her walk in dismay at this new beginning of
+freebooting in its worst form, overthrowing all her hopes.  The best
+thing that could happen would be the immediate interference of the
+Swabian League, while her sons were too young to be personally held
+guilty.  Yet this might involve ruin and confiscation; and, apart
+from all consequences, she bitterly grieved that the stain of robbery
+should have fallen on her hitherto innocent sons.
+
+Every peasant she met greeted her with praises of their young lord,
+and, when she mounted the hall-steps, she found the floor strewn with
+bales of goods.
+
+"Mother," cried Ebbo, flying up to her, "have you heard?  I have a
+horse! a spirited bay, a knightly charger, and Friedel is to ride him
+by turns with me.  Where is Friedel?  And, mother, Heinz said I
+struck as good a stroke as any of them, and I have a sword for
+Friedel now.  Why does he not come?  And, motherling, this is for
+you, a gown of velvet, a real black velvet, that will make you fairer
+than our Lady at the Convent.  Come to the window and see it, mother
+dear."
+
+The boy was so joyously excited that she could hardly withstand his
+delight, but she did not move.
+
+"Don't you like the velvet?" he continued.  "We always said that, the
+first prize we won, the motherling should wear velvet.  Do but look
+at it."
+
+"Woe is me, my Ebbo!" she sighed, bending to kiss his brow.
+
+He understood her at once, coloured, and spoke hastily and in
+defiance.  "It was in the river, mother, the horses fell; it is our
+right."
+
+"Fairly, Ebbo?" she asked in a low voice.
+
+"Nay, mother, if Jobst DID hide a branch in midstream, it was no
+doing of mine; and the horses fell.  The Schlangenwaldern don't even
+wait to let them fall.  We cannot live, if we are to be so nice and
+dainty."
+
+"Ah! my son, I thought not to hear you call mercy and honesty mere
+niceness."
+
+"What do I hear?" exclaimed Frau Kunigunde, entering from the
+storeroom, where she had been disposing of some spices, a much
+esteemed commodity.  "Are you chiding and daunting this boy, as you
+have done with the other?"
+
+"My mother may speak to me!" cried Ebbo, hotly, turning round.
+
+"And quench thy spirit with whining fooleries!  Take the Baron's
+bounty, woman, and vex him not after his first knightly exploit."
+
+"Heaven knows, and Ebbo knows," said the trembling Christina, "that,
+were it a knightly exploit, I were the first to exult."
+
+"Thou! thou craftsman's girl! dost presume to call in question the
+knightly deeds of a noble house!  There!" cried the furious Baroness,
+striking her face.  Now! dare to be insolent again."  Her hand was
+uplifted for another blow, when it was grasped by Eberhard, and, the
+next moment, he likewise held the other hand, with youthful strength
+far exceeding hers.  She had often struck his mother before, but not
+in his presence, and the greatness of the shock seemed to make him
+cool and absolutely dignified.
+
+"Be still, grandame," he said.  "No, mother, I am not hurting her,"
+and indeed the surprise seemed to have taken away her rage and
+volubility, and unresistingly she allowed him to seat her in a chair.
+Still holding her arm, he made his clear boyish voice resound through
+the hall, saying, "Retainers all, know that, as I am your lord and
+master, so is my honoured mother lady of the castle, and she is never
+to be gainsay'ed, let her say or do what she will."
+
+"You are right, Herr Freiherr," said Heinz.  "The Frau Christina is
+our gracious and beloved dame.  Long live the Freiherrinn Christina!"
+And the voices of almost all the serfs present mingled in the cry.
+
+"And hear you all," continued Eberhard, "she shall rule all, and
+never be trampled on more.  Grandame, you understand?"
+
+The old woman seemed confounded, and cowered in her chair without
+speaking.  Christina, almost dismayed by this silence, would have
+suggested to Ebbo to say something kind or consoling; but at that
+moment she was struck with alarm by his renewed inquiry for his
+brother.
+
+"Friedel!  Was not he with thee?"
+
+"No; I never saw him!"
+
+Ebbo flew up the stairs, and shouted for his brother; then, coming
+down, gave orders for the men to go out on the mountain-side, and
+search and jodel.  He was hurrying with them, but his mother caught
+his arm.  "O Ebbo, how can I let you go?  It is dark, and the crags
+are so perilous!"
+
+"Mother, I cannot stay!" and the boy flung his arms round her neck,
+and whispered in her ear, "Friedel said it would be a treacherous
+attack, and I called him a craven.  Oh, mother, we never parted thus
+before!  He went up the hillside.  Oh, where is he?"
+
+Infected by the boy's despairing voice, yet relieved that Friedel at
+least had withstood the temptation, Christina still held Ebbo's hand,
+and descended the steps with him.  The clear blue sky was fast
+showing the stars, and into the evening stillness echoed the loud
+wide jodeln, cast back from the other side of the ravine.  Ebbo tried
+to raise his voice, but broke down in the shout, and, choked with
+agitation, said, "Let me go, mother.  None know his haunts as I do!"
+
+"Hark!" she said, only grasping him tighter.
+
+Thinner, shriller, clearer came a far-away cry from the heights, and
+Ebbo thrilled from head to foot, then sent up another pealing
+mountain shout, responded to by a jodel so pitched as to be plainly
+not an echo.  "Towards the Red Eyrie," said Hans.
+
+"He will have been to the Ptarmigan's Pool," said Ebbo, sending up
+his voice again, in hopes that the answer would sound less distant;
+but, instead of this, its intonations conveyed, to these adepts in
+mountain language, that Friedel stood in need of help.
+
+"Depend upon it," said the startled Ebbo, "that he has got up amongst
+those rocks where the dead chamois rolled down last summer; then, as
+Christina uttered a faint cry of terror, Heinz added, "Fear not,
+lady, those are not the jodeln of one who has met with a hurt.  Baron
+Friedel has the sense to be patient rather than risk his bones if he
+cannot move safely in the dark."
+
+"Up after him!" said Ebbo, emitting a variety of shouts intimating
+speedy aid, and receiving a halloo in reply that reassured even his
+mother.  Equipped with a rope and sundry torches of pinewood, Heinz
+and two of the serfs were speedily ready, and Christina implored her
+son to let her come so far as where she should not impede the others.
+He gave her his arm, and Heinz held his torch so as to guide her up a
+winding path, not in itself very steep, but which she could never
+have climbed had daylight shown her what it overhung.  Guided by the
+constant exchange of jodeln, they reached a height where the wind
+blew cold and wild, and Ebbo pointed to an intensely black shadow
+overhung by a peak rising like the gable of a house into the sky.
+"Yonder lies the tarn," he said.  "Don't stir.  This way lies the
+cliff.  Fried-mund!" exchanging the jodel for the name.
+
+"Here!--this way!  Under the Red Eyrie," called back the wanderer;
+and steering their course round the rocks above the pool, the
+rescuers made their way towards the base of the peak, which was in
+fact the summit of the mountain, the top of the Eagle's Ladder, the
+highest step of which they had attained.  The peak towered over them,
+and beneath, the castle lights seemed as if it would be easy to let a
+stone fall straight down on them.
+
+Friedel's cry seemed to come from under their feet.  "I am here!  I
+am safe; only it grew so dark that I durst not climb up or down."
+
+The Schneiderlein explained that he would lower down a rope, which,
+when fastened round Friedel's waist, would enable him to climb safely
+up; and, after a breathless space, the torchlight shone upon the
+longed-for face, and Friedel springing on the path, cried, "The
+mother!--and here!" -
+
+"Oh, Friedel, where have you been?  What is this in your arms?"
+
+He showed them the innocent face of a little white kid.
+
+"Whence is it, Friedel?"
+
+He pointed to the peak, saying, "I was lying on my back by the tarn,
+when my lady eagle came sailing overhead, so low that I could see
+this poor little thing, and hear it bleat."
+
+"Thou hast been to the Eyrie--the inaccessible Eyrie!" exclaimed
+Ebbo, in amazement.
+
+"That's a mistake.  It is not hard after the first" said Friedel.  "I
+only waited to watch the old birds out again."
+
+"Robbed the eagles!  And the young ones?"
+
+"Well," said Friedmund, as if half ashamed, "they were twin eaglets,
+and their mother had left them, and I felt as though I could not harm
+them; so I only bore off their provisions, and stuck some feathers in
+my cap.  But by that time the sun was down, and soon I could not see
+my footing; and, when I found that I had missed the path, I thought I
+had best nestle in the nook where I was, and wait for day.  I grieved
+for my mother's fear; but oh, to see her here!"
+
+"Ah, Friedel! didst do it to prove my words false?" interposed Ebbo,
+eagerly.
+
+"What words?"
+
+"Thou knowest.  Make me not speak them again."
+
+"Oh, those!" said Friedel, only now recalling them.  "No, verily;
+they were but a moment's anger.  I wanted to save the kid.  I think
+it is old mother Rika's white kid.  But oh, motherling!  I grieve to
+have thus frightened you."
+
+Not a single word passed between them upon Ebbo's exploits.  Whether
+Friedel had seen all from the heights, or whether he intuitively
+perceived that his brother preferred silence, he held his peace, and
+both were solely occupied in assisting their mother down the pass,
+the difficulties of which were far more felt now than in the
+excitement of the ascent; only when they were near home, and the boys
+were walking in the darkness with arms round one another's necks,
+Christina heard Friedel say low and rather sadly, "I think I shall be
+a priest, Ebbo."
+
+To which Ebbo only answered, "Pfui!'
+
+Christina understood that Friedel meant that robbery must be a
+severance between the brothers.  Alas! had the moment come when their
+paths must diverge?  Could Ebbo's step not be redeemed?
+
+Ursel reported that Dame Kunigunde had scarcely spoken again, but had
+retired, like one stunned, into her bed.  Friedel was half asleep
+after the exertions of the day; but Ebbo did not speak, and both soon
+betook themselves to their little turret chamber within their
+mother's.
+
+Christina prayed long that night, her heart full of dread of the
+consequence of this transgression.  Rumours of freebooting castles
+destroyed by the Swabian League had reached her every wake day, and,
+if this outrage were once known, the sufferance that left Adlerstein
+unmolested must be over.  There was hope indeed in the weakness and
+uncertainty of the Government; but present safety would in reality be
+the ruin of Ebbo, since he would be encouraged to persist in the
+career of violence now unhappily begun.  She knew not what to ask,
+save that her sons might be shielded from evil, and might fulfil that
+promise of her dream, the star in heaven, the light on earth.  And
+for the present!--the good God guide her and her sons through the
+difficult morrow, and turn the heart of the unhappy old woman below!
+
+When, exhausted with weeping and watching, she rose from her knees,
+she stole softly into her sons' turret for a last look at them.
+Generally they were so much alike in their sleep that even she was at
+fault between them; but that night there was no doubt.  Friedel, pale
+after the day's hunger and fatigue, slept with relaxed features in
+the most complete calm; but though Ebbo's eyes were closed, there was
+no repose in his face--his hair was tossed, his colour flushed, his
+brow contracted, the arm flung across his brother had none of the
+ease of sleep.  She doubted whether he were not awake; but, knowing
+that he would not brook any endeavour to force confidence he did not
+offer, she merely hung over them both, murmured a prayer and
+blessing, and left them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI:  THE CHOICE IN LIFE
+
+
+
+"Friedel, wake!"
+
+"Is it day?" said Friedel, slowly wakening, and crossing himself as
+he opened his eyes.  "Surely the sun is not up--?"
+
+"We must be before the sun!" said Ebbo, who was on his feet,
+beginning to dress himself.  "Hush, and come!  Do not wake the
+mother.  It must be ere she or aught else be astir!  Thy prayers--I
+tell thee this is a work as good as prayer."
+
+Half awake, and entirely bewildered, Friedel dipped his finger in the
+pearl mussel shell of holy water over their bed, and crossed his own
+brow and his brother's; then, carrying their shoes, they crossed
+their mother's chamber, and crept down stairs.  Ebbo muttered to his
+brother, "Stand thou still there, and pray the saints to keep her
+asleep;" and then, with bare feet, moved noiselessly behind the
+wooden partition that shut off his grandmother's box-bedstead from
+the rest of the hall.  She lay asleep with open mouth, snoring
+loudly, and on her pillow lay the bunch of castle keys, that was
+always carried to her at night.  It was a moment of peril when Ebbo
+touched it; but he had nerved himself to be both steady and
+dexterous, and he secured it without a jingle, and then, without
+entering the hall, descended into a passage lit by a rough opening
+cut in the rock.  Friedel, who began to comprehend, followed him
+close and joyfully, and at the first door he fitted in, and with some
+difficulty turned, a key, and pushed open the door of a vault, where
+morning light, streaming through the grated window, showed two
+captives, who had started to their feet, and now stood regarding the
+pair in the doorway as if they thought their dreams were multiplying
+the young Baron who had led the attack.
+
+"Signori--" began the principal of the two; but Ebbo spoke.
+
+"Sir, you have been brought here by a mistake in the absence of my
+mother, the lady of the castle.  If you will follow me, I will
+restore all that is within my reach, and put you on your way."
+
+The merchant's knowledge of German was small, but the purport of the
+words was plain, and he gladly left the damp, chilly vault.  Ebbo
+pointed to the bales that strewed the hall.  "Take all that can be
+carried," he said.  "Here is your sword, and your purse," he said,
+for these had been given to him in the moment of victory.  "I will
+bring out your horse and lead you to the pass."
+
+"Give him food," whispered Friedel; but the merchant was too anxious
+to have any appetite.  Only he faltered in broken German a proposal
+to pay his respects to the Signora Castellana, to whom he owed so
+much.
+
+"No!  Dormit in lecto," said Ebbo, with a sudden inspiration caught
+from the Latinized sound of some of the Italian words, but colouring
+desperately as he spoke.
+
+The Latin proved most serviceable, and the merchant understood that
+his property was restored, and made all speed to gather it together,
+and transport it to the stable.  One or two of his beasts of burden
+had been lost in the fray, and there were more packages than could
+well be carried by the merchant, his servant, and his horse.  Ebbo
+gave the aid of the old white mare--now very white indeed--and in
+truth the boys pitied the merchant's fine young bay for being put to
+base trading uses, and were rather shocked to hear that it had been
+taken in payment for a knight's branched velvet gown, and would be
+sold again at Ulm.
+
+"What a poor coxcomb of a knight!" said they to one another, as they
+patted the creature's neck with such fervent admiration that the
+merchant longed to present it to them, when he saw that the old white
+mare was the sole steed they possessed, and watched their tender
+guidance both of her and of the bay up the rocky path so familiar to
+them.
+
+"But ah, signorini miei, I am an infelice infelicissimo, ever
+persecuted by le Fate."
+
+"By whom?  A count like Schlangenwald?" asked Ebbo.
+
+"Das Schicksal," whispered Friedel.
+
+"Three long miserable years did I spend as a captive among the Moors,
+having lost all, my ships and all I had, and being forced to row
+their galleys, gli scomunicati."
+
+"Galleys!" exclaimed Ebbo; "there are some pictured in our World
+History before Carthage.  Would that I could see one!"
+
+"The signorino would soon have seen his fill, were he between the
+decks, chained to the bench for weeks together, without ceasing to
+row for twenty-four hours together, with a renegade standing over to
+lash us, or to put a morsel into our mouths if we were fainting."
+
+"The dogs!  Do they thus use Christian men?" cried Friedel.
+
+"Si, si--ja wohl.  There were a good fourscore of us, and among them
+a Tedesco, a good man and true, from whom I learnt la lingua loro."
+
+"Our tongue!--from whom?" asked one twin of the other.
+
+"A Tedesco, a fellow-countryman of sue eccellenze."
+
+"Deutscher!" cried both boys, turning in horror, "our Germans so
+treated by the pagan villains?"
+
+"Yea, truly, signorini miei.  This fellow-captive of mine was a
+cavaliere in his own land, but he had been betrayed and sold by his
+enemies, and he mourned piteously for la sposa sua--his bride, as
+they say here.  A goodly man and a tall, piteously cramped in the
+narrow deck, I grieved to leave him there when the good confraternita
+at Genoa paid my ransom.  Having learnt to speak il Tedesco, and
+being no longer able to fit out a vessel, I made my venture beyond
+the Alps; but, alas! till this moment fortune has still been adverse.
+My mules died of the toil of crossing the mountains; and, when with
+reduced baggage I came to the river beneath there--when my horses
+fell and my servants fled, and the peasants came down with their
+hayforks--I thought myself in hands no better than those of the Moors
+themselves."
+
+"It was wrongly done," said Ebbo, in an honest, open tone, though
+blushing.  "I have indeed a right to what may be stranded on the
+bank, but never more shall foul means be employed for the overthrow."
+
+The boys had by this time led the traveller through the Gemsbock's
+Pass, within sight of the convent.  "There," said Ebbo, "will they
+give you harbourage, food, a guide, and a beast to carry the rest of
+your goods.  We are now upon convent land, and none will dare to
+touch your bales; so I will unload old Schimmel."
+
+"Ah, signorino, if I might offer any token of gratitude--"
+
+"Nay," said Ebbo, with boyish lordliness, "make me not a spoiler."
+
+"If the signorini should ever come to Genoa," continued the trader,
+"and would honour Gian Battista dei Battiste with a call, his whole
+house would be at their feet."
+
+"Thanks; I would that we could see strange lands!" said Ebbo.  "But
+come, Friedel, the sun is high, and I locked them all into the castle
+to make matters safe."
+
+"May the liberated captive know the name of his deliverers, that he
+may commend it to the saints?" asked the merchant.
+
+"I am Eberhard, Freiherr von Adlerstein, and this is Freiherr
+Friedmund, my brother.  Farewell, sir."
+
+"Strange," muttered the merchant, as he watched the two boys turn
+down the pass, "strange how like one barbarous name is to another.
+Eberardo!  That was what we called il Tedesco, and, when he once told
+me his family name, it ended in stino; but all these foreign names
+sound alike.  Let us speed on, lest these accursed peasants should
+wake, and be beyond the control of the signorino."
+
+"Ah!" sighed Ebbo, as soon as he had hurried out of reach of the
+temptation, "small use in being a baron if one is to be no better
+mounted!"
+
+"Thou art glad to have let that fair creature go free, though," said
+Friedel.
+
+"Nay, my mother's eyes would let me have no rest in keeping him.
+Otherwise--Talk not to me of gladness, Friedel!  Thou shouldst know
+better.  How is one to be a knight with nothing to ride but a beast
+old enough to be his grandmother?"
+
+"Knighthood of the heart may be content to go afoot," said Friedel.
+"Oh, Ebbo, what a brother thou art!  How happy the mother will be!"
+
+"Pfui, Friedel; what boots heart without spur?  I am sick of being
+mewed up here within these walls of rock!  No sport, not even with
+falling on a traveller.  I am worse off than ever were my
+forefathers!"
+
+"But how is it?  I cannot understand," asked Friedel.  "What has
+changed thy mind?"
+
+"Thou, and the mother, and, more than all, the grandame.  Listen,
+Friedel:  when thou camest up, in all the whirl of eagerness and glad
+preparation, with thy grave face and murmur that Jobst had put forked
+stakes in the stream, it was past man's endurance to be baulked of
+the fray.  Thou hast forgotten what I said to thee then, good
+Friedel?"
+
+"Long since.  No doubt I thrust in vexatiously."
+
+"Not so," said Ebbo; "and I saw thou hadst reason, for the stakes
+were most maliciously planted, with long branches hid by the current;
+but the fellows were showing fight, and I could not stay to think
+then, or I should have seemed to fear them!  I can tell you we made
+them run!  But I never meant the grandmother to put yon poor fellow
+in the dungeon, and use him worse than a dog.  I wot that he was my
+captive, and none of hers.  And then came the mother; and oh,
+Friedel, she looked as if I were slaying her when she saw the spoil;
+and, ere I had made her see right and reason, the old lady came
+swooping down in full malice and spite, and actually came to blows.
+She struck the motherling--struck her on the face, Friedel!"
+
+"I fear me it has so been before," said Friedel, sadly.
+
+"Never will it be so again," said Ebbo, standing still.  "I took the
+old hag by the hands, and told her she had ruled long enough!  My
+father's wife is as good a lady of the castle as my grandfather's,
+and I myself am lord thereof; and, since my Lady Kunigunde chooses to
+cross me and beat my mother about this capture, why she has seen the
+last of it, and may learn who is master, and who is mistress!"
+
+"Oh, Ebbo!  I would I had seen it!  But was not she outrageous?  Was
+not the mother shrinking and ready to give back all her claims at
+once?"
+
+"Perhaps she would have been, but just then she found thou wast not
+with me, and I found thou wast not with her, and we thought of nought
+else.  But thou must stand by me, Friedel, and help to keep the
+grandmother in her place, and the mother in hers."
+
+"If the mother WILL be kept," said Friedel.  "I fear me she will only
+plead to be left to the grandame's treatment, as before."
+
+"Never, Friedel!  I will never see her so used again.  I released
+this man solely to show that she is to rule here.--Yes, I know all
+about freebooting being a deadly sin, and moreover that it will bring
+the League about our ears; and it was a cowardly trick of Jobst to
+put those branches in the stream.  Did I not go over it last night
+till my brain was dizzy?  But still, it is but living and dying like
+our fathers, and I hate tameness or dullness, and it is like a fool
+to go back from what one has once begun."
+
+"No; it is like a brave man, when one has begun wrong," said Friedel.
+
+"But then I thought of the grandame triumphing over the gentle
+mother--and I know the mother wept over her beads half the night.
+She SHALL find she has had her own way for once this morning."
+
+Friedel was silent for a few moments, then said, "Let me tell thee
+what I saw yesterday, Ebbo."
+
+"So," answered the other brother.
+
+"I liked not to vex my mother by my tidings, so I climbed up to the
+tarn.  There is something always healing in that spot, is it not so,
+Ebbo?  When the grandmother has been raving" (hitherto Friedel's
+worst grievance) "it is like getting up nearer the quiet sky in the
+stillness there, when the sky seems to have come down into the deep
+blue water, and all is so still, so wondrous still and calm.  I
+wonder if, when we see the great Dome Kirk itself, it will give one's
+spirit wings, as does the gazing up from the Ptarmigan's Pool."
+
+"Thou minnesinger, was it the blue sky thou hadst to tell me of?"
+
+"No, brother, it was ere I reached it that I saw this sight.  I had
+scaled the peak where grows the stunted rowan, and I sat down to look
+down on the other side of the gorge.  It was clear where I sat, but
+the ravine was filled with clouds, and upon them--"
+
+"The shape of the blessed Friedmund, thy patron?"
+
+"OUR patron," said Friedel; "I saw him, a giant form in gown and
+hood, traced in grey shadow upon the dazzling white cloud; and oh,
+Ebbo! he was struggling with a thinner, darker, wilder shape bearing
+a club.  He strove to withhold it; his gestures threatened and
+warned!  I watched like one spell-bound, for it was to me as the
+guardian spirit of our race striving for thee with the enemy."
+
+"How did it end?"
+
+"The cloud darkened, and swallowed them; nor should I have known the
+issue, if suddenly, on the very cloud where the strife had been,
+there had not beamed forth a rainbow--not a common rainbow, Ebbo, but
+a perfect ring, a soft-glancing, many-tinted crown of victory.  Then
+I knew the saint had won, and that thou wouldst win."
+
+"I!  What, not thyself--his own namesake?"
+
+"I thought, Ebbo, if the fight went very hard--nay, if for a time the
+grandame led thee her way--that belike I might serve thee best by
+giving up all, and praying for thee in the hermit's cave, or as a
+monk."
+
+"Thou!--thou, my other self!  Aid me by burrowing in a hole like a
+rat!  What foolery wilt say next?  No, no, Friedel, strike by my
+side, and I will strike with thee; pray by my side, and I will pray
+with thee; but if thou takest none of the strokes, then will I none
+of the prayers!"
+
+"Ebbo, thou knowest not what thou sayest."
+
+"No one knows better!  See, Friedel, wouldst thou have me all that
+the old Adlersteinen were, and worse too? then wilt thou leave me and
+hide thine head in some priestly cowl.  Maybe thou thinkest to pray
+my soul into safety at the last moment as a favour to thine own
+abundant sanctity; but I tell thee, Friedel, that's no manly way to
+salvation.  If thou follow'st that track, I'll take care to get past
+the border-line within which prayer can help."
+
+Friedel crossed himself, and uttered an imploring exclamation of
+horror at these wild words.
+
+"Stay," said Ebbo; "I said not I meant any such thing--so long as
+thou wilt be with me.  My purpose is to be a good man and true, a
+guard to the weak, a defence against the Turk, a good lord to my
+vassals, and, if it may not be otherwise, I will take my oath to the
+Kaiser, and keep it.  Is that enough for thee, Friedel, or wouldst
+thou see me a monk at once?"
+
+"Oh, Ebbo, this is what we ever planned.  I only dreamed of the other
+when--when thou didst seem to be on the other track."
+
+"Well, what can I do more than turn back?  I'll get absolution on
+Sunday, and tell Father Norbert that I will do any penance he
+pleases; and warn Jobst that, if he sets any more traps in the river,
+I will drown him there next!  Only get this priestly fancy away,
+Friedel, once and for ever!"
+
+"Never, never could I think of what would sever us," cried Friedel,
+"save--when--" he added, hesitating, unwilling to harp on the former
+string.  Ebbo broke in imperiously,
+
+"Friedmund von Adlerstein, give me thy solemn word that I never again
+hear of this freak of turning priest or hermit.  What! art slow to
+speak?  Thinkest me too bad for thee?"
+
+"No, Ebbo.  Heaven knows thou art stronger, more resolute than I.  I
+am more likely to be too bad for thee.  But so long as we can be
+true, faithful God-fearing Junkern together, Heaven forbid that we
+should part!"
+
+"It is our bond!" said Ebbo; "nought shall part us."
+
+"Nought but death," said Friedmund, solemnly.
+
+"For my part," said Ebbo, with perfect seriousness, "I do not believe
+that one of us can live or die without the other.  But, hark! there's
+an outcry at the castle!  They have found out that they are locked
+in!  Ha! ho! hilloa, Hatto, how like you playing prisoner?"
+
+Ebbo would have amused himself with the dismay of his garrison a
+little longer, had not Friedel reminded him that their mother might
+be suffering for their delay, and this suggestion made him march in
+hastily.  He found her standing drooping under the pitiless storm
+which Frau Kunigunde was pouring out at the highest pitch of her
+cracked, trembling voice, one hand uplifted and clenched, the other
+grasping the back of a chair, while her whole frame shook with rage
+too mighty for her strength.
+
+"Grandame," said Ebbo, striding up to the scene of action, "cease.
+Remember my words yestereve."
+
+"She has stolen the keys!  She has tampered with the servants!  She
+has released the prisoner--thy prisoner, Ebbo!  She has cheated us as
+she did with Wildschloss!  False burgherinn!  I trow she wanted
+another suitor!  Bane--pest of Adlerstein!"
+
+Friedmund threw a supporting arm round his mother, but Ebbo
+confronted the old lady.  "Grandmother," he said, "I freed the
+captive.  I stole the keys--I and Friedel!  No one else knew my
+purpose.  He was my captive, and I released him because he was foully
+taken.  I have chosen my lot in life," he added; and, standing in the
+middle of the hall, he took off his cap, and spoke gravely:- "I will
+not be a treacherous robber-outlaw, but, so help me God, a faithful,
+loyal, godly nobleman."
+
+His mother and Friedel breathed an "Amen" with all their hearts; and
+he continued,
+
+"And thou, grandame, peace!  Such reverence shalt thou have as befits
+my father's mother; but henceforth mine own lady-mother is the
+mistress of this castle, and whoever speaks a rude word to her
+offends the Freiherr von Adlerstein."
+
+That last day's work had made a great step in Ebbo's life, and there
+he stood, grave and firm, ready for the assault; for, in effect, he
+and all besides expected that the old lady would fly at him or at his
+mother like a wild cat, as she would assuredly have done in a like
+case a year earlier; but she took them all by surprise by collapsing
+into her chair and sobbing piteously.  Ebbo, much distressed, tried
+to make her understand that she was to have all care and honour; but
+she muttered something about ingratitude, and continued to exhaust
+herself with weeping, spurning away all who approached her; and
+thenceforth she lived in a gloomy, sullen acquiescence in her
+deposition.
+
+Christina inclined to the opinion that she must have had some slight
+stroke in the night, for she was never the same woman again; her
+vigour had passed away, and she would sit spinning, or rocking
+herself in her chair, scarcely alive to what passed, or scolding and
+fretting like a shadow of her old violence.  Nothing pleased her but
+the attentions of her grandsons, and happily she soon ceased to know
+them apart, and gave Ebbo credit for all that was done for her by
+Friedel, whose separate existence she seemed to have forgotten.
+
+As long as her old spirit remained she would not suffer the approach
+of her daughter-in-law, and Christina could only make suggestions for
+her comfort to be acted on by Ursel; and though the reins of
+government fast dropped from the aged hands, they were but gradually
+and cautiously assumed by the younger Baroness.
+
+Only Elsie remained of the rude, demoralized girls whom she had found
+in the castle, and their successors, though dull and uncouth, were
+meek and manageable; the men of the castle had all, except Matz, been
+always devoted to the Frau Christina; and Matz, to her great relief,
+ran away so soon as he found that decency and honesty were to be the
+rule.  Old Hatto, humpbacked Hans, and Heinz the Schneiderlein, were
+the whole male establishment, and had at least the merit of
+attachment to herself and her sons; and in time there was a shade of
+greater civilization about the castle, though impeded both by dire
+poverty and the doggedness of the old retainers.  At least the court
+was cleared of the swine, and, within doors, the table was spread
+with dainty linen out of the parcels from Ulm, and the meals served
+with orderliness that annoyed the boys at first, but soon became a
+subject of pride and pleasure.
+
+Frau Kunigunde lingered long, with increasing infirmities.  After the
+winter day, when, running down at a sudden noise, Friedel picked her
+up from the hearthstone, scorched, bruised, almost senseless, she
+accepted Christina's care with nothing worse than a snarl, and
+gradually seemed to forget the identity of her nurse with the
+interloping burgher girl.  Thanks or courtesy had been no part of her
+nature, least of all towards her own sex, and she did little but
+grumble, fret, and revile her attendant; but she soon depended so
+much on Christina's care, that it was hardly possible to leave her.
+At her best and strongest, her talk was maundering abuse of her son's
+low-born wife; but at times her wanderings showed black gulfs of
+iniquity and coarseness of soul that would make the gentle listener
+tremble, and be thankful that her sons were out of hearing.  And thus
+did Christina von Adlerstein requite fifteen years of persecution.
+
+The old lady's first failure had been in the summer of 1488; it was
+the Advent season of 1489, when the snow was at the deepest, and the
+frost at the hardest, that the two hardy mountaineer grandsons
+fetched over the pass Father Norbert, and a still sturdier, stronger
+monk, to the dying woman.
+
+"Are we in time, mother?" asked Ebbo, from the door of the upper
+chamber, where the Adlersteins began and ended life, shaking the snow
+from his mufflings.  Ruddy with exertion in the sharp wind, what a
+contrast he was to all within the room!
+
+"Who is that?" said a thin, feeble voice.
+
+"It is Ebbo.  It is the Baron," said Christina.  "Come in, Ebbo.  She
+is somewhat revived."
+
+"Will she be able to speak to the priest?" asked Ebbo.
+
+"Priest!" feebly screamed the old woman.  "No priest for me!  My lord
+died unshriven, unassoilzied.  Where he is, there will I be.  Let a
+priest approach me at his peril!"
+
+Stony insensibility ensued; nor did she speak again, though life
+lasted many hours longer.  The priests did their office; for,
+impenitent as the life and frantic as the words had been, the
+opinions of the time deemed that their rites might yet give the
+departing soul a chance, though the body was unconscious.
+
+When all was over, snow was again falling, shifting and drifting, so
+that it was impossible to leave the castle, and the two monks were
+kept there for a full fortnight, during which Christmas solemnities
+were observed in the chapel, for the first time since the days of
+Friedmund the Good.  The corpse of Kunigunde, preserved--we must say
+the word--salted, was placed in a coffin, and laid in that chapel to
+await the melting of the snows, when the vault at the Hermitage could
+be opened.  And this could not be effected till Easter had nearly
+come round again, and it was within a week of their sixteenth
+birthday that the two young Barons stood together at the coffin's
+head, serious indeed, but more with the thought of life than of
+death.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII:  BACK TO THE DOVECOTE
+
+
+
+For the first time in her residence at Adlerstein, now full half her
+life, the Freiherrinn Christina ventured to send a messenger to Ulm,
+namely, a lay brother of the convent of St. Ruprecht, who undertook
+to convey to Master Gottfried Sorel her letter, informing him of the
+death of her mother-in-law, and requesting him to send the same
+tidings to the Freiherr von Adlerstein Wildschloss, the kinsman and
+godfather of her sons.
+
+She was used to wait fifty-two weeks for answers to her letters, and
+was amazed when, at the end of three, two stout serving-men were
+guided by Jobst up the pass; but her heart warmed to their flat caps
+and round jerkins, they looked so like home.  They bore a letter of
+invitation to her and her sons to come at once to her uncle's house.
+The King of the Romans, and perhaps the Emperor, were to come to the
+city early in the summer, and there could be no better opportunity of
+presenting the young Barons to their sovereign.  Sir Kasimir of
+Adlerstein Wildschloss would meet them there for the purpose, and
+would obtain their admission to the League, in which all Swabian
+nobles had bound themselves to put down robbery and oppression, and
+outside which there was nothing but outlawry and danger.
+
+"So must it be?" said Ebbo, between his teeth, as he leant moodily
+against the wall, while his mother was gone to attend to the fare to
+be set before the messengers.
+
+"What! art not glad to take wing at last?" exclaimed Friedel, cut
+short in an exclamation of delight.
+
+"Take wing, forsooth!  To be guest of a greasy burgher, and call
+cousin with him!  Fear not, Friedel; I'll not vex the motherling.
+Heaven knows she has had pain, grief, and subjection enough in her
+lifetime, and I would not hinder her visit to her home; but I would
+she could go alone, nor make us show our poverty to the swollen city
+folk, and listen to their endearments.  I charge thee, Friedel, do as
+I do; be not too familiar with them.  Could we but sprain an ankle
+over the crag--"
+
+"Nay, she would stay to nurse us," said Friedel, laughing; "besides,
+thou art needed for the matter of homage."
+
+"Look, Friedel," said Ebbo, sinking his voice, "I shall not lightly
+yield my freedom to king or Kaiser.  Maybe, there is no help for it;
+but it irks me to think that I should be the last Lord of Adlerstein
+to whom the title of Freiherr is not a mockery.  Why dost bend thy
+brow, brother?  What art thinking of?"
+
+"Only a saying in my mother's book, that well-ordered service is true
+freedom," said Friedel.  "And methinks there will be freedom in
+rushing at last into the great far-off!"--the boy's eye expanded and
+glistened with eagerness.  "Here are we prisoners--to ourselves, if
+you like--but prisoners still, pent up in the rocks, seeing no one,
+hearing scarce an echo from the knightly or the poet world, nor from
+all the wonders that pass.  And the world has a history going on
+still, like the Chronicle.  Oh, Ebbo, think of being in the midst of
+life, with lance and sword, and seeing the Kaiser--the Kaiser of the
+holy Roman Empire!"
+
+"With lance and sword, well and good; but would it were not at the
+cost of liberty!"
+
+However Ebbo forbore to damp his mother's joy, save by the one
+warning--"Understand, mother, that I will not be pledged to anything.
+I will not bend to the yoke ere I have seen and judged for myself."
+
+The manly sound of the words gave a sweet sense of exultation to the
+mother, even while she dreaded the proud spirit, and whispered, "God
+direct thee, my son."
+
+Certainly Ebbo, hitherto the most impetuous and least thoughtful of
+the two lads, had a gravity and seriousness about him, that, but for
+his naturally sweet temper, would have seemed sullen.  His
+aspirations for adventure had hitherto been more vehement than
+Friedel's; but, when the time seemed at hand, his regrets at what he
+might have to yield overpowered his hopes of the future.  The fierce
+haughtiness of the old Adlersteins could not brook the descent from
+the crag, even while the keen, clear burgher wit that Ebbo inherited
+from the other side of the house taught him that the position was
+untenable, and that his isolated glory was but a poor mean thing
+after all.  And the struggle made him sad and moody.
+
+Friedel, less proud, and with nothing to yield, was open to blithe
+anticipations of what his fancy pictured as the home of all the
+beauty, sacred or romantic, that he had glimpsed at through his
+mother.  Religion, poetry, learning, art, refinement, had all come to
+him through her; and though he had a soul that dreamt and soared in
+the lonely grandeur of the mountain heights, it craved further
+aliment for its yearnings for completeness and perfection.  Long ago
+had Friedel come to the verge of such attainments as he could work
+out of his present materials, and keen had been his ardour for the
+means of progress, though only the mountain tarn had ever been
+witness to the full outpouring of the longings with which he gazed
+upon the dim, distant city like a land of enchantment.
+
+The journey was to be at once, so as to profit by the escort of
+Master Sorel's men.  Means of transport were scanty, but Ebbo did not
+choose that the messengers should report the need, and bring back a
+bevy of animals at the burgher's expense; so the mother was mounted
+on the old white mare, and her sons and Heinz trusted to their feet.
+By setting out early on a May morning, the journey could be performed
+ere night, and the twilight would find them in the domains of the
+free city, where their small numbers would be of no importance.  As
+to their appearance, the mother wore a black woollen gown and mantle,
+and a black silk hood tied under her chin, and sitting loosely round
+the stiff frame of her white cap--a nun-like garb, save for the soft
+brown hair, parted over her brow, and more visible than she sometimes
+thought correct, but her sons would not let her wear it out of sight.
+
+The brothers had piece by piece surveyed the solitary suit of armour
+remaining in the castle; but, though it might serve for defence, it
+could not be made fit for display, and they must needs be contented
+with blue cloth, spun, woven, dyed, fashioned, and sewn at home,
+chiefly by their mother, and by her embroidered on the breast with
+the white eagle of Adlerstein.  Short blue cloaks and caps of the
+same, with an eagle plume in each, and leggings neatly fashioned of
+deerskin, completed their equipments.  Ebbo wore his father's sword,
+Friedel had merely a dagger and crossbow.  There was not a gold
+chain, not a brooch, not an approach to an ornament among the three,
+except the medal that had always distinguished Ebbo, and the coral
+rosary at Christina's girdle.  Her own trinkets had gone in masses
+for the souls of her father and husband; and though a few costly
+jewels had been found in Frau Kunigunde's hoards, the mode of their
+acquisition was so doubtful, that it had seemed fittest to bestow
+them in alms and masses for the good of her soul.
+
+"What ornament, what glory could any one desire better than two such
+sons?" thought Christina, as for the first time for eighteen years
+she crossed the wild ravine where her father had led her, a trembling
+little captive, longing for wings like a dove's to flutter home
+again.  Who would then have predicted that she should descend after
+so long and weary a time, and with a gallant boy on either side of
+her, eager to aid her every step, and reassure her at each giddy
+pass, all joy and hope before her and them?  Yet she was not without
+some dread and misgiving, as she watched her elder son, always
+attentive to her, but unwontedly silent, with a stern gravity on his
+young brow, a proud sadness on his lip.  And when he had come to the
+Debateable Ford, and was about to pass the boundaries of his own
+lands, he turned and gazed back on the castle and mountain with a
+silent but passionate ardour, as though he felt himself doing them a
+wrong by perilling their independence.
+
+The sun had lately set, and the moon was silvering the Danube, when
+the travellers came full in view of the imperial free city, girt in
+with mighty walls and towers--the vine-clad hill dominated by its
+crowning church; the irregular outlines of the unfinished spire of
+the cathedral traced in mysterious dark lacework against the pearly
+sky; the lofty steeple-like gate-tower majestically guarding the
+bridge.  Christina clasped her hands in thankfulness, as at the
+familiar face of a friend; Friedel glowed like a minstrel introduced
+to his fair dame, long wooed at a distance; Ebbo could not but
+exclaim, "Yea, truly, a great city is a solemn and a glorious sight!"
+
+The gates were closed, and the serving-men had to parley at the
+barbican ere the heavy door was opened to admit the party to the
+bridge, between deep battlemented stone walls, with here and there
+loopholes, showing the shimmering of the river beneath.  The slow,
+tired tread of the old mare sounded hollow; the river rushed below
+with the full swell of evening loudness; a deep-toned convent-bell
+tolled gravely through the stillness, while, between its
+reverberations, clear, distinct notes of joyous music were borne on
+the summer wind, and a nightingale sung in one of the gardens that
+bordered the banks.
+
+"Mother, it is all that I dreamt!" breathlessly murmured Friedel, as
+they halted under the dark arch of the great gateway tower.
+
+Not however in Friedel's dreams had been the hearty voice that
+proceeded from the lighted guard-room in the thickness of the
+gateway.  "Freiherrinn von Adlerstein!  Is it she?  Then must I greet
+my old playmate!"  And the captain of the watch appeared among
+upraised lanterns and torches that showed a broad, smooth, plump face
+beneath a plain steel helmet.
+
+"Welcome, gracious lady, welcome to your old city.  What! do you not
+remember Lippus Grundt, your poor Valentine?"
+
+"Master Philip Grundt!" exclaimed Christina, amazed at the breadth of
+visage and person; "and how fares it with my good Regina?"
+
+"Excellent well, good lady.  She manages her trade and house as well
+as the good man Bartolaus Fleischer himself.  Blithe will she be to
+show you her goodly ten, as I shall my eight," he continued, walking
+by her side; "and Barbara--you remember Barbara Schmidt, lady--"
+
+"My dear Barbara?--That do I indeed!  Is she your wife?"
+
+"Ay, truly, lady," he answered, in an odd sort of apologetic tone;
+"you see, you returned not, and the housefathers, they would have it
+so--and Barbara is a good housewife."
+
+"Truly do I rejoice!" said Christina, wishing she could convey to him
+how welcome he had been to marry any one he liked, as far as she was
+concerned--he, in whom her fears of mincing goldsmiths had always
+taken form--then signing with her hand, "I have my sons likewise to
+show her."
+
+"Ah, on foot!" muttered Grundt, as a not well-conceived apology for
+not having saluted the young gentlemen.  "I greet you well, sirs,"
+with a bow, most haughtily returned by Ebbo, who was heartily wishing
+himself on his mountain.  "Two lusty, well-grown Junkern indeed, to
+whom my Martin will be proud to show the humours of Ulm.  A fair good
+night, lady!  You will find the old folks right cheery."
+
+Well did Christina know the turn down the street, darkened by the
+overhanging brows of the tall houses, but each lower window laughing
+with the glow of light within that threw out the heavy mullions and
+the circles and diamonds of the latticework, and here and there the
+brilliant tints of stained glass sparkled like jewels in the upper
+panes, pictured with Scripture scene, patron saint, or trade emblem.
+The familiar porch was reached, the familiar knock resounded on the
+iron-studded door.  Friedel lifted his mother from her horse, and
+felt that she was quivering from head to foot, and at the same moment
+the light streamed from the open door on the white horse, and the two
+young faces, one eager, the other with knit brows and uneasy eyes.  A
+kind of echo pervaded the house, "She is come! she is come!" and as
+one in a dream Christina entered, crossed the well-known hall, looked
+up to her uncle and aunt on the stairs, perceived little change on
+their countenances, and sank upon her knees, with bowed head and
+clasped hands.
+
+"My child! my dear child!" exclaimed her uncle, raising her with one
+hand, and crossing her brow in benediction with the other.  "Art thou
+indeed returned?" and he embraced her tenderly.
+
+"Welcome, fair niece!" said Hausfrau Johanna, more formally.  "I am
+right glad to greet you here."
+
+"Dear, dear mother!" cried Christina, courting her fond embrace by
+gestures of the most eager affection, "how have I longed for this
+moment! and, above all, to show you my boys!  Herr Uncle, let me
+present my sons--my Eberhard, my Friedmund.  O Housemother, are not
+my twins well-grown lads?"  And she stood with a hand on each, proud
+that their heads were so far above her own, and looking still so
+slight and girlish in figure that she might better have been their
+sister than their mother.  The cloud that the sudden light had
+revealed on Ebbo's brow had cleared away, and he made an inclination
+neither awkward nor ungracious in its free mountain dignity and
+grace, but not devoid of mountain rusticity and shy pride, and far
+less cordial than was Friedel's manner.  Both were infinitely
+relieved to detect nothing of the greasy burgher, and were greatly
+struck with the fine venerable head before them; indeed, Friedel
+would, like his mother, have knelt to ask a blessing, had he not been
+under command not to outrun his brother's advances towards her
+kindred.
+
+"Welcome, fair Junkern!" said Master Gottfried; "welcome both for
+your mother's sake and your own!  These thy sons, my little one?" he
+added, smiling.  "Art sure I neither dream nor see double!  Come to
+the gallery, and let me see thee better."
+
+And, ceremoniously giving his hand, he proceeded to lead his niece up
+the stairs, while Ebbo, labouring under ignorance of city forms and
+uncertainty of what befitted his dignity, presented his hand to his
+aunt with an air that half-amused, half-offended the shrewd dame.
+
+"All is as if I had left you but yesterday!" exclaimed Christina.
+"Uncle, have you pardoned me?  You bade me return when my work was
+done."
+
+"I should have known better, child.  Such return is not to be sought
+on this side the grave.  Thy work has been more than I then thought
+of."
+
+"Ah! and now will you deem it begun--not done!" softly said
+Christina, though with too much heartfelt exultation greatly to doubt
+that all the world must be satisfied with two such boys, if only Ebbo
+would be his true self.
+
+The luxury of the house, the wainscoted and tapestried walls, the
+polished furniture, the lamps and candles, the damask linen, the rich
+array of silver, pewter, and brightly-coloured glass, were a great
+contrast to the bare walls and scant necessaries of Schloss
+Adlerstein; but Ebbo was resolved not to expose himself by
+admiration, and did his best to stifle Friedel's exclamations of
+surprise and delight.  Were not these citizens to suppose that
+everything was tenfold more costly at the baronial castle?  And truly
+the boy deserved credit for the consideration for his mother, which
+made him merely reserved, while he felt like a wild eagle in a
+poultry-yard.  It was no small proof of his affection to forbear more
+interference with his mother's happiness than was the inevitable
+effect of that intuition which made her aware that he was chafing and
+ill at ease.  For his sake, she allowed herself to be placed in the
+seat of honour, though she longed, as of old, to nestle at her
+uncle's feet, and be again his child; but, even while she felt each
+acceptance of a token of respect as almost an injury to them, every
+look and tone was showing how much the same Christina she had
+returned.
+
+In truth, though her life had been mournful and oppressed, it had not
+been such as to age her early.  It had been all submission, without
+wear and tear of mind, and too simple in its trials for care and
+moiling; so the fresh, lily-like sweetness of her maiden bloom was
+almost intact, and, much as she had undergone, her once frail health
+had been so braced by the mountain breezes, that, though delicacy
+remained, sickliness was gone from her appearance.  There was still
+the exquisite purity and tender modesty of expression, but with
+greater sweetness in the pensive brown eyes.
+
+"Ah, little one!" said her uncle, after duly contemplating her; "the
+change is all for the better!  Thou art grown a wondrously fair dame.
+There will scarce be a lovelier in the Kaiserly train."
+
+Ebbo almost pardoned his great-uncle for being his great-uncle.
+
+"When she is arrayed as becomes the Frau Freiherrinn," said the
+housewife aunt, looking with concern at the coarse texture of her
+black sleeve.  "I long to see our own lady ruffle it in her new gear.
+I am glad that the lofty pointed cap has passed out; the coif becomes
+my child far better, and I see our tastes still accord as to
+fashion."
+
+"Fashion scarce came above the Debateable Ford," said Christina,
+smiling.  "I fear my boys look as if they came out of the
+Weltgeschichte, for I could only shape their garments after my
+remembrance of the gallants of eighteen years ago."
+
+"Their garments are your own shaping!" exclaimed the aunt, now in an
+accent of real, not conventional respect.
+
+"Spinning and weaving, shaping and sewing," said Friedel, coming near
+to let the housewife examine the texture.
+
+"Close woven, even threaded, smooth tinted!  Ah, Stina, thou didst
+learn something!  Thou wert not quite spoilt by the housefather's
+books and carvings."
+
+"I cannot tell whose teachings have served me best, or been the most
+precious to me," said Christina, with clasped hands, looking from one
+to another with earnest love.
+
+"Thou art a good child.  Ah! little one, forgive me; you look so like
+our child that I cannot bear in mind that you are the Frau
+Freiherrinn."
+
+"Nay, I should deem myself in disgrace with you, did you keep me at a
+distance, and not THOU me, as your little Stina," she fondly
+answered, half regretting her fond eager movement, as Ebbo seemed to
+shrink together with a gesture perceived by her uncle.
+
+"It is my young lord there who would not forgive the freedom," he
+said, good-humouredly, though gravely.
+
+"Not so," Ebbo forced himself to say; "not so, if it makes my mother
+happy."
+
+He held up his head rather as if he thought it a fool's paradise, but
+Master Gottfried answered:  "The noble Freiherr is, from all I have
+heard, too good a son to grudge his mother's duteous love even to
+burgher kindred."
+
+There was something in the old man's frank, dignified tone of grave
+reproof that at once impressed Ebbo with a sense of the true
+superiority of that wise and venerable old age to his own petulant
+baronial self-assertion.  He had both head and heart to feel the
+burgher's victory, and with a deep blush, though not without dignity,
+he answered, "Truly, sir, my mother has ever taught us to look up to
+you as her kindest and best--"
+
+He was going to say "friend," but a look into the grand benignity of
+the countenance completed the conquest, and he turned it into
+"father."  Friedel at the same instant bent his knee, exclaiming, "It
+is true what Ebbo says!  We have both longed for this day.  Bless us,
+honoured uncle, as you have blessed my mother."
+
+For in truth there was in the soul of the boy, who had never had any
+but women to look up to, a strange yearning towards reverence, which
+was called into action with inexpressible force by the very aspect
+and tone of such a sage elder and counsellor as Master Gottfried
+Sorel, and he took advantage of the first opening permitted by his
+brother.  And the sympathy always so strong between the two quickened
+the like feeling in Ebbo, so that the same movement drew him on his
+knee beside Friedel in oblivion or renunciation of all lordly pride
+towards a kinsman such as he had here encountered.
+
+"Truly and heartily, my fair youths," said Master Gottfried, with the
+same kind dignity, "do I pray the good God to bless you, and render
+you faithful and loving sons, not only to your mother, but to your
+fatherland."
+
+He was unable to distinguish between the two exactly similar forms
+that knelt before him, yet there was something in the quivering of
+Friedel's head, which made him press it with a shade more of
+tenderness than the other.  And in truth tears were welling into the
+eyes veiled by the fingers that Friedel clasped over his face, for
+such a blessing was strange and sweet to him.
+
+Their mother was ready to weep for joy.  There was now no drawback to
+her bliss, since her son and her uncle had accepted one another; and
+she repaired to her own beloved old chamber a happier being than she
+had been since she had left its wainscoted walls.
+
+Nay, as she gazed out at the familiar outlines of roof and tower, and
+felt herself truly at home, then knelt by the little undisturbed
+altar of her devotions, with the cross above and her own patron saint
+below in carved wood, and the flowers which the good aunt had ever
+kept as a freshly renewed offering, she felt that she was happier,
+more fully thankful and blissful than even in the girlish calm of her
+untroubled life.  Her prayer that she might come again in peace had
+been more than fulfilled; nay, when she had seen her boys kneel
+meekly to receive her uncle's blessing, it was in some sort to her as
+if the work was done, as if the millstone had been borne up for her,
+and had borne her and her dear ones with it.
+
+But there was much to come.  She knew full well that, even though her
+sons' first step had been in the right direction, it was in a path
+beset with difficulties; and how would her proud Ebbo meet them?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII:  THE EAGLETS IN THE CITY
+
+
+
+After having once accepted Master Gottfried, Ebbo froze towards him
+and Dame Johanna no more, save that a naturally imperious temper now
+and then led to fitful stiffnesses and momentary haughtiness, which
+were easily excused in one so new to the world and afraid of
+compromising his rank.  In general he could afford to enjoy himself
+with a zest as hearty as that of the simpler-minded Friedel.
+
+They were early afoot, but not before the heads of the household were
+coming forth for the morning devotions at the cathedral; and the
+streets were stirring into activity, and becoming so peopled that the
+boys supposed that it was a great fair day.  They had never seen so
+many people together even at the Friedmund Wake, and it was several
+days before they ceased to exclaim at every passenger as a new
+curiosity.
+
+The Dome Kirk awed and hushed them.  They had looked to it so long
+that perhaps no sublunary thing could have realized their
+expectations, and Friedel avowed that he did not know what he thought
+of it.  It was not such as he had dreamt, and, like a German as he
+was, he added that he could not think, he could only feel, that there
+was something ineffable in it; yet he was almost disappointed to find
+his visions unfulfilled, and the hues of the painted glass less pure
+and translucent than those of the ice crystals on the mountains.
+However after his eye had become trained, the deep influence of its
+dim solemn majesty, and of the echoes of its organ tones, and chants
+of high praise or earnest prayer, began to enchain his spirit; and,
+if ever he were missing, he was sure to be found among the mysteries
+of the cathedral aisles, generally with Ebbo, who felt the spell of
+the same grave fascination, since whatever was true of the one
+brother was generally true of the other.  They were essentially
+alike, though some phases of character and taste were more developed
+in the one or the other.
+
+Master Gottfried was much edified by their perfect knowledge of the
+names and numbers of his books.  They instantly, almost resentfully,
+missed the Cicero's Offices that he had parted with, and joyfully
+hailed his new acquisitions, often sitting with heads together over
+the same book, reading like active-minded youths who were used to
+out-of-door life and exercise in superabundant measure, and to study
+as a valued recreation, with only food enough for the intellect to
+awaken instead of satisfying it.
+
+They were delighted to obtain instruction from a travelling student,
+then attending the schools of Ulm--a meek, timid lad who, for love of
+learning and desire of the priesthood, had endured frightful tyranny
+from the Bacchanten or elder scholars, and, having at length attained
+that rank, had so little heart to retaliate on the juniors that his
+contemporaries despised him, and led him a cruel life until he
+obtained food and shelter from Master Gottfried at the pleasant cost
+of lessons to the young Barons.  Poor Bastien! this land of quiet,
+civility, and books was a foretaste of Paradise to him after the hard
+living, barbarity, and coarse vices of his comrades, of whom he now
+and then disclosed traits that made his present pupils long to give
+battle to the big shaggy youths who used to send out the lesser lads
+to beg and steal for them, and cruelly maltreated such as failed in
+the quest.
+
+Lessons in music and singing were gladly accepted by both lads, and
+from their uncle's carving they could not keep their hands.  Ebbo had
+begun by enjoining Friedel to remember that the work that had been
+sport in the mountains would be basely mechanical in the city, and
+Friedel as usual yielded his private tastes; but on the second day
+Ebbo himself was discovered in the workshop, watching the magic touch
+of the deft workman, and he was soon so enticed by the perfect
+appliances as to take tool in hand and prove himself not unadroit in
+the craft.  Friedel however excelled in delicacy of touch and grace
+and originality of conception, and produced such workmanship that
+Master Gottfried could not help stroking his hair and telling him it
+was a pity he was not born to belong to the guild.
+
+"I cannot spare him, sir," cried Ebbo; "priest, scholar, minstrel,
+artist--all want him."
+
+"What, Hans of all streets, Ebbo?" interrupted Friedel.
+
+"And guildmaster of none," said Ebbo, "save as a warrior; the rest
+only enough for a gentleman!  For what I am thou must be!"
+
+But Ebbo did not find fault with the skill Friedel was bestowing on
+his work--a carving in wood of a dove brooding over two young eagles-
+-the device that both were resolved to assume.  When their mother
+asked what their lady-loves would say to this, Ebbo looked up, and
+with the fullest conviction in his lustrous eyes declared that no
+love should ever rival his motherling in his heart.  For truly her
+tender sweetness had given her sons' affection a touch of romance,
+for which Master Gottfried liked them the better, though his wife
+thought their familiarity with her hardly accordant with the
+patriarchal discipline of the citizens.
+
+The youths held aloof from these burghers, for Master Gottfried
+wisely desired to give them time to be tamed before running risk of
+offence, either to, or by, their wild shy pride; and their mother
+contrived to time her meetings with her old companions when her sons
+were otherwise occupied.  Master Gottfried made it known that the
+marriage portion he had designed for his niece had been intrusted to
+a merchant trading in peltry to Muscovy, and the sum thus realized
+was larger than any bride had yet brought to Adlerstein.  Master
+Gottfried would have liked to continue the same profitable
+speculations with it; but this would have been beyond the young
+Baron's endurance, and his eyes sparkled when his mother spoke of
+repairing the castle, refitting the chapel, having a resident
+chaplain, cultivating more land, increasing the scanty stock of
+cattle, and attempting the improvements hitherto prevented by lack of
+means.  He fervently declared that the motherling was more than equal
+to the wise spinning Queen Bertha of legend and lay; and the first
+pleasant sense of wealth came in the acquisition of horses, weapons,
+and braveries.  In his original mood, Ebbo would rather have stood
+before the Diet in his home-spun blue than have figured in cloth of
+gold at a burgher's expense; but he had learned to love his uncle, he
+regarded the marriage portion as family property, and moreover he
+sorely longed to feel himself and his brother well mounted, and
+scarcely less to see his mother in a velvet gown.
+
+Here was his chief point of sympathy with the housemother, who,
+herself precluded from wearing miniver, velvet, or pearls, longed to
+deck her niece therewith, in time to receive Sir Kasimir of
+Adlerstein Wildschloss, as he had promised to meet his godsons at
+Ulm.  The knight's marriage had lasted only a few years, and had left
+him no surviving children except one little daughter, whom he had
+placed in a nunnery at Ulm, under the care of her mother's sister.
+His lands lay higher up the Danube, and he was expected at Ulm
+shortly before the Emperor's arrival.  He had been chiefly in
+Flanders with the King of the Romans, and had only returned to
+Germany when the Netherlanders had refused the regency of Maximilian,
+and driven him out of their country, depriving him of the custody of
+his children.
+
+Pfingsttag, or Pentecost-day, was the occasion of Christina's first
+full toilet, and never was bride more solicitously or exultingly
+arrayed than she, while one boy held the mirror and the other
+criticized and admired as the aunt adjusted the pearl-bordered coif,
+and long white veil floating over the long-desired black velvet
+dress.  How the two lads admired and gazed, caring far less for their
+own new and noble attire!  Friedel was indeed somewhat concerned that
+the sword by his side was so much handsomer than that which Ebbo
+wore, and which, for all its dinted scabbard and battered hilt, he
+was resolved never to discard.
+
+It was a festival of brilliant joy.  Wreaths of flowers hung from the
+windows; rich tapestries decked the Dome Kirk, and the relics were
+displayed in shrines of wonderful costliness of material and beauty
+of workmanship; little birds, with thin cakes fastened to their feet,
+were let loose to fly about the church, in strange allusion to the
+event of the day; the clergy wore their most gorgeous robes; and the
+exulting music of the mass echoed from the vaults of the long-drawn
+aisles, and brought a rapt look of deep calm ecstasy over Friedel's
+sensitive features.  The beggars evidently considered a festival as a
+harvest-day, and crowded round the doors of the cathedral.  As the
+Lady of Adlerstein came out leaning on Ebbo's arm, with Friedel on
+her other side, they evidently attracted the notice of a woman whose
+thin brown face looked the darker for the striped red and yellow silk
+kerchief that bound the dark locks round her brow, as, holding out a
+beringed hand, she fastened her glittering jet black eyes on them,
+and exclaimed, "Alms! if the fair dame and knightly Junkern would
+hear what fate has in store for them."
+
+"We meddle not with the future, I thank thee," said Christina, seeing
+that her sons, to whom gipsies were an amazing novelty, were in
+extreme surprise at the fortune-telling proposal.
+
+"Yet could I tell much, lady," said the woman, still standing in the
+way.  "What would some here present give to know that the locks that
+were shrouded by the widow's veil ere ever they wore the matron's
+coif shall yet return to the coif once more?"
+
+Ebbo gave a sudden start of dismay and passion; his mother held him
+fast.  "Push on, Ebbo, mine; heed her not; she is a mere Bohemian."
+
+"But how knew she your history, mother?" asked Friedel, eagerly.
+
+"That might be easily learnt at our Wake," began Christina; but her
+steps were checked by a call from Master Gottfried just behind.
+"Frau Freiherrinn, Junkern, not so fast.  Here is your noble
+kinsman."
+
+A tall, fine-looking person, in the long rich robe worn on peaceful
+occasions, stood forth, doffing his eagle-plumed bonnet, and, as the
+lady turned and curtsied low, he put his knee to the ground and
+kissed her hand, saying, "Well met, noble dame; I felt certain that I
+knew you when I beheld you in the Dome."
+
+"He was gazing at her all the time," whispered Ebbo to his brother;
+while their mother, blushing, replied, "You do me too much honour,
+Herr Freiherr."
+
+"Once seen, never to be forgotten," was the courteous answer:  "and
+truly, but for the stately height of these my godsons I would not
+believe how long since our meeting was."
+
+Thereupon, in true German fashion, Sir Kasimir embraced each youth in
+the open street, and then, removing his long, embroidered Spanish
+glove, he offered his hand, or rather the tips of his fingers, to
+lead the Frau Christina home.
+
+Master Sorel had invited him to become his guest at a very elaborate
+ornamental festival meal in honour of the great holiday, at which
+were to be present several wealthy citizens with their wives and
+families, old connections of the Sorel family.  Ebbo had resolved
+upon treating them with courteous reserve and distance; but he was
+surprised to find his cousin of Wildschloss comporting himself among
+the burgomasters and their dames as freely as though they had been
+his equals, and to see that they took such demeanour as perfectly
+natural.  Quick to perceive, the boy gathered that the gulf between
+noble and burgher was so great that no intimacy could bridge it over,
+no reserve widen it, and that his own bashful hauteur was almost a
+sign that he knew that the gulf had been passed by his own parents;
+but shame and consciousness did not enable him to alter his manner
+but rather added to its stiffness.
+
+"The Junker is like an Englishman," said Sir Kasimir, who had met
+many of the exiles of the Roses at the court of Mary of Burgundy; and
+then he turned to discuss with the guildmasters the interruption to
+trade caused by Flemish jealousies.
+
+After the lengthy meal, the tables were removed, the long gallery was
+occupied by musicians, and Master Gottfried crossed the hall to tell
+his eldest grandnephew that to him he should depute the opening of
+the dance with the handsome bride of the Rathsherr, Ulrich Burger.
+Ebbo blushed up to the eyes, and muttered that he prayed his uncle to
+excuse him.
+
+"So!" said the old citizen, really displeased; "thy kinsman might
+have proved to thee that it is no derogation of thy lordly dignity.
+I have been patient with thee, but thy pride passes--"
+
+"Sir," interposed Friedel hastily, raising his sweet candid face with
+a look between shame and merriment, "it is not that; but you forget
+what poor mountaineers we are.  Never did we tread a measure save now
+and then with our mother on a winter evening, and we know no more
+than a chamois of your intricate measures."
+
+Master Gottfried looked perplexed, for these dances were matters of
+great punctilio.  It was but seven years since the Lord of Praunstein
+had defied the whole city of Frankfort because a damsel of that place
+had refused to dance with one of his Cousins; and, though "Fistright"
+and letters of challenge had been made illegal, yet the whole city of
+Ulm would have resented the affront put on it by the young lord of
+Adlerstein.  Happily the Freiherr of Adlerstein Wildschloss was at
+hand.  "Herr Burgomaster," he said, "let me commence the dance with
+your fair lady niece.  By your testimony," he added, smiling to the
+youths, "she can tread a measure.  And, after marking us, you may try
+your success with the Rathsherrinn."
+
+Christina would gladly have transferred her noble partner to the
+Rathsherrinn, but she feared to mortify her good uncle and aunt
+further, and consented to figure alone with Sir Kasimir in one of the
+majestic, graceful dances performed by a single couple before a
+gazing assembly.  So she let him lead her to her place, and they
+bowed and bent, swept past one another, and moved in interlacing
+lines and curves, with a grand slow movement that displayed her quiet
+grace and his stately port and courtly air.
+
+"Is it not beautiful to see the motherling?" said Friedel to his
+brother; "she sails like a white cloud in a soft wind.  And he stands
+grand as a stag at gaze."
+
+"Like a malapert peacock, say I," returned Ebbo; "didst not see,
+Friedel, how he kept his eyes on her in church?  My uncle says the
+Bohemians are mere deceivers.  Depend on it the woman had spied his
+insolent looks when she made her ribald prediction."
+
+"See," said Friedel, who had been watching the steps rather than
+attending, "it will be easy to dance it now.  It is a figure my
+mother once tried to teach us.  I remember it now."
+
+"Then go and do it, since better may not be."
+
+"Nay, but it should be thou."
+
+"Who will know which of us it is?  I hated his presumption too much
+to mark his antics."
+
+Friedel came forward, and the substitution was undetected by all save
+their mother and uncle; by the latter only because, addressing Ebbo,
+he received a reply in a tone such as Friedel never used.
+
+Natural grace, quickness of ear and eye, and a skilful partner,
+rendered Friedel's so fair a performance that he ventured on sending
+his brother to attend the councilloress with wine and comfits; while
+he in his own person performed another dance with the city dame next
+in pretension, and their mother was amused by Sir Kasimir's remark,
+that her second son danced better than the elder, but both must
+learn.
+
+The remark displeased Ebbo.  In his isolated castle he knew no
+superior, and his nature might yield willingly, but rebelled at being
+put down.  His brother was his perfect equal in all mental and bodily
+attributes, but it was the absence of all self-assertion that made
+Ebbo so often give him the preference; it was his mother's tender
+meekness in which lay her power with him; and if he yielded to
+Gottfried Sorel's wisdom and experience, it was with the inward
+consciousness of voluntary deference to one of lower rank.  But here
+was Wildschloss, of the same noble blood with himself, his elder, his
+sponsor, his protector, with every right to direct him, so that there
+was no choice between grateful docility and headstrong folly.  If the
+fellow had been old, weak, or in any way inferior, it would have been
+more bearable; but he was a tried warrior, a sage counsellor, in the
+prime vigour of manhood, and with a kindly reasonable authority to
+which only a fool could fail to attend, and which for that very
+reason chafed Ebbo excessively.
+
+Moreover there was the gipsy prophecy ever rankling in the lad's
+heart, and embittering to him the sight of every civility from his
+kinsman to his mother.  Sir Kasimir lodged at a neighbouring hostel;
+but he spent much time with his cousins, and tried to make them
+friends with his squire, Count Rudiger.  A great offence to Ebbo was
+however the criticisms of both knight and squire on the bearing of
+the young Barons in military exercises.  Truly, with no instructor
+but the rough lanzknecht Heinz, they must, as Friedel said, have been
+born paladins to have equalled youths whose life had been spent in
+chivalrous training.
+
+"See us in a downright fight," said Ebbo; "we could strike as hard as
+any courtly minion."
+
+"As hard, but scarce as dexterously," said Friedel, "and be called
+for our pains the wild mountaineers.  I heard the men-at-arms saying
+I sat my horse as though it were always going up or down a precipice;
+and Master Schmidt went into his shop the other day shrugging his
+shoulders, and saying we hailed one another across the market-place
+as if we thought Ulm was a mountain full of gemsbocks."
+
+"Thou heardst! and didst not cast his insolence in his teeth?" cried
+Ebbo.
+
+"How could I," laughed Friedel, "when the echo was casting back in my
+teeth my own shout to thee?  I could only laugh with Rudiger."
+
+"The chief delight I could have, next to getting home, would be to
+lay that fellow Rudiger on his back in the tilt-yard," said Ebbo.
+
+But, as Rudiger was by four years his senior, and very expert, the
+upshot of these encounters was quite otherwise, and the young
+gentlemen were disabused of the notion that fighting came by nature,
+and found that, if they desired success in a serious conflict, they
+must practise diligently in the city tilt-yard, where young men were
+trained to arms.  The crossbow was the only weapon with which they
+excelled; and, as shooting was a favourite exercise of the burghers,
+their proficiency was not as exclusive as had seemed to Ebbo a
+baronial privilege.  Harquebuses were novelties to them, and they
+despised them as burgher weapons, in spite of Sir Kasimir's assurance
+that firearms were a great subject of study and interest to the King
+of the Romans.  The name of this personage was, it may be feared,
+highly distasteful to the Freiherr von Adlerstein, both as
+Wildschloss's model of knightly perfection, and as one who claimed
+submission from his haughty spirit.  When Sir Kasimir spoke to him on
+the subject of giving his allegiance, he stiffly replied, "Sir, that
+is a question for ripe consideration."
+
+"It is the question," said Wildschloss, rather more lightly than
+agreed with the Baron's dignity, "whether you like to have your
+castle pulled down about your ears."
+
+"That has never happened yet to Adlerstein!" said Ebbo, proudly.
+
+"No, because since the days of the Hohenstaufen there has been
+neither rule nor union in the empire.  But times are changing fast,
+my Junker, and within the last ten years forty castles such as yours
+have been consumed by the Swabian League, as though they were so many
+walnuts."
+
+"The shell of Adlerstein was too hard for them, though.  They never
+tried."
+
+"And wherefore, friend Eberhard?  It was because I represented to the
+Kaiser and the Graf von Wurtemberg that little profit and no glory
+would accrue from attacking a crag full of women and babes, and that
+I, having the honour to be your next heir, should prefer having the
+castle untouched, and under the peace of the empire, so long as that
+peace was kept.  When you should come to years of discretion, then it
+would be for you to carry out the intention wherewith your father and
+grandfather left home."
+
+"Then we have been protected by the peace of the empire all this
+time?" said Friedel, while Ebbo looked as if the notion were hard of
+digestion.
+
+"Even so; and, had you not freely and nobly released your Genoese
+merchant, it had gone hard with Adlerstein."
+
+"Could Adlerstein be taken?" demanded Ebbo triumphantly.
+
+"Your grandmother thought not," said Sir Kasimir, with a shade of
+irony in his tone.  "It would be a troublesome siege; but the League
+numbers 1,500 horse, and 9,000 foot, and, with Schlangenwald's
+concurrence, you would be assuredly starved out."
+
+Ebbo was so much the more stimulated to take his chance, and do
+nothing on compulsion; but Friedel put in the question to what the
+oaths would bind them.
+
+"Only to aid the Emperor with sword and counsel in field or Diet, and
+thereby win fame and honour such as can scarce be gained by carrying
+prey to yon eagle roost."
+
+"One may preserve one's independence without robbery," said Ebbo
+coldly.
+
+"Nay, lad:  did you ever hear of a wolf that could live without
+marauding?  Or if he tried, would he get credit for so doing?"
+
+"After all," said Friedel, "does not the present agreement hold till
+we are of age?  I suppose the Swabian League would attempt nothing
+against minors, unless we break the peace?"
+
+"Probably not; I will do my utmost to give the Freiherr there time to
+grow beyond his grandmother's maxims," said Wildschloss.  "If
+Schlangenwald do not meddle in the matter, he may have the next five
+years to decide whether Adlerstein can hold out against all Germany."
+
+"Freiherr Kasimir von Adlerstein Wildschloss," said Eberhard, turning
+solemnly on him, "I do you to wit once for all that threats will not
+serve with me.  If I submit, it will be because I am convinced it is
+right.  Otherwise we had rather both be buried in the ruins of our
+castle, as its last free lords."
+
+"So!" said the provoking kinsman; "such burials look grim when the
+time comes, but happily it is not coming yet!"
+
+Meantime, as Ebbo said to Friedel, how much might happen--a
+disruption of the empire, a crusade against the Turks, a war in
+Italy, some grand means of making the Diet value the sword of a free
+baron, without chaining him down to gratify the greed of hungry
+Austria.  If only Wildschloss could be shaken off!  But he only
+became constantly more friendly and intrusive, almost paternal.  No
+wonder, when the mother and her uncle made him so welcome, and were
+so intolerably grateful for his impertinent interference, while even
+Friedel confessed the reasonableness of his counsels, as if that were
+not the very sting of them.
+
+He even asked leave to bring his little daughter Thekla from her
+convent to see the Lady of Adlerstein.  She was a pretty, flaxen-
+haired maiden of five years old, in a round cap, and long narrow
+frock, with a little cross at the neck.  She had never seen any one
+beyond the walls of the nunnery; and, when her father took her from
+the lay sister's arms, and carried her to the gallery, where sat
+Hausfrau Johanna, in dark green, slashed with cherry colour, Master
+Gottfried, in sober crimson, with gold medal and chain, Freiherrinn
+Christina, in silver-broidered black, and the two Junkern stood near
+in the shining mail in which they were going to the tilt yard, she
+turned her head in terror, struggled with her scarce known father,
+and shrieked for Sister Grethel.
+
+"It was all too sheen," she sobbed, in the lay sister's arms; "she
+did not want to be in Paradise yet, among the saints!  O! take her
+back!  The two bright, holy Michaels would let her go, for indeed she
+had made but one mistake in her Ave."
+
+Vain was the attempt to make her lift her face from the black serge
+shoulder where she had hidden it.  Sister Grethel coaxed and scolded,
+Sir Kasimir reproved, the housemother offered comfits, and
+Christina's soft voice was worst of all, for the child, probably
+taking her for Our Lady herself, began to gasp forth a general
+confession.  "I will never do so again!  Yes, it was a fib, but
+Mother Hildegard gave me a bit of marchpane not to tell--"  Here the
+lay sister took strong measures for closing the little mouth, and
+Christina drew back, recommending that the child should be left
+gradually to discover their terrestrial nature.  Ebbo had looked on
+with extreme disgust, trying to hurry Friedel, who had delayed to
+trace some lines for his mother on her broidery pattern.  In passing
+the step where Grethel sat with Thekla on her lap, the clank of their
+armour caused the uplifting of the little flaxen head, and two wide
+blue eyes looked over Grethel's shoulder, and met Friedel's sunny
+glance.  He smiled; she laughed back again.  He held out his arms,
+and, though his hands were gauntleted, she let him lift her up, and
+curiously smoothed and patted his cheek, as if he had been a strange
+animal.
+
+"You have no wings," she said.  "Are you St. George, or St. Michael?"
+
+"Neither the one nor the other, pretty one.  Only your poor cousin
+Friedel von Adlerstein, and here is Ebbo, my brother."
+
+It was not in Ebbo's nature not to smile encouragement at the fair
+little face, with its wistful look.  He drew off his glove to caress
+her silken hair, and for a few minutes she was played with by the two
+brothers like a newly-invented toy, receiving their attentions with
+pretty half-frightened graciousness, until Count Rudiger hastened in
+to summon them, and Friedel placed her on his mother's knee, where
+she speedily became perfectly happy, and at ease.
+
+Her extreme delight, when towards evening the Junkern returned, was
+flattering even to Ebbo; and, when it was time for her to be taken
+home, she made strong resistance, clinging fast to Christina, with
+screams and struggles.  To the lady's promise of coming to see her
+she replied, "Friedel and Ebbo, too," and, receiving no response to
+this request, she burst out, "Then I won't come!  I am the
+Freiherrinn Thekla, the heiress of Adlerstein Wildschloss and
+Felsenbach.  I won't be a nun.  I'll be married!  You shall be my
+husband," and she made a dart at the nearest youth, who happened to
+be Ebbo.
+
+"Ay, ay, you shall have him.  He will come for you, sweetest
+Fraulein," said the perplexed Grethel, "so only you will come home!
+Nobody will come for you if you are naughty."
+
+"Will you come if I am good?" said the spoilt cloister pet, clinging
+tight to Ebbo.
+
+"Yes," said her father, as she still resisted, "come back, my child,
+and one day shall you see Ebbo, and have him for a brother."
+
+Thereat Ebbo shook off the little grasping fingers, almost as if they
+had belonged to a noxious insect.
+
+"The matron's coif should succeed the widow's veil."  He might talk
+with scholarly contempt of the new race of Bohemian impostors; but
+there was no forgetting that sentence.  And in like manner, though
+his grandmother's allegation that his mother had been bent on
+captivating Sir Kasimir in that single interview at Adlerstein, had
+always seemed to him the most preposterous of all Kunigunde's forms
+of outrage, the recollection would recur to him; and he could have
+found it in his heart to wish that his mother had never heard of the
+old lady's designs as to the oubliette.  He did most sincerely wish
+Master Gottfried had never let Wildschloss know of the mode in which
+his life had been saved.  Yet, while it would have seemed to him
+profane to breathe even to Friedel the true secret of his repugnance
+to this meddlesome kinsman, it was absolutely impossible to avoid his
+most distasteful authority and patronage.
+
+And the mother herself was gently, thankfully happy and unsuspicious,
+basking in the tender home affection of which she had so long been
+deprived, proud of her sons, and, though anxious as to Ebbo's
+decision, with a quiet trust in his foundation of principle, and
+above all trusting to prayer.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV:  THE DOUBLE-HEADED EAGLE
+
+
+
+One summer evening, when shooting at a bird on a pole was in full
+exercise in the tilt-yard, the sports were interrupted by a message
+from the Provost that a harbinger had brought tidings that the
+Imperial court was within a day's journey.
+
+All was preparation.  Fresh sand had to be strewn on the arena.  New
+tapestry hangings were to deck the galleries, the houses and
+balconies to be brave with drapery, the fountain in the market-place
+was to play Rhine wine, all Ulm was astir to do honour to itself and
+to the Kaisar, and Ebbo stood amid all the bustle, drawing lines in
+the sand with the stock of his arblast, subject to all that
+oppressive self-magnification so frequent in early youth, and which
+made it seem to him as if the Kaisar and the King of the Romans were
+coming to Ulm with the mere purpose of destroying his independence,
+and as if the eyes of all Germany were watching for his humiliation.
+
+"See! see!" suddenly exclaimed Friedel; "look! there is something
+among the tracery of the Dome Kirk Tower.  Is it man or bird?"
+
+"Bird, folly!  Thou couldst see no bird less than an eagle from
+hence," said Ebbo.  "No doubt they are about to hoist a banner."
+
+"That is not their wont," returned Sir Kasimir.
+
+"I see him," interrupted Ebbo.  "Nay, but he is a bold climber!  We
+went up to that stage, close to the balcony, but there's no footing
+beyond but crockets and canopies."
+
+"And a bit of rotten scaffold," added Friedel.  "Perhaps he is a
+builder going to examine it!  Up higher, higher!"
+
+"A builder!" said Ebbo; "a man with a head and foot like that should
+be a chamois hunter!  Shouldst thou deem it worse than the Red Eyrie,
+Friedel?"
+
+"Yea, truly!  The depth beneath is plainer!  There would be no
+climbing there without--"
+
+"Without what, cousin?" asked Wildschloss.
+
+"Without great cause," said Friedel.  "It is fearful!  He is like a
+fly against the sky."
+
+"Beaten again!" muttered Ebbo; "I did think that none of these town-
+bred fellows could surpass us when it came to a giddy height!  Who
+can he be?"
+
+"Look! look!" burst out Friedel.  "The saints protect him!  He is on
+that narrowest topmost ledge--measuring; his heel is over the
+parapet--half his foot!"
+
+"Holding on by the rotten scaffold pole!  St. Barbara be his speed;
+but he is a brave man!" shouted Ebbo.  "Oh! the pole has broken."
+
+"Heaven forefend!" cried Wildschloss, with despair on his face unseen
+by the boys, for Friedel had hidden his eyes, and Ebbo was straining
+his with the intense gaze of horror.  He had carried his glance
+downwards, following the 380 feet fall that must be the lot of the
+adventurer.  Then looking up again he shouted, "I see him!  I see
+him!  Praise to St. Barbara!  He is safe!  He has caught by the
+upright stone work."
+
+"Where? where?  Show me!" cried Wildschloss, grasping Ebbo's arm.
+
+"There! clinging to that upright bit of tracery, stretching his foot
+out to yonder crocket."
+
+"I cannot see.  Mine eyes swim and dazzle," said Wildschloss.
+"Merciful heavens! is this another tempting of Providence?  How is it
+with him now, Ebbo?"
+
+"Swarming down another slender bit of the stone network.  It must be
+easy now to one who could keep head and hand steady in such a shock."
+
+"There!" added Friedel, after a breathless space, "he is on the lower
+parapet, whence begins the stair.  Do you know him, sir?  Who is he?"
+
+"Either a Venetian mountebank," said Wildschloss, "or else there is
+only one man I know of either so foolhardy or so steady of head."
+
+"Be he who he may," said Ebbo, "he is the bravest man that ever I
+beheld.  Who is he, Sir Kasimir?"
+
+"An eagle of higher flight than ours, no doubt," said Wildschloss.
+"But come; we shall reach the Dome Kirk by the time the climber has
+wound his way down the turret stairs, and we shall see what like he
+is."
+
+Their coming was well timed, for a small door at the foot of the
+tower was just opening to give exit to a very tall knight, in one of
+those short Spanish cloaks the collar of which could be raised so as
+to conceal the face.  He looked to the right and left, and had one
+hand raised to put up the collar when he recognized Sir Kasimir, and,
+holding out both hands, exclaimed, "Ha, Adlerstein! well met!  I
+looked to see thee here.  No unbonneting; I am not come yet.  I am at
+Strasburg, with the Kaisar and the Archduke, and am not here till we
+ride in, in purple and in pall by the time the good folk have hung
+out their arras, and donned their gold chains, and conned their
+speeches, and mounted their mules."
+
+"Well that their speeches are not over the lykewake of his kingly
+kaisarly highness," gravely returned Sir Kasimir.
+
+"Ha!  Thou sawest?  I came out here to avoid the gaping throng, who
+don't know what a hunter can do.  I have been in worse case in the
+Tyrol.  Snowdrifts are worse footing than stone vine leaves."
+
+"Where abides your highness?" asked Wildschloss.
+
+"I ride back again to the halting-place for the night, and meet my
+father in time to do my part in the pageant.  I was sick of the
+addresses, and, moreover, the purse-proud Flemings have made such a
+stiff little fop of my poor boy that I am ashamed to look at him, or
+hear his French accent.  So I rode off to get a view of this notable
+Dom in peace, ere it be bedizened in holiday garb; and one can't stir
+without all the Chapter waddling after one."
+
+"Your highness has found means of distancing them."
+
+"Why, truly, the Prior would scarce delight in the view from yonder
+parapet," laughed his highness.  "Ha!  Adlerstein, where didst get
+such a perfect pair of pages?  I would I could match my hounds as
+well."
+
+"They are no pages of mine, so please you," said the knight; "rather
+this is the head of my name.  Let me present to your kingly highness
+the Freiherr von Adlerstein."
+
+"Thou dost not thyself distinguish between them!" said Maximilian, as
+Friedmund stepped back, putting forward Eberhard, whose bright,
+lively smile of interest and admiration had been the cause of his
+cousin's mistake.  They would have doffed their caps and bent the
+knee, but were hastily checked by Maximilian.  "No, no, Junkern, I
+shall owe you no thanks for bringing all the street on me!--that's
+enough.  Reserve the rest for Kaisar Fritz."  Then, familiarly taking
+Sir Kasimir's arm, he walked on, saying, "I remember now.  Thou
+wentest after an inheritance from the old Mouser of the Debateable
+Ford, and wert ousted by a couple of lusty boys sprung of a peasant
+wedlock."
+
+"Nay, my lord, of a burgher lady, fair as she is wise and virtuous;
+who, spite of all hindrances, has bred up these youths in all good
+and noble nurture."
+
+"Is this so?" said the king, turning sharp round on the twins.  "Are
+ye minded to quit freebooting, and come a crusading against the Turks
+with me?"
+
+"Everywhere with such a leader!" enthusiastically exclaimed Ebbo.
+
+"'What? up there?" said Maximilian, smiling.  "Thou hast the tread of
+a chamois-hunter."
+
+"Friedel has been on the Red Eyrie," exclaimed Ebbo; then, thinking
+he had spoken foolishly, he coloured.
+
+"Which is the Red Eyrie?" good-humouredly asked the king.
+
+"It is the crag above our castle," said Friedel, modestly.
+
+"None other has been there," added Ebbo, perceiving his auditor's
+interest; "but he saw the eagle flying away with a poor widow's kid,
+and the sight must have given him wings, for we never could find the
+same path; but here is one of the feathers he brought down"--taking
+off his cap so as to show a feather rather the worse for wear, and
+sheltered behind a fresher one.
+
+"Nay," said Friedel, "thou shouldst say that I came to a ledge where
+I had like to have stayed all night, but that ye all came out with
+men and ropes."
+
+"We know what such a case is!" said the king.  "It has chanced to us
+to hang between heaven and earth; I've even had the Holy Sacrament
+held up for my last pious gaze by those who gave me up for lost on
+the mountain-side.  Adlerstein?  The peak above the Braunwasser?
+Some day shall ye show me this eyrie of yours, and we will see
+whether we can amaze our cousins the eagles.  We see you at our
+father's court to-morrow?" he graciously added, and Ebbo gave a ready
+bow of acquiescence.
+
+"There," said the king, as after their dismissal he walked on with
+Sir Kasimir, "never blame me for rashness and imprudence.  Here has
+this height of the steeple proved the height of policy.  It has made
+a loyal subject of a Mouser on the spot."
+
+"Pray Heaven it may have won a heart, true though proud!" said
+Wildschloss; "but mousing was cured before by the wise training of
+the mother.  Your highness will have taken out the sting of
+submission, and you will scarce find more faithful subjects."
+
+"How old are the Junkern?"
+
+"Some sixteen years, your highness."
+
+"That is what living among mountains does for a lad.  Why could not
+those thrice-accursed Flemish towns let me breed up my boy to be good
+for something in the mountains, instead of getting duck-footed and
+muddy-witted in the fens?"
+
+In the meantime Ebbo and Friedel were returning home in that sort of
+passion of enthusiasm that ingenuous boyhood feels when first brought
+into contact with greatness or brilliant qualities.
+
+And brilliance was the striking point in Maximilian.  The Last of the
+Knights, in spite of his many defects, was, by personal qualities,
+and the hereditary influence of long-descended rank, verily a king of
+men in aspect and demeanour, even when most careless and simple.  He
+was at this time a year or two past thirty, unusually tall, and with
+a form at once majestic and full of vigour and activity; a noble,
+fair, though sunburnt countenance; eyes of dark gray, almost black;
+long fair hair, a keen aquiline nose, a lip only beginning to
+lengthen to the characteristic Austrian feature, an expression always
+lofty, sometimes dreamy, and yet at the same time full of acuteness
+and humour.  His abilities were of the highest order, his purposes,
+especially at this period of his life, most noble and becoming in the
+first prince of Christendom; and, if his life were a failure, and his
+reputation unworthy of his endowments, the cause seems to have been
+in great measure the bewilderment and confusion that unusual gifts
+sometimes cause to their possessor, whose sight their conflicting
+illumination dazzles so as to impair his steadiness of aim, while
+their contending gleams light him into various directions, so that
+one object is deserted for another ere its completion.  Thus
+Maximilian cuts a figure in history far inferior to that made by his
+grandson, Charles V., whom he nevertheless excelled in every personal
+quality, except the most needful of all, force of character; and, in
+like manner, his remote descendant, the narrow-minded Ferdinand of
+Styria, gained his ends, though the able and brilliant Joseph II. was
+to die broken-hearted, calling his reign a failure and mistake.
+However, such terms as these could not be applied to Maximilian with
+regard to home affairs.  He has had hard measure from those who have
+only regarded his vacillating foreign policy, especially with respect
+to Italy--ever the temptation and the bane of Austria; but even here
+much of his uncertain conduct was owing to the unfulfilled promises
+of what he himself called his "realm of kings," and a sovereign can
+only justly be estimated by his domestic policy.  The contrast of the
+empire before his time with the subsequent Germany is that of chaos
+with order.  Since the death of Friedrich II. the Imperial title had
+been a mockery, making the prince who chanced to bear it a mere mark
+for the spite of his rivals; there was no centre of justice, no
+appeal; everybody might make war on everybody, with the sole
+preliminary of exchanging a challenge; "fist-right" was the
+acknowledged law of the land; and, except in the free cities, and
+under such a happy accident as a right-minded prince here and there,
+the state of Germany seems to have been rather worse than that of
+Scotland from Bruce to the union of the Crowns.  Under Maximilian,
+the Diet became an effective council, fist-right was abolished,
+independent robber-lords put down, civilization began to effect an
+entrance, the system of circles was arranged, and the empire again
+became a leading power in Europe, instead of a mere vortex of
+disorder and misrule.  Never would Charles V. have held the position
+he occupied had he come after an ordinary man, instead of after an
+able and sagacious reformer like that Maximilian who is popularly
+regarded as a fantastic caricature of a knight-errant, marred by
+avarice and weakness of purpose.
+
+At the juncture of which we are writing, none of Maximilian's less
+worthy qualities had appeared; he had not been rendered shifty and
+unscrupulous by difficulties and disappointments in money matters,
+and had not found it impossible to keep many of the promises he had
+given in all good faith.  He stood forth as the hope of Germany, in
+salient contrast to the feeble and avaricious father, who was felt to
+be the only obstacle in the way of his noble designs of establishing
+peace and good discipline in the empire, and conducting a general
+crusade against the Turks, whose progress was the most threatening
+peril of Christendom.  His fame was, of course, frequently discussed
+among the citizens, with whom he was very popular, not only from his
+ease and freedom of manner, but because his graceful tastes, his love
+of painting, sculpture, architecture, and the mechanical turn which
+made him an improver of fire-arms and a patron of painting and
+engraving, rendered their society more agreeable to him than that of
+his dull, barbarous nobility.  Ebbo had heard so much of the
+perfections of the King of the Romans as to be prepared to hate him;
+but the boy, as we have seen, was of a generous, sensitive nature,
+peculiarly prone to enthusiastic impressions of veneration; and
+Maximilian's high-spirited manhood, personal fascination, and
+individual kindness had so entirely taken him by surprise, that he
+talked of him all the evening in a more fervid manner than did even
+Friedel, though both could scarcely rest for their anticipations of
+seeing him on the morrow in the full state of his entry.
+
+Richly clad, and mounted on cream-coloured steeds, nearly as much
+alike as themselves, the twins were a pleasant sight for a proud
+mother's eyes, as they rode out to take their place in the procession
+that was to welcome the royal guests.  Master Sorel, in ample gown,
+richly furred, with medal and chain of office, likewise went forth as
+Guildmaster; and Christina, with smiling lips and liquid eyes,
+recollected the days when to see him in such array was her keenest
+pleasure, and the utmost splendour her fancy could depict.
+
+Arrayed, as her sons loved to see her, in black velvet, and with
+pearl-bordered cap, Christina sat by her aunt in the tapestried
+balcony, and between them stood or sat little Thekla von Adlerstein
+Wildschloss, whose father had entrusted her to their care, to see the
+procession pass by.  A rich Eastern carpet, of gorgeous colouring,
+covered the upper balustrade, over which they leant, in somewhat
+close quarters with the scarlet-bodiced dames of the opposite house,
+but with ample space for sight up and down the rows of smiling
+expectants at each balcony, or window, equally gay with hangings,
+while the bells of all the churches clashed forth their gayest
+chimes, and fitful bursts of music were borne upon the breeze.
+Little Thekla danced in the narrow space for very glee, and wondered
+why any one should live in a cloister when the world was so wide and
+so fair.  And Dame Johanna tried to say something pious of worldly
+temptations, and the cloister shelter; but Thekla interrupted her,
+and, clinging to Christina, exclaimed, "Nay, but I am always naughty
+with Mother Ludmilla in the convent, and I know I should never be
+naughty out here with you and the barons; I should be so happy."
+
+"Hush! hush! little one; here they come!"
+
+On they came--stout lanzknechts first, the city guard with steel
+helmets unadorned, buff suits, and bearing either harquebuses,
+halberts, or those handsome but terrible weapons, morning stars.
+Then followed guild after guild, each preceded by the banner bearing
+its homely emblem--the cauldron of the smiths, the hose of the
+clothiers, the helmet of the armourers, the bason of the barbers, the
+boot of the sutors; even the sausage of the cooks, and the shoe of
+the shoeblacks, were re-presented, as by men who gloried in the
+calling in which they did life's duty and task.
+
+First in each of these bands marched the prentices, stout, broad,
+flat-faced lads, from twenty to fourteen years of age, with hair like
+tow hanging from under their blue caps, staves in their hands, and
+knives at their girdles.  Behind them came the journeymen, in
+leathern jerkins and steel caps, and armed with halberts or cross-
+bows; men of all ages, from sixty to one or two and twenty, and many
+of the younger ones with foreign countenances and garb betokening
+that they were strangers spending part of their wandering years in
+studying the Ulm fashions of their craft.  Each trade showed a large
+array of these juniors; but the masters who came behind were
+comparatively few, mostly elderly, long-gowned, gold-chained
+personages, with a weight of solid dignity on their wise brows--men
+who respected themselves, made others respect them, and kept their
+city a peaceful, well-ordered haven, while storms raged in the realm
+beyond--men too who had raised to the glory of their God a temple,
+not indeed fulfilling the original design, but a noble effort, and
+grand monument of burgher devotion.
+
+Then came the ragged regiment of scholars, wild lads from every part
+of Germany and Switzerland, some wan and pinched with hardship and
+privation, others sturdy, selfish rogues, evidently well able to take
+care of themselves.  There were many rude, tyrannical-looking lads
+among the older lads; and, though here and there a studious, earnest
+face might be remarked, the prospect of Germany's future priests and
+teachers was not encouraging.  And what a searching ordeal was
+awaiting those careless lads when the voice of one, as yet still a
+student, should ring through Germany!
+
+Contrasting with these ill-kempt pupils marched the grave professors
+and teachers, in square ecclesiastic caps and long gowns, whose
+colours marked their degrees and the Universities that had conferred
+them--some thin, some portly, some jocund, others dreamy; some
+observing all the humours around, others still intent on Aristotelian
+ethics; all men of high fame, with doctor at the beginning of their
+names, and "or" or "us" at the close of them.  After them rode the
+magistracy, a burgomaster from each guild, and the Herr Provost
+himself--as great a potentate within his own walls as the Doge of
+Venice or of Genoa, or perhaps greater, because less jealously
+hampered.  In this dignified group was Uncle Gottfried, by complacent
+nod and smile acknowledging his good wife and niece, who indeed had
+received many a previous glance and bow from friends passing beneath.
+But Master Sorel was no new spectacle in a civic procession, and the
+sight of him was only a pleasant fillip to the excitement of his
+ladies.
+
+Here was jingling of spurs and trampling of horses; heraldic
+achievements showed upon the banners, round which rode the mail-clad
+retainers of country nobles who had mustered to meet their lords.
+Then, with still more of clank and tramp, rode a bright-faced troop
+of lads, with feathered caps and gay mantles.  Young Count Rudiger
+looked up with courteous salutation; and just behind him, with
+smiling lips and upraised faces, were the pair whose dark eyes, dark
+hair, and slender forms rendered them conspicuous among the fair
+Teutonic youth.  Each cap was taken off and waved, and each pair of
+lustrous eyes glanced up pleasure and exultation at the sight of the
+lovely "Mutterlein."  And she?  The pageant was well-nigh over to
+her, save for heartily agreeing with Aunt Johanna that there was not
+a young noble of them all to compare with the twin Barons of
+Adlerstein!  However, she knew she should be called to account if she
+did not look well at "the Romish King;" besides, Thekla was shrieking
+with delight at the sight of her father, tall and splendid on his
+mighty black charger, with a smile for his child, and for the lady a
+bow so low and deferential that it was evidently remarked by those at
+whose approach every lady in the balconies was rising, every head in
+the street was bared.
+
+A tall, thin, shrivelled, but exceedingly stately old man on a gray
+horse was in the centre.  Clad in a purple velvet mantle, and bowing
+as he went, he looked truly the Kaisar, to whom stately courtesy was
+second nature.  On one side, in black and gold, with the jewel of the
+Golden Fleece on his breast, rode Maximilian, responding gracefully
+to the salutations of the people, but his keen gray eye roving in
+search of the object of Sir Kasimir's salute, and lighting on
+Christina with such a rapid, amused glance of discovery that, in her
+confusion, she missed what excited Dame Johanna's rapturous
+admiration--the handsome boy on the Emperor's other side, a fair,
+plump lad, the young sovereign of the Low Countries, beautiful in
+feature and complexion, but lacking the fire and the loftiness that
+characterized his father's countenance.  The train was closed by the
+Reitern of the Emperor's guard--steel-clad mercenaries who were
+looked on with no friendly eyes by the few gazers in the street who
+had been left behind in the general rush to keep up with the
+attractive part of the show.
+
+Pageants of elaborate mythological character impeded the imperial
+progress at every stage, and it was full two hours ere the two youths
+returned, heartily weary of the lengthened ceremonial, and laughing
+at having actually seen the King of the Romans enduring to be
+conducted from shrine to shrine in the cathedral by a large
+proportion of its dignitaries.  Ebbo was sure he had caught an archly
+disconsolate wink!
+
+Ebbo had to dress for the banquet spread in the town-hall.  Space was
+wanting for the concourse of guests, and Master Sorel had decided
+that the younger Baron should not be included in the invitation.
+Friedel pardoned him more easily than did Ebbo, who not only resented
+any slight to his double, but in his fits of shy pride needed the aid
+of his readier and brighter other self.  But it might not be, and Sir
+Kasimir and Master Gottfried alone accompanied him, hoping that he
+would not look as wild as a hawk, and would do nothing to diminish
+the favourable impression he had made on the King of the Romans.
+
+Late, according to mediaeval hours, was the return, and Ebbo spoke in
+a tone of elation.  "The Kaisar was most gracious, and the king knew
+me," he said, "and asked for thee, Friedel, saying one of us was
+nought without the other.  But thou wilt go to-morrow, for we are to
+receive knighthood."
+
+"Already!" exclaimed Friedel, a bright glow rushing to his cheek.
+
+"Yea," said Ebbo.  "The Romish king said somewhat about waiting to
+win our spurs; but the Kaisar said I was in a position to take rank
+as a knight, and I thanked him, so thou shouldst share the honour."
+
+"The Kaisar," said Wildschloss, "is not the man to let a knight's fee
+slip between his fingers.  The king would have kept off their grip,
+and reserved you for knighthood from his own sword under the banner
+of the empire; but there is no help for it now, and you must make
+your vassals send in their dues."
+
+"My vassals?" said Ebbo; "what could they send?"
+
+"The aid customary on the knighthood of the heir."
+
+"But there is--there is nothing!" said Friedel.  "They can scarce pay
+meal and poultry enough for our daily fare; and if we were to flay
+them alive, we should not get sixty groschen from the whole."
+
+"True enough!  Knighthood must wait till we win it," said Ebbo,
+gloomily.
+
+"Nay, it is accepted," said Wildschloss.  "The Kaisar loves his iron
+chest too well to let you go back.  You must be ready with your round
+sum to the chancellor, and your spur-money and your fee to the
+heralds, and largess to the crowd."
+
+"Mother, the dowry," said Ebbo.
+
+"At your service, my son," said Christina, anxious to chase the cloud
+from his brow.
+
+But it was a deep haul, for the avaricious Friedrich IV. made
+exorbitant charges for the knighting his young nobles; and Ebbo soon
+saw that the improvements at home must suffer for the honours that
+would have been so much better won than bought.
+
+"If your vassals cannot aid, yet may not your kinsman--?" began
+Wildschloss.
+
+"No!" interrupted Ebbo, lashed up to hot indignation.  "No, sir!
+Rather will my mother, brother, and I ride back this very night to
+unfettered liberty on our mountain, without obligation to any living
+man."
+
+"Less hotly, Sir Baron," said Master Gottfried, gravely.  "You broke
+in on your noble godfather, and you had not heard me speak.  You and
+your brother are the old man's only heirs, nor do ye incur any
+obligation that need fret you by forestalling what would be your just
+right.  I will see my nephews as well equipped as any young baron of
+them."
+
+The mother looked anxiously at Ebbo.  He bent his head with rising
+colour, and said, "Thanks, kind uncle.  From YOU I have learnt to
+look on goodness as fatherly."
+
+"Only," added Friedel, "if the Baron's station renders knighthood
+fitting for him, surely I might remain his esquire."
+
+"Never, Friedel!" cried his brother.  "Without thee, nothing."
+
+"Well said, Freiherr," said Master Sorel; "what becomes the one
+becomes the other.  I would not have thee left out, my Friedel, since
+I cannot leave thee the mysteries of my craft."
+
+"To-morrow!" said Friedel, gravely.  "Then must the vigil be kept to-
+night."
+
+"The boy thinks these are the days of Roland and Karl the Great,"
+said Wildschloss.  "He would fain watch his arms in the moonlight in
+the Dome Kirk!  Alas! no, my Friedel!  Knighthood in these days
+smacks more of bezants than of deeds of prowess."
+
+"Unbearable fellow!" cried Ebbo, when he had latched the door of the
+room he shared with his brother.  "First, holding up my inexperience
+to scorn!  As though the Kaisar knew not better than he what befits
+me!  Then trying to buy my silence and my mother's gratitude with his
+hateful advance of gold.  As if I did not loathe him enough without!
+If I pay my homage, and sign the League to-morrow, it will be purely
+that he may not plume himself on our holding our own by sufferance,
+in deference to him."
+
+"You will sign it--you will do homage!" exclaimed Friedel.  "How
+rejoiced the mother will be."
+
+"I had rather depend at once--if depend I must--on yonder dignified
+Kaisar and that noble king than on our meddling kinsman," said Ebbo.
+"I shall be his equal now!  Ay, and no more classed with the court
+Junkern I was with to-day.  The dullards!  No one reasonable thing
+know they but the chase.  One had been at Florence; and when I asked
+him of the Baptistery and rare Giotto of whom my uncle told us, he
+asked if he were a knight of the Medici.  All he knew was that there
+were ortolans at Ser Lorenzo's table; and he and the rest of them
+talked over wines as many and as hard to call as the roll of AEneas's
+comrades; and when each one must drink to her he loved best, and I
+said I loved none like my sweet mother, they gibed me for a simple
+dutiful mountaineer.  Yea, and when the servants brought a bowl, I
+thought it was a wholesome draught of spring water after all their
+hot wines and fripperies.  Pah!"
+
+"The rose-water, Ebbo!  No wonder they laughed!  Why, the bowls for
+our fingers came round at the banquet here."
+
+"Ah! thou hast eyes for their finikin manners!  Yet what know they of
+what we used to long for in polished life!  Not one but vowed he
+abhorred books, and cursed Dr. Faustus for multiplying them.  I may
+not know the taste of a stew, nor the fit of a glove, as they do, but
+I trust I bear a less empty brain.  And the young Netherlanders that
+came with the Archduke were worst of all.  They got together and
+gabbled French, and treated the German Junkern with the very same
+sauce with which they had served me.  The Archduke laughed with them,
+and when the Provost addressed him, made as if he understood not,
+till his father heard, and thundered out, 'How now, Philip!  Deaf on
+thy German ear?  I tell thee, Herr Probst, he knows his own tongue as
+well as thou or I, and thou shalt hear him speak as becomes the son
+of an Austrian hunter.'  That Romish king is a knight of knights,
+Friedel.  I could follow him to the world's end.  I wonder whether he
+will ever come to climb the Red Eyrie."
+
+"It does not seem the world's end when one is there," said Friedel,
+with strange yearnings in his breast.
+
+"Even the Dom steeple never rose to its full height," he added,
+standing in the window, and gazing pensively into the summer sky.
+"Oh, Ebbo! this knighthood has come very suddenly after our many
+dreams; and, even though its outward tokens be lowered, it is still a
+holy, awful thing."
+
+Nurtured in mountain solitude, on romance transmitted through the
+pure medium of his mother's mind, and his spirit untainted by contact
+with the world, Friedmund von Adlerstein looked on chivalry with the
+temper of a Percival or Galahad, and regarded it with a sacred awe.
+Eberhard, though treating it more as a matter of business, was like
+enough to his brother to enter into the force of the vows they were
+about to make; and if the young Barons of Adlerstein did not perform
+the night-watch over their armour, yet they kept a vigil that
+impressed their own minds as deeply, and in early morn they went to
+confession and mass ere the gay parts of the city were astir.
+
+"Sweet niece," said Master Sorel, as he saw the brothers' grave,
+earnest looks, "thou hast done well by these youths; yet I doubt me
+at times whether they be not too much lifted out of this veritable
+world of ours."
+
+"Ah, fair uncle, were they not above it, how could they face its
+temptations?"
+
+"True, my child; but how will it be when they find how lightly others
+treat what to them is so solemn?"
+
+"There must be temptations for them, above all for Ebbo," said
+Christina, "but still, when I remember how my heart sank when their
+grandmother tried to bring them up to love crime as sport and glory,
+I cannot but trust that the good work will be wrought out, and my
+dream fulfilled, that they may be lights on earth and stars in
+heaven.  Even this matter of homage, that seemed so hard to my Ebbo,
+has now been made easy to him by his veneration for the Emperor."
+
+It was even so.  If the sense that he was the last veritable FREE
+lord of Adlerstein rushed over Ebbo, he was, on the other hand,
+overmastered by the kingliness of Friedrich and Maximilian, and was
+aware that this submission, while depriving him of little or no
+actual power, brought him into relations with the civilized world,
+and opened to him paths of true honour.  So the ceremonies were gone
+through, his oath of allegiance was made, investiture was granted to
+him by the delivery of a sword, and both he and Friedel were dubbed
+knights.  Then they shared another banquet, where, as away from the
+Junkern and among elder men, Ebbo was happier than the day before.
+Some of the knights seemed to him as rude and ignorant as the
+Schneiderlein, but no one talked to him nor observed his manners, and
+he could listen to conversation on war and policy such as interested
+him far more than the subjects affected by youths a little older than
+himself.  Their lonely life and training had rendered the minds of
+the brothers as much in advance of their fellows as they were behind
+them in knowledge of the world.
+
+The crass obtuseness of most of the nobility made it a relief to
+return to the usual habits of the Sorel household when the court had
+left Ulm.  Friedmund, anxious to prove that his new honours were not
+to alter his home demeanour, was drawing on a block of wood from a
+tinted pen-and-ink sketch; Ebbo was deeply engaged with a newly-
+acquired copy of Virgil; and their mother was embroidering some
+draperies for the long-neglected castle chapel,--all sitting, as
+Master Gottfried loved to have them, in his studio, whence he had a
+few moments before been called away, when, as the door slowly opened,
+a voice was heard that made both lads start and rise.
+
+"Yea, truly, Herr Guildmaster, I would see these masterpieces.  Ha!
+What have you here for masterpieces?  Our two new double-ganger
+knights?"  And Maximilian entered in a simple riding-dress, attended
+by Master Gottfried, and by Sir Kasimir of Adlerstein Wildschloss.
+
+Christina would fain have slipped out unperceived, but the king was
+already removing his cap from his fair curling locks, and bending his
+head as he said, "The Frau Freiherrinn von Adlerstein?  Fair lady, I
+greet you well, and thank you in the Kaisar's name and mine for
+having bred up for us two true and loyal subjects."
+
+"May they so prove themselves, my liege!" said Christina, bending
+low.
+
+"And not only loyal-hearted," added Maximilian, smiling, "but ready-
+brained, which is less frequent among our youth.  What is thy book,
+young knight?  Virgilius Maro?  Dost thou read the Latin?" he added,
+in that tongue.
+
+"Not as well as we wish, your kingly highness," readily answered
+Ebbo, in Latin, "having learnt solely of our mother till we came
+hither."
+
+"Never fear for that, my young blade," laughed the king.  "Knowst not
+that the wiseacres thought me too dull for teaching till I was past
+ten years?  And what is thy double about?  Drawing on wood?  How now!
+An able draughtsman, my young knight?"
+
+"My nephew Sir Friedmund is good to the old man," said Gottfried,
+himself almost regretting the lad's avocation.  "My eyes are failing
+me, and he is aiding me with the graving of this border.  He has the
+knack that no teaching will impart to any of my present journeymen."
+
+"Born, not made," quoth Maximilian.  "Nay," as Friedel coloured
+deeper at the sense that Ebbo was ashamed of him, "no blushes, my
+boy; it is a rare gift.  I can make a hundred knights any day, but
+the Almighty alone can make a genius.  It was this very matter of
+graving that led me hither."
+
+For Maximilian had a passion for composition, and chiefly for
+autobiography, and his head was full of that curious performance, Der
+Weisse Konig, which occupied many of the leisure moments of his life,
+being dictated to his former writing-master, Marcus Sauerwein.  He
+had already designed the portrayal of his father as the old white
+king, and himself as the young white king, in a series of woodcuts
+illustrating the narrative which culminated in the one romance of his
+life, his brief happy marriage with Mary of Burgundy; and he
+continued eagerly to talk to Master Gottfried about the mystery of
+graving, and the various scenes in which he wished to depict himself
+learning languages from native speakers--Czech from a peasant with a
+basket of eggs, English from the exiles at the Burgundian court, who
+had also taught him the use of the longbow, building from architects
+and masons, painting from artists, and, more imaginatively, astrology
+from a wonderful flaming sphere in the sky, and the black art from a
+witch inspired by a long-tailed demon perched on her shoulder.  No
+doubt "the young white king" made an exceedingly prominent figure in
+the discourse, but it was so quaint and so brilliant that it did not
+need the charm of royal condescension to entrance the young knights,
+who stood silent auditors.  Ebbo at least was convinced that no
+species of knowledge or skill was viewed by his kaisarly kingship as
+beneath his dignity; but still he feared Friedel's being seized upon
+to be as prime illustrator to the royal autobiography--a lot to
+which, with all his devotion to Maximilian, he could hardly have
+consigned his brother, in the certainty that the jeers of the ruder
+nobles would pursue the craftsman baron.
+
+However, for the present, Maximilian was keen enough to see that the
+boy's mechanical skill was not as yet equal to his genius; so he only
+encouraged him to practise, adding that he heard there was a rare
+lad, one Durer, at Nuremburg, whose productions were already
+wonderful.  "And what is this?" he asked; "what is the daintily-
+carved group I see yonder?"
+
+"Your highness means, 'The Dove in the Eagle's Nest,'" said Kasimir.
+"It is the work of my young kinsmen, and their appropriate device."
+
+"As well chosen as carved," said Maximilian, examining it.  "Well is
+it that a city dove should now and then find her way to the eyrie.
+Some of my nobles would cut my throat for the heresy, but I am safe
+here, eh, Sir Kasimir?  Fare ye well, ye dove-trained eaglets.  We
+will know one another better when we bear the cross against the
+infidel."
+
+The brothers kissed his hand, and he descended the steps from the
+hall door.  Ere he had gone far, he turned round upon Sir Kasimir
+with a merry smile
+
+"A very white and tender dove indeed, and one who might easily nestle
+in another eyrie, methinks."
+
+"Deems your kingly highness that consent could be won?" asked
+Wildschloss
+
+"From the Kaisar?  Pfui, man, thou knowst as well as I do the golden
+key to his consent.  So thou wouldst risk thy luck again!  Thou hast
+no male heir."
+
+"And I would fain give my child a mother who would deal well with
+her.  Nay, to say sooth, that gentle, innocent face has dwelt with me
+for many years.  But for my pre-contract, I had striven long ago to
+win her, and had been a happier man, mayhap.  And, now I have seen
+what she has made of her sons, I feel I could scarce find her match
+among our nobility."
+
+"Nor elsewhere," said the king; "and I honour thee for not being so
+besotted in our German haughtiness as not to see that it is our free
+cities that make refined and discreet dames.  I give you good speed,
+Adlerstein; but, if I read aright the brow of one at least of these
+young fellows, thou wilt scarce have a willing or obedient stepson.'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV:  THE RIVAL EYRIE
+
+
+
+Ebbo trusted that his kinsman of Wildschloss was safe gone with the
+Court, and his temper smoothed and his spirits rose in proportion
+while preparations for a return to Adlerstein were being completed--
+preparations by which the burgher lady might hope to render the
+castle far more habitable, not to say baronial, than it had ever
+been.
+
+The lady herself felt thankful that her stay at Ulm had turned out
+well beyond all anticipations in the excellent understanding between
+her uncle and her sons, and still more in Ebbo's full submission and
+personal loyalty towards the imperial family.  The die was cast, and
+the first step had been taken towards rendering the Adlerstein family
+the peaceful, honourable nobles she had always longed to see them.
+
+She was one afternoon assisting her aunt in some of the duties of her
+wirthschaft, when Master Gottfried entered the apartment with an air
+of such extreme complacency that both turned round amazed; the one
+exclaiming, "Surely funds have come in for finishing the spire!" the
+other, "Have they appointed thee Provost for next year, house-
+father?"
+
+"Neither the one nor the other," was the reply.  "But heard you not
+the horse's feet?  Here has the Lord of Adlerstein Wildschloss been
+with me in full state, to make formal proposals for the hand of our
+child, Christina."
+
+"For Christina!" cried Hausfrau Johanna with delight; "truly that is
+well.  Truly our maiden has done honour to her breeding.  A second
+nobleman demanding her--and one who should be able richly to endow
+her!"
+
+"And who will do so," said Master Gottfried.  "For morning gift he
+promises the farms and lands of Grunau--rich both in forest and corn
+glebe.  Likewise, her dower shall be upon Wildschloss--where the soil
+is of the richest pasture, and there are no less than three mills,
+whence the lord obtains large rights of multure.  Moreover, the
+Castle was added to and furnished on his marriage with the late
+baroness, and might serve a Kurfurst; and though the jewels of
+Freiherrinn Valeska must be inherited by her daughter, yet there are
+many of higher price which have descended from his own ancestresses,
+and which will all be hers."
+
+"And what a wedding we will have!" exclaimed Johanna; "it shall be
+truly baronial.  I will take my hood and go at once to neighbour
+Sophie Lemsberg, who was wife to the Markgraf's Under Keller-Meister.
+She will tell me point device the ceremonies befitting the espousals
+of a baron's widow."
+
+Poor Christina had sat all this time with drooping head and clasped
+hands, a tear stealing down as the formal terms of the treaty sent
+her spirit back to the urgent, pleading, imperious voice that had
+said, "Now, little one, thou wilt not shut me out;" and as she
+glanced at the ring that had lain on that broad palm, she felt as if
+her sixteen cheerful years had been an injury to her husband in his
+nameless bloody grave.  But protection was so needful in those rude
+ages, and second marriages so frequent, that reluctance was counted
+as weakness.  She knew her uncle and aunt would never believe that
+aught but compulsion had bound her to the rude outlaw, and her habit
+of submission was so strong that, only when her aunt was actually
+rising to go and consult her gossip, she found breath to falter,
+
+"Hold, dear aunt--my sons--"
+
+"Nay, child, it is the best thing thou couldst do for them.  Wonders
+hast thou wrought, yet are they too old to be without fatherly
+authority.  I speak not of Friedel; the lad is gentle and pious,
+though spirited, but for the baron.  The very eye and temper of my
+poor brother Hugh--thy father, Stine--are alive again in him.  Yea, I
+love the lad the better for it, while I fear.  He minds me precisely
+of Hugh ere he was 'prenticed to the weapon-smith, and all became
+bitterness."
+
+"Ah, truly," said Christina, raising her eyes "all would become
+bitterness with my Ebbo were I to give a father's power to one whom
+he would not love."
+
+"Then were he sullen and unruly, indeed!" said the old burgomaster
+with displeasure; "none have shown him more kindness, none could
+better aid him in court and empire.  The lad has never had restraint
+enough.  I blame thee not, child, but he needs it sorely, by thine
+own showing."
+
+"Alas, uncle! mine be the blame, but it is over late.  My boy will
+rule himself for the love of God and of his mother, but he will brook
+no hand over him--least of all now he is a knight and thinks himself
+a man.  Uncle, I should be deprived of both my sons, for Friedel's
+very soul is bound up with his brother's.  I pray thee enjoin not
+this thing on me," she implored.
+
+"Child!" exclaimed Master Gottfried, "thou thinkst not that such a
+contract as this can be declined for the sake of a wayward Junker!"
+
+"Stay, house-father, the little one will doubtless hear reason and
+submit," put in the aunt.  "Her sons were goodly and delightsome to
+her in their upgrowth, but they are well-nigh men.  They will be away
+to court and camp, to love and marriage; and how will it be with her
+then, young and fair as she still is?  Well will it be for her to
+have a stately lord of her own, and a new home of love and honour
+springing round her."
+
+"True," continued Sorel; "and though she be too pious and wise to
+reck greatly of such trifles, yet it may please her dreamy brain to
+hear that Sir Kasimir loves her even like a paladin, and the love of
+a tried man of six-and-forty is better worth than a mere kindling of
+youthful fancy."
+
+"Mine Eberhard loved me!" murmured Christina, almost to herself, but
+her aunt caught the word.
+
+"And what was such love worth?  To force thee into a stolen match,
+and leave thee alone and unowned to the consequences!"
+
+"Peace!" exclaimed Christina, with crimson cheek and uplifted head.
+"Peace!  My own dear lord loved me with true and generous love!  None
+but myself knows how much.  Not a word will I hear against that
+tender heart."
+
+"Yes, peace," returned Gottfried in a conciliatory tone,--"peace to
+the brave Sir Eberhard.  Thine aunt meant no ill of him.  He truly
+would rejoice that the wisdom of his choice should receive such
+testimony, and that his sons should be thus well handled.  Nay,
+little as I heed such toys, it will doubtless please the lads that
+the baron will obtain of the Emperor letters of nobility for this
+house, which verily sprang of a good Walloon family, and so their
+shield will have no blank.  The Romish king promises to give thee
+rank with any baroness, and hath fully owned what a pearl thou art,
+mine own sweet dove!  Nay, Sir Kasimir is coming to-morrow in the
+trust to make the first betrothal with Graf von Kaulwitz as a
+witness, and I thought of asking the Provost on the other hand."
+
+"To-morrow!" exclaimed Johanna; "and how is she to be meetly clad?
+Look at this widow-garb; and how is time to be found for procuring
+other raiment?  House-father, a substantial man like you should
+better understand!  The meal too!  I must to gossip Sophie!"
+
+"Verily, dear mother and father," said Christina, who had rallied a
+little, "have patience with me.  I may not lightly or suddenly
+betroth myself; I know not that I can do so at all, assuredly not
+unless my sons were heartily willing.  Have I your leave to retire?"
+
+"Granted, my child, for meditation will show thee that this is too
+fair a lot for any but thee.  Much had I longed to see thee wedded
+ere thy sons outgrew thy care, but I shunned proposing even one of
+our worthy guildmasters, lest my young Freiherr should take offence;
+but this knight, of his own blood, true and wise as a burgher, and
+faithful and God-fearing withal, is a better match than I durst hope,
+and is no doubt a special reward from thy patron saint."
+
+"Let me entreat one favour more," implored Christina.  "Speak of this
+to no one ere I have seen my sons."
+
+She made her way to her own chamber, there to weep and flutter.
+Marriage was a matter of such high contract between families that the
+parties themselves had usually no voice in the matter, and only the
+widowed had any chance of a personal choice; nor was this always
+accorded in the case of females, who remained at the disposal of
+their relatives.  Good substantial wedded affection was not lacking,
+but romantic love was thought an unnecessary preliminary, and found a
+vent in extravagant adoration, not always in reputable quarters.
+Obedience first to the father, then to the husband, was the first
+requisite; love might shift for itself; and the fair widow of
+Adlerstein, telling her beads in sheer perplexity, knew not whether
+her strong repugnance to this marriage and warm sympathy with her son
+Ebbo were not an act of rebellion.  Yet each moment did her husband
+rise before her mind more vividly, with his rugged looks, his warm,
+tender heart, his dawnings of comprehension, his generous forbearance
+and reverential love--the love of her youth--to be equalled by no
+other.  The accomplished courtier and polished man of the world might
+be his superior, but she loathed the superiority, since it was to her
+husband.  Might not his one chosen dove keep heart-whole for him to
+the last?  She recollected that coarsest, cruellest reproach of all
+that her mother-in-law had been wont to fling at her,--that she, the
+recent widow, the new-made mother of Eberhard's babes, in her grief,
+her terror, and her weakness had sought to captivate this suitor by
+her blandishments.  The taunt seemed justified, and her cheeks burned
+with absolute shame "My husband! my loving Eberhard! left with none
+but me to love thee, unknown to thine own sons!  I cannot, I will not
+give my heart away from thee!  Thy little bride shall be faithful to
+thee, whatever betide.  When we meet beyond the grave I will have
+been thine only, nor have set any before thy sons.  Heaven forgive me
+if I be undutiful to my uncle; but thou must be preferred before even
+him!  Hark!" and she started as if at Eberhard's foot-step; then
+smiled, recollecting that Ebbo had his father's tread.  But her
+husband had been too much in awe of her to enter with that hasty
+agitated step and exclamation, "Mother, mother, what insolence is
+this!"
+
+"Hush, Ebbo!  I prayed mine uncle to let me speak to thee."
+
+"It is true, then," said Ebbo, dashing his cap on the ground; "I had
+soundly beaten that grinning 'prentice for telling Heinz."
+
+"Truly the house rings with the rumour, mother," said Friedel, "but
+we had not believed it."
+
+"I believed Wildschloss assured enough for aught," said Ebbo, "but I
+thought he knew where to begin.  Does he not know who is head of the
+house of Adlerstein, since he must tamper with a mechanical
+craftsman, cap in hand to any sprig of nobility!  I would have soon
+silenced his overtures!"
+
+"Is it in sooth as we heard?" asked Friedel, blushing to the ears,
+for the boy was shy as a maiden.  "Mother, we know what you would
+say," he added, throwing himself on his knees beside her, his arm
+round her waist, his cheek on her lap, and his eyes raised to hers.
+
+She bent down to kiss him.  "Thou knewst it, Friedel, and now must
+thou aid me to remain thy father's true widow, and to keep Ebbo from
+being violent."
+
+Ebbo checked his hasty march to put his hand on her chair and kiss
+her brow.  "Motherling, I will restrain myself, so you will give me
+your word not to desert us."
+
+"Nay, Ebbo," said Friedel, "the motherling is too true and loving for
+us to bind her."
+
+"Children," she answered, "hear me patiently.  I have been communing
+with myself, and deeply do I feel that none other can I love save him
+who is to you a mere name, but to me a living presence.  Nor would I
+put any between you and me.  Fear me not, Ebbo.  I think the mothers
+and sons of this wider, fuller world do not prize one another as we
+do.  But, my son, this is no matter for rage or ingratitude.
+Remember it is no small condescension in a noble to stoop to thy
+citizen mother."
+
+"He knew what painted puppets noble ladies are," growled Ebbo.
+
+"Moreover," continued Christina, "thine uncle is highly gratified,
+and cannot believe that I can refuse.  He understands not my love for
+thy father, and sees many advantages for us all.  I doubt me if he
+believes I have power to resist his will, and for thee, he would not
+count thine opposition valid.  And the more angry and vehement thou
+art, the more will he deem himself doing thee a service by overruling
+thee."
+
+"Come home, mother.  Let Heinz lead our horses to the door in the
+dawn, and when we are back in free Adlerstein it will be plain who is
+master."
+
+"Such a flitting would scarce prove our wisdom," said Christina, "to
+run away with thy mother like a lover in a ballad.  Nay, let me first
+deal gently with thine uncle, and speak myself with Sir Kasimir, so
+that I may show him the vanity of his suit.  Then will we back to
+Adlerstein without leaving wounds to requite kindness."
+
+Ebbo was wrought on to promise not to attack the burgomaster on the
+subject, but he was moody and silent, and Master Gottfried let him
+alone, considering his gloom as another proof of his need of fatherly
+authority, and as a peace-lover forbearing to provoke his fiery
+spirit.
+
+But when Sir Kasimir's visit was imminent, and Christina had refused
+to make the change in her dress by which a young widow was considered
+to lay herself open to another courtship, Master Gottfried called the
+twins apart.
+
+"My young lords," he said, "I fear me ye are vexing your gentle
+mother by needless strife at what must take place."
+
+"Pardon me, good uncle," said Ebbo, "I utterly decline the honour of
+Sir Kasimir's suit to my mother."
+
+Master Gottfried smiled.  "Sons are not wont to be the judges in such
+cases, Sir Eberhard."
+
+"Perhaps not," he answered; "but my mother's will is to the nayward,
+nor shall she be coerced."
+
+"It is merely because of you and your pride," said Master Gottfried.
+
+"I think not so," rejoined the calmer Friedel; "my mother's love for
+my father is still fresh."
+
+"Young knights," said Master Gottfried, "it would scarce become me to
+say, nor you to hear, how much matter of fancy such love must have
+been towards one whom she knew but for a few short months, though her
+pure sweet dreams, through these long years, have moulded him into a
+hero.  Boys, I verily believe ye love her truly.  Would it be well
+for her still to mourn and cherish a dream while yet in her fresh
+age, capable of new happiness, fuller than she has ever enjoyed?"
+
+"She is happy with us," rejoined Ebbo.
+
+"And ye are good lads and loving sons, though less duteous in manner
+than I could wish.  But look you, you may not ever be with her, and
+when ye are absent in camp or court, or contracting a wedlock of your
+own, would you leave her to her lonesome life in your solitary
+castle?"
+
+Friedel's unselfishness might have been startled, but Ebbo boldly
+answered, "All mine is hers.  No joy to me but shall be a joy to her.
+We can make her happier than could any stranger.  Is it not so,
+Friedel?"
+
+"It is," said Friedel, thoughtfully.
+
+"Ah, rash bloods, promising beyond what ye can keep.  Nature will be
+too strong for you.  Love your mother as ye may, what will she be to
+you when a bride comes in your way?  Fling not away in wrath, Sir
+Baron; it was so with your parents both before you; and what said the
+law of the good God at the first marriage?  How can you withstand the
+nature He has given?"
+
+"Belike I may wed," said Ebbo, bluntly; "but if it be not for my
+mother's happiness, call me man-sworn knight."
+
+"Not so," good-humouredly answered Gottfried, "but boy-sworn paladin,
+who talks of he knows not what.  Speak knightly truth, Sir Baron, and
+own that this opposition is in verity from distaste to a stepfather's
+rule."
+
+"I own that I will not brook such rule," said Ebbo; "nor do I know
+what we have done to deserve that it should be thrust on us.  You
+have never blamed Friedel, at least; and verily, uncle, my mother's
+eye will lead me where a stranger's hand shall never drive me.  Did I
+even think she had for this man a quarter of the love she bears to my
+dead father, I would strive for endurance; but in good sooth we found
+her in tears, praying us to guard her from him.  I may be a boy, but
+I am man enough to prevent her from being coerced."
+
+"Was this so, Friedel?" asked Master Gottfried, moved more than by
+all that had gone before.  "Ach, I thought ye all wiser.  And spake
+she not of Sir Kasimir's offers?--Interest with the Romish king?--
+Yea, and a grant of nobility and arms to this house, so as to fill
+the blank in your scutcheon?"
+
+"My father never asked if she were noble," said Ebbo.  "Nor will I
+barter her for a cantle of a shield."
+
+"There spake a manly spirit," said his uncle, delighted.  "Her worth
+hath taught thee how little to prize these gewgaws!  Yet, if you look
+to mingling with your own proud kind, ye may fall among greater
+slights than ye can brook.  It may matter less to you, Sir Baron, but
+Friedel here, ay, and your sons, will be ineligible to the choicest
+orders of knighthood, and the canonries and chapters that are
+honourable endowments."
+
+Friedel looked as if he could bear it, and Eberhard said, "The order
+of the Dove of Adlerstein is enough for us."
+
+"Headstrong all, headstrong all," sighed Master Gottfried.  "One
+romantic marriage has turned all your heads."
+
+The Baron of Adlerstein Wildschloss, unprepared for the opposition
+that awaited him, was riding down the street equipped point device,
+and with a goodly train of followers, in brilliant suits.  Private
+wooing did not enter into the honest ideas of the burghers, and the
+suitor was ushered into the full family assembly, where Christina
+rose and came forward a few steps to meet him, curtseying as low as
+he bowed, as he said, "Lady, I have preferred my suit to you through
+your honour-worthy uncle, who is good enough to stand my friend."
+
+"You are over good, sir.  I feel the honour, but a second wedlock may
+not be mine."
+
+"Now," murmured Ebbo to his brother, as the knight and lady seated
+themselves in full view, "now will the smooth-tongued fellow talk her
+out of her senses.  Alack! that gipsy prophecy!"
+
+Wildschloss did not talk like a young wooer; such days were over for
+both; but he spoke as a grave and honourable man, deeply penetrated
+with true esteem and affection.  He said that at their first meeting
+he had been struck with her sweetness and discretion, and would soon
+after have endeavoured to release her from her durance, but that he
+was bound by the contract already made with the Trautbachs, who were
+dangerous neighbours to Wildschloss.  He had delayed his distasteful
+marriage as long as possible, and it had caused him nothing but
+trouble and strife; his children would not live, and Thekla, the only
+survivor, was, as his sole heiress, a mark for the cupidity of her
+uncle, the Count of Trautbach, and his almost savage son Lassla;
+while the right to the Wildschloss barony would become so doubtful
+between her and Ebbo, as heir of the male line, that strife and
+bloodshed would be well-nigh inevitable.  These causes made it almost
+imperative that he should re-marry, and his own strong preference and
+regard for little Thekla directed his wishes towards the Freiherrinn
+von Adlerstein.  He backed his suit with courtly compliments, as well
+as with representations of his child's need of a mother's training,
+and the twins' equal want of fatherly guidance, dilating on the
+benefits he could confer on them.
+
+Christina felt his kindness, and had full trust in his intentions.
+"No" was a difficult syllable to her, but she had that within her
+which could not accept him; and she firmly told him that she was too
+much bound to both her Eberhards.  But there was no daunting him, nor
+preventing her uncle and aunt from encouraging him.  He professed
+that he would wait, and give her time to consider; and though she
+reiterated that consideration would not change her mind, Master
+Gottfried came forward to thank him, and express his confidence of
+bringing her to reason.
+
+"While I, sir," said Ebbo, with flashing eyes, and low but resentful
+voice, "beg to decline the honour in the name of the elder house of
+Adlerstein."
+
+He held himself upright as a dart, but was infinitely annoyed by the
+little mocking bow and smile that he received in return, as Sir
+Kasimir, with his long mantle, swept out of the apartment, attended
+by Master Gottfried.
+
+"Burgomaster Sorel," said the boy, standing in the middle of the
+floor as his uncle returned, "let me hear whether I am a person of
+any consideration in this family or not?"
+
+"Nephew baron," quietly replied Master Gottfried, "it is not the use
+of us Germans to be dictated to by youths not yet arrived at years of
+discretion."
+
+"Then, mother," said Ebbo, "we leave this place to-morrow morn."  And
+at her nod of assent the house-father looked deeply grieved, the
+house-mother began to clamour about ingratitude.  "Not so," answered
+Ebbo, fiercely.  "We quit the house as poor as we came, in homespun
+and with the old mare."
+
+"Peace, Ebbo!" said his mother, rising; "peace, I entreat, house-
+mother! pardon, uncle, I pray thee.  O, why will not all who love me
+let me follow that which I believe to be best!"
+
+"Child," said her uncle, "I cannot see thee domineered over by a
+youth whose whole conduct shows his need of restraint."
+
+"Nor am I," said Christina.  "It is I who am utterly averse to this
+offer.  My sons and I are one in that; and, uncle, if I pray of you
+to consent to let us return to our castle, it is that I would not see
+the visit that has made us so happy stained with strife and
+dissension!  Sure, sure, you cannot be angered with my son for his
+love for me."
+
+"For the self-seeking of his love," said Master Gottfried.  "It is to
+gratify his own pride that he first would prevent thee from being
+enriched and ennobled, and now would bear thee away to the scant--
+Nay, Freiherr, I will not seem to insult you, but resentment would
+make you cruel to your mother."
+
+"Not cruel!" said Friedel, hastily.  "My mother is willing.  And
+verily, good uncle, methinks that we all were best at home.  We have
+benefited much and greatly by our stay; we have learnt to love and
+reverence you; but we are wild mountaineers at the best; and, while
+our hearts are fretted by the fear of losing our sweet mother, we can
+scarce be as patient or submissive as if we had been bred up by a
+stern father.  We have ever judged and acted for ourselves, and it is
+hard to us not to do so still, when our minds are chafed."
+
+"Friedel," said Ebbo, sternly, "I will have no pardon asked for
+maintaining my mother's cause.  Do not thou learn to be smooth-
+tongued."
+
+"O thou wrong-headed boy!" half groaned Master Gottfried.  "Why did
+not all this fall out ten years sooner, when thou wouldst have been
+amenable?  Yet, after all, I do not know that any noble training has
+produced a more high-minded loving youth," he added, half relenting
+as he looked at the gallant, earnest face, full of defiance indeed,
+but with a certain wistful appealing glance at "the motherling,"
+softening the liquid lustrous dark eye.  "Get thee gone, boy, I would
+not quarrel with you; and it may be, as Friedel says, that we are
+best out of one another's way.  You are used to lord it, and I can
+scarce make excuses for you."
+
+"Then," said Ebbo, scarce appeased, "I take home my mother, and you,
+sir, cease to favour Kasimir's suit."
+
+"No, Sir Baron.  I cease not to think that nothing would be so much
+for your good.  It is because I believe that a return to your own old
+castle will best convince you all that I will not vex your mother by
+further opposing your departure.  When you perceive your error may it
+only not be too late!  Such a protector is not to be found every
+day."
+
+"My mother shall never need any protector save myself," said Ebbo;
+"but, sir, she loves you, and owes all to you.  Therefore I will not
+be at strife with you, and there is my hand."
+
+He said it as if he had been the Emperor reconciling himself to all
+the Hanse towns in one.  Master Gottfried could scarce refrain from
+shrugging his shoulders, and Hausfrau Johanna was exceedingly angry
+with the petulant pride and insolence of the young noble; but, in
+effect, all were too much relieved to avoid an absolute quarrel with
+the fiery lad to take exception at minor matters.  The old burgher
+was forbearing; Christina, who knew how much her son must have
+swallowed to bring him to this concession for love of her, thought
+him a hero worthy of all sacrifices; and peace-making Friedel, by his
+aunt's side, soon softened even her, by some of the persuasive
+arguments that old dames love from gracious, graceful, great-nephews.
+
+And when, by and by, Master Gottfried went out to call on Sir
+Kasimir, and explain how he had thought it best to yield to the hot-
+tempered lad, and let the family learn how to be thankful for the
+goods they had rejected, he found affairs in a state that made him
+doubly anxious that the young barons should be safe on their mountain
+without knowing of them.  The Trautbach family had heard of
+Wildschloss's designs, and they had set abroad such injurious reports
+respecting the Lady of Adlerstein, that Sir Kasimir was in the act of
+inditing a cartel to be sent by Count Kaulwitz, to demand an
+explanation--not merely as the lady's suitor, but as the only
+Adlerstein of full age.  Now, if Ebbo had heard of the rumour, he
+would certainly have given the lie direct, and taken the whole
+defence on himself; and it may be feared that, just as his cause
+might have been, Master Gottfried's faith did not stretch to
+believing that it would make his sixteen-year-old arm equal to the
+brutal might of Lassla of Trautbach.  So he heartily thanked the
+Baron of Wildschloss, agreed with him that the young knights were not
+as yet equal to the maintenance of the cause, and went home again to
+watch carefully that no report reached either of his nephews.  Nor
+did he breathe freely till he had seen the little party ride safe off
+in the early morning, in much more lordly guise than when they had
+entered the city.
+
+As to Wildschloss and his nephew of Trautbach, in spite of their
+relationship they had a sharp combat on the borders of their own
+estates, in which both were severely wounded; but Sir Kasimir, with
+the misericorde in his grasp, forced Lassla to retract whatever he
+had said in dispraise of the Lady of Adlerstein.  Wily old Gottfried
+took care that the tidings should be sent in a form that might at
+once move Christina with pity and gratitude towards her champion, and
+convince her sons that the adversary was too much hurt for them to
+attempt a fresh challenge.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI:  THE EAGLE AND THE SNAKE
+
+
+
+The reconciliation made Ebbo retract his hasty resolution of
+relinquishing all the benefits resulting from his connection with the
+Sorel family, and his mother's fortune made it possible to carry out
+many changes that rendered the castle and its inmates far more
+prosperous in appearance than had ever been the case before.
+Christina had once again the appliances of a wirthschaft, such as she
+felt to be the suitable and becoming appurtenance of a right-minded
+Frau, gentle or simple, and she felt so much the happier and more
+respectable.
+
+A chaplain had also been secured.  The youths had insisted on his
+being capable of assisting their studies, and, a good man had been
+found who was fearfully learned, having studied at all possible
+universities, but then failing as a teacher, because he was so dreamy
+and absent as to be incapable of keeping the unruly students in
+order.  Jobst Schon was his proper name, but he was translated into
+Jodocus Pulcher.  The chapel was duly adorned, the hall and other
+chambers were fitted up with some degree of comfort; the castle court
+was cleansed, the cattle sheds removed to the rear, and the serfs
+were presented with seed, and offered payment in coin if they would
+give their labour in fencing and clearing the cornfield and vineyard
+which the barons were bent on forming on the sunny slope of the
+ravine.  Poverty was over, thanks to the marriage portion, and yet
+Ebbo looked less happy than in the days when there was but a bare
+subsistence; and he seemed to miss the full tide of city life more
+than did his brother, who, though he had enjoyed Ulm more heartily at
+the time, seemed to have returned to all his mountain delights with
+greater zest than ever.  At his favourite tarn, he revelled in the
+vast stillness with the greater awe for having heard the hum of men,
+and his minstrel dreams had derived fresh vigour from contact with
+the active world.  But, as usual, he was his brother's chief stay in
+the vexations of a reformer.  The serfs had much rather their lord
+had turned out a freebooter than an improver.  Why should they sow
+new seeds, when the old had sufficed their fathers?  Work, beyond the
+regulated days when they scratched up the soil of his old enclosure,
+was abhorrent to them.  As to his offered coin, they needed nothing
+it would buy, and had rather bask in the sun or sleep in the smoke.
+A vineyard had never been heard of on Adlerstein mountain:  it was
+clean contrary to his forefathers' habits; and all came of the bad
+drop of restless burgher blood, that could not let honest folk rest.
+
+Ebbo stormed, not merely with words, but blows, became ashamed of his
+violence, tried to atone for it by gifts and kind words, and in
+return was sulkily told that he would bring more good to the village
+by rolling the fiery wheel straight down hill at the wake, than by
+all his new-fangled ways.  Had not Koppel and a few younger men been
+more open to influence, his agricultural schemes could hardly have
+begun; but Friedel's persuasions were not absolutely without success,
+and every rood that was dug was achieved by his patience and
+perseverance.
+
+Next came home the Graf von Schlangenwald.  He had of late inhabited
+his castle in Styria, but in a fierce quarrel with some of his
+neighbours he had lost his eldest son, and the pacification enforced
+by the King of the Romans had so galled and infuriated him that he
+had deserted that part of the country and returned to Swabia more
+fierce and bitter than ever.  Thenceforth began a petty border
+warfare such as had existed when Christina first knew Adlerstein, but
+had of late died out.  The shepherd lad came home weeping with wrath.
+Three mounted Schlangenwaldern had driven off his four best sheep,
+and beaten himself with their halberds, though he was safe on
+Adlerstein ground.  Then a light thrown by a Schlangenwald reiter
+consumed all Jobst's pile of wood.  The swine did not come home, and
+were found with spears sticking in them; the great broad-horned bull
+that Ebbo had brought from the pastures of Ulm vanished from the Alp
+below the Gemsbock's Pass, and was known to be salted for winter use
+at Schlangenwald.
+
+Still Christina tried to persuade her sons that this might be only
+the retainers' violence, and induced Ebbo to write a letter,
+complaining of the outrages, but not blaming the Count, only begging
+that his followers might be better restrained.  The letter was
+conveyed by a lay brother--no other messenger being safe.  Ebbo had
+protested from the first that it would be of no use, but he waited
+anxiously for the answer.
+
+Thus it stood, when conveyed to him by a tenant of the Ruprecht
+cloister
+
+"Wot you, Eberhard, Freiherr von Adlerstein, that your house have
+injured me by thought, word, and deed.  Your great-grandfather
+usurped my lands at the ford.  Your grandfather stole my cattle and
+burnt my mills.  Then, in the war, he slew my brother Johann and
+lamed for life my cousin Matthias.  Your father slew eight of my
+retainers and spoiled my crops.  You yourself claim my land at the
+ford, and secure the spoil which is justly mine.  Therefore do I
+declare war and feud against you.  Therefore to you and all yours, to
+your helpers and helpers' helpers, am I a foe.  And thereby shall I
+have maintained my honour against you and yours.
+
+WOLFGANG, Graf von Schlangenwald.
+HIEROM, Graf von Schlangenwald--his cousin."
+&c. &c. &c.
+
+
+And a long list of names, all connected with Schlangenwald, followed;
+and a large seal, bearing the snake of Schlangenwald, was appended
+thereto.
+
+"The old miscreant!" burst out Ebbo; "it is a feud brief."
+
+"A feud brief!" exclaimed Friedel; "they are no longer according to
+the law."
+
+"Law?--what cares he for law or mercy either?  Is this the way men
+act by the League?  Did we not swear to send no more feud letters,
+nor have recourse to fist-right?"
+
+"We must appeal to the Markgraf of Wurtemburg," said Friedel.
+
+It was the only measure in their power, though Ebbo winced at it; but
+his oaths were recent, and his conscience would not allow him to
+transgress them by doing himself justice.  Besides, neither party
+could take the castle of the other, and the only reprisals in his
+power would have been on the defenceless peasants of Schlangenwald.
+He must therefore lay the whole matter before the Markgraf, who was
+the head of the Swabian League, and bound to redress his wrongs.  He
+made his arrangements without faltering, selecting the escort who
+were to accompany him, and insisting on leaving Friedel to guard his
+mother and the castle.  He would not for the world have admitted the
+suggestion that the counsel and introduction of Adlerstein
+Wildschloss would have been exceedingly useful to him.
+
+Poor Christina!  It was a great deal too like that former departure,
+and her heart was heavy within her!  Friedel was equally unhappy at
+letting his brother go without him, but it was quite necessary that
+he and the few armed men who remained should show themselves at all
+points open to the enemy in the course of the day, lest the
+Freiherr's absence should be remarked.  He did his best to cheer his
+mother, by reminding her that Ebbo was not likely to be taken at
+unawares as their father had been; and he shared the prayers and
+chapel services, in which she poured out her anxiety.
+
+The blue banner came safe up the Pass again, but Wurtemburg had been
+formally civil to the young Freiherr; but he had laughed at the fend
+letter as a mere old-fashioned habit of Schangenwald's that it was
+better not to notice, and he evidently regarded the stealing of a
+bull or the misusing of a serf as far too petty a matter for his
+attention.  It was as if a judge had been called by a crying child to
+settle a nursery quarrel.  He told Ebbo that, being a free Baron of
+the empire, he must keep his bounds respected; he was free to take
+and hang any spoiler he could catch, but his bulls were his own
+affair:  the League was not for such gear.
+
+And a knight who had ridden out of Stuttgard with Ebbo had told him
+that it was no wonder that this had been his reception, for not only
+was Schlangenwald an old intimate of the Markgraf, but Swabia was
+claimed as a fief of Wurtemburg, so that Ebbo's direct homage to the
+Emperor, without the interposition of the Markgraf, had made him no
+object of favour.
+
+"What could be done?" asked Ebbo.
+
+"Fire some Schlangenwald hamlet, and teach him to respect yours,"
+said the knight.
+
+"The poor serfs are guiltless."
+
+"Ha! ha! as if they would not rob any of yours.  Give and take,
+that's the way the empire wags, Sir Baron.  Send him a feud letter in
+return, with a goodly file of names at its foot, and teach him to
+respect you."
+
+"But I have sworn to abstain from fist-right."
+
+"Much you gain by so abstaining.  If the League will not take the
+trouble to right you, right yourself."
+
+"I shall appeal to the Emperor, and tell him how his League is
+administered."
+
+"Young sir, if the Emperor were to guard every cow in his domains he
+would have enough to do.  You will never prosper with him without
+some one to back your cause better than that free tongue of yours.
+Hast no sister that thou couldst give in marriage to a stout baron
+that could aid you with strong arm and prudent head?"
+
+"I have only one twin brother."
+
+"Ah! the twins of Adlerstein!  I remember me.  Was not the other
+Adlerstein seeking an alliance with your lady mother?  Sure no better
+aid could be found.  He is hand and glove with young King Max."
+
+"That may never be," said Ebbo, haughtily.  And, sure that he should
+receive the same advice, he decided against turning aside to consult
+his uncle at Ulm, and returned home in a mood that rejoiced Heinz and
+Hatto with hopes of the old days, while it filled his mother with
+dreary dismay and apprehension.
+
+"Schlangenwald should suffer next time he transgressed," said Ebbo.
+"It should not again be said that he himself was a coward who
+appealed to the law because his hand could not keep his head."
+
+The "next time" was when the first winter cold was setting in.  A
+party of reitern came to harry an outlying field, where Ulrich had
+raised a scanty crop of rye.  Tidings reached the castle in such good
+time that the two brothers, with Heinz, the two Ulm grooms, Koppel,
+and a troop of serfs, fell on the marauders before they had effected
+much damage, and while some remained to trample out the fire, the
+rest pursued the enemy even to the village of Schlangenwald.
+
+"Burn it, Herr Freiherr," cried Heinz, hot with victory.  "Let them
+learn how to make havoc of our corn."
+
+But a host of half-naked beings rushed out shrieking about sick
+children, bed-ridden grandmothers, and crippled fathers, and falling
+on their knees, with their hands stretched out to the young barons.
+Ebbo turned away his head with hot tears in his eyes.  "Friedel, what
+can we do?"
+
+"Not barbarous murder," said Friedel.
+
+"But they brand us for cowards!"
+
+"The cowardice were in striking here," and Friedel sprang to withhold
+Koppel, who had lighted a bundle of dried fern ready to thrust into
+the thatch.
+
+"Peasants!" said Ebbo, with the same impulse, "I spare you.  You did
+not this wrong.  But bear word to your lord, that if he will meet me
+with lance and sword, he will learn the valour of Adlerstein."
+
+The serfs flung themselves before him in transports of gratitude, but
+he turned hastily away and strode up the mountain, his cheek glowing
+as he remembered, too late, that his defiance would be scoffed at, as
+a boy's vaunt.  By and by he arrived at the hamlet, where he found a
+prisoner, a scowling, abject fellow, already well beaten, and now
+held by two serfs.
+
+"The halter is ready, Herr Freiherr," said old Ulrich, "and yon rowan
+stump is still as stout as when your Herr grandsire hung three
+lanzknechts on it in one day.  We only waited your bidding."
+
+"Quick then, and let me hear no more," said Ebbo, about to descend
+the pass, as if hastening from the execution of a wolf taken in a
+gin.
+
+"Has he seen the priest?" asked Friedel.
+
+The peasants looked as if this were one of Sir Friedel's
+unaccountable fancies.  Ebbo paused, frowned, and muttered, but
+seeing a move as if to drag the wretch towards the stunted bush
+overhanging an abyss, he shouted, "Hold, Ulrich!  Little Hans, do
+thou run down to the castle, and bring Father Jodocus to do his
+office!"
+
+The serfs were much disgusted.  "It never was so seen before, Herr
+Freiherr," remonstrated Heinz; "fang and hang was ever the word."
+
+"What shrift had my lord's father, or mine?" added Koppel.
+
+"Look you!" said Ebbo, turning sharply.  "If Schlangenwald be a
+godless ruffian, pitiless alike to soul and body, is that a cause
+that I should stain myself too?"
+
+"It were true vengeance," growled Koppel.
+
+"And now," grumbled Ulrich, "will my lady hear, and there will be
+feeble pleadings for the vermin's life."
+
+Like mutterings ensued, the purport of which was caught by Friedel,
+and made him say to Ebbo, who would again have escaped the
+disagreeableness of the scene, "We had better tarry at hand.  Unless
+we hold the folk in some check there will be no right execution.
+They will torture him to death ere the priest comes."
+
+Ebbo yielded, and began to pace the scanty area of the flat rock
+where the need-fire was wont to blaze.  After a time he exclaimed:
+"Friedel, how couldst ask me?  Knowst not that it sickens me to see a
+mountain cat killed, save in full chase.  And thou--why, thou art
+white as the snow crags!"
+
+"Better conquer the folly than that he there should be put to
+needless pain," said Friedel, but with labouring breath that showed
+how terrible was the prospect to his imaginative soul not inured to
+death-scenes like those of his fellows.
+
+Just then a mocking laugh broke forth.  "Ha!" cried Ebbo, looking
+keenly down, "what do ye there?  Fang and hang may be fair; fang and
+torment is base!  What was it, Lieschen?"
+
+"Only, Herr Freiherr, the caitiff craved drink, and the fleischerinn
+gave him a cup from the stream behind the slaughter-house, where we
+killed the swine.  Fit for the like of him!"
+
+"By heavens, when I forbade torture!" cried Ebbo, leaping from the
+rock in time to see the disgusting draught held to the lips of the
+captive, whose hands were twisted back and bound with cruel
+tightness; for the German boor, once roused from his lazy good-
+nature, was doubly savage from stolidity.
+
+"Wretches!" cried Ebbo, striking right and left with the back of his
+sword, among the serfs, and then cutting the thong that was eating
+into the prisoner's flesh, while Friedel caught up a wooden bowl,
+filled it with pure water, and offered it to the captive, who drank
+deeply.
+
+"Now," said Ebbo, "hast ought to say for thyself?"
+
+A low curse against things in general was the only answer.
+
+"What brought thee here?" continued Ebbo, in hopes of extracting some
+excuse for pardon; but the prisoner only hung his head as one
+stupefied, brutally indifferent and hardened against the mere trouble
+of answering.  Not another word could be extracted, and Ebbo's
+position was very uncomfortable, keeping guard over his condemned
+felon, with the sulky peasants herding round, in fear of being balked
+of their prey; and the reluctance growing on him every moment to
+taking life in cold blood.  Right of life and death was a heavy
+burden to a youth under seventeen, unless he had been thoughtless and
+reckless, and from this Ebbo had been prevented by his peculiar life.
+The lion cub had never tasted blood.
+
+The situation was prolonged beyond expectation.
+
+Many a time had the brothers paced their platform of rock, the
+criminal had fallen into a dose, and women and boys were murmuring
+that they must call home their kine and goats, and it was a shame to
+debar them of the sight of the hanging, long before Hans came back
+between crying and stammering, to say that Father Jodocus had fallen
+into so deep a study over his book, that he only muttered "Coming,"
+then went into another musing fit, whence no one could rouse him to
+do more than say "Coming!  Let him wait."
+
+"I must go and bring him, if the thing is to be done," said Friedel.
+
+"And let it last all night!" was the answer.  "No, if the man were to
+die, it should be at once, not by inches.  Hark thee, rogue!"
+stirring him with his foot.
+
+"Well, sir," said the man, "is the hanging ready yet?  You've been
+long enough about it for us to have twisted the necks of every
+Adlerstein of you all."
+
+"Look thee, caitiff!" said Ebbo; "thou meritest the rope as well as
+any wolf on the mountain, but we have kept thee so long in suspense,
+that if thou canst say a word for thy life, or pledge thyself to
+meddle no more with my lands, I'll consider of thy doom."
+
+"You have had plenty of time to consider it," growled the fellow.
+
+A murmur, followed by a wrathful shout, rose among the villagers.
+"Letting off the villain!  No!  No!  Out upon him!  He dares not!"
+
+"Dare!" thundered Ebbo, with flashing eyes.  "Rascals as ye are,
+think ye to hinder me from daring?  Your will to be mine?  There,
+fellow; away with thee!  Up to the Gemsbock's Pass!  And whoso would
+follow him, let him do so at his peril!"
+
+The prisoner was prompt to gather himself up and rush like a hunted
+animal to the path, at the entrance of which stood both twins, with
+drawn swords, to defend the escape.  Of course no one ventured to
+follow; and surly discontented murmurs were the sole result as the
+peasants dispersed.  Ebbo, sheathing his sword, and putting his arm
+into his brother's, said:  "What, Friedel, turned stony-hearted?
+Hadst never a word for the poor caitiff?"
+
+"I knew thou wouldst never do the deed," said Friedel, smiling.
+
+"It was such wretched prey," said Ebbo.  "Yet shall I be despised for
+this!  Would that thou hadst let me string him up shriftless, as any
+other man had done, and there would have been an end of it!"
+
+And even his mother's satisfaction did not greatly comfort Ebbo, for
+he was of the age to feel more ashamed of a solecism than a crime.
+Christina perceived that this was one of his most critical periods of
+life, baited as he was by the enemy of his race, and feeling all the
+disadvantages which heart and conscience gave him in dealing with a
+man who had neither, at a time when public opinion was always with
+the most masterful.  The necessity of arming his retainers and having
+fighting men as a guard were additional temptations to hereditary
+habits of violence; and that so proud and fiery a nature as his
+should never become involved in them was almost beyond hope.  Even
+present danger seemed more around than ever before.  The estate was
+almost in a state of siege, and Christina never saw her sons quit the
+castle without thinking of their father's fate, and passing into the
+chapel to entreat for their return unscathed in body or soul.  The
+snow, which she had so often hailed as a friend, was never more
+welcome than this winter; not merely as shutting the enemy out, and
+her sons in, but as cutting off all danger of a visit from her
+suitor, who would now come armed with his late sufferings in her
+behalf; and, moreover, with all the urgent need of a wise and
+respected head and protector for her sons.  Yet the more evident the
+expediency became, the greater grew her distaste.
+
+Still the lonely life weighed heavily on Ebbo.  Light-hearted Friedel
+was ever busy and happy, were he chasing the grim winter game--the
+bear and wolf--with his brother, fencing in the hall, learning Greek
+with the chaplain, reading or singing to his mother, or carving
+graceful angel forms to adorn the chapel.  Or he could at all times
+soar into a minstrel dream of pure chivalrous semi-allegorical
+romance, sometimes told over the glowing embers to his mother and
+brother.  All that came to Friedel was joy, from battling with the
+bear on a frozen rock, to persuading rude little Hans to come to the
+Frau Freiherrinn to learn his Paternoster.  But the elder twin might
+hunt, might fence, might smile or kindle at his brother's lay, but
+ever with a restless gloom on him, a doubt of the future which made
+him impatient of the present, and led to a sharpness and hastiness of
+manner that broke forth in anger at slight offences.
+
+"The matron's coif succeeding the widow's veil," Friedel heard him
+muttering even in sleep, and more than once listened to it as Ebbo
+leant over the battlements--as he looked over the white world to the
+gray mist above the city of Ulm.
+
+"Thou, who mockest my forebodings and fancies, to dwell on that gipsy
+augury!" argued Friedel.  "As thou saidst at the time, Wildschloss's
+looks gave shrewd cause for it."
+
+"The answer is in mine own heart," answered Ebbo.  "Since our stay at
+Ulm, I have ever felt as though the sweet motherling were less my
+own!  And the same with my house and lands.  Rule as I will, a
+mocking laugh comes back to me, saying:  'Thou art but a boy, Sir
+Baron, thou dost but play at lords and knights.'  If I had hung yon
+rogue of a reiter, I wonder if I had felt my grasp more real?"
+
+"Nay," said Friedel, glancing from the sparkling white slopes to the
+pure blue above, "our whole life is but a play at lords and knights,
+with the blessed saints as witnesses of our sport in the tilt-yard."
+
+"Were it merely that," said Ebbo, impatiently, "I were not so galled.
+Something hangs over us, Friedel!  I long that these snows would
+melt, that I might at least know what it is!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII:  BRIDGING THE FORD
+
+
+
+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 melee
+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 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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII:  FRIEDMUND IN THE CLOUDS
+
+
+
+The stone 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 tell YOU--YOU I 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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX:  THE FIGHT AT THE FORD
+
+
+
+By the 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 reveille.  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 melee 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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX:  THE WOUNDED EAGLE
+
+
+
+The star 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."
+
+"Not mine own hurt," said Ebbo; "that was but fair chance of war."
+
+"I understand," said the knight; "it was the shot that severed the
+goodly bond that was so fair to see.  Young man, none has grieved
+more truly than King Max."
+
+"And well he may," said Ebbo.  "He has not lost merely one of his
+best servants, but all the better half of another."
+
+"There is still stuff enough left to make that ONE well worth
+having," said Theurdank, kindly grasping his hand, "though I would it
+were more substantial!  How didst get old Wolfgang down, boy?  He
+must have been a tough morsel for slight bones like these, even when
+better covered than now.  Come, tell me all.  I promised the Markgraf
+of Wurtemburg to look into the matter when I came to be guest at St.
+Ruprecht's cloister, and I have some small interest too with King
+Max."
+
+His kindliness and sympathy were more effectual with Ebbo than the
+desire to represent his case favourably, for he was still too
+wretched to care for policy; but he answered Theurdank's questions
+readily, and explained how the idea of the bridge had originated in
+the vigil beside the broken waggons.
+
+"I hope," said Theurdank, "the merchants made up thy share?  These
+overthrown goods are a seignorial right of one or other of you lords
+of the bank."
+
+"True, Herr Ritter; but we deemed it unknightly to snatch at what
+travellers lost by misfortune."
+
+"Freiherr Eberhard, take my word for it, while thou thus holdest, all
+the arquebuses yet to be cut out of the Black Forest will not mar thy
+chivalry.  Where didst get these ways of thinking?"
+
+"My brother was a very St. Sebastian!  My mother--"
+
+"Ah! her sweet wise face would have shown it, even had not poor
+Kasimir of Adlerstein raved of her.  Ah! lad, thou hast crossed a
+case of true love there!  Canst not brook even such a gallant
+stepfather?"
+
+"I may not," said Ebbo, with spirit; "for with his last breath
+Schlangenwald owned that my own father died not at the hostel, but
+may now be alive as a Turkish slave."
+
+"The devil!" burst out Theurdank.  "Well! that might have been a
+pretty mess!  A Turkish slave, saidst thou!  What year chanced all
+this matter--thy grandfather's murder and all the rest?"
+
+"The year before my birth," said Ebbo.  "It was in the September of
+1475."
+
+"Ha!" muttered Theurdank, musing to himself; "that was the year the
+dotard Schenk got his overthrow at the fight of Rain on Sare from the
+Moslem.  Some composition was made by them, and old Wolfgang was not
+unlikely to have been the go-between.  So!  Say on, young knight," he
+added, "let us to the matter in hand.  How rose the strife that kept
+back two troops from our--from the banner of the empire?"
+
+Ebbo proceeded with the narration, and concluded it just as the bell
+now belonging to the chapel began to toll for compline, and Theurdank
+prepared to obey its summons, first, however, asking if he should
+send any one to the patient.  Ebbo thanked him, but said he needed no
+one till his mother should come after prayers.
+
+"Nay, I told thee I had some leechcraft.  Thou art weary, and must
+rest more entirely;"--and, giving him little choice, Theurdank
+supported him with one arm while removing the pillows that propped
+him, then laid him tenderly down, saying, "Good night, and the saints
+bless thee, brave young knight.  Sleep well, and recover in spite of
+the leeches.  I cannot afford to lose both of you."
+
+Ebbo strove to follow mentally the services that were being performed
+in the chapel, and whose "Amens" and louder notes pealed up to him,
+devoid of the clear young tones that had sung their last here below,
+but swelled by grand bass notes that as much distracted Ebbo's
+attention as the memory of his guest's conversation; and he
+impatiently awaited his mother's arrival.
+
+At length, lamp in hand, she appeared with tears shining in her eyes,
+and bending over him said,
+
+"He hath done honour to our blessed one, my Ebbo; he knelt by him,
+and crossed him with holy water, and when he led me from the chapel
+he told me any mother in Germany might envy me my two sons even now.
+Thou must love him now, Ebbo."
+
+"Love him as one loves one's loftiest model," said Ebbo--"value the
+old castle the more for sheltering him."
+
+"Hath he made himself known to thee?"
+
+"Not openly, but there is only one that he can be."
+
+Christina smiled, thankful that the work of pardon and reconciliation
+had been thus softened by the personal qualities of the enemy, whose
+conduct in the chapel had deeply moved her.
+
+"Then all will be well, blessedly well," she said.
+
+"So I trust," said Ebbo, "but the bell broke our converse, and he
+laid me down as tenderly as--O mother, if a father's kindness be like
+his, I have truly somewhat to regain."
+
+"Knew he aught of the fell bargain?" whispered Christina.
+
+"Not he, of course, save that it was a year of Turkish inroads.  He
+will speak more perchance to-morrow.  Mother, not a word to any one,
+nor let us betray our recognition unless it be his pleasure to make
+himself known."
+
+"Certainly not," said Christina, remembering the danger that the
+household might revenge Friedel's death if they knew the foe to be in
+their power.  Knowing as she did that Ebbo's admiration was apt to be
+enthusiastic, and might now be rendered the more fervent by fever and
+solitude, she was still at a loss to understand his dazzled,
+fascinated state.
+
+When Heinz entered, bringing the castle key, which was always laid
+under the Baron's pillow, Ebbo made a movement with his hand that
+surprised them both, as if to send it elsewhere--then muttered, "No,
+no, not till he reveals himself," and asked, "Where sleeps the
+guest?"
+
+"In the grandmother's room, which we fitted for a guest-chamber,
+little thinking who our first would be," said his mother.
+
+"Never fear, lady; we will have a care to him," said Heinz, somewhat
+grimly.
+
+"Yes, have a care," said Ebbo, wearily; "and take care all due honour
+is shown to him!  Good night, Heinz."
+
+"Gracious lady," said Heinz, when by a sign he had intimated to her
+his desire of speaking with her unobserved by the Baron, "never fear;
+I know who the fellow is as well as you do.  I shall be at the foot
+of the stairs, and woe to whoever tries to step up them past me."
+
+"There is no reason to apprehend treason, Heinz, yet to be on our
+guard can do no harm."
+
+"Nay, lady, I could look to the gear for the oubliette if you would
+speak the word."
+
+"For heaven's sake, no, Heinz.  This man has come hither trusting to
+our honour, and you could not do your lord a greater wrong, nor one
+that he could less pardon, than by any attempt on our guest."
+
+"Would that he had never eaten our bread!" muttered Heinz.  "Vipers
+be they all, and who knows what may come next?"
+
+"Watch, watch, Heinz; that is all," implored Christina, "and, above
+all, not a word to any one else."
+
+And Christina dismissed the man-at-arms gruff and sullen, and herself
+retired ill at ease between fears of, and for, the unwelcome guest
+whose strange powers of fascination had rendered her, in his absence,
+doubly distrustful.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI:  RITTER THEURDANK
+
+
+
+The snow fell all night without ceasing, and was still falling on the
+morrow, when the guest explained his desire of paying a short visit
+to the young Baron, and then taking his departure.  Christina would
+gladly have been quit of him, but she felt bound to remonstrate, for
+their mountain was absolutely impassable during a fall of snow, above
+all when accompanied by wind, since the drifts concealed fearful
+abysses, and the shifting masses insured destruction to the unwary
+wayfarer; nay, natives themselves had perished between the hamlet and
+the castle.
+
+"Not the hardiest cragsman, not my son himself," she said, "could
+venture on such a morning to guide you to--"
+
+"Whither, gracious dame?" asked Theurdank, half smiling.
+
+"Nay, sir, I would not utter what you would not make known."
+
+"You know me then?"
+
+"Surely, sir, for our noble foe, whose generous trust in our honour
+must win my son's heart."
+
+"So!" he said, with a peculiar smile, "Theurdank--Dankwart--I see!
+May I ask if your son likewise smelt out the Schlangenwald?"
+
+"Verily, Sir Count, my Ebbo is not easily deceived.  He said our
+guest could be but one man in all the empire."
+
+Theurdank smiled again, saying, "Then, lady, you shudder not at a man
+whose kin and yours have shed so much of one another's blood?"
+
+"Nay, ghostly knight, I regard you as no more stained therewith than
+are my sons by the deeds of their grandfather."
+
+"If there were more like you, lady," returned Theurdank, "deadly
+feuds would soon be starved out.  May I to your son?  I have more to
+say to him, and I would fain hear his views of the storm."
+
+Christina could not be quite at ease with Theurdank in her son's
+room, but she had no choice, and she knew that Heinz was watching on
+the turret stair, out of hearing indeed, but as ready to spring as a
+cat who sees her young ones in the hand of a child that she only half
+trusts.
+
+Ebbo lay eagerly watching for his visitor, who greeted him with the
+same almost paternal kindness he had evinced the night before, but
+consulted him upon the way from the castle.  Ebbo confirmed his
+mother's opinion that the path was impracticable so long as the snow
+fell, and the wind tossed it in wild drifts.
+
+"We have been caught in snow," he said, "and hard work have we had to
+get home!  Once indeed, after a bear hunt, we fully thought the
+castle stood before us, and lo! it was all a cruel snow mist in that
+mocking shape.  I was even about to climb our last Eagle's Step, as I
+thought, when behold, it proved to be the very brink of the abyss."
+
+"Ah! these ravines are well-nigh as bad as those of the Inn.  I've
+known what it was to be caught on the ledge of a precipice by a sharp
+wind, changing its course, mark'st thou, so swiftly that it verily
+tore my hold from the rock, and had well-nigh swept me into a chasm
+of mighty depth.  There was nothing for it but to make the best
+spring I might towards the crag on the other side, and grip for my
+life at my alpenstock, which by Our Lady's grace was firmly planted,
+and I held on till I got breath again, and felt for my footing on the
+ice-glazed rock."
+
+"Ah!" said Eberhard with a long breath, after having listened with a
+hunter's keen interest to this hair's-breadth escape, "it sounds like
+a gust of my mountain air thus let in on me."
+
+"Truly it is dismal work for a lusty hunter to lie here," said
+Theurdank, "but soon shalt thou take thy crags again in full vigour,
+I hope.  How call'st thou the deep gray lonely pool under a steep
+frowning crag sharpened well-nigh to a spear point, that I passed
+yester afternoon?"
+
+"The Ptarmigan's Mere, the Red Eyrie," murmured Ebbo, scarcely able
+to utter the words as he thought of Friedel's delight in the pool,
+his exploit at the eyrie, and the gay bargain made in the streets of
+Ulm, that he should show the scaler of the Dom steeple the way to the
+eagle's nest.
+
+"I remember," said his guest gravely, coming to his side.  "Ah, boy!
+thy brother's flight has been higher yet.  Weep freely; fear me not.
+Do I not know what it is, when those who were over-good for earth
+have found their eagle's wings, and left us here?"
+
+Ebbo gazed up through his tears into the noble, mournful face that
+was bent kindly over him.  "I will not seek to comfort thee by
+counselling thee to forget," said Theurdank.  "I was scarce thine
+elder when my life was thus rent asunder, and to hoar hairs, nay, to
+the grave itself, will she be my glory and my sorrow.  Never owned I
+brother, but I trow ye two were one in no common sort."
+
+"Such brothers as we saw at Ulm were little like us," returned Ebbo,
+from the bottom of his heart.  "We were knit together so that all
+will begin with me as if it were the left hand remaining alone to do
+it!  I am glad that my old life may not even in shadow be renewed
+till after I have gone in quest of my father."
+
+"Be not over hasty in that quest," said the guest, "or the infidels
+may chance to gain two Freiherren instead of one.  Hast any designs?"
+
+Ebbo explained that he thought of making his way to Genoa to consult
+the merchant Gian Battista dei Battiste, whose description of the
+captive German noble had so strongly impressed Friedel.  Ebbo knew
+the difference between Turks and Moors, but Friedel's impulse guided
+him, and he further thought that at Genoa he should learn the way to
+deal with either variety of infidel.  Theurdank thought this a
+prudent course, since the Genoese had dealings both at Tripoli and
+Constantinople; and, moreover, the transfer was not impossible, since
+the two different hordes of Moslems trafficked among themselves when
+either had made an unusually successful razzia.
+
+"Shame," he broke out, "that these Eastern locusts, these ravening
+hounds, should prey unmolested on the fairest lands of the earth, and
+our German nobles lie here like swine, grunting and squealing over
+the plunder they grub up from one another, deaf to any summons from
+heaven or earth!  Did not Heaven's own voice speak in thunder this
+last year, even in November, hurling the mighty thunderbolt of
+Alsace, an ell long, weighing two hundred and fifteen pounds?  Did I
+not cause it to be hung up in the church of Encisheim, as a witness
+and warning of the plagues that hang over us?  But no, nothing will
+quicken them from their sloth and drunkenness till the foe are at
+their doors; and, if a man arise of different mould, with some heart
+for the knightly, the good, and the true, then they kill him for me!
+But thou, Adlerstein, this pious quest over, thou wilt return to me.
+Thou hast head to think and heart to feel for the shame and woe of
+this misguided land."
+
+"I trust so, my lord," said Ebbo.  "Truly, I have suffered bitterly
+for pursuing my own quarrel rather than the crusade."
+
+"I meant not thee," said Theurdank, kindly.  "Thy bridge is a benefit
+to me, as much as, or more than, ever it can be to thee.  Dost know
+Italian?  There is something of Italy in thine eye."
+
+"My mother's mother was Italian, my lord; but she died so early that
+her language has not descended to my mother or myself."
+
+"Thou shouldst learn it.  It will be pastime while thou art bed-fast,
+and serve thee well in dealing with the Moslem.  Moreover, I may have
+work for thee in Welschland.  Books?  I will send thee books.  There
+is the whole chronicle of Karl the Great, and all his Palsgrafen, by
+Pulci and Boiardo, a brave Count and gentleman himself, governor of
+Reggio, and worthy to sing of deeds of arms; so choice, too, as to
+the names of his heroes, that they say he caused his church bells to
+be rung when he had found one for Rodomonte, his infidel Hector.  He
+has shown up Roland as a love-sick knight, though, which is out of
+all accord with Archbishop Turpin.  Wilt have him?"
+
+"When we were together, we used to love tales of chivalry."
+
+"Ah!  Or wilt have the stern old Ghibelline Florentine, who explored
+the three realms of the departed?  Deep lore, and well-nigh
+unsearchable, is his; but I love him for the sake of his Beatrice,
+who guided him.  May we find such guides in our day!"
+
+"I have heard of him," said Ebbo.  "If he will tell me where my
+Friedel walks in light, then, my lord, I would read him with all my
+heart."
+
+"Or wouldst thou have rare Franciscus Petrarca?  I wot thou art too
+young as yet for the yearnings of his sonnets, but their voice is
+sweet to the bereft heart."
+
+And he murmured over, in their melodious Italian flow, the lines on
+Laura's death
+
+
+"Not pallid, but yet whiter than the snow
+By wind unstirred that on a hillside lies;
+Rest seemed as on a weary frame to grow,
+A gentle slumber pressed her lovely eyes."
+
+
+"Ah!" he added aloud to himself, "it is ever to me as though the poet
+had watched in that chamber at Ghent."
+
+Such were the discourses of that morning, now on poetry and book
+lore; now admiration of the carvings that decked the room; now talk
+on grand architectural designs, or improvements in fire-arms, or the
+discussion of hunting adventures.  There seemed nothing in art, life,
+or learning in which the versatile mind of Theurdank was not at home,
+or that did not end in some strange personal reminiscence of his own.
+All was so kind, so gracious, and brilliant, that at first the
+interview was full of wondering delight to Ebbo, but latterly it
+became very fatiguing from the strain of attention, above all towards
+a guest who evidently knew that he was known, while not permitting
+such recognition to be avowed.  Ebbo began to long for an
+interruption, but, though he could see by the lightened sky that the
+weather had cleared up, it would have been impossible to have
+suggested to any guest that the way might now probably be open, and
+more especially to such a guest as this.  Considerate as his visitor
+had been the night before, the pleasure of talk seemed to have done
+away with the remembrance of his host's weakness, till Ebbo so
+flagged that at last he was scarcely alive to more than the continued
+sound of the voice, and all the pain that for a while had been in
+abeyance seemed to have mastered him; but his guest, half reading his
+books, half discoursing, seemed too much immersed in his own plans,
+theories, and adventures, to mark the condition of his auditor.
+
+Interruption came at last, however.  There was a sudden knock at the
+door at noon, and with scant ceremony Heinz entered, followed by
+three other of the men-at-arms, fully equipped.
+
+"Ha! what means this?" demanded Ebbo.
+
+"Peace, Sir Baron," said Heinz, advancing so as to place his large
+person between Ebbo's bed and the strange hunter.  "You know nothing
+of it.  We are not going to lose you as well as your brother, and we
+mean to see how this knight likes to serve as a hostage instead of
+opening the gates as a traitor spy.  On him, Koppel! it is thy
+right."
+
+"Hands off! at your peril, villains!" exclaimed Ebbo, sitting up, and
+speaking in the steady resolute voice that had so early rendered him
+thoroughly their master, but much perplexed and dismayed, and
+entirely unassisted by Theurdank, who stood looking on with almost a
+smile, as if diverted by his predicament.
+
+"By your leave, Herr Freiherr," said Heinz, putting his hand on his
+shoulder, "this is no concern of yours.  While you cannot guard
+yourself or my lady, it is our part to do so.  I tell you his minions
+are on their way to surprise the castle."
+
+Even as Heinz spoke, Christina came panting into the room, and,
+hurrying to her son's side, said, "Sir Count, is this just, is this
+honourable, thus to return my son's welcome, in his helpless
+condition?"
+
+"Mother, are you likewise distracted?" exclaimed Ebbo.  "What is all
+this madness?"
+
+"Alas, my son, it is no frenzy!  There are armed men coming up the
+Eagle's Stairs on the one hand and by the Gemsbock's Pass on the
+other!"
+
+"But not a hair of your head shall they hurt, lady," said Heinz.
+"This fellow's limbs shall be thrown to them over the battlements.
+On, Koppel!"
+
+"Off, Koppel!" thundered Ebbo.  "Would you brand me with shame for
+ever?  Were he all the Schlangenwalds in one, he should go as freely
+as he came; but he is no more Schlangenwald than I am."
+
+"He has deceived you, my lord," said Heinz.  "My lady's own letter to
+Schlangenwald was in his chamber.  'Tis a treacherous disguise."
+
+"Fool that thou art!" said Ebbo.  "I know this gentleman well.  I
+knew him at Ulm.  Those who meet him here mean me no ill.  Open the
+gates and receive them honourably!  Mother, mother, trust me, all is
+well.  I know what I am saying."
+
+The men looked one upon another.  Christina wrung her hands,
+uncertain whether her son were not under some strange fatal
+deception.
+
+"My lord has his fancies," growled Koppel.  "I'll not be balked of my
+right of vengeance for his scruples!  Will he swear that this fellow
+is what he calls himself?"
+
+"I swear," said Ebbo, slowly, "that he is a true loyal knight, well
+known to me."
+
+"Swear it distinctly, Sir Baron," said Heinz.  "We have all too deep
+a debt of vengeance to let off any one who comes here lurking in the
+interest of our foe.  Swear that this is Theurdank, or we send his
+head to greet his friends."
+
+Drops stood on Ebbo's brow, and his breath laboured as he felt his
+senses reeling, and his powers of defence for his guest failing him.
+Even should the stranger confess his name, the people of the castle
+might not believe him; and here he stood like one indifferent,
+evidently measuring how far his young host would go in his cause.
+
+"I cannot swear that his real name is Theurdank," said Ebbo, rallying
+his forces, "but this I swear, that he is neither friend nor fosterer
+of Schlangenwald, that I know him, and I had rather die than that the
+slightest indignity were offered him."  Here, and with a great effort
+that terribly wrenched his wounded leg, he reached past Heinz, and
+grasped his guest's hand, pulling him as near as he could.
+
+"Sir," he said, "if they try to lay hands on you, strike my death-
+blow!"
+
+A bugle-horn was wound outside.  The men stood daunted--Christina in
+extreme terror for her son, who lay gasping, breathless, but still
+clutching the stranger's hand, and with eyes of fire glaring on the
+mutinous warriors.  Another bugle-blast!  Heinz was almost in the act
+of grappling with the silent foe, and Koppel cried as he raised his
+halbert, "Now or never!" but paused.
+
+"Never, so please you," said the strange guest.  "What if your young
+lord could not forswear himself that my name is Theurdank!  Are you
+foes to all the world save Theurdank?"
+
+"No masking," said Heinz, sternly.  "Tell your true name as an honest
+man, and we will judge whether you be friend or foe."
+
+"My name is a mouthful, as your master knows," said the guest,
+slowly, looking with strangely amused eyes on the confused
+lanzknechts, who were trying to devour their rage.  "I was baptized
+Maximilianus; Archduke of Austria, by birth; by choice of the
+Germans, King of the Romans."
+
+"The Kaisar!"
+
+Christina dropped on her knee; the men-at-arms tumbled backwards;
+Ebbo pressed the hand he held to his lips, and fainted away.  The
+bugle sounded for the third time.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII:  PEACE
+
+
+
+Slowly and painfully did Ebbo recover from his swoon, feeling as if
+the means of revival were rending him away from his brother.  He was
+so completely spent that he was satisfied with a mere assurance that
+nothing was amiss, and presently dropped into a profound slumber,
+whence he awoke to find it still broad daylight, and his mother
+sitting by the side of his bed, all looking so much as it had done
+for the last six weeks, that his first inquiry was if all that had
+happened had been but a strange dream.  His mother would scarcely
+answer till she had satisfied herself that his eye was clear, his
+voice steady, his hand cool, and that, as she said, "That Kaisar had
+done him no harm."
+
+"Ah, then it was true!  Where is he?  Gone?" cried Ebbo, eagerly.
+
+"No, in the hall below, busy with letters they have brought him.  Lie
+still, my boy; he has done thee quite enough damage for one day."
+
+"But, mother, what are you saying!  Something disloyal, was it not?"
+
+"Well, Ebbo, I was very angry that he should have half killed you
+when he could so easily have spoken one word.  Heaven forgive me if I
+did wrong, but I could not help it."
+
+"Did HE forgive you, mother?" said Ebbo, anxiously.
+
+"He--oh yes.  To do him justice he was greatly concerned; devised
+ways of restoring thee, and now has promised not to come near thee
+again without my leave," said the mother, quite as persuaded of her
+own rightful sway in her son's sick chamber as ever Kunigunde had
+been of her dominion over the castle.
+
+"And is he displeased with me?  Those cowardly vindictive rascals, to
+fall on him, and set me at nought!  Before him, too!" exclaimed Ebbo,
+bitterly.
+
+"Nay, Ebbo, he thought thy part most gallant.  I heard him say so,
+not only to me, but below stairs--both wise and true.  Thou didst
+know him then?"
+
+"From the first glance of his princely eye--the first of his keen
+smiles.  I had seen him disguised before.  I thought you knew him
+too, mother; I never guessed that your mind was running on
+Schlangenwald when we talked at cross purposes last night."
+
+"Would that I had; but though I breathed no word openly, I encouraged
+Heinz's precautions.  My boy, I could not help it; my heart would
+tremble for my only one, and I saw he could not be what he seemed."
+
+"And what doth he here?  Who were the men who were advancing?"
+
+"They were the followers he had left at St. Ruprecht's, and likewise
+Master Schleiermacher and Sir Kasimir of Wildschloss."
+
+"Ha!"
+
+"What--he had not told thee?"
+
+"No.  He knew that I knew him, was at no pains to disguise himself,
+yet evidently meant me to treat him as a private knight.  But what
+brought Wildschloss here?"
+
+"It seems," said Christina, "that, on the return from Carinthia, the
+Kaisar expressed his intention of slipping away from his army in his
+own strange fashion, and himself inquiring into the matter of the
+Ford.  So he took with him his own personal followers, the new Graf
+von Schlangenwald, Herr Kasimir, and Master Schleiermacher.  The
+others he sent to Schlangenwald; he himself lodged at St. Ruprecht's,
+appointing that Sir Kasimir should meet him there this morning.  From
+the convent he started on a chamois hunt, and made his way hither;
+but, when the snow came on, and he returned not, his followers became
+uneasy, and came in search of him."
+
+"Ah!" said Ebbo, "he meant to intercede for Wildschloss--it might be
+he would have tried his power.  No, for that he is too generous.  How
+looked Wildschloss, mother?"
+
+"How could I tell how any one looked save thee, my poor wan boy?
+Thou art paler than ever!  I cannot have any king or kaisar of them
+all come to trouble thee."
+
+"Nay, motherling, there is much more trouble and unrest to me in not
+knowing how my king will treat us after such a requital!  Prithee let
+him know that I am at his service."
+
+And, after having fed and refreshed her patient, the gentle potentate
+of his chamber consented to intimate her consent to admit the
+invader.  But not till after delay enough to fret the impatient
+nerves of illness did Maximilian appear, handing her in, and saying,
+in the cheery voice that was one of his chief fascinations,
+
+"Yea, truly, fair dame, I know thou wouldst sooner trust
+Schlangenwald himself than me alone with thy charge.  How goes it, my
+true knight?"
+
+"Well, right well, my liege," said Ebbo, "save for my shame and
+grief."
+
+"Thou art the last to be ashamed for that," said the good-natured
+prince.  "Have I never seen my faithful vassals more bent on their
+own feuds than on my word?--I who reign over a set of kings, who
+brook no will but their own."
+
+"And may we ask your pardon," said Ebbo, "not only for ourselves, but
+for the misguided men-at-arms?"
+
+"What! the grewsome giant that was prepared with the axe, and the
+honest lad that wanted to do his duty by his father?  I honour that
+lad, Freiherr; I would enrol him in my guard, but that probably he is
+better off here than with Massimiliano pochi danari, as the Italians
+call me.  But what I came hither to say was this," and he spoke
+gravely:  "thou art sincere in desiring reconciliation with the house
+of Schlangenwald?"
+
+"With all my heart," said Ebbo, "do I loathe the miserable debt of
+blood for blood!"
+
+"And," said Maximilian, "Graf Dankwart is of like mind.  Bred from
+pagedom in his Prussian commandery, he has never been exposed to the
+irritations that have fed the spirit of strife, and he will be
+thankful to lay it aside.  The question next is how to solemnize this
+reconciliation, ere your retainers on one side or the other do
+something to set you by the ears together again, which, judging by
+this morning's work, is not improbable."
+
+"Alas! no," said Ebbo, "while I am laid by."
+
+"Had you both been in our camp, you should have sworn friendship in
+my chapel.  Now must Dankwart come hither to thee, as I trow he had
+best do, while I am here to keep the peace.  See, friend Ebbo, we
+will have him here to-morrow; thy chaplain shall deck the altar here,
+the Father Abbot shall say mass, and ye shall swear peace and
+brotherhood before me.  And," he added, taking Ebbo's hand, "I shall
+know how to trust thine oaths as of one who sets the fear of God
+above that of his king."
+
+This was truly the only chance of impressing on the wild vassals of
+the two houses an obligation that perhaps might override their
+ancient hatred; and the Baron and his mother gladly submitted to the
+arrangement.  Maximilian withdrew to give directions for summoning
+the persons required and Christina was soon obliged to leave her son,
+while she provided for her influx of guests.
+
+Ebbo was alone till nearly the end of the supper below stairs.  He
+had been dozing, when a cautious tread came up the turret steps, and
+he started, and called out, "Who goes there?  I am not asleep."
+
+"It is your kinsman, Freiherr," said a well-known voice; "I come by
+your mother's leave."
+
+"Welcome, Sir Cousin," said Ebbo, holding out his hand.  "You come to
+find everything changed."
+
+"I have knelt in the chapel," said Wildschloss, gravely.
+
+"And he loved you better than I!" said Ebbo.
+
+"Your jealousy of me was a providential thing, for which all may be
+thankful," said Wildschloss gravely; "yet it is no small thing to
+lose the hope of so many years!  However, young Baron, I have grave
+matter for your consideration.  Know you the service on which I am to
+be sent?  The Kaisar deems that the Armenians or some of the
+Christian nations on the skirts of the Ottoman empire might be made
+our allies, and attack the Turk in his rear.  I am chosen as his
+envoy, and shall sail so soon as I can make my way to Venice.  I only
+knew of the appointment since I came hither, he having been led
+thereto by letters brought him this day; and mayhap by the downfall
+of my hopes.  He was peremptory, as his mood is, and seemed to think
+it no small favour," added Wildschloss, with some annoyance.  "And
+meantime, what of my poor child?  There she is in the cloister at
+Ulm, but an inheritance is a very mill-stone round the neck of an
+orphan maid.  That insolent fellow, Lassla von Trautbach, hath
+already demanded to espouse the poor babe; he--a blood-stained,
+dicing, drunken rover, with whom I would not trust a dog that I
+loved!  Yet my death would place her at the disposal of his father,
+who would give her at once to him.  Nay, even his aunt, the abbess,
+will believe nothing against him, and hath even striven with me to
+have her betrothed at once.  On the barest rumour of my death will
+they wed the poor little thing, and then woe to her, and woe to my
+vassals!"
+
+"The King," suggested Ebbo.  "Surely she might be made his ward."
+
+"Young man," said Sir Kasimir, bending over him, and speaking in an
+undertone, "he may well have won your heart.  As friend, when one is
+at his side, none can be so winning, or so sincere as he; but with
+all his brilliant gifts, he says truly of himself that he is a mere
+reckless huntsman.  To-day, while I am with him, he would give me
+half Austria, or fight single-handed in my cause or Thekla's.  Next
+month, when I am out of sight, comes Trautbach, just when his head is
+full of keeping the French out of Italy, or reforming the Church, or
+beating the Turk, or parcelling the empire into circles, or, maybe,
+of a new touch-hole for a cannon--nay, of a flower-garden, or of
+walking into a lion's den.  He just says, 'Yea, well,' to be rid of
+the importunity, and all is over with my poor little maiden.  Hare-
+brained and bewildered with schemes has he been as Romish King--how
+will it be with him as Kaisar?  It is but of his wonted madness that
+he is here at all, when his Austrian states must be all astray for
+want of him.  No, no; I would rather make a weathercock guardian to
+my daughter.  You yourself are the only guard to whom I can safely
+intrust her."
+
+"My sword as knight and kinsman--" began Ebbo.
+
+"No, no; 'tis no matter of errant knight or distressed damsel.  That
+is King Max's own line!" said Wildschloss, with a little of the irony
+that used to nettle Ebbo.  "There is only one way in which you can
+save her, and that is as her husband."
+
+Ebbo started, as well he might, but Sir Kasimir laid his hand on him
+with a gesture that bade him listen ere he spoke.  "My first wish for
+my child," he said, "was to see her brought up by that peerless lady
+below stairs.  The saints--in pity to one so like themselves--spared
+her the distress our union would have brought her.  Now, it would be
+vain to place my little Thekla in her care, for Trautbach would
+easily feign my death, and claim his niece, nor are you of age to be
+made her guardian as head of our house.  But, if this marriage rite
+were solemnized, then would her person and lands alike be yours, and
+I could leave her with an easy heart."
+
+"But," said the confused, surprised Ebbo, "what can I do?  They say I
+shall not walk for many weeks to come.  And, even if I could, I am so
+young--I have so blundered in my dealings with my own mountaineers,
+and with this fatal bridge--how should I manage such estates as
+yours?  Some better--"
+
+"Look you, Ebbo," said Wildschloss; "you have erred--you have been
+hasty; but tell me where to find another youth, whose strongest
+purpose was as wise as your errors, or who cared for others' good
+more than for his own violence and vainglory?  Brief as your time has
+been, one knows when one is on your bounds by the aspect of your
+serfs, the soundness of their dwellings, the prosperity of their
+crops and cattle above all, by their face and tone if one asks for
+their lord."
+
+"Ah! it was Friedel they loved.  They scarce knew me from Friedel."
+
+"Such as you are, with all the blunders you have made and will make,
+you are the only youth I know to whom I could intrust my child or my
+lands.  The old Wildschloss castle is a male fief, and would return
+to you, but there are domains since granted that will cause
+intolerable trouble and strife, unless you and my poor little heiress
+are united.  As for age, you are--?"
+
+"Eighteen next Easter."
+
+"Then there are scarce eleven years between you.  You will find the
+little one a blooming bride when your first deeds in arms have been
+fought out."
+
+"And, if my mother trains her up," said Ebbo, thoughtfully, "she will
+be all the better daughter to her.  But, Sir Cousin, you know I too
+must be going.  So soon as I can brook the saddle, I must seek out
+and ransom my father."
+
+"That is like to be a far shorter and safer journey than mine.  The
+Genoese and Venetians understand traffic with the infidels for their
+captives, and only by your own fault could you get into danger.  Even
+at the worst, should mishap befall you, you could so order matters as
+to leave your girl-widow in your mother's charge."
+
+"Then," added Ebbo, "she would still have one left to love and
+cherish her.  Sir Kasimir, it is well; though, if you knew me without
+my Friedel, you would repent of your bargain."
+
+"Thanks from my heart," said Wildschloss, "but you need not be
+concerned.  You have never been over-friendly with me even with
+Friedel at your side.  But to business, my son.  You will endure that
+title from me now?  My time is short."
+
+"What would you have me do?  Shall I send the little one a betrothal
+ring, and ride to Ulm to wed and fetch her home in spring?"
+
+"That may hardly serve.  These kinsmen would have seized on her and
+the castle long ere that time.  The only safety is the making wedlock
+as fast as it can be made with a child of such tender years.  Mine is
+the only power that can make the abbess give her up, and therefore
+will I ride this moonlight night to Ulm, bring the little one back
+with me by the time the reconciliation be concluded, and then shall
+ye be wed by the Abbot of St. Ruprecht's, with the Kaisar for a
+witness, and thus will the knot be too strong for the Trautbachs to
+untie."
+
+Ebbo looked disconcerted, and gasped, as if this were over-quick
+work.--"To-morrow!" he said.  "Knows my mother?"
+
+"I go to speak with her at once.  The Kaisar's consent I have, as he
+says, 'If we have one vassal who has common sense and honesty, let us
+make the most of him.'  Ah! my son, I shall return to see you his
+counsellor and friend."
+
+Those days had no delicacies as to the lady's side taking the
+initiative:  and, in effect, the wealth and power of Wildschloss so
+much exceeded those of the elder branch that it would have been
+presumptuous on Eberhard's part to have made the proposal.  It was
+more a treaty than an affair of hearts, and Sir Kasimir had not even
+gone through the form of inquiring if Ebbo were fancy-free.  It was
+true, indeed, that he was still a boy, with no passion for any one
+but his mother; but had he even formed a dream of a ladye love, it
+would scarcely have been deemed a rational objection.  The days of
+romance were no days of romance in marriage.
+
+Yet Christina, wedded herself for pure love, felt this obstacle
+strongly.  The scheme was propounded to her over the hall fire by no
+less a person than Maximilian himself, and he, whose perceptions were
+extremely keen when he was not too much engrossed to use them,
+observed her reluctance through all her timid deference, and probed
+her reasons so successfully that she owned at last that, though it
+might sound like folly, she could scarce endure to see her son so
+bind himself that the romance of his life could hardly be innocent.
+
+"Nay, lady," was the answer, in a tone of deep feeling.  "Neither
+lands nor honours can weigh down the up-springing of true love;" and
+he bowed his head between his hands.
+
+Verily, all the Low Countries had not impeded the true-hearted
+affection of Maximilian and Mary; and, though since her death his
+want of self-restraint had marred his personal character and morals,
+and though he was now on the point of concluding a most loveless
+political marriage, yet still Mary was--as he shows her as the
+Beatrice of both his strange autobiographical allegories--the guiding
+star of his fitful life; and in heart his fidelity was so unbroken
+that, when after a long pause he again looked up to Christina, he
+spoke as well understanding her feelings.
+
+"I know what you would say, lady; your son hardly knows as yet how
+much is asked of him, and the little maid, to whom he vows his heart,
+is over-young to secure it.  But, lady, I have often observed that
+men, whose family affections are as deep and fervent as your son's
+are for you and his brother, seldom have wandering passions, but that
+their love flows deep and steady in the channels prepared for it.
+Let your young Freiherr regard this damsel as his own, and you will
+see he will love her as such."
+
+"I trust so, my liege."
+
+"Moreover, if she turn out like the spiteful Trautbach folk," said
+Maximilian, rather wickedly, "plenty of holes can be picked in a
+baby-wedding.  No fear of its over-firmness.  I never saw one come to
+good; only he must keep firm hold on the lands."
+
+This was not easy to answer, coming from a prince who had no small
+experience in premature bridals coming to nothing, and Christina felt
+that the matter was taken out of her hands, and that she had no more
+to do but to enjoy the warm-hearted Kaisar's praises of her son.
+
+In fact, the general run of nobles were then so boorish and violent
+compared with the citizens, that a nobleman who possessed intellect,
+loyalty, and conscience was so valuable to the sovereign that
+Maximilian was rejoiced to do all that either could bind him to his
+service or increase his power.  The true history of this expedition
+on the Emperor's part was this--that he had consulted Kasimir upon
+the question of the Debateable Ford and the feud of Adlerstein and
+Schlangenwald, asking further how his friend had sped in the wooing
+of the fair widow, to which he remembered having given his consent at
+Ulm.
+
+Wildschloss replied that, though backed up by her kindred at Ulm, he
+had made no progress in consequence of the determined opposition of
+her two sons, and he had therefore resolved to wait a while, and let
+her and the young Baron feel their inability to extricate themselves
+from the difficulties that were sure to beset them, without his
+authority, influence, and experience--fully believing that some
+predicament might arise that would bring the mother to terms, if not
+the sons.
+
+This disaster did seem to have fallen out, and he had meant at once
+to offer himself to the lady as her supporter and advocate, able to
+bring about all her son could desire; though he owned that his hopes
+would have been higher if the survivor had been the gentle, friendly
+Friedmund, rather than the hot and imperious Eberhard, who he knew
+must be brought very low ere his objections would be withdrawn.
+
+The touch of romance had quite fascinated Maximilian.  He would see
+the lady and her son.  He would make all things easy by the personal
+influence that he so well knew how to exert, backed by his imperial
+authority; and both should see cause to be thankful to purchase
+consent to the bridge-building, and pardon for the fray, by the
+marriage between the widow and Sir Kasimir.
+
+But the Last of the Knights was a gentleman, and the meek dignity of
+his hostess had hindered him from pressing on her any distasteful
+subject until her son's explanation of the uncertainty of her
+husband's death had precluded all mention of this intention.
+Besides, Maximilian was himself greatly charmed by Ebbo's own
+qualities--partly perhaps as an intelligent auditor, but also by his
+good sense, high spirit, and, above all, by the ready and delicate
+tact that had both penetrated and respected the disguise.  Moreover,
+Maximilian, though a faulty, was a devout man, and could appreciate
+the youth's unswerving truth, under circumstances that did, in
+effect, imperil him more really than his guest.  In this mood,
+Maximilian felt disposed to be rid to the very utmost of poor Sir
+Kasimir's unlucky attachment to a wedded lady; and receiving letters
+suggestive of the Eastern mission, instantly decided that it would
+only be doing as he would be done by instantly to order the
+disappointed suitor off to the utmost parts of the earth, where he
+would much have liked to go himself, save for the unlucky clog of all
+the realm of Germany.  That Sir Kasimir had any tie to home he had
+for the moment entirely forgotten; and, had he remembered it, the
+knight was so eminently fitted to fulfil his purpose, that it could
+hardly have been regarded.  But, when Wildschloss himself devised his
+little heiress' s union with the head of the direct line, it was a
+most acceptable proposal to the Emperor, who set himself to forward
+it at once, out of policy, and as compensation to all parties.
+
+And so Christina's gentle remonstrance was passed by.  Yet, with all
+her sense of the venture, it was thankworthy to look back on the
+trembling anxiety with which she had watched her boy's childhood, and
+all his temptations and perils, and compare her fears with his
+present position:  his alliance courted, his wisdom honoured, the
+child of the proud, contemned outlaw received as the favourite of the
+Emperor, and the valued ally of her own honoured burgher world.  Yet
+he was still a mere lad.  How would it be for the future?
+
+Would he be unspoiled?  Yes, even as she already viewed one of her
+twins as the star on high--nay, when kneeling in the chapel, her
+dazzling tears made stars of the glint of the light reflected in his
+bright helmet--might she not trust that the other would yet run his
+course to and fro, as the spark in the stubble?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII:  THE ALTAR OF PEACE
+
+
+
+No one could bear to waken the young Baron till the sun had risen
+high enough to fall on his face and unclose his eyes.
+
+"Mother" (ever his first word), "you have let me sleep too long."
+
+"Thou didst wake too long, I fear me."
+
+"I hoped you knew it not.  Yes, my wound throbbed sore, and the
+wonders of the day whirled round my brain like the wild huntsman's
+chase."
+
+"And, cruel boy, thou didst not call to me."
+
+"What, with such a yesterday, and such a morrow for you? while,
+chance what may, I can but lie still.  I thought I must call, if I
+were still so wretched, when the last moonbeam faded; but, behold,
+sleep came, and therewith my Friedel sat by me, and has sung songs of
+peace ever since."
+
+"And hath lulled thee to content, dear son?"
+
+"Content as the echo of his voice and the fulfilment of his hope can
+make me," said Ebbo.
+
+And so Christina made her son ready for the day's solemnities,
+arraying him in a fine holland shirt with exquisite broidery of her
+own on the collar and sleeves, and carefully disposing his long
+glossy, dark brown hair so as to fall on his shoulders as he lay
+propped up by cushions.  She would have thrown his crimson mantle
+round him, but he repelled it indignantly.  "Gay braveries for me,
+while my Friedel is not yet in his resting-place?  Here--the black
+velvet cloak."
+
+"Alas, Ebbo! it makes thee look more of a corpse than a bridegroom.
+Thou wilt scare thy poor little spouse.  Ah! it was not thus I had
+fancied myself decking thee for thy wedding."
+
+"Poor little one!" said Ebbo.  "If, as your uncle says, mourning is
+the seed of joy, this bridal should prove a gladsome one!  But let
+her prove a loving child to you, and honour my Friedel's memory, then
+shall I love her well.  Do not fear, motherling; with the roots of
+hatred and jealousy taken out of the heart, even sorrow is such peace
+that it is almost joy."
+
+It was over early for pain and sorrow to have taught that lesson,
+thought the mother, as with tender tears she gave place to the
+priest, who was to begin the solemnities of the day by shriving the
+young Baron.  It was Father Norbert, who had in this very chamber
+baptized the brothers, while their grandmother was plotting the
+destruction of their godfather, even while he gave Friedmund his name
+of peace,--Father Norbert, who had from the very first encouraged the
+drooping, heart-stricken, solitary Christina not to be overcome of
+evil, but to overcome evil with good.
+
+A temporary altar was erected between the windows, and hung with the
+silk and embroidery belonging to that in the chapel:  a crucifix was
+placed on it, with the shrine of the stone of Nicaea, one or two
+other relics brought on St. Ruprecht's cloister, and a beautiful
+mother-of-pearl and gold pyx also from the abbey, containing the
+host.  These were arranged by the chaplain, Father Norbert, and three
+of his brethren from the abbey.  And then the Father Abbot, a kindly,
+dignified old man, who had long been on friendly terms with the young
+Baron, entered; and after a few kind though serious words to him,
+assumed a gorgeous cope stiff with gold embroidery, and, standing by
+the altar, awaited the arrival of the other assistants at the
+ceremony.
+
+The slender, youthful-looking, pensive lady of the castle, in her
+wonted mourning dress, was courteously handed to her son's bedside by
+the Emperor.  He was in his plain buff leathern hunting garb,
+unornamented, save by the rich clasp of his sword-belt and his gold
+chain, and his head was only covered by the long silken locks of fair
+hair that hung round his shoulders; but, now that his large keen dark
+blue eyes were gravely restrained, and his eager face composed, his
+countenance was so majestic, his bearing so lofty, that not all his
+crowns could have better marked his dignity.
+
+Behind him came a sunburnt, hardy man, wearing the white mantle and
+black fleur-de-lis-pointed cross of the Teutonic Order.  A thrill
+passed through Ebbo's veins as he beheld the man who to him
+represented the murderer of his brother and both his grandfathers,
+the cruel oppressor of his father, and the perpetrator of many a more
+remote, but equally unforgotten, injury.  And in like manner Sir
+Dankwart beheld the actual slayer of his father, and the heir of a
+long score of deadly retribution.  No wonder then that, while the
+Emperor spoke a few words of salutation and inquiry, gracious though
+not familiar, the two foes scanned one another with a shiver of
+mutual repulsing, and a sense that they would fain have fought it out
+as in the good old times.
+
+However, Ebbo only beheld a somewhat dull, heavy, honest-looking
+visage of about thirty years old, good-nature written in all its flat
+German features, and a sort of puzzled wonder in the wide light eyes
+that stared fixedly at him, no doubt in amazement that the mighty
+huge-limbed Wolfgang could have been actually slain by the
+delicately-framed youth, now more colourless than ever in consequence
+of the morning's fast.  Schleiermacher was also present, and the
+chief followers on either hand had come into the lower part of the
+room--Hatto, Heinz, and Koppel, looking far from contented; some of
+the Emperor's suite; and a few attendants of Schlangenwald, like
+himself connected with the Teutonic Order.
+
+The Emperor spoke:  "We have brought you together, Herr Graff von
+Schlangenwald, and Herr Freiherr von Adlerstein, because ye have
+given us reason to believe you willing to lay aside the remembrance
+of the foul and deadly strifes of your forefathers, and to live as
+good Christians in friendship and brotherhood."
+
+"Sire, it is true," said Schlangenwald; and "It is true," said Ebbo.
+
+"That is well," replied Maximilian.  "Nor can our reign better begin
+than by the closing of a breach that has cost the land some of its
+bravest sons.  Dankwart von Schlangenwald, art thou willing to pardon
+the heir of Adlerstein for having slain thy father in free and
+honourable combat, as well as, doubtless, for other deeds of his
+ancestors, more than I know or can specify?"
+
+"Yea, truly; I pardon him, my liege, as befits my vow."
+
+"And thou, Eberhard von Adlerstein, dost thou put from thee vengeance
+for thy twin brother's death, and all the other wrongs that thine
+house has suffered?"
+
+"I put revenge from me for ever."
+
+"Ye agree, further, then, instead of striving as to your rights to
+the piece of meadow called the Debateable Strand, and to the wrecks
+of burthens there cast up by the stream, ye will unite with the
+citizens of Ulm in building a bridge over the Braunwasser, where,
+your mutual portions thereof being decided by the Swabian League,
+toll may be taken from all vehicles and beasts passing there over?"
+
+"We agree," said both knights.
+
+"And I, also, on behalf of the two guilds of Ulm," added Moritz
+Schleiermacher.
+
+"Likewise," continued the Emperor, "for avoidance of debate, and to
+consecrate the spot that has caused so much contention, ye will
+jointly erect a church, where may be buried both the relatives who
+fell in the late unhappy skirmish, and where ye will endow a
+perpetual mass for their souls, and those of others of your two
+races."
+
+"Thereto I willingly agree," said the Teutonic knight.  But to Ebbo
+it was a shock that the pure, gentle Friedmund should thus be classed
+with his treacherous assassin; and he had almost declared that it
+would be sacrilege, when he received from the Emperor a look of
+stern, surprised command, which reminded him that concession must not
+be all on one side, and that he could not do Friedel a greater wrong
+than to make him a cause of strife.  So, though they half choked him,
+he contrived to utter the words, "I consent."
+
+"And in token of amity I here tear up and burn all the feuds of
+Adlerstein," said Schlangenwald, producing from his pouch a
+collection of hostile literature, beginning from a crumpled strip of
+yellow parchment and ending with a coarse paper missive in the
+clerkly hand of burgher-bred Hugh Sorel, and bearing the crooked
+signatures of the last two Eberhards of Adlerstein--all with great
+seals of the eagle shield appended to them.  A similar collection--
+which, with one or two other family defiances, and the letters of
+investiture recently obtained at Ulm, formed the whole archives of
+Adlerstein--had been prepared within Ebbo's reach; and each of the
+two, taking up a dagger, made extensive gashes in these documents,
+and then--with no mercy to the future antiquaries, who would have
+gloated over them--the whole were hurled into the flames on the
+hearth, where the odour they emitted, if not grateful to the physical
+sense, should have been highly agreeable to the moral.
+
+"Then, holy Father Abbot," said Maximilian, "let us ratify this happy
+and Christian reconciliation by the blessed sacrifice of peace, over
+which these two faithful knights shall unite in swearing good-will
+and brotherhood."
+
+Such solemn reconciliations were frequent, but, alas were too often a
+mockery.  Here, however, both parties were men who felt the awe of
+the promise made before the Pardon-winner of all mankind.  Ebbo, bred
+up by his mother in the true life of the Church, and comparatively
+apart from practical superstitions, felt the import to the depths of
+his inmost soul, with a force heightened by his bodily state of
+nervous impressibility; and his wan, wasted features and dark shining
+eyes had a strange spiritual beam, "half passion and half awe," as he
+followed the words of universal forgiveness and lofty praise that he
+had heard last in his anguished trance, when his brother lay dying
+beside him, and leaving him behind.  He knew now that it was for
+this.
+
+His deep repressed ardour and excitement were no small contrast to
+the sober, matter-of-fact demeanour of the Teutonic knight, who
+comported himself with the mechanical decorum of an ecclesiastic, but
+quite as one who meant to keep his word.  Maximilian served the mass
+in his royal character as sub-deacon.  He was fond of so doing,
+either from humility, or love of incongruity, or both.  No one,
+however, communicated except the clergy and the parties concerned--
+Dankwart first, as being monk as well as knight, then Eberhard and
+his mother; and then followed, interposed into the rite, the oath of
+pardon, friendship, and brotherhood administered by the abbot, and
+followed by the solemn kiss of peace.  There was now no recoil;
+Eberhard raised himself to meet the lips of his foe, and his heart
+went with the embrace.  Nay, his inward ear dwelt on Friedmund's song
+mingling with the concluding chants of praise.
+
+The service ended, it was part of the pledge of amity that the
+reconciled enemies should break their fast together, and a collation
+of white bread and wine was provided for the purpose.  The Emperor
+tried to promote free and friendly talk between the two adversaries,
+but not with great success; for Dankwart, though honest and sincere,
+seemed extremely dull.  He appeared to have few ideas beyond his
+Prussian commandery and its routine discipline, and to be lost in a
+castle where all was at his sole will and disposal, and he caught
+eagerly at all proposals made to him as if they were new lights.  As,
+for instance, that some impartial arbitrator should be demanded from
+the Swabian League to define the boundary; and that next Rogation-
+tide the two knights should ride or climb it in company, while
+meantime the serfs should be strictly charged not to trespass, and
+any transgressor should be immediately escorted to his own lord.
+
+"But," quoth Sir Dankwart, in a most serious tone, "I am told that a
+she-bear wons in a den on yonder crag, between the pass you call the
+Gemsbock's and the Schlangenwald valley.  They told me the right in
+it had never been decided, and I have not been up myself.  To say
+truth, I have lived so long in the sand plains as to have lost my
+mountain legs, and I hesitated to see if a hunter could mount thither
+for fear of fresh offence; but, if she bide there till Rogation-tide,
+it will be ill for the lambs."
+
+"Is that all?" cried Maximilian.  "Then will I, a neutral, kill your
+bear for you, gentlemen, so that neither need transgress this new
+crag of debate.  I'll go down and look at your bear spears, friend
+Ebbo, and be ready so soon as Kasimir has done with his bridal."
+
+"That crag!" cried Ebbo.  "Little good will it do either of us.
+Sire, it is a mere wall of sloping rock, slippery as ice, and with
+only a stone or matting of ivy here and there to serve as foothold."
+
+"Where bear can go, man can go," replied the Kaisar.
+
+"Oh, yes!  We have been there, craving your pardon, Herr Graf," said
+Ebbo, "after a dead chamois that rolled into a cleft, but it is the
+worst crag on all the hill, and the frost will make it slippery.
+Sire, if you do venture it, I conjure you to take Koppel, and climb
+by the rocks from the left, not the right, which looks easiest.  The
+yellow rock, with a face like a man's, is the safer; but ach, it is
+fearful for one who knows not the rocks."
+
+"If I know not the rocks, all true German rocks know me," smiled
+Maximilian, to whom the danger seemed to be such a stimulus that he
+began to propose the bear-hunt immediately, as an interlude while
+waiting for the bride.
+
+However, at that moment, half-a-dozen horsemen were seen coming up
+from the ford, by the nearer path, and a forerunner arrived with the
+tidings that the Baron of Adlerstein Wildschloss was close behind
+with the little Baroness Thekla.
+
+Half the moonlight night had Sir Kasimir and his escort ridden; and,
+after a brief sleep at the nearest inn outside Ulm, he had entered in
+early morning, demanded admittance at the convent, made short work
+with the Abbess Ludmilla's arguments, claimed his daughter, and
+placing her on a cushion before him on his saddle, had borne her
+away, telling her of freedom, of the kind lady, and the young knight
+who had dazzled her childish fancy.
+
+Christina went down to receive her.  There was no time to lose, for
+the huntsman Kaisar was bent on the slaughter of his bear before
+dark, and, if he were to be witness of the wedding, it must be
+immediate.  He was in a state of much impatience, which he beguiled
+by teasing his friend Wildschloss by reminding him how often he
+himself had been betrothed, and had managed to slip his neck out of
+the noose.  "And, if my Margot be not soon back on my hands, I shall
+give the French credit," he said, tossing his bear-spear in the air,
+and catching it again.  "Why, this bride is as long of busking her as
+if she were a beauty of seventeen!  I must be off to my Lady
+Bearess."
+
+Thus nothing could be done to prepare the little maiden but to divest
+her of her mufflings, and comb out her flaxen hair, crowning it with
+a wreath which Christina had already woven from the myrtle of her own
+girlhood, scarcely waiting to answer the bewildered queries and
+entreaties save by caresses and admonitions to her to be very good.
+
+Poor little thing!  She was tired, frightened, and confused; and,
+when she had been brought upstairs, she answered the half smiling,
+half shy greeting of her bridegroom with a shudder of alarm, and the
+exclamation, "Where is the beautiful young knight?  That's a lady
+going to take the veil lying under the pall."
+
+"You look rather like a little nun yourself," said Ebbo, for she wore
+a little conventual dress, "but we must take each other for such as
+we are;" and, as she hid her face and clung to his mother, he added
+in a more cheerful, coaxing tone, "You once said you would be my
+wife."
+
+"Ah, but then there were two of you, and you were all shining
+bright."
+
+Before she could be answered, the impatient Emperor returned, and
+brought with him the abbot, who proceeded to find the place in his
+book, and to ask the bridegroom for the rings.  Ebbo looked at Sir
+Kasimir, who owned that he should have brought them from Ulm, but
+that he had forgotten.
+
+"Jewels are not plenty with us," said Ebbo, with a glow of amusement
+and confusion dawning on his cheek, such as reassured the little maid
+that she beheld one of the two beautiful young knights.  "Must we
+borrow?"
+
+Christina looked at the ring she had first seen lying on her own
+Eberhard's palm, and felt as if to let it be used would sever the
+renewed hope she scarcely yet durst entertain; and at the same moment
+Maximilian glanced at his own fingers, and muttered, "None but this!
+Unlucky!"  For it was the very diamond which Mary of Burgundy had
+sent to assure him of her faith, and summon him to her aid after her
+father's death.  Sir Kasimir had not retained the pledge of his own
+ill-omened wedlock; but, in the midst of the dilemma, the Emperor,
+producing his dagger, began to detach some of the massive gold links
+of the chain that supported his hunting-horn.  "There," said he, "the
+little elf of a bride can get her finger into this lesser one and
+you--verily this largest will fit, and the goldsmith can beat it out
+when needed.  So on with you in St. Hubert's name, Father Abbot!"
+
+Slender-boned and thin as was Ebbo's hand, it was a very tight fit,
+but the purpose was served.  The service commenced; and fortunately,
+thanks to Thekla's conventual education, she was awed into silence
+and decorum by the sound of Latin and the sight of an abbot.  It was
+a strange marriage, if only in the contrast between the pale,
+expressive face and sad, dark eyes of the prostrate youth, and the
+frightened, bewildered little girl, standing upon a stool to reach up
+to him, with her blue eyes stretched with wonder, and her cheeks
+flushed and pouting with unshed tears, her rosy plump hand enclosed
+in the long white wasted one that was thus for ever united to it by
+the broken fragments of Kaisar Max's chain.
+
+The rite over, two attestations of the marriage of Eberhard, Freiherr
+von Adlerstein, and Thekla, Freiherrinn von Adlerstein Wildschloss
+and Felsenbach, were drawn up and signed by the abbot, the Emperor,
+Count Dankwart, and the father and mother of the two contracting
+parties; one to be committed to the care of the abbot, the other to
+be preserved by the house of Adlerstein.
+
+Then the Emperor, as the concluding grace of the ceremonial, bent to
+kiss the bride; but, tired, terrified, and cross, Thekla, as if quite
+relieved to have some object for her resentment, returned his attempt
+with a vehement buffet, struck with all the force of her small arm,
+crying out, "Go away with you!  I know I've never married YOU!"
+
+"The better for my eyes!" said the good-natured Emperor, laughing
+heartily.  "My Lady Bearess is like to prove the more courteous
+bride!  Fare thee well, Sir Bridegroom," he added, stooping over
+Ebbo, and kissing his brow; "Heaven give thee joy of this day's work,
+and of thy faithful little fury.  I'll send her the bearskin as her
+meetest wedding-gift."
+
+And the next that was heard from the Kaisar was the arrival of a
+parcel of Italian books for the Freiherr Eberhard, and for the little
+Freiherrinn a large bundle, which proved to contain a softly-dressed
+bearskin, with the head on, the eyes being made of rubies, a gold
+muzzle and chain on the nose, and the claws tipped with gold.  The
+Emperor had made a point that it should be conveyed to the castle,
+snow or no snow, for a yule gift.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV:  OLD IRON AND NEW STEEL
+
+
+
+The clear sunshine of early summer was becoming low on the hillsides.
+Sparkling and dimpling, the clear amber-coloured stream of the
+Braunwasser rippled along its stony bed, winding in and out among the
+rocks so humbly that it seemed to be mocked by the wide span of the
+arch that crossed it in all the might of massive bulwarks, and
+dignified masonry of huge stones.
+
+Some way above, a clearing of the wood below the mountain showed
+huts, and labourers apparently constructing a mill so as to take
+advantage of the leap of the water from the height above; and, on the
+left bank, an enclosure was traced out, within which were rising the
+walls of a small church, while the noise of the mallet and chisel
+echoed back from the mountain side, and masons, white with stone-
+dust, swarmed around.
+
+Across the bridge came a pilgrim, marked out as such by hat, wallet,
+and long staff, on which he leant heavily, stumbling along as if both
+halting and footsore, and bending as one bowed down by past toil and
+present fatigue.  Pausing in the centre, he gazed round with a
+strange disconcerted air--at the castle on the terraced hillside,
+looking down with bright eyes of glass glittering in the sunshine,
+and lighting up even that grim old pile; at the banner hanging so
+lazily that the tinctures and bearings were hidden in the folds; then
+at the crags, rosy purple in evening glow, rising in broad step above
+step up to the Red Eyrie, bathed in sunset majesty of dark crimson;
+and above it the sweep of the descending eagle, discernible for a
+moment in the pearly light of the sky.  The pilgrim's eye lighted up
+as he watched it; but then, looking down at bridge, and church, and
+trodden wheel-tracked path, he frowned with perplexity, and each
+painful step grew heavier and more uncertain.
+
+Near the opposite side of the enclosure there waited a tall, rugged-
+looking, elderly man with two horses--one an aged mare, mane, tail,
+and all of the snowiest silvery white; the other a little shaggy dark
+mountain pony, with a pad-saddle.  And close to the bank of the
+stream might be seen its owner, a little girl of some seven years,
+whose tight round lace cap had slipped back, as well as her blue silk
+hood, and exposed a profusion of loose flaxen hair, and a plump,
+innocent face, intent upon some private little bit of building of her
+own with some pebbles from the brook, and some mortar filched from
+the operations above, to the great detriment of her soft pinky
+fingers.
+
+The pilgrim looked at her unperceived, and for a moment was about to
+address her; but then, with a strange air of repulsion, dragged
+himself on to the porch of the rising church, where, seated on a
+block of stone, he could look into the interior.  All was unfinished,
+but the portion which had made the most progress was a chantry-chapel
+opposite to the porch, and containing what were evidently designed to
+be two monuments.  One was merely blocked out, but it showed the
+outline of a warrior, bearing a shield on which a coiled serpent was
+rudely sketched in red chalk.  The other, in a much more forward
+state, was actually under the hands of the sculptor, and represented
+a slender youth, almost a boy, though in the full armour of a knight,
+his hands clasped on his breast over a lute, an eagle on his shield,
+an eagle-crest on his helmet, and, under the arcade supporting the
+altar-tomb, shields alternately of eagles and doves.
+
+But the strangest thing was that this young knight seemed to be
+sitting for his own effigy.  The very same face, under the very same
+helmet, only with the varied, warm hues of life, instead of in cold
+white marble, was to be seen on the shoulders of a young man in a
+gray cloth dress, with a black scarf passing from shoulder to waist,
+crossed by a sword-belt.  The hair was hidden by the helmet, whose
+raised visor showed keen, finely-cut features, and a pair of dark
+brown eyes, of somewhat grave and sad expression.
+
+"Have a care, Lucas," he presently said; "I fear me you are
+chiselling away too much.  It must be a softer, more rounded face
+than mine has become; and, above all, let it not catch any saddened
+look.  Keep that air of solemn waiting in glad hope, as though he saw
+the dawn through his closed eyelids, and were about to take up his
+song again!"
+
+"Verily, Herr Freiherr, now the likeness is so far forward, the
+actual sight of you may lead me to mar it rather than mend."
+
+"So is it well that this should be the last sitting.  I am to set
+forth for Genoa in another week.  If I cannot get letters from the
+Kaisar, I shall go in search of him, that he may see that my lameness
+is no more an impediment."
+
+The pilgrim passed his hand over his face, as though to dissipate a
+bewildering dream; and just then the little girl, all flushed and
+dabbled, flew rushing up from the stream, but came to a sudden
+standstill at sight of the stranger, who at length addressed her.
+"Little lady," he said, "is this the Debateable Ford?"
+
+"No; now it is the Friendly Bridge," said the child.
+
+The pilgrim started, as with a pang of recollection.  "And what is
+yonder castle?" he further asked.
+
+"Schloss Adlerstein," she said, proudly.
+
+"And you are the little lady of Adlerstein Wildschloss?"
+
+"Yes," again she answered; and then, gathering courage--"You are a
+holy pilgrim!  Come up to the castle for supper and rest."  And then,
+springing past him, she flew up to the knight, crying, "Herr
+Freiherr, here is a holy pilgrim, weary and hungry.  Let us take him
+home to the mother."
+
+"Did he take thee for a wild elf?" said the young man, with an elder-
+brotherly endeavour to right the little cap that had slidden under
+the chin, and to push back the unmanageable wealth of hair under it,
+ere he rose; and he came forward and spoke with kind courtesy, as he
+observed the wanderer's worn air and feeble step.  "Dost need a
+night's lodging, holy palmer?  My mother will make thee welcome, if
+thou canst climb as high as the castle yonder."
+
+The pilgrim made an obeisance, but, instead of answering, demanded
+hastily, "See I yonder the bearing of Schlangenwald?"
+
+"Even so.  Schloss Schlangenwald is about a league further on, and
+thou wilt find a kind reception there, if thither thou art bent."
+
+"Is that Graff Wolfgang's tomb?" still eagerly pursued the pilgrim;
+and receiving a sign in the affirmative, "What was his end?"
+
+"He fell in a skirmish."
+
+"By whose hand?"
+
+"By mine."
+
+"Ha!" and the pilgrim surveyed him with undisguised astonishment;
+then, without another word, took up his staff and limped out of the
+building, but not on the road to Schlangenwald.  It was nearly a
+quarter of an hour afterwards that he was overtaken by the young
+knight and the little lady on their horses, just where the new road
+to the castle parted from the old way by the Eagle's Ladder.  The
+knight reined up as he saw the poor man's slow, painful steps, and
+said, "So thou art not bound for Schlangenwald?"
+
+"I would to the village, so please you--to the shrine of the Blessed
+Friedmund."
+
+"Nay, at this rate thou wilt not be there till midnight," said the
+young knight, springing off his horse; "thou canst never brook our
+sharp stones!  See, Thekla, do thou ride on with Heinz to tell the
+mother I am bringing her a holy pilgrim to tend.  And thou, good man,
+mount my old gray.  Fear not; she is steady and sure-footed, and hath
+of late been used to a lame rider.  Ah! that is well.  Thou hast been
+in the saddle before."
+
+To go afoot for the sake of giving a lift to a holy wayfarer was one
+of the most esteemed acts of piety of the Middle Age, so that no one
+durst object to it, and the palmer did no more than utter a
+suppressed murmur of acknowledgment as he seated himself on
+horseback, the young knight walking by his rein.  "But what is this?"
+he exclaimed, almost with dismay.  "A road to the castle up here!"
+
+"Yes, we find it a great convenience.  Thou art surely from these
+parts?" added the knight.
+
+"I was a man-at-arms in the service of the Baron," was the answer, in
+an odd, muffled tone.
+
+"What!--of my grandfather!" was the exclamation.
+
+"No!" gruffly.  "Of old Freiherr Eberhard.  Not of any of the
+Wildschloss crew."
+
+"But I am not a Wildschloss!  I am grandson to Freiherr Eberhard!
+Oh, wast thou with him and my father when they were set upon in the
+hostel?" he cried, looking eagerly up to the pilgrim; but the man
+kept his broad-leaved hat slouched over his face, and only muttered,
+"The son of Christina!" the last word so low that Ebbo was not sure
+that he caught it, and the next moment the old warrior exclaimed
+exultingly, "And you have had vengeance on them!  When--how--where?"
+
+"Last harvest-tide--at the Debateable Strand," said Ebbo, never able
+to speak of the encounter without a weight at his heart, but drawn on
+by the earnestness of the old foe of Schlangenwald.  "It was a
+meeting in full career--lances broken, sword-stroke on either hand.
+I was sore wounded, but my sword went through his collar-bone."
+
+"Well struck! good stroke!" cried the pilgrim, in rapture.  "And with
+that sword?"
+
+"With this sword.  Didst know it?" said Ebbo, drawing the weapon, and
+giving it to the old man, who held it for a few moments, weighed it
+affectionately, and with a long low sigh restored it, saying, "It is
+well.  You and that blade have paid off the score.  I should be
+content.  Let me dismount.  I know my way to the hermitage."
+
+"Nay, what is this?" said Ebbo; "thou must have rest and food.  The
+hermitage is empty, scarce habitable.  My mother will not be balked
+of the care of thy bleeding feet."
+
+"But let me go, ere I bring evil on you all.  I can pray up there,
+and save my soul, but I cannot see it all."
+
+"See what?" said Ebbo, again trying to see his guest's face.  "There
+may be changes, but an old faithful follower of my father's must ever
+be welcome."
+
+"Not when his wife has taken a new lord," growled the stranger,
+bitterly, "and he a Wildschloss!  Young man, I could have pardoned
+aught else!"
+
+"I know not who you may be who talk of pardoning my lady-mother,"
+said Ebbo, "but new lord she has neither taken nor will take.  She
+has refused every offer; and, now that Schlangenwald with his last
+breath confessed that he slew not my father, but sold him to the
+Turks, I have been only awaiting recovery from my wound to go in
+search of him."
+
+"Who then is yonder child, who told me she was Wildschloss?"
+
+"That child," said Ebbo, with half a smile and half a blush, "is my
+wife, the daughter of Wildschloss, who prayed me to espouse her thus
+early, that so my mother might bring her up."
+
+By this time they had reached the castle court, now a well-kept,
+lordly-looking enclosure, where the pilgrim looked about him as one
+bewildered.  He was so infirm that Ebbo carefully helped him up the
+stone stairs to the hall, where he already saw his mother prepared
+for the hospitable reception of the palmer.  Leaving him at the
+entrance, Ebbo crossed the hall to say to her in a low voice, "This
+pilgrim is one of the old lanzknechts of my grandfather's time.  I
+wonder whether you or Heinz will know him.  One of the old sort--
+supremely discontented at change."
+
+"And thou hast walked up, and wearied thyself!" exclaimed Christina,
+grieved to see her son's halting step.
+
+"A rest will soon cure that," said Ebbo, seating himself as he spoke
+on a settle near the hall fire; but the next moment a strange wild
+low shriek from his mother made him start up and spring to her side.
+She stood with hands clasped, and wondering eyes.  The pilgrim--his
+hat on the ground, his white head and rugged face displayed--was
+gazing as though devouring her with his eyes, murmuring, "Unchanged!
+unchanged!"
+
+"What is this!" thundered the young Baron.  "What are you doing to
+the lady?"
+
+"Hush! hush, Ebbo!" exclaimed Christina.  "It is thy father!  On thy
+knees!  Thy father is come!  It is our son, my own lord.  Oh, embrace
+him!  Kneel to him, Ebbo!" she wildly cried.
+
+"Hold, mother," said Ebbo, keeping his arm round her, though she
+struggled against him, for he felt some doubts as he looked back at
+his walk with the stranger, and remembered Heinz's want of
+recognition.  "Is it certain that this is indeed my father?"
+
+"Oh, Ebbo," was the cry of poor Christina, almost beside herself,
+"how could I not be sure?  I know him!  I feel it!  Oh, my lord, bear
+with him.  It is his wont to be so loving!  Ebbo, cannot you see it
+is himself?"
+
+"The young fellow is right," said the stranger, slowly.  "I will
+answer all he may demand."
+
+"Forgive me," said Ebbo, abashed, "forgive me;" and, as his mother
+broke from him, he fell upon his knee; but he only heard his father's
+cry, "Ah!  Stine, Stine, thou alone art the same," and, looking up,
+saw her, with her face hidden in the white beard, quivering with a
+rapture such as he had never seen in her before.  It seemed long to
+him ere she looked up again in her husband's face to sob on:  "My
+son!  Oh! my beautiful twins!  Our son!  Oh, see him, dear lord!"
+And the pilgrim turned to hear Ebbo's "Pardon, honoured father, and
+your blessing."
+
+Almost bashfully the pilgrim laid his hand on the dark head, and
+murmured something; then said, "Up, then!  The slayer of
+Schlangenwald kneeling!  Ah!  Stine, I knew thy little head was
+wondrous wise, but I little thought thou wouldst breed him up to
+avenge us on old Wolfgang!  So slender a lad too!  Ha!
+Schneiderlein, old rogue, I knew thee," holding out his hand.  "So
+thou didst get home safe?"
+
+"Ay, my lord; though, if I left you alive, never more will I call a
+man dead," said Heinz.
+
+"Worse luck for me--till now," said Sir Eberhard, whose tones, rather
+than his looks, carried perfect conviction of his identity.  It was
+the old homely accent, and gruff good-humoured voice, but with
+something subdued and broken in the tone.  His features had grown
+like his father's, but he looked much older than ever the hale old
+mountaineer had done, or than his real age; so worn and lined was his
+face, his skin tanned, his eyelids and temples puckered by burning
+sun, his hair and beard white as the inane of his old mare, the proud
+Adlerstein port entirely gone.  He stooped even more without his
+staff than with it; and, when he yielded himself with a sigh of
+repose to his wife's tendance, she found that he had not merely the
+ordinary hurts of travelling, but that there were old festering scars
+on his ankles.  "The gyves," he said, as she looked up at him, with
+startled, pitying eyes.  "Little deemed I that they would ever come
+under thy tender hands."  As he almost timidly smoothed the braid of
+dark hair on her brow--"So they never burnt thee for a witch after
+all, little one?  I thought my mother would never keep her hands off
+thee, and used to fancy I heard the crackling of the flame."
+
+"She spared me for my children's sake," said Christina; "and truly
+Heaven has been very good to us, but never so much as now.  My dear
+lord, will it weary thee too much to come to the castle chapel and
+give thanks?" she said, timidly.
+
+"With all my heart," he answered, earnestly.  "I would go even on my
+knees.  We were not without masses even in Tunis; but, when Italian
+and Spaniard would be ransomed, and there was no mind of the German,
+I little thought I should ever sing Brother Lambert's psalm about
+turning our captivity as rivers in the south."
+
+Ebbo was hovering round, supplying all that was needed for his
+father's comfort; but his parents were so completely absorbed in one
+another that he was scarcely noticed, and, what perhaps pained him
+more, there was no word about Friedel.  He felt this almost an
+injustice to the brother who had been foremost in embracing the idea
+of the unknown father, and scarcely understood how his parents shrank
+from any sorrowful thought that might break in on their new-found
+joy, nor that he himself was so strange and new a being in his
+father's eyes, that to imagine him doubled was hardly possible to the
+tardy, dulled capacity, which as yet seemed unable to feel anything
+but that here was home, and Christina.
+
+When the chapel bell rang, and the pair rose to offer their
+thanksgiving, Ebbo dutifully offered his support, but was absolutely
+unseen, so fondly was Sir Eberhard leaning on his wife; and her
+bright exulting smile and shake of the head gave an absolute pang to
+the son who had hitherto been all in all to her.
+
+He followed, and, as they passed Friedmund's coffin, he thought his
+mother pointed to it, but even of this he was uncertain.  The pair
+knelt side by side with hands locked together, while notes of praise
+rose from all voices; and meantime Ebbo, close to that coffin, strove
+to share the joy, and to lift up a heart that WOULD sink in the midst
+of self-reproach for undutifulness, and would dislike the thought of
+the rude untaught man, holding aloof from him, likely to view him
+with distrust and jealousy, and to undo all he had achieved, and
+further absorbing the mother, the mother who was to him all the
+world, and for whose sake he had given his best years to the child-
+wife, as yet nothing to him.
+
+It was reversing the natural order of things that, after reigning
+from infancy, he should have to give up at eighteen to one of the
+last generation; and some such thought rankled in his mind when the
+whole household trooped joyfully out of the chapel to prepare a
+banquet for their old new lord, and their young old lord was left
+alone.
+
+Alone with the coffin where the armour lay upon the white cross, Ebbo
+threw himself on his knees, and laid his head upon it, murmuring,
+"Ah, Friedel!  Friedel!  Would that we had changed places!  Thou
+wouldst brook it better.  At least thou didst never know what it is
+to be lonely."
+
+"Herr Baron!" said a little voice.
+
+His first movement was impatient.  Thekla was apt to pursue him
+wherever he did not want her; but here he had least expected her, for
+she had a great fear of that coffin, and could hardly be brought to
+the chapel at prayer times, when she generally occupied herself with
+fancies that the empty helmet glared at her.  But now Ebbo saw her
+standing as near as she durst, with a sweet wistfulness in her eyes,
+such as he had never seen there before.
+
+"What is it, Thekla?" he said.  "Art sent to call me?"
+
+"No; only I saw that you stayed here all alone," she said, clasping
+her hands.
+
+"Must I not be alone, child?" he said, bitterly.  "Here lies my
+brother.  My mother has her husband again!"
+
+"But you have me!" cried Thekla; and, as he looked up between
+amusement and melancholy, he met such a loving eager little face,
+that he could not help holding out his arms, and letting her cling to
+him.  "Indeed," she said, "I'll never be afraid of the helmet again,
+if only you will not lay down your head there, and say you are
+alone."
+
+"Never, Thekla! while you are my little wife," said he; and, child as
+she was, there was strange solace to his heart in the eyes that, once
+vacant and wondering, had now gained a look of love and intelligence.
+
+"What are you going to do?" she said, shuddering a little, as he rose
+and laid his hand on Friedel's sword.
+
+"To make thee gird on thine own knight's sword," said Ebbo,
+unbuckling that which he had so long worn.  "Friedel," he added,
+"thou wouldst give me thine.  Let me take up thy temper with it,
+thine open-hearted love and humility."
+
+He guided Thekla's happy little fingers to the fastening of the belt,
+and then, laying his hand on hers, said gravely, "Thekla, never speak
+of what I said just now--not even to the mother.  Remember, it is thy
+husband's first secret."
+
+And feeling no longer solitary when his hand was in the clasp of
+hers, he returned to the hall, where his father was installed in the
+baronial chair, in which Ebbo had been at home from babyhood.  His
+mother's exclamation showed that her son had been wanting to her; and
+she looked fuller than ever of bliss when Ebbo gravely stood before
+his father, and presented him with the good old sword that he had
+sent to his unborn son.
+
+"You are like to use it more than I,--nay, you have used it to some
+purpose," said he.  "Yet must I keep mine old comrade at least a
+little while.  Wife, son, sword, should make one feel the same man
+again, but it is all too wonderful!"
+
+All that evening, and long after, his hand from time to time sought
+the hilt of his sword, as if that touch above all proved to him that
+he was again a free noble in his own castle.
+
+The story he told was thus.  The swoon in which Heinz had left him
+had probably saved his life by checking the gush of blood, and he had
+known no more till he found himself in a rough cart among the
+corpses.  At Schlangenwald's castle he had been found still
+breathing, and had been flung into a dungeon, where he lay
+unattended, for how long he never knew, since all the early part of
+the time was lost in the clouds of fever.  On coarse fare and scanty
+drink, in that dark vault, he had struggled by sheer obstinacy of
+vitality into recovery.  In the very height of midsummer alone did
+the sun peep through the grating of his cell, and he had newly hailed
+this cheerful visitor when he was roughly summoned, placed on
+horseback with eyes and hands bound, and only allowed sight again to
+find himself among a herd of his fellow Germans in the Turkish camp.
+They were the prisoners of the terrible Turkish raid of 1475, when
+Georg von Schenk and fourteen other noblemen of Austria and Styria
+were all taken in one unhappy fight, and dragged away into captivity,
+with hundreds of lower rank.
+
+To Sir Eberhard the change had been greatly for the better.  The Turk
+had treated him much better than the Christian; and walking in the
+open air, chained to a German comrade, was far pleasanter than pining
+in his lonely dungeon.  At Adrianople, an offer had been made to each
+of the captives, if they would become Moslems, of entering the
+Ottoman service as Spahis; but with one voice they had refused, and
+had then been draughted into different divisions.  The fifteen
+nobles, who had been offered for ransom, were taken to
+Constantinople, to await its arrival, and they had promised Sir
+Eberhard to publish his fate on their return to their homes; and,
+though he knew the family resources too well to have many hopes, he
+was rather hurt to find that their promise had been unfulfilled.
+
+"Alas! they had no opportunity," said Ebbo.  "Gulden were scarce, or
+were all in Kaisar Friedrich's great chest; the ransoms could not be
+raised, and all died in captivity.  I heard about it when I was at
+Wurms last month."
+
+"The boy at Wurms?" almost gasped Sir Eberhard in amaze.
+
+"I had to be there about matters concerning the Wildschloss lands and
+the bridge," said Ebbo; "and both Dankwart von Schlangenwald and I
+made special inquiries about that company in case you should have
+shared their fate.  I hoped to have set forth at that time, but the
+Kaisar said I was still too lame, and refused me license, or letters
+to the Sultan."
+
+"You would not have found me," said his father, narrating how he with
+a large troop of captives had been driven down to the coast; where
+they were transferred to a Moorish slave-dealer, who shipped them off
+for Tunis.  Here, after their first taste of the miseries of a sea
+life, the alternative of Islam or slavery was again put before them.
+"And, by the holy stone of Nicaea," said Sir Eberhard, "I thought by
+that time that the infidels had the advantage of us in good-will and
+friendliness; but, when they told me women had no souls at all, no
+more than a horse or dog, I knew it was but an empty dream of a
+religion; for did I not know that my little Ermentrude, and thou,
+Stine, had finer, clearer, wiser souls than ever a man I had known?
+'Nay, nay,' quoth I, 'I'll cast in my lot where I may meet my wife
+hereafter, should I never see her here.'"  He had then been allotted
+to a corsair, and had thenceforth been chained to the bench of
+rowers, between the two decks, where, in stifling heat and stench, in
+storm or calm, healthy or diseased, the wretched oarsmen were
+compelled to play the part of machinery in propelling the vessel, in
+order to capture Christian ships--making exertions to which only the
+perpetual lash of the galley-master could have urged their exhausted
+frames; often not desisting for twenty or thirty hours, and rowing
+still while sustenance was put into their mouths by their drivers.
+Many a man drew has last breath with his last stroke, and was at the
+first leisure moment hurled into the waves.  It was the description
+that had so deeply moved Friedel long ago, and Christina wept over
+it, as she looked at the bowed form once so proud and free, and
+thought of the unhealed scars.  But there, her husband added, he had
+been chained next to a holy friar of German blood, like himself a
+captive of the great Styrian raid; and, while some blasphemed in
+their misery, or wildly chid their patron saints, this good man
+strove to show that all was to work out good; he had a pious saying
+for all that befell, and adored the will of God in thus purifying
+him; "And, if it were thus with a saint like him, I thought, what
+must it be with a rough freebooting godless sinner such as I had
+been?  See"--and he took out a rosary of strung bladders of seaweed;
+"that is what he left me when he died, and what I meant to have been
+telling for ever up in the hermitage."
+
+"He died, then?"
+
+"Ay--he died on the shore of Corsica, while most of the dogs were off
+harrying a village inland, and we had a sort of respite, or I trow he
+would have rowed till his last gasp.  How he prayed for the poor
+wretches they were gone to attack!--ay, and for all of us--for me
+also--There's enough of it.  Such talk skills not now."
+
+It was plain that Sir Eberhard had learnt more Christianity in the
+hold of his Moorish pirate ship than ever in the Holy Roman Empire,
+and a weight was lifted off his son's mind by finding that he had
+vowed never to return to a life of violence, even though fancying a
+life of penance in a hermitage the only alternative.
+
+Ebbo asked if the Genoese merchant, Ser Gian Battista dei Battiste,
+had indeed been one of his fellow-captives.
+
+"Ha!--what?" and on the repetition, "Truly I knew him, Merchant Gian
+as we used to call him; but you twang off his name as they speak it
+in his own stately city."
+
+Christina smiled.  "Ebbo learnt the Italian tongue this winter from
+our chaplain, who had studied at Bologna.  He was told it would aid
+in his quest of you."
+
+"Tell me not!" said the traveller, holding up his hands in
+deprecation; "the Junker is worse than a priest!  And yet he killed
+old Wolfgang!  But what of Gian?  Hold,--did not he, when I was with
+him at Genoa, tell me a story of being put into a dungeon in a
+mountain fortress in Germany, and released by a pair of young lads
+with eyes beaming in the sunrise, who vanished just as they brought
+him to a cloister?  Nay, he deemed it a miracle of the saints, and
+hung up a votive picture thereof at the shrine of the holy Cosmo and
+Damian."
+
+"He was not so far wrong in deeming ONE of the lads near of kin to
+the holy ones," said Christina, softly.
+
+And Ebbo briefly narrated the adventure, when it evidently appeared
+that his having led at least one foray gave his father for the first
+time a fellow-feeling for him, and a sense that he was one of the
+true old stock; but, when he heard of the release, he growled, "So!
+How would a lad have fared who so acted in my time?  My poor old
+mother!  She must have been changed indeed not to have scourged him
+till he had no strength to cry out."
+
+"He was my prisoner!" said Ebbo, in his old defiant tone; "I had the
+right."
+
+"Ah, well! the Junker has always been master here, and I never!" said
+the elder knight, looking round rather piteously; and Ebbo, with a
+sudden movement, exclaimed, "Nay, sir, you are the only lord and
+master, and I stand ready to be the first to obey you."
+
+"You!  A fine young book-learned scholar, already knighted, and with
+all these Wildschloss lands too!" said Sir Eberhard, gazing with a
+strange puzzled look at the delicate but spirited features of this
+strange perplexing son.  "Reach hither your hand, boy."
+
+And as he compared the slender, shapely hand of such finely-textured
+skin with the breadth of his own horny giant's paw, he tossed it from
+him, shaking his head with a gesture as if he had no commands for
+such feminine-looking fingers to execute, and mortifying Ebbo not a
+little.  "Ah!" said Christina, apologetically, "it always grieved
+your mother that the boys would resemble me and mine.  But, when
+daylight comes, Ebbo will show you that he has not lost the old
+German strength."
+
+"No doubt--no doubt," said Sir Eberhard, hastily, "since he has slain
+Schlangenwald; and, if the former state of things be at an end, the
+less he takes after the ancient stock the better.  But I am an old
+man now, Stine, though thou look'st fair and fresh as ever, and I do
+not know what to make of these things.  White napery on the table;
+glass drinking things;--nay, were it not for thee and the
+Schneiderlein, I should not know I was at home."
+
+He was led back to his narration, and it appeared that, after some
+years spent at the oar, certain bleedings from the lungs, the remains
+of his wound, had become so much more severe as to render him useless
+for naval purposes; and, as he escaped actually dying during a
+voyage, he was allowed to lie by on coming into port till he had in
+some degree recovered, and then had been set to labour at the
+fortifications, chained to another prisoner, and toiling between the
+burning sand and burning sun, but treated with less horrible severity
+than the necessities of the sea had occasioned on board ship, and
+experiencing the benefit of intercourse with the better class of
+captives, whom their miserable fate had thrown into the hands of the
+Moors.
+
+It was a favourite almsdeed among the Provencals, Spaniards, and
+Italians to send money for the redemption of prisoners to the Moors,
+and there was a regular agency for ransoms through the Jews; but
+German captives were such an exception that no one thought of them,
+and many a time had the summons come for such and such a slave by
+name, or for five poor Sicilians, twenty Genoese, a dozen
+Marseillais, or the like, but still no word for the Swabian; till he
+had made up his mind that he should either leave his bones in the hot
+mud of the harbour, or be only set free by some gallant descent
+either of the brave King of Portugal, or of the Knights of Rhodes, of
+whom the captives were ever dreaming and whispering.
+
+At length his own slave name was shouted; he was called up by the
+captain of his gang, and, while expecting some fresh punishment, or,
+maybe, to find himself sold into some domestic form of slavery, he
+was set before a Jewish agent, who, after examining him on his name,
+country, and station, and comparing his answers with a paper of
+instructions, informed him that he was ransomed, caused his fetters
+to be struck off, and shipped him off at once for Genoa, with orders
+to the captain to consign him to the merchant Signor del Battiste.
+By him Sir Eberhard had been received with the warmest hospitality,
+and treated as befitted his original station, but Battista disclaimed
+the merit of having ransomed him.  He had but acted, he said, as the
+agent of an Austrian gentleman, from whom he had received orders to
+inquire after the Swabian baron who had been his fellow-captive, and,
+if he were still living, to pay his ransom, and bring him home.
+
+"The name--the name!" eagerly asked Ebbo and his mother at once.
+
+"The name?  Gian was wont to make bad work of our honest German
+names, but I tried to learn this--being so beholden to him.  I even
+caused it to be spelt over to me, but my letters long ago went from
+me.  It seems to me that the man is a knight-errant, like those of
+thy ballads, Stine--one Ritter Theur--Theur--"
+
+"Theurdank!" cried Ebbo.
+
+"Ay, Theurdank.  What, you know him?  There is nothing you and your
+mother don't know, I believe."
+
+"Know him!  Father, he is our greatest and noblest!  He has been kind
+to me beyond description.  He is the Kaisar!  Now I see why he had
+that strange arch look which so vexed me when he forbade me on my
+allegiance to set forth till my lameness should be gone!  Long ago
+had he asked me all about Gian Battista.  To him he must have
+written."
+
+"The Kaisar!" said Sir Eberhard.  "Nay, the poor fellows I left in
+Turkey ever said he was too close of fist for them to have hope from
+him."
+
+"Oh! that was old Kaisar Friedrich.  This is our own gallant
+Maximilian--a knight as true and brave as ever was paladin," said
+Christina; "and most truly loving and prizing our Ebbo."
+
+"And yet I wish--I wish," said Ebbo, "that he had let me win my
+father's liberty for myself."
+
+"Yea, well," said his father, "there spoke the Adlerstein.  We never
+were wont to be beholden to king or kaisar."
+
+"Nay," say Ebbo, after a moment's recollection, colouring as he
+spoke; "it is true that I deserved it not.  Nay, Sir Father, it is
+well.  You owe your freedom in very truth to the son you have not
+known.  It was he who treasured up the thought of the captive German
+described by the merchant, and even dreamt of it, while never
+doubting of your death; it was he who caught up Schlangenwald's first
+hint that you lived, while I, in my pride, passed it by as merely
+meant to perplex me; it was he who had formed an absolute purpose of
+obtaining some certainty; and at last, when my impetuosity had
+brought on the fatal battle, it was he who bought with his own life
+the avowal of your captivity.  I had hoped to have fulfilled
+Friedel's trust, and to have redeemed my own backwardness; but it is
+not to be.  While I was yet lying helpless on my bed, the Emperor has
+taken it out of my power.  Mother, you receive him from Friedel's
+hands, after all."
+
+"And well am I thankful that so it should be," said Christina.  "Ah,
+Ebbo! sorely should I have pined with anxiety when thou wast gone.
+And thy father knows that thou hadst the full purpose."
+
+"Yea, I know it," said the old man; "and, after all, small blame to
+him even if he had not.  He never saw me, and light grieves the heart
+for what the eye hath not seen."
+
+"But," added the wife, "since the Romish king freed you, dear lord,
+cared he not better for your journey than to let you come in this
+forlorn plight?"
+
+This, it appeared, was far from being his deliverer's fault.  Money
+had been supplied, and Sir Eberhard had travelled as far as Aosta
+with a party of Italian merchants; but no sooner had he parted with
+them than he was completely astray.  His whole experience of life had
+been as a robber baron or as a slave, and he knew not how to take
+care of himself as a peaceful traveller; he suffered fresh extortions
+at every stage, and after a few days was plundered by his guides,
+beaten, and left devoid of all means of continuing the journey to
+which he could hardly hope for a cheerful end.  He did not expect to
+find his mother living,--far less that his unowned wife could have
+survived the perils in which he had involved her; and he believed
+that his ancestral home would, if not a ruin, be held by his foes, or
+at best by the rival branch of the family, whose welcome of the
+outlawed heir would probably be to a dungeon, if not a halter.  Yet
+the only magnet on earth for the lonely wanderer was his native
+mountain, where from some old peasant he might learn how his fair
+young bride had perished, and perhaps the sins of his youth might be
+expiated by continual prayer in the hermitage chapel where his sister
+lay buried, and whence he could see the crags for which his eye and
+heart had craved so long with the home-sickness of a mountaineer.
+
+And now, when his own Christina had welcomed him with all the
+overflow of her loving heart, unchanged save that hers had become a
+tenderer yet more dignified loveliness; when his gallant son, in all
+the bloom of young manhood, received him with dutiful submission;
+when the castle, in a state of defence, prosperity, and comfort of
+which he had never dreamt, was again his own;--still the old man was
+bewildered, and sometimes oppressed almost to distress.  He had, as
+it were, fallen asleep in one age of the world, and wakened in
+another, and it seemed as if he really wished to defer his wakening,
+or else that repose was an absolute novelty to him; for he sat dozing
+in his chair in the sun the whole of the next day, and scarcely
+spoke.
+
+Ebbo, who felt it a necessity to come to an understanding of the
+terms on which they were to stand, tried to refer matters to him, and
+to explain the past, but he was met sometimes by a shake of the head,
+sometimes by a nod--not of assent, but of sleep; and his mother
+advised him not to harass the wearied traveller, but to leave him to
+himself at least for that day, and let him take his own time for
+exertion, letting things meantime go on as usual.  Ebbo obeyed, but
+with a load at his heart, as he felt that all he was doing was but
+provisional, and that it would be his duty to resign all that he had
+planned, and partly executed, to this incompetent, ignorant rule.  He
+could certainly, when not serving the Emperor, go and act for himself
+at Thekla's dower castle of Felsenbach, and his mother might save
+things from going to utter ruin at Adlerstein; but no reflection or
+self-reproach could make it otherwise than a bitter pill to any
+Telemachus to have to resign to one so unlike Ulysses in all but the
+length of his wanderings,--one, also, who seemed only half to like,
+and not at all to comprehend, his Telemachus.
+
+Meantime Ebbo attended to such matters as were sure to come each day
+before the Herr Freiherr.  Now it was a question whether the stone
+for the mill should be quarried where it would undermine a bit of
+grass land, or further on, where the road was rougher; now Berend's
+swine had got into Barthel's rye, and Barthel had severely hurt one
+of them--the Herr Freiherr's interference could alone prevent a
+hopeless quarrel; now a waggon with ironwork for the mill claimed
+exemption from toll as being for the Baron:  and he must send down
+the toll, to obviate injustice towards Schlangenwald and Ulm.  Old
+Ulrich's grandson, who had run away for a lanzknecht, had sent a
+letter home (written by a comrade), the Baron must read and answer
+it.  Steinmark's son wanted to be a poor student:  the Herr Freiherr
+must write him a letter of recommendation.  Mother Grethel's ewe had
+fallen into a cleft; her son came to borrow a rope, and ask aid, and
+the Baron must superintend the hoisting the poor beast up again.
+Hans had found the track of a wolf, and knew the hole where a litter
+of cubs abode; the Freiherr, his wolf-hound, and his spear were
+wanted for their destruction.  Dietrich could not tell how to manage
+his new arquebus:  the Baron must teach him to take aim.  Then there
+was a letter from Ulm to invite the Baron to consult on the tax
+demanded by the Emperor for his Italian war, and how far it should
+concern the profits of the bridge; and another letter from the
+Markgraf of Wurtemburg, as chief of the Swabian League, requesting
+the Lord of Adlerstein to be on the look-out for a band of robbers,
+who were reported to be in neighbouring hills, after being hunted out
+of some of their other lurking-places.
+
+That very night, or rather nearly at the dawn of a summer morning,
+there was a yelling below the castle, and a flashing of torches, and
+tidings rang through it that a boor on the outskirts of the mountain
+had had his ricks fired and his cattle driven by the robbers, and his
+young daughters carried off.  Old Sir Eberhard hobbled down to the
+hall in time to see weapons flashing as they were dealt out, to hear
+a clear decided voice giving orders, to listen to the tramp of horse,
+and watch more reitern pass out under the gateway than ever the
+castle had counted in his father's time.  Then he went back to his
+bed, and when he came down in the morning, found all the womankind of
+the castle roasting and boiling.  And, at noon, little Thekla came
+rushing down from the watch-tower with news that all were coming home
+up the Eagle's Steps, and she was sure HER baron had sent her, and
+waved to her.  Soon after, HER baron in his glittering steel rode his
+cream-coloured charger (once Friedel's) into the castle court,
+followed by his exultant merrymen.  They had overtaken the thieves in
+good time, made them captives, and recovered the spoil unhurt; and
+Heinz and Koppel made the castle ring with the deed of their young
+lord, who had forced the huge leader of the band to the earth, and
+kept him down by main strength till they could come to bind him.
+
+"By main strength?" slowly asked Sir Eberhard, who had been stirred
+into excitement.
+
+"He was a loose-limbed, awkward fellow," said Ebbo, "less strong than
+he looked."
+
+"Not only that, Sir," said Heinz, looking from his old master to his
+young one; "but old iron is not a whit stronger than new steel,
+though the one looks full of might, and you would think the other but
+a toy."
+
+"And what have you done with the rogues' heads?" asked the old
+knight.  "I looked to see them on your spears.  Or have you hung
+them?"
+
+"Not so, Sir," said Ebbo.  "I sent the men off to Stuttgard with an
+escort.  I dislike doing execution ourselves; it makes the men so
+lawless.  Besides, this farmer was Schlangenwalder."
+
+"And yet he came to you for redress?"
+
+"Yes, for Sir Dankwart is at his commandery, and he and I agreed to
+look after each other's lands."
+
+Sir Eberhard retired to his chair as if all had gone past his
+understanding, and thence he looked on while his son and wife
+hospitably regaled, and then dismissed, their auxiliaries in the
+rescue.
+
+Afterwards Christina told her son that she thought his father was
+rested, and would be better able to attend to him, and Ebbo, with a
+painful swelling in his heart, approached him deferentially, with a
+request that he would say what was his pleasure with regard to the
+Emperor, to whom acknowledgments must in the first place be made for
+his release, and next would arise the whole question of homage and
+investiture.
+
+"Look you here, fair son," said Sir Eberhard, rousing himself, "these
+things are all past me.  I'll have none of them.  You and your Kaisar
+understand one another, and your homage is paid.  It boots not
+changing all for an old fellow that is but come home to die."
+
+"Nay, father, it is in the order of things that you should be lord
+here."
+
+"I never was lord here, and, what is more, I would not, and could not
+be.  Son, I marked you yesterday.  You are master as never was my
+poor father, with all the bawling and blows that used to rule the
+house, while these fellows mind you at a word, in a voice as quiet as
+your mother's.  Besides, what should I do with all these mills and
+bridges of yours, and Diets, and Leagues, and councils enough to
+addle a man's brain?  No, no; I could once slay a bear, or strike a
+fair stroke at a Schlangenwalder, but even they got the better of me,
+and I am good for nothing now but to save my soul.  I had thought to
+do it as a hermit up there; but my little Christina thinks the saints
+will be just as well pleased if I tell my beads here, with her to
+help me, and I know that way I shall not make so many mistakes.  So,
+young Sir, if you can give the old man a corner of the hearth while
+he lives, he will never interfere with you.  And, maybe, if the
+castle were in jeopardy in your absence, with that new-fangled road
+up to it, he could tell the fellows how to hold it out."
+
+"Sir--dear father," cried the ardent Ebbo, "this is not a fit state
+of things.  I will spare you all trouble and care; only make me not
+undutiful; take your own place.  Mother, convince him!"
+
+"No, my son," said Sir Eberhard; "your mother sees what is best for
+me.  I only want to be left to her to rest a little while, and repent
+of my sinful life.  As Heinz says, the rusty old iron must lie by
+while the new steel does the work.  It is quiet that I need.  It is
+joy enough for me to see what she has made you, and all around.  Ah!
+Stine, my white dove, I knew thine was a wise head; but when I left
+thee, gentle little frightened, fluttering thing, how little could I
+have thought that all alone, unaided, thou wouldst have kept that
+little head above water, and made thy son work out all these changes-
+-thy doing--and so I know they are good and seemly.  I see thou hast
+made him clerkly, quick-witted, and yet a good knight.  Ah! thou
+didst tell me oft that our lonely pride was not high nor worthy fame.
+Stine, how didst do it?"
+
+"I did it not, dear husband; God did it for me.  He gave the boys the
+loving, true tempers that worked out the rest!  He shielded them and
+me in our days of peril."
+
+"Yes, father," added Ebbo, "Providence guarded us; but, above all,
+our chief blessing has been the mother who has made one of us a holy
+saint, and taught the other to seek after him!  Father, I am glad you
+see how great has been the work of the Dove you brought to the
+Eagle's Nest."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV:  THE STAR AND THE SPARK
+
+
+
+The year 1531 has begun, and Schloss Adlerstein remains in its
+strength on the mountain side, but with a look of cultivation on its
+environs such as would have amazed Kunigunde.  Vines run up trellises
+against the rocks; pot-herbs and flowers nestle in the nooks;
+outbuildings cluster round it; and even the grim old keep has a range
+of buildings connected with it, as if the household had entirely
+outgrown the capacities of the square tower.
+
+Yet the old hall is still the chief place of assembly, and now that
+it has been wainscoted, with a screen of carved wood to shut off the
+draughty passages, and a stove of bright tiles to increase the
+warmth, it is far more cheerful.  Moreover, a window has been opened
+showing the rich green meadow below, with the bridge over the
+Braunwasser, and the little church, with a spire of pierced lace-
+work, and white cottages peeping out of the retreating forest.
+
+That is the window which the Lady Baroness loves.  See her there, the
+lovely old lady of seventy-five--yes, lovelier than ever, for her
+sweet brown eyes have the same pensive, clear beauty, enhanced by the
+snowy whiteness of her hair, of which a soft braid shows over the
+pure pale brow beneath the white band, and sweeping black veil, that
+she has worn by right for twenty years.  But the slight form is
+active and brisk, and there are ready smiles and looks of interest
+for the pretty fair-haired maidens, three in number, who run in and
+out from their household avocations to appeal to the "dear
+grandmother," mischievously to tell of the direful yawns proceeding
+from brothers Ebbo and Gottfried over their studies with their tutor,
+or to gaze from the window and wonder if the father, with the two
+brothers, Friedel Max and Kasimir, will return from Ulm in time for
+the "mid-day eating."
+
+Ah! there they are.  Quick-eyed Vittoria has seen the cavalcade
+first, and dances off to tell Ermentrude and Stine time enough to
+prepare their last batch of fritters for the new-comers; Ebbo and
+Gotz rush headlong down the hillside; and the Lady Baroness lays down
+her distaff, and gazes with eyes of satisfied content at the small
+party of horsemen climbing up the footpath.  Then, when they have
+wound out of sight round a rock, she moves out towards the hall-door,
+with a light, quick step, for never yet has she resigned her great
+enjoyment, that of greeting her son on the steps of the porch--those
+steps where she once met such fearful news, but where that memory has
+been effaced by many a cheerful welcome.
+
+There, then, she stands, amid the bright throng of grandchildren,
+while the Baron and his sons spring from their horses and come up to
+her.  The Baron doffs his Spanish hat, bends the knee, kisses her
+hand, and receives her kiss on his brow, with the fervour of a life-
+devotion, before he turns to accept the salutation of his daughters,
+and then takes her hand, with pretty affectionate ceremony, to hand
+her back to her seat.  A few words pass between them.  "No,
+motherling," he says, "I signed it not; I will tell you all by and
+by."
+
+And then the mid-day meal is served for the whole household, as of
+old, with the salt-cellar in the middle, but with a far larger
+company above it than when first we saw it.  The seven young folks
+preserve a decorous silence, save when Fraulein Ermentrude's
+cookeries are good-naturedly complimented by her father, or when
+Baron Friedmund Maximilianus breaks out with some wonderful fact
+about new armour seen at Ulm.  He is a handsome, fair, flaxen-haired
+young man--like the old Adlersteins, say the elder people--and full
+of honest gaiety and good nature, the special pride of his sisters;
+and no sooner is the meal over, than, with a formal entreaty for
+dismissal, all the seven, and all the dogs, move off together, to
+that favourite gathering-place round the stove, where all their merry
+tongues are let loose together.
+
+To them, the Herr Vater and the Frau Grossmutter seem nearly of the
+same age, and of the same generation; and verily the eighteen years
+between the mother and son have dwindled into a very small difference
+even in appearance, and a lesser one in feeling.  She is a youthful,
+beautiful old lady; he a grave, spare, worn, elderly man, in his full
+strength, but with many a trace of care and thought, and far more of
+silver than of brown in his thin hair and pointed beard, and with a
+melancholy thoughtfulness in his clear brown eyes--all well
+corresponding with the gravity of the dress in which he has been
+meeting the burghers of Ulm; a black velvet suit--only relieved by
+his small white lace ruff, and the ribbon and jewel of the Golden
+Fleece, the only other approach to ornament that he wears being that
+ring long ago twisted off the Emperor Maximilian's chain.  But now,
+as he has bowed off the chaplain to his study, and excused himself
+from aiding his two gentlemen-squires in consuming their krug of
+beer, and hands his mother to her favourite nook in the sunny window,
+taking his seat by her side, his features assume an expression of
+repose and relaxation as if here indeed were his true home.  He has
+chosen his seat in full view of a picture that hangs on the
+wainscoted wall, near his mother--a picture whose pure ethereal
+tinting, of colour limpid as the rainbow, yet rich as the most
+glowing flower-beds; and its soft lovely pose, and rounded outlines,
+prove it to be no produce even of one of the great German artists of
+the time, but to have been wrought, under an Italian sky, by such a
+hand as left us the marvellous smile of Mona Lisa.  It represents two
+figures, one unmistakably himself when in the prime of life, his brow
+and cheeks unfurrowed, and his hair still thick, shining brown, but
+with the same grave earnestness of the dark eye that came with the
+early sense of responsibility, and with the first sorrow of his
+youth.  The other figure, one on which the painter evidently loved to
+dwell, is of a lady, so young that she might almost pass for his
+daughter, except for the peculiar, tender sweetness that could only
+become the wife and mother.  Fair she is as snow, with scarce a
+deepening of the rose on cheek, or even lip, fragile and transparent
+as a spiritual form, and with a light in the blue eyes, and a grace
+in the soft fugitive smile, that scarce seems to belong to earth; a
+beauty not exactly of feature, but rather the pathetic loveliness of
+calm fading away--as if she were already melting into the clear blue
+sky with the horizon of golden light, that the wondrous power of art
+has made to harmonize with, but not efface, her blue dress, golden
+hair, white coif, and fair skin.  It is as if she belonged to that
+sky, and only tarried as unable to detach herself from the clasp of
+the strong hand round and in which both her hands are twined; and
+though the light in her face may be from heaven, yet the whole
+countenance is fixed in one absorbed, almost worshipping gaze of her
+husband, with a wistful simplicity and innocence on devotion, like
+the absorption of a loving animal, to whom its master's presence is
+bliss and sunshine.  It is a picture to make light in a dark place,
+and that sweet face receives a loving glance, nay, an absolutely
+reverent bend of the knightly head, as the Baron seats himself.
+
+"So it was as we feared, and this Schmalkaldic League did not suit
+thy sense of loyalty, my son?" she asks, reading his features
+anxiously.
+
+"No, mother.  I ever feared that further pressure would drive our
+friends beyond the line where begin schism and rebellion; and it
+seems to me that the moment is come when I must hold me still, or
+transgress mine own sense of duty.  I must endure the displeasure of
+many I love and respect."
+
+"Surely, my son, they have known you too long and too well not to
+respect your motives, and know that conscience is first with you."
+
+"Scarce may such confidence be looked for, mother, from the most
+part, who esteem every man a traitor to the cause if he defend it not
+precisely in the fashion of their own party.  But I hear that the
+King of France has offered himself as an ally, and that Dr. Luther,
+together with others of our best divines, have thereby been startled
+into doubts of the lawfulness of the League."
+
+"And what think you of doing, my son?"
+
+"I shall endeavour to wait until such time as the much-needed General
+Council may proclaim the ancient truth, and enable us to avouch it
+without disunion.  Into schism I WILL not be drawn.  I have held
+truth all my life in the Church, nor will I part from her now.  If
+intrigues again should prevail, then, Heaven help us!  Meantime,
+mother, the best we can, as has ever been your war-cry."
+
+"And much has been won for us.  Here are the little maidens, who,
+save Vittoria, would never have been scholars, reading the Holy Word
+daily in their own tongue."
+
+"Ach, I had not told you, mother!  I have the Court Secretary's
+answer this day about that command in the Kaisar's guards that my
+dear old master had promised to his godson."
+
+"Another put-off with Flemish courtesy, I see by thy face, Ebbo."
+
+"Not quite that, mother.  The command is ready for the Baron
+Friedmund Maximilianus von Adlerstein Wildschloss, and all the rest
+of it, on the understanding that he has been bred up free from all
+taint of the new doctrine."
+
+"New?  Nay, it is the oldest of all doctrine."
+
+"Even so.  As I ever said, Dr. Luther hath been setting forth in
+greater clearness and fulness what our blessed Friedel and I learnt
+at your knee, and my young ones have learnt from babyhood of the true
+Catholic doctrine.  Yet I may not call my son's faith such as the
+Kaisar's Spanish conscience-keepers would have it, and so the boy
+must e'en tarry at home till there be work for his stout arm to do."
+
+"He seems little disappointed.  His laugh comes ringing the loudest
+of all."
+
+"The Junker is more of a boy at two-and-twenty than I ever recollect
+myself!  He lacks not sense nor wit, but a fray or a feast, a chase
+or a dance, seem to suffice him at an age when I had long been
+dwelling on matters of moment."
+
+"Thou wast left to be thine own pilot; he is but one of thy gay crew,
+and thus even these stirring times touch him not so deeply as thou
+wert affected by thine own choice in life between disorderly freedom
+and honourable restraint."
+
+"I thought of that choice to-day, mother, as I crossed the bridge and
+looked at the church; and more than ever thankful did I feel that our
+blessed Friedel, having aided me over that one decisive pass, was
+laid to rest, his tender spirit unvexed by the shocks and divisions
+that have wrenched me hither and thither."
+
+"Nay; not hither and thither.  Ever hadst thou a resolute purpose and
+aim."
+
+"Ever failed in by my own error or that of others--What, thou
+nestling here, my little Vittoria, away from all yonder prattle?"
+
+"Dear father, if I may, I love far best to hear you and the
+grandmother talk."
+
+"Hear the child!  She alone hath your face, mother, or Friedel's
+eyes!  Is it that thou wouldst be like thy noble Roman godmother, the
+Marchesa di Pescara, that makes thee seek our grave company, little
+one?"
+
+"I always long to hear you talk of her, and of the Italian days, dear
+father, and how you won this noble jewel of yours."
+
+"Ah, child, that was before those times!  It was the gift of good
+Kaisar Max at his godson's christening, when he filled your sweet
+mother with pretty spite by persuading her that it was a little
+golden bear-skin."
+
+"Tell her how you had gained it, my son."
+
+"By vapouring, child; and by the dull pride of my neighbours.
+Heard'st thou never of the siege of Padua, when we had Bayard, the
+best knight in Europe, and 500 Frenchmen for our allies?  Our
+artillery had made a breach, and the Kaisar requested the French
+knights to lead the storm, whereto they answered, Well and good, but
+our German nobles must share the assault, and not leave them to fight
+with no better backers than the hired lanzknechts.  All in reason,
+quoth I, and more shame for us not to have been foremost in our
+Kaisar's own cause; but what said the rest of our misproud chivalry?
+They would never condescend to climb a wall on foot in company with
+lanzknechts!  On horseback must their worships fight, or not at all;
+and when to shame them I called myself a mountaineer, more used to
+climb than to ride, and vowed that I should esteem it an honour to
+follow such a knight as Bayard, were it on all fours, then cast they
+my burgher blood in my teeth.  Never saw I the Kaisar so enraged; he
+swore that all the common sense in the empire was in the burgher
+blood, and that he would make me a knight of the noblest order in
+Europe to show how he esteemed it.  And next morning he was gone!  So
+ashamed was he of his own army that he rode off in the night, and
+sent orders to break up the siege.  I could have torn my hair, for I
+had just lashed up a few of our nobles to a better sense of honour,
+and we would yet have redeemed our name!  And after all, the Chapter
+of proud Flemings would never have admitted me had not the heralds
+hunted up that the Sorels were gentlemen of blood and coat armour
+long ago at Liege.  I am glad my father lived to see that proved,
+mother.  He could not honour thee more than he did, but he would have
+been sorely grieved had I been rejected.  He often thought me a
+mechanical burgher, as it was."
+
+"Not quite so, my son.  He never failed to be proud of thy deeds,
+even when he did not understand them; but this, and the grandson's
+birth, were the crowning joys of his life."
+
+"Yes, those were glad triumphant years, take them all in all, ere the
+Emperor sent me to act ambassador in Rome, and we left you the two
+elder little girls and the boy to take care of.  My dear little
+Thekla!  She had a foreboding that she might never see those children
+more, yet would she have pined her heart away more surely had I left
+her at home!  I never was absent a week but I found her wasted with
+watching for me."
+
+"It was those weary seven years of Italy that changed thee most, my
+son."
+
+"Apart from you, mother, and knowing you now indeed to be widowed,
+and with on the one hand such contradictory commands from the Emperor
+as made me sorely ashamed of myself, of my nation, and of the man
+whom I loved and esteemed personally the most on earth, yet bound
+there by his express command, while I saw my tender wife's health
+wasting in the climate day by day!  Yet still, while most she gasped
+for a breath of Swabian hills, she ever declared it would kill her
+outright to send her from me.  And thus it went on till I laid her in
+the stately church of her own patroness.  Then how it would have
+fared with me and the helpless little ones I know not, but for thy
+noble godmother, my Vittoria, the wise and ready helper of all in
+trouble, the only friend thy mother had made at Rome, and who had
+been able, from all her heights of learning and accomplishment, to
+value my Thekla's golden soul in its simplicity.  Even then, when too
+late, came one of the Kaisar's kindest letters, recalling me,--a
+letter whose every word I would have paid for with a drop of my own
+blood six weeks before! and which he had only failed to send because
+his head was running on the plan of that gorgeous tomb where he is
+not buried!  Well, at least it brought us home to you again once
+more, mother, and, where you are, comfort never has been utterly
+absent from me.  And then, coming from the wilful gloom of Pope Leo's
+court into our Germany, streamed over by the rays of Luther's light,
+it was as if a new world of hope were dawning, as if truth would no
+longer be muffled, and the young would grow up to a world far better
+and purer than the old had ever seen.  What trumpet-calls those were,
+and how welcome was the voice of the true Catholic faith no longer
+stifled!  And my dear old Kaisar, with his clear eyes, his unfettered
+mind--he felt the power and truth of those theses.  He bade the
+Elector of Saxony well to guard the monk Luther as a treasure.  Ah!
+had he been a younger man, or had he been more firm and resolute,
+able to act as well as think for himself, things might have gone
+otherwise with the Church.  He could think, but could not act; and
+now we have a man who acts, but WILL not think.  It may have been a
+good day for our German reputation among foreign princes when Charles
+V. put on the crown; but only two days in my life have been as
+mournful to me as that when I stood by Kaisar Max's death-bed at
+Wells, and knew that generous, loving, fitful spirit was passing away
+from the earth!  Never owned I friend I loved so well as Kaisar Max!
+Nor has any Emperor done so much for this our dear land."
+
+"The young Emperor never loved thee."
+
+"He might have treated me as one who could be useful, but he never
+forgave me for shaking hands with Luther at the Diet of Worms.  I
+knew it was all over with my court favour after I had joined in
+escorting the Doctor out of the city.  And the next thing was that
+Georg of Freundsberg and his friends proclaimed me a bigoted Papist
+because I did my utmost to keep my troop out of the devil's holiday
+at the sack of Rome!  It has ever been my lot to be in disgrace with
+one side or the other!  Here is my daughter's marriage hindered on
+the one hand, my son's promotion checked on the other, because I have
+a conscience of my own, and not of other people's!  Heaven knows the
+right is no easy matter to find; but, when one thinks one sees it,
+there is nothing to be done but to guide oneself by it, even if the
+rest of the world will not view it in the same light."
+
+"Nothing else!  I doubt me whether it be ever easy to see the
+veritably right course while still struggling in the midst.  That is
+for after ages, which behold things afar off; but each man must needs
+follow his own principle in an honest and good heart, and assuredly
+God will guide him to work out some good end, or hinder some evil
+one."
+
+"Ay, mother.  Each party may guard one side or other of the truth in
+all honesty and faithfulness; he who cannot with his whole heart cast
+in his lot with either,--he is apt to serve no purpose, and to be
+scorned."
+
+"Nay, Ebbo, may he not be a witness to the higher and more perfect
+truth than either party have conceived?  Nor is inaction always
+needful.  That which is right towards either side still reveals
+itself at the due moment, whether it be to act or to hold still.  And
+verily, Ebbo, what thou didst say even now has set me on a strange
+thought of mine own dream, that which heralded the birth of thyself
+and thy brother.  As thou knowest, it seemed to me that I was
+watching two sparkles from the extinguished Needfire wheel.  One rose
+aloft and shone as a star!"
+
+"My guiding-star!"
+
+"The other fulfilled those words of the Wise Man.  It shone and ran
+to and fro in the grass.  And surely, my Ebbo, thy mother may feel
+that, in all these dark days of perplexity and trial, the spark of
+light hath ever shone and drawn its trail of brightness in the gloom,
+even though the way was long, and seemed uncertain."
+
+"The mother who ever fondled me WILL think so, it may be!  But, ah!
+she had better pray that the light be clearer, and that I may not
+fall utterly short of the star!"
+
+
+Travellers in Wurtemburg may perhaps turn aside from glorious old
+Ulm, and the memories of the battlefields around it, to the romantic
+country round the Swabian mountains, through which descend the
+tributaries of the Danube.  Here they may think themselves fortunate
+if they come upon a green valley, with a bright mountain torrent
+dashing through it, fresh from the lofty mountain, with terraced
+sides that rise sheer above.  An old bridge, a mill, and a neat
+German village lie clustered in the valley; a seignorial mansion
+peeps out of the forest glades; and a lovely church, of rather late
+Gothic, but beautifully designed, attracts the eye so soon as it can
+be persuaded to quit the romantic outline of the ruined baronial
+castle high up on one of the mountain ledges.  Report declares that
+there are tombs in the church well worth inspection.  You seek out an
+old venerable blue-coated peasant who has charge of the church.
+
+"What is yonder castle?"
+
+"It is the castle of Adlerstein."
+
+"Are the family still extant?"
+
+"Yea, yea; they built yonder house when the Schloss became ruinous.
+They have always been here."
+
+The church is very beautiful in its details, the carved work of the
+east end and pulpit especially so, but nothing is so attractive as
+the altar tomb in the chantry chapel.  It is a double one, holding
+not, as usual, the recumbent effigies of a husband and wife, but of
+two knights in armour.
+
+"Who are these, good friend?"
+
+"They are the good Barons Ebbo and Friedel."
+
+Father and son they appear to be, killed at the same time in some
+fatal battle, for the white marble face of one is round with youth,
+no hair on lip nor chin, and with a lovely peaceful solemnity, almost
+cheerfulness, in the expression.  The other, a bearded man, has the
+glory of old age in his worn features, beautiful and restful, but it
+is as if one had gone to sleep in the light of dawn, the other in the
+last glow of sunset.  Their armour and their crests are alike, but
+the young one bears the eagle shield alone, while the elder has the
+same bearing repeated upon an escutcheon of pretence; the young man's
+hands are clasped over a harp, those of the other over a Bible, and
+the elder wears the insignia of the order of the Golden Fleece.  They
+are surely father and son, a maiden knight and tried warrior who fell
+together?
+
+"No," the guide shakes his head; "they are twin brothers, the good
+Barons Ebbo and Friedel, who were born when their father had been
+taken captive by the Saracens while on a crusade.  Baron Friedel was
+slain by the Turks at the bridge foot, and his brother built the
+church in his memory.  He first planted vines upon the mountains, and
+freed the peasants from the lord's dues on their flax.  And it is
+true that the two brothers may still be seen hovering on the
+mountain-side in the mist at sunset, sometimes one, sometimes both."
+
+You turn with a smile to the inscription, sure that those windows,
+those porches, that armour, never were of crusading date, and ready
+to refute the old peasant.  You spell out the upright Gothic letters
+around the cornice of the tomb, and you read, in mediaeval Latin,
+
+
+"Orate pro Anima Friedmundis Equitis Baronis Adlersteini.  A. D.
+mccccxciii"
+
+
+Then turn to the other side and read -
+
+
+"Hic jacet Eberardus Eques Baro Adlersteini.  A.D. mdxliii.  Demum"
+
+
+Yes, the guide is right.  They are brothers, with well-nigh a
+lifetime between their deaths.  Is that the meaning of that strange
+Demum?
+
+Few of the other tombs are worth attention, each lapsing further into
+the bad taste of later ages; yet there is one still deserving
+admiration, placed close to the head of that of the two Barons.  It
+is the effigy of a lady, aged and serene, with a delicately-carved
+face beneath her stiff head-gear.  Surely this monument was erected
+somewhat later, for the inscription is in German.  Stiff, contracted,
+hard to read, but this is the rendering of it
+
+
+"Here lies Christina Sorel, wife of Eberhard, xxth Baron von
+Adlerstein, and mother of the Barons Eberhard and Friedmund.  She
+fell asleep two days before her son, on the feast of St. John,
+mdxliii.
+
+"Her children shall rise up and call her blessed.
+
+"Erected with full hearts by her grandson, Baron Friedmund
+Maximilianus, and his brothers and sisters.  Farewell."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext of The Dove in the Eagle's Nest, by Yonge
+
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