In those lusty ages when the Kaisers lifted high the golden goblet of
Aachen, and drank, elbow upward, the green-eyed wine of old romance,
there lived, a bow-shot from the bones of the Eleven Thousand Virgins and
the Three Holy Kings, a prosperous Rhinelander, by name Gottlieb
Groschen, or, as it was sometimes ennobled, Gottlieb von Groschen; than
whom no wealthier merchant bartered for the glory of his ancient mother-
city, nor more honoured burgess swallowed impartially red juice and white
under the shadow of his own fig-tree.
Vine-hills, among the hottest sun-bibbers of the Rheingau, glistened in
the roll of Gottlieb's possessions; corn-acres below Cologne; basalt-
quarries about Linz; mineral-springs in Nassau, a legacy of the Romans to
the genius and enterprise of the first of German traders. He could have
bought up every hawking crag, owner and all, from Hatto's Tower to
Rheineck. Lore-ley, combing her yellow locks against the night-cloud,
beheld old Gottlieb's rafts endlessly stealing on the moonlight through
the iron pass she peoples above St. Goar. A wailful host were the wives
of his raftsmen widowed there by her watery music!
This worthy citizen of Cologne held vasty manuscript letters of the
Kaiser addressed to him:
'Dear Well-born son and Subject of mine, Gottlieb!' and he was easy with
the proudest princes of the Holy German Realm. For Gottlieb was a money-
lender and an honest man in one body. He laid out for the plenteous
harvests of usury, not pressing the seasons with too much rigour. 'I sow
my seed in winter,' said he, 'and hope to reap good profit in autumn; but
if the crop be scanty, better let it lie and fatten the soil.'
'Old earth's the wisest creditor,' he would add; 'she never squeezes the
sun, but just takes what he can give her year by year, and so makes sure
of good annual interest.'
Therefore when people asked Gottlieb how he had risen to such a pinnacle
of fortune, the old merchant screwed his eye into its wisest corner, and
answered slyly, 'Because I 've always been a student of the heavenly
bodies'; a communication which failed not to make the orbs and systems
objects of ardent popular worship in Cologne, where the science was long
since considered alchymic, and still may be.
Seldom could the Kaiser go to war on Welschland without first taking
earnest counsel of his Well-born son and Subject Gottlieb, and lightening
his chests. Indeed the imperial pastime must have ceased, and the Kaiser
had languished but for him. Cologne counted its illustrious citizen
something more than man. The burghers doffed when he passed; and
scampish leather-draggled urchins gazed after him with praeternatural
respect on their hanging chins, as if a gold-mine of great girth had
walked through the awe-struck game.
But, for the young men of Cologne he had a higher claim to reverence as
father of the fair Margarita, the White Rose of Germany; a noble maiden,
peerless, and a jewel for princes.
The devotion of these youths should give them a name in chivalry. In her
honour, daily and nightly, they earned among themselves black bruises and
paraded discoloured countenances, with the humble hope to find it
pleasing in her sight. The tender fanatics went in bands up and down
Rhineland, challenging wayfarers and the peasantry with staff and beaker
to acknowledge the supremacy of their mistress. Whoso of them journeyed
into foreign parts, wrote home boasting how many times his head had been
broken on behalf of the fair Margarita; and if this happened very often,
a spirit of envy was created, which compelled him, when he returned, to
verify his prowess on no less than a score of his rivals. Not to possess
a beauty-scar, as the wounds received in these endless combats were
called, became the sign of inferiority, so that much voluntary maiming
was conjectured to be going on; and to obviate this piece of treachery,
minutes of fights were taken and attested, setting forth that a certain
glorious cut or crack was honourably won in fair field; on what occasion;
and from whom; every member of the White Rose Club keeping his particular
scroll, and, on days of festival and holiday, wearing it haughtily in his
helm. Strangers entering Cologne were astonished at the hideous
appearance of the striplings, and thought they never had observed so ugly
a race; but they were forced to admit the fine influence of beauty on
commerce, seeing that the consumption of beer increased almost hourly.
All Bavaria could not equal Cologne for quantity made away with.
The chief members of the White Rose Club were Berthold Schmidt, the rich
goldsmith's son; Dietrich Schill, son of the imperial saddler; Heinrich
Abt, Franz Endermann, and Ernst Geller, sons of chief burghers, each of
whom carried a yard-long scroll in his cap, and was too disfigured in
person for men to require an inspection of the document. They were
dangerous youths to meet, for the oaths, ceremonies, and recantations
they demanded from every wayfarer, under the rank of baron, were what few
might satisfactorily perform, if lovers of woman other than the fair
Margarita, or loyal husbands; and what none save trained heads and
stomachs could withstand, however naturally manful. The captain of the
Club was he who could drink most beer without intermediate sighing, and
whose face reckoned the proudest number of slices and mixture of colours.
The captaincy was most in dispute between Dietrich Schill and Berthold
Schmidt, who, in the heat and constancy of contention, were gradually
losing likeness to man. 'Good coin,' they gloried to reflect, 'needs no
stamp.'
One youth in Cologne held out against the standing tyranny, and chose to
do beauty homage in his own fashion, and at his leisure. It was Farina,
and oaths were registered against him over empty beer-barrels. An axiom
of the White Rose Club laid it down that everybody must be enamoured of
Margarita, and the conscience of the Club made them trebly suspicious of
those who were not members. They had the consolation of knowing that
Farina was poor, but then he was affirmed a student of Black Arts, and
from such a one the worst might reasonably be feared. He might bewitch
Margarita!
Dietrich Schill was deputed by the Club to sound the White Rose herself
on the subject of Farina, and one afternoon in the vintage season, when
she sat under the hot vine-poles among maiden friends, eating ripe
grapes, up sauntered Dietrich, smirking, cap in hand, with his scroll
trailed behind him.
'Wilt thou?' said Margarita, offering him a bunch.
'Unhappy villain that I am!' replied Dietrich, gesticulating fox-like
refusal; 'if I but accept a favour, I break faith with the Club.'
'Break it to pleasure me,' said Margarita, smiling wickedly.
Dietrich gasped. He stood on tiptoe to see if any of the Club were by,
and half-stretched out his hand. A mocking laugh caused him to draw it
back as if stung. The grapes fell. Farina was at Margarita's feet
offering them in return.
'Wilt thou?' said Margarita, with softer stress, and slight excess of
bloom in her cheeks.
Farina put the purple cluster to his breast, and clutched them hard on
his heart, still kneeling.
Margarita's brow and bosom seemed to be reflections of the streaming
crimson there. She shook her face to the sky, and affected laughter at
the symbol. Her companions clapped hands. Farina's eyes yearned to her
once, and then he rose and joined in the pleasantry.
Fury helped Dietrich to forget his awkwardness. He touched Farina on the
shoulder with two fingers, and muttered huskily: 'The Club never allow
that.'
Farina bowed, as to thank him deeply for the rules of the Club. 'I am
not a member, you know,' said he, and strolled to a seat close by
Margarita.
Dietrich glared after him. As head of a Club he understood the use of
symbols. He had lost a splendid opportunity, and Farina had seized it.
Farina had robbed him.
'May I speak with Mistress Margarita?' inquired the White Rose chief, in
a ragged voice.
'Surely, Dietrich! do speak,' said Margarita.
'Alone?' he continued.
'Is that allowed by the Club?' said one of the young girls, with a saucy
glance.
Dietrich deigned no reply, but awaited Margarita's decision. She
hesitated a second; then stood up her full height before him; faced him
steadily, and beckoned him some steps up the vine-path. Dietrich bowed,
and passing Farina, informed him that the Club would wring satisfaction
out of him for the insult.
Farina laughed, but answered, 'Look, you of the Club! beer-swilling has
improved your manners as much as fighting has beautified your faces. Go
on; drink and fight! but remember that the Kaiser's coming, and fellows
with him who will not be bullied.'
'What mean you?' cried Dietrich, lurching round on his enemy.
'Not so loud, friend,' returned Farina. 'Or do you wish to frighten the
maidens? I mean this, that the Club had better give as little offence as
possible, and keep their eyes as wide as they can, if they want to be of
service to Mistress Margarita.'
Dietrich turned off with a grunt.
'Now!' said Margarita.
She was tapping her foot. Dietrich grew unfaithful to the Club, and
looked at her longer than his mission warranted. She was bright as the
sunset gardens of the Golden Apples. The braids of her yellow hair were
bound in wreaths, and on one side of her head a saffron crocus was stuck
with the bell downward. Sweetness, song, and wit hung like dews of
morning on her grape-stained lips. She wore a scarlet corset with bands
of black velvet across her shoulders. The girlish gown was thin blue
stuff, and fell short over her firm-set feet, neatly cased in white
leather with buckles. There was witness in her limbs and the way she
carried her neck of an amiable, but capable, dragon, ready, when aroused,
to bristle up and guard the Golden Apples against all save the rightful
claimant. Yet her nether lip and little white chin-ball had a dreamy
droop; her frank blue eyes went straight into the speaker: the dragon
slept. It was a dangerous charm. 'For,' says the minnesinger, 'what
ornament more enchants us on a young beauty than the soft slumber of a
strength never yet called forth, and that herself knows not of! It sings
double things to the heart of knighthood; lures, and warns us; woos, and
threatens. 'Tis as nature, shining peace, yet the mother of storm.'
'There is no man,' rapturously exclaims Heinrich von der Jungferweide,
'can resist the desire to win a sweet treasure before which lies a dragon
sleeping. The very danger prattles promise.'
But the dragon must really sleep, as with Margarita.
'A sham dragon, shamming sleep, has destroyed more virgins than all the
heathen emperors,' says old Hans Aepfelmann of Duesseldorf.
Margarita's foot was tapping quicker.
'Speak, Dietrich!' she said.
Dietrich declared to the Club that at this point he muttered, 'We love
you.' Margarita was glad to believe he had not spoken of himself. He
then informed her of the fears entertained by the Club, sworn to watch
over and protect her, regarding Farina's arts.
'And what fear you?' said Margarita.
'We fear, sweet mistress, he may be in league with Sathanas,' replied
Dietrich.
'Truly, then,' said Margarita, 'of all the youths in Cologne he is the
least like his confederate.'
Dietrich gulped and winked, like a patient recovering wry-faced from an
abhorred potion.
'We have warned you, Fraulein Groschen!' he exclaimed. 'It now becomes
our duty to see that you are not snared.'
Margarita reddened, and returned: 'You are kind. But I am a Christian
maiden and not a Pagan soldan, and I do not require a body of tawny
guards at my heels.'
Thereat she flung back to her companions, and began staining her pretty
mouth with grapes anew.