In the castle, Biorn and Gabrielle and Folko of Montfaucon were sitting
round the great stone table, from which, since the arrival of his noble
guests, those suits of armour had been removed, formerly the established
companions of the lord of the castle, and placed all together in a heap
in the adjoining room. At this time, while the storm was beating so
furiously against doors and windows, it seemed as if the ancient armour
were also stirring in the next room, and Gabrielle several times half
rose from her seat in great alarm, fixing her eyes on the small iron
door, as though she expected to see an armed spectre issue therefrom,
bending with his mighty helmet through the low vaulted doorway.
The knight Biorn smiled grimly, and said, as if he had guessed her
thoughts: “Oh, he will never again come out thence; I have put an end to
that for ever.”
His guests stared at him doubtingly; and with a strange air of
unconcern, as though the storm had awakened all the fierceness of his
soul, he began the following history:
“I was once a happy man myself; I could smile, as you do, and I could
rejoice in the morning as you do; that was before the hypocritical
chaplain had so bewildered the wise mind of my lovely wife with his
canting talk, that she went into a cloister, and left me alone with our
wild boy. That was not fair usage from the fair Verena. Well, so it was,
that in the first days of her dawning beauty, before I knew her, many
knights sought her hand, amongst whom was Sir Weigand the Slender;
and towards him the gentle maiden showed herself the most favourably
inclined. Her parents were well aware that Weigand’s rank and station
were little below their own, and that his early fame as a warrior
without reproach stood high; so that before long Verena and he were
accounted as affianced. It happened one day that they were walking
together in the orchard, when a shepherd was driving his flock up the
mountain beyond. The maiden saw a little snow-white lamb frolicking
gaily, and longed for it. Weigand vaults over the railings, overtakes
the shepherd, and offers him two gold bracelets for the lamb. But the
shepherd will not part with it, and scarcely listens to the knight,
going quietly the while up the mountain-side, with Weigand close upon
him. At last Weigand loses patience. He threatens; and the shepherd,
sturdy and proud like all of his race in our northern land, threatens
in return. Suddenly Weigand’s sword resounds upon his head,--the stroke
should have fallen flat, but who can control a fiery horse or a drawn
sword? The bleeding shepherd, with a cloven skull, falls down the
precipice; his frightened flock bleats on the mountain. Only the little
lamb runs in its terror to the orchard, pushes itself through the
garden-rails, and lies at Verena’s feet, as if asking for help, all
red with its master’s blood. She took it up in her arms, and from that
moment never suffered Weigand the Slender to appear again before her
face. She continued to cherish the little lamb, and seemed to take
pleasure in nothing else in the world, and became pale and turned
towards heaven, as the lilies are. She would soon have taken the veil,
but just then I came to aid her father in a bloody war, and rescued
him from his enemies. The old man represented this to her, and, softly
smiling, she gave me her lovely hand. His grief would not suffer the
unhappy Weigand to remain in his own country. It drove him forth as a
pilgrim to Asia, whence our forefathers came, and there he did wonderful
deeds, both of valour and self-abasement. Truly, my heart was strangely
weak when I heard him spoken of at that time. After some years he
returned, and wished to build a church or monastery on that mountain
towards the west, whence the walls of my castle are distinctly seen.
It was said that he wished to become a priest there, but it fell out
otherwise. For some pirates had sailed from the southern seas, and,
hearing of the building of this monastery, their chief thought to
find much gold belonging to the lord of the castle and to the master
builders, or else, if he surprised and carried them off, to extort from
them a mighty ransom. He did not yet know northern courage and northern
weapons; but he soon gained that knowledge. Having landed in the creek
under the black rocks, he made his way through a by-path up to the
building, surrounded it, and thought in himself that the affair was now
ended. Ha! then out rushed Weigand and his builders, and fell upon them
with swords and hatchets and hammers. The heathens fled away to their
ships, with Weigand behind to take vengeance on them. In passing by our
castle he caught a sight of Verena on the terrace, and, for the first
time during so many years, she bestowed a courteous and kind salutation
on the glowing victor. At that moment a dagger, hurled by one of the
pirates in the midst of his hasty flight, struck Weigand’s uncovered
head, and he fell to the ground bleeding and insensible. We completed
the rout of the heathens: then I had the wounded knight brought into the
castle; and my pale Verena glowed as lilies in the light of the morning
sun, and Weigand opened his eyes with a smile when he was brought near
her. He refused to be taken into any room but the small one close to
this where the armour is now placed; for he said that he felt as if
it were a cell like that which he hoped soon to inhabit in his quiet
cloister. All was done after his wish: my sweet Verena nursed him, and
he appeared at first to be on the straightest road to recovery; but his
head continued weak and liable to be confused by the slightest emotion,
his walk was rather a falling than a walking, and his cheeks were
colourless. We could not let him go. When we were sitting here together
in the evening, he used always to come tottering into the hall through
the low doorway; and my heart was sad and wrathful too, when the soft
eyes of Verena beamed so sweetly on him, and a glow like that of the
evening sky hovered over her lily cheeks. But I bore it, and I could
have borne it to the end of our lives,--when, alas! Verena went into a
cloister!”
His head fell so heavily on his folded hands, that the stone table
seemed to groan beneath it, and he remained a long while motionless as a
corpse. When he again raised himself up, his eyes glared fearfully as he
looked round the hall, and he said to Folko: “Your beloved Hamburghers,
Gotthard Lenz, and Rudlieb his son, they have much to answer for! Who
bid them come and be shipwrecked so close to my castle?”
Folko cast a piercing look on him, and a fearful inquiry was on the
point of escaping his lips, but another look at the trembling Gabrielle
made him silent, at least for the present moment, and the knight Biorn
continued his narrative.
“Verena was with her nuns, I was left alone, and my despair had driven
me throughout the day through forest and brook and mountain. In the
twilight I returned to my deserted castle, and scarcely was I in the
hall, when the little door creaked, and Weigand, who had slept through
all, crept towards me and asked: ‘Where can Verena be?’ Then I became as
mad, and howled to him, ‘She is gone mad, and so am I, and you also, and
now we are all mad!’ Merciful Heaven, the wound on his head burst open,
and a dark stream flowed over his face--ah! how different from the
redness when Verena met him at the castle-gate; and he rushed forth,
raving mad, into the wilderness without, and ever since has wandered all
around as a crazy pilgrim.”
He was silent, and so were Folko and Gabrielle, all three pale and cold
like images of the dead. At length the fearful narrator added in a low
voice, and as if he were quite exhausted: “He has visited me since that
time, but he will never again come through the little door. Have I not
established peace and order in my castle?”