THE FIGHT AT THE FORD
BY the early September sunrise the thicket beneath the pass was
sheltering the twenty well-appointed reiters of Adlerstein, each
standing, holding his horse by the bridle, ready to mount at the instant.
In their rear were the serfs and artisans, some with axes, scythes, or
ploughshares, a few with cross-bows, and Jobst and his sons with the long
blackened poles used for stirring their charcoal fires. In advance were
Master Moritz and the two barons, the former in a stout plain steel
helmet, cuirass, and gauntlets, a sword, and those new-fashioned weapons,
pistols; the latter in full knightly armour, exactly alike, from the
gilt-spurred heel to the eagle-crested helm, and often moving restlessly
forward to watch for the enemy, though taking care not to be betrayed by
the glitter of their mail. So long did they wait that there was even a
doubt whether it might not have been a false alarm; the boy was
vituperated, and it was proposed to despatch a spy to see whether
anything were doing at Schlangenwald.
At length a rustling and rushing were heard; then a clank of armour.
Ebbo vaulted into the saddle, and gave the word to mount; Schleiermacher,
who always fought on foot, stepped up to him. “Keep back your men, Herr
Freiherr. Let his design be manifest. We must not be said to have
fallen on him on his way to the muster.”
“It would be but as he served my father!” muttered Ebbo, forced, however,
to restrain himself, though with boiling blood, as the tramp of horses
shook the ground, and bright armour became visible on the further side of
the stream.
For the first time, the brothers beheld the foe of their line. He was
seated on a clumsy black horse, and sheathed in full armour, and was
apparently a large heavy man, whose powerful proportions were becoming
unwieldy as he advanced in life. The dragon on his crest and shield
would have made him known to the twins, even without the deadly curse
that passed the Schneiderlein’s lips at the sight. As the armed troop,
out-numbering the Adlersteiners by about a dozen, and followed by a
rabble with straw and pine brands, came forth on the meadow, the count
halted and appeared to be giving orders.
“The ruffian! He is calling them on! Now—” began Ebbo.
“Nay, there is no sign yet that he is not peacefully on his journey to
the camp,” responded Moritz; and, chafing with impatient fury, the knight
waited while Schlangenwald rode towards the old channel of the
Braunwasser, and there, drawing his rein, and sitting like a statue in
his stirrups, he could hear him shout: “The lazy dogs are not astir yet.
We will give them a réveille. Forward with your brands!”
“Now!” and Ebbo’s cream-coloured horse leapt forth, as the whole band
flashed into the sunshine from the greenwood covert.
“Who troubles the workmen on my land?” shouted Ebbo.
“Who you may be I care not,” replied the count, “but when I find
strangers unlicensed on my lands, I burn down their huts. On, fellows!”
“Back, fellows!” called Ebbo. “Whoso touches a stick on Adlerstein
ground shall suffer.”
“So!” said the count, “this is the burgher-bred, burgher-fed varlet, that
calls himself of Adlerstein! Boy, thou had best be warned. Wert thou
true-blooded, it were worth my while to maintain my rights against thee.
Craven as thou art, not even with spirit to accept my feud, I would fain
not have the trouble of sweeping thee from my path.”
“Herr Graf, as true Freiherr and belted knight, I defy thee! I proclaim
my right to this ground, and whoso damages those I place there must do
battle with me.”
“Thou wilt have it then,” said the count, taking his heavy lance from his
squire, closing his visor, and wheeling back his horse, so as to give
space for his career.
Ebbo did the like, while Friedel on one side, and Hierom von
Schlangenwald on the other, kept their men in array, awaiting the issue
of the strife between their leaders—the fire of seventeen against the
force of fifty-six.
They closed in full shock, with shivered lances and rearing, pawing
horses, but without damage to either. Each drew his sword, and they were
pressing together, when Heinz, seeing a Schlangenwalder aiming with his
cross-bow, rode at him furiously, and the mêlée became general; shots
were fired, not only from cross-bows, but from arquebuses, and in the
throng Friedel lost sight of the main combat between his brother and the
count.
Suddenly however there was a crash, as of falling men and horses, with a
shout of victory strangely mingled with a cry of agony, and both sides
became aware that their leaders had fallen. Each party rushed to its
fallen head. Friedel beheld Ebbo under his struggling horse, and an
enemy dashing at his throat, and, flying to the rescue, he rode down the
assailant, striking him with his sword; and, with the instinct of driving
the foe as far as possible from his brother, he struck with a sort of
frenzy, shouting fiercely to his men, and leaping over the dry bed of the
river, rushing onward with an intoxication of ardour that would have
seemed foreign to his gentle nature, but for the impetuous desire to
protect his brother. Their leaders down, the enemy had no one to rally
them, and, in spite of their superiority in number, gave way in confusion
before the furious onset of Adlerstein. So soon, however, as Friedel
perceived that he had forced the enemy far back from the scene of
conflict, his anxiety for his brother returned, and, leaving the
retainers to continue the pursuit, he turned his horse. There, on the
green meadow, lay on the one hand Ebbo’s cream-coloured charger, with his
master under him, on the other the large figure of the count; and several
other prostrate forms likewise struggled on the sand and pebbles of the
strand, or on the turf.
“Ay,” said the architect, who had turned with Friedel, “’twas a gallant
feat, Sir Friedel, and I trust there is no great harm done. Were it the
mere dint of the count’s sword, your brother will be little the worse.”
“Ebbo! Ebbo mine, look up!” cried Friedel, leaping from his horse, and
unclasping his brother’s helmet.
“Friedel!” groaned a half-suffocated voice. “O take away the horse.”
One or two of the artisans were at hand, and with their help the dying
steed was disengaged from the rider, who could not restrain his moans,
though Friedel held him in his arms, and endeavoured to move him as
gently as possible. It was then seen that the deep gash from the count’s
sword in the chest was not the most serious injury, but that an arquebus
ball had pierced his thigh, before burying itself in the body of his
horse; and that the limb had been further crushed and wrenched by the
animal’s struggles. He was nearly unconscious, and gasped with anguish,
but, after Moritz had bathed his face and moistened his lips, as he lay
in his brother’s arms, he looked up with clearer eyes, and said: “Have I
slain him? It was the shot, not he, that sent me down. Lives he?
See—thou, Friedel—thou. Make him yield.”
Transferring Ebbo to the arms of Schleiermacher, Friedel obeyed, and
stepped towards the fallen foe. The wrongs of Adlerstein were indeed
avenged, for the blood was welling fast from a deep thrust above the
collar-bone, and the failing, feeble hand was wandering uncertainly among
the clasps of the gorget.
“Let me aid,” said Friedel, kneeling down, and in his pity for the dying
man omitting the summons to yield, he threw back the helmet, and beheld a
grizzled head and stern hard features, so embrowned by weather and
inflamed by intemperance, that even approaching death failed to blanch
them. A scowl of malignant hate was in the eyes, and there was a thrill
of angry wonder as they fell on the lad’s face. “Thou again,—thou whelp!
I thought at least I had made an end of thee,” he muttered, unheard by
Friedel, who, intent on the thought that had recurred to him with greater
vividness than ever, was again filling Ebbo’s helmet with water. He
refreshed the dying man’s face with it, held it to his lips, and said:
“Herr Graf, variance and strife are ended now. For heaven’s sake, say
where I may find my father!”
“So! Wouldst find him?” replied Schlangenwald, fixing his look on the
eager countenance of the youth, while his hand, with a dying man’s
nervous agitation, was fumbling at his belt.
“I would bless you for ever, could I but free him.”
“Know then,” said the count, speaking very slowly, and still holding the
young knight’s gaze with a sort of intent fascination, by the stony glare
of his light gray eyes, “know that thy villain father is a Turkish slave,
unless he be—as I hope—where his mongrel son may find him.”
Therewith came a flash, a report; Friedel leaped back, staggered, fell;
Ebbo started to a sitting posture, with horrified eyes, and a loud
shriek, calling on his brother; Moritz sprang to his feet, shouting,
“Shame! treason!”
“I call you to witness that I had not yielded,” said the count. “There’s
an end of the brood!” and with a grim smile, he straightened his limbs,
and closed his eyes as a dead man, ere the indignant artisans fell on him
in savage vengeance.
All this had passed like a flash of lightning, and Friedel had almost at
the instant of his fall flung himself towards his brother, and raising
himself on one hand, with the other clasped Ebbo’s, saying, “Fear not; it
is nothing,” and he was bending to take Ebbo’s head again on his knee,
when a gush of dark blood, from his left side, caused Moritz to exclaim,
“Ah! Sir Friedel, the traitor did his work! That is no slight hurt.”
“Where? How? The ruffian!” cried Ebbo, supporting himself on his elbow,
so as to see his brother, who rather dreamily put his hand to his side,
and, looking at the fresh blood that immediately dyed it, said, “I do not
feel it. This is more numb dulness than pain.”
“A bad sign that,” said Moritz, apart to one of the workmen, with whom he
held counsel how to carry back to the castle the two young knights, who
remained on the bank, Ebbo partly extended on the ground, partly
supported on the knee and arm of Friedel, who sat with his head drooping
over him, their looks fixed on one another, as if conscious of nothing
else on earth.
“Herr Freiherr,” said Moritz, presently, “have you breath to wind your
bugle to call the men back from the pursuit?”
Ebbo essayed, but was too faint, and Friedel, rousing himself from the
stupor, took the horn from him, and made the mountain echoes ring again,
but at the expense of a great effusion of blood.
By this time, however, Heinz was riding back, and a moment his exultation
changed to rage and despair, when he saw the condition of his young
lords. Master Schleiermacher proposed to lay them on some of the planks
prepared for the building, and carry them up the new road.
“Methinks,” said Friedel, “that I could ride if I were lifted on
horseback, and thus would our mother be less shocked.”
“Well thought,” said Ebbo. “Go on and cheer her. Show her thou canst
keep the saddle, however it may be with me,” he added, with a groan of
anguish.
Friedel made the sign of the cross over him. “The holy cross keep us and
her, Ebbo,” he said, as he bent to assist in laying his brother on the
boards, where a mantle had been spread; then kissed his brow, saying, “We
shall be together again soon.”
Ebbo was lifted on the shoulders of his bearers, and Friedel strove to
rise, with the aid of Heinz, but sank back, unable to use his limbs; and
Schleiermacher was the more concerned. “It goes so with the backbone,”
he said. “Sir Friedmund, you had best be carried.”
“Nay, for my mother’s sake! And I would fain be on my good steed’s back
once again!” he entreated. And when with much difficulty he had been
lifted to the back of his cream-colour, who stood as gently and patiently
as if he understood the exigency of the moment, he sat upright, and waved
his hand as he passed the litter, while Ebbo, on his side, signed to him
to speed on and prepare their mother. Long, however, before the castle
was reached, dizzy confusion and leaden helplessness, when no longer
stimulated by his brother’s presence, so grew on him that it was with
much ado that Heinz could keep him in his saddle; but, when he saw his
mother in the castle gateway, he again collected his forces, bade Heinz
withdraw his supporting arm, and, straightening himself, waved a greeting
to her, as he called cheerily; “Victory, dear mother. Ebbo has
overthrown the count, and you must not be grieved if it be at some cost
of blood.”
“Alas, my son!” was all Christina could say, for his effort at gaiety
formed a ghastly contrast with the gray, livid hue that overspread his
fair young face, his bloody armour, and damp disordered hair, and even
his stiff unearthly smile.
“Nay, motherling,” he added, as she came so near that he could put his
arm round her neck, “sorrow not, for Ebbo will need thee much. And,
mother,” as his face lighted up, “there is joy coming to you. Only I
would that I could have brought him. Mother, he died not under the
Schlangenwald swords.”
“Who? Not Ebbo?” cried the bewildered mother.
“Your own Eberhard, our father,” said Friedel, raising her face to him
with his hand, and adding, as he met a startled look, “The cruel count
owned it with his last breath. He is a Turkish slave, and surely heaven
will give him back to comfort you, even though we may not work his
freedom! O mother, I had so longed for it, but God be thanked that at
least certainty was bought by my life.” The last words were uttered
almost unconsciously, and he had nearly fallen, as the excitement faded;
but, as they were lifting him down, he bent once more and kissed the
glossy neck of his horse. “Ah! poor fellow, thou too wilt be lonely.
May Ebbo yet ride thee!”
The mother had no time for grief. Alas! She might have full time for
that by and by! The one wish of the twins was to be together, and
presently both were laid on the great bed in the upper chamber, Ebbo in a
swoon from the pain of the transport, and Friedel lying so as to meet the
first look of recovery. And, after Ebbo’s eyes had re-opened, they
watched one another in silence for a short space, till Ebbo said: “Is
that the hue of death on thy face, brother?”
“I well believe so,” said Friedel.
“Ever together,” said Ebbo, holding his hand. “But alas! My mother!
Would I had never sent thee to the traitor.”
“Ah! So comes her comfort,” said Friedel. “Heard you not? He owned
that my father was among the Turks.”
“And I,” cried Ebbo. “I have withheld thee! O Friedel, had I listened
to thee, thou hadst not been in this fatal broil!”
“Nay, ever together,” repeated Friedel. “Through Ulm merchants will my
mother be able to ransom him. I know she will, so oft have I dreamt of
his return. Then, mother, you will give him our duteous greetings;” and
he smiled again.
Like one in a dream Christina returned his smile, because she saw he
wished it, just as the moment before she had been trying to staunch his
wound.
It was plain that the injuries, except Ebbo’s sword-cut, were far beyond
her skill, and she could only endeavour to check the bleeding till better
aid could be obtained from Ulm. Thither Moritz Schleiermacher had
already sent, and he assured her that he was far from despairing of the
elder baron, but she derived little hope from his words, for gunshot
wounds were then so ill understood as generally to prove fatal.
Moreover, there was an undefined impression that the two lives must end
in the same hour, even as they had begun. Indeed, Ebbo was suffering so
terribly, and was so much spent with pain and loss of blood, that he
seemed sinking much faster than Friedel, whose wound bled less freely,
and who only seemed benumbed and torpid, except when he roused himself to
speak, or was distressed by the writhings and moans which, however, for
his sake, Ebbo restrained as much as he could.
To be together seemed an all-sufficient consolation, and, when the
chaplain came sorrowfully to give them the last rites of the Church, Ebbo
implored him to pray that he might not be left behind long in purgatory.
“Friedel,” he said, clasping his brother’s hand, “is even like the holy
Sebastian or Maurice; but I—I was never such as he. O father, will it be
my penance to be left alone when he is in paradise?”
“What is that?” said Friedel, partially roused by the sound of his name,
and the involuntary pressure of his hand. “Nay, Ebbo; one repentance,
one cross, one hope,” and he relapsed into a doze, while Ebbo murmured
over a broken, brief confession—exhausting by its vehemence of
self-accusation for his proud spirit, his wilful neglect of his lost
father, his hot contempt of prudent counsel.
Then, when the priest came round to Friedel’s side, and the boy was
wakened to make his shrift, the words were contrite and humble, but calm
and full of trust. They were like two of their own mountain streams, the
waters almost equally undefiled by external stain—yet one struggling,
agitated, whirling giddily round; the other still, transparent, and the
light of heaven smiling in its clearness.
The farewell greetings of the Church on earth breathed soft and sweet in
their loftiness, and Friedel, though lying motionless, and with closed
eyes, never failed in the murmured response, whether fully conscious or
not, while his brother only attended by fits and starts, and was
evidently often in too much pain to know what was passing.
Help was nearer than had been hoped. The summons despatched the night
before had been responded to by the vintners and mercers; their train
bands had set forth, and their captain, a cautious man, never rode into
the way of blows without his surgeon at hand. And so it came to pass
that, before the sun was low on that long and grievous day, Doctor
Johannes Butteman was led into the upper chamber, where the mother looked
up to him with a kind of hopeless gratitude on her face, which was nearly
as white as those of her sons. The doctor soon saw that Friedel was past
human aid; but, when he declared that there was fair hope for the other
youth, Friedel, whose torpor had been dispelled by the examination,
looked up with his beaming smile, saying, “There, motherling.”
The doctor then declared that he could not deal with the Baron’s wound
unless he were the sole occupant of the bed, and this sentence brought
the first cloud of grief or dread to Friedel’s brow, but only for a
moment. He looked at his brother, who had again fainted at the first
touch of his wounded limb, and said, “It is well. Tell the dear Ebbo
that I cannot help it if after all I go to the praying, and leave him the
fighting. Dear, dear Ebbo! One day together again and for ever! I
leave thee for thine own sake.” With much effort he signed the cross
again on his brother’s brow, and kissed it long and fervently. Then, as
all stood round, reluctant to effect this severance, or disturb one on
whom death was visibly fast approaching, he struggled up on his elbow,
and held out the other hand, saying, “Take me now, Heinz, ere Ebbo revive
to be grieved. The last sacrifice,” he further whispered, whilst almost
giving himself to Heinz and Moritz to be carried to his own bed in the
turret chamber.
There, even as they laid him down, began what seemed to be the mortal
agony, and, though he was scarcely sensible, his mother felt that her
prime call was to him, while his brother was in other hands. Perhaps it
was well for her. Surgical practice was rough, and wounds made by
fire-arms were thought to have imbibed a poison that made treatment be
supposed efficacious in proportion to the pain inflicted. When Ebbo was
recalled by the torture to see no white reflection of his own face on the
pillow beside him, and to feel in vain for the grasp of the cold damp
hand, a delirious frenzy seized him, and his struggles were frustrating
the doctor’s attempts, when a low soft sweet song stole through the open
door.
“Friedel!” he murmured, and held his breath to listen. All through the
declining day did the gentle sound continue; now of grand chants or hymns
caught from the cathedral choir, now of songs of chivalry or saintly
legend so often sung over the evening fire; the one flowing into the
other in the wandering of failing powers, but never failing in the tender
sweetness that had distinguished Friedel through life. And, whenever
that voice was heard, let them do to him what they would, Ebbo was still
absorbed in intense listening so as not to lose a note, and lulled almost
out of sense of suffering by that swan-like music. If his attendants
made such noise as to break in on it, or if it ceased for a moment, the
anguish returned, but was charmed away by the weakest, faintest
resumption of the song. Probably Friedel knew not, with any earthly
sense, what he was doing, but to the very last he was serving his twin
brother as none other could have aided him in his need.
The September sun had set, twilight was coming on, the doctor had worked
his stern will, and Ebbo, quivering in every fibre, lay spent on his
pillow, when his mother glided in, and took her seat near him, though
where she hoped he would not notice her presence. But he raised his
eyelids, and said, “He is not singing now.”
“Singing indeed, but where we cannot hear him,” she answered. “‘Whiter
than the snow, clearer than the ice-cave, more solemn than the choir.
They will come at last.’ That was what he said, even as he entered
there.” And the low dove-like tone and tender calm face continued upon
Ebbo the spell that the chant had left. He dozed as though still lulled
by its echo.