CHAPTER XXVTHE STAR AND THE SPARK
THE year 1531 has begun, and Schloss Adlerstein remains in its strengthon the mountain side, but with a look of cultivation on its environs suchas would have amazed Kunigunde. Vines run up trellises against therocks; pot-herbs and flowers nestle in the nooks; outbuildings clusterround it; and even the grim old keep has a range of buildings connectedwith it, as if the household had entirely outgrown the capacities of thesquare tower.
Yet the old hall is still the chief place of assembly, and now that ithas been wainscoted, with a screen of carved wood to shut off thedraughty passages, and a stove of bright tiles to increase the warmth, itis far more cheerful. Moreover, a window has been opened showing therich green meadow below, with the bridge over the Braunwasser, and thelittle church, with a spire of pierced lace-work, and white cottagespeeping out of the retreating forest.
That is the window which the Lady Baroness loves. See her there, thelovely old lady of seventy-five—yes, lovelier than ever, for her sweetbrown eyes have the same pensive, clear beauty, enhanced by the snowywhiteness of her hair, of which a soft braid shows over the pure palebrow beneath the white band, and sweeping black veil, that she has wornby right for twenty years. But the slight form is active and brisk, andthere are ready smiles and looks of interest for the pretty fair-hairedmaidens, three in number, who run in and out from their householdavocations to appeal to the “dear grandmother,” mischievously to tell ofthe direful yawns proceeding from brothers Ebbo and Gottfried over theirstudies with their tutor, or to gaze from the window and wonder if thefather, with the two brothers, Friedel Max and Kasimir, will return fromUlm in time for the “mid-day eating.”
Ah! there they are. Quick-eyed Vittoria has seen the cavalcade first,and dances off to tell Ermentrude and Stine time enough to prepare theirlast batch of fritters for the new-comers; Ebbo and Götz rush headlongdown the hillside; and the Lady Baroness lays down her distaff, and gazeswith eyes of satisfied content at the small party of horsemen climbing upthe footpath. Then, when they have wound out of sight round a rock, shemoves out towards the hall-door, with a light, quick step, for never yethas she resigned her great enjoyment, that of greeting her son on thesteps of the porch—those steps where she once met such fearful news, butwhere that memory has been effaced by many a cheerful welcome.
There, then, she stands, amid the bright throng of grandchildren, whilethe Baron and his sons spring from their horses and come up to her. TheBaron doffs his Spanish hat, bends the knee, kisses her hand, andreceives her kiss on his brow, with the fervour of a life-devotion,before he turns to accept the salutation of his daughters, and then takesher hand, with pretty affectionate ceremony, to hand her back to herseat. A few words pass between them. “No, motherling,” he says, “Isigned it not; I will tell you all by and by.”
And then the mid-day meal is served for the whole household, as of old,with the salt-cellar in the middle, but with a far larger company aboveit than when first we saw it. The seven young folks preserve a decoroussilence, save when Fraulein Ermentrude’s cookeries are good-naturedlycomplimented by her father, or when Baron Friedmund Maximilianus breaksout with some wonderful fact about new armour seen at Ulm. He is ahandsome, fair, flaxen-haired young man—like the old Adlersteins, say theelder people—and full of honest gaiety and good nature, the special prideof his sisters; and no sooner is the meal over, than, with a formalentreaty for dismissal, all the seven, and all the dogs, move offtogether, to that favourite gathering-place round the stove, where alltheir merry tongues are let loose together.
To them, the Herr Vater and the Frau Grossmutter seem nearly of the sameage, and of the same generation; and verily the eighteen years betweenthe mother and son have dwindled into a very small difference even inappearance, and a lesser one in feeling. She is a youthful, beautifulold lady; he a grave, spare, worn, elderly man, in his full strength, butwith many a trace of care and thought, and far more of silver than ofbrown in his thin hair and pointed beard, and with a melancholythoughtfulness in his clear brown eyes—all well corresponding with thegravity of the dress in which he has been meeting the burghers of Ulm; ablack velvet suit—only relieved by his small white lace ruff, and theribbon and jewel of the Golden Fleece, the only other approach toornament that he wears being that ring long ago twisted off the EmperorMaximilian’s chain. But now, as he has bowed off the chaplain to hisstudy, and excused himself from aiding his two gentlemen-squires inconsuming their krug of beer, and hands his mother to her favourite nookin the sunny window, taking his seat by her side, his features assume anexpression of repose and relaxation as if here indeed were his true home.He has chosen his seat in full view of a picture that hangs on thewainscoted wall, near his mother—a picture whose pure ethereal tinting,of colour limpid as the rainbow, yet rich as the most glowingflower-beds; and its soft lovely _pose_, and rounded outlines, prove itto be no produce even of one of the great German artists of the time, butto have been wrought, under an Italian sky, by such a hand as left us themarvellous smile of Mona Lisa. It represents two figures, oneunmistakably himself when in the prime of life, his brow and cheeksunfurrowed, and his hair still thick, shining brown, but with the samegrave earnestness of the dark eye that came with the early sense ofresponsibility, and with the first sorrow of his youth. The otherfigure, one on which the painter evidently loved to dwell, is of a lady,so young that she might almost pass for his daughter, except for thepeculiar, tender sweetness that could only become the wife and mother.Fair she is as snow, with scarce a deepening of the rose on cheek, oreven lip, fragile and transparent as a spiritual form, and with a lightin the blue eyes, and a grace in the soft fugitive smile, that scarceseems to belong to earth; a beauty not exactly of feature, but rather thepathetic loveliness of calm fading away—as if she were already meltinginto the clear blue sky with the horizon of golden light, that thewondrous power of art has made to harmonize with, but not efface, herblue dress, golden hair, white coif, and fair skin. It is as if shebelonged to that sky, and only tarried as unable to detach herself fromthe clasp of the strong hand round and in which both her hands aretwined; and though the light in her face may be from heaven, yet thewhole countenance is fixed in one absorbed, almost worshipping gaze ofher husband, with a wistful simplicity and innocence on devotion, likethe absorption of a loving animal, to whom its master’s presence is blissand sunshine. It is a picture to make light in a dark place, and thatsweet face receives a loving glance, nay, an absolutely reverent bend ofthe knightly head, as the Baron seats himself.
“So it was as we feared, and this Schmalkaldic League did not suit thysense of loyalty, my son?” she asks, reading his features anxiously.
“No, mother. I ever feared that further pressure would drive our friendsbeyond the line where begin schism and rebellion; and it seems to me thatthe moment is come when I must hold me still, or transgress mine ownsense of duty. I must endure the displeasure of many I love andrespect.”
“Surely, my son, they have known you too long and too well not to respectyour motives, and know that conscience is first with you.”
“Scarce may such confidence be looked for, mother, from the most part,who esteem every man a traitor to the cause if he defend it not preciselyin the fashion of their own party. But I hear that the King of Francehas offered himself as an ally, and that Dr. Luther, together with othersof our best divines, have thereby been startled into doubts of thelawfulness of the League.”
“And what think you of doing, my son?”
“I shall endeavour to wait until such time as the much-needed GeneralCouncil may proclaim the ancient truth, and enable us to avouch itwithout disunion. Into schism I _will_ not be drawn. I have held truthall my life in the Church, nor will I part from her now. If intriguesagain should prevail, then, Heaven help us! Meantime, mother, the bestwe can, as has ever been your war-cry.”
“And much has been won for us. Here are the little maidens, who, saveVittoria, would never have been scholars, reading the
Holy Word daily intheir own tongue.”
“Ach, I had not told you, mother! I have the Court Secretary’s answerthis day about that command in the Kaisar’s guards that my dear oldmaster had promised to his godson.”
“Another put-off with Flemish courtesy, I see by thy face, Ebbo.”
“Not quite that, mother. The command is ready for the Baron FriedmundMaximilianus von Adlerstein Wildschloss, and all the rest of it, on theunderstanding that he has been bred up free from all taint of the newdoctrine.”
“New? Nay, it is the oldest of all doctrine.”
“Even so. As I ever said, Dr. Luther hath been setting forth in greaterclearness and fulness what our blessed Friedel and I learnt at your knee,and my young ones have learnt from babyhood of the true Catholicdoctrine. Yet I may not call my son’s faith such as the Kaisar’s Spanishconscience-keepers would have it, and so the boy must e’en tarry at hometill there be work for his stout arm to do.”
“He seems little disappointed. His laugh comes ringing the loudest ofall.”
“The Junker is more of a boy at two-and-twenty than I ever recollectmyself! He lacks not sense nor wit, but a fray or a feast, a chase or adance, seem to suffice him at an age when I had long been dwelling onmatters of moment.”
“Thou wast left to be thine own pilot; he is but one of thy gay crew, andthus even these stirring times touch him not so deeply as thou wertaffected by thine own choice in life between disorderly freedom andhonourable restraint.”
“I thought of that choice to-day, mother, as I crossed the bridge andlooked at the church; and more than ever thankful did I feel that ourblessed Friedel, having aided me over that one decisive pass, was laid torest, his tender spirit unvexed by the shocks and divisions that havewrenched me hither and thither.”
“Nay; not hither and thither. Ever hadst thou a resolute purpose andaim.”
“Ever failed in by my own error or that of others—What, thou nestlinghere, my little Vittoria, away from all yonder prattle?”
“Dear father, if I may, I love far best to hear you and the grandmothertalk.”
“Hear the child! She alone hath your face, mother, or Friedel’s eyes!Is it that thou wouldst be like thy noble Roman godmother, the Marchesadi Pescara, that makes thee seek our grave company, little one?”
“I always long to hear you talk of her, and of the Italian days, dearfather, and how you won this noble jewel of yours.”
“Ah, child, that was before those times! It was the gift of good KaisarMax at his godson’s christening, when he filled your sweet mother withpretty spite by persuading her that it was a little golden bear-skin.”
“Tell her how you had gained it, my son.”
“By vapouring, child; and by the dull pride of my neighbours. Heard’stthou never of the siege of Padua, when we had Bayard, the best knight inEurope, and 500 Frenchmen for our allies? Our artillery had made abreach, and the Kaisar requested the French knights to lead the storm,whereto they answered, Well and good, but our German nobles must sharethe assault, and not leave them to fight with no better backers than thehired lanzknechts. All in reason, quoth I, and more shame for us not tohave been foremost in our Kaisar’s own cause; but what said the rest ofour misproud chivalry? They would never condescend to climb a wall onfoot in company with lanzknechts! On horseback must their worshipsfight, or not at all; and when to shame them I called myself amountaineer, more used to climb than to ride, and vowed that I shouldesteem it an honour to follow such a knight as Bayard, were it on allfours, then cast they my burgher blood in my teeth. Never saw I theKaisar so enraged; he swore that all the common sense in the empire wasin the burgher blood, and that he would make me a knight of the noblestorder in Europe to show how he esteemed it. And next morning he wasgone! So ashamed was he of his own army that he rode off in the night,and sent orders to break up the siege. I could have torn my hair, for Ihad just lashed up a few of our nobles to a better sense of honour, andwe would yet have redeemed our name! And after all, the Chapter of proudFlemings would never have admitted me had not the heralds hunted up thatthe Sorels were gentlemen of blood and coat armour long ago at Liège. Iam glad my father lived to see that proved, mother. He could not honourthee more than he did, but he would have been sorely grieved had I beenrejected. He often thought me a mechanical burgher, as it was.”
“Not quite so, my son. He never failed to be proud of thy deeds, evenwhen he did not understand them; but this, and the grandson’s birth, werethe crowning joys of his life.”
“Yes, those were glad triumphant years, take them all in all, ere theEmperor sent me to act ambassador in Rome, and we left you the two elderlittle girls and the boy to take care of. My dear little Thekla! Shehad a foreboding that she might never see those children more, yet wouldshe have pined her heart away more surely had I left her at home! Inever was absent a week but I found her wasted with watching for me.”
“It was those weary seven years of Italy that changed thee most, my son.”
“Apart from you, mother, and knowing you now indeed to be widowed, andwith on the one hand such contradictory commands from the Emperor as mademe sorely ashamed of myself, of my nation, and of the man whom I lovedand esteemed personally the most on earth, yet bound there by his expresscommand, while I saw my tender wife’s health wasting in the climate dayby day! Yet still, while most she gasped for a breath of Swabian hills,she ever declared it would kill her outright to send her from me. Andthus it went on till I laid her in the stately church of her ownpatroness. Then how it would have fared with me and the helpless littleones I know not, but for thy noble godmother, my Vittoria, the wise andready helper of all in trouble, the only friend thy mother had made atRome, and who had been able, from all her heights of learning andaccomplishment, to value my Thekla’s golden soul in its simplicity. Eventhen, when too late, came one of the Kaisar’s kindest letters, recallingme,—a letter whose every word I would have paid for with a drop of my ownblood six weeks before! and which he had only failed to send because hishead was running on the plan of that gorgeous tomb where he is notburied! Well, at least it brought us home to you again once more,mother, and, where you are, comfort never has been utterly absent fromme. And then, coming from the wilful gloom of Pope Leo’s court into ourGermany, streamed over by the rays of Luther’s light, it was as if a newworld of hope were dawning, as if truth would no longer be muffled, andthe young would grow up to a world far better and purer than the old hadever seen. What trumpet-calls those were, and how welcome was the voiceof the true Catholic faith no longer stifled! And my dear old Kaisar,with his clear eyes, his unfettered mind—he felt the power and truth ofthose theses. He bade the Elector of Saxony well to guard the monkLuther as a treasure. Ah! had he been a younger man, or had he been morefirm and resolute, able to act as well as think for himself, things mighthave gone otherwise with the Church. He could think, but could not act;and now we have a man who acts, but _will_ not think. It may have been agood day for our German reputation among foreign princes when Charles V.put on the crown; but only two days in my life have been as mournful tome as that when I stood by Kaisar Max’s death-bed at Wells, and knew thatgenerous, loving, fitful spirit was passing away from the earth! Neverowned I friend I loved so well as Kaisar Max! Nor has any Emperor doneso much for this our dear land.”
“The young Emperor never loved thee.”
“He might have treated me as one who could be useful, but he neverforgave me for shaking hands with Luther at the Diet of Worms. I knew itwas all over with my court favour after I had joined in escorting theDoctor out of the city. And the next thing was that Georg of Freundsbergand his friends proclaimed me a bigoted Papist because I did my utmost tokeep my troop out of the devil’s holiday at the sack of Rome! It hasever been my lot to be in disgrace with one side or the other! Here ismy daughter’s marriage hindered on the one hand, my son’s promotionchecked on the other, because I have a conscience of my own, and not ofother people’s! Heaven knows t
he right is no easy matter to find; but,when one thinks one sees it, there is nothing to be done but to guideoneself by it, even if the rest of the world will not view it in the samelight.”
“Nothing else! I doubt me whether it be ever easy to see the veritablyright course while still struggling in the midst. That is for afterages, which behold things afar off; but each man must needs follow hisown principle in an honest and good heart, and assuredly God will guidehim to work out some good end, or hinder some evil one.”
“Ay, mother. Each party may guard one side or other of the truth in allhonesty and faithfulness; he who cannot with his whole heart cast in hislot with either,—he is apt to serve no purpose, and to be scorned.”
“Nay, Ebbo, may he not be a witness to the higher and more perfect truththan either party have conceived? Nor is inaction always needful. Thatwhich is right towards either side still reveals itself at the duemoment, whether it be to act or to hold still. And verily, Ebbo, whatthou didst say even now has set me on a strange thought of mine owndream, that which heralded the birth of thyself and thy brother. As thouknowest, it seemed to me that I was watching two sparkles from theextinguished Needfire wheel. One rose aloft and shone as a star!”
“My guiding-star!”
“The other fulfilled those words of the Wise Man. It shone and ran toand fro in the grass. And surely, my Ebbo, thy mother may feel that, inall these dark days of perplexity and trial, the spark of light hath evershone and drawn its trail of brightness in the gloom, even though the waywas long, and seemed uncertain.”
“The mother who ever fondled me _will_ think so, it may be! But, ah! shehad better pray that the light be clearer, and that I may not fallutterly short of the star!”
* * * * *
Travellers in Wurtemburg may perhaps turn aside from glorious old Ulm,and the memories of the battlefields around it, to the romantic countryround the Swabian mountains, through which descend the tributaries of theDanube. Here they may think themselves fortunate if they come upon agreen valley, with a bright mountain torrent dashing through it, freshfrom the lofty mountain, with terraced sides that rise sheer above. Anold bridge, a mill, and a neat German village lie clustered in thevalley; a seignorial mansion peeps out of the forest glades; and a lovelychurch, of rather late Gothic, but beautifully designed, attracts the eyeso soon as it can be persuaded to quit the romantic outline of the ruinedbaronial castle high up on one of the mountain ledges. Report declaresthat there are tombs in the church well worth inspection. You seek outan old venerable blue-coated peasant who has charge of the church.
“What is yonder castle?”
“It is the castle of Adlerstein.”
“Are the family still extant?”
“Yea, yea; they built yonder house when the Schloss became ruinous. Theyhave always been here.”
The church is very beautiful in its details, the carved work of the eastend and pulpit especially so, but nothing is so attractive as the altartomb in the chantry chapel. It is a double one, holding not, as usual,the recumbent effigies of a husband and wife, but of two knights inarmour.
“Who are these, good friend?”
“They are the good Barons Ebbo and Friedel.”
Father and son they appear to be, killed at the same time in some fatalbattle, for the white marble face of one is round with youth, no hair onlip nor chin, and with a lovely peaceful solemnity, almost cheerfulness,in the expression. The other, a bearded man, has the glory of old age inhis worn features, beautiful and restful, but it is as if one had gone tosleep in the light of dawn, the other in the last glow of sunset. Theirarmour and their crests are alike, but the young one bears the eagleshield alone, while the elder has the same bearing repeated upon anescutcheon of pretence; the young man’s hands are clasped over a harp,those of the other over a Bible, and the elder wears the insignia of theorder of the Golden Fleece. They are surely father and son, a maidenknight and tried warrior who fell together?
“No,” the guide shakes his head; “they are twin brothers, the good BaronsEbbo and Friedel, who were born when their father had been taken captiveby the Saracens while on a crusade. Baron Friedel was slain by the Turksat the bridge foot, and his brother built the church in his memory. Hefirst planted vines upon the mountains, and freed the peasants from thelord’s dues on their flax. And it is true that the two brothers maystill be seen hovering on the mountain-side in the mist at sunset,sometimes one, sometimes both.”
You turn with a smile to the inscription, sure that those windows, thoseporches, that armour, never were of crusading date, and ready to refutethe old peasant. You spell out the upright Gothic letters around thecornice of the tomb, and you read, in mediæval Latin,—
“Orate pro Anima Friedmundis Equitis Baronis Adlersteini. A. D. mccccxciii”
Then turn to the other side and read—
“Hic jacet Eberardus Eques Baro Adlersteini. A.D. mdxliii. Demum”
Yes, the guide is right. They are brothers, with well-nigh a lifetimebetween their deaths. Is that the meaning of that strange _Demum_?
Few of the other tombs are worth attention, each lapsing further into thebad taste of later ages; yet there is one still deserving admiration,placed close to the head of that of the two Barons. It is the effigy ofa lady, aged and serene, with a delicately-carved face beneath her stiffhead-gear. Surely this monument was erected somewhat later, for theinscription is in German. Stiff, contracted, hard to read, but this isthe rendering of it:—
“Here lies Christina Sorel, wife of Eberhard, xxth Baron von Adlerstein, and mother of the Barons Eberhard and Friedmund. She fell asleep two days before her son, on the feast of St. John, mdxliii.
“Her children shall rise up and call her blessed.
“Erected with full hearts by her grandson, Baron Friedmund Maximilianus, and his brothers and sisters. Farewell.”
* * * * *
THE END.
* * * * *
* * * * *
_Richard Clay & Sons_, _Limited_, _London & Bungay_
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