Yes truly, a recluse, or at least something like it, did poor Sintram
now become! For towards the time of the approaching Christmas festival
his fearful dreams came over him, and seized him so fiercely, that all
the esquires and servants fled with shrieks out of the castle, and would
never venture back again. No one remained with him except Rolf and the
old castellan. After a while, indeed, Sintram became calm, but he went
about looking so pallid and still that he might have been taken for a
wandering corpse. No comforting of the good Rolf, no devout soothing
lays, were of any avail; and the castellan, with his fierce, scarred
features, his head almost entirely bald from a huge sword-cut, his
stubborn silence, seemed like a yet darker shadow of the miserable
knight. Rolf often thought of going to summon the holy chaplain of
Drontheim; but how could he have left his lord alone with the gloomy
castellan, a man who at all times raised in him a secret horror? Biorn
had long had this wild strange warrior in his service, and honoured him
on account of his unshaken fidelity and his fearless courage, though
neither the knight nor any one else knew whence the castellan came, nor,
indeed, exactly who he was. Very few people knew by what name to
call him; but that was the more needless, since he never entered into
discourse with any one. He was the castellan of the stone fortress on
the Rocks of the Moon, and nothing more.
Rolf committed his deep heartfelt cares to the merciful God, trusting
that he would soon come to his aid; and the merciful God did not fail
him. For on Christmas eve the bell at the drawbridge sounded, and Rolf,
looking over the battlements, saw the chaplain of Drontheim standing
there, with a companion indeed that surprised him,--for close beside him
appeared the crazy pilgrim, and the dead men’s bones on his dark mantle
shone very strangely in the glimmering starlight: but the sight of the
chaplain filled the good Rolf too full of joy to leave room for any
doubt in his mind; for, thought he, whoever comes with him cannot but be
welcome! And so he let them both in with respectful haste, and ushered
them up to the hall, where Sintram, pale and with a fixed look, was
sitting under the light of one flickering lamp. Rolf was obliged to
support and assist the crazy pilgrim up the stairs, for he was quite
benumbed with cold.
“I bring you a greeting from your mother,” said the chaplain as he
came in; and immediately a sweet smile passed over the young knight’s
countenance, and its deadly pallidness gave place to a bright soft glow.
“O Heaven!” murmured he, “does then my mother yet live, and does she
care to know anything about me?”
“She is endowed with a wonderful presentiment of the future,” replied
the chaplain; “and all that you ought either to do or to leave undone
is faithfully mirrored in various ways in her mind, during a half-waking
trance. Now she knows of your deep sorrow, and she sends me, the
father-confessor of her convent, to comfort you, but at the same time to
warn you; for, as she affirms, and as I am also inclined to think, many
strange and heavy trials lie before you.”
Sintram bowed himself towards the chaplain with his arms crossed
over his breast, and said, with a gentle smile, “Much have I been
favoured--more, a thousand times more, than I could have dared to hope
in my best hours--by this greeting from my mother, and your visit,
reverend sir; and all after falling more fearfully low than I had ever
fallen before. The mercy of the Lord is great; and how heavy soever may
be the weight and punishment which He may send, I trust, with His grace,
to be able to bear it.”
Just then the door opened, and the castellan came in with a torch in his
hand, the red glare of which made his face look the colour of blood. He
cast a terrified glance at the crazy pilgrim, who had just sunk back
in a swoon, and was supported on his seat and tended by Rolf; then
he stared with astonishment at the chaplain, and at last murmured,
“A strange meeting! I believe that the hour for confession and
reconciliation is now arrived.”
“I believe so too,” replied the priest, who had heard his low whisper;
“this seems to be truly a day rich in grace and peace. That poor
man yonder, whom I found half-frozen by the way, would make a full
confession to me at once, before he followed me to a place of shelter.
Do as he has done, my dark-browed warrior, and delay not your good
purpose for one instant.”
Thereupon he left the room with the willing castellan, but he turned
back to say, “Sir Knight and your esquire! take good care the while of
my sick charge.”
Sintram and Rolf did according to the chaplain’s desire: and when at
length their cordials made the pilgrim open his eyes once again, the
young knight said to him, with a friendly smile, “Seest thou? thou art
come to visit me after all. Why didst thou refuse me when, a few nights
ago, I asked thee so earnestly to come? Perhaps I may have spoken wildly
and hastily. Did that scare thee away?”
A sudden expression of fear came over the pilgrim’s countenance; but
soon he again looked up at Sintram with an air of gentle humility,
saying, “O my dear, dear lord, I am most entirely devoted to you--only
never speak to me of former passages between you and me. I am terrified
whenever you do it. For, my lord, either I am mad and have forgotten all
that is past, or that Being has met you in the wood, whom I look upon as
my very powerful twin brother.”
Sintram laid his hand gently on the pilgrim’s mouth, as he answered,
“Say nothing more about that matter: I most willingly promise to be
silent.”
Neither he nor old Rolf could understand what appeared to them so awful
in the whole matter; but both shuddered.
After a short pause the pilgrim said, “I would rather sing you a song--a
soft, comforting song. Have you not a lute here?”
Rolf fetched one; and the pilgrim, half-raising himself on the couch,
sang the following words:
“When death is coming near,
When thy heart shrinks in fear
And thy limbs fail,
Then raise thy hands and pray
To Him who smooths thy way
Through the dark vale.
Seest thou the eastern dawn,
Hearst thou in the red morn
The angel’s song?
Oh, lift thy drooping head,
Thou who in gloom and dread
Hast lain so long.
Death comes to set thee free;
Oh, meet him cheerily
As thy true friend,
And all thy fears shall cease,
And in eternal peace
Thy penance end.”
“Amen,” said Sintram and Rolf, folding their hands; and whilst the last
chords of the lute still resounded, the chaplain and the castellan came
slowly and gently into the room. “I bring a precious Christmas gift,”
said the priest. “After many sad years, hope of reconciliation and peace
of conscience are returning to a noble, disturbed mind. This concerns
thee, beloved pilgrim; and do thou, my Sintram, with a joyful trust in
God, take encouragement and example from it.”
“More than twenty years ago,” began the castellan, at a sign from the
chaplain--“more than twenty years ago I was a bold shepherd, driving
my flock up the mountains. A young knight followed me, whom they called
Weigand the Slender. He wanted to buy of me my favourite little lamb for
his fair bride, and offered me much red gold for it. I sturdily refused.
Over-bold youth boiled up in us both. A stroke of his sword hurled me
senseless down the precipice.
“Not killed?” asked the pilgrim in a scarce audible voice.
“I am no ghost,” replied the castellan, somewhat morosely; and then,
after an earnest look from the priest, he continued, more humbly: “I
recovered slowly and in solitude, with the help of remedies which were
easily found by me, a shepherd, in our productive valleys. When I came
back into the world, no man knew me, with my scarred face, and my now
bald head. I heard a report going through the country, that on account
of this deed of his, Sir Weigand the Slender had been rejected by his
fair betrothed Verena, and how he had pined away, and she had wished
to retire into a convent, but her father had persuaded her to marry the
great knight Biorn. Then there came a fearful thirst for vengeance
into my heart, and I disowned my name, and my kindred, and my home, and
entered the service of the mighty Biorn, as a strange wild man, in order
that Weigand the Slender should always remain a murderer, and that I
might feed on his anguish. So have I fed upon it for all these long
years; I have fed frightfully upon his self-imposed banishment, upon
his cheerless return home, upon his madness. But to-day--” and hot tears
gushed from his eyes--“but to-day God has broken the hardness of my
heart; and, dear Sir Weigand, look upon yourself no more as a murderer,
and say that you will forgive me, and pray for him who has done you so
fearful an injury, and--”
Sobs choked his words. He fell at the feet of the pilgrim, who with
tears of joy pressed him to his heart, in token of forgiveness.