A CATASTROPHE.
All that day the town remained quiet, and all day the Waldgrave and my
lady walked to and fro in the sunshine; or my lady sat working on one
of the stone seats, while he built castles in the air, which she
knocked down with a sly word or a merry glance. Fraulein Anna, always
with the big book, flitted from door to door, like an unquiet spirit.
The sentries dozed at their posts, old Jacob in his chair in the
guard-room, the cannons under their breech-clouts. If this could be
said to be a state of siege, it was the most gentle and joyous one
paladin ever shared or mistress imagined.
But no message reached us from the town, and that disturbed me. Half a
dozen times I went to the wall and, leaning over it, listened. Each
time I came away satisfied. All seemed quiet; the market-place rather
fuller perhaps than on common days, the hum of life more steady and
persistent; but neither to any great extent. Despite this I could not
shake off a feeling of uneasiness. I remembered certain faces I had
seen in the town, grim faces lurking in corners, seen over men's
shoulders or through half-open doors; and a dog barking startled me,
the shadow of a crow flying over the court made me jump a yard.
Night only added to my nervousness. I doubled all the guards,
stationing two men at the town-wicket and two at the stable-gate,
which leads to the bridge. And not content with these precautions,
though the Waldgrave laughed at them and me, I got out of bed three
times in the night, and went the round to assure myself that the men
were at their posts.
When morning came without mishap, but also without bringing any
overture from the town, the Waldgrave laughed still more loudly.
But my lady looked grave. I did not dare to interfere or give
advice--having been once admitted to say my say--but I felt that it
would be a serious thing if the forty-eight hours elapsed and the town
refused to make amends. My lady felt this too, I think; and by-and-by
she held a council with the Waldgrave; and about midday my lord came
to me, and with a somewhat wry face bade me have the prisoners
conducted to the parlour.
He sent 'me at the same time on an errand to another part of the
castle, and so I cannot say what passed. I believe my lady dealt with
the two very firmly; reiterating her judgment of the day before, and
only adding that in clemency she had thought better of imprisoning
them, and would now suffer them to go to their homes, in the hope that
they would use their influence to save the town from worse trouble.
I met the two crossing the terrace on their way to the gate and was
struck by something peculiar in their aspect. Master Hofman was all of
a tremble with excitement and eagerness to be gone. His fat, half-moon
of a face shone with anxiety. He stuttered when he tried to give me
good day as I passed; and he seemed to have eyes only for the gate,
dragging his smaller companion along by the arm, and more than once
whispering in his ear as if to adjure him not to waste a moment.
The little Minister, on the other hand, hung back and marched slowly,
his face wearing a look of triumph which showed very plainly--or so I
construed it--that he regarded his release in the light of a victory.
His sallow cheeks were flushed, and his eyes gleamed spitefully as he
looked from side to side. He held himself bolt upright, with a square
Bible clasped to his breast, and as he passed me he could not refrain
from a characteristic outbreak. Doubtless to bridle himself before my
lady had almost choked him. He laughed in my face. 'Dry bones!' he
cackled. 'And mouths that speak not!'
'Speak plainly yourself, Master Dietz,' I answered, for I have never
thought ministers more than other men. 'Then perhaps I shall be able
to understand you.'
'Sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal!' he replied, cracking his
fingers in my face and laughing triumphantly.
He would have said more, I imagine; but at that moment the Burgomaster
fell bodily upon him, and drove him by main force through the gate
which had been opened. Outside even, he made some attempts to return
and defy us, crying out 'Whited sepulchres!' and the like. But the
steps were narrow and steep, and Hofman stood like a feather bed in
the way, and presently he desisted. The two stumbled down together and
we saw no more of them.
The men about me laughed; but I had reason for thinking it far from a
laughing matter, and I hastened into the house that I might tell my
lady. When I entered the parlour, however, where I found her with the
Waldgrave and Fraulein Anna, she held up her hand to check me. She and
the Waldgrave were laughing, and Fraulein Anna, half shy and half
sullen, was leaning against the table looking at the floor, with her
cheeks red.
'Come,' my lady was saying, 'you were with him half an hour, Anna. You
can surely tell us what you talked about. Don't be afraid of Martin.
He knows all our secrets.'
'Or perhaps we are indiscreet,' the Waldgrave said gravely, but with a
twinkle in his eye. 'When a young lady visits a gentleman in
captivity, the conversation should be of a tender nature.'
'Which shows, sir, that you know little about it,' Fraulein Anna
answered indignantly. 'We talked of Voetius.'
'Dear me!' my lord said. 'Then Master Dietz knows Voetius?'
'He does not. He said he considered such pagan learning useless,'
Fraulein Anna answered, warming with her subject. 'That it tended to
pride, and puffed up instead of giving grace. I said that he only saw
one side of the matter.'
'In that resembling me,' my lord murmured.
My lady repressed him with a look. 'Yes,' she said pleasantly. 'And
what then, Anna?'
'And that he might be wrong in this, as in other matters. He asked me
what other matters,' Fraulein Max continued, growing voluble, and
almost confident, as she reviewed the scene. 'I said, the inferiority
of women to men. He said, yes, he maintained that, following Peter
Martyr. Well, I said he was wrong, and so was Peter Martyr. "But you
do not convince me," he answered. "You say that I am wrong on this as
on other points. Cite a point, then, on which I am wrong." "You know
no Greek, you know no Oriental tongue, you know no Hebrew!" I
retorted. "All pagan learning," he said. "Cite a point on which I am
wrong. I am not often wrong. Cite a point on which I am confessedly
wrong." So'--Fraulein Anna laughed a little, excited laugh of
pleasure--'I thought I would take him at his word, and I said, "Will
you abide by that? If I show you that you have been wrong, that you
have been deceived only to-day, will you acknowledge that Peter Martyr
was wrong?" He said, oh yes, he would, if I could convince him. I
said, "Exemplum! You came here because you were afraid of our cannon.
Granted? Yes. Well, our cannon are cracked. They are _brutum
fulmen_--an empty threat. We could not fire them, if we would. So
there, you see, you were wrong." Well, on that----'
But what Master Dietz said on that, and what she answered, we never
knew, for the Waldgrave, bounding from the table, with a crash which
shook the room, swore a very pagan oath.
'Himmel!' he cried in a voice of passion. 'The woman has ruined us! Do
you understand, Countess? She has told them! And they have taken the
news to the town!'
'I do understand,' my lady said softly, but with a paling face. 'By
this time it is known.'
'Known! Yes; and our shutting up that poisonous little snake will only
make him the more bitter!' my lord answered, striking the table a
great blow in his wrath. 'We are undone! Oh, you idiot, you idiot!'
and breaking off suddenly he turned to Fraulein Max, who stood weeping
and trembling by the table. 'Why did you do it?'
'Hush!' my lady said nobly; and she put her arm round Fraulein Anna.
'She is so absent. It was my fault. I should not have let her see
them. Besides, she did not know that they were going to be released.
And it is done now, and cannot be undone. The question is, what ought
we to do?'
'Yes, what?' my lord cried bitterly, with a glance at the culprit,
which showed that he was very far from forgiving her. 'I am sure I do
not know, any more than the dog there!'
My lady looked at me anxiously.
'Well, Martin,' she said, 'what do you say?'
But I had nothing to say, I felt myself at a loss. I knew, better than
any of them, the Minister's sour nature, and I had seen with my own
eyes the state of resentment and rage in which he had left us. His
news would fall like a spark dropped on powder. The town, brooding in
gloom, foreboding, and terror, would in a moment blaze into fierce
wrath. Every ruffian who had felt his neck endangered by the
Countess's sentence, every family that had lost a member in the late
riot, every one who had an old grievance to avenge, or a new object to
gain, would in an hour be in arms; while those whose advantage lay
commonly on the side of order might stand aloof now--some at the
instance of Dietz, and others through timidity and that fear of a mob
which exists in the mind of every burgher. What, then, had we to
expect? My lady must look to have her authority flouted--that for
certain; but would the matter end with that? Would the disorder stop
at the foot of the steps?
'I think we are safe enough here, if your excellency asks me,' I said,
after a moment's thought. 'A dozen men could hold the wicket-gate
against a thousand.'
'Safe!' my lady cried in a tone of surprise. 'Yes, Martin, safe! But
what of those who look to me for protection? Am I to stand by and see
the law defied? Am I to----' She paused. 'What is that?' she said in a
different tone, raising her hand for silence.
She listened, and we listened, looking at one another with meaning
eyes; and in a moment she had her answer. Through the open windows,
with the air and sunshine, came a sound which rose and fell at
intervals. It was the noise of distant cheering. Full and deep,
leaping up again and again, in insolent mockery and defiance, it
reached us where we stood in the quiet room, and told us that all was
known. While we still listened, another sound, nearer at hand, broke
the inner stillness of the house--the tramp of a hurrying foot on the
stairs. Old Jacob thrust in his head and looked at me.
'You can speak,' I said.
'There is something wrong below,' he muttered, abashed at finding
himself in the presence.
'We know it, Jacob,' my lady said bravely. 'We are considering how to
right it. In the mean time, do you go to the gates, my friend, and see
that they are well guarded.'
'We could send to Hesse-Cassel,' the Waldgrave suggested, when we were
again alone.
'It would be useless,' my lady answered. 'The Landgrave is at Munich
with the King of Sweden; so is Leuchtenstein.'
'If Leuchtenstein were only at home----'
'Ah!' the Countess answered with a touch of impatience; 'but then he
is not. If he were--well, even he could scarcely make troops where
there are none.'
'There are generally some to be hired,' the Waldgrave answered. 'What
if we send to Halle, or Weimar, and inquire? A couple of hundred pikes
would settle the matter.'
'God forbid!' my lady answered with a shudder. 'I have heard enough of
the doings of such soldiers. The town has not deserved that.'
The Waldgrave looked at me, and slightly shrugged his shoulders; as
much as to say that my lady was impracticable. But I, agreeing with
every word she said, only loved her the more, and could make him no
answer, even if my duty had permitted it. I hastened to suggest that,
the castle being safe, the better plan was to wait, keeping on our
guard, and see what happened; which, indeed, seemed also to be the
only course open to us.
My lady saw this and agreed; I withdrew, to spend the rest of the day
in a feverish march between the one gate and the other. We could
muster no more than twelve effective men, including the Waldgrave; and
though these might suffice for the bare defence of the place, which
had only two assailable points, the paucity of our numbers kept me in
perpetual fear. I knew my lady's proud nature so well that I dreaded
humiliation for her as I might have feared death for another; with a
terror which made the possibility of her capture by the malcontents a
misery to me, a nightmare which would neither let me rest nor sleep.
My lord soon recovered his spirits. In an hour or two he was as
buoyant and cheerful as before, dividing the blame of the
_contretemps_ between Fraulein Anna and myself, and hinting that if he
had been left to manage the matter, the guilty would have suffered,
and Dietz not gone scot-free. But I trembled. I did not see how we
could be surprised; I thought it improbable that the townsfolk would
try to effect anything against us; impossible that they should
succeed. Yet, when the stern swell of one of Luther's hymns rose from
the town at sunset, and I remembered how easily men's hearts were
inflamed by those strains; and again, when a huge bonfire in the
market-place dispelled the night, and for hours kept the town restless
and waking, I shuddered, fearing I knew not what. I will answer for
it, my lady, who never ceased to wear a cheerful countenance, did not
sleep that night one half so ill as I.
And yet I was caught napping. A little before daybreak, when all was
quiet, I went to take an hour's rest. I had lain down, and, as far as
I could judge later, had just fallen into a doze, when a tremendous
shock, which made the very walls round me tremble, drew me to my feet
as if a giant hand had plucked me from the bed. A crashing sound,
mingled with the shiver of falling glass, filled the air. For a few
seconds I stood trembling and bewildered in the middle of the room--in
the state of disorder natural to a man rudely awakened. I could not on
the instant collect myself or comprehend what had happened. Then, in a
flash, the fears of the day returned to my mind, and springing to the
door, half-dressed as I was, I ran down to the courtyard.
Some of the servants were already there, a white-cheeked,
panic-stricken group of men and women intermixed; but, for a
moment, I could get no answer to my questions. All spoke at once, none
knew. Then--it was just growing light--from the direction of the
stable-gate a man came running out of the dusk with a half-pike on his
shoulder.
'Quick!' he cried. 'This way, give me a musket.'
'What is it?' I answered, seizing him by the arm.
'They have blown up the bridge--the bridge over the ravine!' he
replied, panting. 'Quick, a gun! A part is left, and they are hacking
it down!'
In a moment I saw all. 'To your posts!' I shouted. 'And the women into
the house! See to the wicket-gate, Jacob, and do not leave it!' Then I
sprang into the guardhouse and snatched down a carbine, three or four
of which hung loaded in the loops. The sentry who had brought the news
seized another, and we ran together through the stable court and to
the gate, four or five of the servants following us.
Elsewhere it was growing light. Here a thick cloud of smoke and dust
still hung in the air, with a stifling reek of powder. But looking
through one of the loopholes in the gate, I was able to discern that
the farther end of the bridge which spanned the ravine was gone--or
gone in part. The right-hand wall, with three or four feet of the
roadway, still hung in air, but half a dozen men, whose figures loomed
indistinctly through a haze of dust and gloom, were working at it
furiously, demolishing it with bars and pickaxes.
At that sight I fell into a rage. I saw in a flash what would happen
if the bridge sank and we were cut off from all exit except through
the town-gate. The dastardly nature of the surprise, too, and the
fiendish energy of the men combined to madden me. I gave no warning
and cried out no word, but thrusting my weapon through the loophole
aimed at the nearest worker, and fired.
The man dropped his tool and threw up his arms, staggered forward a
couple of paces, and fell sheer over the broken edge into the gulf.
His fellows stood a moment in terror, looking after him, but the
sentry who had warned me fired through the other loophole, and that
started them. They flung down their tools and bolted like so many
rabbits. The smoke of the carbine was scarce out of the muzzle, before
the bridge, or what remained of it, was clear.
I turned round and found the Waldgrave at my elbow. 'Well done!' he
said heartily. 'That will teach the rascals a lesson!'
I was trembling in every limb with excitement, but before I answered
him, I handed my gun to one of the men who had followed me. 'Load,' I
said,' and if a man comes near the bridge, shoot him down. Keep your
eye on the bridge, and do nothing else until I come back.'
Then I walked away through the stable-court with the Waldgrave; who
looked at me curiously. 'You were only just in time,' he said.
'Only just,' I muttered.
'There is enough left for a horse to cross.'
'Yes,' I answered, 'to-day.'
'Why to-day?' he asked, still looking at me. I think he was surprised
to see me so much moved.
'Because the rest will be blown up to-night,' I answered bluntly. 'Or
may be. How can we guard it in the dark? It is fifty paces from the
gate. We cannot risk men there--with our numbers.'
'Still it may not be,' he said. 'We must keep a sharp look-out.'
'But if it _is?_' I answered, halting suddenly, and looking him full
in the face. 'If it is, my lord?' I continued. 'We are provisioned for
a week only. It is not autumn, you see. Then the pickle tubs would be
full, the larder stocked, the rafters groaning, the still-room
supplied. But it is May, and there is little left. The last three days
we have been thinking of other things than provisions; and we have
thirty mouths to feed.'
The Waldgrave's face fell. 'I had not thought of that,' he said. 'The
bridge gone, they may starve us, you mean?'
'Into submission to whatever terms they please,' I answered. 'We are
too few to cut our way through the town, and there would be no other
way of escape.'
'What do you advise, then?' he asked, drawing me aside with a
flustered air. 'Flight?'
'A horse might cross the bridge to-day,' I said.
'But any terms would be better than that!' he replied with vehemence.
'What if they demand the expulsion of the Catholic girl, my lord, whom
the Countess has taken under her protection?'
'They will not!' he said.
'They may,' I persisted.
'Then we will not give her up.'
'But the alternative--starvation?'
'Pooh! It will not come to that!' he answered lightly. 'You leap
before you reach the stile.'
'Because, my lord, there will be no leaping if we do reach it.'
'Nonsense!' he cried masterfully. 'Something must be risked. To give
up a strong place like this to a parcel of clodhoppers--it is absurd!
At the worst we could parley.'
'I do not think my lady would consent to parley.'
'I shall say nothing to her about it,' he answered. 'She is no judge
of such things.'
I had been thinking all the while that he had that in his mind, and on
the spot I answered him squarely that I would not consent. 'My lady
must know all,' I said, 'and decide for herself.'
He started, looking at me with his face very red. 'Why, man,' he said,
'would you browbeat me?'
'No, my lord,' I said firmly, 'but my lady must know.'
'You are insolent!' he cried, in a passion. 'You forget yourself, man,
and that your mistress has placed me in command here!'
'I forget nothing, my lord,' I answered, waxing firmer. 'What I
remember is that she is my mistress.'
He glared at me a moment, his face dark with anger, and then with a
contemptuous gesture he left me and walked twice or thrice across the
court. Doubtless the air did him good, for presently he came back to
me. 'You are an ill-bred meddler!' he said with his head high, 'and I
shall remember it. But for the present have your way. I will tell the
Countess and take her opinion.'
He went into the house to do it, and I waited patiently in the
courtyard, watching the sun rise and all the roofs grow red; listening
to the twittering of the birds, and wondering what the answer would
be. I had not set myself against him without misgiving, for in a
little while all might be in his hands. But fear for my mistress
outweighed fears on my own account; and in the thought of her shame,
should she awake some morning and find herself trapped, I lost thought
of my own interest and advancement. I have heard it said that he
builds best for himself who builds for another. It was so on this
occasion.
He came back presently, looking thoughtful, as if my lady had talked
to him very freely, and shown him a side of her character that had
escaped him. The anger was clean gone from his face, and he spoke to
me without embarrassment; in apparent forgetfulness that there had
been any difference between us. Nor did I ever find him bear malice
long.
'The Countess decides to go,' he said, 'either to Cassel or Frankfort,
according to the state of the roads. She will take with her Fraulein
Max, her two women, and the Catholic girl, and as many men as you can
horse. She thinks she may safely leave the castle in charge of old
Jacob and Franz, with a letter directed to the Burgomaster and
council, throwing the responsibility for its custody on them. When do
you think we should start?'
'Soon after dark this evening,' I answered, 'if my lady pleases.'
'Then that decides it,' he replied carelessly, the dawn of a new plan
and new prospects lighting up his handsome face. 'See to it, will
you?'