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+Project Gutenberg's Specimens of German Romance, by Carl Franz van der Velde
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Specimens of German Romance
+       Vol. I. The Patricians
+
+Author: Carl Franz van der Velde
+
+Editor: George Soan
+
+Release Date: April 20, 2010 [EBook #32070]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPECIMENS OF GERMAN ROMANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by the Web Archive
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+1. Page scan Source:
+   http://www.archive.org/details/specimensofgerma01soaniala
+2. Footnotes are at the end of the book.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                VOL. I.
+
+
+                            THE PATRICIANS.
+
+                         _From the German of_
+
+                          C. F. VAN DER VELDE.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               SPECIMENS
+
+                                   OF
+
+                            GERMAN ROMANCE.
+
+
+
+                      SELECTED AND TRANSLATED FROM
+                            VARIOUS AUTHORS.
+
+
+
+                           IN THREE VOLUMES.
+
+                                VOL. I.
+
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+                     PRINTED FOR GEO. B. WHITTAKER,
+                            AVE-MARIA-LANE.
+
+                               MDCCCXXVI.
+
+
+
+
+
+                            THE PATRICIANS.
+
+
+It was in the year 1568, on the 17th of May, old style, that Althea,
+the widow of Netz of Bogendorf, sate in her apartments at Schweidnitz.
+The mourning veil still flowed about her pale beautiful face, while her
+blue eyes gazed through their tears with melancholy tenderness on the
+only pledge of a brief yet happy union, the four years' old Henry, who
+sate upon her knees, and in childish sport was trying to pull the
+golden locks of his mother from under her widows' cap. Before her stood
+her old uncle, Seifried von Schindel, and, while he held the full
+goblet in his hand, exhausted himself in consolations to lessen the
+anguish of his beloved niece. With good-humoured rebuke he exclaimed,
+"It is, no doubt, praise-worthy in your zeal to grieve for the loss of
+your husband; I myself can't bear those widows, who, like green wood,
+weep at one end, and burn at the other; but even good may be carried to
+excess, and this utter surrender of yourself to grief is as contrary to
+reason as it is to the word of God."
+
+"How can I help it?" said Althea, with calm; and patient sorrow: "How
+can I help it, when all that surrounds me is an inexhaustible source of
+tears? Do I see my husband's sword hanging against the wall, I must
+weep--do I hear his war-horse neighing in the stable, I must weep--does
+my sight fall upon this fatherless child alas!"--tears stifled her
+words.
+
+"A child who will soon be motherless too," exclaimed her uncle, "if you
+go on thus destroying your health by such unchristian want of
+fortitude. Every thing has its season; your year of widowhood is past,
+and as you are no longer entitled to wear black, so your mind too must
+cast off the mourning in which it has been too closely enveloped, and
+you must begin again to live for the world, to which, after all, you
+belong. If you were a papist, you might bury your grief in a cloister,
+for ought I should care; but that won't do now; and, besides, you have
+important and sacred duties upon you. The property that you have to
+preserve for the son of a beloved husband requires a stout protector in
+these stormy times. A woman's bringing up, too, will not be sufficient
+for him, and you'll not like to let him go from you so soon; therefore
+you must give him a father who, with all love and earnestness, will
+make an honourable knight out of him. In a word, you must marry again."
+
+"Spare me such language, uncle," cried Althea, rising and putting down
+the child.
+
+But with gentle violence he forced her back into the chair again,
+saying, "It becomes youth to listen to the well-meant admonitions of
+age, even though it should not happen to relish them: I keep to my
+position. You least of all have occasion to complain of the want of
+wooers. There is Hans Hund of Ingersdorf, Adam von Schweinicher of
+Wenigmoknau; then there is your own cousin: all of whom would with
+pleasure break their necks for a kind look from you, and are besides
+brave knights and in good circumstances."
+
+"How can you, even in jest, propose to sacrifice me to these rude
+companions, who have no enjoyment except in hunting, gambling,
+drinking, and quarrelling; and who would only make me miss so much the
+more painfully the mild pious disposition of my Henry?"
+
+"Why to be sure our knights are somewhat tough and knotty, but so are
+our oaks, and they afford a glorious wood for lasting. Mill-wheels are
+not to be cut out of poplars. For the rest, a shrewd handsome woman
+must know how to tame a rake, and every one will respect the female
+slipper when it is wielded merely for a man's benefit."
+
+"God deliver me from such a castigatory office; I should soon sink
+under it."
+
+--"Or if you long for a great fortune, you have but to give the sign: I
+have observed how Christopher Friend, whom you have drawn hither,
+circles about you at a distance. He is a brisk widower, who was rich
+from the first, and to that has inherited much from his late wife, the
+Lauterbachin from Jauer. You would be able to bury yourself under your
+gold bags."
+
+"Shame on me if that could ever determine my choice!"
+
+"Nor has honour any thing to say against it. Christopher's father is
+burgomaster of Schweidnitz, where he rules it bravely, almost like a
+little king. The Friends belong to the Patricians of the city, and are
+therefore nearly as good as half nobles; in Augsburg or Nuremberg they
+would be reckoned nobles, and admissible to the tournay; moreover they
+are already allied to the family of Schindel by marriage."
+
+"If you love me, uncle; cease to speak for the sycophant. If, to save
+my son's life, I were compelled to choose between this Christopher and
+his brother the wild Francis, by heavens I would choose the latter! I
+do indeed fear the bear that roars and rushes on me with uplifted paws,
+but the gliding serpent is a horror to my inmost soul."
+
+"Well, the comparison is not particularly flattering to either of the
+brothers," exclaimed Schindel, laughing. But on the sudden he was
+silent, for there was a knocking at the door, and the two Friends
+entered the apartment.
+
+"We come in our father's service, noble lady," said Christopher, with a
+courteous inclination: "He gives a ball and banquet the day after
+tomorrow, and most kindly requests you to grace the festival with your
+presence."
+
+"I have not yet put off the mourning weeds for my husband; at the same
+time I set as much value by the intended honour as if it had been in my
+power to accept it."
+
+"Your year of widowhood is already over, and my father would deem it a
+very worthy proof of his kinswoman's friendship, if out of regard to
+him she were to lay aside her mourning. Much as it may become you, it
+is still only a useless remembrance of a loss, the greatness of which
+you feel but too deeply without that."
+
+"My brother is in the right," roared Francis: "Throw the black rags
+into the store-chest, and trim yourself up again in the colours that
+suit you so well. You must not think of leaving life yet; 'twould be
+pity of such a handsome thing. Nor would we Schweidnitzers allow it,
+and you are within our walls now, and under our jurisdiction. Come
+along, then, to the dance. We'll waltz it bravely with each other; and
+if your cap should happen to get awry in it, and point to the widower,
+there may be a remedy for that too. My house-plague, besides, is always
+ill; and if she loves heaven better than I do, there may chance to be a
+pair of you and me."
+
+"Your mouth is a sluice," exclaimed the old Schindel, wrathfully,
+"which, once opened, overwhelms every thing with its mire."
+
+"Good God, Frank! how can you indulge in such unseemly language?" cried
+Christopher; while Althea bent down to her child as if she had heard
+nothing; Francis turned upon his brother.
+
+"Don't you play the governor, Kit! In your heart you mean just as I do,
+only you go winding about the porridge: but that's not my way, and
+therefore I say plainly, Cousin Althea, I am horribly thirsty with
+you."
+
+"There stand the flask and goblet," replied Althea, shortly--"help
+yourself;" and she turned away with her boy to the window.
+
+"You don't stand on much ceremony with your kinsfolk," muttered
+Francis, going to the table and filling up a bumper, while Christopher
+went up to the widow.
+
+"I hope you will not make me suffer for my brother's rashness, but will
+give me a favourable answer."
+
+"I have already told you the reason why I must decline the invitation."
+
+"And you really, then, will put off my father with this poor excuse?"
+
+"Agree to go," whispered the uncle: "It is a family festival, and all
+the Schindels of the neighbourhood are invited. It is better not to be
+singular and offend any one."
+
+"I will come," said Althea, after a moment's hesitation.
+
+"I have to thank you, Schindel, for this _yes_," returned Christopher,
+mortified: "The former _no_ was intended for me alone; which cannot but
+grieve me, however handsome the lips that pronounced it."
+
+He went; and Francis, filling the goblet for the third time, cried out
+after him, "The wine is good; I shall stop a little longer."
+
+There was now a clattering on the stairs, as if a whole troop were
+coming up, and in rushed Althea's brother-in-law, Anselm of Netz, with
+his Pylades, Frederick of Reichenbach, surnamed Bieler.
+
+"God be with you, fair sister-in-law," exclaimed the wild Netz, shaking
+Althea's white hand with no very gentle cordiality.
+
+"What brings you so soon again to the city?" returned Althea
+displeasedly, and drew back her hand.
+
+"Rasselwitz treats us to-day with a dozen flasks of old Hungary, at
+Barthel Wallach's," replied Netz: "You know that when once I get into
+the old den I can't set off again without having seen you. God forgive
+you, lady, but you must have bewitched me; and I shall yet denounce you
+to the council of Schweidnitz."
+
+"How willingly would I undo the spell of which you complain! Truly, it
+gives me no pleasure."
+
+"Tush! you are not in earnest. We all know that women like to be
+courted, that their value may be the greater."
+
+Here he began to whistle and clatter up and down the room, when his
+eyes suddenly fell upon Francis, who had not yet been able to separate
+himself from the goblet.
+
+"The devil! you too, Friend! What wind has blown you hither?"
+
+"If any one should ask you," said Francis roughly, "tell him you don't
+know."
+
+"And how is it with your lucky horse-swop?" asked Netz, in a mocking
+tone: "Have you settled with Rasselwitz?"
+
+"Long ago," replied Francis, dryly, and poured out the drainings of the
+flask.
+
+"It must be allowed," exclaimed Netz, with a loud laugh--"you know how
+to manage things admirably. He has got the bay, then?"
+
+"If I were an ass! I was drunk at the time I made the bargain, and
+therefore am bound to nothing."
+
+"Rasselwitz will show you that, my fine fellow! You have had his horse,
+and must keep your word."
+
+"He may fetch his mare, then, from the hangman. The beast fell down
+with me at the Bresslauer gate. I should deserve to be breeched if I
+suffered myself to be cheated in this manner."
+
+"You'll have a stout tussle of it with him. In such matters he does not
+jest, and least of all with you."
+
+"Let him come, then, and fight it out with me. I have already shown the
+Turks in Hungary that I am not afraid. When I have got my cold iron at
+my side, I am a match for a whole stable-full of such younkers."
+
+And with this he emptied the last goblet and drained it, while Netz bit
+his lips, and drawing Bieler aside, asked in a whisper, "If they should
+not throw the braggart out of window?" To this the other replied by a
+friendly nod of assent; but Althea, who had overheard the question,
+exclaimed, "For God's sake do not trouble the quiet of this widowed
+house!"
+
+"And think, besides," said the old Schindel, warningly, "that you are
+at Schweidnitz, in his father's jurisdiction." At the same time he went
+up to Francis, and observed, "I have yet a visit to make to the old
+doctor Heidenreich, who has removed, and I do not know his present
+quarters. Will you have the kindness, cousin Friend, to show me the way
+thither?"
+
+"Why not?" said Francis, seizing his cap; "though I well know whence
+the request comes. You want me away, that I may not get into a row with
+these nobles here. Isn't it so? Ay, ay, Frank may be a wild companion,
+but he is no fool. Well, you are a good old gentleman, and for this
+time I'll comply with your wishes. Good morning, lady Althea."
+
+He went with the old Schindel to the door, and then turned back
+again--"What I have said of Rasselwitz you may boldly repeat to him; I
+stand to my words."
+
+The two went away together. Netz looked indignantly after Francis, and
+exclaimed, "That such a fellow should give himself so many airs, merely
+because he is rich and his father is a burgomaster!"
+
+"You should not have irritated him," replied Althea, with mild rebuke:
+"Why do you meddle with him, if he does not please you?"
+
+"You do not understand it, cousin. 'Tis in the blood of me, I cannot
+let him rest in quiet. Nothing is more delightful than jeering a cit,
+who would fain play the noble, and has not the stuff for it in him."
+
+"Then you ought not to complain if he pays you in your own coin. I
+cannot comprehend, either, what satisfaction you men can find in
+fleering and flouting at any one who, in your opinion, is beneath you.
+If the person so mocked is patient enough to bear it, your victory is
+easy and inglorious; if he parries the attack with similar weapons,
+then there arise unnecessary quarrels: and in any case it shows an
+unchristian want of charity, to hunt out the foibles of a neighbour
+only to ridicule them for your amusement."
+
+"The most lovely preacher that I ever heard," said Bieler, gallantly.
+
+"You defend the rascal most nobly," muttered Netz. "If he were single I
+should suspect something; but as it is, I believe you do it merely that
+you may always contradict me."
+
+"To what subterfuges will the consciousness of injustice turn itself
+rather than confess to truth she is in the right!"
+
+She was interrupted by a gentle knocking at the door, and went hastily
+herself to open it, when there entered a tall stately man, about thirty
+years of age, in a plain knightly costume, and decorated with the sable
+scarf of Austria. Black locks hung about his clear forehead, while
+power and gentleness spoke out from his large dark eyes, that sparkled
+with friendly glances at the handsome widow.
+
+"Am I so fortunate as to greet in you the wife of Henry von Netz?" he
+asked, with a dignified inclination to all present, which forced a
+similar courtesy from the two wild nobles.
+
+"I was so," replied Althea; and a tear forced itself from her eye.
+
+"Was!" said the stranger,--"and this habit! You are a widow, then?
+Heavens! So early has my good Henry gone! and, as the appearance
+teaches me, from the bosom of a most happy marriage. That does, indeed,
+grieve me!"
+
+"You knew my husband?" asked Althea, drying her eyes.
+
+"Knew him?" rejoined the stranger, in the enthusiasm of
+recollection--"We made our first essay in arms together. Has he never
+talked to you of Caspar the Sparrenberger, surnamed Tausdorf?"
+
+"Often, and with warm friendship. But he deemed you dead."
+
+"I joined the campaign against the Turks, and lay dangerously wounded
+in Transylvania.----That is your son?" he asked, in sudden emotion; and
+lifting up the little Henry, he kissed him heartily--"His true eye
+betrays the father--."
+
+He set the boy down again, and paced hastily up and down the room to
+collect himself.
+
+"We are both too much agitated," he resumed, "to carry on this
+conversation any longer. Permit me now to deliver a letter to you,
+which your friend Sternberg, of Gitschin, requested me to take with me,
+when she understood that I was going to Schweidnitz."
+
+"You know my Thekla, then?"
+
+"We are near neighbours and good friends. My father lives at
+Tirschkokrig, not far from Gitschin, and I was frequently with the
+Sternberg family. The lady Thekla has talked so much of you, and so
+much in your praise, that I knew, before I saw, you."
+
+"I doubt whether she has shown me truly, for friendship is a partial
+painter."
+
+"Forgive me if I contradict you. Such, as you now stand before me, has
+your beautiful and friendly form long floated before my imagination."
+
+Althea cast down her eyes in confusion; but the little Henry relieved
+her from the answer to this embarrassing discourse. He had grown as
+weary of the conversation as the two gaping nobles, and now began to
+twitch his mother's gown, and teaze for his evening meal; upon which
+she said, "Excuse me if I retire for a moment; I will but satisfy the
+little tormentor here, and read through my Thekla's letter, while, in
+the meantime, my brother-in-law, Netz, will be happy to grow more
+intimately acquainted with you. Hereafter I will at leisure welcome you
+to Schweidnitz, and you shall tell me all about our friends at
+Gitschin."
+
+She left the room with her son. Tausdorf looked after for awhile, and
+then seemed lost in thought. After a short pause, Netz renewed the
+conversation by saying, "You are a native of Bohemia, then?"
+
+Tausdorf courteously replied, "My father settled some years ago in the
+hereditary domains of Austria as an imperial feodatory. I have the
+honour to be a native of Silesia."
+
+"Does any business call you back to your native land?" asked Netz, with
+increasing cordiality: "If I can serve you in any thing, you have only
+to say so; I know from my brother's own mouth that you were his very
+good friend."
+
+"I thank you for your kind proffers. For the present I have only to
+commend myself to your neighbourly good-will, for I think of settling
+shortly in the vicinity of Schweidnitz."
+
+"You will be heartily welcome to us, though you will find but sorry
+comfort now in this country."
+
+Tausdorf was astonished.--"How so?"
+
+"Oh, the burghers have got the upper hand of us nobles. Their wealth,
+their absurd privileges, have made them arrogant. A pitiful burgomaster
+of Schweidnitz will think himself greater than the emperor; and as to
+us, the whole mob of them look upon us with contempt. They need us not,
+they fear us not, and where they can do us any annoyance, they do it
+with delight."
+
+"The purse-pride of the citizens is, no doubt, particularly disgusting;
+but to be candid, we should not too severely judge the industrious
+mechanic, the clever merchant, the dexterous artist, or the man of
+learning, even though the consciousness and the satisfaction of their
+hardly-earned property should lead them too far. Our pride of birth,
+when carried to excess, is also a hateful vice; and we have much less
+to advance in its defence, because that on which we pride ourselves is
+only _inherited_, and not _earned_. For the rest, I have always thought
+that in these eternal feuds between the nobles and the citizens, the
+wrong was to be found on both sides; the right is always in the middle,
+and both parties can attain it only by mutual forbearance."
+
+"There you judge wrongly of these Silesian pedlers," exclaimed the wild
+Bieler: "If a noble were only to yield a finger to them, they would
+seize the whole man, and clap him into a pepper-bag. No, no, you must
+keep a tight hand over the people, and hardly let them breathe, or
+there will one day be an end of our old customs and sacred privileges."
+
+"So thought the nobles before the unlucky war of the peasants," said
+Tausdorf, "and Germany was turned into a desert by it."
+
+"Don't take it ill, Tausdorf," returned Netz; "in other respects you
+may be a brave knight; but if we were to follow your maxims, we should
+all be forced to fly the cities."
+
+Tausdorf shrugged up his shoulders at their incorrigible stubbornness,
+when Rasselwitz burst into the room, his face glowing with rage, and
+asked furiously, "Is not Francis Friend here?"
+
+"He was here a quarter of an hour ago," replied Netz; "perhaps you may
+yet find him at doctor Heidenreich's."
+
+"I am in no humour to hunt after the rascal any longer," roared
+Rasselwitz. "This is the day whereon he promised to give up the horse
+to me. I have already beat up his quarters, but found him abroad, and
+the stable locked."
+
+"He does not intend to give up the horse to you. He has openly and
+loudly declared as much here."
+
+"We'll soon see that," cried Rasselwitz furiously. "I'll ask his wife
+for the stable-key, and if she refuses it, I'll break the door open,
+and fetch out the animal by force. Will you join me?"
+
+"Of course," replied Netz and Bieler.
+
+"And you, Herr von Tausdorf?" said Netz. "A brave companion like you,
+will you not run the hazard with us?"
+
+"I do not like such disputes," replied Tausdorf, gravely: "they too
+often degenerate into frays, wherein more honour is to be lost than
+gained. Besides, it seems to me that the right is not on your side. If
+you really have any well-grounded pretensions to the horse, an appeal
+to the courts would be a better way of proceeding than this forcible
+violation of another's property, which sets you in the class of
+feud-makers and agitators."
+
+"To the courts?" shouted Rasselwitz, with a wild laugh--"And the
+burgomaster is the father of the perjured rascal that I am to complain
+of! He would do me admirable justice, no doubt! No! no! we shall get on
+much better with our hands. Come, comrades; there's still enough of us
+for these pedlers."
+
+They rushed out; and Tausdorf, shaking his head, exclaimed, "It is an
+evil spirit that is prevailing in this country."
+
+After a short time Althea returned with her uncle, and presented the
+two guests to each other, when the old man said, "I have already heard
+so much worthy talk of you, Herr von Tausdorf, that I heartily rejoice
+in your more intimate acquaintance. You are in the imperial service?"
+
+"Captain in the emperor's life-guard," replied Tausdorf, with military
+dignity.
+
+"As the Frau von Sternberg informs my niece, you intend settling in our
+good Silesia. I am glad to hear it, and whatever I can do for you,
+either in act or counsel, I offer you with great sincerity; but it
+surprises me that you should think of leaving Bohemia. I understand you
+are in favour with the emperor, and, since the imperial diet at Prague
+has given independence to the protestants, it must be comfortable
+living for them in the Bohemian territory."
+
+"This favour little profits us Utraquists. In reality the bull of Pius
+the Fourth is already recalled. Strict catholics still hold us for
+sectaries and half heretics: add to this, the new society of Jesuits
+already lifts up its serpent-head, and hisses out its threats at us.
+Our religious freedom has almost come to an end."
+
+"Yes, the Jesuits! the Jesuits!" exclaimed Schindel, and for a while
+was silent; then looking sadly at Tausdorf, he continued--"So, you are
+no thorough-paced Lutheran, Herr von Tausdorf?--only a Utraquist?"
+
+The latter bowed assentingly, and Schindel added, as if to soften his
+first expression, "The Utraquists too are honourable people."
+
+"I hope so," replied Tausdorf, smiling at the intolerance which lurked
+in the well-intended affirmation.
+
+"But keep that a secret here as long as it can be done; at least till
+the people know you better. The town, as well as the whole country, is
+zealously Lutheran."
+
+"Pardon me; in the field I have learnt neither simulation nor
+dissimulation, and I deem them besides contrary to my honour as a
+knight. He who, on account of the Utraquist, overlooks the man in me,
+is only an object of my pity, and I set little value on his opinion."
+
+A tumult in the street interrupted this conversation.
+
+"What is the matter below?" said Schindel to the servant, who just then
+brought in a fresh flask of wine.
+
+"A violent fray," he replied, "in the house of the widow Fox, in the
+market-place. Francis Friend quarrelled with Rasselwitz about a bay
+horse, and from words they drew their swords upon each other. The
+police have already interfered to put an end to the tumult."
+
+"Gracious heavens!" cried Schindel, clasping his hands, "will this
+disorder never have an end?"
+
+"The crime," returned Tausdorf, "was settled in this room by the
+violent young nobles. I immediately suspected the evil that would come
+of it, and warned them, but in vain."
+
+"God reward you for the good intent," said Schindel, and he proffered
+his hand to him with unfeigned cordiality: "There is, indeed, a
+necessity for rational people interfering in these mad affairs, which
+are now unceasing between the nobles and the citizens; one fray always
+creates a multitude, and in the end both parties will be ruined by
+them."
+
+As he spoke the door was violently thrown open, and in rushed the
+breathless Netz, sword in hand.
+
+"For heaven's sake, what has happened?" cried Althea, anxiously.
+
+"Under favour, sister," panted Netz, sheathing his sword: "Allow your
+servant to fetch my horse directly. He will find it in the stable at
+Barthel Wallach's. I must be off this hour from Schweidnitz, or I am
+lost."
+
+At a sign from his mistress the servant hurried out.
+
+"But what is really the matter?" asked Schindel, pressingly: "You have
+no doubt been again doing in your wrath what is not right before God."
+
+"We went," said Netz, binding his pocket-handkerchief about his
+bleeding arm, "to fetch the horse which Francis had promised
+Rasselwitz. In the house we stumbled on him and some fellows of his own
+stamp. From words it soon came to blows. The fray grew hot; my servant
+was flung into the well: still, however, we stood our ground fairly;
+but then came the police upon us with the whole tribe of city officers,
+and we were overwhelmed by numbers; Bieler was killed; Rasselwitz
+wounded and taken; I saw that standing out would lead to nothing but
+death or a dungeon, laid about me like a boar at bay, and fortunately
+cut my way through."
+
+"Men, men!--how will you answer for that which you have done?"
+exclaimed Schindel, sorrowfully.
+
+"What! are we to take any thing and every thing of these citizens? It
+may perhaps be Christian-like when one cheek is smitten to hold the
+other; but to strike again is human, and I do not wish to be any thing
+better than a man."
+
+"The son of the worthy intendant killed!--and his murderer the son of
+the all-powerful Erasmus!" exclaimed Schindel--"It will be a war of the
+Guelphs and Ghibellines!"
+
+"Your horse stands below," said the servant, returning: "Your lad saved
+himself in good time from his cold bath, and brought it hither."
+
+"My horse waits below too," cried Tausdorf, taking up his gloves and
+hat: "With your permission, Herr von Netz, I will accompany you beyond
+the boundaries. The irritated citizens may mean evil to you if they
+find you yet within their jurisdiction."
+
+"I accept your offer with thanks," replied Netz, hurrying out. Tausdorf
+kissed Althea's hand and said--"I thank you heartily for your friendly
+welcome; it seemed to me as if my dear native land greeted me with your
+lips, and I only grieve that our first meeting should be so brief and
+so unkindly interrupted; but I purpose repeating my visit, if the widow
+of my deceased friend will allow it."
+
+"You will always be welcome to me," replied the beautiful widow, in
+embarrassment; and the hands, which had been joined seemed to grow
+together, while her uncle called out from the window, "Haste! haste!
+Netz is already mounted, and the police are coming up the streets from
+the market with a whole rabble of armed citizens."
+
+"Farewell!" said Tausdorf, hastily, and disappeared; and Althea,
+darting to the window, cried out after him to be careful of himself.
+The armed multitude approached; Netz, forgetting his companion, gave
+his horse the spurs and galloped off. In the meantime Tausdorf came out
+of the house, sprang lightly and nimbly into the saddle, and sent up a
+last friendly greeting to the window. In the same moment he was
+surrounded by the rabble. Several rough hands seized his horse's reins,
+while about him crowded a threatening array of pikes, maces, and
+firelocks; and a wild shout arose of--"Another of the murderers!--tear
+the scoundrel from his horse!"
+
+"What would you with me?" said Tausdorf, sternly:--"I have had no share
+in this unhappy quarrel."
+
+"Found together, bound together!" shouted the rough rabble: "You must
+ornament the town-jail."
+
+With this the boldest amongst them seized the knight's legs to pull him
+from the saddle.
+
+"Respect to the imperial colours, ye citizens of Schweidnitz!"
+exclaimed Tausdorf, and gave his horse the spur and the curb at the
+same time. The noble beast reared and struck about him with his
+fore-hoofs, to the sore dismay of those who held the reins, and who
+immediately let them go; and the knight, thundering out to the mob to
+make way, now struck the rowels into his horse's flanks. In an instant
+two powerful plunges freed him from his enemies. A loud cry of mingled
+joy and terror echoed from Althea's window, while Tausdorf sprang over
+the rabble that were rolling upon each other in confusion, and rushed
+out of the gates at full speed.
+
+"God be praised!" said Althea, as she left the window, exhausted by her
+feelings: "I was in terror for the brave knight."
+
+"In terror?--already in terror?" asked her uncle mockingly, and, going
+up to her, he seized her hand--"Look me fairly in the face, niece."
+
+For a moment she cast her eyes down, then raised them up to him with
+difficulty; but the effort to keep a steady gaze on her uncle's brow
+kindled a rosy glow upon her own. He went on, however, without mercy--
+
+"And now, niece, as plain an answer: if this Bohemian should ever ask
+you to become his wife, would you in that case declare yourself as
+roughly as you have done this day to your other suitors?"
+
+"You torment me," said Althea, with gentle reproach. Her hand slipped
+from his, and she fled out of the room.
+
+"'Tis a clear thing!" said the uncle to himself--"Well, I have nothing
+to say against it; the man pleases me--I wish he were not a Utraquist!"
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+The lovely Agatha, the daughter of the city messenger, Onophrius
+Goldmann, sat at the window in her humble chamber. The spindle rested
+in her hand; on her lap lay an open volume of the songs and tales of
+the master-bards, but her hazel eyes wandered from the book to the
+darkening street, and her bosom heaved beneath its drapery. "Twilight,"
+she exclaimed, "twilight is already coming on, and still my father does
+not return. O that no accident has happened to Francis!" At this
+moment, some one burst open the street door, and rushed into the
+chamber;--it was Francis Friend.
+
+"I have had a glorious row with the vagabond nobles," he cried,
+embracing the maiden roughly, "and the mad Netz has flayed my arm, but
+I think I have paid him for it, in a way that will make him remember
+me. Bind up the wound, Agatha."
+
+"Wicked man," replied Agatha chidingly, as she stripped off the sleeve
+through which the blood was welling; "you are always running wantonly
+into danger, and care not for the anxiety which I suffer on your
+account."
+
+"What, am I to let those vagabonds steal the horse from my stable? In
+the end they'll quarter themselves upon me, and drive me out of house
+and home."
+
+"You hate the nobles so violently, and yet have married the daughter of
+a noble!"
+
+"Unfortunately! And I do believe it is on that very account she is such
+an abomination to me; but I shan't be such a fool again. My wife won't
+be much longer on her feet, and when she is unharnessed, my next choice
+is soon settled; a girl of low rank, when she is as beautiful as my
+Agatha, is dearer to me than a dozen countesses."
+
+"Flatterer," murmured Agatha, winding her arms about his neck, while
+her kisses burnt upon his lips.
+
+"Gracious Heaven!" cried a deep-base voice, and the lovers started from
+each other in terror.--Onophrius Goldmann stood at the open door, his
+left hand hid in his doublet, and supporting himself with the right,
+for he was exhausted almost to fainting; but his eyes shot lightning at
+the delinquents. Francis in vain sought to recover from the shame of
+surprise to his usual braving tone, and Agatha wrung her hands and
+wept.
+
+"So you have at last succeeded, master Friend, in seducing my child,"
+said the wretched father. "May God reckon with you for it!--and you,
+obstinate girl, have I not warned, prayed, threatened? Did you not
+swear to me to shun the man who makes you thus unhappy? How have you
+deceived me!--a long time deceived me, with your wicked artifices; for,
+from what I now see, your sin is not of to-day. These are the
+consequences of the infernal love-songs and romances, which ought to be
+utterly forbidden to women; their place is at the hearth and the
+spindle. The mad trash, invented by the dry brains of the poetasters to
+tickle your nobles, is for them poison. There it is they learn to build
+up air-castles in the midst of reality--there it is that they find
+every passion painted in fine colours, and, before they dream of it,
+their honour is gone, and--God deliver us!--their eternal salvation
+also."
+
+"I give you my word," at length stammered Francis, "that Agatha's
+honour shall one day be redeemed before the world."
+
+"You!" cried Onophrius,--"a husband! Heaven have mercy on us! Would you
+send your wife after the murdered Netz, or, like count Gleichen, get a
+dispensation at Rome for a double wedlock?"
+
+"Not so rough, old man," exclaimed Francis in a tone of menace; "I
+don't like to hear such language, nor does it become the servant
+towards his master's son."
+
+"That is the curse which rests upon the poor and lowly," exclaimed
+Onophrius, crawling to the nearest chair, and sinking down upon it,
+exhausted. "It is our curse that we are powerless, and weaponless, and
+lawless, against the great who wrong us, while, over and above all, we
+must spill our blood for our tyrants. Maimed in your defence, I return
+to my hovel, find you in the arms of my seduced child, and when my just
+anguish pours itself forth in words, you meanly appeal to your father's
+rank, and close my mouth by despicable threats."
+
+"Maimed!" cried Friend in alarm, and Agatha flew with loud lamentations
+to her father, who, drawing his left arm from his doublet, showed the
+stump, bound up in bloody cloths.
+
+"Eternal mercy! your hand!" shrieked Agatha.
+
+"It lies before the house of the widow Fox, in the market," said
+Onophrius gloomily; "Netz hewed it from the arm just before you killed
+him."
+
+"It grieves me; but on my honour I will make all good again."
+
+"That is more than you can do: though you were to empty out all your
+gold-bags into this room, yet would no hand grow again upon this stump;
+though you were to dress my child in brocade, and adorn her with pearls
+and diamonds, still she would be your strumpet, over whom I must tear
+the grey locks from this aged head. Gracious Heavens! how little must
+you gentlemen think of us poor people, that you fancy all is to be
+satisfied with gold,--all, life and limb, honour and conscience! Well;
+God is just, and will one day weigh you in even scales, and find you
+too light for his heaven."
+
+"Only let two eyes be closed first," protested Francis, "and if I do
+not then take home your Agatha as my wife, and make you a man of
+consequence in the city, you may call me villain in the public
+market-place."
+
+"My good Francis," exclaimed Agatha, affectionately, and gave him her
+hand, even before the eyes of her stern parent.
+
+"If we both live," said Onophrius, with peculiar emphasis, "if we both
+live, I will remind you of your promise; but I fear that we shall not
+get so far; I fear that this day's tumult will have worse consequences
+than you imagine. That Bieler has been killed is a sad misfortune. The
+nobles will be mad, and I already begin to shudder at the idea of the
+jail and the scaffold."
+
+"Is Bieler, then, really dead?" asked Francis anxiously, after a long
+silence.
+
+"I saw him carried as a corpse to the Guildhall," replied Onophrius.
+"The thing, too, happened naturally enough. As my left hand flew off, I
+cut at his head with my right, and you soon after made an end of him."
+
+"Upon all this we'll be silent to every one," said Francis, who had
+again collected himself. "For the rest, the whole business is of no
+great consequence. I was acting in self-defence; and you were only
+doing your duty. If any ill have grown out of it, Rasselwitz, who began
+the strife by breaking into my house, must be the sufferer."
+
+"That won't satisfy the nobles," said Onophrius, shaking his head.
+
+"Let them bite away their anger upon their nails," exclaimed Francis
+boastfully. "My father is master here in Schweidnitz, and will not let
+them hurt a hair upon my head."
+
+"_You_ are safe,--but _I_!" replied Onophrius, thoughtfully.
+
+"You stand and fall with me, old friend. If I ever forget you, or what
+you have this day done and suffered for me, may God forget me in my
+dying hour!"
+
+"Amen!" murmured Onophrius with failing voice, and, swooning with the
+loss of blood, he dropped from his seat.
+
+"He is dying!" sobbed Agatha, as she caught her father in her arms.
+
+"This is a day of evil," shouted Francis, gazing for a moment on the
+mischief he had wrought, and striking his forehead wildly with his
+clenched hands, he dashed away.
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+It was two days after this when the tumult of voices, the stamp of
+steeds, and the clatter of iron, woke Althea from a morning sleep,
+which had been troubled, yet beautified, by delightful visions. In her
+thin night garments she hastened to the window, and saw the streets
+full of horses, which were led by armed knights. The clang of harness,
+in the meantime, resounded up the stairs, and a party of knights
+entered the room in complete armour and closed vizors. The leader of
+them threw up his beaver; it was the wild Netz.
+
+"Under favour, sister, I bring you a whole bevy of cousins, nobles, and
+good friends, who are all dying with desire to kiss your fair hand, and
+would, moreover, beg a breakfast of you."
+
+"What brings you, gentlemen, so early to Schweidnitz?" asked Althea in
+alarm--"in such warlike guise too!"
+
+"The lord bishop, Caspar, visits the city today," replied Netz, "to
+speak a few serious words, as prince palatine[1], with our council
+here, on the score of Bieler's murder. Now, as we know by experience
+that the citizens have hard heads, and are easily excited to uproar and
+all sorts of mischief, we have come to give the proper weight to the
+bishop's words with our steel, if need should be. The strongest party
+of us have quartered themselves at Barthel Wallach's, because we did
+not wish to fill your house too full, and we have sent out a watch to
+give us immediate notice of the bishop's coming, till when we would
+rest with you, and enjoy ourselves."
+
+At his signal every vizor rattled up, and from every helmet looked a
+well-known face, that greeted Althea with respect, and amongst them she
+recognised Tausdorf.
+
+"How! you here, Tausdorf?" she cried, with a vivacity that confounded
+her own self.
+
+"That surprises you, does it not?" exclaimed Netz. "Troth, when he so
+bluntly refused to join us in fetching the bay, I had no idea that he
+would enter upon such an adventure as the present one. But he offered
+himself of his own accord, which indeed has made me wonder not a
+little."
+
+"In that there is nothing for wonder," said Tausdorf, gravely. "I have
+always remained the same. With justice I refused to take part in an
+action which I deemed illegal; but I hold it for my knightly duty to be
+in the saddle when it is to defend the authorities of the land, and
+support them in their sacred office against factions and those who
+would take the law into their own hands."
+
+"Let that be, my worthy countryman," said Netz; "we'll not dispute
+about our principles. It is enough for me that we have got you, that
+you belong to us, and hold the pedlers in the wrong."
+
+"Not so unconditionally as you imagine. The evil originated with the
+nobles. Whether upon this the citizens too did not go beyond their
+bounds, that must be inquired into by the palatine, and punished
+accordingly. We nobles are a party in the matter, and have therefore no
+voice in the decision."
+
+"In the name of Heaven, Tausdorf, whence have you borrowed this
+lamb-like patience? Did not the rascals wish to fling you into jail,
+though you were more innocent of the whole transaction than a new-born
+babe? Did they not seize your bridle, and try to pull you from your
+horse?"
+
+"That was long ago forgiven and forgotten."
+
+"Eh! What! The hounds must not venture to fall upon a knight! The
+bishop must obtain for you a brilliant satisfaction."
+
+"Satisfaction to the law, not to me. The bishop has disputes of higher
+import to settle, and I should be ashamed to trouble him with this
+trifle."
+
+"You are a brave knight!" exclaimed the old Schindel, who had been
+sent to them by Althea, and, having entered unnoticed, had overheard
+the conversation--"Happy were our principality if all these gentlemen
+were like you! Then again might grow and flourish the tender olive-tree
+of civil peace, which the hand of Maximilian so lovingly planted, but
+at which both the nobles and citizens are pulling and dragging with
+equal violence, so that in the end it is likely to perish, to the grief
+of all those who mean it fairly with the land."
+
+"The old man," cried Netz to his companions, "will often say things
+that we do not like to hear; but one can't be angry with him, because
+he means it so well with us."
+
+"And because, alas! he is always right in his rebukes," added Schindel,
+as two servants entered the room with flasks and goblets.
+
+"God be thanked!" exclaimed Netz, and immediately filled himself a
+goblet. "I was beginning to feel faint about the stomach, and then one
+is in poor plight for a fray. Fall to, comrades."
+
+The knights complied, and each stood with a goblet in his iron
+hand:--"But, not to forget the main point," continued Netz; "we have
+not yet talked of who is to be our leader in this business, which yet
+is necessary in case it should come to blows. That must be settled
+directly on the spot."
+
+"Why, who but yourself, brother Netz?" exclaimed Hans Ecke of Viehau:
+"You have been riding about, and sending round your messengers through
+the whole principality, till you have whistled us all up to this
+expedition."
+
+"No, I am not fit for it," said Netz frankly; "I am a better hand at
+blows than at leading. I should be for hammering away upon the mob at
+once, and might do you a mischief.--What say you to it, old gentleman?"
+he added, turning to Schindel.
+
+"You must excuse me. I am about to settle in quiet at Schweidnitz, and
+must not quarrel with the council and the citizens; but if my opinion
+have any weight with you, elect Tausdorf. He has vigour and courage for
+it, and moreover the requisite discretion, which you shatter-brains are
+deficient in, one and all, and which will be most especially needed in
+a matter that is intrinsically evil. Besides, he is an imperial
+officer, whom you may all boldly follow without casting a blot upon
+your nobility."
+
+"The old one must always give us a rap on the knuckles," said Netz,
+laughing; "he can't go less; but in the main he seems to me to be
+right; therefore, whoever amongst you thinks the same, let him draw his
+sword."
+
+"Tausdorf shall be our leader!" shouted the whole band of knights, and
+fifty swords glittered in the air. In the same moment Netz's squire
+rushed in, exclaiming, "Two of the bishop's equerries have dismounted
+before the Guildhall; he will be here himself in a quarter of an hour."
+
+"Halloah! To horse! To horse!" cried Netz, rushing to the door with his
+drawn sword. The rest were about to follow him with unsheathed weapons,
+when Tausdorf thundered out, "Halt!" At the word the knights stood
+still.
+
+"Put up your swords before you mount," he said, in a tone of stern
+command.
+
+"Wherefore?" asked Netz, returning angrily.
+
+"You have chosen me for your leader in this business," answered
+Tausdorf, with all the dignity of command, "and it is your duty,
+therefore, to obey me; but I am not bound to account to you for every
+thing I may order. For this time, however, I am content to tell you my
+motives. Should we ride with drawn swords, the citizens and magistrates
+might take it for a hostile incursion, or, if they are evilly disposed,
+might merely pretend to do so, and oppose us with arms, in which case,
+when the bishop entered the city, he would find the civil war already
+kindled, which it was the purpose of his coming to avert. Will you
+answer for the bloodshed that may arise from such a trifle?"
+
+Netz silently sheathed his sword; his brothers in arms followed his
+example.
+
+"And now, with God, to horse, gentlemen," added Tausdorf, kissed
+Althea's hand in silent fervour, and strode out. The knights hastened
+after him.
+
+"What a man! exclaimed Althea, as in the overflow of feeling she sank
+upon her uncle's breast.
+
+"You are right, niece," replied Schindel, with emotion: "Let him be ten
+times an Utraquist, yet he is a noble, strong-minded man, and with
+pleasure should I one day lay your hand in his."
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+The old burgomaster, Erasmus Friend, paced up and down the large arched
+chamber of his stately stone mansion, in his official insignia, his
+hands behind his back, and gloom upon his wrinkled forehead. Just then
+crept in the doctor of law, Esaias Heidenreich, a thin little man, with
+a face of cunning.
+
+"Well!" exclaimed the burgomaster, "have you found it out? What would
+the bishop?"
+
+"Just what I prophesied," replied the doctor, shrugging his shoulders;
+"he would inquire into this bad business himself, and submit the
+decision to the emperor."
+
+"That is against our privileges," cried the burgomaster, indignantly.
+"The penal jurisdiction belongs exclusively to our city in all cases."
+
+"I would not affirm that so unconditionally. Besides, that is no longer
+the question. His grace, the right reverend bishop, chooses to look at
+the affair in his own way: the only point then is--_quæritur_--whether
+you will submit to the authority of the prince palatine, or not? And
+upon this you must make up your mind speedily, for in a few minutes he
+rides into our good city."
+
+"The priest need not be always poking his nose into what is not his
+business. I won't submit."
+
+"Will you then entirely break with the noble old man, who entertains
+such favourable and tolerant opinions towards all _Acatholicos_? And
+if, after all, he should choose to maintain his authority by force?"
+
+"Then I order our civil troops to mount, and the corporation to be
+under arms. Within my walls I am master, and no other."
+
+"But whether the common weal will gain any thing by the measure? I must
+submit that to your wisdom. Think of the evils which the Smalcald
+league brought on us eighteen years ago--of the shameful contribution
+which the town was forced to pay--of the imprisonment which the _consul
+dirigens_, Furstenhau, had to suffer in the White Tower, at Prague, and
+here in the Hildebrand. This time, too, it may turn out still worse.
+Your opposition may be construed into open rebellion: what the penalty
+of that is, you know as well as I do, and also that Schweidnitz is
+compassed about by enemies. The land-nobles hate us violently, and the
+emperor's wrath would find a thousand willing and lusty hands."
+
+"Should I now begin to be afraid of these lordlings, in good truth I
+were neither worthy nor able to fill this my place of honour. Only let
+them come. We will so receive them, that they shall think of the old
+Erasmus all their life long."
+
+"The lord bishop has just dismounted from his horse before the
+Guildhall," announced the city servant, Rudolph, while his teeth
+chattered. "The council is already assembled, and all wait for your
+worship."
+
+"Ring out the alarm-bell," shouted Francis Friend, following close upon
+his heels. "The land-nobles have rode up to the market-place, in
+complete armour, near five hundred strong."
+
+"Have they committed any disturbance?" asked Erasmus, hastily.
+
+"No," replied Francis, "nor have they even drawn a sword. They only
+stand in the market-place, quite still and orderly, as is by no means
+their way at other times; if you ask what they want, they give
+themselves out for the retinue of the prince palatine."
+
+"Who leads them?" inquired Erasmus with smothered wrath.
+
+"That I know not," replied Francis; "they have all got their visors
+down."
+
+"I heard," said Heidenreich, "that their leader is a certain
+Sparrenberger, surnamed Tausdorf. He has lately come hither from
+Bohemia, and intends settling in this country."
+
+"Sparrenberger, surnamed Tausdorf," repeated Erasmus bitterly, taking
+out his memorandum-book and writing in it: "I shall recollect the name
+again at a fitter season."
+
+"Shall I have the alarm rung?" asked Francis urgently.
+
+Again the old Erasmus began to pace up and down the chamber with long
+strides. The passion for resistance struggled mightily with the sense
+of its danger in the breast of the vigorous despot. This was perceived
+by Heidenreich, who approached him and said with anxious warmth: "If
+the advice of an old lawyer have yet any weight with you,--and one too
+who means it fairly with you and the city,--submit yourself for this
+once, master burgomaster. That, which Francis proposes to you, leads
+directly to feud with the emperor and the empire, and ruins yourself,
+and your family, and the town which is entrusted to your providence."
+
+"You will keep yourself quiet, Francis," at length said the old man,
+after a heavy sigh of self-control. He then turned to Heidenreich--"You
+will accompany me to the sessions."
+
+With dignified pride he stalked out, and Heidenreich, following him,
+exclaimed, "Heaven be praised!"--while Francis stamped with his feet,
+and rushed out after them like a maniac.
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+The burgomaster, Erasmus Friend, had just taken his place at the
+council-table amidst many long pale faces, when the attendants in
+servile haste and anxiety threw open the folding-doors, and the bishop
+of Breslaw entered, Caspar von Logau, a venerable and hale old man;
+with him came the hauptmann of the principality, Mathias von Logan. The
+members of the council rose respectfully from their seats, while
+Erasmus coldly advanced to the first authority in Silesia. The bishop
+addressed him with dignified earnestness:
+
+"There have been evil doings in your city, Mr. Burgomaster. I take it
+for granted you have, as a first step, adopted fitting measures that
+the state of facts may not be concealed, and that the culprits may not
+escape punishment by flight."
+
+"The beginner of the fray is arrested," replied Erasmus, "and the body
+of the deceased is in our care."
+
+"Whom do you understand by the beginner of the fray?" asked the bishop,
+looking keenly at Erasmus.
+
+"Rasselwitz," replied the burgomaster with eagerness, "Rasselwitz, who
+broke into my son's dwelling like a common robber."
+
+"You will render up the prisoner to my delegate, which ought to have
+been done immediately on his arrest. The body of Netz we will presently
+view together, and then deliver it over to his relations for burial."
+
+"You seem, my lord bishop, as if you would bring this case under the
+emperor's jurisdiction: but, according to our privileges, the trial and
+the sentence belong to us, and I must give up nothing of the city's
+charter."
+
+"There is danger in delay, and therefore we will not waste the time in
+legal disputations. I will answer for what I do, and the emperor
+himself shall decide upon the competence of the tribunal. Against this,
+I presume, you can have nothing to object, Mr. Burgomaster."
+
+"No!" replied Erasmus, with heavy heart and suppressed indignation.
+
+"How is it with the answer on the part of the citizens?" continued the
+bishop, bringing forth a roll of papers, from which he read--"According
+to the charge of the Bieler family, there were present and active
+in the fray, your son, Francis,--the city-messenger, Onophrius
+Goldmann,--the city-servant, George Rudolph, and a cutler's
+apprentice.--All these too are, of course, under arrest."
+
+Erasmus was silent, for he felt his error, and was too proud to justify
+it.
+
+"No!" exclaimed the bishop. "Immediately take measures for bringing
+them hither under a secure guard. _All_--do you hear me? _all_, not
+excepting your own son."
+
+The burgomaster was silent, and did not stir, while in his breast
+rekindled the strife that had scarcely been subdued.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, am I to be obeyed?" cried the bishop, advancing with
+indignant majesty to the sessions-table, by Erasmus' upper place.
+
+At this there started out of the hall, as if actuated by one spirit,
+the aldermen, Peter Treutler and Balthasar Albrecht, to fulfil the
+commands of the bishop, who continued to Erasmus--
+
+"I am almost displeased with you, Mr. Burgomaster, and I hardly know
+what the emperor, to whom I must communicate this unhappy affair, will
+say to your proceedings. You Lutherans are constantly harping upon the
+holy Scriptures, and will be judged only after their words. Well, then,
+have you not read what the wise king Solomon says, 'Love justice, ye
+rulers of the earth, for injustice lays waste all lands, and evil life
+overthrows the seats of the mighty?' But what is to be thought of the
+equity of a judge, who imprisons the party of the murdered, and suffers
+the assassins to be at liberty, because his own son is at their head?"
+
+This reproach touched exactly on the sore place, and cut so much the
+deeper into the soul of the proud elder; he was just about to burst
+forth in all the vigour of his mind, and with indignant zeal for the
+authority of his office; but then doctor Heidenreich advanced to him
+and whispered soothingly, "Since you have determined to submit, do it
+with a good grace, and make not a bad matter still worse by
+unseasonable passion." Upon this Erasmus collected himself by a violent
+effort, champed down the words which he had just been going to hurl
+against the bishop, and, retreating to the window, gazed indignantly at
+the nobles, who kept watch on horseback before the Guildhall, in close
+compact ranks, like so many colossuses of iron. In the mean time, the
+bishop seated himself in the burgomaster's arm-chair, reading over his
+papers, while so profound a silence reigned, that one might have heard
+the buzzing of the flies in the room and the heavy breathing of the
+anxious aldermen.
+
+At length Treutler returned, followed by Rasselwitz, his arm in a
+sling, the poor one-handed Goldmann, and the rest of the accused. Armed
+city-mercenaries brought up the rear.
+
+The bishop rose from his seat to observe the comers, and exclaimed to
+them authoritatively, "You are prisoners of the emperor and king of
+Bohemia, and of his chief tribunal at Prague. Give up your arms!"
+
+"We recognize only the assize at Schweidnitz as our judges in this
+matter," retorted the wild Francis defyingly, in the name of all.
+
+"Is that the respect, Mr. Burgomaster," asked the irritated bishop--"is
+that the respect which you show to your prince and his laws? I had
+heard much of the arrogance of the patricians here, and of the Friend
+family in particular; but this audacity even exceeds my expectations."
+
+"Give up your sword, Frank," said Erasmus with broken voice.
+
+"Sacred heavens!" cried Francis, painfully alarmed--"do you yourself
+command it, father? Then, indeed, I must obey:"--And he unbuckled his
+sword, laid it on the council-table, and returned to his companions,
+who followed his example. The alderman Albrecht now announced that the
+body of Bieler was brought into the custom-house below.
+
+"We will inspect the corse and confront with it the accused," said the
+bishop to Erasmus: "you will then separate all parties, and bring them
+into safe custody. I give them over to you--you alone; but you shall
+answer for them to the emperor and myself with your head."
+
+He went out with Matthias and Rasselwitz. The council with their
+prisoners and retinue followed; only the burgomaster remained behind,
+and grasped Heidenreich firmly by the hand, so that the latter could
+not join the cavalcade.
+
+"Now, thou prince of peace!" he exclaimed, gnashing his teeth--"had I
+not done better by causing the alarm to be rung?"
+
+"If you are convinced that such a measure will tend to the general
+weal," replied Heidenreich, "you may take it still. I would have you
+weigh, however, that five hundred warriors are drawn up yonder, well
+armed, and ready to support the bishop's orders. The result of the fray
+is uncertain, and even if we were to conquer, what would be the fate of
+all of us?"
+
+"Ah! these nobles!" cried Erasmus furiously. "Well! some opportunity of
+revenge will yet offer itself, and, by God and his holy Gospel, I will
+seize it by the forelock--it shall not escape me."
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+On the Friday after George, in the year 1571, sate Francis Friend, with
+broken spirits, in the Hildebrand of Schweidnitz, his constant quarters
+since the time of his arrest. It was already late in the evening, and a
+melancholy lamp partially illumined the sad chamber. The long durance
+had subdued the wild refractory mood of the prisoner: even the wine no
+longer relished. He leaned with his head in his hands upon the table by
+the side of the full flask, and took all the pains imaginable not to
+think, that he might escape from the recollections and forebodings
+which tormented him. The door now gently opened, and doctor
+Heidenreich, creeping in, roused him out of his gloomy meditation.
+
+"Your worshipful father sends me to you, master Friend. You fate seems
+to be approaching its decision; and I am come, therefore, once again to
+speak to you alone about this awkward business of yours."
+
+"Make me no long prefaces, master doctor," cried Francis, starting up
+wildly, "but speak it out plainly. My sentence is pronounced; I am to
+die. Well, then, I am content. I have often before this looked death
+boldly in the face, and would rather perish at once than pine away any
+longer in this damned hole."
+
+"Always so hasty and impetuous!" said Heidenreich, and sate down
+quietly by his side. "The question is not yet of the final sentence;
+but, as a preliminary measure, the rack, in all its degrees, is
+adjudged to Onophrius Goldmann, and to that they proceed this very
+night. The delegates of the council will also be present. It is,
+therefore, above all things requisite to know for certain how deeply
+you are implicated in the Bieler murder, that the necessary precautions
+may be taken. Your answers at the examination have by no means
+satisfied the lords commissioners, nor, to be candid, myself either.
+Now, therefore, I come to put to you a couple of questions, which you
+must answer me, but honestly as a son to a father; for, look you, I am
+to defend you when the examination is over, so that I should be
+considered, _in jure_, as your physician and confessor, to whom you
+must speak the truth if you wish to be radically healed. First, then,
+tell me, did you in the fray actually strike Bieler upon the head with
+your sword?"
+
+"There you ask more than I can answer," replied Francis with vexation.
+"The row was all wildness and confusion; I was half drunk too, and rage
+made my intoxication still madder. I came up roundly to my opponent;
+but whether I hit Bieler, or whether I did not hit him, that the devil
+knows best."
+
+"You don't answer me honestly," said Heidenreich with lifted finger,
+"and thus without occasion impede my colloquy. You must not, therefore,
+take it ill, if I put my second question as though I were already
+convinced of your guilt. Did Goldmann see you strike Bieler? or at
+least does he pretend to have seen it?"
+
+"He chattered something of the sort to me a little after the fray,"
+replied Francis in confusion.
+
+"That's an awkward circumstance. How in other respects do you stand
+with the man?"
+
+"Well, I think."
+
+"There was a talk in the city of your intriguing with his daughter, and
+having promised her marriage when your wife should die?"
+
+"Likely enough. In need or in pleasure men make all sorts of promises
+that they are not inclined to keep afterwards."
+
+"Well, as in the meantime your wife is really dead, we might try with
+this bait to stop the mouth of Onophrius, so that he may leave you out
+of question altogether when he is put to the rack. I will go to the old
+man directly and reason the matter with him. If I can make it clear to
+him that your misfortune will do him no service, he may, perhaps, take
+good advice. Meanwhile don't let the time in prison hang heavy on your
+hands, and be of stout heart. I hope to God that I shall this once also
+draw you out of your anxiety and suffering.
+
+"Could not you save Goldmann too?" asked Francis good-naturedly: "It
+would grieve me for the poor devil if he should have to pay the piper."
+
+"That would be rather difficult. Some victim the nobles must have, and
+you may rejoice if they will be satisfied with the old messenger.
+However, I will see what is to be done for him, if he stand the torture
+without confession. God be with you!"
+
+He went, and Francis continued sitting gloomily at the table. The
+peril, which with every moment approached nearer and nearer to him,
+straightened his breast sorely. His confidence in the all-powerful
+protection of his father had already sunk to a very low ebb, and the
+comfort left him by the doctor did not go a great way either.--"The
+infernal bay!" he muttered at last, glad to have found something on
+which he could lay the consequences of his own action--"the infernal
+bay!"--and he relapsed into a long melancholy silence.
+
+Suddenly there arose below a loud noise and trampling; halberds
+clattered against each other; doors were opened and shut; and then
+again a deep awful stillness prevailed.
+
+"What is the matter below?" he anxiously asked the jailer, who then
+brought in his supper to him.
+
+"Logan Oppersdorf and the other commissioners have just arrived,
+together with several gentlemen of the council. Goldmann leads up the
+dance to-day!"
+
+"God support the poor fellow!" groaned the agonized Francis, and ran
+about the chamber, goaded by all the pangs of hell. Quick footsteps
+were heard approaching the door: it flew open, and in burst Agatha with
+dishevelled locks, despair upon her pale, tearless face, and flung
+herself at the feet of her lover.
+
+"Save, save my unhappy father!" she cried, in tones that rent the
+heart.
+
+"Collect yourself, my poor girl," said Francis, and raised up the
+wretched creature: "what would you from me?"
+
+"The dreadful tale has reached even my hovel!" she exclaimed
+shuddering: "this night my father is to be put upon the rack. He is old
+and feeble; he will sink under the torture, and confess to deeds of
+which his soul knows nothing: therefore help, Frank, help, before it is
+too late. Your hand plunged us into this abyss; your hand must snatch
+us from it. You have solemnly sworn it to us, and must redeem your
+word, that God may one day not forget you in your dying hour."
+
+"Leave us alone," said Francis to the jailer; and when the latter had
+gone, he exclaimed to Agatha, "What would you have of me? You ask help
+of one who is himself most helpless. Would I be here, if I had the
+influence which you attribute to me?"
+
+"Your father is all-powerful in this city," cried Agatha, wringing her
+hands. "It is a trifle for him to help the man who is now to suffer for
+having saved your life."
+
+"My father's hands are bound by the bishop and the furious nobles.
+Could he govern at his pleasure, he had surely saved his own son from
+the grief and shame of a prison. But I have done what I could, and your
+father's cause is commended to good hands."
+
+"I will believe it," said Agatha, suppressing her feelings, "though I
+find you terribly cold to a sorrow that concerns you so nearly."
+
+She was henceforth silent, leaning her head on the shoulder of Francis,
+who embraced her in indescribable anxiety, while the silence of death
+prevailed in the dungeon. On a sudden, through the nightly stillness
+broke a hollow shriek from the lower chambers. Francis had a foreboding
+of what it meant, and shuddered; Agatha listened intently to the
+groans, which with every moment sounded sharper and more agonized.
+
+"Eternal mercy!" she suddenly cried in wild horror; "that is my
+father's voice!"
+
+"Perhaps we deceive ourselves," said Francis, endeavouring to soothe
+her.
+
+"That is my father's voice," screamed Agatha; "I should know it amidst
+thousands. It must be the pangs of hell that can extort such cries from
+the iron old man. Gracious heavens! And I hear his shrieks and cannot
+help him!"
+
+"Cease," cried Francis, beside himself; "you torture yourself and me
+with more bitter cruelty than any he can suffer on the rack; and you
+torture us in vain, for by the Almighty I cannot help, though with my
+own blood I would purchase his!"
+
+Agatha fixed her eyes upon him with a cold piercing gaze of inquiry,
+and said, "Are you in earnest, Frank? Would you really purchase his
+life with your own? Well then, call in the jailers; let the judges be
+requested to suspend awhile the torture: confess yourself the assassin
+of Netz, and my father is saved."
+
+"And I lost!" exclaimed Francis. "You ask of me more than is
+reasonable!"
+
+"I was not in earnest," said Agatha contemptuously. "I knew beforehand
+that your own wretched life was dearer to you than any thing else, and
+I merely wished to shame the boaster who affected a magnanimity to
+which his miserable heart can never elevate itself. Father, I _cannot_
+save you; this man _will_ not I can do nothing, therefore, but pray for
+you in the hour of your suffering, that the All-merciful may comfort
+your soul and preserve it from despair."--And she sank upon her knees;
+her lips moved softly, and her eyes, turned up to heaven, overflowed
+with gentle tears, while the cries of agony from below grew fainter and
+fainter, and at length were silent altogether.
+
+The maiden arose and stood again before the trembling Francis; with
+awful calmness she said, "A horrid light is beginning to dawn upon me.
+It seems to me as if my poor father suffered for your crime, the wild
+vengeance of the nobles absolutely exacting blood in atonement for the
+blood which has been spilt. It seems, too, as if you were well content
+to buy yourself free with this expiatory sacrifice. Once again,
+therefore, I conjure you, Francis, exert yourself for us. If you could
+not rescue your saviour from the pangs of the rack, at least preserve
+his life. Save it not merely for me, save it for yourself! For I swear
+to you, by the agonies of this dreadful hour, if my father perishes,
+you too are lost! I will bend all the energies of my soul to your
+destruction; I will steal after you through life as your evil demon,
+till at last I reach you and hurl the lightnings of vengeance upon your
+guilty head!"
+
+She rushed out.
+
+"This is a night of hell!" groaned Francis, and dropt back, as if
+annihilated, into his seat.
+
+                     *   *   *   *   *
+
+It was about the same time of the year, that Althea was sitting in
+her chamber by the open window, through which played the gentle
+spring-breezes. Her little Henry drew about the room, on a wheeled
+platform, a stately knight, proudly mounted, in the full equipments of
+the tournay, Tausdorf's present to him from Nuremberg. With this he
+kept up an intolerable clatter, but his mother did not heed him. Before
+her stood the embroidery frame, in which she had stretched a scarf, but
+she did not work; and, lost in fairy visions, she listened to the
+humming of the bees that swarmed in the blossoms of an apple-tree
+before her window. Then on a sudden echoed the sweet song of the
+nightingale from the topmost branch, and Althea's bosom swelled in
+gentle heavings; her eyes became moist, she folded her hands, and with
+pious looks to heaven, exclaimed mournfully, "Forgive me, Eternal
+Benevolence! if this feeling be a sin against the memory of my Henry."
+
+"Where now does Herr Tausdorf tarry?" interrupted the child. "He
+promised to be here early to-day."
+
+"Was the speech of innocence an answer to my prayer?" whispered Althea;
+and, beckoning the child to her, she took him on her lap, caressed him
+with fervour, and softly asked him, "Are you then fond of Herr
+Tausdorf, dear boy?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, from my very heart," replied the little one. "He is
+always so kind to me, brings me pretty things, and has often let me
+ride upon his gray horse. I love him more than uncle Netz and all the
+other knights who visit you. He does not swear and curse so terribly as
+they do, nor drink such monstrous quantities of wine. I have never
+either seen him drunk, like uncle Netz, who often cuts a vile figure
+with the fiery face and glassy eyes. Then he is always so kind and
+sedate; and I do not know how he manages it, but when he bids or
+forbids me any thing, I cannot help obeying him, however great my
+inclination to be froward."
+
+"But you are fond of uncle Schindel?" said Althea, to conceal her
+delight in the child's answer.
+
+"Oh yes! but then he is a little too old for me. I always think of him
+as of my grandfather: while Herr Tausdorf is still so handsome, and
+full of life and energy. It is so I fancy my father must have looked.
+Oh, if Herr Tausdorf were my father! I would follow him at his nod, and
+love him--almost as much as yourself, dear mother."
+
+"Sweet boy!" cried Althea transported, and hid her burning forehead in
+the golden locks of the child.
+
+Three slow, orderly raps were given at the door, but occupied with
+other matters, she paid no attention to them; at last in walked
+Christopher Friend, in splendid doublet and rich pantaloons of sky-blue
+velvet, slashed with green, and trussed with gold points, and a broad
+collar about his neck of real Brabant lace. With great courteousness
+and much dignity, he waved his richly feathered cap in salutation. The
+first glance, that Althea cast upon his crafty knavish face,
+extinguished every spark of joy in her breast, and with icy coldness
+she asked what was Master Friend's pleasure?
+
+"Noble lady, I have lived long enough in the dreary state of widowhood
+to know all its inconveniences, and to desire a change. I want a wife
+of good person, good birth, and gentle manners; and, considering the
+great wealth with which the Lord has blest me, I believe myself well
+worthy of such a one. Worthiest Althea, my choice has fallen upon you.
+It has, indeed, cost me no little eloquence to wring from my father his
+consent to this match, of which he would not hear at first, on account
+of the violent quarrels between the nobility and citizens and the
+mutual bitterness that has grown out of them. At last, however, I
+succeeded in bending his obstinacy, and chiefly through the faithful
+picture of your excellent virtues; and here I am, with his blessing, to
+woo solemnly for your fair hand."
+
+"I value your courtship as I ought," replied Althea, hastily; "but with
+my conviction that we are in no respect suited to each other, I answer
+with a candid _no_."
+
+"_No!_" repeated Christopher, dropping from the clouds. "With such
+proposals, it is the custom, although the lady have a negative in her
+pocket, at least to ask time for consideration, from mere courtesy.
+Your _no_, therefore, is almost too candid."
+
+"I could not prevail upon myself to let you believe in the possibility
+of our union, even for a moment."
+
+"I should think, though, that the petty estate which you hold at
+Bogendorf in your widow's right can be no reason for your rejecting so
+splendid an establishment thus scurvily."
+
+"Then you thought to buy me of my poverty?--Another sign how little we
+are suited to each other, for I have never regarded wealth."
+
+"That shows your fancy for the Bohemian ragamuffin!" retorted
+Christopher, whose wrath had burst every curb of manners. "I always
+wished to persuade myself out of the idea of your caring for the
+vagabond, but now it is on the sudden clear to me that I am sacrificed
+for him."
+
+"Have the goodness yourself to repeat your aspersions to him," cried
+Althea warmly; "but this room you will quit instantly."
+
+"Why should we mutually incense each other without occasion?" said
+Christopher, quickly composed again, and courteous. "You have rejected
+my love, which must, indeed, grieve me; but, at least, you cannot
+prevent me from wooing your friendship; and rest assured I will show
+you mine so thoroughly, that you shall yet one day rue your harshness."
+
+He bowed himself profoundly, and departed.
+
+"That is an abominable man," said the little Henry. "Had you married
+him, I do believe I should have run away from you."
+
+"My horizon grows more and more cloudy," sighed Althea. "I fear there
+will be no staying for me much longer in the old Schweidnitz, for the
+hatred of these Friends is terrible, from their wealth and their
+enormous power."
+
+"Oh, if they ill-treat you," cried the little one warmly, "only call
+Tausdorf to your help, he'll soon send them about their business! And I
+too am a nobleman: let me once be capable of bearing arms, and I'll
+maul this rabble of citizens that it shall do your heart good to see
+it."
+
+Althea hastily set down the little nettle which began to sting thus
+early, and asked in anger, "Did you ever hear such words from me or
+from the knight Tausdorf, whose name is always in your mouth?"
+
+"No," stammered the terrified child, already struggling with his tears;
+"but uncle Netz, and the rest of the knights, call the Schweidnitzers
+by no other name when they talk of them."
+
+"Have these then so suddenly become your models? Formerly you were of a
+different opinion; but shame upon you for so soon forgetting the
+lessons of your mother. What have I told you of the different classes
+in the world?"
+
+"They are all established by God," repeated the boy, amidst a flood of
+tears, "and therefore the high should never despise the low, for he is
+his brother."
+
+"And what did I say to you of the citizens and peasants?"
+
+"They are for the whole more useful and indispensable than the noble,
+who in reviling them disgraces himself."
+
+"You, then, have disgraced the nobility which you are so proud of. Go
+to your own room, and reflect with yourself seriously upon your
+injustice, and pray to God to forgive you such want of charity. That
+you may have leisure for this, you shall neither play nor eat till the
+evening."
+
+"Dear mother!" said the little one imploringly, and raised his folded
+hands.
+
+"I am fixed," she replied with great earnestness; and the poor boy left
+the room slowly and with loud sobbings.
+
+"God grant me strength to banish this evil spirit, the last in the pure
+mind of my child," prayed Althea fervently, as her brother-in-law,
+Netz, rushed into the room with wild unceasing laughter. Vexed at this
+interruption of her better thoughts, she exclaimed, "What have you been
+about now?"
+
+"Oh, I have been enjoying a fine piece of sport. Since we were here
+with the bishop, your cits have had a little respect for us, because
+they see that we hang together manfully. So we touch them up now and
+then, till they are ready to run against the walls from terror."
+
+"Alas! I have already heard much of this kind of exploits, but in truth
+they do you little honour."
+
+Netz, passing over the remark, continued: "Just now I amused myself
+with riding on my war-horse into a publican's house, and even into the
+tap-room on the ground floor. The old witch of a hostess crept forward
+immediately, and, quaking and trembling, begged of me to dismount; but
+I cut as furious a grimace as I could, and roared out, 'Pity on the
+noble blood that has been spilt! let any one of the Schweidnitzers come
+abroad, be he who he may, and he shall have a warm reception; ten of us
+have sworn to avenge the murder.' Zounds! you should have seen how the
+old one's knees tottered, and three citizens, who had been sitting
+behind the table, crept into a corner with their cups. Then turning
+round my horse, I dashed out, while the windows clattered again."
+
+"And you would palm off this adventure upon me for a chivalrous
+achievement?" said Althea with cold mockery.
+
+"How perverse you are," replied Netz; "it was only a little joke of
+mine with the rabble. They'll tell it again in the city, which will be
+in a proper fright; and, whenever a chuff creeps out of his hole from
+necessity, it will be with fear and trembling."
+
+"What would you say, brother, if one of the people were to ride into
+your hall, as you did with those honest men, who had in nowise offended
+you?"
+
+"God confound him! I would hang him up by the legs."
+
+"Would it have been wrong, then, if the citizens had taken courage, and
+done as much to you?"
+
+"Zounds! that's a different thing," said Netz, stroking his whiskers.
+
+"How, different? Perhaps the citizens of Schweidnitz are your serfs,
+without any rights against their master?"
+
+"You catechize me too closely," replied Netz, confused, "tell me
+rather--to come to something else--what is the matter between you and
+Christopher Friend? As I was riding up the streets to your house, he
+met me, tricked out wonderfully, but with a face more horrible even
+than that I made in the tap-room. What did the money-bag want with
+you?"
+
+"He asked my hand," returned Althea, going on calmly with her
+embroidery.
+
+"And you sent him off with the willow? By my word as a knight, that
+does you honour, for the pitiful scoundrel has gold enough to buy half
+the principality; and there is many an honest woman, before this, has
+made herself over to the devil, for the sake of wretched mammon. You
+have not only acted like a noble lady, but like a prudent woman, who
+well weighs every thing. It was not out of love that he sought your
+hand, but to make peace between his kin and the nobility through you,
+and afterwards you would have found his house a hell."
+
+"What evil thoughts does hatred put into the minds of men! I did not
+dream a syllable of any such secondary objects, but refused him simply
+because I felt no inclination for him."
+
+"Nay, that of itself is a poor reason, with which you have already put
+off many honourable men, and even lusty knights too. Don't you intend
+to marry again at all?"
+
+Althea turned away in silence to get another ball of silk from her
+work-basket, and at the same time to hide the colour which this
+question had brought upon her cheek. Netz, having long listened for a
+reply, exclaimed, "I understand! no answer is often a very decided one.
+Now I am at home. You intend sure enough to marry, and I already know
+the bridegroom. Shall I name him to you?"
+
+"Spare me your thoughtless gossiping," said Althea, with anger, that
+did not seem to be too seriously intended.
+
+"You defy me? Well, then, I should be a fool to spare you any longer.
+The lucky chosen one is called--"
+
+At this moment Tausdorf entered the room.
+
+"When one talks of the wolf," added Netz, laughing, "he is already
+looking over the hedge. That is my man."
+
+"Oh, you are the most intolerable tattler that I know of!" said Althea,
+rising, and offering her hand to Tausdorf with a confused smile.
+
+"Intolerable!" muttered Netz; "that again is somewhat strong, as indeed
+your phrases towards me generally are. You think I don't understand
+without rough language; yet in truth you ought to handle me quite
+tenderly, and thank God that I look at the matter on the merry side:
+were I disposed to take it up seriously, and quarrel with my fortunate
+rival, you might sooner be a widow than a bride, or else have to cry
+your bright eyes red over the corpse of your poor brother-in-law. But
+compose yourself; it shall not be so bad as that I have at last learnt
+to see that you are in the right with your negative. Every creature of
+the field would be mated with its like. Now you are as tender as the
+sensitive plant in the park green-house; you would be touched only
+lightly with the finger-tips; while I love to grasp with my whole hand,
+and don't always even draw the gauntlet off first. In any case, we
+should make a strange couple. It is better, therefore, that the whole
+business should be let alone, and, if I can yield you to any one
+without grudging, it is to Tausdorf, who seems to have been made by
+Heaven expressly for your wilfulness; and who, moreover, is such a
+lusty knight. Your hands, then, my dear friends:--In the name and in
+the spirit of my good brother Henry, I give and pledge you to each
+other, and you shall exchange the troth-rings before my eyes."
+
+"I pray you at length be silent," said Althea, whose confusion was at
+its height; and with unfeigned emotion she added, "it has not yet
+entered into Herr von Tausdorf's head to be a suitor for my hand."
+
+"So, then, I have again missed my aim! That you will never make me
+believe. It is only a sort of feint, that your womanly affectation
+would yet use as a parting farewell. Strike at the very core of it with
+your good sword, Tausdorf; I will be your faithful brother in arms."
+
+"I could only accuse myself, if I had not understood this noble heart,"
+said the knight tenderly, kissing Althea's hand. "But this letter of my
+father's will show you that I have understood it, my dear friend;
+still, I owed it to your repose and my honour to shut up the ardent
+longing in my own breast, until every barrier was forced that lay in
+the path of my happiness. That is done. The weightiest obstacle was the
+difference of our creeds: but rational arguments and filial entreaties
+have subdued my father's strictness of belief, and he now participates
+in my wishes, and sends us his paternal blessing."
+
+With trembling hand Althea took the letter and read it, while her eyes
+sparkled with joy.
+
+"Strange that the old gentleman should make objections for a little
+difference in religion!" said Netz: "Why, if Althea cared about
+priestly feuds, she might with better reason object to your Utraquism.
+But I see it well, it is in this case just as if a fair maiden were
+smitten with a Moor. Love levels all, and before him there is neither
+creed nor complexion."
+
+"The Moor returns his thanks," replied Tausdorf laughing, and followed
+Althea to the window, where she stood with folded hands in deep
+thought.
+
+"Have I understood your heart?" he asked gently and tenderly.
+
+"Only too well," she murmured; "and yet in this decisive moment an
+anxious doubt falls on me, whether I do right in listening to it, and
+whether it is compatible with my duties towards my child."
+
+"Fire and fury, sister!" shouted Netz, impatiently, "I believe you are
+still coquetting it: by my faith! even the best women can't leave that
+alone. I fancy when you one day come to the gates of heaven, you'll
+stand courtesying to St. Peter, and protesting that you don't think it
+polite to enter, till he hales you in by force. What new difficulty
+have you been spinning and weaving on the instant?"
+
+"My little Henry," lisped Althea, with downcast eyes.
+
+"Whose interest, you think, is against this marriage?" said Netz,
+laughing: "Now that, in good truth, is a little out of reason, for to
+me it seems as if it would exactly tend to his advantage. But I'll do
+as though I believed you in it. Where is the boy?"
+
+"A prisoner in his room till bed-time."
+
+"The devil! Yours is a strict government! But wherefore?"
+
+"He spoke contemptuously of the respectable state of citizenship."
+
+"Death and hell! By that I see the blood of our family flows in
+him--And 'tis therefore you have imprisoned the noble fellow! Zounds! I
+can fancy, then, how you would have managed me, if you had given me
+your fair hand in marriage: I should never again have got out of the
+cellar into daylight. No, that won't do; I'll not stand it. I am the
+boy's uncle, and have also a word to say in his education."
+
+He rushed out, but at the door was met by the old Herr von Schindel, to
+whom he exclaimed, "Your niece has grown restive, and positively won't
+enter the stall of matrimony; do you teach her better--I go for help:"
+
+With two springs he was up the stairs and at Henry's door, while
+Schindel entered to the lovers.
+
+"Do you then doubt my having a father's feeling for Althea's child?"
+said Tausdorf to the widow, deeply mortified.
+
+"It is not that alone," she stammered; "it seems to me as if a second
+marriage would be a treachery to my first husband; and that one day, in
+a better world, I should not be able to come before his eyes, if I
+contracted a fresh union here below."
+
+"Fie! fie! niece," cried Schindel, gravely; "so good a Christian, and
+so little versed in the Bible? Have you not read in the holy
+scriptures, what sort of answer was given to a similar doubt, and who
+gave that answer? 'there will no one marry, nor be given in marriage?'
+and your departed lord will thank Tausdorf, with a brother's love, for
+having made his Althea happy in the time of her earthly pilgrimage,
+when he himself was no longer able."
+
+"Heaven reward you for these words, my dear uncle," exclaimed Tausdorf
+joyfully, grasping the old knight's hand, when Netz burst in, the
+little Henry in his arms, and setting him between the lovers, on the
+ground, cried, "Stand here, boy, and decide: your mother is going to
+marry again; whom would you like to have for your father-in-law?"
+
+With a loud cry of joy the child sprang up to Tausdorf, and clasped his
+knees, looking up to him with a sweet smile of affection.
+
+"My son!" exclaimed Tausdorf, in emotion; and he lifted up the little
+one in his arms, and kissed him warmly.
+
+"Then join your mother's hand with his," continued Netz.--The boy
+stretched out his hand after Althea's, and said, in a sweet soothing
+tone, "Dear mother!"--She remained, however, timidly at the window, and
+did not move; upon this Tausdorf carried to her the little Henry, who
+seized her arm with gentle violence, and joined the feebly-resisting
+hand with the extended right-hand of the lover, at the same time
+exclaiming, "Always so! always so!" and covering the two hands with
+kisses.
+
+"My Henry!" stammered Althea, and inclined her face to his.
+
+"Is he not _our_ Henry?" asked Tausdorf, hastily putting down the
+child, and with his arms clasping the tender body of Althea.
+
+"In the name of Heaven!" she replied, scarcely audible, while his lips
+sank upon hers.
+
+"What Heaven does is well done!" said the old Schindel, with folded
+hands.
+
+Netz shouted out aloud, "_Victoria!_"--In the next moment he passed his
+mailed hand across his eyes, and, unmanned by keen and sudden agony,
+rushed out of the apartment.
+
+                     *   *   *   *   *
+
+Eight days after the Whitsuntide of the same year, the morning twilight
+lit up the horizon with a dusky red, and painted with blood the walls
+of the Hildebrand, in which Francis was still quietly slumbering on his
+couch. Before him stood the old Heidenreich, who seized his hand, and
+called upon his name to wake him. At the call he started up wildly, and
+inquired peevishly and sleepily why the old man disturbed him at such
+an hour? "Sleep is precisely the best thing that one can enjoy in a
+dungeon."
+
+"I bring you weighty, and in some sort pleasant, news. That I come with
+it thus early is to prepare you for the events of the morning.
+Yesterday arrived the emperor's final sentence--your life is saved. The
+imprisonment which you have already suffered will be reckoned in part
+of your incurred penance; and, _mense Septembris anni currentis_, you
+may expect your freedom."
+
+"Am I to rot then so long in a dungeon? That is an unjust severity, as
+I neither confessed the fact, nor have been convicted of it; and one
+may easily see that the emperor deems himself the first nobleman in the
+principality, by his siding thus with the lordlings."
+
+"Not yet contented? Thank God, on the contrary, that the sentence has
+turned out so exceedingly mild. I can assure you, when the sentence was
+read in the sessions-room, the impertinent alderman, Treutler,
+observed, _Dat veniam corvis vexat censura columbas!_ You were heavily
+accused: had not Onophrius been silent on the rack, had not your father
+subdued his old pride, and made most suppliant petitions to the emperor
+himself, and, lastly, had I not managed your cause in a veritable
+masterpiece of defence, you would have had a serious business of it
+to-day."
+
+"And how has it gone with the old Goldmann?" asked Francis anxiously.
+
+"Faith," replied Heidenreich, shrugging his shoulders, "his head will
+be off in an hour."
+
+"Gracious heavens!" cried Francis, starting up from his couch, "it is
+not possible! The old man acted only in his office; and if he did kill
+Bieler, his life cannot be touched for it."
+
+"The imperial council have seen the affair in a different light,"
+replied Heidenreich coldly. "They think his office had been to separate
+and arrest both parties, you as well as Rasselwitz; and not, out of
+partiality to the burgomaster's son, to kill his adversary."
+
+"But I entreated you for the poor man!--and you, too, promised."
+
+"I did to the utmost of my power whatever could be done, and as far as
+it could be done without your injury: your father, too, the same.
+Thrice did the council apply to the emperor in Goldmann's behalf, and
+the last time was dismissed ignominiously for their pains, and
+forbidden farther interference. Defendant was not to be saved. Some one
+must have killed Bieler: Goldmann confessed upon the rack that he had
+struck at the young man's head; about you he was honestly silent, and
+thus, therefore, devoted himself for an atonement."
+
+"Horrible!" cried Francis, and paced about the room, wringing his
+hands. On a sudden the clang of the funeral bells vibrated hollowly and
+slowly from the tower of the guildhall; when, in obedience to the
+signal, from every turret throughout the city, the metal heralds lifted
+up their solemn voices, producing a singularly sad and awful echo in
+the silence of the morning twilight.
+
+"What means this tolling of the bells so early?" asked Francis, with a
+fearful foreboding.
+
+"It is the funeral toll of the poor Goldmann," replied Heidenreich,
+leaning himself against the window. "To show publicly that the council
+deems the imperial sentence too severe, it has allowed this last honour
+to the condemned; the body, too, will be followed by the whole college
+to the burial-ground of our Lady _im Walde_."
+
+"A melancholy kindness!" exclaimed Francis, shuddering; and after
+awhile he added, "first the hand, then the rack, and at last the head.
+Oh, it is horrible!"
+
+"See, there comes the procession!" cried Heidenreich from the window;
+and in spite of the horror that seized him at the news, Francis yet
+felt himself irresistibly attracted to look on that which he dreaded.
+Just then the old Onophrius was passing before the window. Free and
+unfettered, he walked with calm confidence between the city soldiers
+who accompanied him, while no marks of the fear of death were to be
+seen upon his venerable, pale, cheerful countenance; and a garland of
+white roses adorned his silver locks, which were fluttered by the
+morning breeze.
+
+Loud weeping was heard from the assembled people; even the iron Francis
+sobbed bitterly. At this moment the old man lifted up his eyes and
+maimed arm to him, and cried out with a strong voice, "I have forgiven
+you all! Only make good as much as you are yet able, and you shall not
+find me amongst your accusers before the judgment-seat of God." With
+this he went on cheerfully to the place of execution, while Francis
+howled and pressed his face against the iron grating of the window.
+
+The sufferer's head had fallen. The noise of the people returning from
+the burial, and the sudden silence of the bells, awoke Francis from his
+mental lethargy. He looked up, and found himself alone.
+
+"It was an evil hour!" he cried, rousing himself; "God be praised that
+it is over.--How! not yet torture enough?" he added the instant after,
+seeing Agatha, who just then closed the prison door behind her.
+
+In deep mourning, with hollow eyes staring out of a pale, meagre
+face;--in her hand the garland of white roses which her father had worn
+on his last travel, she stood for a long time at the door, a
+threatening Nemesis. She then glided nearer with a light step, and
+planted herself close before the terrified Francis, whose hair began to
+stand on end.
+
+"My father is no more," she murmured in the tones of death. "I have
+even now seen him to his final place of rest, and am come hither to
+execute his last commission. He has been silent: he has died to save
+you; and he has saved you that you may restore to his only child the
+honour of which you robbed her by crafty seduction. In his last
+farewell he said, 'I will believe that, with the best inclination,
+Francis had it not in his power to rescue me; but let him take you home
+as his wedded wife, which is his duty, and which he has promised me
+with deep oaths: thus he will at least have made good as much as he was
+able, and my shadow is reconciled.' Now, then, I am here to remind you
+of your oath."
+
+With infinite confusion Francis stammered out, "Yes,--that,--dearest
+Agatha--for the present, at least, that cannot be done. I do not depend
+upon myself alone."
+
+"You are a widower, and childless," said Agatha, with great composure.
+
+"But my proud stern father will never consent to such an alliance,"
+objected Francis.
+
+"You have long been of age and wealthy, and therefore independent,"
+said Agatha, in the former unimpassioned tone; "give me better reasons
+for your perjury."
+
+"I suppose I can't be married to you in the Hildebrand!" cried Francis,
+with the angry impatience of mental agony.
+
+"Oh father! what you have asked of me is hard," sighed Agatha,
+struggling with her feelings; "but I must obey." And, as in that
+dreadful night, she flung herself before Francis, and embracing his
+knees, besought him--"Give me your hand, and with it give me back my
+honour."
+
+"Let go of me, woman!" he cried, tearing himself with violence from the
+kneeling Agatha. "By heavens, I cannot do what you desire!"
+
+"You cannot?" she returned in a terrible tone, and rose up; "You swear
+by Heaven that you cannot?--You are right. What does a perjury, more or
+less, signify to you? It is quite well so, perhaps better than if I had
+softened you for the moment. Now then I may confess it to you: it was
+only obedience to the martyr that compelled me to this measure. I had
+other intentions with you; but my father's command tied up my hands,
+which your utter unworthiness has again unfettered. Think of what I
+told you in the night of torture. My father has now really died for
+you--you have rejected the atonement which he offered you through me,
+and vengeance can now take her course, softly, slowly, and securely.
+May this thought scare sleep from your bed and drop wormwood into
+the cup of your joy, till you one day see me again adorned with this
+blood-besprinkled garland, as your bride for the life yonder in the
+torments that have no end."
+
+She glided out of the room; Francis stood there for a long time as if
+petrified, when, collecting himself, he called out for the guard.
+
+"Goldmann's daughter," he said to the city servitor, who then entered,
+"has been uttering dangerous threats out of rage for the execution of
+her father. Every thing is to be feared from her malice,--fire and
+murder, poison and uproar! for who knows what abettors she may have
+already gained by her strumpet artifices? Arrest her, therefore,
+immediately, and announce it to the council. I take upon myself all
+responsibility with my father."
+
+The servitor ran off; but in a little time returned with information
+that Agatha, after quitting the Hildebrand, had disappeared so quickly,
+that no one knew which way to follow her; her dwelling was quite
+deserted, and it was probable she had turned her back upon the city.
+
+"That's bad," said Francis thoughtfully; but his old, daring
+recklessness soon returned, and he exclaimed, "What does it signify?
+the malicious wench will take good care, I should hope, not to come
+back to a city in which my father governs: no one yet ever died of mere
+threats, and I doubt not to reconcile to my conscience the not having
+allowed the daughter of the beheaded city messenger to talk herself
+into the honourable family of the Friends."
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+It was in the beginning of the July 1572, that Althea sate at a
+splendid dinner-table with her uncle Schindel, her brother-in-law Netz,
+and a few ladies of distinction; but the rich dishes seemed to be there
+merely for show, for the sun was already low in the west, and still the
+meal had not yet begun.
+
+"Your betrothed stays long," said Netz, gaping, and tapping with his
+knife upon the silver goblet before him. "He was to have been with us
+about the middle of the day, and now the evening will soon be here. You
+must break him in better for the holy state of matrimony."
+
+"His protracted absence begins to alarm me," replied Althea. "I trust
+no accident has happened to him on his long journey."
+
+"Who would begin fearing the worst so soon?" admonished Schindel.
+"Recollect, niece, how much he had to do at Tirschkokrig, and Prague,
+and Vienna. Such a change of habitation for life brings with it a heap
+of business. The explanations with a beloved father, whom one would not
+pain, the quitting of the service of a powerful master, who unwillingly
+parts with the true servant--all these are things that are not easily
+got over. It is very possible that he may yet have to stay a day or two
+over."
+
+"Well, God be thanked!" cried Netz--"He has been a year in Bohemia, and
+so has had time to manage his removal to Silesia."
+
+"Only a year?" sighed Althea; "to me the time has seemed much longer."
+
+"Not a complete year yet," interrupted Schindel. "It was in the
+September of the foregoing year that Francis Friend was released from
+his confinement, and it was the very day before that Tausdorf went to
+Bohemia."
+
+"Don't mention a word to me about these Friends," growled Netz, dashing
+the goblet on the table. "You drive the gall into my stomach, and then
+the wine does not prosper with me. It will stick with me all my life
+long, that this villain, who alone was cause of the mischief, should
+have crept, with a whole skin, from under the sword of the
+executioner!"
+
+"It must have been because they could prove nothing against him in
+respect to Bieler's death," objected Schindel, "or else the emperor had
+made a severe example of him also."
+
+"I have ever heard," said Netz, "that in such investigations all
+depends upon the manner of questioning; and the judge, if he rightly
+understands it, can interrogate a rogue into an honest man, and an
+honest man into a rogue. With me Francis will always be Bieler's
+murderer, and if I had not given my knightly word and hand to the lord
+bishop to let the matter rest, I would yet call him to account for it."
+
+"Still Tausdorf comes not!" interrupted Althea with affectionate
+anxiety.
+
+"And in the mean time," said Schindel, "we have lost the guests who
+were invited for his reception. Rasselwitz and Seidlitz were to be gone
+for an hour only, and neither of them is returned yet."
+
+"I wish Rasselwitz may not be dangling after the fair Netherlander,"
+replied Netz, "and have forgotten Tausdorf and his welcome!"
+
+"You must always be wagging your tongue at me," cried Rasselwitz, who
+just then entered, and had caught the last words.
+
+"Well, and do I lie?" asked Netz: "Are you not led in a string by the
+fair stranger?"
+
+"Would to Heaven she only thought it worth her while to lead me! but at
+present she cares little about me."
+
+"And yet you are always dangling after her, and paying court to her
+when and how she pleases. What a great fool should I be if I were to
+suffer myself to be so trotted about, and all to no purpose! Love's pay
+must follow love's service, or else I care nothing for love, or all the
+women of the earth."
+
+"Time brings roses. I don't yet give up all hope."
+
+"Holloa, gentlemen!" cried Schindel; "this is a conversation for the
+tavern when you can no longer tell Hungary from Rhenish. How can you
+think of amusing the noble ladies here present with your courtesans?"
+
+"You are in a gross error, Herr von Schindel," said Netz warmly. "The
+lady, of whom we speak, by no means belongs to that loose craft. Since
+she has lodged with the Dutch nurseryman at the Park, she has led so
+still and retired a life, that she may well be set up as a model for
+other women. Besides, the splendour of her clothes and furniture
+betokens great wealth, as her dignified manners are a sign of her high
+birth."
+
+"And yet lodges at the Park?" retorted Schindel; "and allows the young
+men free access to her? That is strange! But who is she, and what would
+she here? It does not at all please me, when a handsome female wanders
+about the world in this way without protection."
+
+"Thus much she has confessed to me," said Rasselwitz; "her abode here
+has a mighty object; but what that object is she does not as yet hold
+me fit to be entrusted with."
+
+"If the girl should have some evil design towards you?" said Schindel
+thoughtfully. "We have many a warning-tale from the olden time of young
+libertines having been allured by some beautiful unknown, and, when at
+last they fancied themselves at the goal of their wishes, they grasped
+in their arms a hellish monster. At all events you will do well to be
+cautious with your new acquaintance."
+
+He was interrupted by the slow approach of footsteps. Supported by
+Seidlitz, Tausdorf tottered into the room, and with a friendly smile
+upon his pale features, stretched out his arms towards Althea, who
+instantly hastened to the man of her affections, exclaiming, "Gracious
+Heavens! what has happened to you, Tausdorf?"
+
+"A slight accident, not worth talking of. As I was entering the
+town-gate my horse shied and would not go forward, and, when I
+attempted to force him on, he reared so high that he fell over with
+me."
+
+"And you have been wounded by the dreadful fall?"
+
+"Oh, no. I did, indeed, strike my head against the pavement in falling,
+but my hat broke the force of the blow."
+
+"Has your horse ever shown such vice before?" asked Schindel.
+
+"No," replied Tausdorf. "You know my old gray: he was the most docile
+beast that I ever rode."
+
+"Then this accident strikes me as something singular," rejoined
+Schindel, "as if it were an omen intended by Providence to warn you of
+some great evil at hand."
+
+"Don't say that with so much earnestness, my good uncle," exclaimed
+Tausdorf, laughing, "or you will terrify my Althea unnecessarily; and
+if she should fall sick upon it, the mischief which my bay's
+restiveness is supposed to prophesy would then have really come to
+pass."
+
+"I should like you as well again if you had a little more faith,"
+replied Schindel angrily. "Animals have often a sharper insight into
+the realm of spirits than your overwise men. Think on Balaam's awful
+history. It would not be the first time that a horse shied when he was
+bearing his master to his ruin. Who knows whether it is well that you
+have just now rode into the town?"
+
+"Herr von Schindel is the faithful Eckart, and warns every one," cried
+Rasselwitz with forced laughter, and seized the goblet to wash down his
+anxiety, while Netz exclaimed--"Are we not at last, then, to sit down
+regularly, and fetch up our lost dinner-time?"
+
+"Do so, good cousin, and take my place," replied Tausdorf, who since
+Schindel's last words had grown unusually grave and gloomy: "My
+honoured guests will easily excuse me if I leave them for my bed: I
+should make a sorry host to-day, for my head is somewhat stunned and
+dizzy from the fall, and repose will be the best thing for me."
+
+He bowed, and left the company. The faithful Althea anxiously followed
+him.
+
+"A tedious melancholy feast for a welcome," muttered Netz.
+
+The guests looked at each other with disturbed countenance. A painful
+silence spread over the whole party, and the old Schindel put his
+finger to his nose, and said, "I keep to it still; this adventure is a
+very doubtful omen: God turn all to the best!"
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+The two brothers, Christopher and Francis, had come to see the splendid
+aloe, which was at the Dutch nurseryman's in the park, and was then
+unfolding all the glory of its blossoms. Both were not a little
+astonished at meeting here, for at other times the way of the one was
+regularly not that of the other. Bareheaded, and with all the respect
+due to the rich Patricians, the gardener opened to them the door of the
+particular green-house, in which stood the giant plant. From the midst
+of enormous prickly leaves the stem rose up like a tree, to almost
+three times a man's height; from that again a multitude of branches had
+sprouted perpendicularly, each of which bore a multitude of colossal
+flower-tufts, so that many thousand flowers showed themselves together,
+offering to the astonished eye the appearance of an immense nosegay.
+
+"This splendid aloe, called also _Agave Americana_," said the gardener,
+haranguing in a monotonous tone, and repeating the same thing for the
+hundredth time,--"this splendid aloe has come to Germany from the new
+world through Spain; it reaches a very great age, sometimes a hundred
+years, flowers only once in its long vegetable life, but that once, as
+we see here, with such an extravagant prodigality of its best strength
+and noblest juices, that it thereby draws on its own death, perishing
+entirely after it has completed its time of blooming: on this account
+it is a great rarity, whenever we can get to this wonderful sight in
+our climate, which in fact is not over favourable to this miraculous
+and beautiful plant."
+
+The brothers had soon satiated themselves with looking at this
+wonder-work of nature, and had scarcely paid any attention to the
+gardener's set speech. At last Christopher said,
+
+"This aloe must have brought you many a fair half-crown, master
+gardener?"
+
+But Francis had long been peeping between the leaves after a handsome
+female, who sate at the end of the green-house under a blooming
+oleander, and seemed to be reading diligently in an old manuscript. Her
+brows were shadowed by white ostrich feathers that rose from a bonnet
+of the same colour; her auburn locks rolled down in luxuriant abundance
+upon a closely-fitting dress of purple velvet, girdled by a rich gold
+band; while a chain of gold-chased emeralds heaved up and down upon the
+laced kerchief which veiled her fair voluptuous bosom.
+
+"Master, who is that handsome woman?" said Francis to the gardener, in
+a low eager tone.
+
+"Bona van der Noot," whispered the man in reply; "the widow of a rich
+Netherlander, who for four weeks has lodged in the upper floor of my
+house."
+
+"The widow of a _rich_ Netherlander?" asked Christopher, who now began
+to look after her, and in whom, to the natural delight in a beautiful
+figure, awoke also the calculating spirit of the man of wealth,
+desirous of heaping up still more to his collected money-bags--"Have
+the kindness, master, to help us to a nearer intimacy."
+
+"She has once for all forbidden such things," replied the gardener;
+"but what would I not do to please you, Mr. Christopher?"
+
+And going up to the fair stranger, he said respectfully, "Permit me,
+noble lady, to give way to the wishes of these gentlemen, and present
+to you the sons of our worshipful burgomaster."
+
+"You are acting contrary to our agreement, master," replied Bona, with
+gentle reproach. "My society has so little worth, and I feel so little
+desire to form new acquaintances, that neither party will thank you
+much for your mediation."
+
+In the meantime Francis and Christopher had approached with profound
+inclinations; in doing this the former had got a full view of her, when
+he suddenly stood still with open mouth and staring eyes, and no sooner
+had he heard her voice, than he cried out at once, "That is Agatha, or
+the Devil!"
+
+"What ails you now, brother?" cried Christopher in alarm; and Bona
+anxiously asked the gardener whether the young man had not sometimes
+paroxysms of madness.
+
+"No; it cannot be she, however;" stammered Francis, retreating in
+confusion. "The rich clothes, the cheerful countenance--no, that cannot
+be the pale, haggard spectre that tormented me so cruelly in the
+Hildebrand--and now, too, the beautiful long auburn locks with the
+auburn eye-brows!--Agatha had dark brown hair. Pardon me, noble lady,
+my mistake and rudeness; your great likeness to a girl, whom I knew
+only too well, had deceived me."
+
+"Sir," replied Bona proudly, "you must yourself allow that this
+assimilation to some old flame of yours cannot be particularly
+flattering to me. To spare myself any farther such unpleasantnesses,
+nothing remains for me but to withdraw, and leave it to your own
+reflection whether it became you to insult an unblemished female, who
+sought the hospitality of your father's town."
+
+She walked away with great dignity.
+
+"God confound you!" cried Christopher to his brother. "This is now the
+second time that your madness has come between me and my object, when I
+was trying to weave a love affair. Had it not been for your senseless
+fray with Rasselwitz, I should have had leisure and opportunity to win
+the widow. It was your fault alone that the banquet was put off, from
+which I had promised myself so much. The refusal too, which the silly
+woman gave me in the end, I owe to the fear of your relationship. No
+one would willingly have any thing to do with you, for wherever you
+come you make mischief, and that not merely from natural awkwardness,
+but from evil intentions. If, therefore, you frighten away my bird this
+time, I shall believe you do it on purpose, and have good reasons of
+your own for preventing my second marriage; in which case I shall speak
+a word in earnest with our father, and you will gain nothing by your
+tricks."
+
+Thus scolding and grumbling, he went off, and the gardener went with
+him. Francis, however, had not listened to his lecture, but remained
+there gloomily, and with the sheath of his sword beheaded the valuable
+foreign plants that stood in their clay vases, in rows, upon a range of
+steps. At last he cried, "I was mistaken; but the likeness was
+surprising and really terrible. A horrid shuddering came over me as the
+well-known features menaced me from out the strange form; I felt as if
+some evil spirit stretched out his claws after me from the beautiful
+face. The devil take conscience! It has often embittered my life, and
+now, since the affair in the Hildebrand, it will no longer let me have
+any real satisfaction."
+
+There was a sudden rustling behind the glass door, through which Bona
+had disappeared, and to which Francis had turned his back. Glancing
+round fearfully to the place whence the noise came, he saw the magic
+image of the fair stranger, and he shook and shuddered as if in the
+frosts of fever.--"Heaven be merciful to me!" he cried,--clapped his
+hands before his eyes, and rushed out through another door into the
+garden.
+
+No sooner had Francis left the green-house than Bona entered it through
+the side-door. For some time she looked after him as he ran along the
+principal alley of the garden, while her beautiful eyes sparkled with
+silent wrath, her right hand pressed itself violently on her throbbing
+bosom, as if she wished to keep down its heavings by force, and
+thoughts of evil seemed to furrow her lovely forehead. At this instant
+came tripping along from a side walk the knight, Rasselwitz, in all his
+bravery, as with hope and desire on his face he bent his way towards
+the green-house. The moment Bona perceived him, the furrows smoothed
+themselves upon her brow, her eyes lost their fierceness, a gentle
+longing spread over her features, and she flung herself in a
+picturesque attitude on the garden-seat beneath the oleander.
+Rasselwitz entering, said in the softest tone, "I owe it to my good
+fortune, noble lady, that I find you here in this confidential
+loneliness, and can paint the feelings which glow towards you in my
+heart, without being interrupted by troublesome witnesses."
+
+With angelic kindness Bona presented her hand to him, and drew him down
+beside her, gently murmuring, "You have often before protested your
+love to me, Herr von Rasselwitz, and I would willingly believe in it,
+but mens' hearts are more treacherous than the treacherous waves of the
+sea: Who would trust to them? who would answer to me for the
+continuance of the inclination which you fancy you feel for me--perhaps
+really feel at the present moment?"
+
+Rasselwitz felt himself transported into the third heaven by this
+accost, for she had never addressed him so before; and kissing her hand
+with fervour, he cried, "O that you would honour me so far, beautiful
+Bona, as to demand of me some proof of my sincerity!"
+
+"Take care that I don't keep you to your word," replied Bona with a
+lovely smile. "I might ask something of serious difficulty, and you
+would then come off with disgrace."
+
+"No, fair lady; you don't escape me so this time," protested Rasselwitz
+with great animation. "You must rather allow me to keep _you_ to your
+word. Demand any proof of my love, as hard and earnest as you can
+devise, and, if I deny it to you, banish me from your presence for
+ever."
+
+"Do you know the man who just now left the garden?" asked Bona with
+apparent calmness.
+
+"Why should I not?" replied Rasselwitz. "It was Francis Friend, the
+wild son of the old burgomaster."
+
+"Challenge him for life or death," said Bona, "and I am yours."
+
+Rasselwitz stared at the blood-thirsty beauty, and at length said with
+a confused smile, "You must be jesting, noble lady? What good could you
+get by egging us on to murder each other?"
+
+"There are many gates through which hatred may enter the human breast,"
+replied Bona with piercing looks; "and, if that be true which has been
+told me, you also cannot possibly be a friend to this Francis."
+
+"By heavens! I detest him as my worst sins, but I cannot challenge
+him."
+
+Upon this Bona started up and demanded with a look of scorn and
+contempt, "Do you want the courage for it?"
+
+"Only _you_ dare ask me that," replied Rasselwitz, starting up in his
+turn; "and to you only could I give a cool answer. I have never shunned
+the game of swords; but my knightly word binds me; I pledged it to the
+prince palatine on the settling of that awkward business the other day,
+and, if the monster does not begin again himself, he will have quiet
+for me as long as he lives."
+
+"Does not then the wish of your beloved weigh more with you than this
+promise?" asked Bona in soul-melting tones; and, laying her hand upon
+his shoulder, she gazed on him with a look that glowed through his
+pulses and gave wings to them.
+
+"You have not understood me, noble lady," replied Rasselwitz earnestly.
+"We are talking here of my knightly word, on which depends my honour,
+and consequently my earthly being. If this adamantine chain were to
+hold no longer, what tie in the world could be relied on?"
+
+"A clever brain would know how to manage a quarrel, and yet throw the
+appearance of the first aggression upon his adversary. Rough and
+violent as this Friend appears to me, it must be easy to irritate him
+to unseemly language and vulgar action, and then you fight only in
+self-defence, which the bishop cannot take amiss."
+
+"That would be bad work, lady, with which I cannot meddle. To evade a
+promise is to break a promise, and I am an honourable Silesian."
+
+"Well answered," cried Bona with loud laughter, and reseated herself.
+"Take your place again by my side, Herr von Rasselwitz; it was not so
+evilly intended. I excuse you from the combat for life and death, to
+which you seem to have so little inclination, and do you, on the other
+hand, excuse me for the future from your love-protests which you cannot
+prove. You have stood the first trial badly; I spare you the others."
+
+"How! Your strange instigation was no more than a trial?"
+
+"And a very badly contrived one too. How could I expect that you would
+believe me, in this deadly hatred against a man whom I saw to-day for
+the first time in my life, and who could not have ever injured me?--me,
+a Netherlandress, who have lived but a few weeks at Schweidnitz? You
+would have caught me finely, and put me into an awkward plight, had you
+made as if you were willing to comply with my desire. I must then have
+prayed you, for God's sake, to let poor Friend live, and you would have
+had the pleasure of laughing at me soundly for my unsuccessful
+project."
+
+"Fool that I am!--and yet I rejoice from my heart that it was only a
+joke. I could not, however, suspect you of such a trick."
+
+"Did you have a long merry-making on Monday at the widow's?" asked
+Bona, with a careless transition of the subject.
+
+"Unfortunately, no; the bridegroom, whom we expected, had an accident
+with his horse, and arrived late only to go to bed directly. This
+untuned us all, and we separated at an early hour."
+
+"I have already heard much of this bridegroom; but tell me more about
+him; he is said to be a handsome man."
+
+"A perfect model of manly beauty!"
+
+"That is saying much; yet since a man of your appearance allows it, why
+it must needs be so.--Brave?--that is understood of itself;--but I
+suppose just as hot and violent, just as easy to be irritated, which
+you gentlemen often wish to pass upon us for courage?"
+
+"Nothing less. He is coolness and reflection personified, and on that
+account seems as if born to be a general. If he had not been the leader
+of the nobles on that decisive day which freed me from arrest, it had
+unavoidably come to a battle in the city; the upshot was uncertain, and
+in any case Bieler's murderers had escaped punishment."
+
+A flash of anger quivered through Bona's beautiful features, and the
+little pearl-teeth within her rosy lips were ground together firmly.
+But the external calm was soon regained, and she asked with her former
+indifference,--"Is this mirror of virtue and honour quite faithful to
+his Althea?"
+
+"It is perilous to answer for any thing of this sort; but in his case I
+would almost venture it. He dwells on his bride with infinite
+affection."
+
+"That proves nothing; you men may love warmly, and yet be false withal.
+Will you do me a favour, Herr von Rasselwitz?"
+
+"Command me; I fly."
+
+"Always supposing it is not for life and death," interposed Bona with
+light mockery. "But I have a desire to become personally acquainted
+with this Tausdorf, who is so much talked of. Besides I want to inquire
+of him after a relation, who lives at Prague. Bring him hither with the
+first opportunity."
+
+"It is asking much," said Rasselwitz jestingly, "to expect that I
+should myself introduce to you so dangerous a rival; but I build upon
+his fore-praised fidelity."
+
+"If, however, you cannot, or like not, it is of no consequence. It was
+only a passing whim, which I can just as lightly give up again."
+
+"By no means; and it is precisely to-morrow morning that your wish can
+be most easily accomplished, for the lady Althea then goes to
+Bogendorf, whence she does not return till the day afterwards, and she
+leaves Tausdorf behind that he may have leisure to recover from his
+fall. The singular plant, which is shown in this garden, shall be the
+bait to bring him. He will come to admire a blooming aloe, and will be
+agreeably surprised when the floweret of beauty unfolds to him the
+splendour of its colours."
+
+He imprinted a fiery kiss upon Bona's hand and departed. The maiden
+looked after him with a bitter smile, then rose up, and walked slowly
+into the green-house, where stood the aloe, which she considered for a
+long time, and at length said, "Yes, proud aloe, you are the image of
+my revenge. Your blossom requires years to break from the bud, but it
+does at last break forth in vigour that will not be restrained; and
+though you perish in the very moment of perfection, you have yet gained
+your object; he who has done that has lived long enough."
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+Beamless, yet with splendid glow, hung the evening sun, like a bright
+burning ruby in the horizon over the violet-coloured mountains. Purple
+clouds, edged with gold, shot a glory about it, while the whole western
+heavens shone in a sea of flame, and the blaze melted away farther on
+into a lovely sea-green, which again in the east was lost in the dark
+blue of night. Before the aloe, whose flowers seemed to burn in the
+evening red, stood Tausdorf, sunk in its contemplation.--"The plant is
+to be envied," he said to Rasselwitz; "he dies well, who, like it, dies
+at the moment of reaching the pinnacle of strength and beauty; and I
+could almost wish that such a death might one day be to myself."
+
+"How earnestly and gravely you take every thing," replied
+Rasselwitz--"nay gloomily too! For my part, it is precisely when I got
+to the pinnacle that I should feel most eager to live on, because it is
+then that life is gayest. When one is gone, the best pleasure is over;
+and in good truth we shall always be dead long enough afterwards."
+
+"In the ten years of experience, which I have beyond you, lies the
+difference of our views. Throughout nature nothing stands still. He who
+does not go forward goes backward. From the summit the road only leads
+down again, and every retracing of our steps has something disconsolate
+about it, which I would willingly buy off with a few years of
+existence."
+
+He turned about to depart, but Rasselwitz held him back:--"I cannot let
+you go thus; you may, perhaps, have got over your accident, but you
+still look pale, and the evening wind blows cursedly cool from the
+mountains. Let us first, therefore, if agreeable to you, empty a flask
+of tokay against the bad air, and then I will myself accompany you home
+again."
+
+"You gentlemen can't do without the wine-cup," said Tausdorf jestingly.
+"If, however, it is really to be but a single flask, I am contented."
+
+They went accordingly into the larger greenhouse, where at the end,
+under an oleander-tree, a little table was neatly set out, covered with
+a crimson silk cloth. Upon this was a dish of foreign salad between two
+handsome flasks with handles, semi-transparent and edged with silver,
+and two glass goblets, ready filled, in which the tokay sparkled like
+blood in the last rays of the setting sun. By the table sat Bona in all
+the fulness of her charms, seeming to enjoy with silent transport the
+splendour of the evening heavens, whose crimson fire gave all the glory
+of a seraph to her head and face.
+
+"We interrupt here," said Tausdorf to Rasselwitz, struck by her
+appearance, "and must seek some other place."
+
+"You do not interrupt me, gentlemen," said Bona, rising with graceful
+kindness. "A woman, who knows how to maintain her female dignity, has
+no occasion to be afraid of men. But perhaps you wish to have a private
+conversation with your companion, in which case I give way to you,
+although I should have willingly enjoyed this splendid evening for a
+quarter of an hour longer."
+
+"You love then the charms of nature?" asked Tausdorf, whose sympathy
+had been won by the first words of the stranger, and who now thought no
+more of going.
+
+"What being of head and heart but must love them?" replied Bona warmly.
+"Nature ever reflects herself, and yet is ever new, nor has any mortal
+hitherto succeeded in imitating the least of her wonders: so has she
+gone on for centuries, silent and beautiful, clear and sublime,
+benevolent in creating and maintaining as in destroying."
+
+"Nature," said Tausdorf with warmth, "has always seemed to me like a
+perfect woman in the arms of the all-powerful--in the arms of a
+beneficent master and loving husband."
+
+"You are probably married, sir knight," observed Bona roguishly, "by
+this image in particular striking your fancy?"
+
+"Not yet," replied Tausdorf, colouring.
+
+"But already promised and bound by indissoluble chains," interrupted
+Rasselwitz, to whom this brief conversation grew much too animated.
+"You have become so rapidly acquainted with the knight, fair Bona, that
+I must hasten to inform you, you are talking with the Herr
+Sparrenberger von Tausdorf, the betrothed of the Frau von Netz; and now
+take your place, my old friend, that the noble wine may not grow vapid,
+and pledge me to the health of your fair intended."
+
+"I regret to-day, for the first time, that I have for ever renounced
+wine," said Bona, while the knights touched their glasses. "A toast to
+the health of so noble a lady would be well in place now."
+
+"You know my Althea?" asked Tausdorf.
+
+"No," replied Bona with lovely frankness; "but I have heard so much
+good of you, sir knight, that I believe you could have chosen none but
+a noble being for the companion of your life."
+
+"Pray, lady," said Rasselwitz, breaking in upon them with
+vexation,--"did you not tell me to-day that you had a relation in
+Prague, of whom you had long heard nothing? Herr Tausdorf lived there a
+considerable time, and perhaps will be able to give you satisfaction."
+
+"I thank you, dear Rasselwitz, for reminding me of it," replied Bona;
+"but it has already grown dark," she continued, looking round; "we had
+better order a light at the gardener's."
+
+"Admirable!" muttered Rasselwitz; "she sends me away that she may be
+alone with him in the dark;"--and he hurried off with the speed of an
+arrow, to be back so much the sooner. In Tausdorf the same idea was
+stirring; but when he secretly asked himself the question, whether he
+did or did not like it, he could obtain no decided answer.
+
+After all, the fears of the one and the imaginings of the other were
+alike idle. The fair Bona kept at her old distance from Tausdorf, and
+entered into the most indifferent talk in the world with him, inquiring
+after a multitude of Prague ladies, whom he, indeed, knew by name, but
+of whom he could give no farther information. In addition to this,
+as Tausdorf could hear, she was playing with the silver lids of the
+wine-flagons, as the hands are accustomed to do when the mind is
+absent. This was all but an annoyance to the knight, and if he had not
+found some pleasure in listening to the melodious voice of the
+questioner, he would have experienced a real tediousness even in the
+familiar darkness and in the neighbourhood of such a captivating
+creature.
+
+At length Rasselwitz appeared with the gardener, who hung a large
+mirror-lamp of Venetian glass upon a branch of the oleander, and again
+retired. The glasses were filled afresh, while Bona wound about the
+good Tausdorf with the finest arts of conversation, and contrived to
+flatter him so sweetly, and at the same time to inspire him with such
+respect, that he was unable to break from the magic circle, although
+his correctness of feeling warned him betimes to fly from the danger
+before he was lost in it.
+
+During this delightful talk, the wine, like a balmy oil, glided down
+the knights' throats, sweet and powerful; but its effects were
+manifested in the two with a very striking difference. While Rasselwitz
+grew continually sulkier and charier of his words, and at last became
+downright sleepy, Tausdorf's spirits were more and more awakened and
+joyful. A flippant coquetry, at other times hateful to him and foreign
+to his disposition, now prevailed in his manners to the fair stranger,
+who knew how to turn the well-polished diamond of her spirit so nimbly
+to and fro, that from its hundred points the flashes struck blindingly
+upon Tausdorf's eyes, and flung into shadow the image of the lovely,
+but simple and grave Althea. To complete the impression which she had
+visibly made upon him, the Circe, at a fitting turn of the
+conversation, took up a harp which lay beside her, and sang,
+accompanying herself a lullaby to her heart, than which nothing could
+be sweeter or more alluring. While now Tausdorf kindled more and more
+at her burning looks, the soft tones of her song, instead of the heart
+which should have been lulled, soothed the good Rasselwitz into a sound
+slumber. The knight considered the sleeper with approving eyes, and
+then cast them, full of voluptuous desire, on the fair stranger.
+
+"Cease, beautiful siren!" he exclaimed at last, seizing her white hand,
+and holding it firmly upon the strings; "your magic song disturbs me in
+my gazing on you. A woman, created for love, as you are, cannot lull
+her heart to sleep without committing a deadly sin against my sex."
+
+With a heavenly smile, in which, however, lurked a strange glance, Bona
+looked at him, and her hand returned a gentle pressure. Then casting a
+look of inquiry at the sleeping Rasselwitz, she on a sudden sighed out
+softly and anxiously--"Oh, heavens!"
+
+"What is the matter, noble lady?" cried Tausdorf, starting up, and
+caught her in his arms as she fell.
+
+"A sickly oppression which will soon pass over," stammered Bona, while
+her bosom heaved mightily against his breast. "Help me up to my
+chamber, dear Tausdorf."
+
+Alarmed, anxious, thrilled through by strange forebodings, he obeyed
+her mandate; and half gliding, half carried, the lady reached her room
+with the knight. A dull lamp burnt on a table by the bed, around which
+flowed curtains of green silk, flinging a secret mysterious shadow. He
+let her down softly on the couch, and would have withdrawn, to call the
+maid to her assistance, but she raised herself up again, and winding
+her fair arms about his neck, murmured softly--"Dear man!"--and her
+kisses quivered on his lips like a kindling flash of lightning.
+
+"Fairest creature!" he stammered, in the double intoxication of wine
+and passion. Wildly throbbed his pulses as if they would burst their
+veins,--and the lamp went out.
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+It was towards the morning when Tausdorf awoke from a heavy slumber.
+When on opening his eyes he found the sleeping Bona by his side, his
+recollection returned with the consciousness, and he sprang up in
+horror.
+
+"Then it was not merely a wild dream," he exclaimed painfully. "How
+could I so forget myself! Never shall I forgive myself this error!"
+
+He paced up and down the room with vehemence for a time, and then
+paused before the fair sleeper.
+
+"The sin is beautiful which has seduced me from the right path; but
+that does not excuse a man from whom principles are to be expected, and
+who has taken upon himself important duties. Poor Althea! is this the
+reward of your love and truth? I never could have believed that to be
+possible which now rises to my revolted senses in disgusting reality.
+Ah! let no one boast of his virtue! It is often the prey of the most
+involuntary accident!--Of _accident_?--Was indeed all that happened to
+me yesterday no more than accident? I can answer for myself--my soul
+was pure when I entered this house; and not till I was allured by the
+siren's song, and the voluptuous spirits of the wine had painted her
+fair form in glowing colours, not till then was the evil passion
+kindled in me. Could a few glasses have changed me so much? Could they
+have lighted up the wild glow that raged in my veins, and the dregs of
+which still lie heavy on my head and heart? The advances too of the
+stranger and her feigned sickness, which tightened the noose about my
+neck,--at the bottom of all this is some secret plan which I must
+unravel."
+
+He left the room quickly, and soon returned with horror in his looks,
+and in his hands two half-full goblets, which he placed on the table by
+the bed, and had already raised his arm to wake the sleeper. At this
+moment the first sunbeams flamed through the darkness of the green
+curtains, and cast a warm glow upon her lovely features. Bona opened
+her eyes, which immediately sought and found her beloved, and rested
+upon him with bewitching tenderness; but she soon perceived the cold
+disdain that flashed from his, and she started up from the bed in
+terror.
+
+"For heaven's sake," she exclaimed, "what has happened to you? What do
+you mean by these fierce looks?"
+
+"To ask you how we so soon became familiar with each other--how you so
+soon succeeded in seducing an honourable knight into disgraceful
+infidelity towards the mistress of his heart."
+
+"This is a common injustice of you men to lay on the weaker sex the
+blame of the evil caused by your sensuality, that you may afterwards
+despise your victim, and so have a pretence for denying all
+satisfaction."
+
+"You are right, but it does not apply here. We will not, however, say
+any more about which of us is the victim; only I must know whether some
+hellish arts were not employed in the adventures of last night, and
+therefore you must give me an account of these goblets."
+
+"Gracious heavens! I am lost!" exclaimed Bona, without looking at the
+goblets, and clasping her hands together. Tausdorf went on:--
+
+"This, with the white sediment at the bottom, stood before Rasselwitz,
+who still lies motionless on the seat, bound up in a death-like
+slumber. This, with the black dregs, I emptied, and I can now well
+explain the ebullition which threw me into your arms. Strumpet! have we
+drank poison at your hands?"
+
+The beautiful sinner started up proudly, glanced at the knight with
+noble anger, and exclaimed, "Contemptible suspicion!" and snatched at
+the goblet with intent to empty it; but Tausdorf put back her hand--
+
+"No! I would not place any soul before the judgment-seat ere the
+Creator calls for it."
+
+He took the goblet from the table, and having flung it out of the
+window, walked up and down the room in silence; Bona wept.
+
+"You would drink of it?" he continued. "There was then no poison in the
+goblet? But what else? For, by heaven, all is not right with this
+wine."
+
+Bona hid her face in the pillows of the bed, and was silent.
+
+"A love-draught, perhaps, for the chosen victim of your desires, and an
+opiate for the troublesome witness--is it not so?"
+
+Bona started as if a blow had struck her heart, and was still silent.
+
+"In the name of heaven, woman, what made you seek out me in particular?
+You are fair enough, unfortunately, to be able to dispense with such
+means with thousands of my sex. Why must you fling into my breast the
+scorpion--which must poison the peace of my future days?"
+
+"I loved you, as I now abhor you," was hollowly murmured from beneath
+the pillows.
+
+"Profane not the sacred word," retorted Tausdorf indignantly; "I
+cannot, besides, rest contented with this answer. What you did
+yesterday, the way in which you prepared and accomplished it, the
+danger to which you exposed yourself if discovered, all this points to
+something very different. You had some great, and, as my warning angel
+tells me, some terrible, design upon me, and that it is which you must
+confess this very hour."
+
+At this Bona started up with wild looks, and her long auburn locks hung
+down in disorder, like so many living snakes, about her fair pale face,
+and gave it the convulsed appearance of a raging Medusa. "Kill me," she
+cried, defyingly, "or accuse me at the tribunal as a poisoner--I am
+silent."
+
+Tausdorf could not refrain from shuddering as her figure stood up thus
+before him, like some horrid spectre,--that figure which but a few
+hours since had appeared so kind and graceful: he turned away from her,
+and at length said--
+
+"You understand us German knights badly, in thinking us capable of such
+wretched measures. If you do not choose to unburthen your heart by a
+frank confession of your evil intentions, persist then in your
+obduracy. I leave you to your conscience; and however late may come the
+moment in which you hear its voice, yet the moment will come. If in
+such an hour you repent of the evil you have already done me, and of
+that which you yet purpose, may heaven not remember against you your
+heavy sin in abusing the fair body it has given you--abusing it
+as a bait for vice, and to the destruction of the souls of your
+fellow-creatures. I for my part forgive you now as becomes a Christian;
+but we never see each other again."
+
+He went. With the rolling eyes of a lioness, whose prey has escaped,
+Bona watched after him.
+
+"So then, this sin has been in vain. I have not even earned the fruits
+of the evil harvest. My machines have been in play to no purpose. The
+awkward footsteps of this rough man have crushed to pieces the
+artificial wheelwork. Let it go. I meant it better with you than you
+deserved. The assailant has always the advantage, because he can choose
+time and place. If you will not be set upon my victim, he must be set
+upon you, that self-defence may force the sword of vengeance into your
+hand. May you both perish in it!"
+
+The old gardener thrust his head in at the door with a crafty,
+inquiring laugh. Bona called out to him--"I am alone, Sylvester. What
+is Rasselwitz doing?"
+
+"Awake at last!" replied the gardener, coming into the room. "He
+complained of head-ache, begged of me to excuse him to you, and
+tottered off. But in his place some one else has come again--Mr.
+Christopher Friend, splendidly tricked out, and dressed in sky-blue
+velvet, waits below in the green-house, and begs for a morning
+audience."
+
+"So early?" asked Bona, surprised. "What can he want?"
+
+"He inquired of me so circumstantially about your fortune," replied the
+gardener, "and looked withal so smart and gay, and made such little
+twinkling eyes, that I think in a short time you may expect proposals
+of marriage."
+
+Bona smiled scornfully. After a brief consideration she replied--"He
+does indeed mistake, but he comes in good time. Beg of him to excuse me
+till I am dressed."
+
+"Number three, in so short a period!" said the gardener smirking. "If
+this goes on, you'll soon draw after you the core of the Schweidnitz
+male population, as Punch does the children with his trumpet."
+
+"Think you so?" rejoined Bona, with self-satisfaction.
+
+"And yet," continued the old man, "you don't altogether understand it.
+You entice the birds in a masterly way, but you forget to pluck them,
+which yet is the principal part of the business. With the exception of
+the easy fool of a Spaniard, your love-affairs have brought you in
+marvellously little. The handsome pagan courtesans of the old time were
+much wiser. Though you may not exactly wish to build pyramids of the
+oblations of your adorers, yet a comfortable house for a refuge to your
+old age is in truth not to be despised."
+
+"I hope never to be old to need it," said Bona hastily.
+
+"But don't reckon without your host," rejoined the gardener. "The
+quantum of wealth from the new world, left you by Don Alonzo, has
+melted away confoundedly in the old world, as must naturally be the
+case with your passion for appearing as a rich heiress. If this is to
+last long, you will be forced to sell the rich jewels with which you
+blind the eyes of people. What then is to become of you if you do not
+betimes think of some new acquisition?"
+
+"He who follows _much_ at once," replied Bona, "attains _nothing_. I
+follow _one_ object only, but that one I follow so stedfastly, with
+such inflexible purpose, that I _must_ gain it, and when I have gained
+it, I need nothing more in this world."
+
+"And this _one_?" asked the gardener with sly importunity.
+
+"I pay you as my servant, not as my confessor," replied Bona with angry
+pride, and pointed to the door.
+
+"Good troth, a princess has been spoiled in you," muttered the old man;
+"but there is no helping one who will not be advised."
+
+So saying he went. Bona laid her hand upon her forehead, and looked
+down gloomily in earnest meditation.
+
+"The poison of Althea's refusal is still rankling in this Christopher,"
+she said, after a long pause, "and the brothers are not friends. If the
+one were to perish through the other, that might at last reach the
+stony heart of Erasmus, and, conquered or conquer, still my victims
+would fall. The vindictive spirit of his adversaries is my pledge for
+that. Francis, think of your reckoning on the other side. The avenger
+of blood is already breathing within these walls."
+
+She went up to a great mirror between the windows to arrange her hair.
+The sun, veiled in mist, cast a red light through the panes, and shone
+in wondrous way upon the fair and angry features, so that they seemed
+to glow with an inward fire. At the first look in the glass Bona
+started back in horror.
+
+"Are the old tales of my childhood coming back upon me?" she exclaimed
+with fixed gaze. "It was, indeed, as if an evil spirit grinned at me
+from the mirror."
+
+But by degrees she came to her recollection, and began to chide her
+folly with a laugh, though her lips were still quivering--"Fool, it was
+yourself. Revenge never beautifies a female face; that I might have
+well known."
+
+And with firm step the strong-minded woman went up again to the glass,
+and looked in it defyingly, as if to challenge forth the monster that
+was hid behind its crystal. Although her hands trembled in arranging
+her locks, she yet accomplished the task with her eyes stedfastly fixed
+upon the mirror.
+
+"Now, then," she cried with a horrid laugh, "I am armed. Hold
+yourselves in readiness, my beloved! The Norna is sitting at her task,
+and with sharp-edged swords weaves the bloody web of the decisive
+combat. Up! to complete the work!"
+
+She turned hastily to the door, which even then opened. Christopher
+Friend, whose tender impatience would not suffer him to remain any
+longer below, walked in, and with a sweet smile the beautiful fury
+stepped forward to meet him.
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+In Althea's rooms at Tausdorf, silent and anxious, expecting the return
+of his intended bride. Meantime, at a little table, sat Henry, looking
+over a large volume of copper-plates, which, according to its title,
+depicted "The strange Forms of the Metamorphoses of the ingenious
+heathen Poet, Ovid."
+
+"The insupportable Latin!" cried the boy, stamping with his feet; and
+then jumping up to Tausdorf with the folio, he said, "Pray, now, help
+me out of this difficulty. The stupid pictures are so singular that it
+makes one quite curious to learn what they mean; and when one looks
+after the explanation, the fool of an engraver has written Latin
+underneath."
+
+"Do not find fault with the engraver," said Tausdorf; "he with justice
+believed that such pictures were not fit for a boy who does not yet
+understand Latin."
+
+"But you told us lately that you understood it a little," persevered
+the boy, "so translate me the subscription. I should like to know what
+the mad picture means. Only look, now, there stands a stately knight in
+a circle of dead men's bones and strange signs, holding a goblet in his
+hand, and a beautiful woman touches him with a wand, and a mist spreads
+over the country, and the knight has already got a horrid snout, as if
+he were just being changed into an abominable beast, and below is
+written:
+
+            "In turpes abiere feras quicunque biberunt
+               Dulcia Circæa pocula mixtu manu."
+
+"Pray, now, tell me what it means?"
+
+And Tausdorf, confused, translated it: "All were turned into vile brutes
+who drank of the sweet cup that was mixed by the hand of Circe."
+
+"Now I am as wise as before," rejoined the boy. "Who was this Circe?
+She is right handsome here in the picture; but then she looks at the
+poor knights with such hateful eyes that I can't bear her."
+
+"She was a wicked enchantress of the old heathen time," said Tausdorf.
+"To all voyagers who visited her island, she offered a rich draught,
+and when they drank of it, she touched them with her magic rod, and
+they became beasts."
+
+"But why did the foolish people drink of it?"
+
+"They knew not the evil consequences," replied Tausdorf, leaning his
+heavy head in his hand, "or they had not done so."
+
+"Ah! they should have been more on their guard with strange cunning
+women," rejoined Henry. "You certainly would not have drank of it, Herr
+Tausdorf!"
+
+"Who knows, my child?" said Tausdorf, the innocent remark going to his
+heart: "Perhaps I might."
+
+"Wicked witch!" cried the boy, and threatened the picture with his
+fist. "But did she not at last find her master?"
+
+"Oh yes," said Tausdorf, turning over the leaf. "On this Ulysses was
+depicted, holding his sword to the breast of the enchantress, without
+fear of her powerful wand, or of the devil-masks that surrounded him,
+grinning and menacing."
+
+"Heaven be praised!" cried Henry; "there's a German subscription again.
+He read,
+
+"Ulysses compels her to disenchant his companions."
+
+"That's right!" he cried--"who was Ulysses?"
+
+"A Greek hero," replied Tausdorf. "The heathen god, Mercury, had
+supplied him with a herb, called _moy_, that protected him against the
+enchantment."
+
+"Or he too had been metamorphosed?" asked Henry with vexation.
+
+"No doubt," replied the knight mournfully. "He, whom God does not
+uphold in the hour of temptation, falls, and falls deeply."
+
+"But it is not all really true?" added the boy, after some reflection.
+
+"There is a good wholesome truth in the story," returned Tausdorf;
+"only the painter has veiled it in images. The beautiful, wicked Circe
+is intended to prefigure the human passions, the impulse of the senses.
+Whoever empties her cup, she robs him of reason, and makes him like the
+beasts in the wood. Recollect, Henry, how you were wrath, not long ago,
+with your play-fellow for some trifle, and screamed, and struck about
+you, and would not be satisfied,--then you had become a little wild
+beast in your anger."
+
+"I will not do so again," said Henry, ashamed and kissed the knight's
+hand.
+
+"But what is the meaning of the herb moly, which protected the great
+hero from this enchantress?"
+
+"It is religion," replied Tausdorf, embracing the boy in deep emotion.
+"If in every purpose you remember that God looks on; if you ask
+yourself whether it would be acceptable to him; and if in the slightest
+doubt of this you abandon it, then you have got the right talisman
+against sin."
+
+"I will be truly good, Herr Tausdorf; I will, indeed," said the boy,
+and gently rested his auburn head against the knight's breast, when the
+sound of horses' feet was heard before the window.
+
+"That is my mother!" he shouted, wiping away his tears, and running out
+of the room. Tausdorf started from his seat--"Air! the child has made
+me warm with his questions. It is hard to teach good to others, when
+one has to accuse one's self of evil. Oh Circe! Circe!"
+
+Again he looked at the picture of Ulysses.
+
+"With armed hand the hero broke the mighty spell which held his
+companions prisoners. He did his duty. Have I too done mine? I have
+redeemed myself from the magic circle, but is that enough? Should I not
+have taken the power of evil from this woman, who seems to have come
+here to weave the meshes for some net of mischief, heaven only knows
+what? If I did not choose to denounce the creature, should I not at
+least have called the attention of the council to her, that no one
+might come to harm? Yet no. In what she has done she has only wronged
+myself. The ill that my denunciation might cause her would be revenge,
+and that does not become a man towards frail woman. Let her do as she
+pleases, we are all in God's hand."
+
+"My dear friend!" exclaimed Althea, who then entered, and immediately
+let go of Henry's hand to fly into the arms of her intended husband.
+The old Schindel followed. Tausdorf hastened to welcome him with the
+knightly pledge, that he might not have at once to meet the look of his
+bride, towards whom he knew his heart was not perfectly at ease.
+
+"Are you quite recovered?" asked Althea affectionately; "you look pale,
+as if you had slept but little last night."
+
+This innocent appeal to the past night covered poor Tausdorf with a
+burning blush, which, as an estimable rarity in a man of his age, gave
+a double charm to his features. He turned away, however, to hide the
+treacherous colour, and Schindel addressed his niece:
+
+"Will it please you, niece, to give me an answer? The poor fool waits
+below in the corner of the street, and stays for permission to come
+up."
+
+"You love to torment people, uncle. I have a deadly aversion to this
+family, and of all of them, the avaricious, spiteful Christopher is the
+most abhorrent to me."
+
+"Shame! shame, niece! What good Christian would recollect an injury so
+long? Know you not from the Scriptures, that you are to forgive your
+brother seventy times, and again seven times seventy?"
+
+"It is not that alone; but a secret dread possesses me whenever the
+creeper comes near me. I always feel as if my evil angel stood at my
+side, ready to plunge me into destruction."
+
+"Psha! Superstitious fancies, which do not become so sensible a woman.
+Your intended shall decide."
+
+"Well," cried Althea; "decide, dear Tausdorf. You know that a year ago
+Christopher Friend solicited my hand and was rejected. Now I may add,
+what I before concealed; in the vexation of his disappointment, he
+spoke of you most unbecomingly. But he now perceives his injustice, and
+seeks for a reconciliation."
+
+"Forgive, and you shall be forgiven," said Tausdorf good-naturedly.
+
+"My own words!" cried Schindel.
+
+"Oh, for that," said Althea impatiently, "I am as prompt as willing;
+but he requires a formal reconciliation, and as the seal of it would
+have our presence at his banquet to-morrow; this I deem as superfluous
+as it would be disagreeable to me."
+
+"Who says A must say B too," retorted Schindel. "Christopher will not
+believe in the sincerity of your forgiveness, and thinks that you scorn
+him if you refuse to appear at his banquet. You owe some compliance,
+besides, to his rich and powerful family, to which in addition you are
+allied."
+
+"Still the untiring peacemaker and mediator! and inexhaustible in
+arguments, where the point is to reconcile the nobility and citizens!"
+
+"I can't help it, niece, since, as a nobleman and a proprietor at
+Schweidnitz, I have become a sort of doubtful thing, and don't well
+know whether I am a bird or a mouse. I am compelled, therefore, to
+speak in the way of reconciliation on both sides, lest a feud should
+break out, and it should eventually fare with me as with the
+flittermouse in the fable. May I call up the petitioner?"
+
+"Call him in God's name, uncle," said Tausdorf: "I read my Althea's
+_yes_ in her lovely and peaceful countenance."
+
+"Excellently spoken!" cried the uncle, and hurried out.
+
+"Heaven grant that we may never repent this _yes_," said Althea with
+heavy heart. "I only wish the wild Francis were not of the party!"
+
+"Why is he so terrible to you?" asked Tausdorf, smiling.
+
+"Because he is so rough, so fond of frays and drinking, and because he
+detests the nobles so irreconcilably. Since too he has been forced to
+submit to the long imprisonment, on account of the late unlucky affair,
+there is no managing with him."
+
+"I have never seen him; but I should not like to subscribe to the
+damnatory sentence pronounced against him by the nobles of our
+acquaintance. Hot-headed men are frequently the best. As I have heard
+from good authority, this Francis fought bravely against the Turks, and
+I find it natural and pardonable that a soldier should not willingly
+suffer himself to be played upon. His late misfortune grieved me much.
+As he was absolved after all, he certainly did not belong to Bieler's
+murderers; and to suffer a year's undeserved imprisonment must embitter
+even the heart of a lamb."
+
+"Heaven grant that you may never come in contact with this lamb; you
+would find in him a furious wolf. I tremble at the thoughts of it, for
+I think fire and water could not meet more hostilely than your
+dispositions. Your person would show him a true mirror of what he
+ought to be and is not; that would shame him, and shame exasperates
+vulgar minds. His roughness and your cultivation, his furious violence
+and your noble calmness, his inclination to every excess and your
+purity----"
+
+"Still! still!" interrupted Tausdorf, ashamed, and gently pressing his
+hand upon the lips of the animated eulogist. "Do not forget that I also
+am no more than a frail man, and that exaggerated praise from an
+estimable mouth can corrupt even better than I am."
+
+"Come along," cried Schindel, dragging in the sky-blue Christopher.
+
+With a pitiful sinner-face he approached Tausdorf, and timidly
+stretched out his hand to him.
+
+"All is forgotten and forgiven," cried the knight, shaking him by the
+hand; "only as a first proof of friendship, do me the favour not to
+speak a single syllable of the past."
+
+"You are too good, sir," replied Christopher, smiling; "but I will not
+fail to requite so great a favour to the best of my power."
+
+He then went to Althea, and, kissing her hand, said--"You owe me some
+reparation, noble lady, for the banquet which was put off four years
+ago on account of that murderous history. I may, therefore, the more
+boldly presume that you will this time favour me with your invaluable
+company at a feast, which, please God, I intend giving to-morrow, at
+Barthel Wallach's, for my own house is just undergoing a thorough
+repair."
+
+"Will your brother, Francis, be there?" asked Althea hastily.
+
+"Heaven forbid!" rejoined Christopher; "We do not want this quarreller
+and roarer. I have taken good care not to invite him. At first I feared
+that he might intrude himself, unasked; but to my great delight I have
+learnt that he goes on this day to a drinking-party at Freiburg, so
+that we are quite safe from him. I have asked but a small party, a few
+quiet nobles, and two or three honest citizens of the first class.
+After the cloth is taken off, we'll have a little dance amongst
+ourselves."
+
+"We will come," said Althea with lightened heart.
+
+"Excellent!" cried Christopher, rubbing his hands, while a singular
+piercing glance of triumph fell from his eyes upon the fair widow, who
+immediately changed colour. "Now I can set about the preparations for
+my feast with a right joyful heart. I thank my dear friends for their
+courtesy, and commend myself to their recollection."
+
+He made a profound bow and departed, accompanied out by Schindel and
+Tausdorf; but Althea looked after them anxiously, and sighed--"Oh that
+I could recall my word!"
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+The morrow of the 27th of July was come. In Barthel Wallach's great
+room on the ground floor, just before the entrance, sat Christopher
+Friend with his guests at the epicurean banquet, while the upper seat
+was graced by the betrothed pair. The first course was removed; the
+strong dark Hungary went unremittingly about the table in the great
+cups; and while the females, according to the good old custom, seemed
+only to kiss the goblet, the men drained it frequently till their faces
+glowed, and many a broad jest cast the reflection of this red upon the
+delicate cheeks of the ladies. Tausdorf only sat still and wrapt up in
+himself, and with his fork scratched letters on the pewter-dish before
+him.
+
+"What ails you?" said the mild Althea sportively, and passed her white
+hand across his eyes. "You are not yourself, and cannot plead in excuse
+that your thoughts are absent with the object of your passion, for she
+sits by you in her honoured person, and you trouble yourself but little
+about her."
+
+"My good Althea!" sighed Tausdorf, and with a mournful smile kissed the
+hand that caressed him.
+
+"And what are you graving so earnestly upon the plate? I must see it,
+and woe betide you if it should be the name of a fortunate rival."
+
+She bent down more closely to read what he had written.
+
+"_Memento mori!_ For God's sake, how is it that you are seized on a
+sudden with these death-thoughts at a pleasure-banquet?"
+
+"It is a way of mine to think on death in the midst of enjoyment. I
+deem it pardonable at least, as in return one can blend with death the
+thought of the eternal joy that waits us in the world beyond."
+
+"My worthy Herr von Tausdorf," interrupted Christopher with a
+disagreeable laugh, "I do not doubt your oratorical powers, or your
+piety, and am convinced that you could, if you pleased, make an
+excellent funeral sermon extempore; but that would be too dull an
+entertainment with the full goblet: therefore take up the glass before
+you, and pledge me as fairly as I pledge you to the health of your
+noble bride."
+
+Tausdorf seized the goblet, but again lost himself in a sea of thought,
+and forgot to pledge.
+
+"Well, dreamer," said the intended bride with good-humoured reproach,
+"do you hesitate to drink the health of your Althea?"
+
+He raised the cup mechanically, drank, and set it down again. Schindel,
+who sat near him, was surprised.
+
+"What is the matter with you, Tausdorf? I never saw you thus before?"
+
+"I do not comprehend myself. An anxiety has possessed me, as if I were
+to commit a murder. It must have been so that the poor king, Saul, felt
+when the evil spirit was upon him. I am ashamed of this childish
+feeling, and yet I can so little master it, that I shudder every time
+the door opens, thinking that some great misfortune must enter under a
+dreadful form."
+
+"All this comes only of thick blood," replied Schindel; "you must be
+bled."
+
+As he spoke the word, the door was flung open, and Francis Friend burst
+into the room with his usual impetuosity.
+
+"Ah, woe!" cried Althea.
+
+Schindel clasped his hands in terror, while Christopher asked
+piteously, "Why, whence do you come, brother? I thought you were long
+ago at Freiburg, and enjoying yourself?"
+
+"He is a fool," replied Francis, "who hunts after pleasure miles off,
+when he knows where to find it at once. I heard yesterday of your
+present feasting, upon which I thought directly of surprising you, and
+put off mine."
+
+"Well, all that's true," said Christopher; "you have surprised us all,
+and most agreeably: so let us draw together. Set yourself here at my
+right hand, and enjoy with us the meat and drink that God has sent us."
+
+"Spare all this idle talk," cried Francis, "I'll find out a good place
+for myself;" and he carried his chair to the upper part of the room,
+seating himself between Tausdorf and Schindel, and saying to the
+former, "I see by your place near my cousin that you are the knight
+Tausdorf. I'm glad to have an opportunity of knowing you, for though I
+do not in general care much about the nobles, you please me well. There
+is a command and intelligence about you such as one does not usually
+see in your knights. For the rest, I am the wild Frank Friend, of whom
+no doubt you have heard all manner of stories, and more bad than good.
+In troth, I am a mad companion, but I mean it fairly with him who means
+it fairly with me, and I now heartily wish you joy of your marriage
+with my handsome cousin Althea here."
+
+Tausdorf returned a fitting compliment, while Schindel, who had got
+behind Althea's chair, whispered to her, "The bear does not seem in one
+of his worst bear-moods to-day. Heaven help us farther."
+
+In the mean time the second course was served up. Francis ate little,
+but stuck so much the more diligently to the wine, and kept up a
+constant talk with Tausdorf, in a tone of frank importunity, which did
+not sit amiss upon him. Soon the conversation turned upon the Turkish
+war; and he was ready to leap out of his skin for joy on finding that
+Tausdorf had served against the infidels in Transylvania, at the very
+time he had been fighting with them in Hungary.
+
+"Heaven confound me!" he cried, while his face glowed with drinking;
+and holding up the goblet--"Why, you please me better and better,
+comrade, and therefore we'll now pledge each other in a brave draught,
+and swear eternal friendship and brotherhood."
+
+Tausdorf hesitated at this unexpected proposal, and was about to
+decline it courteously, when Althea pressed his hand under the table,
+and in low brief words requested him to accede for her sake; upon which
+he took up the crystal goblet, and Francis did the same to pledge him;
+but in the moment that the glasses touched, both rang hollowly, and
+burst with a sharp jarring sound, which echoed lamentably through the
+wide hall, while the noble wine poured down in streams upon the floor,
+to the indignation of the avaricious Christopher, who called out, "You
+are, and always will be, Frank the clumsy, and do nothing like rational
+people; all with noise and fury. You have broken now my beautiful
+crystal cups with your rough pledging."
+
+"Yes, every thing is to be laid to me," growled Francis: "I pledged my
+goblet as neatly as possible; it was not till afterwards that both
+broke, and how that chanced, the devil only knows."
+
+"It is not your brother's fault," said Tausdorf, drying the wine from
+his doublet. "I do not myself understand how it happened."
+
+"We have examples," observed Schindel thoughtfully, "that empty glasses
+have broken upon people calling out loudly in the same key to which
+they were tuned; but these goblets were full, and all was still in the
+room. God grant that this accident may not prognosticate the rupture of
+your new-formed friendship as early as the glasses!"
+
+"No fear of rupture," cried Francis, shaking Tausdorf's hand cordially.
+"We must both agree to that first, but our hearts have been amalgamated
+and hardened together in the same war-fire, and will hold together for
+life and death."
+
+"Gentlemen," said the butler, entering with a respectful bow, "there
+are some well-dressed personages--masks,--standing without, before the
+door, who would ask of the honourable company through me whether they
+may come in to amuse you with song and dance, and other allowable
+pleasantries."
+
+"They are welcome," cried the restless Francis, starting up. "This
+tedious sitting at table has long been abominable to me."
+
+He ran to the door and opened it. Three gipsies danced in, playing with
+pipe, triangle, and tambourine: these were followed by three females in
+black clothes, slashed with red, and wearing black masks.
+
+"Trim wenches, brother," said Francis, with eager look, to Tausdorf,
+upon whose chair he was leaning. "So slim, and at the same time so
+full! By heavens! it makes one wish to become a gipsy for the pleasure
+of possessing them."
+
+"This masking is not to my taste," replied Tausdorf. "The burning eyes
+that sparkle from the fixed black faces have to me something almost
+supernatural. The open brow, and an open heart whether in joy or grief,
+are what I love."
+
+"I understand you, my poor knight," said Francis mockingly. "You are
+already in the cage, and dare no longer take any pleasure in a handsome
+face, at least not _show_ it, lest your lady wife should be angry, and
+hold a criminal court upon her faithless shepherd."
+
+"Do you know any of the party?" asked Althea, to interrupt this
+conversation.
+
+"Not I," answered Francis. "The devil knows where stupid Kit has picked
+up the handsome wenches; but my acquaintance with them shall soon be
+made, and then I'll let you know more about them."
+
+With this he would have forced himself upon the masks, but the gipsy
+with the triangle, an old gray-beard, waved him back, and gave the
+women a sign to begin their revels. The music immediately struck up,
+and the three gipsies commenced a wild fantastic dance, in which the
+twines of their round well-formed arms, the turnings and bendings of
+their slim, delicate figures, the springing and agility of their feet,
+were shown off in full perfection. One of them, whose auburn hair was
+adorned with coloured ribbons and Bohemian stones, particularly
+distinguished herself by the gracefulness of her movements; and
+Francis, after having looked on for some time, tore open his doublet,
+exclaiming, "Zounds! what a figure! It warms an honest fellow who has
+got a few bottles of Tokay in him."
+
+"This mad springing may please you," said Althea contemptuously; "it is
+just calculated for the taste of a drunkard; but to me it seems like
+the wild dance of fiends about a lost soul. It grates me to see that a
+woman can so far forget the female dignity as to expose herself thus."
+
+"Heaven deliver me from a tribunal where you preside," said Francis
+laughing; "why, it must be worse than that of the emperor at Prague.
+Your virtue is of so fierce a nature, there's no reasoning with it.
+That which is to please must be a little free: your decorum and modesty
+are the most tedious things on the face of the earth."
+
+The trio was at an end. The gipsies fanned themselves with their
+motley-coloured handkerchiefs, but they would not move their masks, and
+on that account rejected the wine which was proffered to them by the
+master of the feast.
+
+"These girls seem to be buttoned up to their chins," said Francis, "but
+for all that I'll have a peep behind their black masks, or die for it.
+Above all, I must try the fair-haired witch." And in the delirium of
+the moment, he dashed his goblet through the window, and leaped upon a
+chair, shouting "Huzza! huzza! away with the tables; we have had enough
+of eating, and will dance you one till the floor shakes, and the
+rafters crack again."
+
+"Man! are you alone here?" exclaimed Tausdorf indignantly; but in his
+frenzy, Francis heard him not, and, springing from the chair over the
+table with a neck-breaking leap, alighted again just before the mask
+with the auburn hair.
+
+"Take away," said Christopher with vexation. "When once he breaks out,
+there is no managing with him."
+
+The tables were removed, the seats placed close to the walls, and the
+guests made room for the dancers. Passing over the usual forms of
+courtesy, Francis seized his chosen one with a rude grasp, and shouted
+to the musicians, "A waltz! a waltz! but quick! quick!"
+
+The music began, and the feet of the dancers kept pace with its
+rapidity. The space about them grew wider and wider, for the spectators
+could hardly get their feet out of the way in time from the stamping of
+the intoxicated Francis, who kept clapping his hands, and shouting,
+"Faster! faster! I can stand it, and so can she." At last the piper
+stopped from want of breath; in a little time too the triangle was
+unable to follow; and now only the tambourine gave a fit measure to
+this bacchanalian revel.
+
+"And this is called pleasure?" said Althea to Tausdorf, who had
+retreated to a bow-window.
+
+"Where the soul is incapable of enjoyment," he replied, "pleasure must
+be sensual, or the vulgar mind would have no joy on earth whatever."
+
+At last the sprightly bacchanal was exhausted, and danced off with his
+female into the next room. There he threw himself into a chair, forced
+his companion into the seat beside him, and panted out, "You dance as
+gracefully as lightly, and only so much the more stimulate my desire to
+see your face. It certainly won't have to be ashamed of the feet. Come,
+take off the damnable Moor's visor."
+
+"It is not yet time," replied the gipsy in a low tone, that sounded
+still more hollowly from the mask.
+
+"Not yet?" said Francis, with a rough grasp of her hand; "but soon?
+to-day?"
+
+"If all goes as it should, perhaps," was the answer.
+
+"Then I must have patience, however little I am used to it; so let us,
+in the mean time, have a friendly chat together. You are so sparing of
+words. I only wish your tongue had half the nimbleness of your feet."
+
+"I am not fond of talking," replied the gipsy with cutting coldness;
+"there is little pleasure in it."
+
+"And yet you are a woman," cried Francis, merrily. "For Heaven's sake,
+how could you have so degenerated? Only think, if every one were to be
+as you are, what a poor sort of entertainment we should have in the
+world."
+
+"The world would gain by it," retorted the mask. "How much foolish, how
+much evil, talk would be spared! How much falsehood and deceit! How
+much perjury!"
+
+"Oh, this is dull gossip," exclaimed Francis, struck by her words.
+"Rather tell me my fortune; you have visited us as a gipsy, and should
+keep up the character."
+
+"Do not ask it," she replied, in a warning tone: "you might hear
+something that would not please you."
+
+"Yes, if I were fool enough to believe such nonsense. Prophesy away,
+and be it at my peril. Here is my hand."
+
+The gipsy hastily seized it. Her bosom heaved violently, and her eyes
+darted piercing looks from out the mask.--At length she said, "These
+lines do not please me; you are like to use your sword this very day."
+
+"That would be the devil," cried Francis; and looked about with an air
+of defiance, as if seeking for his adversary.--"But I have no
+objection: to my mind the best of a feast is wanting if there is not
+something of a row to wind it up."
+
+"So much for the future," said the gipsy, releasing his hand. "The past
+you will be contented to leave alone."
+
+"By no means," exclaimed Francis. "Of the future you can lie as much
+as you please, because no one can peep behind the curtain; but in the
+past your art is put to the proof of fire, and if it does not come well
+out of it, I shall mock you soundly."
+
+Again the gipsy took his hand, examined it; but shuddered and
+retreated, saying, "For the last time I warn you."
+
+"That, by my troth, sounds like earnest," cried Francis,
+mockingly.--"But go on, at my peril."
+
+"You have murder on your soul!" said a voice hollowly from beneath the
+mask.
+
+Francis drew back, shuddering, but in the next moment he collected
+himself, as he replied, "In the Turkish war I helped more than one
+infidel to hell; but I pride myself upon it, and do not reckon it for a
+murder."
+
+"I speak of that which happened four years since, and of which you were
+acquitted at the royal tribune of Prague."
+
+Francis uttered a cry of terror, and would have started up, but the
+gipsy grasped his hand firmly, and he sank back upon his seat as if
+paralysed.
+
+"Properly speaking," continued the gipsy, "you have two souls to answer
+for above. An honest old man was sacrificed for your safety. You
+deceived him by an oath to marry his daughter, whom you had seduced:
+justice gave way before the son of the all-powerful patrician, and, to
+save vice, innocence went out to die."
+
+Francis sate pale and motionless. The fumes of the wine were for a
+short time dissipated by strong horror; and, though he saw that nothing
+would do here save bold denial either in wrath or ridicule, yet he was
+not sufficiently master of his tongue; and the moment in which
+impudence would have been in place passed by unemployed. The music from
+the next room sounded merrily, as if in mockery of his anguish. At
+length he stammered out with difficulty, "Avenging Nemesis, who are
+you?"
+
+"You may, perhaps, learn to-day," replied the gipsy, "as I have already
+given you to hope. But that you may not send me to the stake for a
+witch," she added, passing over to a tone of jest, "I must confess that
+I had my information from a sure hand. The stately knight yonder, who
+is conversing so familiarly at the window with that handsome lady, told
+the strange tale a little time ago to a noble Hungarian. I listened to
+him unseen, and heard him calling you a pitiful boy, who did not know
+when death became a man more than life."
+
+With the passion thus excited, returned intoxication also in the wild
+brain of Francis. His face became a dark red. He started from his seat,
+and snatching up his sword from the corner, girded it on with trembling
+hands, as he exclaimed, "For the first time I have trusted a noble, but
+never again.--And the scoundrel caught me so with his knightly bearing
+and open manners, was so frank and friendly with me, and yet attacked
+my honour behind my back like a hired murderer!--Perhaps at the very
+moment he drank to our brotherhood, he was plotting to rake up old
+forgotten stories from their oblivion, that he might capitally denounce
+me to the furious emperor, with whom he has so much weight. Now it is
+clear why the goblets broke in pledging. But, by the infernal hosts, I
+will do myself right upon this hypocrite!"
+
+"You will do well," said the gipsy, still firmly grasping his hand;
+"but if it imports you to accomplish your revenge, don't begin the feud
+here. All would take part against you, and he would be warned. Entice
+him out, and then let your swords decide in the battle-ordeal."
+
+"That is hard," exclaimed Francis; "hard that I am to speak the
+scoundrel fair, when I should like to fall upon him at once, tooth and
+nail. But you are right. I am called the wild Frank, and, as I should
+not dare to tell the real cause, I should be thought by every one in
+the wrong. I'll look out, therefore, for a quiet spot where I may right
+myself without any interruption or disturbance. But where shall I find
+you afterwards to thank you for your information?"
+
+"When all is done, you will see me again, unmasked," replied the gipsy
+with peculiar emphasis. "My word upon it! I shall keep that word better
+than many a man his oath!"
+
+"You are a strange being," cried Francis, struck by the word as if by a
+secret blow from a dagger. For several moments he stared at her fixedly
+and thoughtfully with large and drunken eyes, and then stammered, "I
+don't altogether know what to make of you. Sometimes you appear so
+familiar to me that my hair stands on end; at others, you sit by me
+like my evil conscience, and torture me at your own good-will. Again,
+you seem to be a sort of fiend, who would tempt me to some sin, and
+then laugh me to scorn when I had done your pleasure. If I had not so
+much Tokay in my brain, I should be able to unravel all this, and find
+out upon what footing we were. But that won't do now, and so let my
+first resolution abide, in the devil's name! Chalk your soles well,
+Tausdorf; I fetch you to a merry dance of death."
+
+He hurried back into the ball-room.
+
+"I am almost sorry that I must hound on this beast against the noble
+Tausdorf; but no choice was left me. He may defend himself. On one side
+blind wrath and drunkenness; on the other, sober courage. It cannot
+fail. Good night, Francis!"
+
+In the meanwhile Althea and Tausdorf were gliding round in the
+graceful[2] German dance, and about them stood the guests, looking with
+delight on the pair that seemed to be made for each other. Christopher,
+indeed, eyed them maliciously, and at times cast a troubled glance at
+the side-chamber. At last Francis came out, death in his looks: his
+worthy brother immediately beckoned to him, and proffered a full
+goblet, which he seized and hastily swallowed.
+
+"I have drunk this glass to the devil's brotherhood!" he whispered to
+Christopher, and then mixed amongst the spectators.
+
+Schindel, who had overheard him, exclaimed to Christopher, "What means
+the libertine by those impious words?"
+
+"The heathen god, Bacchus, can best tell that," replied Christopher,
+while with a quiet laugh he filled the goblet again. "To explain what a
+drunkard means one must be drunk one's self, and I, thank God, have
+kept myself sober, to be able to see that all goes on right."
+
+"That last glass was one too much," said Schindel reproachfully. "You
+should not have given him any thing more to drink. If now he should do
+any mischief in his drunkenness?"
+
+"I know my brother better. When he is half drunk, he is always ready to
+quarrel; but with a full lading he soon grows sleepy, and one gets a
+respite from him. I gave him the glass purposely as a sleeping
+draught."
+
+"I have no faith in your expedient," said Schindel, looking for his
+cap; "and, as the sun is setting, you must allow me to take my leave."
+
+"Not yet, not yet, cousin," entreated Christopher, trying to persuade
+the old knight to sit down again. "I'll not let you go till we have
+emptied this flask of Tokay to the bottom."
+
+"I must put it off till another time: your brother's face does not
+please me again to-day, and _better prevented than lamented_. Do you
+see and get him to bed."
+
+During this, the betrothed pair had finished their dance, and,
+observing Schindel's farewell, took it for a signal to follow, and bade
+adieu to their host accordingly. Francis came up to them: "What means
+this breaking-up, old man? It is bad enough that you leave us so early,
+but it would be a downright wrong to rob us of such sprightly dancers."
+
+"We must, indeed, go," anxiously insisted Althea, perceiving the state
+of Francis. "I have a messenger to send to-day to our steward at
+Bogendorf, and it is on business that admits of no delay."
+
+"Well, if you go, the best of the pleasure goes," said Francis
+gallantly. "I had rather not stay either, and will pay an hour's visit
+to the bowling-green: they bowl there to-day for a bacon-hog. Come with
+me, brother Tausdorf; it is still far from evening, and _you_ have not
+got a messenger to send to Bögendorf."
+
+"I am no player," said the knight, excusing himself.
+
+"Nor I, brother," replied Francis, and took Tausdorf's arm familiarly
+in his; "at least I don't love this push-pin work. It is another thing
+when one can stake life and limb upon the hazard; then, indeed, I am
+for you. But we'll not bowl, only look on and see how the poor devils
+fag themselves for a paltry stake. Come along."
+
+"Do as he wishes, to avoid strife," whispered Althea; "but get away
+from him as soon as you can."
+
+"So be it then," said Tausdorf to Francis, and shook hands with Althea.
+In the mean time, Schindel had taken his leave of the other guests, and
+now first perceived what was going on. Alarmed, he drew Tausdorf to the
+window:--"You are not going to walk with Francis?"
+
+"Why not?" replied the knight calmly: "He has asked me in a friendly
+manner, and Althea, too, wishes it."
+
+"For God's sake don't get too familiar with the drunkard; above all, go
+not with him alone. He has no good intentions to-day."
+
+"You carry your foresight too far, dear uncle," returned Tausdorf,
+girding on his sword; "Francis is an honest soldier, and, I can plainly
+see, well inclined to me. It is impossible he should have any design
+against me. Besides, I have already promised him my company, and
+therefore it must be so at all events."
+
+"I have spoken and discharged my conscience," cried Schindel. "God
+avert all accidents!"
+
+"Come then, brother, come," urged Francis, pulling the knight's arm.
+
+"Adieu, dear Althea," said Tausdorf, and again shook the hand of his
+intended bride, who looked at him with a loving farewell. On a sudden
+the tears burst from her eyes, and, forgetful of those about them, she
+fell upon his neck.
+
+"Farewell!" she cried, with stifled voice:--"God grant that I may see
+you again!"
+
+"Without doubt before evening," said Francis laughing, and hurried out
+his companion.
+
+"I don't like his going," observed Schindel, as he took his niece's arm
+and led her away.
+
+"They are gone then!" said Christopher to himself: "As for the rest,
+that will come in time too."
+
+Tausdorf and Francis went out together towards the Peter's-thor, the
+city gate, followed at a distance by Martin Heubert, Tausdorf's boy,
+and his page, Schmidt, who had waited for their master at the door of
+the banqueting-house. In the heart of Francis fermented the poison
+which the gipsy had poured into it, but he still restrained his wrath,
+and walked in silence by the side of Tausdorf. In this way they came to
+the Park, between the two gates--the Peter's-thor and Nieder-thor,--in
+the way to the bowling-green, when Tausdorf, tired of the silent walk,
+and with the view of showing a friendly sympathy with Francis, said to
+him, "You are a soldier like myself, Frank; you too, therefore, must
+have found that the pains and dangers of a campaign are often less than
+the evils with which life threatens us in the profoundest peace. As I
+hear, you have gone through much misfortune, and at last come off
+triumphantly!"
+
+These well intended, but unlucky, words made the crater overflow. The
+drunken Francis, prepared as he was by an evil hand, could see nothing
+in them but the bitterest scorn, and became mad with wrath. For a while
+he was silent, because he did not know with what language to hurl his
+contempt and rage in the face of his adversary. At last he thundered
+out, "Yes, indeed! And, as they tell me, you have so acted that an
+honest man cannot drink out of the same cup with you."
+
+Surprised by this insult, which came upon him like a lightning flash
+from a clear sky, Tausdorf started back. With an awful sternness he
+asked, "How could you drink to our eternal friendship but a few hours
+since, if you knew this of me? In truth, you must be worse than I am in
+your opinion. But now you will say who it is that has spread this
+slander against me?"
+
+"I had it from a good friend," retorted Francis defyingly.
+
+"You will name him to me this very hour, and on this very spot!" cried
+Tausdorf, with flashing eyes.
+
+The drunkard gazed on the knight, who stood before him like an angry
+Mars; and it seemed to him for a moment in his intoxication as if he
+had gone too far.
+
+"I will tell you at a fitter time," he stammered out: "I have it from a
+woman."
+
+The contradiction between this and the earlier statement enraged
+Tausdorf still more.
+
+"Do not stir!" he called out to his people, and led Francis impetuously
+a few steps farther.
+
+"Now, name the slanderer!"
+
+Instead of reply Francis grasped at him, but with gigantic strength the
+latter caught his opponent by the breast and flung him to the ground,
+where he held him fast.
+
+"If you are an honourable nobleman," groaned Francis under him, "let me
+betake myself to my sword."
+
+Tausdorf hastily let him loose, and went back a few paces. The latter
+sprang up, frantic with rage, and tore his sword from the scabbard;
+and, looking after the knight's people furiously, cried out, "Don't let
+your servants help!"
+
+Tausdorf called to them in Bohemian, "Whichever of you moves a hand, my
+sword strikes him!"
+
+"Draw!" roared Francis, with foaming mouth.
+
+"Only in self-defence," said Tausdorf, and held out his blade.
+
+Francis pressed upon him with furious blows. He merely defended
+himself. During this the auburn-haired gipsy looked over the wall of
+the garden; she was now without a mask, and her face betrayed agony and
+repentance.
+
+"Why don't you part them?" she cried to Tausdorf's people, wringing her
+hands.
+
+"It is forbidden to us," replied the faithful Martin sadly.
+
+Tausdorf cast a glance from the combat to the place whence the
+well-known voice came; and, taking advantage of this, Francis lunged
+fiercely at his heart, but the thrust did not succeed.
+
+"My life, then, is intended?" cried Tausdorf indignantly, and he cut
+his adversary over the right hand. As the arm sank, his sword went into
+the breast of Francis, who fell to earth.
+
+"Gracious Heavens! such was not my purpose," exclaimed Tausdorf, when
+he saw the blood flowing; and, sheathing his sword, he gazed for a
+while with looks of compassion on his fallen adversary. Then turning to
+his servant, he bade him hasten for his carriage:--"I feel myself too
+weak for long and speedy riding, and this brooks no delay."
+
+Heubert and Schmidt hurried back to the town.
+
+"By God's holy word it was not my purpose!" repeated Tausdorf; and
+sighing "Poor Althea!" he followed his people.
+
+While this was passing, the gipsy had quitted the wall, opened a little
+gate in it, and approached Francis, who lay in death-throes on the
+ground. Having come up to him, she shook the auburn locks from her
+head, and the long brown hair fell about her face as she put on a
+withered coronet of roses.
+
+"Do you know me, Francis? Do you know this bridal ornament?" she asked,
+with a mixture of grief and anger.
+
+"Agatha!" sighed Francis; and with difficulty turned away his head,
+that he might not see the fearful apparition.
+
+"I have revenged your crime," she exclaimed, "and by a greater crime.
+But there is no joy in vengeance; the grave knows no hatred, and I
+forgive you. Your guilt is atoned; and you may appear confidently
+before the throne of Heaven. Pray for me yonder, that I too may be
+forgiven when I have ended here in penitence and agony!"
+
+She rushed away. Again he sighed!--Again!--and his soul fleeted with
+the last beams of the setting sun, and darkness and the silence of eve
+were upon the blood-besprinkled earth.
+
+                            *  *   *   *   *
+
+Althea was reclining in the window and impatiently expecting the
+knight's return, when at length she saw Martin and Schmidt come running
+breathlessly through the Peter's-gate. An evil foreboding thrilled
+through her bosom. She called out to them,--"What now? Has any accident
+happened?"
+
+"We are to fetch our master's carriage immediately," replied Heubert;
+"you will learn the rest by and by."
+
+"Gracious Heavens! What is the meaning of this?" she exclaimed, and
+leaning out of the window to look after Tausdorf, she saw him coming,
+pale and in disorder.
+
+"Something dreadful has occurred--I have never seen him thus before."
+
+She hurried down, but Tausdorf was already at the street door, and,
+seizing his hand with increasing anxiety, she said,--"Dear friend, what
+has happened to you?"
+
+"My poor Althea! You were right with your foreboding when we parted.
+Such as I left you I never shall see you again, for then no murder was
+upon my soul!"
+
+"Good Heavens! Francis Friend!" cried Althea, whose terror divined the
+truth at once.
+
+"He lies in the Park, killed by my sword!"
+
+"You are lost, then, if you do not instantly fly from Schweidnitz. You
+should not have returned, for moments here are of more worth than
+gold."
+
+"My people are putting to the horses," replied Tausdorf, and went with
+Althea into the court, where Schmidt was just drawing out the carriage
+from the coach-house, and Martin was cursing in the stable because he
+could not find the harness.
+
+"This is too long about," said Althea; "besides you will go more slowly
+in your carriage, and not be able to use the footpaths. Let them saddle
+my palfrey for you."
+
+"The creature is good, but too slight. He'll not stand out a hard
+ride."
+
+"Let him, then, drop under you, so as you but reach your goal. Only
+hasten, for Heaven's sake, before the deed is spread abroad!"
+
+"Then saddle the palfrey," said Tausdorf to his servant; "and lead him
+on before to the Striegauer gate. I will come straight after you."
+
+The servant obeyed.
+
+"But how was it possible," said Althea, "that with all your coolness
+and moderation, you could suffer yourself to be provoked by the
+wretched drunkard to this rash act, the consequences of which are so
+evident?"
+
+"Woman," replied Tausdorf, with gloomy looks, "were an angel from
+heaven to come down in a corporeal form, he could not remain in peace
+if the evil-minded seriously set about involving him in quarrels!
+Believe me on my knightly word, I was forced to draw the sword. My life
+and honour were both at stake; and if I am no longer to defend these
+with my knightly hand, I may bid adieu to the world, and creep into a
+cloister. The thrust did, indeed, go deeper than it should, but who, in
+the heat of battle, can command his steel? God be my judge!"
+
+The palfrey was saddled and brought out. Tausdorf again bade Althea
+farewell, pressed her to his heart with the convulsive energy of grief,
+and rushed away. With slow steps she reascended the stairs, and placed
+herself again in the stone seat in the window. The tears flowed hotly
+down her cheeks, while her anxious heart swelled her bosom with strong
+and frequent heavings.
+
+She had sate thus for some time, when with anxious speed her uncle
+entered the apartment.
+
+"Have you heard it, niece? Francis Friend has been found dead in the
+Park, not far from the bowling-green, and report names our Tausdorf for
+his murderer."
+
+"Alas! alas!" sobbed Althea; "this misfortune will cost me too my
+life."
+
+"Gracious Heavens! It is true, then? But the unlucky man has
+fled?--for, if they catch him here, he is lost. He might rather hope to
+find mercy from the Spanish inquisition, or from the prince of darkness
+himself, than from the old Erasmus."
+
+"He has fled upon my palfrey, and if he only gets a good start of them
+I deem him saved."
+
+"God grant it! but as I hurried hither the prefects of the quarter were
+running about like mad. To a certainty they will raise a hue and cry
+after him. Has he been long gone?"
+
+Althea remained without answering, for the hurried trot of many horses
+had caused her to look out of the window. A party of the city police
+were riding by, well armed and with speed, over the market-place to the
+Striegauer gate.
+
+"Gracious Heavens! Too soon!" sighed the poor Althea, and sank in a
+swoon to the ground.
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+The night had come on, and the moon threw her first beams over the
+silent country. Tausdorf just then rode his panting horse into
+Salzbrunn, with many a glance behind to see if he could yet discover
+any of his pursuers. Unfortunately he heard from the town the snorting
+and the tramp of many horses.
+
+"Hold out but this once, poor beast!" he exclaimed to his horse, and
+again plunged the spurs into his bleeding flanks. But the weary animal
+made only a few weak efforts, and fell back again into his short trot,
+interrupted by frequent stumbles, while the sound of horses' feet kept
+constantly nearing.
+
+"It is then a struggle for life or death!" cried Tausdorf; drew his
+sword, and his left hand grasped his holster-pistols.
+
+"Stop, murderer, stop!" cried the first horseman, springing forward.
+"You are our prisoner. Follow us to Schweidnitz."
+
+"Keep yourselves out of harm's way, good people," cried Tausdorf,
+turning round his horse: "I am well armed, and have nothing to do with
+you."
+
+"You have slain the son of our burgomaster, and are therefore forfeited
+to our criminal law," retorted two of the marshalmen, waving their
+swords, while the others came up and surrounded the knight.
+
+"Surrender!" exclaimed the chief of them, "that we may not have to use
+force, by which you are sure to come off worst."
+
+"Not alive!" cried Tausdorf. "I am here in the Fürstentein territory,
+and to the Fürstentein tribunal will I surrender myself, that the
+_Oberlandeshauptmann_ may try me for my deed. To the sentence of the
+court of Schweidnitz I never will submit."
+
+"By no means," replied the marshal. "Where you have committed the
+crime, there must you be judged. Therefore, yield yourself immediately,
+or I'll have you rode down, and the damage is your own."
+
+In the meantime the tumult, the cry of murder, and the loud parley, had
+brought the peasants of Saltzbrunn thither. They came with poles and
+spears, and stared at the parties, whom they surrounded.
+
+"Help us to seize the murderer!" cried the marshalman, who had but
+little inclination to venture on the single man with his whole troop.
+
+"Not at all," replied the village magistrate. "You are here, gentlemen,
+upon the imperial fief of Saltzbrunn; and, as I understand, the knight
+is willing to give himself up to our tribunal. That is law, and so it
+must be. In the meantime I answer for the prisoner till I have informed
+our gracious mistress, the Lady of Hochberg, and afterwards right will
+be done to all parties."
+
+"That I should have to dispute thus with a village magistrate about
+obeying the commands of the council at Schweidnitz!" exclaimed the
+marshal indignantly. "Peasants, I again warn you to help us seize the
+murderer, as good and true neighbours. You expose yourselves to a heavy
+responsibility if he escapes us through your fault; while, on the
+contrary, I promise you a rich reward for your services from the noble
+council."
+
+"Here's an opportunity of gaining something," whispered one peasant to
+the other; and soon the whole party cried out in chorus, with lifted
+poles, "Surrender yourself, Sir knight."
+
+"For God's sake, do not compel me to murder!" said Tausdorf earnestly,
+and waved his sword.
+
+"Forwards!" commanded the marshal, and rushed with his horsemen upon
+Tausdorf; who instantly fired his pistol, but the ball only struck one
+of the horses. The knight now used his sword gallantly, but his enemies
+were too powerful, and his steed was too much exhausted for him to
+wheel about amongst them with the skill and tricks of horsemanship.
+During this, too, the peasants had come on with courage, and struck at
+him from a distance with their long poles. The opposition of the honest
+magistrate was lost, amidst this murderous uproar. At last a pole
+struck Tausdorf's head: he fell senseless from his horse, and the crowd
+rushed upon him with rude shouts of scorn and laughter. Bound with
+disgraceful bonds, they set him upon a horse, and the police returned
+in triumph with him to Schweidnitz.
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+In the hour of midnight the council was collected in the senate-house
+at Schweidnitz. The two tall candles which stood on the table lighted
+the high and gloomy Sessions'-room but sparingly. The council had
+collected in single groups, and conversed in low and troubled whispers.
+Alone, and with his hands behind his back, as was his custom, paced
+Erasmus, up and down, slow and silent; but on his old and venerable
+face the storm of the most violent passions was throwing up its waves.
+
+"Tausdorf is just brought in and placed in the Hildebrand," announced
+the Marshal Clement Kernichen.
+
+"God be praised!" said Erasmus, with a dreadful look towards heaven,
+and went to his seat.
+
+"_Ad loca_, gentlemen!" he exclaimed to the counsellors; and when they
+had taken their places, he said with proud dignity, "The murderer is in
+our power; it is time, then, for us to do our duty. Let double watches
+be placed at the door. These will remain closed against every one till
+justice is satisfied. At the break of day the judges shall hold a
+criminal court; and as the murdered person was my son, Doctor Jacob
+Grenwitz will preside in my place. I do not conceal from you,
+colleagues, that the criminal has a strong party here, and that all the
+nobles will be on his side. Therefore, that justice may have its
+course, unchecked of human fears, I herewith declare the town in
+danger, and the council permanent. The horse-police shall be
+collectively summoned, and mount guard before the Sessions'-house
+completely armed; the gens d'armes shall be at their alarm-posts; the
+various guilds be warned to hold themselves in readiness with their
+weapons, that they may come forward at the first sound of the
+alarm-bell. Put all this into execution immediately, Mr. Marshalman,
+and then return to our sessions to report progress and receive our
+farther orders."
+
+"God deliver us! how will all this end?" sighed Kernichen, and left the
+room; in which a deadly silence prevailed, as each of the council was
+sufficiently occupied with his own thoughts, and yet hesitated to
+impart them to another. In the midst of this the city-serjeant,
+Rudolph, announced Doctor Heidenreich, who wished to speak in private
+with the burgomaster.
+
+"In the little room by the judges' chamber," said Erasmus, whither he
+went himself. The doctor was already waiting for him, and by his dress
+it might be seen that he had just jumped out of bed, and flung them on
+in a hurry.
+
+"Let my hurry excuse the carelessness of my attire, Mr. Burgomaster;
+necessity knows no law. A report runs through the town, that Tausdorf
+has been seized at Saltzbrunn by your servants, and now lies a prisoner
+in the Hildebrand."
+
+"Such is the truth," replied Erasmus calmly.
+
+"That is a great misfortune for the town," sighed Heidenreich.
+
+"Are you out of your senses? If you have nothing more rational to bring
+forward, you had better have remained in bed and slept off your
+wonderful dreams."
+
+"Mr. Burgomaster!" cried Heidenreich firmly, and seized the old man's
+hand; "you know me for an honest citizen of this town, and a true
+friend to your family. The last, in particular, I should think I proved
+to you not very long ago. I, therefore, of all others, may well speak
+out to you boldly and plainly; and now entreat you, by the ancient
+honour of your office, do not this time give way to your love of
+vengeance, however alluring may seem the opportunity."
+
+"What are you dreaming of?" cried Erasmus, tearing away his hand from
+him. "Do I intend sitting in judgment myself on the murderer of my own
+son? Doctor Grenwitz will preside, in my place, over the criminal
+tribunal."
+
+"--Through whose mouth he will only echo your sentence! I must pray you
+to take off the mask before so old and faithful an acquaintance. You
+wish to destroy Tausdorf. That you have more than one reason for
+wishing it is plain to me; that in so doing you will preserve the forms
+of law is no more than I expect from your prudence; but you are wrong
+in the main point. The criminal jurisdiction over this man does not
+belong to the town."
+
+"How! Does not the emperor Wenceslaus' charter of 1384 give us full
+authority and power to seek, take, judge and execute, with imperial
+privilege, all offenders, when and in whatever place they may be found,
+and for whatever offences?"
+
+"The charter applies to thieves and robbers that may be apprehended
+within your jurisdiction. You cannot apply it to a nobleman and officer
+of his imperial majesty, whom you have arrested, contrary to all right,
+in the Fürstentein territory, and against the decree of king Wladislaus
+and the Convention of forty-five."
+
+"Tausdorf is a vagabond Bohemian and adventurer, with whom there is no
+occasion for using much ceremony."
+
+"By no means, Mr. Burgomaster; I have inquired narrowly into the
+matter. He is a native Silesian vassal. The father was possessed and
+settled in the hereditary principality, and the son is about to
+purchase an estate in Bögendorf. This affair comes under the
+jurisdiction of the prince palatine."
+
+"--That he may again do us such excellent justice as in the case of
+Bieler's murder?--or as in those violent assaults which the nobles,
+since that time, have indulged in against the citizens? No; once I have
+given way to the arrogance of the priest, but never again so long as I
+am burgomaster in Schweidnitz."
+
+"If, then, you could hope to obtain strict justice from the lord
+bishop, you would leave the farther proceedings to him?"
+
+Erasmus was about to answer at once, but again bethought himself, and
+said wrathfully, "You are an old fox, with whom one must not use too
+many words, lest you should turn them into snares. It does not become a
+counsellor to talk of what he would do if things stood otherwise.
+Enough if we know what we have to do '_rebus sic stantibus_.' We owe an
+account of our proceedings only to the emperor, next under God; and we
+will account for them when it is demanded of us, either on earth, or
+before the Eternal judgment-seat."
+
+"You have spoken a word of deep import, Mr. Burgomaster: God grant that
+you may be able one day to stand by it. I would only once again impress
+this upon you; Tausdorf is universally beloved; all will take part with
+him and against you; and if you were as right in your proceeding, as,
+by Heavens! you are wrong, you would still plunge this town into
+unutterable grief and ruin."
+
+"_Fiat justitia et pereat mundus!_" cried the burgomaster, and left
+him.
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+The first gray of morning contended strangely with the yellow light of
+the candles in the room wherein the judges had assembled to hold a
+criminal court. The city serjeant was just leading out Martin
+Heubert, Tausdorf's boy, whom they had been interrogating, and the
+town-advocate, Kernicher, entered with Melchior Lange and Paul Reimann,
+who had been viewing the wounds of the body. The advocate laid before
+the chief-judge, in silence, the book in which was entered the result
+of his inquiry. Behind him came Tausdorf in chains, surrounded by
+gens-d'armes; his face was pale, and his clothes soiled and torn by the
+violence at Saltzbrunn, but still he bore himself with knightly
+dignity. The procurator arose and lifted up the accusation of blood
+against him; and he was summoned once--and again twice--after the
+ancient custom. Upon this the examination began, and Tausdorf related
+the unfortunate affair frankly and honestly as it had really happened.
+
+"Francis Friend," he said in conclusion, "enticed me to the place where
+the misfortune occurred, reviled me, and at last fell upon me with his
+naked sword. Hereupon I defended myself as a soldier, to save my
+honour, my body, my life,--and that which then happened I was forced to
+do. I understand not the law, and therefore be not precipitate, but
+allow me an advocate to conduct my cause: I will reward him richly."
+
+The chief judge rang his bell. "The procurator, Hans Reimann!" he
+exclaimed to the serjeant who answered the summons. The latter went
+out, and the procurator appeared.
+
+"We have given you to the accused as his defender," said the judge.
+"Consult with him."
+
+"Your pardon, gentlemen," replied the procurator; "I have no
+inclination for the task. Francis Friend was always on a good footing
+with me: and besides, I should not like to plead for a manifest
+assassin."
+
+"The council will be hardly satisfied with this. Such defence belongs
+to your office, and you cannot refuse it without giving up the office
+itself. But come with me to the gentlemen of the council; you may have
+their answer from themselves."
+
+He went away with the procurator. The silence of expectation prevailed
+through the room. Tausdorf went to the window, leaned upon the
+breast-work, and, gazing upon the dark gray clouds, which had already
+received golden edges from the rising sun, he sighed "Althea!"
+
+At last the two returned.
+
+"You submit, then?" said the judge to the procurator, as they retired.
+
+"What one must, one must!" replied the procurator.
+
+Tausdorf went up to him, and said with friendly dignity, "I pray you,
+sir, conduct my defence truly; I do not understand this matter, and
+will reward your labour. If the business were the ordering of a battle,
+I should know better what I was about."
+
+"Say on, then," replied the procurator, gaping: "how am I to defend
+you?"
+
+"In God's name!" cried Tausdorf angrily, "how should I, who have been
+devoted to arms from my youth, teach you what you are to say for me
+before the tribunal? The little Latin which I learnt at Gitschin is of
+no use here. But you are a studied man, well informed in the law, and
+must best know what will conduce to my advantage."
+
+"It will all be of no use," muttered the procurator; "but relate the
+tale to me circumstantially, that I may thoroughly comprehend it."
+
+Again poor Tausdorf undertook the sad labour of narrating the tale of
+blood. The procurator listened to him, gaping, and then briefly
+repeated what he had heard to the tribunal, concluding with, "You have
+now heard Tausdorf's statement of the affair, gentlemen, and I submit
+it to your decision."
+
+"Is that your whole defence?" cried the knight indignantly, while this
+statement was being protocolled. "May our Saviour one day speak for
+your sins before the judgment-seat of God, as you have spoken for me in
+this hour before the tribunal of man!"
+
+"Have you any thing else to advance?" said the judge to the accused and
+his defender; and as they were silent, he rang the bell, saying, "The
+audit is closed.--Let the knight be conveyed back again to the
+Hildebrand," he added to the serjeant, who then entered.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Tausdorf, with manly firmness, "I do not believe that
+you have a right to pronounce judgment on me; but if you do hold
+yourselves so empowered, I warn you honestly, when you give your votes,
+to keep your conscience and your dying hour before your eyes. It is an
+easy thing for you to slay me, for I am in your power; but innocent
+blood cries with a thousand voices to Heaven, and God is just."
+
+He went away with his guard, followed by his model of a defender, and
+the judges laid their heads together in anxious whisperings.
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+In the meantime the day had fully broken, and a bright July sun shone
+upon the overwatched faces of the council, who were still collected in
+the Sessions'-chamber, and had reclined themselves against the windows
+to prevent their going to sleep. The iron old Erasmus alone sat at the
+green table with bright wakeful eyes, and played with the golden medal
+appended to his chain of honour. By his side stood the vice-consul,
+Christopher Drescher, behind a chair, which he rocked to and fro
+impatiently.
+
+"The judges must have come to a decision by this time," said Erasmus,
+as if to himself.
+
+"If they only come to a right one," replied Drescher emphatically.
+
+"No fear of that; although parties may at times run high amongst
+ourselves, yet against the outward enemy we all stand as one man; and
+if----Then we are at the goal, brother."
+
+"I only wish you had not forced poor Reimann to defend him. If he
+should happen to bring forward things which we can't answer?"
+
+"Some defender Tausdorf could not but have; the forms of the law
+demanded so much, and to forms we must strictly adhere on this
+occasion. Between ourselves, too, could you in all Schweidnitz have
+hunted out a worse advocate than this Reimann?"
+
+"You have seen farther than I have," cried the vice-consul, after a
+pause: "_Concedo_."
+
+A servant now brought in a letter to the burgomaster, which he opened
+and read--
+
+"An _Intercessionale_ in favour of the prisoner by the Herr von
+Schindel, resident of this place, and now laid up with the gout," said
+Erasmus to the council. "The petitioner presumes to defend the accused,
+uncalled for, and to impugn the competency of our tribunal. _Ad acta!_"
+
+"The Frau von Netz, too, waits below in great trouble," added the
+servitor, "and implores, in Heaven's name, a secret audience of your
+excellency."
+
+"The proud nobles can now stoop themselves to entreaties," exclaimed
+the burgomaster triumphantly; "but it's all of no use."
+
+He went out. The poor Althea stood there, her face in a veil wet with
+tears, and she approached him with clasped and uplifted hands.
+
+"Will it please you to walk in?" asked Erasmus with cold politeness,
+and opened the door of the little audience-chamber.
+
+She tottered after him. He placed a chair f motioned to her to sit
+down, and placed himself opposite.
+
+"What is your pleasure, noble lady?" he asked, after a short time,
+during which she was unable to speak from sobbing. "Our time is
+peculiarly valuable to-day."
+
+"Mercy!" at length cried the poor petitioner in the most moving tones
+of anguish; "Mercy for my intended husband!"
+
+"That is with God!" replied Erasmus. "In my weighty office I recognize
+but the duty of justice. If such a crime were to remain unpunished, I
+should have to account hereafter to the Highest for the innocent
+victims, which might in future be sacrificed to the arrogance of the
+nobles."
+
+"I do not pray for the absolution of the unfortunate one; I only pray
+that the business may be brought before the bishop or the emperor, and
+I offer to be his security till then with my whole property."
+
+"The murder has been committed within our jurisdiction, and must be
+punished by our tribunal."
+
+"And do you call it a murder that Tausdorf, to defend his own life,
+slew your son against his will?"
+
+"It is not for us two to decide upon this point, Frau von Netz; for I
+am the father of the murdered, and you are the intended of the
+murderer. The judges will settle it upon their oaths."
+
+"Mr. Burgomaster, we are alone; I would not--by Heavens I would not,
+offend you; but the terrors of death give me courage for the question;
+can money save Tausdorf? My uncle, von Schindel, is rich; we have
+friends amongst the nobles of the country. Fix the sum."
+
+"If you were not a woman," exclaimed the burgomaster furiously; "if you
+were not a woman, you should fare ill with this twofold insult,--to the
+dignity of my office, and to my heart as a father. Gold for blood! That
+is one of the maxims of you nobles, when the question, is of a
+citizen's life. But the Polish times are over, when the high-born
+murderer had only to fling the price of blood upon the corse of the
+murdered, and thus remain free from all retribution. When the nobleman
+of Siegwitz shot the citizen's daughter, his drinking companions
+thought that such a girl might well be paid for; but the council there
+did not think so, and the head of the assassin fell."
+
+"Oh my heart!" sighed Althea, and stood for a time struck with grief
+and horror at these words of wrath; then on a sudden, collecting her
+spirits, she flung herself before the burgomaster and embraced his
+knees.
+
+"Mercy!" she cried, and lifted up her beautiful blue eyes to the
+inexorable one with so much fervour, that in spite of his iron
+resolution an unpleasant feeling oppressed his heart, and he was
+leaning down to her with pity, when the marshal entered to announce
+that the judges had presented themselves to the council and waited for
+the worshipful burgomaster. At this the old evil spirit returned in
+him. He started up with vehemence, and sought to disengage Althea's
+hands from his knees.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, what will you do?" cried the unhappy victim.
+
+"My duty!" replied the man of the stony heart, and walked away with
+firm and echoing steps.
+
+The sufferer breathed a deep and piercing sigh, as if in that moment
+the tender thread of her life was broken, and her head fell in a kind
+swoon upon the seat of the chair before which she had been kneeling.
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+The criminal court had laid its sentence before the council. Its
+adoption and immediate execution were unanimously resolved upon, the
+judges were again collected in their sessions' chamber, and the pale,
+fettered Tausdorf stood before them with his guard, while the chief of
+the court read thus:--
+
+"As the noble and honourable Kaspar Sparrenberger, surnamed Tausdorf,
+hath stabbed, and thus brought from life to death the in like manner
+noble and honourable Francis Friend,--and as this deed is open and
+manifest,--and he himself cannot, and does not, deny it,--therefore the
+imperial town-court of Schweidnitz adjudges that Tausdorf,
+notwithstanding his defence, has forfeited his life for such murder,
+and consequently, according to the law and custom of the land, shall be
+executed with the sword."
+
+With this the provost took up a white-peeled willow wand which lay
+before him on the table, broke it in two, and throwing the pieces at
+the feet of the condemned, cried,
+
+           "The sentence is spoken,
+            The staff is broken."
+
+"You must die, and the Lord have mercy on your soul!" exclaimed the
+provosts, and overturned their seats with a heavy clatter.
+
+"I appeal from this unjust sentence to the prince palatine of Silesia
+and the emperor," cried Tausdorf in a loud voice unshaken by this
+horrid ceremony.
+
+"Such appeal cannot be made according to our privileges and customs,"
+replied the chief provost. "The execution follows here upon the heels
+of the sentence."
+
+"Then I appeal to the tribunal of God," said Tausdorf, without losing
+his presence of mind--"to the tribunal of God, before which we must one
+day all meet again. When am I to die?"
+
+"In two hours."
+
+"You are very quick, you gentlemen of Schweidnitz. But I suppose I may
+see my bride again?"
+
+"The council has forbidden it, as well on account of the loss of time
+connected with it as of the unavoidable lamentation and disturbance."
+
+"Ay, indeed! You gentlemen have true hangmen's hearts, with room
+therein for barbarity as well as injustice. Yet I hope the time will be
+just sufficient to prepare me fittingly for my departure. I wish to
+confess first, and receive the holy sacrament. Have the goodness to
+send me a priest of my persuasion, and afterwards a notary to draw up
+my last will."
+
+"Both shall be done," replied the provost, and made a sign to the
+city-marshal, who went out.
+
+"Moreover I was put into a bad plight in my arrest at Salzbrunn by your
+runners, and their rabble," continued Tausdorf, surveying his person
+indignantly; "and it is not fitting that a knight should die publicly
+in so unworthy a state, as a mockery to your people; therefore send to
+the Frau von Netz, that she may forward to me my red velvet suit of
+ceremony for my last travel."
+
+"It shall be done according to your desire," said the chief provost,
+confounded by the proud calmness of the condemned.
+
+"The chaplain is ready for you below, Herr von Tausdorf, in my little
+room below the custom-house," announced the city-marshal.
+
+"Then I must first reconcile myself with my enemies according to the
+duty of a Christian. I pray you, therefore, gentlemen, to forgive me
+for having through my unlucky deed given you occasion for the sin of
+injustice. On my part I willingly and freely pardon you my death. God
+favour you with an early repentance! May my blood be the last which
+shall flow in this unhappy feud betwixt the nobility and citizens."
+
+He departed with the city-marshal; the gens-d'armes followed.
+The provosts looked at each other sadly troubled, and from the
+provost-chief escaped the exclamation, "The business will not be over
+with the head that is to fall here. Heaven turn all to the best!"
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+The burgomaster had for a short time betaken himself to his house to
+give orders for the burial of his son. He had just dismissed the
+church-servants, and looked from the bow-window of his audience-chamber
+with silent anguish on the black-mantled undertakers who were carrying
+out Francis's coffin to the customhouse, where the body still lay, when
+doctor Heidenreich came in unsummoned. Erasmus received him with angry
+exclamations.
+
+"So, you will not cease to torment me? I thought that the contested
+point had been sufficiently discussed between us last night; as to any
+change, that is past all question now, since the sentence has been
+pronounced."
+
+"I know it," said Heidenreich, troubled. "You have condemned Tausdorf
+to the sword!"
+
+"Not I," interrupted Erasmus vehemently; "but the provost's court at
+Schweidnitz. The council has, indeed, approved the sentence; but in
+regard to that personal interest which I take in the affair, I did not
+even deem it proper to subscribe my name."
+
+"I neither ask of you generosity nor favour. But I demand justice of
+you for your own sake; you are on the point of committing a crying act
+of injustice, and of thereby rending the honourable garland that a long
+active life has wound about your brows. Your sentence is not only
+against all equity, but against the laws."
+
+"Against the laws? Mr. Doctor, put a guard upon your tongue, that it
+may not bring your body into trouble."
+
+"I have heard the murderous story from Tausdorf's servant. Your son was
+killed by the accused in his just defence. Does not the penal code of
+Charles the Fifth expressly state, that if any one falls upon,
+assaults, or strikes another with deadly weapons, and the person so
+attacked cannot escape without risk and jeopardy to his body, life,
+honour, or good report, he may then peril life and limb in his just
+defence without incurring any punishment--and if, moreover, he kills
+the aggressor, he is not to be, therefore, deemed guilty, nor is he
+bound to delay with his defence till he is struck, although otherwise
+against written laws and usages?"
+
+"You have long been known to me as a shrewd advocate," answered Erasmus
+with mockery; "but the _Carolina_[3] has not yet been formally
+published to us, and above all things the act of self-defence should
+have been proved. The mouth of my poor son is shut, the declaration of
+the accused and of his servant proves nothing."
+
+"There was also a page of Tausdorf's present; and a woman saw the
+battle from the garden-wall. In the testimony of three witnesses
+consists truth."
+
+"The witnesses of whom you speak," replied the burgomaster, confused,
+"did not present themselves for examination. It was, besides, for the
+judges to decide whether their examination was requisite."
+
+"But I think, Mr. Burgomaster, it was for your own honour to seek out
+these witnesses, and to defer the execution of the sentence till then,
+that it might not be said you wished to destroy the accused from a
+wretched spirit of revenge."
+
+"I am weary of your insolence; instantly take yourself out of my four
+walls, Mr. Doctor, or I shall give you lodgings in the Hildebrand as a
+malcontent and fomenter of discord; they are just now vacant."
+
+"You thrust your better angel from your side," replied Heidenreich
+sadly. "I have not spoken out of favour to the accused, whom I do not
+know, but from old friendship to yourself. You will not listen to me,
+and I wash my hands in innocence. But I tell you a day will come when
+you will think of my words and of this hour with repentance, alas, too
+late!"
+
+He left the room. Erasmus went to the window to cool the angry glow
+upon his face in the fresh air, when he saw the gouty Schindel, who was
+being carried in a chair by servants towards the burgomaster's house.
+
+"Nothing was wanting but the old gossip with his tedious conciliatory
+efforts," exclaimed Erasmus, and running out he gave the servant strict
+orders to show the door to Schindel.
+
+The servant went, and when the burgomaster returned to his room, the
+preacher Samuel, of St. Mary's church, a gloomy zealot, forced himself
+upon him to condole with the powerful regent on the death of his son.
+With infinite unction he groaned out, "If, worthy sir, it is sad,
+mournful, pitiable, and most grievous to lose a dear, beloved child by
+a natural death, how much more sad, mournful, pitiable, and grievous
+must it be for a father when a healthful son is snatched from him
+through God's severe, though wise and gracious dispensation, by so
+sudden, violent, and horrid a death, without first having time to
+confess and repent his errors, so that in the full flower of his sins
+he is hurried away before the eternal judgment-seat!"
+
+"For God's sake, comfort better, Mr. Preacher," cried Erasmus angrily:
+"You pour aqua-fortis instead of balsam into the wounds of a father's
+heart."
+
+"The heart of man is an obstinate thing," replied the preacher; "it
+must be utterly torn and crushed that it may become truly sensible of
+the consolation of the Gospel; and if you will only allow me a short
+time, I will undertake so to work upon you, that you shall with
+pleasure kiss the hand which has struck you thus hardly, and, like a
+true Christian, shall attune a rejoicing Hosannah on the grave of your
+murdered son."
+
+During this harangue the brow of Erasmus grew mightily wrinkled, and he
+was about to answer the wretched comforter in no very friendly way,
+when the door opened, and Althea entered, leading her boy.
+
+"This is not to be borne!" he exclaimed to her. "We have nothing more
+to say to each other, Frau von Netz, and I consider it highly indecent
+that you should force yourself upon me in this way, unannounced, only
+to burthen me with entreaties, which my oath forbids my hearkening to."
+
+"Misfortune has its peculiar privileges," replied Althea in a faint and
+tuneless voice; "I was prepared for all harshness when I resolved to
+come here, and you can treat me as seems good and proper to yourself;
+but you must hear me once again; I will not stir from this spot first."
+
+"Speak, then, that I may at last get quit of this torment."
+
+"My intended husband is condemned to die. I will no longer contend with
+you whether he has deserved death, or whether you have a right to
+inflict it; but the power of pardon belongs incontestably to the
+emperor. I, therefore, only implore you to defer the execution of the
+sentence till the return of a messenger whom I will despatch to Vienna
+with my supplication. That cannot militate against your office. On the
+contrary, it would become you not to anticipate the clemency of your
+master in a business wherein you must yourself confess you are a party.
+In the meantime let the condemned remain in your power, and if the
+emperor pronounces the dreadful NO, we must submit to what cannot be
+avoided."
+
+"Let the Herr von Tausdorf live, dear burgomaster," said the little
+Henry, at other times so defying, but now in tears, and kissed the hand
+of Erasmus with humility. "I am a fatherless orphan, and he would be so
+good a father to me!"
+
+But the burgomaster withdrew his hand from the child, and eyed now him,
+now Althea, with piercing glances.
+
+"Take our share in Bogendorf for the brief respite," cried Althea,
+observing the inveteracy in the eyes of Erasmus. "I will readily make
+it over to you this very day, and support myself and my son by the
+labour of my hands, if by that I can only purchase the slightest hope
+for the safety of the man whom my soul loves."
+
+"You are a fair and a wise lady, Frau von Netz," said the burgomaster
+at last; "but the old Erasmus is yet too wise for you. You will not
+find in him the fool you seek."
+
+"Let mercy prevail!" cried Althea in despair, and embraced his knees
+with wild energy. "Let mercy prevail, as you would that God should one
+day be merciful to you!"
+
+"Back!" exclaimed the burgomaster indignantly, and pushed her from him.
+"My son is dead. Neither your wealth nor your tears can make him alive
+again. Blood demands blood, and Tausdorf must die!"
+
+"Not another word of supplication," cried the little Henry to his
+mother, who was exhausted by her agony; "tis a pity you offered any to
+the wicked man. Has not uncle Netz told you a hundred times that the
+rich burgomaster is as cold and as hard as the dollars of which he is
+always boasting so much? Come, mother; we cannot beg the good man free,
+and therefore we will weep for him as long as we have eyes. But this
+house is not worthy of your tears;"--and then turning to Erasmus, he
+said, with a dignity and spirit beyond his years, "You have heavily
+vexed and offended the Frau von Netz, Mr. Burgomaster, and it is the
+duty of a good son to avenge every insult which his mother has had to
+endure. At present my arm is not strong enough for my inclination; but,
+please God, I shall grow every day larger and stouter, and I think to
+be able to wield the sword shortly. For this time I denounce feud
+against you, and whatever may come of it, murder or fire, I shall have
+set my honour above your impeachment."
+
+He pulled away his mother with him, and Erasmus said to the preacher,
+"Do you hear how the young snake can hiss already? But follow the lady,
+if you will be so good, comfort her by virtue of your holy office, and
+exhort her to betake herself to her own house, that she may not excite
+the people by her lamentations in the streets, and force me to send her
+home by a couple of gens-d'armes."
+
+"Well advised!" replied the preacher, and hastened after Althea, whom
+he found at the street-door, her head leaning against one of the stone
+columns of the portal, while Henry stroked her hand consolingly, and
+wet it with his tears.
+
+"Submit yourself to the will of Heaven," he began; "and this must be
+the easier to you when you weigh the justice of the sentence pronounced
+upon the culprit, who was once dear to you. Such assassins and
+bloodhounds must be forfeit to the executioner as a warning to others,
+and for their own well-earned punishment. Had not the council done
+justice in this way, I had never endured to abide in the town; and, if
+I could not have walked out, I should have crept out, with wife and
+children, from this pit of murder, in which no honest man could have
+been secure of his life any longer."
+
+Althea lifted up to him her heavy eyes, that were red and swollen with
+weeping, and merely saying, "May God comfort you as you have comforted
+me!" she sunk back into her old position. Still, however, the preacher
+continued in the same strain for a time; but when he perceived that the
+sufferer no longer even listened to his splendid grounds of
+consolation, he suddenly broke off, and removed himself, with a look in
+which was couched an anathema.
+
+In the mean time Christopher Friend came out of the street-door and
+gazed tenderly on Althea.
+
+"Poor lady!" he at last said with a voice of as much pity as he could
+force into it--"No doubt you would go up to my father to implore him
+for the life of your betrothed; or you have already been with him, and
+received an unfavourable answer. Yes! I could have told you that
+before. You would more easily move the lions of granite that rest upon
+these columns than my father in this neck-breaking business. Would that
+I were the reigning burgomaster in his place, to be able to serve you,
+for I am not very angry with your Tausdorf. My late brother was an evil
+man, who probably brought this affair upon himself; and it is a pity
+that so brave a knight should, on his account, fall under the hands of
+the executioner. I have, indeed, some influence with my father,
+especially since I am his only son; and, if I were to run the risk of
+his anger and put in a good word, I might at least, perhaps, gain you a
+short delay, and time gained, all is gained."
+
+"Comfort often comes from where it is least expected," stammered
+Althea, looking at him with anxious doubt. "You, Mr. Christopher,--you
+have a heart for my sorrows?"
+
+"What man of my years would not have a heart for so fair a lady?"
+replied Christopher, smiling; "but it is only death that can be had for
+nothing; life is expensive. Time presses, and therefore I will open my
+mind to you briefly. Herr Tausdorf is lost to you for ever; if his life
+even should be saved,--which I hold for a half impossibility,--still he
+would not get off without a long imprisonment and perpetual exile from
+this country. Therefore give me your fair hand, for which I have
+already sued without success, and I will try what influence I have over
+my father's heart."
+
+Althea started back in horror, and laid her right hand thoughtfully
+upon her forehead, her left upon her poor heart, in which anguish was
+working convulsively. But the inward struggle was soon over, and with
+the calmness of resignation she turned towards her ungenerous wooer.
+
+"It would, indeed, be hard for me," she said, "to follow a man who
+makes a trade of his humanity, and to give this boy a father whom he
+could not respect; still I would make even this sacrifice for him I
+love, if I could believe that he would accept it. But I am convinced
+that he would sooner die a thousand times than let me slowly pine away
+under the tortures of a wretched marriage. Therefore let him and me
+perish, in God's name; I can never be yours."
+
+She took her child by the hand, and departed slowly with him up the
+street, towards the market-place.
+
+"Again nothing!" grumbled Christopher to himself; "the Netherlandress,
+too, won't have me now. Had I known that it would have been the same
+here, I hardly think that I should have helped to play this trick. But
+a woman would, at any time, talk over God himself, and make him sin
+against his own commandments. How have I burthened my conscience, and
+at least one-half to no purpose!--The Devil take all women! If it were
+not for the housekeeping, and the tricks of servants, I would not ask
+after them, but remain a widower all my life long. In the unmarried
+state one can lay out so much upon one's self, and save into the
+bargain; and when at last I have buried my father--who can't hold out
+much longer with his constant passions--I shall be a substantial man,
+and laugh at every one.--Good Heavens!"
+
+With this cry he broke off his noble soliloquy; for before him, on a
+sudden, stood the town-executioner, in his red cloak of office, and,
+from his thin yellow face, the dark eyes gleamed on Christopher with a
+savage joy appropriate to this day of horror. All this was in itself
+quite natural, but Christopher's conscience smote him hardly at the
+sight, and he felt as if the hideous being had taken the trouble to
+come there only on his account.
+
+"Is the worshipful burgomaster above?" asked the executioner, with
+infinite courteousness and his hat off to the son of his superior. From
+sheer fright, Christopher was unable to reply; he simply pointed to the
+steps, stammered out, "Above!" and, creeping out of the street-door by
+him with as much speed as if he felt the sword at his neck, he hurried
+off.
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+In the city-marshal's room, below the custom-house, the noble Tausdorf
+was still kneeling before the chaplain, who administered the sacrament
+to him, and blessed him for death. The priest then retired, but his
+clerk, instead of following, barred the door behind him again, advanced
+to Tausdorf, who just then was rising from the ground, and asked, in a
+familiar voice, "Do you know me?"
+
+"Rasselwitz!" cried Tausdorf, surprised. "You have crept in, thus
+disguised, to bid me farewell for this world. That is bravely done of
+you, and I thank you heartily for your love."
+
+"I have something more important in my thoughts," replied Rasselwitz
+quickly and softly. "I would save you. Wrap my black cloak about you,
+take the cap in your hand, follow the chaplain as his clerk through the
+gens-d'armes; he is still talking without to the city-marshal. The holy
+man is in the secret, and goes from here to the farthest end of the
+Striegauer suburb to a sick person, and thence you may easily escape."
+
+"And _you_?" asked Tausdorf, in deep emotion.
+
+"I!" replied Rasselwitz; "why I remain here in the mean time, and laugh
+at the serjeants, when they come and find the nest empty."
+
+"That laugh would cost you dear," said Tausdorf; "Heaven be praised
+that I have more forethought than yourself. The council and the
+provosts thirst after my blood like hungry tigers. They would be mad on
+finding me snatched from them, and your head would fall instead of
+mine."
+
+"Not so," insisted Rasselwitz. "They would fling me into the
+Hildebrand, which I already know full well, and there I will abide
+patiently till the bishop frees me."
+
+"It might this time easily turn out otherwise, and I dare not set the
+life of my preserver on such possibilities, not to speak of the abuse
+of the holy sacrament which you would persuade me to. I thank you for
+your noble offer, but I remain."
+
+"Pray take it, Herr von Tausdorf," cried Rasselwitz, urgently. "I
+should delight in hazarding something for you, more especially as it
+seems to me as if I were half the cause of your misfortune, although
+with no evil intention. I have unconsciously drawn you into the snare
+which, in the end, has closed destructively about you, and therefore I
+owe you an atonement. Pray you now accept it."
+
+"I do not understand your words, my young friend, but only the good
+heart that speaks in them. You may, however, spare them in my case; for
+by my knightly word I stir not from this room till my hour strikes. If
+you have done me any wrong, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive you
+with all my heart, even without atonement; for, _that_ our Saviour has
+offered for us all by his death upon the cross."
+
+"I cannot let you die," cried Rasselwitz, wildly; "if you will not save
+yourself as I propose, I will call together as many brave nobles, and
+their people, as may be collected in the town. Unfortunately Netz is
+wanting, with his adherents; and, as the gates are closed, I can send
+no message to him; but still I will undertake to muster fifty heads. We
+set fire to the nest in twenty places, and in the confusion we break
+through to you, and snatch you, by force, from the teeth of the
+dragon."
+
+"Heaven defend me from such a saving! It would cost much noble and
+innocent blood, which, in truth, would be too high a price for this
+head. Were I to accept it, I should deserve the fate which awaits me.
+Leave me at least the conviction that I die innocently: it is my best
+consolation in this hour,--and now depart, my friend, for my moments
+are numbered."
+
+"You are a saint," cried Rasselwitz, in tears, and kissing Tausdorf's
+hand before he could prevent it. "You do well to leave this world, for
+it is much too bad for you. I obey your will, but I must find out the
+spider which lurked in the centre of this hellish web that has wound
+about you to your ruin, and, when I have found it, I will crush it
+under my feet, though your spirit should call down from Heaven, 'have
+mercy!'"
+
+He rushed out, and Tausdorf again fell upon his knees, while his looks
+flew through the iron bars with burning enthusiasm to the seat of
+everlasting freedom. "You have highly favoured me in life, eternal
+Father!" he exclaimed. "Unspotted honour, pure love, and true
+friendship, have adorned, with their noblest garlands, this head, which
+I must now lay down in the long sleep of the grave. Now, then, crown
+thy work of mercy through a good death. Grant that I may depart with
+courage, and without bitterness against my enemies, so that I may
+appear before thy throne, not unworthy of thy immortal son."
+
+The gens-d'armes had drawn a triple circle of spears about the stone
+columns before the sessions-house cellars. Within, by a heap of strewed
+sand, waited the executioner with his sword beneath his red cloak. On
+the other side of the circle the people thronged in a dense mass. All
+the windows of the marketplace swarmed with spectators, while the roofs
+and the chimney-tops were covered with men, all expecting, with anxious
+curiosity and a strange painful pleasure, the victim which they yet
+lamented.
+
+The bells of the parish church began to toll, and the death-procession
+approached slowly from the custom-house. By the side of the
+city-marshal, surrounded by spearmen, walked the noble Tausdorf, free
+from fetters, and with his accustomed nobleness. The tight red suit of
+velvet sate handsomely upon his well-formed limbs, and in his raven
+locks was woven a coronet of flowers. The features of the pale face
+were calm and cheerful, and in the glance of his large black eye beamed
+a light that no longer seemed to be of this world. With friendly
+greetings to the by-standers, he entered the circle.
+
+"I die innocent," he exclaimed in a loud clear voice, that sounded far
+beyond the market-place. "But what earthly son shall dare to boast
+himself free from all earthly failings? I therefore humbly pray to
+Heaven for pardon for any acknowledged and unacknowledged sins, and
+hope also, from your Christian charity, that you will forgive me such,
+and put up your prayers in my behalf, that I may have a blessed end!"
+
+A general sobbing answered this address, and amidst it, from the
+distance, sounded the lamenting voice of the poor Althea.--
+
+"If I could but see you once again!"
+
+"This is more bitter than death," sighed Tausdorf half to himself, and,
+turning to the quarter whence her voice had come, he cried, "My dear
+Althea, that can no more be in this world, but we shall meet again in
+life everlasting!"
+
+The sobbing of the people grew louder, and here and there were heard
+single words of discontent. But the marshal gave a sign to two of the
+gens-d'armes, who went with their spears to that part whence the voice
+of Althea had come. Then advancing to Tausdorf, he said earnestly, "It
+is time!"
+
+Tausdorf immediately undid his doublet with his own hands, and flung it
+amongst the people; then, loosening his ruff, he did the same with
+that.--And now he knelt upon the sand-heap, with unbound eyes, looked
+up to Heaven, and exclaimed joyfully, "To thee, my Saviour, I commend
+myself--Amen!"
+
+With the _amen_, the sword glittered behind him, and his head fell.
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+The council was still assembled in their sessions-chamber. Erasmus sate
+again at the green-covered table, with deep sorrow in his iron
+features, for now that the spirit of vengeance was satisfied, pain had
+found more room in his hard heart. The city-marshal entered.
+
+"All is done as you ordered, worshipful Mr. Burgomaster. Your son and
+von Tausdorf have been solemnly interred, with the attendance of the
+whole college, the preachers, and a considerable train of mourners, and
+I caused the bodies to be laid in ONE grave, according to your order,
+and in the family burial-place. I have also had the town gates
+re-opened."
+
+"You have done well," replied the burgomaster, with a hollow voice, and
+made him a sign with his hand to depart.
+
+"Moreover," continued the marshal, "all the noble inquilines[4] of the
+city wait without, and request admittance to the honourable council."
+
+"Be it granted, then," said the burgomaster with a heavy heart, and the
+city-marshal left the room.
+
+In a short time he returned, conducting a train of sable figures. First
+came the gouty old Schindel, leaning on Rasselwitz and Netz; Althea,
+holding her child by the hand, followed next. Many old nobles, male and
+female, who had settled at Schweidnitz, brought up the procession. All
+were in deep mourning, the women veiled in long black veils. When they
+had reached the council-table, Netz fetched a chair from the wall, and
+respectfully placed it before von Schindel. The latter, with
+difficulty, seated himself, and then, looking up to Netz and
+Rasselwitz, said, "You remember your promise, knights? You leave me
+alone to speak, is it not so?"
+
+"Have no fear, uncle," replied Netz, grinding his teeth. "The affair,
+besides, cannot be ended with words. We will be silent as the grave,
+that swallowed up our Tausdorf."
+
+"Gentlemen," began the old man, with a trembling voice, "you have done
+that which is not right before God. The innocent blood has flowed; to
+save and repair is no longer possible. I will, therefore, spare you and
+myself the sorrow of explaining how much you have erred, and on what
+grounds. I do not come to find fault or dispute with you; I come only
+to take leave of you for this life, and, at the same time, to bid you
+farewell in the name of all those nobles who have hitherto lived in
+peace under the shelter of your walls. You must yourselves find it
+natural, that none of them deem their life safe in a town that could
+let so noble a head fall under the sword of the executioner! Fear,
+indeed, has no longer any influence with me; I am too old for that,
+although I openly avow that I myself should not like to die here now,
+as I would not have my grave amongst you. A higher purpose compels me
+hence. My poor niece, whom you have made a widow, intends going, with
+her orphaned child, to Bohemia, to the old father of her betrothed,
+that she may console him for the loss of his only son, and wait there
+in patience till death shall free her from her sufferings, and re-unite
+her with the beloved of her heart. I go with her, and remain with her,
+for she needs a paternal friend in that foreign land. There will we sit
+alone together in our sorrow, and weep and comfort each other; and on
+my knightly word, we will never curse you. Heaven bless you! Heaven
+bring you to the consciousness of that which you have done, and awake
+in you a forgiving heart through holy penitence, that henceforth no
+more innocent victims may be sacrificed to the discord that is between
+you and us. If this wish should be fulfilled, if the blood shed in
+yonder grave should ripen into the fruit of peace, hail! thrice hail to
+the dust of the martyr!"
+
+The speaker was silent; his companions wept aloud, and those of the
+council turned away to dry their eyes unmarked. Only the old Erasmus
+stared before him, tearless, gloomy, and full of thought.
+
+"I am ready," said Schindel, looking up to his two guides, who took him
+by the arms, and helped him to rise. Supported by them, he bowed to the
+council, and was led away.
+
+The mourning procession followed him; the door closed behind them,
+while the council looked in silence at each other, and then gloomily at
+the old burgomaster, who, surprised by this measure, was not master of
+his speech.
+
+"The young Lord Hochberg of Fürstentein," announced the city-servant.
+
+"He, too, must have little that is consolatory to say to us," exclaimed
+Alderman Trentler; and Erasmus, almost lost in insensibility, signed to
+the servant to admit him.
+
+The youth entered in complete armour, lifted up his visor before the
+council-table, and, leaning on his sword, cast fierce and burning
+glances amongst the troubled faces about the table.
+
+"You have caused Tausdorf to be seized by your people within the
+Fürstentein jurisdiction," he began with bitterness; "you have murdered
+him by a mockery under the name of a trial, and thus have invaded the
+jurisdiction of his imperial majesty as lord paramount, and of my
+mother as holder of the fief. The rascally peasants at Saltzbrunn who
+abetted your people in this crime are already in prison, and shall be
+severely punished in body and goods. We have sent a messenger to the
+emperor with the relation of the business. What he may determine upon
+your conduct, as far as concerns himself, is for you to look to; we,
+however, are resolved to defend our own rights in particular, and not
+to lay down our heads in peace till this monstrous crime is punished
+and atoned for. But since his imperial majesty has strictly forbidden
+private feud, we shall, in our just anger, better observe the will of
+our sovereign than you the aggressors have done; and you shall answer
+us before the court of fiefs: and to that I cite you herewith, for the
+first,--second,--and third time."
+
+"The emperor's town is not bound to appear before the feudal court,"
+replied Erasmus sullenly. "Rather have we a right to summon the nobles,
+who, from the time of Bieler's murder up to the present day, have
+tormented us without stint or measure."
+
+"You will not, then, appear?" said the nobleman warmly.
+
+"Never, my young squire," cried the stout old man, striking his
+breast--"Never, while I govern in Schweidnitz!"
+
+"Well then," retorted the noble indignantly, "you have forfeited all
+right and all honour, and I herewith pronounce you outlawed and
+infamous; and disclaim you in the name of the nobles of this
+principality. We will not make war upon you without the emperor's
+order, but your Schweidnitz shall henceforth be like a town, in which
+the pest rages. Woe to our serfs if they dare to bring you provisions;
+woe to your citizens if they dare to go beyond their walls; woe to
+yourselves if you are caught upon our land and soil. You shall see with
+terror that we know how to administer justice in our way: as a pledge
+of it I leave you my gauntlet. Whichever of you has courage enough may
+bring it after me. I will wait an hour for the messenger on the borders
+of your territory."
+
+And he hurled the iron gauntlet upon the table with a violence that
+upset the inkstands and sandboxes, and then rushed out.
+
+Erasmus foamed in silent indignation. On a sudden he thrice pulled the
+bell-handle which hung over the table, and at the summons three
+city-servants immediately hastened into the room.
+
+"Take four of the horse-police to your assistance," he exclaimed to
+them. "Seize me the young lord of Hochberg, and fling him into the
+Hildebrand until farther orders."
+
+But at this there arose a murmur of contradiction amongst the aldermen,
+who stood up from their seats and shook their heads; and Martin, the
+youngest amongst them, found courage to speak out his sentiments.
+
+"Under favour, worshipful Mr. Burgomaster. The young lord was indeed
+somewhat too rough here, but in the main point he was unfortunately
+right; and if we would imprison all those who blame our this day's
+proceedings, we shall soon have to convert our sessions-room into a
+Hildebrand. I vote against the arrest."
+
+"And I!" cried Miller and Trentler, as if from one mouth.
+
+"Have you a wish for another execution?" said Kaspar Franz to the
+gloomy despot.
+
+"We are already deep in the mire through Tausdorf," observed Doctor
+Grenwitz, shrugging his shoulders:--and the vice-consul Drescher
+whispered to the burgomaster,--"Recall your order!"
+
+Erasmus bit his lips till they bled.
+
+"What are you standing for, idiots?" he exclaimed to the three servants
+who remained at the door in anxious uncertainty as to which command
+they were to obey. "Don't you know that the majority of voices decides
+in our sittings? The arrest of Von Hochberg may remain."
+
+The servants left the room; Erasmus, rising from his chair, said, "The
+sitting is over, gentlemen; but we will, with your good pleasure, have
+a meeting extraordinary to-morrow, to weigh maturely what farther is to
+be done in this matter."
+
+"If in this extraordinary sitting," said Kaspar, as he broke up, to his
+neighbour, "we do not find the art of replacing heads that have been
+chopped off, we shall descend from the Sessions-house as wise as we
+went up."
+
+The other aldermen said nothing, but saluted the burgomaster in
+silence; and the old man soon stood alone before the council-table in
+the empty chamber.
+
+"Yes," he muttered; "I must no longer conceal it from myself; it is
+coming to an end with the old lion. Teeth and claws grow blunted. The
+brutes, that once shook at his roar, now renounce their obedience, and
+mock the feeble monarch; even the ass must give his kick. Die,
+therefore, Erasmus, die soon, that you may not outlive yourself."
+
+"A new misfortune has happened, Mr. Burgomaster," cried the
+city-marshal, entering hastily. "The gardener in the park, who
+exhibited the aloe for some time past, has suddenly disappeared; but
+the Netherlandress, who lodged with him, was found dead in her room an
+hour ago. I went thither with two officers to seal up every thing, and
+took the town-physician with me; for the flight of the host, and the
+lady's death, seem to stand in a doubtful connexion. The people of the
+house talked of poison. I found the woman lying on the floor, in an
+upper room, horribly disfigured; and on the table was a cup, the dregs
+of which the physician positively declared to be poison. In her stark
+right hand the corse held fast this writing. It is addressed to you,
+Mr. Burgomaster, and sealed moreover."
+
+"To me!" said Erasmus, in alarm; tore the writing away from the
+marshal, and broke it open. A quantity of dry leaves fell out of it
+towards him--"Strange!" he murmured, and began to read; and, as he
+read, the hand in which he held the letter trembled more and more, till
+at last he grew so faint that he sunk back into his chair. But he
+forced himself to read it to the end, and then burnt the letter in the
+flame of the expiring candle, waiting with great patience till the
+paper was entirely converted into ashes. He then turned to the
+marshal:--"Let the body be watched by six gens d'armes till night; then
+let it be carried behind the wall to the churchyard, and there silently
+interred. I will myself take an inventory of all that is left, and you
+will be silent as to the whole transaction--on your oath of office."
+
+The old man's voice broke at the conclusion of his discourse, and with
+tottering steps he left the Sessions-chamber.
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+Three years had passed since Tausdorfs death. Christopher Friend had
+remained a widower, and by all means, just as well as unjust, had
+considerably increased his mammon. He was asleep in his own bedroom, on
+a beautiful summer's night, when he was awakened by a grasp at his
+throat, and, on opening his eyes in terror, there sat upon the bed two
+men, fearfully illuminated by the moon. They were enveloped in dark
+cloaks, with black masks on their faces, and held two daggers
+glittering at his breast, in the pale yellow light. The one figure had
+his hand about Christopher's throat, and seemed ready to close it at
+the slightest motion of his victim.
+
+"Gracious Heavens! what does this mean?" groaned Christopher; but at
+the instant he felt a tighter pressure of the hand about his throat,
+and the daggers pricked him in the region of the heart.
+
+"Still!" whispered one of the masks. "A loud word, a cry for help,
+sends you in the same moment to hell. We are here to sit in judgment on
+you, though, indeed, in a fairer way than your father used three years
+since. It has cost no little time, and trouble, and gold--nay, even two
+journies to Bohemia--to penetrate your tricks and blinds; but at last
+all has become clearer to us than the day. We had paid you a visit long
+before this, but that the noble Althea prayed so irresistibly for you,
+that during her life we could not undertake any thing against you. Now
+at last she has sunk under the grief for her betrothed: Tausdorf's old
+father has to weep for his daughter, and the last chain is snapped in
+which our revenge lay bound. Your father has to answer to the emperor
+for his notorious crimes; but you have done and concealed your deed
+with equal cunning, and no earthly court of justice will ever be able
+to convict you of it. You must, therefore, answer to our _secret
+tribunal_, of which we are ourselves the chief and the judges, the
+accuser and the executioner. You have had intercourse with the
+Netherlandress at the nurseryman's in the park; and this very woman
+wanted to hound me on to your brother's murder."
+
+"By Heavens! I know nothing of it," whined Christopher.
+
+"Still!" continued the mask. "Failing in that, she has a long
+conversation with you in private. Upon this you invite Tausdorf to your
+murderous banquet, and, while you promise Althea that your brother
+shall not be present, you secretly induce him, through a third hand, to
+appear: then comes the Netherlandress, masked, to your party. After a
+conversation with her, the most violent wrath is perceived on the face
+of Francis. You pour him out another glass of wine, like oil in the
+flame, upon which he allures into the park Tausdorf, whom he had never
+seen before, and that event takes place which thousands of honest
+people lament. Now then answer for yourself, but with a low voice, or
+we strike you down on the spot."
+
+"How can I answer for all the unlucky events, the chain of which has
+cost me a beloved brother?" whispered Christopher, in a voice which,
+from fear of the daggers, was scarcely audible. "What motives could I
+have to destroy Tausdorf, who had never offended me? Why, too, should I
+particularly fix on my brother as the instrument of my evil purpose? By
+the----"
+
+"Still!" said the mask again. "I hate you as the serpent that stung my
+friend to death, but I would not send you to the devil with perjury
+upon your tongue; you have without that enough of old sin posted in the
+great reckoning-book above.--You ask, why you should wish to destroy
+Tausdorf? Because Althea refused your hand for his sake.--Why you chose
+your brother for the instrument? Because, with true brotherly
+affection, you hoped the instrument might be broken on the occasion,
+that so you might stand as the ONLY son of the rich Erasmus. Recollect
+your former calumnies against Tausdorf; recollect what you said to
+Althea at your father's door on the morning after the misfortune, and
+deny no longer. You will not lie yourself out of our hands again, and a
+frank repentant confession of your sins may propitiate the wrath of the
+judge before whom you will stand ere the morning breaks."
+
+"Mercy!" murmured Christopher in low, piteous tones. "Only spare my
+life, and I will confess all. The woman seduced me into bringing
+Tausdorf together with my brother that they might quarrel, but it was
+not so evilly intended as it turned out."
+
+"The woman seduced you?" exclaimed the mask. "It was so our
+grandfather, Adam, excused himself, and the seducer laid it all upon
+the serpent; but the angel with the fiery sword drove them all out of
+Paradise, to which they no more belonged, as you no more belong to
+life. Therefore pray a short farewell prayer, for we are Christians."
+
+"Mercy!" groaned Christopher piteously. "I cannot pray. Take half my
+wealth as an atonement, but do not kill me."
+
+"Ay!" retorted the mask, with cold sternness. "You and your whole race,
+with all your gold, would not outweigh the single head of the noble
+Tausdorf, whom your iniquity has slaughtered. There can be no talk
+between us of mercy or atonement, but of well-earned retribution:
+therefore, away with you, scoundrel! away to death!"
+
+And he flung a noose about Christopher's neck, and dragged him from the
+bed.
+
+"Heaven be thanked!" said the other mask, pulling strongly at the rope.
+"At last we come from words to deeds."
+
+Like vultures upon a lamb, they pounced upon the unhappy Christopher
+with murderous hands, and dragged him out of the door in spite of his
+impotent strugglings;--fainter and fainter sounded his half-stifled
+cries--at last there was a heavy fall in the distance, and a sound as
+of the splash of water from a depth: then another short, low groan; and
+the old silence of night resumed her reign, and the clock of the
+Sessions-house struck the third hour.
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+The next morning when the old Erasmus entered the Sessions-chamber, he
+found the assembled provosts standing with gloomy faces about the
+butcher, George Heymann, master of the shambles, who was showing a
+bloody wound in his neck, and took on most piteously.
+
+"Things cannot go on in this way any longer, Mr. Burgomaster," cried
+the Alderman Kaspar Franz, in a tone that the old man had not been
+accustomed to hear in Schweidnitz. "It is inconceivable what our good
+city suffers from your violence and blunders. It is not enough that we
+must frequently submit to a scarcity of provisions, because the vassals
+of the nobles no longer dare to come to market here, but our citizens
+are no more secure of their lives if they venture beyond the walls. As
+this poor man was driving sheep to town, Hans Ecke of Viehau, and Hans
+Hund of Ingersdorf, fell upon him with naked weapons, struck at his
+neck, and when he stood on his defence, wounded him severely with a
+dagger. In this manner things go on daily; they already level their
+guns at our watchmen upon the walls, and we shall soon be forced to put
+on armour when we go to the sessions-house. For all this evil we have
+to thank no one but you; and do you, therefore, find a remedy. You have
+cooked this bitter broth for us, and do you now help in eating it, that
+we may at last have clean dishes."
+
+"Lead the wounded man to the nearest surgeon," said Erasmus to the
+servant in waiting. "He shall be dressed at my expense."
+
+The servant obeyed. The burgomaster crept up to his seat of honour, and
+sat himself down exhausted, as he turned to the last speaker.--"It is
+hard of you, colleague, to lay to my charge the consequences of
+measures which were adopted by the general consent of the council.
+Besides, the affair is not yet settled, and your reproaches, therefore,
+in any case, are too early. If the emperor should receive our answer as
+valid, we shall then assuredly not be denied satisfaction for the
+waylayings of these knightly robbers. From Ingolstadt, too, the legal
+opinion has been sent in reply to our inquiries, that we proceeded well
+with Tausdorf, and I still, therefore, entertain good hopes."
+
+"If these hopes should not happen to be built on sand," exclaimed
+Alderman Franz; "the Emperor will hardly decide on us by the opinion of
+the gentlemen of Ingolstadt. The whole investigation was of so hostile
+a nature, and so humiliating in the forms for us, that we may thence
+infer a severe sentence with tolerable certainty. Besides, I have heard
+a bird whistle on this subject, whose tune by no means pleases me."
+
+The burgomaster stared in alarm at his colleague, when the door opened,
+and the servant announced, "The delegates returning from Prague."
+
+"Returned already!" exclaimed Erasmus, and the last blood-drops forsook
+his face, so that he looked quite awful, like the alabaster-bust of
+some evil old Roman emperor.
+
+And the old Christopher Drescher, the Alderman Melchior Lange, the
+Syndic Dr. Lange, entered slowly, with downcast eyes, and in silence
+took their places at the sessions-table. They were followed by the
+Secretary Jonas, who, with a heavy sigh, laid down his leathern
+portfolio on a side-table and opened it.
+
+"You bring us nothing good?" asked Erasmus, after a long pause; and
+the Syndic exclaimed, "What is the use of delaying, for you must know
+it at last? You sowed the seed by handfuls, and therefore the harvest
+cannot much surprise you. The wrath of Heaven lies heavy on us; the
+sentence could not be more severe. The city is declared to have
+forfeited its right of jurisdiction, and of electing its own council,
+the fief and land-court of the principality is removed to Jauer, and
+the punishment of the council, and others, for the execution of
+Tausdorf, the Emperor has reserved to himself peculiarly. In a short
+time we may expect the Emperor's delegate, who, in his name, will
+annul our council, and conduct the further proceedings against us."
+
+In silence they listened to these evil tidings, in silence they
+remained sitting, when the Syndic had ceased to speak, all equally
+overwhelmed by the heavy fate that was hurrying upon them. Their eyes
+only, which were fixed on the burgomaster, expressed the reproaches
+they intended him. In the meantime the secretary had drawn from his
+portfolio the imperial decree, and taking it from its double envelope,
+now laid it with a condoling gesture on the table before Erasmus, who
+first glanced hastily below at the Emperor's seal and subscription, and
+then attempted to read. But he could not accomplish it; he still
+gazed on the first side, and soon his eyes stared vacantly from the
+paper on the air. The Vice-Consul was on the point of wakening him from
+this lethargy of the spirit, when the city-marshal rushed into the room
+with a face of horror. And now Erasmus started up from his
+stupefaction.--"Another Job's post," he exclaimed; "I read it in your
+countenance: but speak it out; we have already heard the worst; what is
+still to come cannot much affect us."
+
+"Would to heaven it were so!" replied the bailiff. "My tidings concern
+you in particular, Mr. Burgomaster. Your son Christopher has been found
+dead in his night-clothes, in the well of his garden."
+
+A cry of horror burst from the lips of all present, and the old Erasmus
+clasped his long thin hands.--"My last!" he exclaimed piteously--then
+suddenly, in a louder voice, he added, "Thou art just, O God!" and his
+head, with its silver locks, fell back, so that it hung over the elbow
+of his chair.
+
+The council crowded about him in terror. The vice-consul looked at the
+old man's broken eyes, felt his pulse, and cried with deep emotion, "He
+is dead!"
+
+"He who does not walk in fear, does not please God!" cried Caspar, in
+his dark fanaticism, with the words of Sirach.
+
+"De mortuis nil nisi bene, collega," admonished the vice-consul. "The
+deceased, with all his failings, was yet a MAN, in the full sense of
+the word, and therefore always estimable. If he has erred, he has
+severely suffered. Peace be with his ashes!"
+
+He went to the head of the corse, and folded his hands in prayer. The
+others stood around and did the same; and from every lip trembled a low
+and devout supplication for the dead.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: The title of Prince Palatine is far from being a correct
+translation of the original, for which, indeed, we have no
+corresponding phrase, the political organization of this country
+supplying no corresponding authority. In such a dilemma nothing is left
+to a translator but to choose between two evils; either to retain the
+original term, or to adopt from his own language any word that may
+convey something of a similar idea. Perhaps I have been wrong in my
+choice.--Certamen est de paupere regno.]
+
+[Footnote 2: This German dance is the Waltz, though it certainly has no
+claim to the title, being neither more nor less than the English
+Lavolta, so constantly referred to by the old dramatists. But our
+German neighbours are remarkable for the organ of appropriation, and
+not less so for the organ of impudence. The one leads them to steal,
+and the other to deny or abuse articles stolen. There is a very pretty
+instance of this in Kotzebue, who cut down the comedy of the Jealous
+Wife into a farce, and protested that the other three acts were good
+for nothing.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The _Carolina_ is a criminal law published by Charles the
+Fifth, called Lex Carolina, or simply as here _Carolina_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The reader must forgive me the coining of a very useful
+word, which will be easily understood by reference to the Latin
+_inquilinus_.]
+
+
+
+
+                             END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+                PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS.
+
+
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