TIME’S CHANGES.
The old city rests after its day’s work in the soft late Spring
gloaming. Tower and spire and gabled roof catch the last lingering
reflections of the golden and crimson clouds where the sun went down.
Already this long time the storks have been gravely reposing in
their loftily pitched nests, but the swallows and martins are still
discussing their respective claims to the most desirable sleeping
accommodation afforded by the fretted eaves of the Cathedral. A few
stars are beginning to glimmer in the deep blue sky, which, however, is
only to be caught in glimpses from the footway of the narrow streets,
between whose overhanging stories and great wooden galleries, and
facades heavy with carving, even the moon’s glare is hardly able to
penetrate. The gaudy brilliancy of the countless street signs has
not yet been obscured by the gathering shadows, and here a snow-white
swift-footed stag, there a grizzly bear, next door a wild man,
appalling in his hirsute but insufficient covering, brandishes his
terrible knotted club. Across the road, and far more frightful still,
only yielding indeed in fearsomeness to the strong-minded of later
days, is the “Strong Woman,” who appears to be literally striding
from her cast-iron frame, with bristling hyæna-like locks. Scarcely a
shop which has not its sign; hardly a burgher’s dwelling lacking its
cognizance or coat of arms; while for the most part the spaces between
the mullioned casements are gorgeous with fresco painting, picturing
forth the labours of the mighty Hercules, the departure of the good
ship Argonaut, the loves of Venus and Adonis, and many another mythic
tale.
High up on their deep sloping roofs the grand old houses proclaim
their ages in gigantic figures, some of which date two and three
centuries back. Very silent and half deserted the streets are now, for
it is close upon seven and supper-time; and through half-open doors
and lattice panes, peal forth now and again shouts of merry laughter
mingled with the hum of voices; while under the little footbridges,
and the arching foundations of the old houses themselves, the river
gurgles onward towards open country. Even the great fountain in the
Dom-Platz is so utterly deserted that the big dolphins seem almost to
be finding leisure to take holiday, and spout lazily; and their blunt
jaws look agape with delight at the sweet organ sounds floating through
the Cathedral doors, for Master Wolfgang Dachstein is just a second
Orpheus, and has been known many a time to have charmed dead souls back
to new life, and to have softened hearts stony as one infers these
monsters have.
This morning early, early enough to celebrate the first mass, Bishop
John returned. All day since, however, he has not stirred from the
palace. Work has accumulated for him after his long absence; and he has
been very busy looking through his correspondence, and attending to the
most pressing claims upon him. A bishop’s life when he does his duty is
no sinecure; and John of Manderscheid has always striven to be worthy
of his calling. During these past two months, he has been making a
progress throughout his diocese, righting, as far as he might be able,
the wrongs he had found; and they were many. Three-fourths of them born
of the neglect and carelessness of the under clergy; and wherever he
came upon these sins which cried aloud to Heaven, there, as surely as
corruption follows death, he found heresy rampant. Truly indeed there
were priests sticking through evil report and good to their posts,
but comparatively these were rare in that desert of polemics which
the fair vineyard of the Church had become. And the saddest part of
it all, at least to such minds as Bishop John’s, was the reflection
that untrustworthiness had brought the Nemesis upon them. He could
look through the years of his life, and for half a dozen generations
earlier, and trace back the first faint risings of the storm now raging
so fiercely on every side. When the people had asked bread of their
priestly guides, how often had they been given stones—or worse still!
Was it then such wonder that at last they had turned elsewhere in quest
of spiritual food?
That they had found, it the bishop was too faithful a Catholic to
concede; but some baneful, and generally attractive poison, they were
certainly endeavouring to sustain their spiritual existence upon,
though to him it appeared dry tasteless stuff enough, and his heart
yearned tenderly towards those starved misguided sheep. Far and near,
hydra-headed heresy was tainting every little town and hill hamlet of
his diocese, and his bitter experiences had thinned the grey hairs
about his temples, and hollowed his worn cheeks.
Only towards sunset, wearied out with his toil, he at last indulged
himself in a question lying very near his heart. “And how goes on the
Horologe, Master Gottlieb?”
“Fairly I hope, my lord,” replied the chaplain with some hesitation.
Now that was an answer just calculated to ruffle the gentle serenity of
the Bishop’s temper. He was a tolerant patient man, but the one thing
he could not endure was want of zeal in matters temporal or spiritual.
“Whatsoever thou doest, do it with all thine heart,” was his motto.
Still, reminding himself that fidelity and plodding industry were
always stronger points with his secretary than enthusiasm, he only said
a little testily: “One doesn’t talk of hope, friend; one says a thing
is, or it isn’t, when one has to do with the Professor Dasipodius”.
“But then,” replied Gottlieb, staring in some perplexity at his
superior, “then one has not—you are aware of course, my lord, that one
has not to do with the Professor Dasipodius. He is——”
“Is what? Speak, man,” cried the startled Bishop.
“Away. Absent from Strassburg.”
“Oh,” said the Bishop with a relieved sigh, turning to his papers
again. “Taking a little holiday, eh? Well, he needs it no doubt; and
yet—how long has he been gone?”
“More than a month.”
“What is the meaning of this?” demanded the Bishop, letting his
gathered up papers fall again in a disordered heap.
“I really can’t quite say, my lord, unless—some, so I am told, consider
the Professor Dasipodius to be—ahem—pardon me, my lord—the devil;
though some,” continued the chaplain, while the Bishop gazed at him in
speechless amazement, “only go so far as to pronounce him blind.”
“Blind! What is this nonsense you are talking?”
“You knew about it, my lord?”
“I heard some ridiculous rumour as I was passing through Schlettstadt,
but I paid it no more heed than I did the wind blowing in my face. Tell
me——”
“I am doing so, my lord. Some, I was about to observe, among whom is
Master Tobias Hackernagel, the Anabaptist——”
“Ay, ay. That apostate fellow; and what has he to do with it?” demanded
the Bishop, an angry spot rising to his cheek.
“Ah. A wonderful deal, I assure you. I am told he has been the life and
soul of the whole affair. But I do not concern myself in other people’s
business, and I assure you, my lord, I know next to nothing beyond the
fact that Otto von Steinbach——”
“Holy Mother of God! Go on. And what of Otto von Steinbach?”
breathlessly challenged the Bishop.
“I was about to inform you, my lord. Otto von Steinbach is appointed in
the Professor Dasipodius’ place; at least so I am given to understand,
but——”
“Am I in my senses?”
“I am sure I hope——” began the chaplain, eyeing his chief in dubious
apprehension.
“And Radegund—Radegund von Steinbach?”
“Is about, my lord, and busy as ever. And really the Horologe looks
remarkably nice. Remarkably nice,” said Master Gottlieb, waxing
enthusiastic, then he relapsed into his normal quiescence, and
proceeded with his docketing.
“Send her here,” said the Bishop, after a silence of some minutes,
during which he seemed lost in thought.
“Whom, my lord?” asked Gottlieb, jerking his head up with a little
start.
“Mistress von Steinbach.”
The chaplain departed on his mission, and in half-an-hour Radegund
stood in the Bishop’s presence.
With a gesture which would have passed as easily for a malediction as a
blessing, he motioned her nearer to him.
“Tell me all about this?” he said.
She lifted her dark eyes questioningly to his face.
“I am not to be trifled with,” he returned, for it seemed that a
conspiracy to torment him had been set on foot.
“Heaven forbid,” she said gravely.
“Do you dare to stand there,” he demanded, raising his voice, “and
feign ignorance of what I mean? When it is your—your own brother who
is appointed in Dasipodius’ place? If my hearing is to be believed,
that is.”
“It is, my lord, precisely as you say,” calmly replied the artist.
“And you pretend——”
“I am not given to pretence. And whether the Horologe has come to be
a marvel of finish,” and her lips curled mockingly, “or whether it
may be chaos confounded, I know no more than you do, my Lord Bishop;
for since the Professor Dasipodius was called upon to relinquish his
appointment——”
“At your instigation, treacherous woman! To make way for your flesh and
blood!”
Radegund’s eyes glittered. “Have a care, my lord,” she said through her
set teeth.
“Oh! I know your power,” said the Bishop hoarsely; “and how it can
almost make wrong itself seem right. I know it well, but I believed you
to be true; and I thought that your admiration for Dasipodius—ah, you
have need to blush; I thought, I say, your sense of appreciation of the
Professor Dasipodius’ great gifts, would have shielded you from such
base corruption as this. And yet, no sooner is my back turned, than I
find you moving heaven and earth to set this fellow, this jack-a-dandy,
in his place. And why, heaven save us all! because he is your brother!
Oh shame! shame!”
“My lord, you do me foul injustice.”
“Oh! I cry your pardon, mistress. Yes, one needs to be nice with one’s
words in these days. I should have said that you permitted this,
stretched out no preventing hand.”
“I had no power.”
“When she is pleased to exercise it, Mistress von Steinbach’s power is
boundless.”
“Conrad Dasipodius at least does not acknowledge it,” she said coldly,
“and he spurned the poor offers of aid I made him.”
“How?” asked the Bishop in gentler accents.
And then Radegund related how, on Dasipodius’ blindness being
discovered, the enquiry had been instituted at the Chancellery.
“But how—how did they discover it?” insisted the Bishop.
“Ah, by mere accident,” carelessly answered she.
“Yes, yes, but tell me all; for I will have this business sifted to the
bottom. How did it begin?”
“Some love affair not worth repeating,” she said carelessly, a sudden
flush dyeing her pale face.
“Love affair?—Professor Dasipodius?” said the Bishop, knitting his
brows perplexedly. “Never, the ideas are not reconcileable.”
“I believe you are right, my lord,” said Radegund in ironical tones;
“but my cousin Sabina is apt, poor child, to fancy things.”
“What! your little cousin! the Lily of Strassburg! Ah! well, that is a
different matter. Yes, and these two then are lovers?”
“No, my lord, it is all at an end.”
“Nay, but that would be a pity. The marriage tie is a holy thing, not
lightly to be thought of, and then cast aside. It was not Dasipodius
who did this?”
“It was her doing, my lord.”
“And her reasons? On account of his blindness? No.”
“That,” said Radegund, slowly bending her head, “was what she intimated
in her letter to him.”
“Oh woman! woman!” groaned the Bishop. “Well, but she could not have
truly loved him then, this pretty child?”
“She is nineteen, my lord.”
“Tut! tut!” smiled the old man, waving his hand; “young enough to play
a dozen Corydons false before she settles her fancy; eh, Mistress?”
“You may be right.”
“If Dasipodius must bend to such—such trifles, he is worthier of some
loftier love than that. Eh? don’t you think so?”
“Yes,” murmured Radegund, and then she hurriedly went on to explain
that it was this same letter of Sabina’s which had been read aloud at
the Dial.
“It was a dunderheaded affair from beginning to end,” said the Bishop
when she had done; “and upon my honour, it always has been my unalloyed
conviction that this world would get on just as well again without
women. It is they who are—heaven and darkness! is it any business of
other people’s, if a man chooses to be blind? And Dasipodius? What did
he say in—Holy Saints!—in his defence?”
“Barely a dozen words, my lord.”
“No; I would stake my revenue on it he didn’t,” smiled the Bishop. “He
knows these town councilmen. Deaf adders are nothing to them—nothing.”
Then he dismissed Radegund.