Transcribed from the 1890 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
THE
DOVE IN THE EAGLE’S NEST
BY
CHARLOTTE M. YONGE
[Picture: Sitting at the desk]
_ILLUSTRATED BY W. J. HENNESSY_
* * * * *
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1890
_The Right of Translation is Reserved_
* * * * *
_First Edition_ (2 vols. Crown 8vo), 1866. _New Edition_ (1 vol. Crown
8vo), 1869.
_Reprinted_ 1871; January and November 1873; 1875; 1876; 1879; 1882;
1883;
1884; 1888. _New Edition_, 1889. _Reprinted_ 1890.
INTRODUCTION
IN sending forth this little book, I am inclined to add a few explanatory
words as to the use I have made of historical personages. The origin of
the whole story was probably Freytag’s first series of pictures of German
Life: probably, I say, for its first commencement was a dream, dreamt
some weeks after reading that most interesting collection of sketches.
The return of the squire with the tidings of the death of the two knights
was vividly depicted in sleep; and, though without local habitation or
name, the scene was most likely to have been a reflection from the wild
scenes so lately read of.
In fact, waking thoughts decided that such a catastrophe could hardly
have happened anywhere but in Germany, or in Scotland; and the contrast
between the cultivation in the free cities and the savagery of the
independent barons made the former the more suitable region for the
adventures. The time could only be before the taming and bringing into
order of the empire, when the Imperial cities were in their greatest
splendour, the last free nobles in course of being reduced from their
lawless liberty, and the House of Austria beginning to acquire its
preponderance over the other princely families.
M. Freytag’s books, and Hegewisch’s History of Maximilian, will, I think,
be found fully to bear out the picture I have tried to give of the state
of things in the reign of the Emperor Friedrich III., when, for want of
any other law, _Faust recht_, or fist right, ruled; _i.e._ an offended
nobleman, having once sent a _Fehde-brief_ to his adversary, was
thenceforth at liberty to revenge himself by a private war, in which, for
the wrong inflicted, no justice was exacted.
Hegewisch remarks that the only benefit of this custom was, that the
honour of subscribing a feud-brief was so highly esteemed that it induced
the nobles to learn to write! The League of St. George and the Swabian
League were the means of gradually putting down this authorized condition
of deadly feud.
This was in the days of Maximilian’s youth. He is a prince who seems to
have been almost as inferior in his foreign to what he was in his
domestic policy as was Queen Elizabeth. He is chiefly familiar to us as
failing to keep up his authority in Flanders after the death of Mary of
Burgundy, as lingering to fulfil his engagement with Anne of Brittany
till he lost her and her duchy, as incurring ridicule by his ill-managed
schemes in Italy, and the vast projects that he was always forming
without either means or steadiness to carry them out, by his perpetual
impecuniosity and slippery dealing; and in his old age he has become
rather the laughing-stock of historians.
But there is much that is melancholy in the sight of a man endowed with
genius, unbalanced by the force of character that secures success, and
with an ardent nature whose intention overleapt obstacles that in
practice he found insuperable. At home Maximilian raised the Imperial
power from a mere cipher to considerable weight. We judge him as if he
had been born in the purple and succeeded to a defined power like his
descendants. We forget that the head of the Holy Roman Empire had been,
ever since the extinction of the Swabian line, a mere mark for ambitious
princes to shoot at, with everything expected from him, and no means to
do anything. Maximilian’s own father was an avaricious, undignified old
man, not until near his death Archduke of even all Austria, and with
anarchy prevailing everywhere under his nominal rule. It was in the time
of Maximilian that the Empire became as compact and united a body as
could be hoped of anything so unwieldy, that law was at least
acknowledged, _Faust recht_ for ever abolished, and the Emperor became
once more a real power.
The man under whom all this was effected could have been no fool; yet, as
he said himself, he reigned over a nation of kings, who each chose to
rule for himself; and the uncertainty of supplies of men or money to be
gained from them made him so often fail necessarily in his engagements,
that he acquired a shiftiness and callousness to breaches of promise,
which became the worst flaw in his character. But of the fascination of
his manner there can be no doubt. Even Henry VIII.’s English
ambassadors, when forced to own how little they could depend on him, and
how dangerous it was to let subsidies pass through his fingers, still
show themselves under a sort of enchantment of devotion to his person,
and this in his old age, and when his conduct was most inexcusable and
provoking.
His variety of powers was wonderful. He was learned in many languages—in
all those of his empire or hereditary states, and in many besides; and he
had an ardent love of books, both classical and modern. He delighted in
music, painting, architecture, and many arts of a more mechanical
description; wrote treatises on all these, and on other subjects,
especially gardening and gunnery. He was the inventor of an improved
lock to the arquebus, and first divined how to adapt the disposition of
his troops to the use of the newly-discovered fire-arms. And in all
these things his versatile head and ready hand were personally employed,
not by deputy; while coupled with so much artistic taste was a violent
passion for hunting, which carried him through many hairbreadth ’scapes.
“It was plain,” he used to say, “that God Almighty ruled the world, or
how could things go on with a rogue like Alexander VI. at the head of the
Church, and a mere huntsman like himself at the head of the Empire.” His
_bon-mots_ are numerous, all thoroughly characteristic, and showing that
brilliancy in conversation must have been one of his greatest charms. It
seems as if only self-control and resolution were wanting to have made
him a Charles, or an Alfred, the Great.
The romance of his marriage with the heiress of Burgundy is one of the
best known parts of his life. He was scarcely two-and-twenty when he
lost her, who perhaps would have given him the stability he wanted; but
his tender hove for her endured through life. It is not improbable that
it was this still abiding attachment that made him slack in overcoming
difficulties in the way of other contracts, and that he may have hoped
that his engagement to Bianca Sforza would come to nothing, like so many
others.
The most curious record of him is, however, in two books, the materials
for which he furnished, and whose composition and illustration he
superintended, _Der Weise King_, and _Theurdank_, of both of which he is
well known to be the hero. The White, or the Wise King, it is uncertain
which, is a history of his education and exploits, in prose. Every
alternate page has its engraving, showing how the Young White King
obtains instruction in painting, architecture, language, and all arts and
sciences, the latter including magic—which he learns of an old woman with
a long-tailed demon sitting, like Mother Hubbard’s cat, on her
shoulder—and astrology. In the illustration of this study an
extraordinary figure of a cross within a circle appears in the sky, which
probably has some connection with his scheme of nativity, for it also
appears on the breast of Ehrenhold, his constant companion in the
metrical history of his career, under the name of Theurdank.
The poetry of _Theurdank_ was composed by Maximilian’s old
writing-master, Melchior Pfinznig; but the adventures were the Kaisar’s
own, communicated by himself, and he superintended the wood-cuts. The
name is explained to mean “craving glory,”—Gloriæmemor. The Germans
laugh to scorn a French translator, who rendered it “Chermerci.” It was
annotated very soon after its publication, and each exploit explained and
accounted for. It is remarkable and touching in a man who married at
eighteen, and was a widower at twenty-two, that, in both books, the happy
union with his lady love is placed at the end—not at the beginning of the
book; and in _Theurdank_, at least, the eternal reunion is clearly meant.
In this curious book, König Römreich, by whom every contemporary
understood poor Charles of Burgundy—thus posthumously made King of Rome
by Maximilian, as the only honour in his power, betroths his daughter
Ehrenreich (rich in honour) to the Ritter Theurdank. Soon after, by a
most mild version of Duke Charles’s frightful end, König Römreich is seen
on his back dying in a garden, and Ehrenreich (as Mary really did)
despatches a ring to summon her betrothed.
But here Theurdank returns for answer that he means first to win honour
by his exploits, and sets out with his comrade, Ehrenhold, in search
thereof. Ehrenhold never appears of the smallest use to him in any of
the dire adventures into which he falls, but only stands complacently by,
and in effect may represent Fame, or perhaps that literary sage whom Don
Quixote always supposed to be at hand to record his deeds of prowess.
Next we are presented with the German impersonation of Satan as a wise
old magician, only with claws instead of feet, commissioning his three
captains (_hauptleutern_), Fürwitz, Umfallo, and Neidelhard, to beset and
ruin Theurdank. They are interpreted as the dangers of youth, middle
life, and old age—Rashness, Disaster, and Distress (or Envy). One at a
time they encounter him,—not once, but again and again; and he has ranged
under each head, in entire contempt of real order of time, the perils he
thinks owing to each foe. Fürwitz most justly gets the credit of
Maximilian’s perils on the steeple of Ulm, though, unfortunately, the
artist has represented the daring climber as standing not much above the
shoulders of Fürwitz and Ehrenhold; and although the annotation tells us
that his “hinder half foot” overhung the scaffold, the danger in the
print is not appalling. Fürwitz likewise inveigles him into putting the
point (_schnäbel_) of his shoe into the wheel of a mill for turning stone
balls, where he certainly hardly deserved to lose nothing but the beak of
his shoe. This enemy also brings him into numerous unpleasant
predicaments on precipices, where he hangs by one hand; while the chamois
stand delighted on every available peak, Fürwitz grins malevolently, and
Ehrenhold stands pointing at him over his shoulder. Time and place are
given in the notes for all these escapes. After some twenty adventures
Fürwitz is beaten off, and Umfallo tries his powers. Here the
misadventures do not involve so much folly on the hero’s part—though, to
be sure, he ventures into a lion’s den unarmed, and has to beat off the
inmates with a shovel. But the other adventures are more rational. He
catches a jester—of admirably foolish expression—putting a match to a
powder-magazine; he is wonderfully preserved in mountain avalanches and
hurricanes; reins up his horse on the verge of an abyss; falls through
ice in Holland and shows nothing but his head above it; cures himself of
a fever by draughts of water, to the great disgust of his physicians, and
escapes a fire bursting out of a tall stove.
Neidelhard brings his real battles and perils. From this last he is in
danger of shipwreck, of assassination, of poison, in single combat, or in
battle; tumults of the people beset him; he is imprisoned as at Ghent.
But finally Neidelhard is beaten back; and the hero is presented to
Ehrenreich. Ehrenhold recounts his triumphs, and accuses the three
captains. One is hung, another beheaded, the third thrown headlong from
a tower, and a guardian angel then summons Theurdank to his union with
his Queen. No doubt this reunion was the life-dream of the harassed,
busy, inconsistent man, who flashed through the turmoils of the early
sixteenth century.
The adventures of Maximilian which have been adverted to in the story are
all to be found in Theurdank, and in his early life he was probably the
brilliant eager person we have tried in some degree to describe. In his
latter years it is well known that he was much struck by Luther’s
arguments; and, indeed, he had long been conscious of need of Church
reform, though his plans took the grotesque form of getting himself made
Pope, and taking all into his own hands.
Perhaps it was unwise to have ever so faintly sketched Ebbo’s career
through the ensuing troubles; but the history of the star and of the
spark in the stubble seemed to need completion; and the working out of
the character of the survivor was unfinished till his course had been
thought over from the dawn of the Wittenberg teaching, which must have
seemed no novelty to an heir of the doctrine of Tauler, and of the
veritably Catholic divines of old times. The idea is of the supposed
course of a thoughtful, refined, conscientious man through the earlier
times of the Reformation, glad of the hope of cleansing the Church, but
hoping to cleanse, not to break away from her—a hope that Luther himself
long cherished, and which was not entirely frustrated till the
re-assembly at Trent in the next generation. Justice has never been done
to the men who feared to loose their hold on the Church Catholic as the
one body to which the promises were made. Their loyalty has been treated
as blindness, timidity, or superstition; but that there were many such
persons, and those among the very highest minds of their time, no one can
have any doubt after reading such lives as those of Friedrich the Wise of
Saxony, of Erasmus, of Vittoria Colonna, or of Cardinal Giustiniani.
_April_ 9, 1836.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
“She was too young and too delicate to reject _Page_ 37
civilization, and she let Christina braid her hair, bathe
her, and arrange her dress, with sensations of comfort
that were almost like health” _Front_
Henceforth mine own lady-mother is the mistress of this 126
castle, and whoever speaks a rude word to her offends the
Freiherr von Adlerstein
“‘No; only I saw that you stayed here all alone,’ she 269
said, clasping her hands”
CHAPTER I
MASTER GOTTFRIED’S WORKSHOP
THE upper lattices of a tall, narrow window were open, and admitted the
view, of first some richly-tinted vine leaves and purpling grapes, then,
in dazzling freshness of new white stone, the lacework fabric of a
half-built minster spire, with a mason’s crane on the summit, bending as
though craving for a further supply of materials; and beyond, peeping
through every crevice of the exquisite open fretwork, was the intensely
blue sky of early autumn.
The lower longer panes of the window were closed, and the glass, divided
into circles and quarrels, made the scene less distinct; but still the
huge stone tower was traceable, and, farther off, the slope of a
gently-rising hill, clothed with vineyards blushing into autumn richness.
Below, the view was closed by the gray wall of a court-yard, laden with
fruit-trees in full bearing, and inclosing paved paths that radiated from
a central fountain, and left spaces between, where a few summer flowers
still lingered, and the remains of others showed what their past glory
had been.
The interior of the room was wainscoted, the floor paved with bright red
and cream-coloured tiles, and the tall stove in one corner decorated with
the same. The eastern end of the apartment was adorned with an exquisite
small group carved in oak, representing the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth,
with the Holy Child instructed by Joseph in the use of tools, and the
Mother sitting with her book, “pondering these things in her heart.” All
around were blocks of wood and carvings in varying states of
progress—some scarcely shaped out, and others in perfect completion. And
the subjects were equally various. Here was an adoring angel with folded
wings, clasped hands, and rapt face; here a majestic head of an apostle
or prophet; here a lovely virgin saint, seeming to play smilingly with
the instrument of her martyrdom; here a grotesque _miserere_ group,
illustrating a fairy tale, or caricaturing a popular fable here a
beauteous festoon of flowers and fruit, emulating nature in all save
colour; and on the work-table itself, growing under the master’s hand,
was a long wreath, entirely composed of leaves and seed-vessels in their
quaint and beauteous forms—the heart-shaped shepherd’s purse, the
mask-like skull-cap, and the crowned urn of the henbane. The starred cap
of the poppy was actually being shaped under the tool, copied from a
green capsule, surmounted with purple velvety rays, which, together with
its rough and wavy leaf, was held in the hand of a young maiden who knelt
by the table, watching the work with eager interest.
She was not a beautiful girl—not one of those whose “bright eyes rain
influence, and judge the prize.” She was too small, too slight, too
retiring for such a position. If there was something lily-like in her
drooping grace, it was not the queen-lily of the garden that she
resembled, but the retiring lily of the valley—so purely, transparently
white was her skin, scarcely tinted by a roseate blush on the cheek, so
tender and modest the whole effect of her slender figure, and the soft,
downcast, pensive brown eyes, utterly dissimilar in hue from those of all
her friends and kindred, except perhaps the bright, quick ones of her
uncle, the master-carver. Otherwise, his portly form, open visage, and
good-natured stateliness, as well as his furred cap and gold chain, were
thoroughly those of the German burgomaster of the fifteenth century; but
those glittering black eyes had not ceased to betray their French, or
rather Walloon, origin, though for several generations back the family
had been settled at Ulm. Perhaps, too, it was Walloon quickness and
readiness of wit that had made them, so soon as they became affiliated,
so prominent in all the councils of the good free city, and so noted for
excellence in art and learning. Indeed the present head of the family,
Master Gottfried Sorel, was so much esteemed for his learning that he had
once had serious thoughts of terming himself Magister Gothofredus
Oxalicus, and might have carried it out but for the very decided
objections of his wife, Dame Johanna, and his little niece, Christina, to
being dubbed by any such surname.
Master Gottfried had had a scapegrace younger brother named Hugh, who had
scorned both books and tools, had been the plague of the workshop, and,
instead of coming back from his wandering year of improvement, had joined
a band of roving Lanzknechts. No more had been heard of him for a dozen
or fifteen years, when he suddenly arrived at the paternal mansion at
Ulm, half dead with intermittent fever, and with a young, broken-hearted,
and nearly expiring wife, his spoil in his Italian campaigns. His rude
affection had utterly failed to console her for her desolated home and
slaughtered kindred, and it had so soon turned to brutality that, when
brought to comparative peace and rest in his brother’s home, there was
nothing left for the poor Italian but to lie down and die, commending her
babe in broken German to Hausfrau Johanna, and blessing Master Gottfried
for his flowing Latin assurances that the child should be to them even as
the little maiden who was lying in the God’s acre upon the hillside.
And verily the little Christina had been a precious gift to the bereaved
couple. Her father had no sooner recovered than he returned to his
roving life, and, except for a report that he had been seen among the
retainers of one of the robber barons of the Swabian Alps, nothing had
been heard of him; and Master Gottfried only hoped to be spared the
actual pain and scandal of knowing when his eyes were blinded and his
head swept off at a blow, or when he was tumbled headlong into a moat,
suspended from a tree, or broken on the wheel: a choice of fates that was
sure sooner or later to befall him. Meantime, both the burgomeister and
burgomeisterinn did their utmost to forget that the gentle little girl
was not their own; they set all their hopes and joys on her, and, making
her supply the place at once of son and daughter, they bred her up in all
the refinements and accomplishments in which the free citizens of Germany
took the lead in the middle and latter part of the fifteenth century. To
aid her aunt in all house-wifely arts, to prepare dainty food and varied
liquors, and to spin, weave, and broider, was only a part of Christina’s
training; her uncle likewise set great store by her sweet Italian voice,
and caused her to be carefully taught to sing and play on the lute, and
he likewise delighted in hearing her read aloud to him from the
hereditary store of MSS. and from the dark volumes that began to proceed
from the press. Nay, Master Gottfried had made experiments in printing
and wood-engraving on his own account, and had found no head so
intelligent, no hand so desirous to aid him, as his little Christina’s,
who, in all that needed taste and skill rather than strength, was worth
all his prentices and journeymen together. Some fine bold wood-cuts had
been produced by their joint efforts; but these less important
occupations had of late been set aside by the engrossing interest of the
interior fittings of the great “Dome Kirk,” which for nearly a century
had been rising by the united exertions of the burghers, without any
assistance from without. The foundation had been laid in 1377; and at
length, in the year of grace 1472, the crown of the apse had been closed
in, and matters were so forward that Master Gottfried’s stall work was
already in requisition for the choir.
“Three cubits more,” he reckoned. “Child, hast thou found me fruits
enough for the completing of this border?”
“O yes, mine uncle. I have the wild rosehip, and the flat shield of the
moonwort, and a pea-pod, and more whose names I know not. But should
they all be seed and fruit?”
“Yea, truly, my Stina, for this wreath shall speak of the goodly fruits
of a completed life.”
“Even as that which you carved in spring told of the blossom and fair
promise of youth,” returned the maiden. “Methinks the one is the most
beautiful, as it ought to be;” then, after a little pause, and some
reckoning, “I have scarce seed-pods enough in store, uncle; might we not
seek some rarer shapes in the herb-garden of Master Gerhard, the
physician? He, too, might tell me the names of some of these.”
“True, child; or we might ride into the country beyond the walls, and
seek them. What, little one, wouldst thou not?”
“So we go not far,” faltered Christina, colouring.
“Ha, thou hast not forgotten the fright thy companions had from the
Schlangenwald reitern when gathering Maydew? Fear not, little coward; if
we go beyond the suburbs we will take Hans and Peter with their halberts.
But I believe thy silly little heart can scarce be free for enjoyment if
it can fancy a Reiter within a dozen leagues of thee.”
“At your side I would not fear. That is, I would not vex thee by my
folly, and I might forget it,” replied Christina, looking down.
“My gentle child!” the old man said approvingly. “Moreover, if our good
Raiser has his way, we shall soon be free of the reitern of
Schlangenwald, and Adlerstein, and all the rest of the mouse-trap barons.
He is hoping to form a league of us free imperial cities with all the
more reasonable and honest nobles, to preserve the peace of the country.
Even now a letter from him was read in the Town Hall to that effect; and,
when all are united against them, my lords-mousers must needs become
pledged to the league, or go down before it.”
“Ah! that will be well,” cried Christina. “Then will our wagons be no
longer set upon at the Debateable Ford by Schlangenwald or Adlerstein;
and our wares will come safely, and there will be wealth enough to raise
our spire! O uncle, what a day of joy will that be when Our Lady’s great
statue will be set on the summit!”
“A day that I shall scarce see, and it will be well if thou dost,”
returned her uncle, “unless the hearts of the burghers of Ulm return to
the liberality of their fathers, who devised that spire! But what
trampling do I hear?”
There was indeed a sudden confusion in the house, and, before the uncle
and niece could rise, the door was opened by a prosperous apple-faced
dame, exclaiming in a hasty whisper, “Housefather, O Housefather, there
are a troop of reitern at the door, dismounting already;” and, as the
master came forward, brushing from his furred vest the shavings and dust
of his work, she added in a more furtive, startled accent, “and, if I
mistake not, one is thy brother!”
“He is welcome,” replied Master Gottfried, in his cheery fearless voice;
“he brought us a choice gift last time he came; and it may be he is ready
to seek peace among us after his wanderings. Come hither, Christina, my
little one; it is well to be abashed, but thou art not a child who need
fear to meet a father.”
Christina’s extreme timidity, however, made her pale and crimson by
turns, perhaps by the infection of anxiety from her aunt, who could not
conceal a certain dissatisfaction and alarm, as the maiden, led on either
side by her adopted parents, thus advanced from the little studio into a
handsomely-carved wooden gallery, projecting into a great wainscoated
room, with a broad carved stair leading down into it. Down this stair
the three proceeded, and reached the stone hall that lay beyond it, just
as there entered from the trellised porch, that covered the steps into
the street, a thin wiry man, in a worn and greasy buff suit, guarded on
the breast and arms with rusty steel, and a battered helmet with the
vizor up, disclosing a weather-beaten bronzed face, with somewhat wild
dark eyes, and a huge grizzled moustache forming a straight line over his
lips. Altogether he was a complete model of the lawless Reiter or
Lanzknecht, the terror of Swabia, and the bugbear of Christina’s
imagination. The poor child’s heart died within her as she perceived the
mutual recognition between her uncle and the new comer; and, while Master
Gottfried held out his hands with a cordial greeting of “Welcome, home,
brother Hugh,” she trembled from head to foot, as she sank on her knees,
and murmured, “Your blessing, honoured father.”
“Ha? What, this is my girl? What says she? My blessing, eh? There
then, thou hast it, child, such as I have to give, though they’ll tell
thee at Adlerstein that I am more wont to give the other sort of
blessing! Now, give me a kiss, girl, and let me see thee! How now!” as
he folded her in his rough arms; “thou art a mere feather, as slight as
our sick Jungfrau herself.” And then, regarding her, as she stood
drooping, “Thou art not half the woman thy mother was—she was stately and
straight as a column, and tall withal.”
“True!” replied Hausfrau Johanna, in a marked tone; “but both she and her
poor babe had been so harassed and wasted with long journeys and
hardships, that with all our care of our Christina, she has never been
strong or well-grown. The marvel is that she lived at all.”
“Our Christina is not beautiful, we know,” added her uncle, reassuringly
taking her hand; “but she is a good and meek maiden.”
“Well, well,” returned the Lanzknecht, “she will answer the purpose well
enough, or better than if she were fair enough to set all our fellows
together by the ears for her. Camilla, I say—no, what’s her name,
Christina?—put up thy gear and be ready to start with me to-morrow
morning for Adlerstein.”
“For Adlerstein?” re-echoed the housemother, in a tone of horrified
dismay; and Christina would have dropped on the floor but for her uncle’s
sustaining hand, and the cheering glance with which he met her imploring
look.
“Let us come up to the gallery, and understand what you desire, brother,”
said Master Gottfried, gravely. “Fill the cup of greeting, Hans. Your
followers shall be entertained in the hall,” he added.
“Ay, ay,” quoth Hugh, “I will show you reason over a goblet of the old
Rosenburg. Is it all gone yet, brother Goetz? No? I reckon there would
not be the scouring of a glass left of it in a week if it were at
Adlerstein.”
So saying, the trooper crossed the lower room, which contained a huge
tiled baking oven, various brilliantly-burnished cooking utensils, and a
great carved cupboard like a wooden bedstead, and, passing the door of
the bathroom, clanked up the oaken stairs to the gallery, the
reception-room of the house. It had tapestry hangings to the wall, and
cushions both to the carved chairs and deep windows, which looked out
into the street, the whole storey projecting into close proximity with
the corresponding apartment of the Syndic Moritz, the goldsmith on the
opposite side. An oaken table stood in the centre, and the gallery was
adorned with a dresser, displaying not only bright pewter, but goblets
and drinking cups of beautifully-shaped and coloured glass, and
saltcellars, tankards, &c. of gold and silver.
“Just as it was in the old man’s time,” said the soldier, throwing
himself into the housefather’s chair. “A handful of Lanzknechts would
make short work with your pots and pans, good sister Johanna.”
“Heaven forbid!” said poor Johanna under her breath. “Much good they do
you, up in a row there, making you a slave to furbishing them. There’s
more sense in a chair like this—that does rest a man’s bones. Here,
Camilla, girl, unlace my helmet! What, know’st not how? What is a woman
made for but to let a soldier free of his trappings? Thou hast done it!
There! Now my boots,” stretching out his legs.
“Hans shall draw off your boots, fair brother,” began the dame; but poor
Christina, the more anxious to propitiate him in little things, because
of the horror and dread with which his main purpose inspired her, was
already on her knees, pulling with her small quivering hands at the long
steel-guarded boot—a task to which she would have been utterly
inadequate, but for some lazy assistance from her father’s other foot.
She further brought a pair of her uncle’s furred slippers, while Reiter
Hugh proceeded to dangle one of the boots in the air, expatiating on its
frail condition, and expressing his intention of getting a new pair from
Master Matthias, the sutor, ere he should leave Ulm on the morrow. Then,
again, came the dreaded subject; his daughter must go with him.
“What would you with Christina, brother?” gravely asked Master Gottfried,
seating himself on the opposite side of the stove, while out of sight the
frightened girl herself knelt on the floor, her head on her aunt’s knees,
trying to derive comfort from Dame Johanna’s clasping hands, and vehement
murmurs that they would not let their child be taken from them. Alas!
these assurances were little in accordance with Hugh’s rough reply, “And
what is it to you what I do with mine own?”
“Only this, that, having bred her up as my child and intended heiress, I
might have some voice.”
“Oh! in choosing her mate! Some mincing artificer, I trow, fiddling away
with wood and wire to make gauds for the fair-day! Hast got him here?
If I like him, and she likes him, I’ll bring her back when her work is
done.”
“There is no such person as yet in the case,” said Gottfried. “Christina
is not yet seventeen, and I would take my time to find an honest, pious
burgher, who will value this precious jewel of mine.”
“And let her polish his flagons to the end of her days,” laughed Hugh
grimly, but manifestly somewhat influenced by the notion of his brother’s
wealth. “What, hast no child of thine own?” he added.
“None, save in Paradise,” answered Gottfried, crossing himself. “And
thus, if Christina should remain with me, and be such as I would have
her, then, brother, my wealth, after myself and my good housewife, shall
be hers, with due provision for thee, if thou shouldst weary of thy wild
life. Otherwise,” he added, looking down, and speaking in an under tone,
“my poor savings should go to the completion of the Dome Kirk.”
“And who told thee, Goetz, that I would do ought with the girl that
should hinder her from being the very same fat, sourkrout-cooking,
pewter-scrubbing housewife of thy mind’s eye?”
“I have heard nothing of thy designs as yet, brother Hugh, save that thou
wouldst take her to Adlerstein, which men greatly belie if it be not a
nest of robbers.”
“Aha! thou hast heard of Adlerstein! We have made the backs of your
jolly merchants tingle as well as they could through their well-lined
doublets! Ulm knows of Adlerstein, and the Debateable Ford!”
“It knows little to its credit,” said Gottfried, gravely; “and it knows
also that the Emperor is about to make a combination against all the
Swabian robber-holds, and that such as join not in it will fare the
worse.”
“Let Kaiser Fritz catch his bear ere he sells its hide! He has never
tried to mount the Eagle’s Ladder! Why, man, Adlerstein might be held
against five hundred men by sister Johanna with her rock and spindle!
’Tis a free barony, Master Gottfried, I tell thee—has never sworn
allegiance to Kaiser or Duke of Swabia either! Freiherr Eberhard is as
much a king on his own rock as Kaiser Fritz ever was of the Romans, and
more too, for I never could find out that they thought much of our king
at Rome; and, as to gainsaying our old Freiherr, one might as well leap
over the abyss at once.”
“Yes, those old free barons are pitiless tyrants,” said Gottfried, “and I
scarce think I can understand thee aright when I hear thee say thou
wouldst carry thy daughter to such an abode.”
“It is the Freiherr’s command,” returned Hugh. “Look you, they have had
wondrous ill-luck with their children; the Freiherrinn Kunigunde has had
a dozen at least, and only two are alive, my young Freiherr and my young
Lady Ermentrude; and no wonder, you would say, if you could see the
gracious Freiherrinn, for surely Dame Holda made a blunder when she
fished her out of the fountain woman instead of man. She is Adlerstein
herself by birth, married her cousin, and is prouder and more dour than
our old Freiherr himself—fitter far to handle shield than swaddled babe.
And now our Jungfrau has fallen into a pining waste, that ’tis a pity to
see how her cheeks have fallen away, and how she mopes and fades. Now,
the old Freiherr and her brother, they both dote on her, and would do
anything for her. They thought she was bewitched, so we took old Mother
Ilsebill and tried her with the ordeal of water; but, look you, she sank
as innocent as a puppy dog, and Ursel was at fault to fix on any one
else. Then one day, when I looked into the chamber, I saw the poor
maiden sitting, with her head hanging down, as if ’twas too heavy for
her, on a high-backed chair, no rest for her feet, and the wind blowing
keen all round her, and nothing to taste but scorched beef, or black
bread and sour wine, and her mother rating her for foolish fancies that
gave trouble. And, when my young Freiherr was bemoaning himself that we
could not hear of a Jew physician passing our way to catch and bring up
to cure her, I said to him at last that no doctor could do for her what
gentle tendance and nursing would, for what the poor maiden needed was to
be cosseted and laid down softly, and fed with broths and possets, and
all that women know how to do with one another. A proper scowl and hard
words I got from my gracious Lady, for wanting to put burgher softness
into an Adlerstein; but my old lord and his son opened on the scent at
once. ‘Thou hast a daughter?’ quoth the Freiherr. ‘So please your
gracious lordship,’ quoth I; ‘that is, if she still lives, for I left her
a puny infant.’ ‘Well,’ said my lord, ‘if thou wilt bring her here, and
her care restores my daughter to health and strength, then will I make
thee my body squire, with a right to a fourth part of all the spoil, and
feed for two horses in my stable.’ And young Freiherr Eberhard gave his
word upon it.”
Gottfried suggested that a sick nurse was the person required rather than
a child like Christina; but, as Hugh truly observed, no nurse would
voluntarily go to Adlerstein, and it was no use to wait for the hopes of
capturing one by raid or foray. His daughter was at his own disposal,
and her services would be repaid by personal advantages to himself which
he was not disposed to forego; in effect these were the only means that
the baron had of requiting any attendance upon his daughter.
The citizens of old Germany had the strongest and most stringent ideas of
parental authority, and regarded daughters as absolute chattels of their
father; and Master Gottfried Sorel, though he alone had done the part of
a parent to his niece, felt entirely unable to withstand the nearer
claim, except by representations; and these fell utterly disregarded, as
in truth every counsel had hitherto done, upon the ears of Reiter Hugh,
ever since he had emerged from his swaddling clothes. The plentiful
supper, full cup of wine, the confections, the soft chair, together
perhaps with his brother’s grave speech, soon, however, had the effect of
sending him into a doze, whence he started to accept civilly the proposal
of being installed in the stranger’s room, where he was speedily snoring
between two feather beds.
Then there could be freedom of speech in the gallery, where the uncle and
aunt held anxious counsel over the poor little dark-tressed head that
still lay upon good Johanna’s knees. The dame was indignant and
resolute: “Take the child back with him into a very nest of robbers!—her
own innocent dove whom they had shielded from all evil like a very nun in
a cloister! She should as soon think of yielding her up to be borne off
by the great Satan himself with his horns and hoofs.”
“Hugh is her father, housewife,” said the master-carver.
“The right of parents is with those that have done the duty of parents,”
returned Johanna. “What said the kid in the fable to the goat that
claimed her from the sheep that bred her up? I am ashamed of you,
housefather, for not better loving your own niece.”
“Heaven knows how I love her,” said Gottfried, as the sweet face was
raised up to him with a look acquitting him of the charge, and he bent to
smooth back the silken hair, and kiss the ivory brow; “but Heaven also
knows that I see no means of withholding her from one whose claim is
closer than my own—none save one; and to that even thou, housemother,
wouldst not have me resort.”
“What is it?” asked the dame, sharply, yet with some fear.
“To denounce him to the burgomasters as one of the Adlerstein retainers
who robbed Philipp der Schmidt, and have him fast laid by the heels.”
Christina shuddered, and Dame Johanna herself recoiled; but presently
exclaimed, “Nay, you could not do that, good man, but wherefore not
threaten him therewith? Stand at his bedside in early dawn, and tell him
that, if he be not off ere daylight with both his cut-throats, the
halberdiers will be upon him.”
“Threaten what I neither could nor would perform, mother? That were a
shrewish resource.”
“Yet would it save the child,” muttered Johanna. But, in the meantime,
Christina was rising from the floor, and stood before them with loose
hair, tearful eyes, and wet, flushed cheeks. “It must be thus,” she
said, in a low, but not unsteady voice. “I can bear it better since I
have heard of the poor young lady, sick and with none to care for her. I
will go with my father; it is my duty. I will do my best; but oh! uncle,
so work with him that he may bring me back again.”
“This from thee, Stina!” exclaimed her aunt; “from thee who art sick for
fear of a lanzknecht!”
“The saints will be with me, and you will pray for me,” said Christina,
still trembling.
“I tell thee, child, thou knowst not what these vile dens are. Heaven
forfend thou shouldst!” exclaimed her aunt. “Go only to Father
Balthazar, housefather, and see if he doth not call it a sending of a
lamb among wolves.”
“Mind’st thou the carving I did for Father Balthazar’s own oratory?”
replied Master Gottfried.
“I talk not of carving! I talk of our child!” said the dame, petulantly.
“_Ut agnus inter lupos_,” softly said Gottfried, looking tenderly, though
sadly, at his niece, who not only understood the quotation, but well
remembered the carving of the cross-marked lamb going forth from its fold
among the howling wolves.
“Alas! I am not an apostle,” said she.
“Nay, but, in the path of duty, ’tis the same hand that sends thee
forth,” answered her uncle, “and the same will guard thee.”
“Duty, indeed!” exclaimed Johanna. “As if any duty could lead that silly
helpless child among that herd of evil men, and women yet worse, with a
good-for-nothing father, who would sell her for a good horse to the first
dissolute Junker who fell in his way.”
“I will take care that he knows it is worth his while to restore her safe
to us. Nor do I think so ill of Hugh as thou dost, mother. And, for the
rest, Heaven and the saints and her own discretion must be her guard till
she shall return to us.”
“How can Heaven be expected to protect her when you are flying in its
face by not taking counsel with Father Balthazar?”
“That shalt thou do,” replied Gottfried, readily, secure that Father
Balthazar would see the matter in the same light as himself, and
tranquillize the good woman. It was not yet so late but that a servant
could be despatched with a request that Father Balthazar, who lived not
many houses off in the same street, would favour the Burgomeisterinn
Sorel by coming to speak with her. In a few minutes he appeared,—an aged
man, with a sensible face, of the fresh pure bloom preserved by a
temperate life. He was a secular parish-priest, and, as well as his
friend Master Gottfried, held greatly by the views left by the famous
Strasburg preacher, Master John Tauler. After the good housemother had,
in strong terms, laid the case before him, she expected a trenchant
decision on her own side, but, to her surprise and disappointment, he
declared that Master Gottfried was right, and that, unless Hugh Sorel
demanded anything absolutely sinful of his daughter, it was needful that
she should submit. He repeated, in stronger terms, the assurance that
she would be protected in the endeavour to do right, and the Divine
promises which he quoted from the Latin Scriptures gave some comfort to
the niece, who understood them, while they impressed the aunt, who did
not. There was always the hope that, whether the young lady died or
recovered, the conclusion of her illness would be the term of Christina’s
stay at Adlerstein, and with this trust Johanna must content herself.
The priest took leave, after appointing with Christina to meet her in the
confessional early in the morning before mass; and half the night was
spent by the aunt and niece in preparing Christina’s wardrobe for her
sudden journey.
Many a tear was shed over the tokens of the little services she was wont
to render, her half-done works, and pleasant studies so suddenly broken
off, and all the time Hausfrau Johanna was running on with a lecture on
the diligent preservation of her maiden discretion, with plentiful
warnings against swaggering men-at-arms, drunken lanzknechts, and, above
all, against young barons, who most assuredly could mean no good by any
burgher maiden. The good aunt blessed the saints that her Stina was
likely only to be lovely in affectionate home eyes; but, for that matter,
idle men, shut up in a castle, with nothing but mischief to think of,
would be dangerous to Little Three Eyes herself, and Christina had best
never stir a yard from her lady’s chair, when forced to meet them. All
this was interspersed with motherly advice how to treat the sick lady,
and receipts for cordials and possets; for Johanna began to regard the
case as a sort of second-hand one of her own. Nay, she even turned it
over in her mind whether she should not offer herself as the Lady
Ermentrude’s sick-nurse, as being a less dangerous commodity than her
little niece: but fears for the well-being of the master-carver, and his
Wirthschaft, and still more the notion of gossip Gertrude Grundt hearing
that she had ridden off with a wild lanzknecht, made her at once reject
the plan, without even mentioning it to her husband or his niece.
By the time Hugh Sorel rolled out from between his feather beds, and was
about to don his greasy buff, a handsome new suit, finished point device,
and a pair of huge boots to correspond, had been laid by his bedside.
“Ho, ho! Master Goetz,” said he, as he stumbled into the Stube, “I see
thy game. Thou wouldst make it worth my while to visit the father-house
at Ulm?”
“It shall be worth thy while, indeed, if thou bringest me back my white
dove,” was Gottfried’s answer.
“And how if I bring her back with a strapping reiter son-in-law?” laughed
Hugh. “What welcome should the fellow receive?”
“That would depend on what he might be,” replied Gottfried; and Hugh, his
love of tormenting a little allayed by satisfaction in his buff suit, and
by an eye to a heavy purse that lay by his brother’s hand on the table,
added, “Little fear of that. Our fellows would look for lustier brides
than yon little pale face. ’Tis whiter than ever this morning,—but no
tears. That is my brave girl.”
“Yes, father, I am ready to do your bidding,” replied Christina, meekly.
“That is well, child. Mark me, no tears. Thy mother wept day and night,
and, when she had wept out her tears, she was sullen, when I would have
been friendly towards her. It was the worse for her. But, so long as
thou art good daughter to me, thou shalt find me good father to thee;”
and for a moment there was a kindliness in his eye which made it
sufficiently like that of his brother to give some consolation to the
shrinking heart that he was rending from all it loved; and she steadied
her voice for another gentle profession of obedience, for which she felt
strengthened by the morning’s orisons.
“Well said, child. Now canst sit on old Nibelung’s croup? His back-bone
is somewhat sharper than if he had battened in a citizen’s stall; but, if
thine aunt can find thee some sort of pillion, I’ll promise thee the best
ride thou hast had since we came from Innspruck, ere thou canst
remember.”
“Christina has her own mule,” replied her uncle, “without troubling
Nibelung to carry double.”
“Ho! her own! An overfed burgomaster sort of a beast, that will turn
restive at the first sight of the Eagle’s Ladder! However, he may carry
her so far, and, if we cannot get him up the mountain, I shall know what
to do with him,” he muttered to himself.
But Hugh, like many a gentleman after him, was recusant at the sight of
his daughter’s luggage; and yet it only loaded one sumpter mule, besides
forming a few bundles which could be easily bestowed upon the saddles of
his two knappen, while her lute hung by a silken string on her arm. Both
she and her aunt thought she had been extremely moderate; but his cry
was, What could she want with so much? Her mother had never been allowed
more than would go into a pair of saddle-bags; and his own Jungfrau—she
had never seen so much gear together in her life; he would be laughed to
scorn for his presumption in bringing such a fine lady into the castle;
it would be well if Freiherr Eberhard’s bride brought half as much.
Still he had a certain pride in it—he was, after all, by birth and
breeding a burgher—and there had been evidently a softening and
civilizing influence in the night spent beneath his paternal roof, and
old habits, and perhaps likewise in the submission he had met with from
his daughter. The attendants, too, who had been pleased with their
quarters, readily undertook to carry their share of the burthen, and,
though he growled and muttered a little, he at length was won over to
consent, chiefly, as it seemed, by Christina’s obliging readiness to
leave behind the bundle that contained her holiday kirtle.
He had been spared all needless irritation. Before his waking, Christina
had been at the priest’s cell, and had received his last blessings and
counsels, and she had, on the way back, exchanged her farewells and tears
with her two dearest friends, Barbara Schmidt, and Regina Grundt,
confiding to the former her cage of doves, and to the latter the myrtle,
which, like every German maiden, she cherished in her window, to supply
her future bridal wreath. Now pale as death, but so resolutely composed
as to be almost disappointing to her demonstrative aunt, she quietly went
through her home partings; while Hausfrau Johanna adjured her father by
all that was sacred to be a true guardian and protector of the child, and
he could not forbear from a few tormenting auguries about the lanzknecht
son-in-law. Their effect was to make the good dame more passionate in
her embraces and admonitions to Christina to take care of herself. She
would have a mass said every day that Heaven might have a care of her!
Master Gottfried was going to ride as far as the confines of the free
city’s territory, and his round, sleek, cream-coloured palfrey, used to
ambling in civic processions, was as great a contrast to raw-boned,
wild-eyed Nibelung, all dappled with misty grey, as was the stately,
substantial burgher to his lean, hungry-looking brother, or Dame
Johanna’s dignified, curled, white poodle, which was forcibly withheld
from following Christina, to the coarse-bristled, wolfish-looking hound
who glared at the household pet with angry and contemptuous eyes, and
made poor Christina’s heart throb with terror whenever it bounded near
her.
Close to her uncle she kept, as beneath the trellised porches that came
down from the projecting gables of the burghers’ houses many a well-known
face gazed and nodded, as they took their way through the crooked
streets, many a beggar or poor widow waved her a blessing. Out into the
market-place, with its clear fountain adorned with arches and statues,
past the rising Dome Kirk, where the swarms of workmen unbonneted to the
master-carver, and the reiter paused with an irreverent sneer at the
small progress made since he could first remember the building. How poor
little Christina’s soul clung to every cusp of the lacework spire, every
arch of the window, each of which she had hailed as an achievement! The
tears had well-nigh blinded her in a gush of feeling that came on her
unawares, and her mule had his own way as he carried her under the arch
of the tall and beautifully-sculptured bridge tower, and over the noble
bridge across the Danube.
Her uncle spoke much, low and earnestly, to his brother. She knew it was
in commendation of her to his care, and an endeavour to impress him with
a sense of the kind of protection she would require, and she kept out of
earshot. It was enough for her to see her uncle still, and feel that his
tenderness was with her, and around her. But at last he drew his rein.
“And now, my little one, the daughter of my heart, I must bid thee
farewell,” he said.
Christina could not be restrained from springing from her mule, and
kneeling on the grass to receive his blessing, her face hidden in her
hands, that her father might not see her tears.
“The good God bless thee, my child,” said Gottfried, who seldom invoked
the saints; “bless thee, and bring thee back in His own good time. Thou
hast been a good child to us; be so to thine own father. Do thy work,
and come back to us again.”
The tears rained down his cheeks, as Christina’s head lay on his bosom,
and then with a last kiss he lifted her again on her mule, mounted his
horse, and turned back to the city, with his servant.
Hugh was merciful enough to let his daughter gaze long after the
retreating figure ere he summoned her on. All day they rode, at first
through meadow lands and then through more broken, open ground, where at
mid-day they halted, and dined upon the plentiful fare with which the
housemother had provided them, over which Hugh smacked his lips, and
owned that they did live well in the old town! Could Christina make such
sausages?
“Not as well as my aunt.”
“Well, do thy best, and thou wilt win favour with the baron.”
The evening began to advance, and Christina was very weary, as the purple
mountains that she had long watched with a mixture of fear and hope began
to look more distinct, and the ground was often in abrupt ascents. Her
father, without giving space for complaints, hurried her on. He must
reach the Debateable Ford ere dark. It was, however, twilight when they
came to an open space, where, at the foot of thickly forest-clad rising
ground, lay an expanse of turf and rich grass, through which a stream
made its way, standing in a wide tranquil pool as if to rest after its
rough course from the mountains. Above rose, like a dark wall, crag upon
crag, peak on peak, in purple masses, blending with the sky; and Hugh,
pointing upwards to a turreted point, apparently close above their heads,
where a star of light was burning, told her that there was Adlerstein,
and this was the Debateable Ford.
In fact, as he explained, while splashing through the shallow expanse,
the stream had changed its course. It was the boundary between the lands
of Schlangenwald and Adlerstein, but it had within the last sixty years
burst forth in a flood, and had then declined to return to its own bed,
but had flowed in a fresh channel to the right of the former one. The
Freiherren von Adlerstein claimed the ground to the old channel, the
Graffen von Schlangenwald held that the river was the landmark; and the
dispute had a greater importance than seemed explained from the worth of
the rushy space of ground in question, for this was the passage of the
Italian merchants on their way from Constance, and every load that was
overthrown in the river was regarded as the lawful prey of the noble on
whose banks the catastrophe befell.
Any freight of goods was anxiously watched by both nobles, and it was not
their fault if no disaster befell the travellers. Hugh talked of the
Schlangenwald marauders with the bitterness of a deadly feud, but
manifestly did not breathe freely till his whole convoy were safe across
both the wet and the dry channel.
Christina supposed they should now ascend to the castle; but her father
laughed, saying that the castle was not such a step off as she fancied,
and that they must have daylight for the Eagle’s Stairs. He led the way
through the trees, up ground that she thought mountain already, and
finally arrived at a miserable little hut, which served the purpose of an
inn.
He was received there with much obsequiousness, and was plainly a great
authority there. Christina, weary and frightened, descended from her
mule, and was put under the protection of a wild, rough-looking peasant
woman, who stared at her like something from another world, but at length
showed her a nook behind a mud partition, where she could spread her
mantle, and at least lie down, and tell her beads unseen, if she could
not sleep in the stifling, smoky atmosphere, amid the sounds of carousal
among her father and his fellows.
The great hound came up and smelt to her. His outline was so-wolfish,
that she had nearly screamed: but, more in terror at the men who might
have helped her than even at the beast, she tried to smooth him with her
trembling hand, whispered his name of “Festhold,” and found him licking
her hand, and wagging his long rough tail. And he finally lay down at
her feet, as though to protect her.
“Is it a sign that good angels will not let me be hurt?” she thought,
and, wearied out, she slept.