THE BURGOMASTER'S DEMAND.
As it turned out, the other party took the burden of decision from my
shoulders. When I came out of chapel next morning, I found Hofman on
the terrace waiting for me, and with him Master Dietz wearing his
Geneva gown and a sour face. They wished to see my lady. I said it
was early yet, and tried to hold them in talk if only that I might
learn what they would be at. But they repulsed my advances, said
that they knew her excellency always transacted her business at this
hour--which was perfectly true--and at last sent me to the parlour
whether I would or no.
Under such circumstances I did not linger behind the screen, but
advanced at once, and interrupting Fraulein Max, who had just begun to
read aloud, while my lady worked, said that the Burgomaster desired
the honour of an interview with the Countess.
The latter passed her needle once through the stuff, and then looked
up. 'Do you know what he wants, Martin?' she said in a quiet tone.
I said I did not.
She bent her head and worked for a moment in silence. Then she sighed
gently, and without looking up, nodded to me. 'Very well, I will see
him here,' she said. 'But first send Grissel and Gretchen to wait on
me. Let Franz bring two stools and place them, and bid him and Ernst
keep the door. My footstool also. And let the two Jacobs wait in the
hall.'
I gave the orders and took on myself to place two extra lackeys in the
hall that we might not seem to be short of men. Then I went to the
Burgomaster, and attended him and Master Dietz to the parlour.
They bowed three times according to custom as they advanced, and my
lady, taking one step forward, gave her hand to the Burgomaster to
kiss. Then she stepped back and sat down, looking with a pleasant face
at the Minister. 'I would fain apologise for troubling your
excellency,' the Mayor began slowly and heavily. 'But the times are
trying.'
'Your presence needs no apology, Master Hofman,' my lady answered,
smiling frankly. 'It is your right to see me on behalf of the town at
all times. It would grieve me much, if you did not sometimes exercise
the privilege. And for Master Dietz, who may be able to assist us, I
am glad to see him also.'
The Minister bowed low. The Burgomaster only puffed out his cheeks.
Doubtless he felt that courage at the Red Hart and courage in my
lady's parlour were two different things. But it was too late to
retreat, for the Minister was there to report what passed; and after a
glance at Dietz's face he proceeded. 'I am not here in a private
capacity, if it please your excellency,' he said. 'And I beg your
excellency to bear this in mind. I am here as Burgomaster, having on
my mind the peace of the town; which at present is endangered--very
greatly, endangered,' he repeated pompously.
'I am sorry to hear that,' my lady answered.
'Nevertheless it is so,' he replied with a kind of obstinacy.
'Endangered by the presence of certain persons in the town, whose
manners are not conformable. These persons are Papists, and the town,
your excellency remembers, is a Protestant town.'
'Certainly I remember that,' my lady said gravely.
'Hence of this combination, your excellency will understand, comes a
likelihood of evil,' he continued. 'On which, hearing you took an
interest in these persons, however little deserved, it seemed to be my
duty to lay the matter before you.'
'You have done very rightly,' the Countess answered quietly. 'Do I
understand then, Master Hofman, that the Papists you complain of are
conspiring to break the peace of the town?'
The Burgomaster gasped. He was too obtuse to see at once that my lady
was playing with him. He only wondered how he had managed to convey so
strange a notion to her mind. He hastened to set her right. 'No--oh,
no,' he said. 'There is no fear of that. There are but three of them.'
'Are they presuming to perform their rites in public then?' my lady
rejoined. 'If so, of course it cannot be permitted. It is against the
law of the town.'
'No,' he answered, more slowly and more reluctantly as the drift of
her questions began to dawn upon him. 'I do not know that that is so.
I have not heard that it is so. But they are Papists.'
'Well, but with their consciences we have nothing to do!' she said
more sharply. 'I confess, I fail as yet to see, Master Hofman, how
they threaten the peace of the town.'
The Burgomaster stared. 'I do not know that they threaten it
themselves,' he said slowly. 'But their presence stirs up the people,
if your excellency understands; and may lead, if the matter goes on,
to a riot or worse.'
'Ha! Now I comprehend!' my lady cried in a hearty tone. 'You fear your
constables may fail to cope with the rabble?'
He admitted that that was so.
'And you desire such assistance as I can offer towards maintaining the
law and protecting these persons; who have of course a right to
protection?'
Master Hofman began to see whither he had been led, and glared at the
Countess with his mouth wide open. But for the moment he could not
find a word to say. Never did I see a man look more at a loss.
'Well, I must consider,' my lady resumed, her finger to her cheek.
'Rest assured, you shall be supported. Martin,' she continued, turning
to me, 'let word be sent to the four foresters at Gatz to come down to
the castle this evening. And send also to the charcoal-burners' camp.
How many men should there be in it?'
'Some half-score, my lady,' I answered, adding two-thirds to the
truth.
'Ah? And let the huntsman come down and bring a couple of feeders.
Doubtless with our own men, we shall be able to place a score or
thirty at your disposal, Master Hofman, and stout fellows. These, with
your constables and such of the peaceful burghers as you see fit to
call to your assistance, should be sufficient to quell the
disorderly.'
I could have laughed aloud, Master Hofman looked so confounded. Never
man had an air of being more completely taken aback. By offering her
help to put down any mob, the Countess had deprived him of the plea he
had come to prefer; that he was afraid he could not answer for the
safety of the Papists, and that therefore they must withdraw or be
expelled. This he could no longer put forward, and consequently he was
driven either to adopt my lady's line, or side openly with the party
of disorder. I saw his heavy face turn a deep red, and his jaw fall,
as he grasped the situation. His wits worked slowly; and had he been
left to himself, I do not doubt that he would have allowed things to
remain as they were, and taken the part assigned to him.
But Master Dietz, who had listened with a lengthening face, at this
moment interposed. 'Will your excellency permit me to say a few
words?' he said.
'I think the Burgomaster has made the matter clear,' my lady answered.
'Not in one respect,' the Minister rejoined. 'He has not informed your
excellency that in the opinion of the majority of the burghers and
inhabitants of this town the presence of these people is an offence
and an eyesore.'
'It is legal,' my lady answered icily. 'I do not know what opinion has
to do with it.'
'The opinion of the majority.'
'Sir!' my lady said, speaking abruptly and with heightened colour, 'in
Heritzburg I am the majority, by your leave.'
He frowned and set his face hard, but his eyes sank before hers.
'Nevertheless your excellency will allow,' he said in a lower tone,
'that the opinion of grave and orderly men deserves consideration?'
'When it is on the side of law, every consideration,' the Countess
answered, her eyes sparkling. 'But when it is ranged against three
defenceless people in violation of the law, none. And more, Master
Dietz,' she continued, her voice ringing with indignation, 'it is to
check such opinion, and defend against it those who otherwise would
have no defence, that I conceive I sit here. And by my faith I will do
it!'
She uttered the last words with so much fire and with her beautiful
face so full of feeling, that I started forward where I stood; and for
a farthing would have flung Dietz through the window. The little
Minister was of a stern and hard nature, however. The nobility of my
lady's position was lost upon him. He feared her less than he would
have feared a man under the same circumstances; and though he stood
cowed, and silenced for the moment, he presently returned to the
attack.
'Your excellency perhaps forgets,' he said with a dry cough, 'that the
times are full of bloodshed and strife, though we at Heritzburg have
hitherto enjoyed peace. I suggest with respect therefore, is it
prudent to run the risk of bringing these evils into the town for the
sake of one or two Papists, whom it is only proposed to send
elsewhere?'
My lady rose suddenly from her chair, and pointed with a finger, which
trembled slightly, to the great window beside her. 'Step up here!' she
said curtly.
Master Dietz, wondering greatly, stepped on to the dais. Thence the
red roofs of the town, some new and smart, and some stained and grey
with lichens, and all the green valley stretching away to the dark
line of wood, were visible, bathed in sunshine. The day was fine, the
air clear, the smoke from the chimneys rose straight upward.
'Do you see?' she said.
The Minister bowed.
'Then take this for answer,' she replied. 'All that you see is mine to
rule. It came to me by inheritance, and I prize the possession of it,
though I am a woman, more highly than my life; for it came to me from
Heaven and my fathers. But were it a hundred times as large, Master
Dietz--were there a house for every brick that now stands there, and
an acre for every furrow, and sheep as many as birds in the air, even
then I would risk all, and double and treble all, rather than desert
those whom my law defends, be they three, or thirty, or three hundred!
Let that be your answer! And for the peace you speak of,' she
continued, turning on a sudden and confronting us, her face aglow with
anger, 'the peace, I mean, which you have hitherto enjoyed, it should
shame you to hear it mentioned! Have the Papists harried you? Have you
suffered in life or limb, or property? No. And why? Because of my
honoured uncle, a Papist! For shame!--for shame, I say! As it has been
dealt out to you, go and do to others!'
But for the respect which held me in her presence, I could have cried
'Huzza!' to her speech; and I can tell you, it made Master Minister
look as small as a mouse. He stepped down from the dais with his face
dark and his head trembling; and after that I never doubted that he
was at the bottom of the movement against the Worts, though the
ruffianly deserters I have mentioned supplied him with the tools,
wanting which he might not have taken up the work. He stood a moment
on the floor looking very black and grim, and with not a word to say,
but I doubted he was not beaten. What line he would have taken,
however, I cannot tell, for he had scarcely descended--my lady had not
resumed her seat--when there rose from the court below a sudden babel
of noise, the trampling of hoofs and feet on the pavement, and a
confused murmur of voices. For a moment I looked at my lady and she at
me. It struck me that that at which the Burgomaster had hinted was
come to pass: that some of the town ragamuffins had dared to invade
the castle. The same idea doubtless occurred to her, for she stepped,
though without any appearance of alarm, to the window, which commanded
a side view of the terrace. She looked out.
I, a little to her right, saw her smile: then in a moment she turned.
'This could not be better,' she said, resuming in an instant her
ordinary manner. I think she was a little ashamed, as people of
quality are wont to be, of the feeling she had betrayed. 'I see some
one below who will advise me, and who, if I am doing wrong, as you
seem to fear, Master Burgomaster, will tell me of it. My cousin, the
Waldgrave Rupert, whom I expected to-morrow, has arrived to-day. Be
good enough to wait while I receive him, and I will then return to
you.'
Bidding me have the two served with some refreshment, she stepped down
from the dais, and withdrew with Fraulein Max and her women, leaving
the townsmen to discuss the new arrival with what appetite they might.
They liked it little, I fancy. In a moment their importance was gone,
their consequence at an end. The name of the Waldgrave Rupert made
them feel how small they were, despite their boasting, beside the
youngest member of the family. The very swish of my lady's robe as she
swept through the doorway flouted them, her departure was an offence;
and this, following on the scolding they had received, produced a
soreness and irritation in their minds, which ill-prepared them, I
think, for the sequel.
I have sometimes thought that had I remained with them, and paid them
some attentions, the end might have been different; but my duties
called me elsewhere. The house was in a ferment; I was wanted here and
there, both to give orders and to see them carried out. It was some
time before I was at liberty even to go to the hall whither my lady
had descended to receive her guest, and where I found the two standing
together on the hearth, under the great Red Hart which is the
cognizance of the family.
I had not seen the Waldgrave Rupert--a cadet of the noble house of
Weimar and my lady's cousin once removed--since his boyhood. I found
him grown into a splendid man, as tall and almost as wide as myself;
who used to be called in the old forest days before I entered my
lady's service 'the strong man of Pippel.' As he stood on the hearth,
fair-haired and ruddy-faced, with a noble carriage and a frank boyish
smile, I had seldom looked on a handsomer youth. He fell short of my
lady's age by two years; but as I looked from one to the other, they
seemed so fitting a pair, the disparity went for nothing. He was young
and strong, full of spirit and energy and fire. Surely, I thought, the
right man has come at last!
In this belief I was more than confirmed when he came forward and
greeted me pleasantly, vowing that he remembered me well. His voice
and laugh seemed to fill the room; the very ring of his spurs on the
stones gave assurance of power. I saw my lady look at him with an air
of affectionate pride--she had seen him more lately than I had--as if
his youth, and strength, and beauty already belonged to her. As for
his smile, it was infectious. We grew in a moment brighter, younger,
and more cheerful. The house which yesterday had seemed quiet and
lonesome--we were a small family for so great a dwelling--took on a
new air. The servants went about their tasks more quickly, the maids
laughed behind doors. The place seemed in an hour transformed, as I
have seen a valley in the mountains changed on a sudden by the rising
of the sun.
As a fact, when I had been in his presence five minutes, the
Burgomaster and the Minister upstairs seemed as common and mean and
insignificant a pair of fellows as any in Germany. I wondered that I
could ever have feared them. The Countess had told him the story, and
he asked me one or two questions about them, his tone high, and his
head in the air. I answered him, and was for accompanying him
upstairs, when he went to see them, with my lady by his side, and his
whip slapping his great thigh boots until the staircase rang again.
But my lady had an errand and sent me on it, and so I was not present
at the end of this interview which I had myself brought about.
But I suppose that the scolding my lady had given them was no more
than a flea-bite beside the rating the young Waldgrave inflicted! It
was notorious for a score of leagues round, and he told them so in
good round terms, that the Heritzburg land had been spared by friend
and foe for Count Tilly's sake; for his sake and his alone--a Papist.
How, then, he asked them, had they the face to do this dirty trick,
and threaten my lady besides? With much more of the same kind, and
hard words, not to say menaces; sparing neither Mayor nor Minister, so
that they went off at last like whipped dogs or thieves that have seen
the gallows.
Afterwards something was said; but at the time no one missed them.
Except by myself, scarce a thought was given to them after they went
out of the door. The house was all agog about the new-comer; the
still-room full of work and the chimneys smoking. The young lord was
everywhere, and the maids were mad about him. I had my hands full, and
every one in the house seemed to be in the same case. No one had time
to look abroad.
Except Fraulein Anna Max, my lady's companion. I found her about four
o'clock in the afternoon sitting alone in the hall. She had a book
before her as usual, but on my entrance she pushed it away from her,
and looked up at me, screwing up her eyes in the odd way peculiar to
her.
'Well, Master Steward,' she said--and her voice sounded ill-natured,
'so the fire has been lit--but not by you.'
'The fire?' I answered, utterly at a loss for the moment.
'Ay,' she rejoined, with a bitter smile, 'the fire. Don't you hear it
burning?'
'I hear nothing,' I said coldly.
'Go to the terrace, and perhaps you will!' she answered.
Her words filled me with a vague uneasiness, but I was too proud to go
then or seem to heed them. An hour or two later, however, when the sun
was half down, and the shadows of the chimneys lay far over the roofs,
and the eastern woods were aglow, I went to the wall which bounds the
terrace and looked down. The hum of the town came up to my ears as it
has come up to that wall any time these hundred years. But was I
mistaken, or did there mingle with it this evening a harsher note than
usual, a rancorous murmur, as of angry voices; and something sterner,
lower, and more menacing, the clamour of a great crowd?