An hour or two went by, and it was drawing towards night, when
Seckendorf, after having appeased the cravings of hunger, was walking
up and down the ordinary hall, for want of anything else to do.
Indeed, the piping time of peace to a soldier of his stamp was a very
dull period, especially at that season of the year, when many of the
sports of the field are forbidden; and any little incident that broke
the monotony of the castle life was a great relief. There was nobody
in the hall but himself; and he was cursing the slow flight of time,
and thinking the Count very long upon the road home, when the lifting
of the door latch made him turn his head, and he instantly exclaimed,
with a hoarse laugh, "Ha! who are you looking for, Mrs. Bertha?
Ferdinand is not here."
"I was looking for you, Sir," answered Bertha, with perfect composure,
at the same time walking up to him. "I do not think my lady is at all
well," she continued, "she has been moping by herself all day, and
says her head aches."
"Ah! that's bad, that's bad," answered Seckendorf: "no one should have
a headache but a boy of sixteen who has been drunk overnight. But what
can I do, pretty Bertha; I'm no leech, and am more accustomed to
bleeding men than bleeding women?"
"Ay, but Sir Knight, you can send down to the chapel, where one of the
monks will be found. They all know something of leechcraft; and if
Father George is there, he knows a great deal."
"But it's growing dark," said Seckendorf. "The gates must be shut in
ten minutes, and we want all the men we have about the place. Better
wait till the Count comes back, and if she should be very bad, I'll
tell you what you must do; mull half a pint of Zeller wine; put plenty
of spice in, and a spoonful or two of honey. Let her drink that down
at one draught,--that will cure her. It is just what cured me the only
time I ever had a headache."
"Ay, but what would cure you might kill our lady," replied Bertha, who
did not at all approve of the prescription. "I pray you, Herr von
Seckendorf, send down one of the men to the good Father. What would
you say if this were to turn out a fever after you refused to send for
help?"
"A fever!" cried Seckendorf, "what has she done to get a fever? She
has neither ridden fifty or sixty miles in a hot sun, nor lain out all
night in a damp marsh; nor drunk three or four quarts of wine to heat
her blood--Well, if I must send, I must; but mind, I do it with no
good will, for I don't like to send any of the men out after gates
closing."
Thus saying, he put his head out of the door, calling till the whole
building echoed again: "Martin, Martin--Martin, I say;" and then
returning to Bertha's side, he continued, "I don't think much of the
monks. They can't be such holy men as people say, else they'd keep the
wood clear of spirits and devils, and things of that kind. Why one of
the men, who was looking out from the turret during the storm last
night, vows he saw some kind of apparition just down below the chapel,
fencing with the lightning, and playing at pitch and toss with balls
of fire. Then all in a minute he vanished away.--Ah! Martin, you must
go down to the chapel in the wood, and tell the priest to come up and
see the lady Adelaide, who is ill; so let him bring his lancet with
him."
"Nonsense," cried Bertha, "she will need no bleeding; you soldiers
think of nothing but blood."
The man Martin dropped his bead, and did not at all seem to like the
task; but then gave a look through the window to the sky and walked
away, grumbling something which was neither heard by the old knight
nor the young damsel. Bertha having performed her errand, was then
tripping away; but Seckendorf caught her hand, saying, in a honied
tone, "Stay a bit, my pretty maid, and chat with me, as you did with
young Ferdinand this morning."
"No, indeed," cried Bertha, trying to withdraw her hand; "that was in
the free air and sunshine, not in a dark hall--let me go, Sir." But
the next moment her eyes fixed upon something at the further end of
the long room, and giving a loud scream she started back.
Seckendorf let go her hand, and turned round to look in the same
direction, where two doors opened into the opposite sides of the hall.
Both apparently were closed, but yet, from the one to the other he
distinctly perceived a tall shadowy form, clothed in long garments,
stalk slowly across, and disappear. The old man who would willingly
have confronted a whole host of mortal enemies, and plunged his horse
into a forest of spikes, now stood rooted to the ground, with his
teeth chattering and his knees shaking, a thousand-fold more terrified
than the young girl beside him. Bertha seized the opportunity to
hasten away to her mistress's apartments; and Seckendorf, who called
after her in vain, thought the line of her retreat by the door behind
them so excellent, that he followed as soon as he could regain
strength to go.
Never in Seckendorf's life had he so eagerly desired companionship as
when he quitted the hall; but companionship he could not find, of the
kind and quality that befitted his rank and station. The old ritter
would have felt himself degraded by associating with the common
soldiers, or anybody who had not von before his name; but Ferdinand he
could not find; his companion, old Karl von Mosbach, had accompanied
the Count, with all the other persons of gentle birth who filled the
various anomalous offices which then existed in the household of a
high nobleman; and not even a crossbow-man, who, as was generally
admitted, had a right to sit down to table with a knight, could be
discovered by our worthy friend, as he went grumbling through the
castle.
"Hundert Schwerin!" he exclaimed; "to think of my seeing the ghost!
Santa Maria! who'd have ever fancied it would have come into the hall?
It looked to me, mighty like our poor dear lady that's gone, only it
had a long beard, and was six foot high. I wonder if our good lord did
put her out of the way, as some people think!--What could it want in
the hall? Very saucy of an apparition to show itself there, unless it
were at meal times, when, poor thing! it might want something to eat
and drink. It must be cold and hungry work to go shivering about all
night in vaults and passages, and to sneak back to its hiding-hole at
daylight. I'd rather stand sentry on the northern'st tower in the
middle of January. I wonder if I shall ever be a ghost! I should not
like it at all. I'll have this one laid, however, if it costs me five
crowns out of my own pocket; for we shan't be safe in our rooms, if it
goes on in this way, unless we huddle up five or six together, like
young pigs in a sty. Donner! where can that young dog, Ferdinand, be?
I won't tell him what I've seen, for he'll only laugh; but I'll call
him to talk about the Lady Adelaide; he's very fond of her, and will
like to hear about her being ill;" and, raising his voice, with these
friendly intentions, he called up the stairs which led to the young
gentleman's room,--"Ferdinand! Ferdinand!--I want you, scapegrace!"
"What is it, ritter?" answered the voice of Ferdinand from above; "I'm
busy, just now; I'll come in a minute."
"But I want you now," answered Seckendorf, who was determined not to
be left longer without society than was necessary;--"Come hither and
speak to me, or I will come to you."
Ferdinand said a word or two to some one above, and then came
unwillingly down the stairs.
"Ah, wild one!" said the old knight, "what would you have given to be
in my place just now? I've had a chat with pretty mistress Bertha,
just between light and dark, in the hall."
"Indeed!" answered Ferdinand. "I dare say it was very innocent,
Seckendorf; and so was my chat with her on the battlements. But what
might she want with you?"
"Why, the Lady Adelaide is very ill," replied Seckendorf.
"Ill!" exclaimed Ferdinand, in a tone of much alarm. "What, the Lady
Adelaide! She seemed quite well this morning."
"Ay, but women change like the wind," said Seckendorf; "and she's ill
now, however; so I've sent down to the chapel for the priest to come
up and say what's to be done for her."
"Why, Father George is in my room now," replied Ferdinand, "giving me
good counsel and advice."
"Send him down, then,--send him down, quick," said Seckendorf; "and
then come and talk with me: I've a good deal to say."
Ferdinand sped away with a much more rapid step than that which had
brought him thither, and returned in a few seconds with the good
priest, whose face, as far as Seckendorf could see it, in the
increasing darkness, expressed much less alarm than that which the
lover's countenance had displayed.
"'Tis nothing,--'tis nothing," he said, after speaking with the old
knight for a moment, on the lady's illness; "some trifle that will
soon pass. But I will go and see;" and, accompanied by Ferdinand and
the old soldier as far as the door of Adelaide's apartments, he went
in without ceremony.
While he remained,--and he staid for more than an hour, Ferdinand and
Seckendorf continued walking up and down the corridor, and only went
beyond it to order the hall and the passages to be lighted. Their
conversation was entirely of the Lady Adelaide and her illness; for
though, with the invariable garrulity of one who had seen a marvel,
Seckendorf more than a dozen times approached the subject of the
apparition, ready to pour the whole tale into Ferdinand's ear,
notwithstanding all his resolutions to the contrary, the young man was
still more occupied with the thoughts of his fair lady's state, than
the old knight with the memory of the ghost, and he ever turned back
to that topic just when the whole history was about to be related.
Then Seckendorf would discourse learnedly upon calentures and fevers,
hot and cold, describe the humours that ferment in man's blood, and
tell what are the vapours that rise from their fermentation; shake his
head and declare that it was a wondrous pity young girls should be so
given phthisick, which often carried them off in the flower of their
age, and the lustre of their beauty; and, shaking his head when he
pronounced Adelaide's name, would declare that she looked sadly frail
of late, doubting whether she would last another winter. But as all
this--though it served to torment in a terrible manner the heart of
the young lover--would probably not prove very entertaining to the
reader, we will pass over the further particulars till the good
father's return. By this time, to Seckendorf's great comfort and
consolation, there was as much light shed through the corridor, from a
great crescet at one end and a lantern at the other, as the passages
of the castle ever displayed. It was not very brilliant, indeed, but
sufficiently so to show that Father George's countenance was perfectly
cheerful and calm; and in answer to the eager questions of Ferdinand,
and the less anxious inquiries of the old knight, he said,--"Oh, the
lady is better; 'tis but a little passing cloud, and she will be as
well as ever ere the morning."
"Have you let her blood?" asked Seckendorf.
"Nay, no need of that," answered Father George. "Her illness came but
from some melancholy fumes, rising from the heart to the head. That I
have remedied, and she is better already,--but I must hasten back, for
I may be needed at the chapel."
"Stay, stay, good father," cried the old knight; "I have something to
ask of you. I will go with you to the gate;" and walking on with
Father George, he entertained him with an account of the apparition he
had seen in the hall, and besought him to take the most canonical
means of laying the unwelcome visitant, by the heels, in the Red Sea;
or if that could not be done for a matter of five or ten crowns, at
least to put up such prayers on his behalf, as would secure him
against any farther personal acquaintance with it.
Father George smiled quietly at the old knight's tale, and assured him
he would do his best in the case, after due consideration. Then,
hastening away, he passed down the hill, and just reached the door of
his temporary dwelling, when the sound of many horses' feet, coming up
from below, announced the return of the Count to Ehrenstein. Father
George, however, did not wait to salute the nobleman as he passed, or
to communicate to him the fact of his daughter's illness, but entered
his little cell, and closing the door listened for a moment or two as
the long train passed by, and then lighted his lamp.
In the mean time the Count rode on, with somewhat jaded horses, and at
a slow pace, looking to the right and left, through the dim obscurity
of the night, as if he, too, were not altogether without apprehensions
of some terrible sight presenting itself. More than once he struck his
horse suddenly with the spur, and not one word did he interchange with
any of his followers, from the time he crossed the bridge till he
arrived at the Castle gates. He was met under the archway by
Seckendorf and Ferdinand, the _Schlossvogt_, or castle bailiff, and
two or three of the guard. But he noticed no one except the old
knight, whom he took by the arm, and walked on with him into the hall.
"What news, Seckendorf?" he said. "Has anything happened since I
went?"
"Ay, two or three things, my lord," replied Seckendorf. "In the first
place, the lady Adelaide has been ill, headachy, and drooping, like a
sick falcon."
"Pooh! some woman's ailment, that will be gone to-morrow," replied the
Count.
"Ay, so says Father George, whom I sent for, to see her," answered
Seckendorf. And finding that his lord paid very little attention to
the state of his daughter's health, he went on to give him an account
of his foraging expedition in the morning, dwelling long and minutely
upon the number of ducks, capons, geese, sheep, and lambs, which he
had obtained, and dilating somewhat at large upon his conversation
with sundry retainers and vassals of the Count whom he had summoned in
the course of his ride to present themselves at the castle on the
following day.
Such details of all that was said by the peasantry were usually very
much desired by the Count, whose jealous and suspicious disposition
made him eager to glean every little indication of the feelings and
sentiments of the people towards him, but on the present occasion
Seckendorf's long-winded narrative seemed to weary and irritate him,
and after many not very complimentary interjections, he stopped him,
saying, "There, there, that will do; there will be enough, doubtless,
both of geese and asses, capons and boors;" and he remained standing
with his eyes fixed upon the ground, in thought.
"I fear, my good lord," said the bluff old soldier, who generally took
the liberty of saying what he liked, "that you have not been very
successful in your expedition; for you seem to have come home in a
mighty ill humour--I suppose the money isn't so much as you expected."
"No, no; it is not that," answered the Count, "I never expected any
till this morning, so it is all pure gain, and a good large sum too,
when it arrives. Heaven send it come safe! for Count Frederick has not
brought it with him, but trusted it to some of the lazy merchants of
Pisa.--No, no, it isn't that, Seckendorf. But there are things I love
not about this place. By Heaven! I have a great mind to take a torch,
set fire to yon old rafters, and burn the whole of it to the ground."
"Better do that to your enemy's mansion than your own," answered
Seckendorf, drily, and a good deal surprised at his lord's vehemence.
"Ay, but my enemy has a house that won't burn," answered the Count.
"You can't burn the grave, Seckendorf,--that's a vain effort. What I
mean is, that these stories of spirits and unearthly beings wandering
here and there around us, oppress me, Seckendorf. Why should I call
them stories? Have I not seen? Do I not know?"
"Ay, and I have seen, too," answered Seckendorf; "but I never knew you
had, my good lord."
"Why, this very night," continued the Count, grasping his arm tight,
and speaking in a low tone, "as I came through the woods, wherever I
turned my eyes, I saw nought but dim figures, flitting about amongst
the trees; none distinct enough to trace either form or feature, but
still sufficiently clear to show that the tale of the peasants and the
women is but too true--."
"Peasants and women, Sir!" cried Seckendorf. "Knights and soldiers,
too, if you please. Why, within the last two months, ghosts have been
as plenty in the castle as holly berries on the hills. 'Tis but this
very night, that, as I stood talking to Bertha about her lady's
illness, here where we now stand--just in the twilight, between day
and night--a tall, lank figure, in long, thin, flowing robes,--it
might be in a shroud, for ought I know--crossed from that door to
that, and disappeared. We both of us saw it, for her scream made me
turn round. So you see the very hall itself is not safe. There should
always be a tankard of red wine standing here--for I've heard that
spirits will not come near red wine."
"Methinks we should soon find plenty of ghosts to drink it," answered
the Count, with a bitter laugh. "But it is very strange. I have done
nought to merit this visitation."
"Something must be done to remedy it, my good lord," replied
Seckendorf, "that is clear, or they will drive us out of this hall as
they drove us out of the old one--That's to say, I suppose it was the
ghosts drove us out of that; for though you did not say why you left
it, all men suspected you had seen something."
The Count took a step or two backwards and forwards in the room, and
then pausing opposite to Seckendorf, he replied, "No, my good friend,
I saw nought there but in fancy. Yet was the fancy very strong! Each
time I stood in that hall alone, it seemed as if my brother came and
stood beside me; walked as I walked; and when I sat, placed himself
opposite, glaring at me with the cold glassy eyes of death. It was
fancy--I know it was fancy; for once I chased the phantom back against
the bare cold wall, and there it disappeared; but yet the next night
it was there again.--Why should it thus torment me," he continued
vehemently. "I slew him not; I ordered no one to slay him; I have done
him no wrong." And he walked quickly up and down the room again, while
Seckendorf followed more slowly, repeating,
"Well, my good lord, it's clear something must be tried to stop this,
or we shan't get soldiers to stay in the castle. The rascals don't
mind fighting anything of flesh and blood, but they are not fond of
meeting with a thing when they don't know what it is. So I thought it
the best way to speak with Father George about it, and ask him to lay
my ghost--I've had enough of it, and don't wish to see such a thing
any more."
"You did wrong--you did wrong, Seckendorf," answered his lord. "I do
not wish these monks to meddle, they will soon be fancying that some
great crime has been committed, and putting us all to penance, if not
worse. We must find means to lay the ghost ourselves--spirit or devil,
or whatever it may be."
"Well, then, my good lord, the only way is to laugh at it," answered
Seckendorf. "I dare say one may become familiar with it in time,
though it's ugly enough at first. One gets accustomed to everything,
and why not to a ghost? We'll jest at him; and if he comes near me,
I'll throw the stool at his head, and see if that will lay him--I am
very sorry I spoke to Father George, if it displeases you; but,
however, there's not much harm done, for the grey gowns of the abbey
know everything that goes on; and the devil himself can't conceal his
game from them."
"Too much, too much," answered the Count; "they're the pests of the
land, prying and spying, and holding their betters in subjection. We
are but the vassals of these monks, Seckendorf; and if I had my will,
I'd burn their rookery about their ears."
"Ah, here comes Karl von Mosbach," cried Seckendorf, glad to escape
giving an answer to his lord's diatribe against the monks, for whom he
retained all the superstitious veneration of an earlier period. "Ay,
and the Lady Adelaide, too! Why, bless your beautiful eyes, yon girl
there told me you were ill, fair lady!"
"I have been somewhat indisposed, but I am well again now," answered
Adelaide, advancing to her father. The Count, however, took little
notice of her, calling Bertha to him, and making her give an account
of what she and Seckendorf had seen.
"Fancy, fancy, my dear father," cried Adelaide, when the girl had
done, laughing much more joyously than was her wont. "These tales are
told and listened to, till the eyes become accomplices of the
imagination, and both combine to cheat us. Bertha came down in the
grey twilight, to say that I was ill; and I will warrant, went
trembling along the dark passages, and taking every suit of armour,
and every shadow through the window, of soldier or of warder passing
without, for a grim spirit in a shroud."
"Nay, nay, dear lady," cried Bertha, and was about to defend herself,
but the Count cut her short, turning to his daughter with a smile, and
saying, "So these tales have not infected your fancy, Adelaide. You
have no fears of ghosts or spirits?"
"Not I, indeed," answered the lady. "First, because I have never seen
them, and next, because I know they would not hurt me, if I did. If
they be unsubstantial they cannot harm me; and if I be innocent, they
would not seek to do so, if they could. I fear them not, my father,
and I only pray, if any are seen more, I may be called to behold them
too."
The fair girl spoke more boldly and more lightly than she usually did,
and through the rest of the evening the same cheerful spirit did not
leave her. Seated with her father at the last meal of the day, she
cheered him with conversation, and asked many a question regarding
Count Frederick of Leiningen, and those he brought in his train.
"There is none that will fit thee for a husband, I fear, my child,"
replied the Count who for the time had caught a portion of his
daughter's gaiety. "They are all bluff old soldiers, like Seckendorf
or Mosbach there. Even his very jester is white-headed, and his dwarf
like a withered pippin."
"Methinks it would not be easy to jest if one were old," said
Adelaide. "Gravity and age, I have always thought twin sisters."
"No, no," replied the Count, "that is because you know nought of the
world, dear girl. Why Count Frederick himself is just the same gay,
joyous soul as ever, and is as old as I am, or a year older. Now, I
dare say, to your young eyes, I seem to have reached a vast antiquity,
for it is only in looking back that space seems short. It appears but
yesterday that I was a boy."
"Nay, I do not think you so very old," replied his daughter, smiling,
"when I set you against Seckendorf, you seem but a youth."
"But when you compare me with Ferdinand," replied her father,
laughing, "I am quite an old man. Is it not so, child?"
Adelaide neither answered nor coloured, as might have been perhaps
expected, but smiled faintly and fell into thought; for it is
wonderful what a vast chain of associations is very often spread out
before the mind, by a few very simple words; and those associations
are nine times out of ten totally different from any that the speaker
intended to awaken.
It was so in this case. The comparison of her lover's light and active
youth, with the gay rose upon the cheek, the glossy unchanged hair,
the movements full of elastic life, the eye lighted up with that
heart's fire, which, like the watcher's lamp, grows slowly dimmer with
each passing hour, and her pale, thoughtful father, with his stern
look, his rigid air, his hair thickly scattered with the snow of time,
went on to take in the two elder men where the progress of decay had
passed its first stage; and at each step her fancy halted to ask, "And
will he whom I love soon be like this--and this?" Her father had said,
it seemed but yesterday that he was a boy; and Adelaide thought, "It
may be but to-morrow ere I look back upon these days and feel the
same." From time to time a sudden consciousness of the great truth,
that mortal life is but a point amidst eternity, seems to burst upon
us and is then lost again--the whisper of an angel drowned in the
tumult of earthly hopes and fears.
Before she had roused herself from her reverie, Seckendorf had taken
up the conversation, saying, "And so, my good lord, Count Frederick is
as gay and jovial as ever? I remember you and him, and the late Count,
your brother, all curly headed boys together--two merry ones and one
grave one; for you were always more serious than the rest."
"Because I had less cause for merriment," replied the Count, with a
cloud coming over his brow. "They wanted to make a priest of me at
that time, Seckendorf; and it was not to my taste--But do not let us
talk of those days. The past is always a sad subject. You will see our
friend to-morrow; for he will be here ere nightfall, and may stop a
week or more, so that we must have all things prepared. The great
hall, too, must be made ready; for we shall not have room here. The
casements must be mended early to-morrow; and the dust cleaned off the
walls and banners."
Seckendorf did not answer, but looked at the Count stedfastly, with an
inquiring air, in reply to which his lord nodded, saying, "It must be
done."
"By my faith! my good lord," cried Karl von Mosbach, "you won't get
many people willing to do it; for every one says that the hall is
haunted; and we love not even passing by the door."
"We will have it sprinkled with holy water," replied the Count,
somewhat bitterly; "but do not tell me that any of my men will refuse
to obey my orders, or I will shame you all by a girl."
There was no reply; and the Count demanded angrily, addressing himself
to none in particular, "Are you afraid? Here, Adelaide, will you
undertake to deck the hall with flowers, and strew the floor with
rushes?"
"Willingly, willingly, my dear father," answered the fair girl; "and
you shall see how gaily I will trick it out."
"I beseech you, my lord, to pardon me," said Ferdinand, "but I am not
afraid at all to obey anything that you command; and I can very well
spare the Lady Adelaide the trouble in the hall; if she will but
wreathe the garlands for me."
"You have a heart of steel, good youth," replied the Count; "what if I
tell you now to go and bring me the banner which hangs between the
shields at the farther end of the hall?"
"I will do it at once, my lord," replied Ferdinand, rising.
The Count fixed his eyes upon him, and Adelaide also gazed at him
earnestly. The young man's cheek might lose a shade of colour; but
still he seemed perfectly willing; and his lord nodded, saying, "Go!"
"I must take a light, or I may not be able to get down the banner,"
replied Ferdinand.
"The moon shines clear through the casements," answered the Count.
"You will need no other light."
The young man made no reply, but drew his sword-belt a little forward
and walked calmly to the door. One or two of the men followed him out
of the room; not with the intention of accompanying him; for none of
them very much liked the task, but merely with the idle curiosity of
seeing him cross the passages and enter the hall. In a minute or two
they returned; and one of them said, "He has got in, my lord, but
whether he will come out again, I can't tell."
"Got in!" repeated the Count, "What do you mean, Ernst?"
"Why, we watched him from the stone steps," replied the soldier, "and
he lifted the latch and shook the door, but at first it would not
open. After a while, however, it was suddenly flung back, and in he
went."
"Did he close it behind him?" asked the Count, and Adelaide gazed
anxiously on the man's face, in expectation of his answer.
"Some one did," replied the soldier, "but I can't tell whether it was
he or not."
Thus saying he took his seat again at the table, and all remained
silent for several minutes, waiting with different degrees of anxiety
for the result.
"The boy is mad," murmured Seckendorf, to himself, after two or three
more minutes had elapsed; and then he added aloud, "Hundred thousand!
we must not leave this lad to be strangled by the ghosts, or devils,
or whatever they are, my lord."
"I will go myself," replied the Count, rising from the table; "let
those who will, follow me."
"Stay, let us get some torches," cried Karl von Mosbach.
But just at that moment there was a clang which shook the whole
castle; and while the party assembled gazed on each other's faces in
doubt and consternation, the door of the hall in which they were was
thrown quickly open, and Ferdinand entered bearing a banner in his
hand. His face was very pale; but his brow was stern and contracted,
and advancing direct towards the Count, who had come down from the
step on which his table was raised, he laid the banner before him.
His lord gazed from the banner to his face, and from his face back to
the banner, which was torn and soiled, and stained in many places with
blood. "How is this?" he exclaimed, at length. "This is not what I
sent you for!"
"This is the banner, my lord," replied Ferdinand; "which was hanging
between the two shields at the farther end of the hall, over your
chair of state."
Old Seckendorf bent down over the tattered silk, on which was
embroidered a lion with its paw upon a crescent; and as he did so, he
murmured, with a shake of the head, "Your brother's banner, Sir, which
he carried with him to the East."
"What have you seen?" demanded the Count, sinking his voice, and
fixing his eyes upon the young man's countenance.
"Not now, my lord," replied Ferdinand, in the same low tone; "another
time, when you are alone, and have leisure."
The Count made no reply, but seated himself at the table, and leaned
his head thoughtfully upon his hand for a moment or two, while the
rest of the party remained in groups around, some gazing from a
distance at the banner, some looking at it more closely, but none
speaking in a louder tone than a low whisper. It was not, indeed, that
they were kept silent by any ceremonious respect for their lord; for
those were days of much homely freedom of demeanour; and that distance
and reserve did not exist between a chief and his followers which a
higher and more fastidious state of civilization has introduced. But
there was a feeling of awe approaching to terror, in the bosoms of
all, which oppressed them in their speech. Each asked himself, what
could this mysterious event mean? how had the banner come where it was
found? what did it all portend? for none, in those days of
superstition, doubted that the event which had just taken place was an
omen of others yet to come. The pale cheek with which Ferdinand of
Altenburg had returned, too, and his grave stern look, as he stood by
the table where he had lately been sitting, attracted observation, and
led every one to believe that there was more to be told, though they
had not heard his reply to their lord's question.
At length, however, to the surprise of all, the Count suddenly shook
off his gloomy and abstracted look, and pushed across the flagon of
choice wine, which stood at his right, to his young follower, saying,
with a laugh, "Come, drink a cup of wine to me, Ferdinand the
ghost-queller. By the Lord! there is not a braver man amongst us than
thou art, boy. Would to Heaven! that all here would follow thine
example. I, for one, will do so, and think no more of these strange
things than if they were but the whisperings of the wind through the
trees. Drink, good youth! drink."
Ferdinand filled a cup and drank to his lord; and the next moment the
Count rose again, exclaiming, "Now, to bed, to bed, we must all be up
by cock-crow for our preparations. I will sup in the old hall
to-morrow, if all the devils on the earth or under it should be its
tenants;" and thus saying he left the room, followed quickly by
Ferdinand, who did not choose to undergo the questionings of his
comrades. The others remained for a few minutes, shaking the wise head
and commenting gravely; and then by threes and fours quitted the hall,
and retired to rest; but there was much oil burned in the Castle of
Ehrenstein that night.