THE EVENING LIGHT
When the attackers moved once more on their prey they entered the great
court of the Wartburg, and never a sword flashed forth to halt them.
But as Freiherr Gustav at their head bade his men scatter through
dungeon and attic, to drag the victims forth, lo! he and the three
hundred at his back halted, then stood awed and reverent, as the figure
of Jerome of the Dragon’s Dale moved to meet them. Then some doffed
their basinets, some even fell on their knees, but all besought his
blessing, for they knew that here was the saint of the Thuringerwald.
And Freiherr Gustav, bowing the knee, with loud voice thanked Our Lady
and Her Blessed Son who had released from sorest peril this holy man;
then vowed to Jerome that his late oppressors should shortly have
foretastes of their everlasting gehenna. But Jerome stayed him with a
sign, forbidding the doing of this reverence.
“For I have come to confess mine own great fault when I cried to you
to destroy this Ulrich and his men. I have heard by your glad shouts
that Agnes the maid is found, and in the respite whilst you tarried,
the Spirit of God, speaking from my mouth, has touched these despairing
sinners, and they will submit themselves to you, expecting no mercy
from man, but trusting even at the eleventh hour to the abundant
mercies of God. Therefore I command you to be exceeding pitiful unto
them, and let him that is guiltless himself cast the first stone
against them.”
Now this exhortation to compassion Freiherr Gustav loved little; but
who could say “no” to a living saint? So he ordered Jerome to be
escorted down the slope to Ludwig, at whose mercy any captives lay;
while the Freiherr’s men soon haled out Ulrich and Michael, Franz and
Clement, and the four were speedily roped, and shiveringly awaiting
the result of the holy man’s embassy.
Jerome found the Graf before a splendid tent, with pages and squires
about him, himself, in his silvered hauberk, the tallest and proudest
of them all; but nestled against his side, tattered, mud-stained,
dishevelled, happy, stood Agnes the maid. When she saw Jerome she
forgot that he had prayed to be delivered from her tempting. She gave
the coo of a dove beholding its long-sundered mate, and ran to him, and
he, never asking whether he staked his soul or not, reached down to
her, closed his arms on her, and kissed her red mouth seven times. Some
smiled, a few nigh laughed, a few nigh wept, but no man thought Jerome
the less a saint. Then when Agnes saw so many eyes upon her she grew
scared, and fled into the tent; but the great Graf himself had bended
the knee before Jerome.
“Holy Father,” spoke Ludwig; and he lifted his plumed casque, so that
the hermit could look fairly upon his proud, strong, bearded face.
“Holy Father, you have saved from death or worse my only child. Florins
or fief-lands you do account as vanities, or I would proffer them. Yet
what shall be your reward? Shall I give doles to two thousand poor at
Goslar? Shall I set crucifixes at three hundred cross-roads? Shall I
give Saint Michaelis of Hildesheim pyx, chalice, and candlestick of
pure red gold?”
“None of these things, though all such works are holy,” answered
Jerome; yet as he spoke, and gazed upon the Graf, in some strange
manner he seemed all unstrung, so that some whispered darkly,
“Ulrich has tortured him.” But still he looked on Ludwig with wide,
heart-searching eyes; and as he looked the chief was marvellously
troubled also.
“None of these things,” spoke Jerome, as if compelling speech by force
of will; “if gratitude is mine, let my reward be this,--the lives of
Ulrich and his crew, that they may be yet changed from Children of
Wrath to Children of Obedience.”
But here My Lord Graf was very sore displeased. One could see the
purple veins in his high forehead swell, and through his haughty lips
sped forth an oath,--yet in no Christian tongue,--a cry to some foul
jinn of the East. Then to his great amaze Jerome staggered as though a
sling-stone smote him.
“Catch him! He faints!”
So cried the Graf, outstretching a strong arm, and many ran, but the
hermit rose in stately pride. Next in that same strange Orient speech
he addressed Ludwig, and the proud chief in turn startled.
“Invoke no paynim fiends but answer. Have you been long in the East?”
“Yes.” But in turn Ludwig gazed as do men when turning mad, while two
squires, not understanding the tongue, crossed themselves, fearing
their lord was wantonly angering the saint.
“How long?”
“Five years at Acre, two at Antioch, three years a prisoner at Hems.”
“That was a long time since?”
“I have been in Europe now fourteen years.”
Jerome was staring harder than ever, and all men grew more frighted.
Why did he press the Graf so fiercely? Why did the Graf tremble as he
answered?
“And you say your name is--”
“Ludwig of the Harz;” but again the Graf winced, and the wondering
bystanders knew not what to hope or what to fear. They saw Jerome’s
stern face growing all grey and pale, yet still he questioned.
“You were three years a prisoner at Hems, then returned direct to
Germany?”
“No; I searched for my father. I had heard he had entered a convent
when I was taken, but I could not find him. He is surely dead.”
The Graf was retreating step by step; the hermit followed him. They
could see Jerome was nigh to falling, and that his great will bore him
up.
“And was that father a man swift to wrath and swift to strike?”
“Yes; but, ah! dear Christ, so was I!” and now the Graf was more ashen
than the hermit.
“And did you and your father part in love or hate? Speak for the fear
of God!”
“He cursed me. He is dead. At the Judgment Bar he will rise up against
me. I cannot bear it. God can forgive me; never he.”
Ludwig pressed his hands to his face; his great frame shook.
“Now tell what was your father’s true name,” commanded the hermit.
“I will not tell!” The Graf nigh screamed it in panic-stricken defiance.
“You _will_ tell, and tell it truly, that God may pity you on His last
Great Day. What was your father’s name?”
“Heinrich of Waldau.”
“And your true name is not Ludwig, but--”
“Sigismund.” The word was dragged across the Graf’s set teeth. But a
loud cry rang through the forest.
“Jesu!”
And Jerome lay as one dead upon the greensward.
* * * * *
Many swore “he is dead,” and even the Graf’s Padua-trained physician
was one of them. But Witch Martha brought him back to breath, though
it took small wisdom in leech-craft to know that if he woke at all, it
could not be for long. Nevertheless he did wake just as the afternoon
shadows were falling in slanting glory across the hill of the
Wartburg. Many stood by, hoping to be edified by the last words and
moments of a very saint; but Graf Ludwig made a commanding gesture,
and all vanished from the tent, saving he. Then he knelt down by the
camp-bed, and a tear rolled down the iron cheek of Ludwig of the Harz,
to fall on the iron cheek of Jerome of the Dragon’s Dale.
“My father.”
“My son.”
That was all for a very long time; and then Ludwig (for so men would
call him still), that tall strong man, before whom robber-barons
trembled, spoke, and his voice was nigh to sobbing.
“Father, father, I have sinned against heaven, and am not worthy to be
called your son.”
“The fault was mine, Sigismund,--mine.”
Thus Jerome, but Ludwig answered him:--
“I was wilful and swift to wrath. I defied you at Antioch when we stood
in the room where the form of my sister Agnes lay unburied. I have
richly earned your curse. I strode from your presence impenitent. I
rode away on the foray to Hems, and was taken prisoner. Amongst the
infidels I was once close to winning liberty by renouncing Our Lord.
What but the prayers of Mathilde, my sainted mother in heaven, of my
angel sister, and of you held me steadfast? I escaped from captivity
to hear that you had returned to Europe to bury yourself in a convent.
I sought in every abbey in France and Italy, Germany and Spain, to
fall at your feet, and crave but the two words, ‘I forgive.’ Finding
you not, I was sure that you were dead, and at the throne of God would
rise up, implacable, to accuse me; and your curse is dinning in my ears
ever! ever!”
“They told me you were slain before Hems,” said Jerome, simply.
“I had disgraced your name. I took another. In the war and wrack, into
which Germany fell, I found means of advancement. I married a woman,
pure and good, but the wise God soon took her away. She left a little
maid. I named her Agnes for my sister. Is she not an angel born?”
“And I dreamed she was a fiend,” said Jerome.
“And now, my father, I have prospered mightily. I am trusted of kaiser
and feared of vassal. I have lands, and lieges, and nobly growing fame.
But your curse has bittered every sweet; has darkened every sunbeam.
Forgive, forgive me, oh, my father!”
Jerome sat upon the camp-bed, and his lips moved in prayer.
“Now God be merciful to me, a sinner.”
Then he looked on the Graf, who had bowed his head, whilst tears rained
fast.
“I will forgive you, oh, Sigismund, for whose soul I have prayed and
striven these many years. For you I have fled the world, the company
of men, the love of women, wrestling, toiling, suffering, that I might
redeem your soul from the endless death. I will forgive you. But do you
first forgive me?”
And then what more they said it is not wise to tell.
After a while Jerome asked of Ludwig:--
“Where is the little maid?” So they brought in Agnes, who cooed and
chattered in the great saint’s arms, for “saint” she would call him
still, though he said he was her grandfather.
“And you will take him away with us to Goslar?” she asked the Graf;
“and because he is holy you will set him over the abbey, and he shall
dwell in splendid state with chaplains and palfreys, acolytes and
squires, like the Lord Prince Bishop of Bamberg?”
Ludwig answered “Yes”; but Jerome only repeated:--
“Chaplains and palfreys, acolytes and squires,--mine?”
Whereat--most marvellous of all the marvels written in this book--the
Saint of the Dragon’s Dale laughed as brightly as might Maid Agnes
herself; and she was very happy. After a while he kissed Agnes again,
and grew pensive; yet, as all others listened, Jerome spoke:--
“I am weary, weary. I have waited long. But God is very good, and of
the things to come I can fear nothing. I have wrought and fought in
North Land and South Land, with paynim, with Christian. Byzantium and
Paris, Jerusalem and Bergen, Palermo and Cairo,--I know them all. I
have suffered and sorrowed, in pain and in darkness, but at the end,
at the end,--” and his face glowed with it sinborn brightness,--“_it
shall come to pass, that at evening time there shall be light_!”
* * * * *
They found him in the morning sleeping. Maid Agnes wept for long.
Graf Ludwig was shut within his tent an hour, and went for a month
with a face which men had fear to look upon. There was wisdom in
plenty, for some said that Jerome had long been suffering of a mortal
complaint which only his iron will had battled back, and now that
will was relaxed; others, that in excess of joy the mortal cords were
loosed; but most, that angels had visited him by night to set him in
the burning chariot and bear him up to heaven. Yet all were agreed in
saying, “It is well; to-day the bells on high must ring, and all the
golden streets be garland-lined, for Christ’s strong warrior enters for
his crown.”
The Prior of Halberstadt who rode with the army fain would have had
the holy clay transported to his abbey, there to be cased in gold, and
adored by many a pilgrim; but Graf Ludwig answered sternly, “Nay,” for
he knew his father’s heart. Therefore they wound down the Dragon’s
Dale,--priests, and lords, and men-at-arms, approaching the hut in the
clearing. No sombre procession this; but for the lack of heralds and
of minne-singers one might have deemed it a triumph. “Alleluia!” sang
many, as they started the red deer in the coppice; and soon all broke
forth into praise of Our Blessed Lady, who welcomed her servant home.
“Ave maris stella
Dei Mater alma,
Atque semper virgo
Felix coeli porta!”
And the stream as it purled through the Annathal, the birds as they
answered the talking pines, the wind as it crooned over the green sea
of the Thuringerwald,--all swelled the echoing chorus,--
“Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen!”
Graf Ludwig strove to penetrate Witch Martha’s secret when he thanked
her for the service done his child. Would she not come to Goslar? Would
she not forsake her uncanny art and be a nurse and governess to the
little Gräfin? She had only refusals. She would tell nothing of her
life-story,--which Ludwig guessed must have been a strange one,--she
would not quit the forest. She only accepted a little gold “that she
might not vex him.”
“The greenwood covers many a secret, and let it cover mine,” was her
answer.
So she kissed Maid Agnes twice, and with Zodok and Zebek a-croaking on
her shoulders vanished under the trees. Harun gave one regretful howl
above a new grave, and trotted after. Nor did Agnes ever see the witch
again.
As for Ulrich and Franz, Michael and Clement, they solemnly swore to
go immediately to Rome and perform any penance commanded by the Holy
Father, and the Graf sent them on their way (first smiting off their
thumbs to keep them from temptation); but whether they ended in heaven
or elsewhere is known best by the recording angel. However, Freiherr
Gustav, whom Ludwig left in the Wartburg, warned perchance by Martha,
pounced on Fritz the Masterless full soon, and hanged him and Dame
Gerda high--thus proving that ravens bear ill luck, and also leaving
two less sinners in an overwicked world.
As for Maid Agnes,--“Maid” no more, but “The Most Gracious
Gräfin,”--she became a great lady in the North Country. Still, though
she grew worldly-wise, stately, and the wife of a very duke, every year
she went on pilgrimage to a certain shrine near Eisenach. And if any
one marvelled at her piety, her daughters always said:--
“Our mother came rightly by her holiness; her grandfather was a
true-born saint.”
Thus, for many years, until the pillage and sack of the Peasants’ War,
the good folk of Thuringia went on pilgrimage to the little shrine
under the talking tree in the Dragon’s Dale, and to their prayers
failed not to add, “_Sancte Hieronyme Eisenachæ, ora pro nobis_.”
MR. WILLIAM STEARNS DAVIS, the author of “A Friend of Cæsar,” “God
Wills It,” and “The Saint of the Dragon’s Dale,” was born on April
30, 1877, at the home of his grandfather, President William Stearns
of Amherst College. His father is William V. M. Davis, who for many
years has been pastor of the First Parish Church of Pittsfield, Mass.
Before coming to Pittsfield, Mr. Davis, Senior, was pastor of the
Euclid Avenue Presbyterian Church of Cleveland, O.; and the author of
“God Wills It” spent his boyhood in that city. From both his father
and his mother he inherited literary tastes, and he has always lived
in the atmosphere of books.
It was his fortune, good or bad, to be shut out from the normal
boy-life, from the age of ten to eighteen, by a sickness that baffled
the physicians. During these years of imprisonment, however, he
learned to forget his pain by historical reading, and, later, by
trying to write for himself histories and historical romances. His
father preserves some seven thousand pages of manuscript written
before the boy was eighteen. During the years before he entered
Harvard he wrote six historical novels, none of which has ever
seen the light of day, or ever will. At the age of eighteen a
new physician discovered and removed the cause of his sickness.
Immediately the boy’s ambition arose; and he fitted himself, in about
eighteen months, to enter Harvard College. His schooling had been
much interrupted by illness and invalidism, but his mind was so keen
and active that when he was able to study, he more than made up for
lost time.
Entering Harvard when he was twenty, he graduated in 1900, at the age
of twenty-three. He not only went through in three years, which is a
rare feat, but he also attained such high rank in his class that he
was the first drawn for the Phi Beta Kappa, in a class of nearly five
hundred men. In particular he distinguished himself in historical
studies; but he made no attempt at writing for publication, beyond a
few bits of verse, until his sophomore year at Harvard.
During that year he wrote his first novel, “A Friend of Cæsar.”
He gathered the materials and compiled the outline for the book
while too ill to pursue legitimate consecutive studies. The book
was actually written as a _jeu d’esprit_ and without thought of
publication. It was immediately received as a remarkable attempt to
reconstruct ancient life. After graduating, he stayed another year
at Harvard; and while thus gaining his master’s degree, he wrote his
second book, “God Wills It,” a vivid picture of European society at
the time of the First Crusade. His first book established him at once
as one of the writers who are trying to do something worth while,
and who are worth consideration. Primarily, he desired to write an
interesting story. Secondarily, he tried to render lucid certain
phases in ancient society and to show the development of character
and the true greatness of Julius Cæsar. Besides this, he wished to
make the classical atmosphere somewhat less vague and impracticable
than it is to a great many people, even cultivated people, to-day.
The year following his last at Harvard was spent largely in European
travel, during which, however, he found time to write a third story.
Like his others, it dealt with life at a time very remote from the
present. The new novel upon which Mr. Davis is now working, by the
way, pictures the life of Athens at the era of its greatest glory,
about the year 440 B.C. Many of the famous men of Athens at that time
enter into the book, which has for hero a typical young Athenian.
As in the case of many bright men who have not enjoyed good health,
Mr. Davis is essentially a student and a scholar. (It is his plan,
by the way, to return to Harvard this fall to complete his studies
for the doctorate.) Yet his interest in the eras of which he writes
is first of all concerned with their human elements. Who the people
of those days were, how they lived and thought and acted, what they
moved toward, and what they believed and aimed for, constitute his
chief interest in them. His style is good; his narrative is always
clear; his plots, though containing plenty of elements to afford
variety, are never so complicated as to be confusing. His readers
find that peculiar unconscious enjoyment which comes from a book
wherein the author has had something to say and has said it well.
_The Macmillan Little Novels_
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_Philosophy Four_
A STORY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. By OWEN WISTER, author of “The
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_Man Overboard_
By F. MARION CRAWFORD, author of “Cecilia,” “Marietta,” etc.
_Mr. Keegan’s Elopement_
By WINSTON CHURCHILL, author of “The Crisis,” “Richard Carvel,” etc.
_Mrs. Pendleton’s Four-in-Hand_
By GERTRUDE ATHERTON, author of “The Conqueror,” “The Splendid Idle
Forties,” etc.
_The Saint of the Dragon’s Dale_
By WILLIAM STEARNS DAVIS, author of “A Friend of Cæsar,” “God Wills
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_The Golden Chain_
By GWENDOLEN OVERTON, author of “The Heritage of Unrest,” “Anne
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