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.