CHAPTER XXIVOLD IRON AND NEW STEEL
THE clear sunshine of early summer was becoming low on the hillsides.Sparkling and dimpling, the clear amber-coloured stream of theBraunwasser rippled along its stony bed, winding in and out among therocks so humbly that it seemed to be mocked by the wide span of the archthat crossed it in all the might of massive bulwarks, and dignifiedmasonry of huge stones.
Some way above, a clearing of the wood below the mountain showed huts,and labourers apparently constructing a mill so as to take advantage ofthe leap of the water from the height above; and, on the left bank, anenclosure was traced out, within which were rising the walls of a smallchurch, while the noise of the mallet and chisel echoed back from themountain side, and masons, white with stone-dust, swarmed around.
Across the bridge came a pilgrim, marked out as such by hat, wallet, andlong staff, on which he leant heavily, stumbling along as if both haltingand footsore, and bending as one bowed down by past toil and presentfatigue. Pausing in the centre, he gazed round with a strangedisconcerted air—at the castle on the terraced hillside, looking downwith bright eyes of glass glittering in the sunshine, and lighting upeven that grim old pile; at the banner hanging so lazily that thetinctures and bearings were hidden in the folds; then at the crags, rosypurple in evening glow, rising in broad step above step up to the RedEyrie, bathed in sunset majesty of dark crimson; and above it the sweepof the descending eagle, discernible for a moment in the pearly light ofthe sky. The pilgrim’s eye lighted up as he watched it; but then,looking down at bridge, and church, and trodden wheel-tracked path, hefrowned with perplexity, and each painful step grew heavier and moreuncertain.
Near the opposite side of the enclosure there waited a tall,rugged-looking, elderly man with two horses—one an aged mare, mane, tail,and all of the snowiest silvery white; the other a little shaggy darkmountain pony, with a pad-saddle. And close to the bank of the streammight be seen its owner, a little girl of some seven years, whose tightround lace cap had slipped back, as well as her blue silk hood, andexposed a profusion of loose flaxen hair, and a plump, innocent face,intent upon some private little bit of building of her own with somepebbles from the brook, and some mortar filched from the operationsabove, to the great detriment of her soft pinky fingers.
The pilgrim looked at her unperceived, and for a moment was about toaddress her; but then, with a strange air of repulsion, dragged himselfon to the porch of the rising church, where, seated on a block of stone,he could look into the interior. All was unfinished, but the portionwhich had made the most progress was a chantry-chapel opposite to theporch, and containing what were evidently designed to be two monuments.One was merely blocked out, but it showed the outline of a warrior,bearing a shield on which a coiled serpent was rudely sketched in redchalk. The other, in a much more forward state, was actually under thehands of the sculptor, and represented a slender youth, almost a boy,though in the full armour of a knight, his hands clasped on his breastover a lute, an eagle on his shield, an eagle-crest on his helmet, and,under the arcade supporting the altar-tomb, shields alternately of eaglesand doves.
But the strangest thing was that this young knight seemed to be sittingfor his own effigy. The very same face, under the very same helmet, onlywith the varied, warm hues of life, instead of in cold white marble, wasto be seen on the shoulders of a young man in a gray cloth dress, with ablack scarf passing from shoulder to waist, crossed by a sword-belt. Thehair was hidden by the helmet, whose raised visor showed keen, finely-cutfeatures, and a pair of dark brown eyes, of somewhat grave and sadexpression.
“Have a care, Lucas,” he presently said; “I fear me you are chisellingaway too much. It must be a softer, more rounded face than mine hasbecome; and, above all, let it not catch any saddened look. Keep thatair of solemn waiting in glad hope, as though he saw the dawn through hisclosed eyelids, and were about to take up his song again!”
“Verily, Herr Freiherr, now the likeness is so far forward, the actualsight of you may lead me to mar it rather than mend.”
“So is it well that this should be the last sitting. I am to set forthfor Genoa in another week. If I cannot get letters from the Kaisar, Ishall go in search of him, that he may see that my lameness is no more animpediment.”
The pilgrim passed his hand over his face, as though to dissipate abewildering dream; and just then the little girl, all flushed anddabbled, flew rushing up from the stream, but came to a sudden standstillat sight of the stranger, who at length addressed her. “Little lady,” hesaid, “is this the Debateable Ford?”
“No; now it is the Friendly Bridge,” said the child.
The pilgrim started, as with a pang of recollection. “And what is yondercastle?” he further asked.
“Schloss Adlerstein,” she said, proudly.
“And you are the little lady of Adlerstein Wildschloss?”
“Yes,” again she answered; and then, gathering courage—“You are a holypilgrim! Come up to the castle for supper and rest.” And then,springing past him, she flew up to the knight, crying, “Herr Freiherr,here is a holy pilgrim, weary and hungry. Let us take him home to themother.”
“Did he take thee for a wild elf?” said the young man, with anelder-brotherly endeavour to right the little cap that had slidden underthe chin, and to push back the unmanageable wealth of hair under it, erehe rose; and he came forward and spoke with kind courtesy, as he observedthe wanderer’s worn air and feeble step. “Dost need a night’s lodging,holy palmer? My mother will make thee welcome, if thou canst climb ashigh as the castle yonder.”
The pilgrim made an obeisance, but, instead of answering, demandedhastily, “See I yonder the bearing of Schlangenwald?”
“Even so. Schloss Schlangenwald is about a league further on, and thouwilt find a kind reception there, if thither thou art bent.”
“Is that Graff Wolfgang’s tomb?” still eagerly pursued the pilgrim; andreceiving a sign in the affirmative, “What was his end?”
“He fell in a skirmish.”
“By whose hand?”
“By mine.”
“Ha!” and the pilgrim surveyed him with undisguised astonishment; then,without another word, took up his staff and limped out of the building,but not on the road to Schlangenwald. It was nearly a quarter of an hourafterwards that he was overtaken by the young knight and the little ladyon their horses, just where the new road to the castle parted from theold way by the Eagle’s Ladder. The knight reined up as he saw the poorman’s slow, painful steps, and said, “So thou art not bound forSchlangenwald?”
“I would to the village, so please you—to the shrine of the BlessedFriedmund.”
“Nay, at this rate thou wilt not be there till midnight,” said the youngknight, springing off his horse; “thou canst never brook our sharpstones! See, Thekla, do thou ride on with Heinz to tell the mother I ambringing her a holy pilgrim to tend. And thou, good man, mount my oldgray. Fear not; she is steady and sure-footed, and hath of late beenused to a lame rider. Ah! that is well. Thou hast been in the saddlebefore.”
To go afoot for the sake of giving a lift to a holy wayfarer was one ofthe most esteemed acts of piety of the Middle Age, so that no one durstobject to it, and the palmer did no more than utter a suppressed murmurof acknowledgment as he seated himself on horseback, the young knightwalking by his rein. “But what is this?” he exclaimed, almost withdismay. “A road to the castle up here!”
“Yes, we find it a great convenience. Thou art surely from these parts?”added the knight.
“I was a man-at-arms in the service of the Baron,” was the answer, in anodd, muffled tone.
“What!—of my grandfather!” was the exclamation.
“No!” gruffly. “Of old Freiherr Eberhard. Not of any of the Wildschlosscrew.”
“But I am not a Wildschloss! I am grandson to Freiherr Eberhard! Oh,wast thou with him and my father when they were set upon in the hostel?”he cried, looking eagerly up to the pilgrim; but the man
kept hisbroad-leaved hat slouched over his face, and only muttered, “The son ofChristina!” the last word so low that Ebbo was not sure that he caughtit, and the next moment the old warrior exclaimed exultingly, “And youhave had vengeance on them! When—how—where?”
“Last harvest-tide—at the Debateable Strand,” said Ebbo, never able tospeak of the encounter without a weight at his heart, but drawn on by theearnestness of the old foe of Schlangenwald. “It was a meeting in fullcareer—lances broken, sword-stroke on either hand. I was sore wounded,but my sword went through his collar-bone.”
“Well struck! good stroke!” cried the pilgrim, in rapture. “And withthat sword?”
“With this sword. Didst know it?” said Ebbo, drawing the weapon, andgiving it to the old man, who held it for a few moments, weighed itaffectionately, and with a long low sigh restored it, saying, “It iswell. You and that blade have paid off the score. I should be content.Let me dismount. I know my way to the hermitage.”
“Nay, what is this?” said Ebbo; “thou must have rest and food. Thehermitage is empty, scarce habitable. My mother will not be balked ofthe care of thy bleeding feet.”
“But let me go, ere I bring evil on you all. I can pray up there, andsave my soul, but I cannot see it all.”
“See what?” said Ebbo, again trying to see his guest’s face. “There maybe changes, but an old faithful follower of my father’s must ever bewelcome.”
“Not when his wife has taken a new lord,” growled the stranger, bitterly,“and he a Wildschloss! Young man, I could have pardoned aught else!”
“I know not who you may be who talk of pardoning my lady-mother,” saidEbbo, “but new lord she has neither taken nor will take. She has refusedevery offer; and, now that Schlangenwald with his last breath confessedthat he slew not my father, but sold him to the Turks, I have been onlyawaiting recovery from my wound to go in search of him.”
“Who then is yonder child, who told me she was Wildschloss?”
“That child,” said Ebbo, with half a smile and half a blush, “is my wife,the daughter of Wildschloss, who prayed me to espouse her thus early,that so my mother might bring her up.”
By this time they had reached the castle court, now a well-kept,lordly-looking enclosure, where the pilgrim looked about him as onebewildered. He was so infirm that Ebbo carefully helped him up the stonestairs to the hall, where he already saw his mother prepared for thehospitable reception of the palmer. Leaving him at the entrance, Ebbocrossed the hall to say to her in a low voice, “This pilgrim is one ofthe old lanzknechts of my grandfather’s time. I wonder whether you orHeinz will know him. One of the old sort—supremely discontented atchange.”
“And thou hast walked up, and wearied thyself!” exclaimed Christina,grieved to see her son’s halting step.
“A rest will soon cure that,” said Ebbo, seating himself as he spoke on asettle near the hall fire; but the next moment a strange wild low shriekfrom his mother made him start up and spring to her side. She stood withhands clasped, and wondering eyes. The pilgrim—his hat on the ground,his white head and rugged face displayed—was gazing as though devouringher with his eyes, murmuring, “Unchanged! unchanged!”
“What is this!” thundered the young Baron. “What are you doing to thelady?”
“Hush! hush, Ebbo!” exclaimed Christina. “It is thy father! On thyknees! Thy father is come! It is our son, my own lord. Oh, embracehim! Kneel to him, Ebbo!” she wildly cried.
“Hold, mother,” said Ebbo, keeping his arm round her, though shestruggled against him, for he felt some doubts as he looked back at hiswalk with the stranger, and remembered Heinz’s want of recognition. “Isit certain that this is indeed my father?”
“Oh, Ebbo,” was the cry of poor Christina, almost beside herself, “howcould I not be sure? I know him! I feel it! Oh, my lord, bear withhim. It is his wont to be so loving! Ebbo, cannot you see it ishimself?”
“The young fellow is right,” said the stranger, slowly. “I will answerall he may demand.”
“Forgive me,” said Ebbo, abashed, “forgive me;” and, as his mother brokefrom him, he fell upon his knee; but he only heard his father’s cry, “Ah!Stine, Stine, thou alone art the same,” and, looking up, saw her, withher face hidden in the white beard, quivering with a rapture such as hehad never seen in her before. It seemed long to him ere she looked upagain in her husband’s face to sob on: “My son! Oh! my beautiful twins!Our son! Oh, see him, dear lord!” And the pilgrim turned to hear Ebbo’s“Pardon, honoured father, and your blessing.”
Almost bashfully the pilgrim laid his hand on the dark head, and murmuredsomething; then said, “Up, then! The slayer of Schlangenwald kneeling!Ah! Stine, I knew thy little head was wondrous wise, but I littlethought thou wouldst breed him up to avenge us on old Wolfgang! Soslender a lad too! Ha! Schneiderlein, old rogue, I knew thee,” holdingout his hand. “So thou didst get home safe?”
“Ay, my lord; though, if I left you alive, never more will I call a mandead,” said Heinz.
“Worse luck for me—till now,” said Sir Eberhard, whose tones, rather thanhis looks, carried perfect conviction of his identity. It was the oldhomely accent, and gruff good-humoured voice, but with something subduedand broken in the tone. His features had grown like his father’s, but helooked much older than ever the hale old mountaineer had done, or thanhis real age; so worn and lined was his face, his skin tanned, hiseyelids and temples puckered by burning sun, his hair and beard white asthe inane of his old mare, the proud Adlerstein port entirely gone. Hestooped even more without his staff than with it; and, when he yieldedhimself with a sigh of repose to his wife’s tendance, she found that hehad not merely the ordinary hurts of travelling, but that there were oldfestering scars on his ankles. “The gyves,” he said, as she looked up athim, with startled, pitying eyes. “Little deemed I that they would evercome under thy tender hands.” As he almost timidly smoothed the braid ofdark hair on her brow—“So they never burnt thee for a witch after all,little one? I thought my mother would never keep her hands off thee, andused to fancy I heard the crackling of the flame.”
“She spared me for my children’s sake,” said Christina; “and truly Heavenhas been very good to us, but never so much as now. My dear lord, willit weary thee too much to come to the castle chapel and give thanks?” shesaid, timidly.
“With all my heart,” he answered, earnestly. “I would go even on myknees. We were not without masses even in Tunis; but, when Italian andSpaniard would be ransomed, and there was no mind of the German, I littlethought I should ever sing Brother Lambert’s psalm about turning ourcaptivity as rivers in the south.”
Ebbo was hovering round, supplying all that was needed for his father’scomfort; but his parents were so completely absorbed in one another thathe was scarcely noticed, and, what perhaps pained him more, there was noword about Friedel. He felt this almost an injustice to the brother whohad been foremost in embracing the idea of the unknown father, andscarcely understood how his parents shrank from any sorrowful thoughtthat might break in on their new-found joy, nor that he himself was sostrange and new a being in his father’s eyes, that to imagine him doubledwas hardly possible to the tardy, dulled capacity, which as yet seemedunable to feel anything but that here was home, and Christina.
When the chapel bell rang, and the pair rose to offer their thanksgiving,Ebbo dutifully offered his support, but was absolutely unseen, so fondlywas Sir Eberhard leaning on his wife; and her bright exulting smile andshake of the head gave an absolute pang to the son who had hitherto beenall in all to her.
He followed, and, as they passed Friedmund’s coffin, he thought hismother pointed to it, but even of this he was uncertain. The pair kneltside by side with hands locked together, while notes of praise rose fromall voices; and meantime Ebbo, close to that coffin, strove to share thejoy, and to lift up a heart that _would_ sink in the midst ofself-reproach for undutifulness, and would dislike the thought of t
herude untaught man, holding aloof from him, likely to view him withdistrust and jealousy, and to undo all he had achieved, and furtherabsorbing the mother, the mother who was to him all the world, and forwhose sake he had given his best years to the child-wife, as yet nothingto him.
It was reversing the natural order of things that, after reigning frominfancy, he should have to give up at eighteen to one of the lastgeneration; and some such thought rankled in his mind when the wholehousehold trooped joyfully out of the chapel to prepare a banquet fortheir old new lord, and their young old lord was left alone.
Alone with the coffin where the armour lay upon the white cross, Ebbothrew himself on his knees, and laid his head upon it, murmuring, “Ah,Friedel! Friedel! Would that we had changed places! Thou wouldst brookit better. At least thou didst never know what it is to be lonely.”
“Herr Baron!” said a little voice.
His first movement was impatient. Thekla was apt to pursue him whereverhe did not want her; but here he had least expected her, for she had agreat fear of that coffin, and could hardly be brought to the chapel atprayer times, when she generally occupied herself with fancies that theempty helmet glared at her. But now Ebbo saw her standing as near as shedurst, with a sweet wistfulness in her eyes, such as he had never seenthere before.
“What is it, Thekla?” he said. “Art sent to call me?”
“No; only I saw that you stayed here all alone,” she said, clasping herhands.
[Picture: “‘No; only I saw that you stayed here all alone,’ she said, clasping her hands.” Page 269]
“Must I not be alone, child?” he said, bitterly. “Here lies my brother.My mother has her husband again!”
“But you have me!” cried Thekla; and, as he looked up between amusementand melancholy, he met such a loving eager little face, that he could nothelp holding out his arms, and letting her cling to him. “Indeed,” shesaid, “I’ll never be afraid of the helmet again, if only you will not laydown your head there, and say you are alone.”
“Never, Thekla! while you are my little wife,” said he; and, child as shewas, there was strange solace to his heart in the eyes that, once vacantand wondering, had now gained a look of love and intelligence.
“What are you going to do?” she said, shuddering a little, as he rose andlaid his hand on Friedel’s sword.
“To make thee gird on thine own knight’s sword,” said Ebbo, unbucklingthat which he had so long worn. “Friedel,” he added, “thou wouldst giveme thine. Let me take up thy temper with it, thine open-hearted love andhumility.”
He guided Thekla’s happy little fingers to the fastening of the belt, andthen, laying his hand on hers, said gravely, “Thekla, never speak of whatI said just now—not even to the mother. Remember, it is thy husband’sfirst secret.”
And feeling no longer solitary when his hand was in the clasp of hers, hereturned to the hall, where his father was installed in the baronialchair, in which Ebbo had been at home from babyhood. His mother’sexclamation showed that her son had been wanting to her; and she lookedfuller than ever of bliss when Ebbo gravely stood before his father, andpresented him with the good old sword that he had sent to his unborn son.
“You are like to use it more than I,—nay, you have used it to somepurpose,” said he. “Yet must I keep mine old comrade at least a littlewhile. Wife, son, sword, should make one feel the same man again, but itis all too wonderful!”
All that evening, and long after, his hand from time to time sought thehilt of his sword, as if that touch above all proved to him that he wasagain a free noble in his own castle.
The story he told was thus. The swoon in which Heinz had left him hadprobably saved his life by checking the gush of blood, and he had knownno more till he found himself in a rough cart among the corpses. AtSchlangenwald’s castle he had been found still breathing, and had beenflung into a dungeon, where he lay unattended, for how long he neverknew, since all the early part of the time was lost in the clouds offever. On coarse fare and scanty drink, in that dark vault, he hadstruggled by sheer obstinacy of vitality into recovery. In the veryheight of midsummer alone did the sun peep through the grating of hiscell, and he had newly hailed this cheerful visitor when he was roughlysummoned, placed on horseback with eyes and hands bound, and only allowedsight again to find himself among a herd of his fellow Germans in theTurkish camp. They were the prisoners of the terrible Turkish raid of1475, when Georg von Schenk and fourteen other noblemen of Austria andStyria were all taken in one unhappy fight, and dragged away intocaptivity, with hundreds of lower rank.
To Sir Eberhard the change had been greatly for the better. The Turk hadtreated him much better than the Christian; and walking in the open air,chained to a German comrade, was far pleasanter than pining in his lonelydungeon. At Adrianople, an offer had been made to each of the captives,if they would become Moslems, of entering the Ottoman service as Spahis;but with one voice they had refused, and had then been draughted intodifferent divisions. The fifteen nobles, who had been offered forransom, were taken to Constantinople, to await its arrival, and they hadpromised Sir Eberhard to publish his fate on their return to their homes;and, though he knew the family resources too well to have many hopes, hewas rather hurt to find that their promise had been unfulfilled.
“Alas! they had no opportunity,” said Ebbo. “Gulden were scarce, or wereall in Kaisar Friedrich’s great chest; the ransoms could not be raised,and all died in captivity. I heard about it when I was at Wurms lastmonth.”
“The boy at Wurms?” almost gasped Sir Eberhard in amaze.
“I had to be there about matters concerning the Wildschloss lands and thebridge,” said Ebbo; “and both Dankwart von Schlangenwald and I madespecial inquiries about that company in case you should have shared theirfate. I hoped to have set forth at that time, but the Kaisar said I wasstill too lame, and refused me license, or letters to the Sultan.”
“You would not have found me,” said his father, narrating how he with alarge troop of captives had been driven down to the coast; where theywere transferred to a Moorish slave-dealer, who shipped them off forTunis. Here, after their first taste of the miseries of a sea life, thealternative of Islam or slavery was again put before them. “And, by theholy stone of Nicæa,” said Sir Eberhard, “I thought by that time that theinfidels had the advantage of us in good-will and friendliness; but, whenthey told me women had no souls at all, no more than a horse or dog, Iknew it was but an empty dream of a religion; for did I not know that mylittle Ermentrude, and thou, Stine, had finer, clearer, wiser souls thanever a man I had known? ‘Nay, nay,’ quoth I, ‘I’ll cast in my lot whereI may meet my wife hereafter, should I never see her here.’” He had thenbeen allotted to a corsair, and had thenceforth been chained to the benchof rowers, between the two decks, where, in stifling heat and stench, instorm or calm, healthy or diseased, the wretched oarsmen were compelledto play the part of machinery in propelling the vessel, in order tocapture Christian ships—making exertions to which only the perpetual lashof the galley-master could have urged their exhausted frames; often notdesisting for twenty or thirty hours, and rowing still while sustenancewas put into their mouths by their drivers. Many a man drew has lastbreath with his last stroke, and was at the first leisure moment hurledinto the waves. It was the description that had so deeply moved Friedellong ago, and Christina wept over it, as she looked at the bowed formonce so proud and free, and thought of the unhealed scars. But there,her husband added, he had been chained next to a holy friar of Germanblood, like himself a captive of the great Styrian raid; and, while someblasphemed in their misery, or wildly chid their patron saints, this goodman strove to show that all was to work out good; he had a pious sayingfor all that befell, and adored the will of God in thus purifying him;“And, if it were thus with a saint like him, I thought, what must it bewith a rough freebooting godless sinner such as I had been? See”—and hetook out a rosary of strung bladders of seaweed; “that is
what he left mewhen he died, and what I meant to have been telling for ever up in thehermitage.”
“He died, then?”
“Ay—he died on the shore of Corsica, while most of the dogs were offharrying a village inland, and we had a sort of respite, or I trow hewould have rowed till his last gasp. How he prayed for the poor wretchesthey were gone to attack!—ay, and for all of us—for me also—There’senough of it. Such talk skills not now.”
It was plain that Sir Eberhard had learnt more Christianity in the holdof his Moorish pirate ship than ever in the Holy Roman Empire, and aweight was lifted off his son’s mind by finding that he had vowed neverto return to a life of violence, even though fancying a life of penancein a hermitage the only alternative.
Ebbo asked if the Genoese merchant, Ser Gian Battista dei Battiste, hadindeed been one of his fellow-captives.
“Ha!—what?” and on the repetition, “Truly I knew him, Merchant Gian as weused to call him; but you twang off his name as they speak it in his ownstately city.”
Christina smiled. “Ebbo learnt the Italian tongue this winter from ourchaplain, who had studied at Bologna. He was told it would aid in hisquest of you.”
“Tell me not!” said the traveller, holding up his hands in deprecation;“the Junker is worse than a priest! And yet he killed old Wolfgang! Butwhat of Gian? Hold,—did not he, when I was with him at Genoa, tell me astory of being put into a dungeon in a mountain fortress in Germany, andreleased by a pair of young lads with eyes beaming in the sunrise, whovanished just as they brought him to a cloister? Nay, he deemed it amiracle of the saints, and hung up a votive picture thereof at the shrineof the holy Cosmo and Damian.”
“He was not so far wrong in deeming _one_ of the lads near of kin to theholy ones,” said Christina, softly.
And Ebbo briefly narrated the adventure, when it evidently appeared thathis having led at least one foray gave his father for the first time afellow-feeling for him, and a sense that he was one of the true oldstock; but, when he heard of the release, he growled, “So! How would alad have fared who so acted in my time? My poor old mother! She musthave been changed indeed not to have scourged him till he had no strengthto cry out.”
“He was my prisoner!” said Ebbo, in his old defiant tone; “I had theright.”
“Ah, well! the Junker has always been master here, and I never!” said theelder knight, looking round rather piteously; and Ebbo, with a suddenmovement, exclaimed, “Nay, sir, you are the only lord and master, and Istand ready to be the first to obey you.”
“You! A fine young book-learned scholar, already knighted, and with allthese Wildschloss lands too!” said Sir Eberhard, gazing with a strangepuzzled look at the delicate but spirited features of this strangeperplexing son. “Reach hither your hand, boy.”
And as he compared the slender, shapely hand of such finely-textured skinwith the breadth of his own horny giant’s paw, he tossed it from him,shaking his head with a gesture as if he had no commands for suchfeminine-looking fingers to execute, and mortifying Ebbo not a little.“Ah!” said Christina, apologetically, “it always grieved your mother thatthe boys would resemble me and mine. But, when daylight comes, Ebbo willshow you that he has not lost the old German strength.”
“No doubt—no doubt,” said Sir Eberhard, hastily, “since he has slainSchlangenwald; and, if the former state of things be at an end, the lesshe takes after the ancient stock the better. But I am an old man now,Stine, though thou look’st fair and fresh as ever, and I do not know whatto make of these things. White napery on the table; glass drinkingthings;—nay, were it not for thee and the Schneiderlein, I should notknow I was at home.”
He was led back to his narration, and it appeared that, after some yearsspent at the oar, certain bleedings from the lungs, the remains of hiswound, had become so much more severe as to render him useless for navalpurposes; and, as he escaped actually dying during a voyage, he wasallowed to lie by on coming into port till he had in some degreerecovered, and then had been set to labour at the fortifications, chainedto another prisoner, and toiling between the burning sand and burningsun, but treated with less horrible severity than the necessities of thesea had occasioned on board ship, and experiencing the benefit ofintercourse with the better class of captives, whom their miserable fatehad thrown into the hands of the Moors.
It was a favourite almsdeed among the Provençals, Spaniards, and Italiansto send money for the redemption of prisoners to the Moors, and there wasa regular agency for ransoms through the Jews; but German captives weresuch an exception that no one thought of them, and many a time had thesummons come for such and such a slave by name, or for five poorSicilians, twenty Genoese, a dozen Marseillais, or the like, but still noword for the Swabian; till he had made up his mind that he should eitherleave his bones in the hot mud of the harbour, or be only set free bysome gallant descent either of the brave King of Portugal, or of theKnights of Rhodes, of whom the captives were ever dreaming andwhispering.
At length his own slave name was shouted; he was called up by the captainof his gang, and, while expecting some fresh punishment, or, maybe, tofind himself sold into some domestic form of slavery, he was set before aJewish agent, who, after examining him on his name, country, and station,and comparing his answers with a paper of instructions, informed him thathe was ransomed, caused his fetters to be struck off, and shipped him offat once for Genoa, with orders to the captain to consign him to themerchant Signor del Battiste. By him Sir Eberhard had been received withthe warmest hospitality, and treated as befitted his original station,but Battista disclaimed the merit of having ransomed him. He had butacted, he said, as the agent of an Austrian gentleman, from whom he hadreceived orders to inquire after the Swabian baron who had been hisfellow-captive, and, if he were still living, to pay his ransom, andbring him home.
“The name—the name!” eagerly asked Ebbo and his mother at once.
“The name? Gian was wont to make bad work of our honest German names,but I tried to learn this—being so beholden to him. I even caused it tobe spelt over to me, but my letters long ago went from me. It seems tome that the man is a knight-errant, like those of thy ballads, Stine—oneRitter Theur—Theur—”
“Theurdank!” cried Ebbo.
“Ay, Theurdank. What, you know him? There is nothing you and yourmother don’t know, I believe.”
“Know him! Father, he is our greatest and noblest! He has been kind tome beyond description. He is the Kaisar! Now I see why he had thatstrange arch look which so vexed me when he forbade me on my allegianceto set forth till my lameness should be gone! Long ago had he asked meall about Gian Battista. To him he must have written.”
“The Kaisar!” said Sir Eberhard. “Nay, the poor fellows I left in Turkeyever said he was too close of fist for them to have hope from him.”
“Oh! that was old Kaisar Friedrich. This is our own gallant Maximilian—aknight as true and brave as ever was paladin,” said Christina; “and mosttruly loving and prizing our Ebbo.”
“And yet I wish—I wish,” said Ebbo, “that he had let me win my father’sliberty for myself.”
“Yea, well,” said his father, “there spoke the Adlerstein. We never werewont to be beholden to king or kaisar.”
“Nay,” say Ebbo, after a moment’s recollection, colouring as he spoke;“it is true that I deserved it not. Nay, Sir Father, it is well. Youowe your freedom in very truth to the son you have not known. It was hewho treasured up the thought of the captive German described by themerchant, and even dreamt of it, while never doubting of your death; itwas he who caught up Schlangenwald’s first hint that you lived, while I,in my pride, passed it by as merely meant to perplex me; it was he whohad formed an absolute purpose of obtaining some certainty; and at last,when my impetuosity had brought on the fatal battle, it was he who boughtwith his own life the avowal of your captivity. I had hoped to havefulfilled Friedel’s trust, and to have redeemed my own backwardness; butit is not to be. While I was
yet lying helpless on my bed, the Emperorhas taken it out of my power. Mother, you receive him from Friedel’shands, after all.”
“And well am I thankful that so it should be,” said Christina. “Ah,Ebbo! sorely should I have pined with anxiety when thou wast gone. Andthy father knows that thou hadst the full purpose.”
“Yea, I know it,” said the old man; “and, after all, small blame to himeven if he had not. He never saw me, and light grieves the heart forwhat the eye hath not seen.”
“But,” added the wife, “since the Romish king freed you, dear lord, caredhe not better for your journey than to let you come in this forlornplight?”
This, it appeared, was far from being his deliverer’s fault. Money hadbeen supplied, and Sir Eberhard had travelled as far as Aosta with aparty of Italian merchants; but no sooner had he parted with them than hewas completely astray. His whole experience of life had been as a robberbaron or as a slave, and he knew not how to take care of himself as apeaceful traveller; he suffered fresh extortions at every stage, andafter a few days was plundered by his guides, beaten, and left devoid ofall means of continuing the journey to which he could hardly hope for acheerful end. He did not expect to find his mother living,—far less thathis unowned wife could have survived the perils in which he had involvedher; and he believed that his ancestral home would, if not a ruin, beheld by his foes, or at best by the rival branch of the family, whosewelcome of the outlawed heir would probably be to a dungeon, if not ahalter. Yet the only magnet on earth for the lonely wanderer was hisnative mountain, where from some old peasant he might learn how his fairyoung bride had perished, and perhaps the sins of his youth might beexpiated by continual prayer in the hermitage chapel where his sister layburied, and whence he could see the crags for which his eye and heart hadcraved so long with the home-sickness of a mountaineer.
And now, when his own Christina had welcomed him with all the overflow ofher loving heart, unchanged save that hers had become a tenderer yet moredignified loveliness; when his gallant son, in all the bloom of youngmanhood, received him with dutiful submission; when the castle, in astate of defence, prosperity, and comfort of which he had never dreamt,was again his own;—still the old man was bewildered, and sometimesoppressed almost to distress. He had, as it were, fallen asleep in oneage of the world, and wakened in another, and it seemed as if he reallywished to defer his wakening, or else that repose was an absolute noveltyto him; for he sat dozing in his chair in the sun the whole of the nextday, and scarcely spoke.
Ebbo, who felt it a necessity to come to an understanding of the terms onwhich they were to stand, tried to refer matters to him, and to explainthe past, but he was met sometimes by a shake of the head, sometimes by anod—not of assent, but of sleep; and his mother advised him not to harassthe wearied traveller, but to leave him to himself at least for that day,and let him take his own time for exertion, letting things meantime go onas usual. Ebbo obeyed, but with a load at his heart, as he felt that allhe was doing was but provisional, and that it would be his duty to resignall that he had planned, and partly executed, to this incompetent,ignorant rule. He could certainly, when not serving the Emperor, go andact for himself at Thekla’s dower castle of Felsenbach, and his mothermight save things from going to utter ruin at Adlerstein; but noreflection or self-reproach could make it otherwise than a bitter pill toany Telemachus to have to resign to one so unlike Ulysses in all but thelength of his wanderings,—one, also, who seemed only half to like, andnot at all to comprehend, his Telemachus.
Meantime Ebbo attended to such matters as were sure to come each daybefore the Herr Freiherr. Now it was a question whether the stone forthe mill should be quarried where it would undermine a bit of grass land,or further on, where the road was rougher; now Berend’s swine had gotinto Barthel’s rye, and Barthel had severely hurt one of them—the HerrFreiherr’s interference could alone prevent a hopeless quarrel; now awaggon with ironwork for the mill claimed exemption from toll as beingfor the Baron: and he must send down the toll, to obviate injusticetowards Schlangenwald and Ulm. Old Ulrich’s grandson, who had run awayfor a lanzknecht, had sent a letter home (written by a comrade), theBaron must read and answer it. Steinmark’s son wanted to be a poorstudent: the Herr Freiherr must write him a letter of recommendation.Mother Grethel’s ewe had fallen into a cleft; her son came to borrow arope, and ask aid, and the Baron must superintend the hoisting the poorbeast up again. Hans had found the track of a wolf, and knew the holewhere a litter of cubs abode; the Freiherr, his wolf-hound, and his spearwere wanted for their destruction. Dietrich could not tell how to managehis new arquebus: the Baron must teach him to take aim. Then there was aletter from Ulm to invite the Baron to consult on the tax demanded by theEmperor for his Italian war, and how far it should concern the profits ofthe bridge; and another letter from the Markgraf of Wurtemburg, as chiefof the Swabian League, requesting the Lord of Adlerstein to be on thelook-out for a band of robbers, who were reported to be in neighbouringhills, after being hunted out of some of their other lurking-places.
That very night, or rather nearly at the dawn of a summer morning, therewas a yelling below the castle, and a flashing of torches, and tidingsrang through it that a boor on the outskirts of the mountain had had hisricks fired and his cattle driven by the robbers, and his young daughterscarried off. Old Sir Eberhard hobbled down to the hall in time to seeweapons flashing as they were dealt out, to hear a clear decided voicegiving orders, to listen to the tramp of horse, and watch more reiternpass out under the gateway than ever the castle had counted in hisfather’s time. Then he went back to his bed, and when he came down inthe morning, found all the womankind of the castle roasting and boiling.And, at noon, little Thekla came rushing down from the watch-tower withnews that all were coming home up the Eagle’s Steps, and she was sure_her_ baron had sent her, and waved to her. Soon after, _her_ baron inhis glittering steel rode his cream-coloured charger (once Friedel’s)into the castle court, followed by his exultant merrymen. They hadovertaken the thieves in good time, made them captives, and recovered thespoil unhurt; and Heinz and Koppel made the castle ring with the deed oftheir young lord, who had forced the huge leader of the band to theearth, and kept him down by main strength till they could come to bindhim.
“By main strength?” slowly asked Sir Eberhard, who had been stirred intoexcitement.
“He was a loose-limbed, awkward fellow,” said Ebbo, “less strong than helooked.”
“Not only that, Sir,” said Heinz, looking from his old master to hisyoung one; “but old iron is not a whit stronger than new steel, thoughthe one looks full of might, and you would think the other but a toy.”
“And what have you done with the rogues’ heads?” asked the old knight.“I looked to see them on your spears. Or have you hung them?”
“Not so, Sir,” said Ebbo. “I sent the men off to Stuttgard with anescort. I dislike doing execution ourselves; it makes the men solawless. Besides, this farmer was Schlangenwalder.”
“And yet he came to you for redress?”
“Yes, for Sir Dankwart is at his commandery, and he and I agreed to lookafter each other’s lands.”
Sir Eberhard retired to his chair as if all had gone past hisunderstanding, and thence he looked on while his son and wife hospitablyregaled, and then dismissed, their auxiliaries in the rescue.
Afterwards Christina told her son that she thought his father was rested,and would be better able to attend to him, and Ebbo, with a painfulswelling in his heart, approached him deferentially, with a request thathe would say what was his pleasure with regard to the Emperor, to whomacknowledgments must in the first place be made for his release, and nextwould arise the whole question of homage and investiture.
“Look you here, fair son,” said Sir Eberhard, rousing himself, “thesethings are all past me. I’ll have none of them. You and your Kaisarunderstand one another, and your homage is paid. It boots not changingall for an old fellow that is but come home to die.”
“Nay, father, it is in the order of things that you should be lord here.”
“I never was lord here, and, what is more, I would not, and could not be.Son, I marked you yesterday. You are master as never was my poor father,with all the bawling and blows that used to rule the house, while thesefellows mind you at a word, in a voice as quiet as your mother’s.Besides, what should I do with all these mills and bridges of yours, andDiets, and Leagues, and councils enough to addle a man’s brain? No, no;I could once slay a bear, or strike a fair stroke at a Schlangenwalder,but even they got the better of me, and I am good for nothing now but tosave my soul. I had thought to do it as a hermit up there; but my littleChristina thinks the saints will be just as well pleased if I tell mybeads here, with her to help me, and I know that way I shall not make somany mistakes. So, young Sir, if you can give the old man a corner ofthe hearth while he lives, he will never interfere with you. And, maybe,if the castle were in jeopardy in your absence, with that new-fangledroad up to it, he could tell the fellows how to hold it out.”
“Sir—dear father,” cried the ardent Ebbo, “this is not a fit state ofthings. I will spare you all trouble and care; only make me notundutiful; take your own place. Mother, convince him!”
“No, my son,” said Sir Eberhard; “your mother sees what is best for me.I only want to be left to her to rest a little while, and repent of mysinful life. As Heinz says, the rusty old iron must lie by while the newsteel does the work. It is quiet that I need. It is joy enough for meto see what she has made you, and all around. Ah! Stine, my white dove,I knew thine was a wise head; but when I left thee, gentle littlefrightened, fluttering thing, how little could I have thought that allalone, unaided, thou wouldst have kept that little head above water, andmade thy son work out all these changes—thy doing—and so I know they aregood and seemly. I see thou hast made him clerkly, quick-witted, and yeta good knight. Ah! thou didst tell me oft that our lonely pride was nothigh nor worthy fame. Stine, how didst do it?”
“I did it not, dear husband; God did it for me. He gave the boys theloving, true tempers that worked out the rest! He shielded them and mein our days of peril.”
“Yes, father,” added Ebbo, “Providence guarded us; but, above all, ourchief blessing has been the mother who has made one of us a holy saint,and taught the other to seek after him! Father, I am glad you see howgreat has been the work of the Dove you brought to the Eagle’s Nest.”