CHAPTER VTHE YOUNG FREIHERR
ERMENTRUDE VON ADLERSTEIN slept with her forefathers in the vaults of thehermitage chapel, and Christina Sorel’s work was done.
Surely it was time for her to return home, though she should be moresorry to leave the mountain castle than she could ever have believedpossible. She entreated her father to take her home, but she received asharp answer that she did not know what she was talking of: theSchlangenwald Reitern were besetting all the roads; and moreover the Ulmburghers had taken the capture of the Constance wine in such dudgeon thatfor a retainer of Adlerstein to show himself in the streets would be anabsolute asking for the wheel.
But was there any hope for her? Could he not take her to some nunnerymidway, and let her write to her uncle to fetch her from thence?
He swore at woman’s pertinacity, but allowed at last that if the plan,talked of by the Barons, of going to make their submission to the Emperorat Linz, with a view to which all violence at the ford had ceased, shouldhold good, it might be possible thus to drop her on their way.
With this Christina must needs content herself. Poor child, not only hadErmentrude’s death deprived her of the sole object of her residence atSchloss Adlerstein, but it had infinitely increased the difficulties ofher position. No one interfered with her possession of the upper roomand its turrets; and it was only at meal times that she was obliged tomingle with the other inhabitants, who, for the most part, absolutelyoverlooked the little shrinking pale maiden but with one exception, andthat the most perplexing of all. She had been on terms with FreiherrEberhard that were not so easily broken off as if she had been an oldwoman of Ursel’s age. All through his sister’s decline she had been hiscomforter, assistant, director, living in intercourse and sympathy thatought surely to cease when she was no longer his sister’s attendant, yetwhich must be more than ever missed in the full freshness of the stroke.
Even on the earliest day of bereavement, a sudden thought of HausfrauJohanna flashed upon Christina, and reminded her of the guard she mustkeep over herself if she would return to Ulm the same modest girl whomher aunt could acquit of all indiscretion. Her cheeks flamed, as she satalone, with the very thought, and the next time she heard the well-knowntread on the stair, she fled hastily into her own turret chamber, andshut the door. Her heart beat fast. She could hear Sir Eberhard movingabout the room, and listened to his heavy sigh as he threw himself intothe large chair. Presently he called her by name, and she felt itneedful to open her door and answer, respectfully,
“What would you, my lord?”
“What would I? A little peace, and heed to her who is gone. To see myfather and mother one would think that a partridge had but flown away. Ihave seen my father more sorrowful when his dog had fallen over theabyss.”
“Mayhap there is more sorrow for a brute that cannot live again,” saidChristina. “Our bird has her nest by an Altar that is lovelier andbrighter than even our Dome Kirk will ever be.”
“Sit down, Christina,” he said, dragging a chair nearer the hearth. “Myheart is sore, and I cannot bear the din below. Tell me where my bird isflown.”
“Ah! sir; pardon me. I must to the kitchen,” said Christina, crossingher hands over her breast, to still her trembling heart, for she was verysorry for his grief, but moving resolutely.
“Must? And wherefore? Thou hast nought to do there; speak truth! Whynot stay with me?” and his great light eyes opened wide.
“A burgher maid may not sit down with a noble baron.”
“The devil! Has my mother been plaguing thee, child?”
“No, my lord,” said Christina, “she reeks not of me; but”—steadying hervoice with great difficulty—“it behoves me the more to be discreet.”
“And you would not have me come here!” he said, with a wistful tone ofreproach.
“I have no power to forbid you; but if you do, I must betake me to Urselin the kitchen,” said Christina, very low, trembling and half choked.
“Among the rude wenches there!” he cried, starting up. “Nay, nay, thatshall not be! Rather will I go.”
“But this is very cruel of thee, maiden,” he added, lingering, “when Igive thee my knightly word that all should be as when she whom we bothloved was here,” and his voice shook.
“It could not so be, my lord,” returned Christina with drooping, blushingface; “it would not be maidenly in me. Oh, my lord, you are kind andgenerous, make it not hard for me to do what other maidens less lonelyhave friends to do for them!”
“Kind and generous?” said Eberhard, leaning over the back of the chair asif trying to begin a fresh score. “This from you, who told me once I wasno true knight!”
“I shall call you a true knight with all my heart,” cried Christina, thetears rushing into her eyes, “if you will respect my weakness andloneliness.”
He stood up again, as if to move away; then paused, and, twisting hisgold chain, said, “And how am I ever to be what the happy one bade me, ifyou will not show me how?”
“My error would never show you the right,” said Christina, with a strongeffort at firmness, and retreating at once through the door of thestaircase, whence she made her way to the kitchen, and with greatdifficulty found an excuse for her presence there.
It had been a hard struggle with her compassion and gratitude, and, poorlittle Christina felt with dismay, with something more than these. Elsewhy was it that, even while principle and better sense summoned her backto Ulm, she experienced a deadly weariness of the city-pent air, of thegrave, heavy roll of the river, nay, even of the quiet, well-regulatedhousehold? Why did such a marriage as she had thought her naturaldestiny, with some worthy, kind-hearted brother of the guild, become sohateful to her that she could only aspire to a convent life? This sameburgomaster would be an estimable man, no doubt, and those around herwere ruffians, but she felt utterly contemptuous and impatient of him.And why was the interchange of greetings, the few words at meals, worthall the rest of the day besides to her? Her own heart was the traitor,and to her own sensations the poor little thing had, in spirit at least,transgressed all Aunt Johanna’s precepts against young Barons. She weptapart, and resolved, and prayed, cruelly ashamed of every start of joy orpain that the sight of Eberhard cost her. From almost the first he hadsat next her at the single table that accommodated the whole household atmeals, and the custom continued, though on some days he treated her withsullen silence, which she blamed herself for not rejoicing in, sometimeshe spoke a few friendly words; but he observed, better than she couldhave dared to expect, her test of his true knighthood, and never againforced himself into her apartment, though now and then he came to thedoor with flowers, with mountain strawberries, and once with two youngdoves. “Take them, Christina,” he said, “they are very like yourself;”and he always delayed so long that she was forced to be resolute, andshut the door on him at last.
Once, when there was to be a mass at the chapel, Hugh Sorel, between asmile and a growl, informed his daughter that he would take her thereto.She gladly prepared, and, bent on making herself agreeable to her father,did not once press on him the necessity of her return to Ulm. To heramazement and pleasure, the young Baron was at church, and when on theway home, he walked beside her mule, she could see no need of sending himaway.
He had been in no school of the conventionalities of life, and, when hesaw that Hugh Sorel’s presence had obtained him this favour, he wistfullyasked, “Christina, if I bring your father with me, will you not let mein?”
“Entreat me not, my lord,” she answered, with fluttering breath.
She felt the more that she was right in this decision, when sheencountered her father’s broad grin of surprise and diversion, at seeingthe young Baron help her to dismount. It was a look of receiving an ideaboth new, comical, and flattering, but by no means the look of a fatherwho would resent the indignity of attentions to his daughter from a manwhose rank formed an insuperable barrier to marriage.
The effect was a new,
urgent, and most piteous entreaty, that he wouldfind means of sending her home. It brought upon her the hearing put intowords what her own feelings had long shrunk from confessing to herself.
“Ah! Why, what now? What, is the young Baron after thee? Ha! ha!petticoats are few enough up here, but he must have been ill off ere hetook to a little ghost like thee! I saw he was moping and doleful, but Ithought it was all for his sister.”
“And so it is, father.”
“Tell me that, when he watches every turn of that dark eye of thine—theonly good thing thou took’st of mine! Thou art a witch, Stina.”
“Hush, oh hush, for pity’s sake, father, and let me go home!”
“What, thou likest him not? Thy mind is all for the mincing goldsmithopposite, as I ever told thee.”
“My mind is—is to return to my uncle and aunt the true-hearted maidenthey parted with,” said Christina, with clasped hands. “And oh, father,as you were the son of a true and faithful mother, be a father to me now!Jeer not your motherless child, but protect her and help her.”
Hugh Sorel was touched by this appeal, and he likewise recollected howmuch it was for his own interest that his brother should be satisfiedwith the care he took of his daughter. He became convinced that thesooner she was out of the castle the better, and at length bethought himthat, among the merchants who frequented the Midsummer Fair at theBlessed Friedmund’s Wake, a safe escort might be found to convey her backto Ulm.
If the truth were known, Hugh Sorel was not devoid of a certain feelingakin to contempt, both for his young master’s taste, and for hisforbearance in not having pushed matters further with a being sohelpless, meek, and timid as Christina, more especially as such slacknesshad not been his wont in other cases where his fancy had been caught.
But Sorel did not understand that it was not physical beauty that herehad been the attraction, though to some persons, the sweet, pensive eyes,the delicate, pure skin, the slight, tender form, might seem to exceed inloveliness the fully developed animal comeliness chiefly esteemed atAdlerstein. It was rather the strangeness of the power and purity ofthis timid, fragile creature, that had struck the young noble. With alltheir brutal manners reverence for a lofty female nature had been in theGerman character ever since their Velleda prophesied to them, and thisreverence in Eberhard bowed at the feet of the pure gentle maiden, sostrong yet so weak, so wistful and entreating even in her resolution,refined as a white flower on a heap of refuse, wise and dexterous beyondhis slow and dull conception, and the first being in whom he had everseen piety or goodness; and likewise with a tender, loving spirit ofconsolation such as he had both beheld and tasted by his sister’sdeathbed.
There was almost a fear mingled with his reverence. If he had been morefamiliar with the saints, he would thus have regarded the holy virginmartyrs, nay, even Our Lady herself; and he durst not push her so hard asto offend her, and excite the anger or the grief that he alike dreaded.He was wretched and forlorn without the resources he had found in hissister’s room; the new and better cravings of his higher nature had beenexcited only to remain unsupplied and disappointed; and the affectionateheart in the freshness of its sorrow yearned for the comfort that suchconversation had supplied: but the impression that had been made on himwas still such, that he knew that to use rough means of pressing hiswishes would no more lead to his real gratification than it would toappropriate a snow-bell by crushing it in his gauntlet.
And it was on feeble little Christina, yielding in heart, though not inwill, that it depended to preserve this reverence, and return unscathedfrom this castle, more perilous now than ever.