SNOW-WREATHS WHEN ’TIS THAW
ERMENTRUDE had by no means recovered the ground she had lost, before the
winter set in; and blinding snow came drifting down day and night,
rendering the whole view, above and below, one expanse of white, only
broken by the peaks of rock which were too steep to sustain the snow.
The waterfall lengthened its icicles daily, and the whole court was
heaped with snow, up even to the top of the high steps to the hall; and
thus, Christina was told, would it continue all the winter. What had
previously seemed to her a strangely door-like window above the porch now
became the only mode of egress, when the barons went out bear or
wolf-hunting, or the younger took his crossbow and hound to provide the
wild-fowl, which, under Christina’s skilful hands, would tempt the feeble
appetite of Ermentrude when she was utterly unable to touch the salted
meats and sausages of the household.
In spite of all endeavours to guard the windows and keep up the fire, the
cold withered the poor child like a fading leaf, and she needed more and
more of tenderness and amusement to distract her attention from her
ailments. Christina’s resources were unfailing. Out of the softer pine
and birch woods provided for the fire, she carved a set of draughtsmen,
and made a board by ruling squares on the end of a settle, and painting
the alternate ones with a compound of oil and charcoal. Even the old
Baron was delighted with this contrivance, and the pleasure it gave his
daughter. He remembered playing at draughts in that portion of his youth
which had been a shade more polished, and he felt as if the game were
making Ermentrude more hike a lady. Christina was encouraged to proceed
with a set of chessmen, and the shaping of their characteristic heads
under her dexterous fingers was watched by Ermentrude like something
magical. Indeed, the young lady entertained the belief that there was no
limit to her attendant’s knowledge or capacity.
Truly there was a greater brightness and clearness beginning to dawn even
upon poor little Ermentrude’s own dull mind. She took more interest in
everything: songs were not solely lullabies, but she cared to talk them
over; tales to which she would once have been incapable of paying
attention were eagerly sought after; and, above all, the spiritual
vacancy that her mind had hitherto presented was beginning to be filled
up. Christina had brought her own books—a library of extraordinary
extent for a maiden of the fifteenth century, but which she owed to her
uncle’s connexion with the arts of wood-cutting and printing. A Vulgate
from Dr. Faustus’s own press, a mass book and breviary, Thomas à Kempis’s
_Imitation_ and the _Nuremburg Chronicle_ all in Latin, and the poetry of
the gentle Minnesinger and bird lover, Walther von Vogelweide, in the
vernacular: these were her stock, which Hausfrau Johanna had viewed as a
foolish encumbrance, and Hugh Sorel would never have transported to the
castle unless they had been so well concealed in Christina’s kirtles that
he had taken them for parts of her wardrobe.
Most precious were they now, when, out of the reach of all teaching save
her own, she had to infuse into the sinking girl’s mind the great
mysteries of life and death, that so she might not leave the world
without more hope or faith than her heathen forefathers. For that
Ermentrude would live Christina had never hoped, since that fleeting
improvement had been cut short by the fever of the wine-cup; the look,
voice, and tone had become so completely the same as those of Regina
Grundt’s little sister who had pined and died. She knew she could not
cure, but she could, she felt she could, comfort, cheer, and soften, and
she no longer repined at her enforced sojourn at Adlerstein. She
heartily loved her charge, and could not bear to think how desolate
Ermentrude would be without her. And now the poor girl had become
responsive to her care. She was infinitely softened in manner, and
treated her parents with forms of respect new to them; she had learnt
even to thank old Ursel, dropped her imperious tone, and struggled with
her petulance; and, towards her brother, the domineering, uncouth
adherence was becoming real, tender affection; while the dependent,
reverent love she bestowed upon Christina was touching and endearing in
the extreme.
Freiherr von Adlerstein saw the change, and congratulated himself on the
effect of having a town-bred bower woman; nay, spoke of the advantage it
would be to his daughter, if he could persuade himself to make the
submission to the Kaiser which the late improvements decided on at the
Diet were rendering more and more inevitable. _Now_ how happy would be
the winner of his gentle Ermentrude!
Freiherrinn von Adlerstein thought the alteration the mere change from
child to woman, and felt insulted by the supposition that any one might
not have been proud to match with a daughter of Adlerstein, be she what
she might. As to submission to the Kaiser, that was mere folly and
weakness—kaisers, kings, dukes, and counts had broken their teeth against
the rock of Adlerstein before now! What had come over her husband and
her son to make them cravens?
For Freiherr Eberhard was more strongly convinced than was his father of
the untenableness of their present position. Hugh Sorel’s reports of
what he heard at Ulm had shown that the league that had been discussed at
Regensburg was far more formidable than anything that had ever previously
threatened Schloss Adlerstein, and that if the Graf von Schlangenwald
joined in the coalition, there would be private malice to direct its
efforts against the Adlerstein family. Feud-letters or challenges had
been made unlawful for ten years, and was not Adlerstein at feud with the
world?
Nor did Eberhard look on the submission with the sullen rage and grief
that his father felt in bringing himself to such a declension from the
pride of his ancestors. What the young Baron heard up stairs was
awakening in him a sense of the poorness and narrowness of his present
life. Ermentrude never spared him what interested her; and, partly from
her lips, partly through her appeals to her attendant, he had learnt that
life had better things to offer than independence on these bare rocks,
and that homage might open the way to higher and worthier exploits than
preying upon overturned waggons.
Dietrich of Berne and his two ancestors, whose lengthy legend Christina
could sing in a low, soft recitative, were revelations to him of what she
meant by a true knight—the lion in war, the lamb in peace; the quaint
oft-repeated portraits, and still quainter cities, of the Chronicle, with
her explanations and translations, opened his mind to aspirations for
intercourse with his fellows, for an honourable name, and for esteem in
its degree such as was paid to Sir Parzival, to Karl the Great, or to
Rodolf of Hapsburgh, once a mountain lord like himself. Nay, as
Ermentrude said, stroking his cheek, and smoothing the flaxen beard, that
somehow had become much less rough and tangled than it used to be, “Some
day wilt thou be another Good Freiherr Eberhard, whom all the
country-side loved, and who gave bread at the castle-gate to all that
hungered.”
Her brother believed nothing of her slow declension in strength,
ascribing all the change he saw to the bitter cold, and seeing but little
even of that alteration, though he spent many hours in her room, holding
her in his arms, amusing her, or talking to her and to Christina. All
Christina’s fear of him was gone. As long as there was no liquor in the
house, and he was his true self, she felt him to be a kind friend, bound
to her by strong sympathy in the love and care for his sister. She could
talk almost as freely before him as when alone with her young lady; and
as Ermentrude’s religious feelings grew stronger, and were freely
expressed to him, surely his attention was not merely kindness and
patience with the sufferer.
The girl’s soul ripened rapidly under the new influences during her
bodily decay; and, as the days lengthened, and the stern hold of winter
relaxed upon the mountains, Christina looked with strange admiration upon
the expression that had dawned upon the features once so vacant and dull,
and listened with the more depth of reverence to the sweet words of
faith, hope and love, because she felt that a higher, deeper teaching
than she could give must have come to mould the spirit for the new world
to which it was hastening.
“Like an army defeated,
The snow had retreated,”
out of the valley, whose rich green shone smiling round the pool into
which the Debateable Ford spread. The waterfall had burst its icy bonds,
and dashed down with redoubled voice, roaring rather than babbling. Blue
and pink hepaticas—or, as Christina called them, liver-krauts—had pushed
up their starry heads, and had even been gathered by Sir Eberhard, and
laid on his sister’s pillow. The dark peaks of rock came out all
glistening with moisture, and the snow only retained possession of the
deep hollows and crevices, into which however its retreat was far more
graceful than when, in the city, it was trodden by horse and man, and
soiled with smoke.
Christina dreaded indeed that the roads should be open, but she could not
love the snow; it spoke to her of dreariness, savagery, and captivity,
and she watched the dwindling stripes with satisfaction, and hailed the
fall of the petty avalanches from one Eagle’s Step to another as her
forefathers might have rejoiced in the defeat of the Frost giants.
But Ermentrude had a love for the white sheet that lay covering a gorge
running up from the ravine. She watched its diminution day by day with a
fancy that she was melting away with it; and indeed it was on the very
day that a succession of drifting showers had left the sheet alone, and
separated it from the masses of white above, that it first fully dawned
upon the rest of the family that, for the little daughter of the house,
spring was only bringing languor and sinking instead of recovery.
Then it was that Sir Eberhard first really listened to her entreaty that
she might not die without a priest, and comforted her by passing his word
to her that, if—he would not say when—the time drew near, he would bring
her one of the priests who had only come from St. Ruprecht’s cloister on
great days, by a sort of sufferance, to say mass at the Blessed
Friedmund’s hermitage chapel.
The time was slow in coming. Easter had passed with Ermentrude far too
ill for Christina to make the effort she had intended of going to the
church, even if she could get no escort but old Ursel—the sheet of snow
had dwindled to a mere wreath—the ford looked blue in the sunshine—the
cascade tinkled merrily down its rock—mountain primroses peeped out,
when, as Father Norbert came forth from saying his ill-attended
Pentecostal mass, and was parting with the infirm peasant hermit, a tall
figure strode up the pass, and, as the villagers fell back to make way,
stood before the startled priest, and said, in a voice choked with grief,
“Come with me.”
“Who needs me?” began the astonished monk.
“Follow him not, father!” whispered the hermit. “It is the young
Freiherr.—Oh have mercy on him, gracious sir; he has done your noble
lordships no wrong.”
“I mean him no ill,” replied Eberhard, clearing his voice with
difficulty; “I would but have him do his office. Art thou afraid,
priest?”
“Who needs my office?” demanded Father Norbert. “Show me fit cause, and
what should I dread? Wherefore dost thou seek me?”
“For my sister,” replied Eberhard, his voice thickening again. “My
little sister lies at the point of death, and I have sworn to her that a
priest she shall have. Wilt thou come, or shall I drag thee down the
pass?”
“I come, I come with all my heart, sir knight,” was the ready response.
“A few moments and I am at your bidding.”
He stepped back into the hermit’s cave, whence a stair led up to the
chapel. The anchorite followed him, whispering—“Good father, escape!
There will be full time ere he misses you. The north door leads to the
Gemsbock’s Pass; it is open now.”
“Why should I baulk him? Why should I deny my office to the dying?” said
Norbert.
“Alas! holy father, thou art new to this country, and know’st not these
men of blood! It is a snare to make the convent ransom thee, if not
worse. The Freiherrinn is a fiend for malice, and the Freiherr is
excommunicate.”
“I know it, my son,” said Norbert; “but wherefore should their child
perish unassoilzied?”
“Art coming, priest?” shouted Eberhard, from his stand at the mouth of
the cave.
And, as Norbert at once appeared with the pyx and other appliances that
he had gone to fetch, the Freiherr held out his hand with an offer to
“carry his gear for him;” and, when the monk refused, with an inward
shudder at entrusting a sacred charge to such unhallowed hands, replied,
“You will have work enow for both hands ere the castle is reached.”
But Father Norbert was by birth a sturdy Switzer, and thought little of
these Swabian Alps; and he climbed after his guide through the most
rugged passages of Eberhard’s shortest and most perpendicular cut without
a moment’s hesitation, and with agility worthy of a chamois. The young
baron turned for a moment, when the level of the castle had been gained,
perhaps to see whether he were following, but at the same time came to a
sudden, speechless pause.
On the white masses of vapour that floated on the opposite side of the
mountain was traced a gigantic shadowy outline of a hermit, with head
bent eagerly forward, and arm outstretched.
The monk crossed himself. Eberhard stood still for a moment, and then
said, hoarsely,—“The Blessed Friedmund! He is come for her;” then strode
on towards the postern gate, followed by Brother Norbert, a good deal
reassured both as to the genuineness of the young Baron’s message and the
probable condition of the object of his journey, since the patron saint
of her race was evidently on the watch to speed her departing spirit.
Sir Eberhard led the way up the turret stairs to the open door, and the
monk entered the death-chamber. The elder Baron sat near the fire in the
large wooden chair, half turned towards his daughter, as one who must
needs be present, but with his face buried in his hands, unable to endure
the spectacle. Nearer was the tall form of his wife, standing near the
foot of the bed, her stern, harsh features somewhat softened by the
feelings of the moment. Ursel waited at hand, with tears running down
her furrowed cheeks.
For such as these Father Norbert was prepared; but he little expected to
meet so pure and sweet a gaze of reverential welcome as beamed on him
from the soft, dark eyes of the little white-checked maiden who sat on
the bed, holding the sufferer in her arms. Still less had he anticipated
the serene blessedness that sat on the wasted features of the dying girl,
and all the anguish of labouring breath.
She smiled a smile of joy, held up her hand, and thanked her brother.
Her father scarcely lifted his head, her mother made a rigid curtsey, and
with a grim look of sorrow coming over her features, laid her hand over
the old Baron’s shoulder. “Come away, Herr Vater,” she said; “he is
going to hear her confession, and make her too holy for the like of us to
touch.”
The old man rose up, and stepped towards his child. Ermentrude held out
her arms to him, and murmured—
“Father, father, pardon me; I would have been a better daughter if I had
only known—” He gathered her in his arms; he was quite past speaking;
and they only heard his heavy breathing, and one more whisper from
Ermentrude—“And oh! father, one day wilt thou seek to be absolved?”
Whether he answered or not they knew not; he only gave her repeated
kisses, and laid her down on her pillows, then rushed to the door, and
the passionate sobs of the strong man’s uncontrolled nature might be
heard upon the stair. The parting with the others was not necessarily so
complete, as they were not, like him, under censure of the Church; but
Kunigunde leant down to kiss her; and, in return to her repetition of her
entreaty for pardon, replied, “Thou hast it, child, if it will ease thy
mind; but it is all along of these new fancies that ever an Adlerstein
thought of pardon. There, there, I blame thee not, poor maid; it thou
wert to die, it may be even best as it is. Now must I to thy father; he
is troubled enough about this gear.”
But when Eberhard moved towards his sister, she turned to the priest, and
said, imploringly, “Not far, not far! Oh! let them,” pointing to
Eberhard and Christina, “let them not be quite out of sight!”
“Out of hearing is all that is needed, daughter,” replied the priest; and
Ermentrude looked content as Christina moved towards the empty north
turret, where, with the door open, she was in full view, and Eberhard
followed her thither. It was indeed fully out of earshot of the child’s
faint, gasping confession. Gravely and sadly both stood there.
Christina looked up the hillside for the snow-wreath. The May sunshine
had dissolved it; the green pass lay sparkling without a vestige of its
white coating. Her eyes full of tears, she pointed the spot out to
Eberhard. He understood; but, leaning towards her, told, under his
breath, of the phantom he had seen. Her eyes expanded with awe of the
supernatural. “It was the Blessed Friedmund,” said Eberhard. “Never
hath he so greeted one of our race since the pious Freiherrinn
Hildegarde. Maiden, hast thou brought us back a blessing?”
“Ah! well may she be blessed—well may the saints stoop to greet her,”
murmured Christina, with strangled voice, scarcely able to control her
sobs.
Father Norbert came towards them. The simple confession had been heard,
and he sought the aid of Christina in performing the last rites of the
Church.
“Maiden,” he said to her, “thou hast done a great and blessed work, such
as many a priest might envy thee.”
Eberhard was not excluded during the final services by which the soul was
to be dismissed from its earthly dwelling-place. True, he comprehended
little of their import, and nothing of the words, but he gazed meekly,
with uncovered head, and a bewildered look of sadness, while Christina
made her responses and took her part with full intelligence and deep
fervour, sorrowing indeed for the companion who had become so dear to
her, but deeply thankful for the spiritual consolation that had come at
last. Ermentrude lay calm, and, as it were, already rapt into a higher
world, lighting up at the German portions of the service, and not wholly
devoid of comprehension of the spirit even of the Latin, as indeed she
had come to the border of the region where human tongues and languages
are no more.
She was all but gone when the rite of extreme unction was completed, and
they could only stand round her, Eberhard, Christina, Ursel, and the old
Baroness, who had returned again, watching the last flutterings of the
breath, the window thrown wide open that nothing might impede the passage
of the soul to the blue vault above.
The priest spoke the beautiful commendation, “Depart, O Christian soul.”
There was a faint gesture in the midst for Christina to lift her in her
arms—a sign to bend down and kiss her brow—but her last look was for her
brother, her last murmur, “Come after me; be the Good Baron Ebbo.”