THE FLOTSAM AND JETSAM OF THE DEBATEABLE FORD
LIFE in Schloss Adlerstein was little less intolerable than Christina’s
imagination had depicted it. It was entirely devoid of all the graces of
chivalry, and its squalor and coarseness, magnified into absurdity by
haughtiness and violence, were almost inconceivable. Fortunately for
her, the inmates of the castle resided almost wholly below stairs in the
hall and kitchen, and in some dismal dens in the thickness of their
walls. The height of the keep was intended for dignity and defence,
rather than for habitation; and the upper chamber, with its great
state-bed, where everybody of the house of Adlerstein was born and died,
was not otherwise used, except when Ermentrude, unable to bear the
oppressive confusion below stairs, had escaped thither for quietness’
sake. No one else wished to inhabit it. The chamber above was filled
with the various appliances for the defence of the castle; and no one
would have ever gone up the turret stairs had not a warder been usually
kept on the roof to watch the roads leading to the Ford. Otherwise the
Adlersteiners had all the savage instinct of herding together in as small
a space as possible.
Freiherrin Kunigunde hardly ever mounted to her daughter’s chamber. All
her affection was centred on the strong and manly son, of whom she was
proud, while the sickly pining girl, who would hardly find a mate of her
own rank, and who had not even dowry enough for a convent, was such a
shame and burthen to her as to be almost a distasteful object. But
perversely, as it seemed to her, the only daughter was the darling of
both father and brother, who were ready to do anything to gratify the
girl’s sick fancies, and hailed with delight her pleasure in her new
attendant. Old Ursel was at first rather envious and contemptuous of the
childish, fragile stranger, but her gentleness disarmed the old woman;
and, when it was plain that the young lady’s sufferings were greatly
lessened by tender care, dislike gave way to attachment, and there was
little more murmuring at the menial services that were needed by the two
maidens, even when Ermentrude’s feeble fancies, or Christina’s views of
dainty propriety, rendered them more onerous than before. She was even
heard to rejoice that some Christian care and tenderness had at last
reached her poor neglected child.
It was well for Christina that she had such an ally. The poor child
never crept down stairs to the dinner or supper, to fetch food for
Ermentrude, or water for herself, without a trembling and shrinking of
heart and nerves. Her father’s authority guarded her from rude actions,
but from rough tongues he neither could nor would guard her, nor
understand that what to some would have been a compliment seemed to her
an alarming insult; and her chief safeguard lay in her own insignificance
and want of attraction, and still more in the modesty that concealed her
terror at rude jests sufficiently to prevent frightening her from
becoming an entertainment.
Her father, whom she looked on as a cultivated person in comparison with
the rest of the world, did his best for her after his own views, and
gradually brought her all the properties she had left at the Kohler’s
hut. Therewith she made a great difference in the aspect of the chamber,
under the full sanction of the lords of the castle. Wolf, deer, and
sheep skins abounded; and with these, assisted by her father and old
Hatto, she tapestried the lower part of the bare grim walls, a great
bear’s hide covered the neighbourhood of the hearth, and cushions were
made of these skins, and stuffed from Ursel’s stores of feathers. All
these embellishments were watched with great delight by Ermentrude, who
had never been made of so much importance, and was as much surprised as
relieved by such attentions. She was too young and too delicate to
reject civilization, and she let Christina braid her hair, bathe her, and
arrange her dress, with sensations of comfort that were almost like
health. To train her into occupying herself was however, as Christina
soon found, in her present state, impossible. She could spin and sew a
little, but hated both; and her clumsy, listless fingers only soiled and
wasted Christina’s needles, silk, and lute strings, and such damage was
not so easily remedied as in the streets of Ulm. She was best provided
for when looking on at her attendant’s busy hands, and asking to be sung
to, or to hear tales of the active, busy scenes of the city life—the
dresses, fairs, festivals, and guild processions.
[Picture: “She was too young and too delicate to reject civilization, and
she let Christina braid her hair, bathe her, and arrange her dress, with
sensations of comfort that were almost like health.”—Page 37]
The gentle nursing and the new interests made her improve in health, so
that her father was delighted, and Christina began to hope for a return
home. Sometimes the two girls would take the air, either, on still days,
upon the battlements, where Ermentrude watched the Debateable Ford, and
Christina gazed at the Danube and at Ulm; or they would find their way to
a grassy nook on the mountain-side, where Christina gathered gentians and
saxifrage, trying to teach her young lady that they were worth looking
at, and sighing at the thought of Master Gottfried’s wreath when she met
with the asphodel seed-vessels. Once the quiet mule was brought into
requisition; and, with her brother walking by her, and Sorel and his
daughter in attendance, Ermentrude rode towards the village of
Adlerstein. It was a collection of miserable huts, on a sheltered slope
towards the south, where there was earth enough to grow some wretched rye
and buckwheat, subject to severe toll from the lord of the soil. Perched
on a hollow rock above the slope was a rude little church, over a cave
where a hermit had once lived and died in such odour of sanctity that,
his day happening to coincide with that of St. John the Baptist, the
Blessed Freidmund had acquired the credit of the lion’s share both of the
saint’s honours and of the old solstitial feast of Midsummer. This wake
was the one gaiety of the year, and attracted a fair which was the sole
occasion of coming honestly by anything from the outer world; nor had his
cell ever lacked a professional anchorite.
The Freiherr of his day had been a devout man, who had gone a pilgrimage
with Kaiser Friedrich of the Red Beard, and had brought home a bit of
stone from the council chamber of Nicæa, which he had presented to the
little church that he had built over the cavern. He had named his son
Friedmund; and there were dim memories of his days as of a golden age,
before the Wildschlossen had carried off the best of the property, and
when all went well.
This was Christina’s first sight of a church since her arrival, except
that in the chapel, which was a dismal neglected vault, where a ruinous
altar and mouldering crucifix testified to its sacred purpose. The old
baron had been excommunicated for twenty years, ever since he had harried
the wains of the Bishop of Augsburg on his way to the Diet; and, though
his household and family were not under the same sentence, “Sunday didna
come abune the pass.” Christina’s entreaty obtained permission to enter
the little building, but she had knelt there only a few moments before
her father came to hurry her away, and her supplications that he would
some day take her to mass there were whistled down the wind; and indeed
the hermit was a layman, and the church was only served on great
festivals by a monk from the convent of St. Ruprecht, on the distant side
of the mountain, which was further supposed to be in the Schlangenwald
interest. Her best chance lay in infusing the desire into Ermentrude,
who by watching her prayers and asking a few questions had begun to
acquire a few clearer ideas. And what Ermentrude wished had always
hitherto been acquiesced in by the two lords.
The elder baron came little into Christina’s way. He meant to be kind to
her, but she was dreadfully afraid of him, and, when he came to visit his
daughter, shrank out of his notice as much as possible, shuddering most
of all at his attempts at civilities. His son she viewed as one of the
thickwitted giants meant to be food for the heroism of good knights of
romance. Except that he was fairly conversant with the use of weapons,
and had occasionally ridden beyond the shadow of his own mountain, his
range was quite as limited as his sister’s; and he had an equal scorn for
all beyond it. His unfailing kindness to his sister was however in his
favour, and he always eagerly followed up any suggestion Christina made
for her pleasure.
Much of his time was spent on the child, whose chief nurse and playmate
he had been throughout her malady; and when she showed him the stranger’s
arrangements, or repeated to him, in a wondering, blundering way, with
constant appeals to her attendant, the new tales she had heard, he used
to listen with a pleased awkward amazement at his little Ermentrude’s
astonishing cleverness, joined sometimes with real interest, which was
evinced by his inquiries of Christina. He certainly did not admire the
little, slight, pale bower-maiden, but he seemed to look upon her like
some strange, almost uncanny, wise spirit out of some other sphere, and
his manner towards her had none of the offensive freedom apparent in even
the old man’s patronage. It was, as Ermentrude once said, laughing,
almost as if he feared that she might do something to him.
Christina had expected to see a ruffian, and had found a boor; but she
was to be convinced that the ruffian existed in him. Notice came up to
the castle of a convoy of waggons, and all was excitement. Men-at-arms
were mustered, horses led down the Eagle’s Ladder, and an ambush prepared
in the woods. The autumn rains were already swelling the floods, and the
passage of the ford would be difficult enough to afford the assailants an
easy prey.
The Freiherrinn Kunigunde herself, and all the women of the castle,
hurried into Ermentrude’s room to enjoy the view from her window. The
young lady herself was full of eager expectation, but she knew enough of
her maiden to expect no sympathy from her, and loved her well enough not
to bring down on her her mother’s attention; so Christina crept into her
turret, unable to withdraw her eyes from the sight, trembling, weeping,
praying, longing for power to give a warning signal. Could they be her
own townsmen stopped on the way to dear Ulm?
She could see the waggons in mid-stream, the warriors on the bank; she
heard the triumphant outcries of the mother and daughter in the outer
room. She saw the overthrow, the struggle, the flight of a few scattered
dark figures on the farther side, the drawing out of the goods on the
nearer. Oh! were those leaping waves bearing down any good men’s corpses
to the Danube, slain, foully slain by her own father and this gang of
robbers?
She was glad that Ermentrude went down with her mother to watch the
return of the victors. She crouched on the floor, sobbing, shuddering
with grief and indignation, and telling her beads alike for murdered and
murderers, till, after the sounds of welcome and exultation, she heard
Sir Eberhard’s heavy tread, as he carried his sister up stairs.
Ermentrude went up at once to Christina.
“After all there was little for us!” she said. “It was only a wain of
wine barrels; and now will the drunkards down stairs make good cheer.
But Ebbo could only win for me this gold chain and medal which was round
the old merchant’s neck.”
“Was he slain?” Christina asked with pale lips.
“I only know I did not kill him,” returned the baron; “I had him down and
got the prize, and that was enough for me. What the rest of the fellows
may have done, I cannot say.”
“But he has brought thee something, Stina,” continued Ermentrude. “Show
it to her, brother.”
“My father sends you this for your care of my sister,” said Eberhard,
holding out a brooch that had doubtless fastened the band of the
unfortunate wine-merchant’s bonnet.
“Thanks, sir; but, indeed, I may not take it,” said Christina, turning
crimson, and drawing back.
“So!” he exclaimed, in amaze; then bethinking himself,—“They are no
townsfolk of yours, but Constance cowards.”
“Take it, take it, Stina, or you will anger my father,” added Ermentrude.
“No, lady, I thank the barons both, but it were sin in me,” said
Christina, with trembling voice.
“Look you,” said Eberhard; “we have the full right—’tis a seignorial
right—to all the goods of every wayfarer that may be overthrown in our
river—as I am a true knight!” he added earnestly.
“A true knight!” repeated Christina, pushed hard, and very indignant in
all her terror. “The true knight’s part is to aid, not rob, the weak.”
And the dark eyes flashed a vivid light.
“Christina!” exclaimed Ermentrude in the extremity of her amazement,
“know you what you have said?—that Eberhard is no true knight!”
He meanwhile stood silent, utterly taken by surprise, and letting his
little sister fight his battles.
“I cannot help it, Lady Ermentrude,” said Christina, with trembling lips,
and eyes filling with tears. “You may drive me from the castle—I only
long to be away from it; but I cannot stain my soul by saying that spoil
and rapine are the deeds of a true knight.”
“My mother will beat you,” cried Ermentrude, passionately, ready to fly
to the head of the stairs; but her brother laid his hand upon her.
“Tush, Trudchen; keep thy tongue still, child! What does it hurt me?”
And he turned on his heels and went down stairs. Christina crept into
her turret, weeping bitterly and with many a wild thought. Would they
visit her offence on her father? Would they turn them both out together?
If so, would not her father hurl her down the rocks rather than return
her to Ulm? Could she escape? Climb down the dizzy rocks, it might be,
succour the merchant lying half dead on the meadows, protect and be
protected, be once more among God-fearing Christians? And as she felt
her helplessness, the selfish thoughts passed into a gush of tears for
the murdered man, lying suffering there, and for his possible wife and
children watching for him. Presently Ermentrude peeped in.
“Stina, Stina, don’t cry; I will not tell my mother! Come out, and
finish my kerchief! Come out! No one shall beat you.”
“That is not what I wept for, lady,” said Christina. “I do not think you
would bring harm on me. But oh! I would I were at home! I grieve for
the bloodshed that I must see and may not hinder, and for that poor
merchant.”
“Oh,” said Ermentrude, “you need not fear for him! I saw his own folk
return and lift him up. But what is he to thee or to us?”
“I am a burgher maid, lady,” said Christina, recovering herself, and
aware that it was of little use to bear testimony to such an auditor as
poor little Ermentrude against the deeds of her own father and brother,
which had in reality the sort of sanction Sir Eberhard had mentioned,
much akin to those coast rights that were the temptation of wreckers.
Still she could not but tremble at the thought of her speech, and went
down to supper in greater trepidation than usual, dreading that she
should be expected to thank the Freiherr for his gift. But, fortunately,
manners were too rare at Adlerstein for any such omission to be
remarkable, and the whole establishment was in a state of noisy triumph
and merriment over the excellence of the French wine they had captured,
so that she slipped into her seat unobserved.
Every available drinking-horn and cup was full. Ermentrude was eagerly
presented with draughts by both father and brother, and presently Sir
Eberhard exclaimed, turning towards the shrinking Christina with a rough
laugh, “Maiden, I trow thou wilt not taste?”
Christina shook her head, and framed a negative with her lips.
“What’s this?” asked her father, close to whom she sat. “Is’t a
fast-day?”
There was a pause. Many were present who regarded a fast-day much more
than the lives or goods of their neighbours. Christina again shook her
head.
“No matter,” said good-natured Sir Eberhard, evidently wishing to avert
any ill consequence from her. “’Tis only her loss.”
The mirth went on rough and loud, and Christina felt this the worst of
all the miserable meals she had partaken of in fear and trembling at this
place of her captivity. Ermentrude, too, was soon in such a state of
excitement, that not only was Christina’s womanhood bitterly ashamed and
grieved for her, but there was serious danger that she might at any
moment break out with some allusion to her maiden’s recusancy in her
reply to Sir Eberhard.
Presently however Ermentrude laid down her head and began to cry—violent
headache had come on—and her brother took her in his arms to carry her up
the stairs; but his potations had begun before hers, and his step was far
from steady; he stumbled more than once on the steps, shook and
frightened his sister, and set her down weeping petulantly. And then
came a more terrible moment; his awe of Christina had passed away; he
swore that she was a lovely maiden, with only too free a tongue, and that
a kiss must be the seal of her pardon.
A house full of intoxicated men, no living creature who would care to
protect her, scarce even her father! But extremity of terror gave her
strength. She spoke resolutely—“Sir Eberhard, your sister is ill—you are
in no state to be here. Go down at once, nor insult a free maiden.”
Probably the low-toned softness of the voice, so utterly different from
the shrill wrangling notes of all the other women he had known, took him
by surprise. He was still sober enough to be subdued, almost cowed, by
resistance of a description unlike all he had ever seen; his alarm at
Christina’s superior power returned in full force, he staggered to the
stairs, Christina rushed after him, closed the heavy door with all her
force, fastened it inside, and would have sunk down to weep but for
Ermentrude’s peevish wail of distress.
Happily Ermentrude was still a child, and, neglected as she had been, she
still had had no one to make her precocious in matters of this kind. She
was quite willing to take Christina’s view of the case, and not resent
the exclusion of her brother; indeed, she was unwell enough to dread the
loudness of his voice and rudeness of his revelry.
So the door remained shut, and Christina’s resolve was taken that she
would so keep it while the wine lasted. And, indeed, Ermentrude had so
much fever all that night and the next day that no going down could be
thought of. Nobody came near the maidens but Ursel, and she described
one continued orgie that made Christina shudder again with fear and
disgust. Those below revelled without interval, except for sleep; and
they took their sleep just where they happened to sink down, then
returned again to the liquor. The old baroness repaired to the kitchen
when the revelry went beyond even her bearing; but all the time the wine
held out, the swine in the court were, as Ursel averred, better company
than the men in the hall. Yet there might have been worse even than
this; for old Ursel whispered that at the bottom of the stairs there was
a trap-door. Did the maiden know what it covered? It was an oubliette.
There was once a Strasburg armourer who had refused ransom, and talked of
appealing to the Kaiser. He trod on that door and—Ursel pointed
downwards. “But since that time,” she said, “my young lord has never
brought home a prisoner.”
No wonder that all this time Christina cowered at the discordant sounds
below, trembled, and prayed while she waited on her poor young charge,
who tossed and moaned in fever and suffering. She was still far from
recovered when the materials of the debauch failed, and the household
began to return to its usual state. She was soon restlessly pining for
her brother; and when her father came up to see her, received him with
scant welcome, and entreaties for Ebbo. She knew she should be better if
she might only sit on his knee, and lay her head on his shoulder. The
old Freiherr offered to accommodate her; but she rejected him petulantly,
and still called for Ebbo, till he went down, promising that her brother
should come.
With a fluttering heart Christina awaited the noble whom she had perhaps
insulted, and whose advances had more certainly insulted her. Would he
visit her with his anger, or return to that more offensive familiarity?
She longed to flee out of sight, when, after a long interval, his heavy
tread was heard; but she could not even take refuge in her turret, for
Ermentrude was leaning against her. Somehow, the step was less assured
than usual; he absolutely knocked at the door; and, when he came in, he
acknowledged her by a slight inclination of the head. If she only had
known it, this was the first time that head had ever been bent to any
being, human or Divine; but all she did perceive was that Sir Eberhard
was in neither of the moods she dreaded, only desperately shy and
sheepish, and extremely ashamed, not indeed of his excess, which would
have been, even to a much tamer German baron, only a happy accident, but
of what had passed between himself and her.
He was much grieved to perceive how much ground Ermentrude had lost, and
gave himself up to fondling and comforting her; and in a few days more,
in their common cares for the sister, Christina lost her newly-acquired
horror of the brother, and could not but be grateful for his forbearance;
while she was almost entertained by the increased awe of herself shown by
this huge robber baron.