How Theobaldo came with the Magic Ring, and of his
fearful incantations.
In the solemn ancestral hall, the venerable Sir Hugh was once more
seated all alone, with the great silver wine-cup before him on the
round table. He looked anxiously for the arrival of his honoured friend
Walter the minstrel; and thought to himself,--“Truly, I can scarcely
dwell here without that old man and his wonderful songs; for my own
life, that has formerly been divided between Norway, France, Italy,
and Greece,--moreover, that wont to be so varied by warlike adventures
and achievements,--has now declined into melancholy old age. I have
withered, lonely and neglected, like the fallen leaves in autumn. No
grand adventures are now in store for me; no change either of joy
or sorrow. It were indeed better, then, if the heroic deeds of our
ancestors were evermore sounded in mine ears, that I might dream of
them still as the last sleep slowly steals upon me. Walter, Walter!
where tarriest thou so long!”
With a pale agitated visage, a squire now stept into the hall, and
said,--“Sir knight, your honoured son, Otto von Trautwangen, is even
now arrived at the castle.”
“And should’st thou then wear the hues of death on thine aspect,” said
the knight, “when thou pronouncest these words, that are to me like
renewed life? Bring hither to my presence that noble youth, that I may
welcome him as a new-risen star, shedding once more light and happiness
on mine old age.”--Hereupon the squire muttered some inarticulate
words, and opened the great folding doors; while Sir Hugh, in order
to meet his coming guest, had, with joy gleaming in his eyes, raised
himself up from his old armchair.
Then, hark! there was a rustling, as of long garments, on the
staircase. The doors were thrown open, and a man, wrapt in hideous
black robes, came with sounding steps across the threshold, holding up
his right arm as if threatening all who came in his way. The folding
doors again closed, and one could hear how the terrified squire ran
headlong, as if demons pursued him, down stairs.--“Where is my son?”
cried the old man, turning pale, and falling back into his chair.--“Thy
son now stands before thee,” said the spectral stranger; and, alas! Sir
Hugh saw but too well that it was Otto’s features that now glared upon
him.--“Hast thou become a monk?” said the old warrior,--“a black-robed
Benedictine monk?”--After these words it seemed as if his youthful
vigour had revived, and he added, in a deep and thundering voice,--“Who
then has given thee permission for what thou hast done? Right sternly
shall I yet call that convent to account, whose prior has dared to
transform the young Knight of Trautwangen into a cowled priest.”--“I
am not the young Knight of Trautwangen,” said the Benedictine in a
sharp tone; “in the world I was named Ottur. I am the son of the
beautiful Astrid and the brave Hugur; but now I am named brother
Zelotes.”
The old man sat motionless in his chair. That energy to which he had
been roused was indeed not lost; but, as if petrified by his surprise,
he gazed fixedly on the son who had so unexpectedly started up before
him.
“Thou art a dear and highly-honoured branch of a noble tree,” continued
the monk, “and if time is yet allowed us, thou shalt be saved from
the consuming fires of hell; and therefore our abbot has given me
permission to come hither for thy conversion, ere the last shadows of
old age and death have settled around thee!”
Thereafter he took his place right opposite to the knight, and began
a discourse on the mysteries of our holy faith, and on penitence,
whereat the listener shuddered, and the blood ran cold in every vein;
while, as the preacher’s zeal increased, and his voice thundered
through the vaulted hall, it seemed as if flames of consuming fire
flashed around him.
The monk continued his discourse, and his deep tones overpowered the
sounds of mirth and gladness which had now begun in the castle-court
and outer-halls. Sir Otto, who had already been informed of the old
Sir Hugh’s revival from his supposed death, having rode on before his
party, had now arrived at the castle, and ere the squires had time
to tell him of the ghastly apparition of the monkish double-goer, he
rushed up the staircase and entered the hall.
“Ottur, Ottur! what would’st thou here?” cried he. “Thou art indeed
my half-brother, and this brave old hero should be equally dear to
us both.”--Then he threw his arms round his father’s neck, in whose
heart new life and courage seemed revived, when he heard the clang of
Sir Otto’s armour, and felt the weight of his iron armlets; while,
as he caressed his beloved son, he cast a stern resentful look on the
monk.--“I have long since known what thou hast now told me,” said the
Benedictine, answering his brother; “I learned it in the convent, and
on the road hither, where also we met together. In dreams, too, I have
had warnings of the truth; but now I am no longer named Ottur. He is
as if dead and buried, and the mortal who stands here is known only as
the monk Zelotes.” Again he would have renewed, in the same thundering
voice, his penitential exhortations; but Sir Otto stretched out his
arm, and cried aloud,--“How darest thou, reckless man, address such
words of reproach to that noble and far-famed hero, now when thou
knowest that he is thy father?”--“Even for that very reason have I
thus spoken,” answered Zelotes. “So long as I have breath to speak, he
shall not become a prey to the demons, who are ever on the watch, and
would gladly drag him down to the regions of eternal torment.”--“Nay,
mark you,” said Sir Otto, “he will be enabled to protect himself from
these frightful foes even without thy violent admonitions. Be silent,
then, and disturb him not in the sanctity of his old age, nor break
the peace of this happy meeting. Moreover, I can this day bring him
such joyful news, as will doubtless lead him with more certainty to
heaven, than the threatening of all the monks that could be found in
the world.”--“Thou hast the right doubtless of judging according to
thine own conscience,” said Zelotes, still persisting in his discourse;
while Sir Otto, not heeding him any more, announced, in a loud voice
to the old man, the happy tidings, that his mother was yet alive, and
that, in the spirit of love and peace, she was now drawing near to the
castle of Trautwangen, which she had long desired to visit. So the old
man sat there like a grey ruin between two roaring streams, while the
young men, one on each side, both vehemently addressed him.
But, hark! a noise suddenly arose from the castle-court, which drowned
their contention. A voice called out aloud,--“Uguccione! Uguccione!
thou murderer! come down from thy fortress, for Lisberta’s champion
is come to inflict just vengeance on thy head!” Sir Hugh looked round
him with astonishment, and the two young men were silent. At length he
said, as if awakening from a dream,--“The world yet stands firm and
steadfast,--the day of judgment is not come for all,--but _mine_ is
doubtless arrived. Follow me, children, and aid me by your prayers!”
With these words he rose up slowly, and, resting on Otto’s shoulder,
moved towards the door. The youths did not venture to ask the venerable
old man what had now caused his disquietude; but he remarked their
inquiring looks, and said,--“I know not indeed by what frightful power
I am now called into the castle-court; but I am forced thither by
irresistible attraction. I hear names, at whose very sound alone I
feel that I am bound to shed my heart’s blood as an atonement for my
past crimes; yet, long as Sir Hugh von Trautwangen lives, it shall
never be said that he was deemed a coward. Forward then, children,
that I may encounter boldly the doom that now awaits me!” So, leaning
still on Sir Otto, he stepped down stairs, the monk following, and
singing to himself, all the way, a melancholy hymn, that sounded like a
dirge. While listening to his murmurs, one might have thought that the
old champion was now dead, and that the young men went to attend his
obsequies.
In the court below, they found assembled a multitude of people. Not
only all the squires and other retainers of the castle, but many
countrymen from the neighbouring villages, were here collected, gazing
at a man in the eastern dress, who had stationed himself in the middle
of the square, and continued unceasingly to call aloud in the same
frightful tones which had been heard so plainly in the hall above. At
the same time he constantly twisted round and round on a finger of
his right hand a glittering ring; and Sir Hugh, recognising the gem,
seated himself quietly on a stone, beneath a tall lime-tree that grew
in the court, and said, “The strange man, who stands yonder, hath
on his finger the powerful Magic Ring of the beautiful Astrid, and
therewith Heaven hath also bestowed on him the power to dispose of my
life. Moreover, he hath doubtless come hither in order to doom me to
death.” “Thine own conscience then condemns thee, hoary-headed sinner,”
cried the stranger; and at the same moment Otto recognised in him his
old squire and friend Theobaldo. “Diephold!” cried he, for by this
German name, instead of Theobaldo, he had been wont in former days to
address him; “Diephold, it is my father to whom thou now speakest.”
“Indeed?” said Theobaldo, turning pale and confused; “then we are
brothers, for I am the son of Uguccione and the unfortunate Lisberta.
Moreover, Uguccione and this grey-headed warrior are one and the same,
and, therefore, my father must fall by my hand; for I have sworn on
my mother’s grave, that I would avenge her wrongs by the death of her
seducer!” “Never, never!” cried Sir Otto, drawing his sword, and taking
his station before the old hero. “Here I shall maintain the combat to
the last, for victory or death.” His words were echoed in the next
moment by Zelotes, who embraced his father with his wide black robes,
and cried aloud, “Never shall he be injured, unless by one who shall
first cut through these consecrated garments. Sir Hugur shall yet live
to do penance for his crimes.” “Truly thou can’st wrap him in a monk’s
cowl if thou wilt,” said Theobaldo, with a scornful smile; “but there
is no veil so dense that my invisible agents may not find their way,
and force him to bitter repentance.” With these words he seated himself
on the ground, and with the ring began to describe strange figures on
the grass.
There were deep vaults beneath the castle-court; and, not long after
Theobaldo had begun his enchantments, hark! there was a strange
rustling under ground. A cold shuddering crept over the bystanders,
as if they had been seized and shaken by supernatural arms; nay, it
seemed to many a one, as if the spectral forms of those who had long
lain mouldering in the grave came forth and grinned ghastlily upon
them. Then the same rustling sound rose upwards, and spread through the
branches of the venerable elm and lime-trees. There was a sound too
of many voices, though no one knew what they uttered, and a beating
of invisible wings. All were terrified and silent; only the old Sir
Hugh von Trautwangen lifted up his voice, that sounded more fearfully,
shrouded as he still was by the black garments of the monk. He cried
aloud, that the beautiful Astrid stood before him with her deadly
wound, from which the last life-blood now ebbed away; that the poor
forsaken Lisberta came, and had with one look made his heart cold as
the grave wherein she was now laid. He spoke too of many other damsels
and ladies to whom he had plighted faith and troth, but whom he had
thereafter neglected:--all came around him now, as if to inflict
fearful judgment on their betrayer. Yet Sir Hugh von Trautwangen
addressed them in a deep heroic tone, like one who indeed suffers more
than words could pourtray, and is conscious of his own guilt, yet whose
courage nevertheless is unchanged and unconquerable.
At length Theobaldo sprang up from the ground, and cried to the
spectators, “Be it your duty then to inflict just punishment on the
guilty! You hear how, by the invincible pride of his tones, that he is
indeed calling down the vengeance of Heaven on his own head. I would
not willingly become a parricide, though his conduct towards Lisberta
and me has been so horrible; but if you value the safety of your towns
and villages, if you wish even that the very ground on which you stand
should be saved from destruction, then make an end of him at once, for
he is not fit to live in this world. Neither the skies nor the earth
can longer endure to look upon him. Listen then, and behold!” With
these last words, he threw the Magic Ring high in the air, and though
the skies were before clear, yet immediately a dark sulphureous cloud
appeared, and a sudden clap of thunder broke over their heads. At the
same moment the ground shook beneath them; blue flames arose, as if
demons and fiery serpents were stretching out their tongues from the
earth; and, in the delirium of terror, all the peasants and people who
were there present ran to inflict vengeance on the devoted victim.
Meanwhile, Sir Otto courageously kept his station to protect his
father; and Zelotes, as if once more changed into a bold warrior of the
north, called unceasingly, “Strike then well, brother, spare them not,
the pitiful cowards! If I had but my sword here, that bears thy name,
I would not fail to assist thee. But thy sword is named Ottur, and must
bear my part,--strike them well, and spare not!”