My Lady Rotha: A Romance
by Stanley John Weyman · English · Gutenberg #38985 · 738,292 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: My Lady Rotha: A Romance
Author: Stanley John Weyman
Release date: February 26, 2012 [eBook #38985]
Most recently updated: January 8, 2021
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY LADY ROTHA: A ROMANCE ***
Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books
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[Illustration: Death of Tzerclas.--p. 368]
MY LADY ROTHA
A Romance
BY
STANLEY J. WEYMAN
AUTHOR OF
"A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," "UNDER THE RED ROBE,"
"THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF," ETC.
NEW YORK
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1894
Copyright, 1894,
By STANLEY J. WEYMAN.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. Heritzburg.
II. The Countess Rotha.
III. The Burgomaster's Demand.
IV. The Fire Alight.
V. Marie Wort.
VI. Rupert the Great.
VII. The Pride of Youth.
VIII. A Catastrophe.
IX. Walnuts of Gold.
X. The Camp in the Forest.
XI. Stolen.
XII. Near The Edge.
XIII. Our Quarters.
XIV. The Opening of a Duel.
XV. The Duel Continued.
XVI. The General's Banquet.
XVII. Stalhanske's Finns.
XVIII. A Sudden Expedition.
XIX. In a Green Valley.
XX. More Haste, Less Speed.
XXI. Among the Wounded.
XXII. Greek and Greek.
XXIII. The Flight.
XXIV. Missing.
XXV. Nuremberg.
XXVI. The Face at the Window.
XXVII. The House in the Churchyard.
XXVIII. Under the Tiles.
XXIX. In the House by St. Austin's.
XXX. The End of the Day.
XXXI. The Trial.
XXXII. A Poor Guerdon.
XXXIII. Two Men.
XXXIV. Suspense.
XXXV. St. Bartholomew's Day.
XXXVI. A Wingless Cupid.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Death Of Tzerclas. _Frontispiece_
... she came presently to me with a bowl of broth in her hands and
a timid smile on her lips.
... with her own hands she drove the nail.... Then she turned.
... Ludwig, all his indifference cast to the winds, continued to
stamp and scream.
The general waited on her with the utmost attention, riding by
her bridle-rein.
We were alone.... I whispered in her ear.
Before I could recover myself a pair of strong arms closed round
mine and bound them to my sides.
But with all--she controlled herself. She rose stiffly from her
seat.
MY LADY ROTHA.
CHAPTER I.
HERITZBURG.
I never saw anything more remarkable than the change which the death
of my lady's uncle, Count Tilly, in the spring of 1632, worked at
Heritzburg. Until the day when that news reached us, we went on in our
quiet corner as if there were no war. We heard, and some of us
believed, that the Palatine Elector, a good Calvinist like ourselves,
had made himself King of Bohemia in the Emperor's teeth; and shortly
afterwards--which we were much more ready to believe--that he was
footing it among the Dutchmen. We heard that the King of Denmark had
taken up his cause, but taken little by the motion; and then that the
King of Sweden had made it his own. But these things affected us
little: they were like the pattering of the storm to a man hugging
himself by the fireside. Through all we lay snug and warm, and kept
Christmas and drank the Emperor's health. Even the great sack of
Magdeburg, which was such an event as the world, I believe, will never
see again, moved us less to fear than to pity; though the city lies
something less than fifty leagues northeast of us. The reason of this
I am going to tell you.
Our town stands, as all men know, in a nook of the Thuringian Forest,
facing south and west towards Hesse, of which my Lady Rotha, Countess
of Heritzburg, holds it, though all the land about is Saxon, belonging
either to Coburg, or Weimar, or Altenburg, or the upper Duchy. On the
north and east the forest rises in rolling black ridges, with a grey
crag shooting up spire-like here and there; so that from this quarter
it was not wonderful that no sound of war reached us. Toward the south
and west, where is the mouth of the valley, and whither our people
point when they talk of the world, a spur of the mountain runs down on
either side to the Werra, which used to be crossed at this point by a
wooden bridge. But this bridge was swept away by floods in the winter
of 1624, and never repaired as long as the war lasted. Henceforth to
come to Heritzburg travellers had to cross in old Joachim's boat, or
if the river was very low, tuck up and take the chances. Unless they
came by forest paths over the mountains.
Such a position favoured peace. Our friends could not easily trouble
us; our allies were under no temptation to quarter troops upon us. For
our enemies, we feared them even less. Against them we had a rampart
higher than the mountains and wider than the Werra, in the name of
Tilly. In those days the name of the great Walloon, victor in thirty
fights, was a word to conjure with from the Tyrol to the Elbe. Mothers
used it to scare their children, priests to blast their foes. His
courage, his cruelty, and his zeal for the Roman Catholic Church
combined to make him the terror of the Protestants, while his strange
personality and mis-shapen form gave rise to a thousand legends, which
men still tell by the fireside.
I think I see him now--as I did see him thrice in his lifetime--a
meagre dwarfish man with a long face like a horse's face, and large
whiskers. He dressed always in green satin, and wore a small
high-peaked hat on his huge wrinkled forehead. A red feather drooped
from it, and reached to his waist. At first sight one took him for a
natural; for one of those strange monstrosities which princes keep to
make them sport; but a single glance from his eyes sent simple men to
their prayers, and cowed alike plain burgher and wild Croat. Few loved
him, all feared him. I have heard it said that he had no shadow, but I
can testify of my own knowledge and not merely for the honour of the
family that this was false.
He was brother to my lady's mother, the Countess Juliana. At the time
of the match my late lord was thought to have disparaged his blood by
mating with a Flemish lady of no more than gentle family. But as Count
Tilly rose in the world first to be commander of the Bavarian armies
and later to be Generalissimo of the forces of the Empire and a knight
of the Golden Fleece, we heard less and less of this. The sneer lost
its force until we became glad, Calvinists though we were, to lie
secure under his shadow; and even felt a shamed pride in his prowess.
When my lord died, early in the war, leaving the county of Heritzburg
to his only child, the protection we derived in this way grew more and
more valuable. We of Heritzburg, and we only, lost nothing by the war,
except a parcel of idle fellows, of whom more hereafter. Our cows came
lowing to their stalls, our corn full weight to the granary. We slept
more safely under the distaff than others under the sword; and all
because my lady had the right to wear among her sixteen quarterings
the coat of Tilly.
Some I know, but only since his death, have cried shame on us for
accepting his protection. They profess to think that we should have
shut our gates on the Butcher of Magdeburg, and bidden him do his
worst. They say that the spirit of the old Protestants is dead within
us, and that it is no wonder the cause lies languishing and Swedes
alone fight single-eyed. But those who say these things have seldom, I
notice, corn or cows: and moreover, as I have hinted, they kept a very
still tongue while Tilly lived.
There is our late Burgomaster, Hofman, for instance, he is given to
talking after that fashion; and, it is true, he has plenty, though not
so much since my lady fined him. But I well remember the last time
Tilly visited us. It was after the fall of Magdeburg, and there was a
shadow on his grim countenance, which men said never left it again
until the day when the cannon-shot struck him in the ford of the Lech,
and they carried him to Ingolstadt to die. As he rode under the arch
by the Red Hart people looked strangely at him--for it was difficult
to forget what he had done--as if, but for the Croats in the camp
across the river, they would have torn him from his horse. But who, I
pray you, so polite that day as Master Hofman? Who but he was first to
hold the stirrup and cry, Hail? It was 'My Lord Count' this, and 'My
Lord Count' that, until the door closed on the crooked little figure
and the great gold spurs. And then it was the same with the captain of
the escort. Faugh! I grow sick when I think of such men, and know that
they were the first to turn round and make trouble when the time came,
and the old grey wolf was dead. For my part I have always been my
lady's man since I came out of the forest to serve her. It was enough
for me that the Count was her guest and of her kin. But for flattering
him and putting myself forward to do him honour, I left that to the
Hofmans.
However, the gloom we saw on Tilly's face proved truly to be the
shadow of coming misfortune; for three weeks after he left us, was
fought the great battle of Breitenfeld. Men say that the energy and
decision he had shown all his life forsook him there; that he
hesitated and suffered himself to be led by others; and that so it was
from the day of Magdeburg to his death. This may be true, I think, for
he had the blood of women and children on his head; or it may be that
at last he met a foeman worthy of his steel. But in either case the
news of the Swede's victory rang through North Germany like a trumpet
call. It broke with startling abruptness the spell of victory which
had hitherto--for thirteen long years--graced the Emperor's flag and
the Roman Church. In Hesse, to the west of us, where the Landgrave
William had been the first of all German Princes to throw in his lot
with the Swedes and defy the Emperor, it awoke such a shout of
jubilation and vengeance as crossed even the Werra; while from the
Saxon lands to the east of us, which this victory saved from
spoliation, and punishment, came an answering cry of thankfulness and
joy. Even in Heritzburg it stirred our blood. It roused new thoughts
and new ambitions. We were Protestants; we were of the north. Those
who had fought and won were our brethren.
And this was right. Nor for a time did I see anything wrong or any
sign of mischief brewing; though tongues in the town wagged more
freely, as the cloud of war rolled ever southward and away from us.
But six months later the news of Count Tilly's death reached us. Then,
or it might be a fortnight afterwards--so long I think respect for my
lady's loss and the new hatchment restrained the good-for-naughts--the
trouble began. How it arose, and what shape it took, and how I came
athwart it, I am going to tell you without further preface.
It was about the third Monday in May of that year, 1632. A broken lock
in one of the rooms at the castle had baffled the skill of our smith,
and about nightfall, thinking to take a cup of beer at the Red Hart on
my way back, I went down to Peter the locksmith's in the town. His
forge stands in the winding lane, which joins the High Street at the
Red Hart, after running half round the town inside the wall; so that
one errand was a fair excuse for the other. When I had given him his
order and come out again, I found that what with the darkness of the
lane and the blaze of his fire which had got into my eyes, I could not
see a yard before me. A little fine rain was falling with a chilly
east wind, and the town seemed dead. The pavement felt greasy under
foot, and gave out a rank smell. However, I thought of the cheery
kitchen at the Red Hart and stumbled along as fast as I could, until
turning a corner I came in sight of the lanthorn which hangs over the
entrance to the lane.
I saw it, but short of it, something took and held my eye: a warm
stream of light, which shone across the path, and fell brightly on the
rough surface of the town-wall. It came from a small window on my
left. I had to pass close beside this window, and out of curiosity I
looked in. What I saw was so surprising that I stopped to look again.
The room inside was low and small and bare, with an earthen floor and
no fireplace. On a ragged pallet in one corner lay an elderly man, to
whose wasted face and pallid cheeks a long white moustache, which
strayed over the coverlet, gave an air of incongruous fierceness. His
bright eyes were fixed on the door as if he listened. A child, three
or four years old, sat on the floor beside him, playing with a yellow
cat.
It was neither of these figures, however, which held my gaze, but that
of a young girl who knelt on the floor near the head of the bed. A
little crucifix stood propped against the wall before her, and she had
a string of beads in her hands. Her face was turned from me, but I
felt that her lips moved. I had never seen a Romanist at prayer
before, and I lingered a moment, thinking in the first place that she
would have done better had she swung the shutter against the window;
and in the next, that with her dark hair hanging about her neck and
her head bent devoutly, she looked so weak and fragile that the
stoutest Protestant could not have found it in his heart to harm her.
Suddenly a noise, which dully reached me where I stood outside the
casement, caused her to start in alarm, and turn her head. At the same
moment the cat sprang away affrighted, and the man on the bed stirred
and tried to rise. This breaking the spell, I stole quietly away and
went round the corner to the door of the inn.
Though I had never considered the girl closely before, I knew who she
was. Some eight months earlier, while Tilly, hard pressed by the King
of Sweden, still stood at bay, keeping down Saxony with one hand, and
Hesse with the other, the man on the pallet, Stephen Wort, a sergeant
of jagers, had been wounded in a skirmish beyond the river. Why Tilly,
who was used to seeing men die round him like flies in winter, gave a
second thought to this man more than to others, I cannot say. But for
some reason, when he visited us before Breitenfeld, he brought the
wounded sergeant in his train, and when he went left him at the inn.
Some said that the man had saved his life, others that the two were
born on the same day and shared the same horoscope. More probably
Tilly knew nothing of the man, and the captain of the escort was the
active party. I imagine he had a kindness for Wort, and knowing that
outside our little valley a wounded man of Tilly's army would find as
short shrift as a hamstrung wolf, took occasion to leave him with us.
I thought of all this as I stood fumbling about the door for the great
bell. The times were such that even inns shut their doors at night,
and I had to wait and blow on my fingers--for no wind is colder than a
May wind--until I was admitted. Inside, however, the blazing fire and
cheerful kitchen with its show of gleaming pewter, and its great
polished settles winking solemnly in the heat, made amends for all. I
forgot the wounded man and his daughter and the fog outside. There
were eight or nine men present, among them Hofman, who was then
Burgomaster, Dietz, the town minister, and Klink our host.
They were people I met every day, and sometimes more than once a day,
and they greeted me with a silent nod. The lad who waited brought me a
cup of beer, and I said that the night was cold for the time of year.
Some one assented, but the company in general sat silent, sagely
sucking their lips, or exchanging glances which seemed to indicate a
secret understanding.
I was not slow to see that this had to do with me and that my entrance
had cut short some jest or story. I waited patiently to learn what it
was, and presently I was enlightened. After a few minutes Klink the
host rose from his seat. First looking from one to another of his
neighbours, as if to assure himself of their sympathy, he stole
quietly across the kitchen to a door which stood in one corner. Here
he paused a moment listening, and then on a sudden struck the door a
couple of blows, which made the pewters ring again.
'Hi! Within there!' he cried in his great voice. Are you packing? Are
you packing, wench? Because out you go to-morrow, pack or no pack! Out
you go, do you hear?'
He stood a moment waiting for an answer, but seemed to get none; on
which he came back to his seat, and chuckling fatly to himself, looked
round on his neighbours for applause. One winked and another rubbed
his calves. The greater number eyed the fire with a sly smile. For my
part I was slow of apprehension. I did not understand but waited to
hear more.
For five minutes we all sat silent, sucking our lips. Then Klink rose
again with a knowing look, and crossed the kitchen on tiptoe with the
same parade of caution as before. Bang!' He struck the door until it
rattled on its hinges.
'Hi! You there!' he thundered. 'Do you hear, you jade? Are you
packing? Are you packing, I say? Because pack or no pack, to-morrow
you go! I am a man of my word.'
He did not wait this time for an answer, but came back to us with a
self-satisfied grin on his face. He drank some beer--he was a big
ponderous man with a red face and small pig's eyes--and pointed over
his shoulders with the cup. 'Eh?' he said, raising his eye-brows.
'Good!' a man growled who sat opposite to him.
'Quite right!' said a second in the same tone. 'Popish baggage!'
Hofman said nothing, but nodded, with a sly glance at me. Dietz the
Minister nodded curtly also, and looked hard at the fire. The rest
laughed.
For my part I felt very little like laughing. When I considered that
this clumsy jest was being played at the expense of the poor girl,
whom I had seen at her prayers, and that likely enough it was being
played for the tenth time--when I reflected that these heavy fellows
were sitting at their ease by this great fire watching the logs blaze
and the ruddy light flicker up the chimney, while she sat in cold and
discomfort, fearing every sound and trembling at every whisper, I
could have found it in my heart to get up and say what I thought of
it. And my speech would have astonished them. But I remembered, in
time, that least said is soonest mended, and that after all words
break no bones, and I did no more than sniff and shrug my shoulders.
Klink, however, chose to take offence in his stupid fashion. 'Eh?' he
said. 'You are of another mind, Master Schwartz?'
'What is the good of talking like that,' I said, 'when you do not mean
it?'
He puffed himself out, and after staring at me for a time, answered
slowly: 'But what if I do mean it, Master Steward? What if I do mean
it?'
'You don't,' I said. 'The man pays his way.'
I thought to end the matter with that. I soon found that it was not to
be shelved so easily. For a moment indeed no one answered me. We are a
slow speaking race, and love to have time to think. A minute had not
elapsed, however, before one of the men who had spoken earlier took up
the cudgels. 'Ay, he pays his way,' he said, thrusting his head
forward. 'He pays his way, master; but how? Tell me that.'
I did not answer him.
'Out of the peasant's pocket!' the fellow replied slowly. 'Out of the
plunder and booty of Magdeburg. With blood-money, master.'
'I ask no more than to meet one of his kind in the fields,' the man
sitting next him, who had also spoken before, chimed in. 'With no one
looking on, master. There would be one less wolf in the world then, I
will answer for that. He pays his way? Oh, yes, he pays it here.'
I thought a shrug of the shoulders a sufficient answer. These two
belonged to the company my lady had raised in the preceding year to
serve with the Landgrave according to her tenure. They had come back
to the town a week before this with money to spend; some people saying
that they had deserted, and some that they had returned to raise
volunteers. Either way I was not surprised to find them a little bit
above themselves; for foreign service spoils the best, and these had
never been anything but loiterers and vagrants, whom it angered me to
see on a bench cheek by jowl with the Burgomaster. I thought to treat
them with silent contempt, but I soon found that they did not stand
alone.
The Minister was the first to come to their support. 'You forget that
these people are Papists, Master Schwartz. Rank Roman Papists,' he
said.
'So was Tilly!' I retorted, stung to anger. 'Yet you managed to do
with him.'
'That was different,' he answered sourly; but he winced.
Then Hofman began on me. 'You see, Master Steward,' he said slowly,
'we are a Protestant town--we are a Protestant town. And it ill
beseems us--it ill beseems us to harbour Papists. I have thought over
that a long while. And now I think it is time to rid ourselves of
them--to abate the nuisance in fact. You see we are a Protestant town,
Master Schwartz. You forget that.'
'Then were we not a Protestant town,' I cried, jumping up in a rage,
and forgetting all my discretion, 'when we entertained Count Tilly?
When you held his stirrup, Burgomaster? and you, Master Dietz,
uncovered to him? Were not these people Papists when they came here,
and when you received them? But I will tell you what it is,' I
continued, looking round scornfully, and giving my anger vent, for
such meanness disgusted me. 'When there was a Bavarian army across the
river, and you could get anything out of Tilly, you were ready to
oblige him, and clean his boots. You could take in Romanists then, but
now that he is dead and your side is uppermost, you grow scrupulous,
Pah! I am ashamed of you! You are only fit to bully children and
girls, and such like!' and I turned away to take up my iron-shod
staff.
They were all very red in the face by this time, and the two soldiers
were on their feet. But the Burgomaster restrained them. 'Fine words!'
he said, puffing out his cheeks--'fine words! Dare say the girl can
hear him. But let him be, let him be--let him have his say!'
'There is some else will have a say in the matter, Master Hofman!' I
retorted warmly, as I turned to the door, 'and that is my lady. I
would advise you to think twice before you act. That is all!'
'Hoop-de-doo-dem-doo!' cried one in derision, and others echoed it.
But I did not stay to hear; I turned a deaf ear to the uproar, wherein
all seemed to be crying after me at once, and shrugging my shoulders I
opened the door and went out.
The sudden change from the warm noisy kitchen to the cold night air
sobered me in a moment. As I climbed the dark slippery street which
rises to the foot of the castle steps, I began to wish that I had let
the matter be. After all, what call had I to interfere, and make bad
blood between myself and my neighbours? It was no business of mine.
The three were Romanists. Doubtless the man had robbed and hectored in
his time, and while his hand was strong; and now he suffered as others
had suffered.
It was ten chances to one the Burgomaster would carry the matter to my
lady in some shape or other, and the minister would back him up, and I
should be reprimanded; or if the Countess saw with my eyes, and sent
them off with a flea in their ears, then we should have all the rabble
of the town who were at Klink's beck and call, going up and down
making mischief, and crying, 'No Popery!' Either way I foresaw
trouble, and wished that I had let the matter be, or better still had
kept away that night from the Red Hart.
But then on a sudden there rose before me, as plainly as if I had
still been looking through the window, a vision of the half-lit room
looking on the lane, with the sick man on the pallet, and the slender
figure kneeling beside the bed. I saw the cat leap, saw again the
girl's frightened gesture as she turned towards the door, and I
grew almost as hot as I had been in the kitchen. 'The cowards!' I
muttered--'the cowards! But I will be beforehand with them. I will go
to my lady early and tell her all.'
You see I had my misgivings, but I little thought what that evening
was really to bring forth, or that I had done that in the Red Hart
kitchen which would alter all my life, and all my lady's life; and
spreading still, as a little crack in ice will spread from bank to
bank, would leave scarce a man in Heritzburg unchanged, and scarce a
woman's fate untouched.
CHAPTER II.
THE COUNTESS ROTHA.
My Lady Rotha, Countess of Heritzburg in her own right, was at this
time twenty-five years old and unmarried. Her maiden state, which
seems to call for explanation, I attribute to two things. Partly to
the influence of her friend and companion Fraulein Anna Max of
Utrecht, who was reputed in the castle to know seven languages, and to
consider marriage a sacrifice; and partly to the Countess's own
disposition, which led her to set a high value on the power and
possessions that had descended to her from her father. Count Tilly's
protection, which had exempted Heritzburg from the evils of the war,
had rendered the support of a husband less necessary; and so she had
been left to follow her own will in the matter, and was now little
likely to surrender her independence unless her heart went with the
gift.
Not that suitors were lacking, for my lady, besides her wealth, was
possessed of the handsomest figure in the world, with beautiful
features, and the most gracious and winning address ever known. I
remember as if it were yesterday Prince Albert of Rammingen, a great
match but an old man. He came in his chariot with a numerous retinue,
and stayed long, taking it very hardly that my lady was not to be won;
but after a while he went. His place was taken by Count Frederick, a
brother of the Margrave of Anspach, a young gentleman who had received
his education in France, and was full of airs and graces, going sober
to bed every night, and speaking German with a French accent. Him my
lady soon sent about his business. The next was a more famous man,
Count Thurn of Bohemia, he who began the war by throwing Slawata and
Martinitz out of window in Prague, in '19, and paid for it by fifteen
years of exile. He wore such an air of mystery, and had such tales to
tell of flight and battle and hairbreadth escapes, that he was
scarcely less an object of curiosity in the town than Tilly himself;
but he knelt in vain. And in fine so it was with them all. My lady
would have none of them, but kept her maiden state and governed
Heritzburg and saw the years go by, content to all appearance with
Fraulein Anna and her talk, which was all of Voetius and Beza and
scores of other learned men, whose names I could never remember from
one hour to another.
It was my duty to wait upon her every day after morning service, and
receive her orders, and inform her of anything which I thought she
ought to know. At that hour she was to be found in her parlour, a
long room on the first floor of the castle, lighted by three
deeply-recessed windows and hung with old tapestry worked by her
great-grandmother in the dark days of the Emperor Charles, when the
Count of Heritzburg shared the imprisonment of the good Landgrave of
Hesse. A screen stood a little way within the door, and behind this it
was my business to wait, until I was called.
On this morning, however, I had no patience to wait, and I made myself
so objectionable by my constant coughing that at last she cried, with
a cheerful laugh, 'What is it, Martin? Come and tell me. Has there
been a fire in the forest? But it is not the right time of year for
that.'
'No, my lady,' I said, going forward. Then out of shyness or sheer
contradictoriness I found myself giving her the usual report of this
and that and the other, but never a word of what was in my mind. She
sat, according to her custom in summer, in the recess of the farthest
window, while Fraulein Anna occupied a stool placed before a
reading-desk. Behind the two the great window gave upon the valley. By
merely turning the head either of them could look over the red roofs
of Heritzburg to the green plain, which here was tolerably wide, and
beyond that again to the dark line of forest, which in spring and
autumn showed as blue to the eye as thick wood smoke.
While I spoke my lady toyed with a book she had been reading, and
Fraulein Anna turned over the pages on the desk with an impatient
hand, sometimes looking at my lady and sometimes tapping with her foot
on the floor. She was plump and fair and short, dressing plainly, and
always looking into the distance; whether because she thought much and
on deep matters, or because, as the Countess's woman once told me, she
could see nothing beyond the length of her arm, I cannot say. When I
had finished my report, and paused, she looked up at my lady and said,
'Now, Rotha, are you ready?'
'Not quite, Anna,' my lady answered, smiling. 'Martin has not done
yet.'
'He tells in ten minutes what another would in five,' Fraulein said
crossly. 'But to finish?'
'Yes, Martin, what is it?' my lady assented. 'We have eaten all the
pastry. The meat I am sure is yet to come.'
I saw that there was nothing else for it, and after all it was what I
had come to do. 'Your excellency knows the Bavarian soldier and his
daughter, who have been lodging these six months past at the Red
Hart?' I said.
'To be sure.'
'Klink talks of turning them out,' I continued, feeling my face grow
red I scarcely knew why.
'Is their money at an end?' the Countess asked shrewdly. She was a
great woman of business.
'No,' I answered, 'but I dare say it is low.'
'Then what is the matter?' my lady continued, looking at me somewhat
curiously.
'He says that they are Papists,' I answered. 'And it is true, as your
excellency knows, but it is not for him to say it. The man will not be
safe for an hour outside the walls, nor the girl much longer. And
there is a small child besides. And they have no where else to go.'
My lady's face grew grave while I spoke. When I stopped she rose and
stood fronting me, tapping on the reading-desk with her fingers. 'This
must not be allowed, Martin,' she said firmly. 'You were right to tell
me.'
'Master Hofman and the Minister----'
'Yes,' she interposed, nodding quickly. 'Go to them. They will see
Klink, and----'
'They are just pushing him on,' I said, with a groan.
'What!' she cried; and I remember to this day how her grey eyes
flashed and how she threw back her head in generous amazement. 'Do you
mean to say that this is being done in spite, Martin? That after
escaping all the perils of this wretched war these men are so
thankless as to turn on the first scape-goat that falls into their
hands? It is not possible!'
'It looks like it, my lady,' I muttered, wondering whether I had not
perhaps carried the matter too far.
'No, no,' she said, shaking her head, 'you must have made a mistake;
but go to Klink. Go to Klink and tell him from me to keep the man for
a week at least. I will be answerable for the cost, and we can
consider in the meantime what to do. My cousin the Waldgrave Rupert
visits me in a day or two, and I will consult him.'
Still I did not like to go without giving her a hint that she might
meet with opposition, and I hesitated, considering how I might warn
her without causing needless alarm or seeming to presume. Fraulein
Anna, who had listened throughout with the greatest impatience, took
advantage of the pause to interfere. 'Come, Rotha,' she said. 'Enough
trifling. Let us go back to Voetius and our day's work.'
'My dear,' the Countess answered somewhat coldly, 'this is my day's
work. I am trying to do it.'
'Your work is to improve and store your mind,' Fraulein Anna retorted
with peevishness.
'True,' my lady said quietly; 'but for a purpose.'
'There can be no purpose higher than the acquirement of
philosophy--and, religion,' Fraulein Anna said. Her last words sounded
like an afterthought.
My lady shook her head. 'The duty of a Princess is to govern,' she
said.
'How can she govern unless she has prepared her mind by study and
thought?' Fraulein Anna asked triumphantly.
'I agree within limits,' my lady answered. 'But----'
'There is no _but!_ Nor are there any limits that I see!' the other
rejoined eagerly. 'Let me read to you out of Voetius himself. In his
maxims----'
'Not this minute,' the Countess answered firmly. And thereby she
interrupted not Fraulein Anna alone but a calculation on which,
without any light from Voetius, I was engaged; namely, how long it
would take a man to mow an acre of ground if he spent all his time in
sharpening his scythe! Low matters of that kind however have nothing
in common with philosophy I suppose; and my lady's voice soon brought
me back to the point. 'What is it you want to say, Martin?' she asked.
'I see that you have something still on your mind.'
'I wish your excellency to be aware that there may be a good deal of
feeling in the town on this matter,' I said.
'You mean that I may make myself unpopular,' she answered.
That was what I did mean--that at the least. And I bowed.
My lady shook her head with a grave smile. 'I might give you an answer
from Voetius, Martin,' she said; 'that they who govern are created to
protect the weak against the strong. And if not, _cui bono?_ But that,
you may not understand. Shall I say then instead that I, and not
Hofman or Dietz, am Countess of Heritzburg.'
'My lady,' I cried--and I could have knelt before her--'that is answer
enough for me!'
'Then go,' she said, her face bright, 'and do as I told you.'
She turned away, and I made my reverence and went out and down the
stairs and through the great court with my head high and my heart high
also. I might not understand Voetius; but I understood that my lady
was one, who in face of all and in spite of all, come Hofman or Dietz,
come peace or war, would not blench, but stand by the right! And it
did me good. He is a bad horse that will not jump when his rider's
heart is right, and a bad servant that will not follow when his master
goes before! I hummed a tune, I rattled my staff on the stones. I said
to myself it was a thousand pities so gallant a spirit should be
wasted on a woman: and then again I fancied that I could not have
served a man as I knew I could and would serve her should time and the
call ever put me to the test.
The castle at Heritzburg, rising abruptly above the roofs of the
houses, is accessible from the town by a flight of steps cut in the
rock. On the other three sides the knob on which it stands is
separated from the wooded hills to which it belongs by a narrow
ravine, crossed in one place by a light horse-bridge made in modern
days. This forms the chief entrance to the castle, but the road which
leads to it from the town goes so far round that it is seldom used,
the flight of steps I have mentioned leading at once and more
conveniently from the end of the High Street. Half way down the High
Street on the right hand side is the Market-place, a small paved
square, shaded by tall wooden houses, and having a carved stone pump
in the middle. A hundred paces beyond this on the same side is the Red
Hart, standing just within the West Gate.
From one end of the town to the other is scarcely a step, and I was at
the inn before the Countess's voice had ceased to sound in my ears.
The door stood open, and I went in, expecting to find the kitchen
empty or nearly so at that hour of the day. To my surprise, I found at
least a dozen people in it, with as much noise and excitement going
forward as if the yearly fair had been in progress. For a moment I was
not observed. I had time to see who were present--Klink, the two
soldiers who had put themselves forward the evening before, and half a
score of idlers. Then the landlord's eye fell on me and he passed the
word. A sudden silence followed and a dozen faces turned my way; so
that the room, which was low in the roof with wide beetle-browed
windows, seemed to lighten.
'Just in time, Master Schwartz!' cried one fellow. 'You, can write,
and we are about a petition! Perhaps you will draw it up for us.'
'A petition,' I said shortly, eyeing the fellow with contempt. 'What
petition?'
'Against Papists!' he answered boldly.
'And favourers, aiders, and abettors!' exclaimed another in the
background.
'Master Klink, Master Klink,' I said, trying to frown down the crowd,
'you would do well to have a care. These ragamuffins----'
'Have a care yourself, Master Jackanapes!' the same voice cried. 'This
is a town meeting.'
'Town meeting!' I said, looking round contemptuously. 'Gaol-meeting,
you mean, and likely to be a gaol-filling. But I do not speak to you;
I leave that to the constable. For Master Klink, if he will take a
word of advice, I will speak with him alone.'
They cried out to him not to speak to me. But Klink had still sense
enough to know that he might be going too fast, and though they hooted
and laughed at him--being for the most part people who had nothing to
lose--he came out of the house with me and crossed the street that we
might talk unheard. As civilly as I could I delivered my message; and
as exactly, for I saw that the issue might be serious.
I was not surprised when he groaned, and in a kind of a tremor shook
his hands. 'I am not my own master, Schwartz,' he said. 'And that is
the truth.'
'You were your own master last night,' I retorted.
'These fellows are all for "No Popery."'
'Ay, and who gave them the cue?' I said sharply. 'It is not the first
time that the fat burgher has raised the lean kine and been eaten by
them. Nor will it be the last. It serves you right.'
'I am willing enough to do what my lady wishes,' he whimpered;
'but----'
'But you are not master of your own house, do you mean?' I exclaimed.
'Then fetch the constable. That is simple. Or the Burgomaster.'
'Hush!' he said, 'he is hotter than any one.'
'Then,' I answered flatly, 'he had better cool, and you too. That is
all I have to say. And mark me, Klink,' I continued sternly, 'see that
no harm happens to that girl or her father. They are in your house,
and you have heard what my lady says. Let those ruffians interfere
with them and you will be held to answer for it.'
'That is easy talking,' he muttered peevishly; 'but if I cannot help
it?'
'You will have to help it!' I rejoined, losing my temper a little.
'You were fool enough, or I am much mistaken, to set a light to this
stack, and now you will have to smother the flame, or pay for it. That
is all, my friend. You have had fair warning. The rest is in your own
hands.'
And with that I left him. He was a stupid man but a sly one too, and I
doubted his sincerity, or I might have taken another way with him. In
the end, doubtless, it would have been the same.
As I turned on my heel to go, the troop round the door raised a kind
of hoot; and this pursued me as I went up the street, bringing the
blood to my cheeks and almost provoking me to return. I checked the
impulse however, and strode on as if I did not hear; and by the time I
reached the market-place the cry had ceased. Here however it began
afresh; a number of loose fellows and lads who were loafing about the
stalls crying 'No Popery!' and 'Popish Schwartz!' as I passed, in a
way which showed that the thing was premeditated and that they had
been lying in wait for me. I stopped and scowled at them, and for a
moment they ceased. But the instant my back was turned the hooting
began again--with an ugly savage note in it--and I had not got quite
clear of the place when some one flung a bundle of carrots, which hit
me sharply on the back. I swung round in a rage at that, and dashed
hot foot into the middle of the stalls in the hope of catching the
fellow. But I was too late; an old woman over whom I fell was the only
sufferer. The rascals had fled down an alley, and, contenting myself
with crying after them that they were a set of cowards, I set the old
lady on her legs, and went on my way.
But I had my thoughts. Such an insult had not been offered to me since
I first came to the town to serve my lady, and it filled me with
indignation. It seemed, besides, not a thing to be sneezed at. I took
it for a sign of change, of bad times coming. Moreover--and this
troubled me as much as anything--I had recognised among the fellows in
the square two more of the fifty men my lady had sent to serve with
Hesse. There seemed ground for fearing that they had deserted in a
body and come back and were in hiding. If this were so, and the
Burgomaster, instead of repressing them, encouraged their excesses,
they were likely to prove a source of trouble and danger--real danger.
I paused on the steps leading up to the castle, in two minds whether I
should not go to the Burgomaster and tell him plainly what I thought;
for I felt the responsibility. My lady had no male protector, no
higher servant than myself, and we had not a dozen capable men in the
castle. The Landgrave of Hesse, our over-lord, was away with the King
of Sweden, and we could expect no immediate support from him. In the
event of a riot in the town therefore--and I knew that, in the great
Peasants' War of a century before, our town had been rebellious
enough--we should be practically helpless. An hour and a little
ill-fortune might place my lady in the hands of her mutinous subjects;
and though the Landgrave would be certain sooner or later to chastise
them, many things might happen in the interval.
In the end I went on up the steps, thinking that I had better leave
Hofman alone, since I could not trust him, and should only by applying
to him disclose our weakness. There was a way indeed which occurred to
me as I reached the head of the stairs, but I had not taken two steps
across the terrace, as we call that part of the court which overlooks
the town, before it was immediately driven out again. Fraulein Max was
walking up and down with a book, sunning herself. I think that she had
been watching for me, for the moment I appeared she called to me.
I went up to her reluctantly. I was anxious, and in no mood to listen
to one of those learned disquisitions with which she would sometimes
favour us, without any thought whether we understood her or no. But
this I soon found was not what I had to fear. Her face wore a frown
and her tone was peevish; but she closed her book, keeping her place
in it with her finger.
'Master Martin,' she said, peering at me with her shortsighted eyes,
'you are a very foolish man, I think.'
'Fraulein!' I muttered in surprise. What did she mean?
'A very foolish one!' she repeated. 'Why are you disturbing your lady?
Why do you not leave her to her studies and her peace instead of
distracting her mind with these stories of a man and a girl? A man and
a girl, and Papists! Piff! What are they to us? Don't you understand
that your lady has higher work and something else to do? Go you and
look after your man and girl.'
'But my lady's subjects, Fraulein----'
'Her subjects?' she replied, almost violently. 'Papists are no
subjects. Or to what purpose the _Cujus Regio?_ But what do you know
of government? You have heard and you repeat.'
'But, Fraulein,' I said humbly, for her way of talking made me seem
altogether in the wrong, and a monster of indiscretion, 'if my lady
does not interfere, the man and the girl you speak of will suffer.
That is clear.'
She snapped her fingers.
'Piff!' she cried, screwing up her eyes still more. 'What has that to
do with us? Is there not suffering going on from one end of Germany to
the other? Do not scores die every day, every hour? Can we prevent it?
No. Then why trouble us for this one little, little matter? It is
theirs to suffer, and ours to think and read, and learn and write. We
were at peace to do all this, and then you come with your man and
girl, and the peace is gone!'
'But, Fraulein----'
'You do no good by saying Fraulein, Fraulein!' she replied. 'Look at
things in the light of reason. Trouble us no more. That is what you
have to do. What are this man and girl to you that you should endanger
your mistress for their sakes?'
'They are nothing to me,' I answered.
'Then let them go!' she replied with suppressed passion. 'And undo
your folly the best way you can, and the sooner the better! Chut! That
when the mind is set on higher things it should be distracted by such
mean and miserable objects! If they are nothing to you, why in
heaven's name obtrude them on us?'
After that she would not hear another word, but dismissed me with a
wave of her hand as if the thing were fully settled and over; burying
herself in her book and turning away, while I went into the house with
my tail between my legs and all my doubts and misgivings increased a
hundredfold. For this which she had put into words was the very
thought, the very way out of it, which had occurred to me! I had only
to let the matter drop, I had only to leave these people to their
fate, and the danger and difficulty were at once at an end. For a time
my lady's authority might suffer perhaps; but at the proper season,
when the Landgrave was at home and could help us, we might cheaply
assert and confirm it.
All that day I went about in doubt what I should do; and night came
without resolving my perplexities. At one moment I thought of my duty
to my lady, and the calamities in which I might involve her. At
another I pictured the girl I had seen praying by her father's
bed--pictured her alone and defenceless, hourly insulted by Klink, and
with terror and uncertainty looming each day larger before her eyes:
or, worse still, abandoned to all the dangers which awaited her, in
the event of the town refusing to give her shelter. Considering that I
had seen her once only--to notice her--it was wonderful how clearly I
remembered her.
CHAPTER III.
THE BURGOMASTER'S DEMAND.
As it turned out, the other party took the burden of decision from my
shoulders. When I came out of chapel next morning, I found Hofman on
the terrace waiting for me, and with him Master Dietz wearing his
Geneva gown and a sour face. They wished to see my lady. I said it
was early yet, and tried to hold them in talk if only that I might
learn what they would be at. But they repulsed my advances, said
that they knew her excellency always transacted her business at this
hour--which was perfectly true--and at last sent me to the parlour
whether I would or no.
Under such circumstances I did not linger behind the screen, but
advanced at once, and interrupting Fraulein Max, who had just begun to
read aloud, while my lady worked, said that the Burgomaster desired
the honour of an interview with the Countess.
The latter passed her needle once through the stuff, and then looked
up. 'Do you know what he wants, Martin?' she said in a quiet tone.
I said I did not.
She bent her head and worked for a moment in silence. Then she sighed
gently, and without looking up, nodded to me. 'Very well, I will see
him here,' she said. 'But first send Grissel and Gretchen to wait on
me. Let Franz bring two stools and place them, and bid him and Ernst
keep the door. My footstool also. And let the two Jacobs wait in the
hall.'
I gave the orders and took on myself to place two extra lackeys in the
hall that we might not seem to be short of men. Then I went to the
Burgomaster, and attended him and Master Dietz to the parlour.
They bowed three times according to custom as they advanced, and my
lady, taking one step forward, gave her hand to the Burgomaster to
kiss. Then she stepped back and sat down, looking with a pleasant face
at the Minister. 'I would fain apologise for troubling your
excellency,' the Mayor began slowly and heavily. 'But the times are
trying.'
'Your presence needs no apology, Master Hofman,' my lady answered,
smiling frankly. 'It is your right to see me on behalf of the town at
all times. It would grieve me much, if you did not sometimes exercise
the privilege. And for Master Dietz, who may be able to assist us, I
am glad to see him also.'
The Minister bowed low. The Burgomaster only puffed out his cheeks.
Doubtless he felt that courage at the Red Hart and courage in my
lady's parlour were two different things. But it was too late to
retreat, for the Minister was there to report what passed; and after a
glance at Dietz's face he proceeded. 'I am not here in a private
capacity, if it please your excellency,' he said. 'And I beg your
excellency to bear this in mind. I am here as Burgomaster, having on
my mind the peace of the town; which at present is endangered--very
greatly, endangered,' he repeated pompously.
'I am sorry to hear that,' my lady answered.
'Nevertheless it is so,' he replied with a kind of obstinacy.
'Endangered by the presence of certain persons in the town, whose
manners are not conformable. These persons are Papists, and the town,
your excellency remembers, is a Protestant town.'
'Certainly I remember that,' my lady said gravely.
'Hence of this combination, your excellency will understand, comes a
likelihood of evil,' he continued. 'On which, hearing you took an
interest in these persons, however little deserved, it seemed to be my
duty to lay the matter before you.'
'You have done very rightly,' the Countess answered quietly. 'Do I
understand then, Master Hofman, that the Papists you complain of are
conspiring to break the peace of the town?'
The Burgomaster gasped. He was too obtuse to see at once that my lady
was playing with him. He only wondered how he had managed to convey so
strange a notion to her mind. He hastened to set her right. 'No--oh,
no,' he said. 'There is no fear of that. There are but three of them.'
'Are they presuming to perform their rites in public then?' my lady
rejoined. 'If so, of course it cannot be permitted. It is against the
law of the town.'
'No,' he answered, more slowly and more reluctantly as the drift of
her questions began to dawn upon him. 'I do not know that that is so.
I have not heard that it is so. But they are Papists.'
'Well, but with their consciences we have nothing to do!' she said
more sharply. 'I confess, I fail as yet to see, Master Hofman, how
they threaten the peace of the town.'
The Burgomaster stared. 'I do not know that they threaten it
themselves,' he said slowly. 'But their presence stirs up the people,
if your excellency understands; and may lead, if the matter goes on,
to a riot or worse.'
'Ha! Now I comprehend!' my lady cried in a hearty tone. 'You fear your
constables may fail to cope with the rabble?'
He admitted that that was so.
'And you desire such assistance as I can offer towards maintaining the
law and protecting these persons; who have of course a right to
protection?'
Master Hofman began to see whither he had been led, and glared at the
Countess with his mouth wide open. But for the moment he could not
find a word to say. Never did I see a man look more at a loss.
'Well, I must consider,' my lady resumed, her finger to her cheek.
'Rest assured, you shall be supported. Martin,' she continued, turning
to me, 'let word be sent to the four foresters at Gatz to come down to
the castle this evening. And send also to the charcoal-burners' camp.
How many men should there be in it?'
'Some half-score, my lady,' I answered, adding two-thirds to the
truth.
'Ah? And let the huntsman come down and bring a couple of feeders.
Doubtless with our own men, we shall be able to place a score or
thirty at your disposal, Master Hofman, and stout fellows. These, with
your constables and such of the peaceful burghers as you see fit to
call to your assistance, should be sufficient to quell the
disorderly.'
I could have laughed aloud, Master Hofman looked so confounded. Never
man had an air of being more completely taken aback. By offering her
help to put down any mob, the Countess had deprived him of the plea he
had come to prefer; that he was afraid he could not answer for the
safety of the Papists, and that therefore they must withdraw or be
expelled. This he could no longer put forward, and consequently he was
driven either to adopt my lady's line, or side openly with the party
of disorder. I saw his heavy face turn a deep red, and his jaw fall,
as he grasped the situation. His wits worked slowly; and had he been
left to himself, I do not doubt that he would have allowed things to
remain as they were, and taken the part assigned to him.
But Master Dietz, who had listened with a lengthening face, at this
moment interposed. 'Will your excellency permit me to say a few
words?' he said.
'I think the Burgomaster has made the matter clear,' my lady answered.
'Not in one respect,' the Minister rejoined. 'He has not informed your
excellency that in the opinion of the majority of the burghers and
inhabitants of this town the presence of these people is an offence
and an eyesore.'
'It is legal,' my lady answered icily. 'I do not know what opinion has
to do with it.'
'The opinion of the majority.'
'Sir!' my lady said, speaking abruptly and with heightened colour, 'in
Heritzburg I am the majority, by your leave.'
He frowned and set his face hard, but his eyes sank before hers.
'Nevertheless your excellency will allow,' he said in a lower tone,
'that the opinion of grave and orderly men deserves consideration?'
'When it is on the side of law, every consideration,' the Countess
answered, her eyes sparkling. 'But when it is ranged against three
defenceless people in violation of the law, none. And more, Master
Dietz,' she continued, her voice ringing with indignation, 'it is to
check such opinion, and defend against it those who otherwise would
have no defence, that I conceive I sit here. And by my faith I will do
it!'
She uttered the last words with so much fire and with her beautiful
face so full of feeling, that I started forward where I stood; and for
a farthing would have flung Dietz through the window. The little
Minister was of a stern and hard nature, however. The nobility of my
lady's position was lost upon him. He feared her less than he would
have feared a man under the same circumstances; and though he stood
cowed, and silenced for the moment, he presently returned to the
attack.
'Your excellency perhaps forgets,' he said with a dry cough, 'that the
times are full of bloodshed and strife, though we at Heritzburg have
hitherto enjoyed peace. I suggest with respect therefore, is it
prudent to run the risk of bringing these evils into the town for the
sake of one or two Papists, whom it is only proposed to send
elsewhere?'
My lady rose suddenly from her chair, and pointed with a finger, which
trembled slightly, to the great window beside her. 'Step up here!' she
said curtly.
Master Dietz, wondering greatly, stepped on to the dais. Thence the
red roofs of the town, some new and smart, and some stained and grey
with lichens, and all the green valley stretching away to the dark
line of wood, were visible, bathed in sunshine. The day was fine, the
air clear, the smoke from the chimneys rose straight upward.
'Do you see?' she said.
The Minister bowed.
'Then take this for answer,' she replied. 'All that you see is mine to
rule. It came to me by inheritance, and I prize the possession of it,
though I am a woman, more highly than my life; for it came to me from
Heaven and my fathers. But were it a hundred times as large, Master
Dietz--were there a house for every brick that now stands there, and
an acre for every furrow, and sheep as many as birds in the air, even
then I would risk all, and double and treble all, rather than desert
those whom my law defends, be they three, or thirty, or three hundred!
Let that be your answer! And for the peace you speak of,' she
continued, turning on a sudden and confronting us, her face aglow with
anger, 'the peace, I mean, which you have hitherto enjoyed, it should
shame you to hear it mentioned! Have the Papists harried you? Have you
suffered in life or limb, or property? No. And why? Because of my
honoured uncle, a Papist! For shame!--for shame, I say! As it has been
dealt out to you, go and do to others!'
But for the respect which held me in her presence, I could have cried
'Huzza!' to her speech; and I can tell you, it made Master Minister
look as small as a mouse. He stepped down from the dais with his face
dark and his head trembling; and after that I never doubted that he
was at the bottom of the movement against the Worts, though the
ruffianly deserters I have mentioned supplied him with the tools,
wanting which he might not have taken up the work. He stood a moment
on the floor looking very black and grim, and with not a word to say,
but I doubted he was not beaten. What line he would have taken,
however, I cannot tell, for he had scarcely descended--my lady had not
resumed her seat--when there rose from the court below a sudden babel
of noise, the trampling of hoofs and feet on the pavement, and a
confused murmur of voices. For a moment I looked at my lady and she at
me. It struck me that that at which the Burgomaster had hinted was
come to pass: that some of the town ragamuffins had dared to invade
the castle. The same idea doubtless occurred to her, for she stepped,
though without any appearance of alarm, to the window, which commanded
a side view of the terrace. She looked out.
I, a little to her right, saw her smile: then in a moment she turned.
'This could not be better,' she said, resuming in an instant her
ordinary manner. I think she was a little ashamed, as people of
quality are wont to be, of the feeling she had betrayed. 'I see some
one below who will advise me, and who, if I am doing wrong, as you
seem to fear, Master Burgomaster, will tell me of it. My cousin, the
Waldgrave Rupert, whom I expected to-morrow, has arrived to-day. Be
good enough to wait while I receive him, and I will then return to
you.'
Bidding me have the two served with some refreshment, she stepped down
from the dais, and withdrew with Fraulein Max and her women, leaving
the townsmen to discuss the new arrival with what appetite they might.
They liked it little, I fancy. In a moment their importance was gone,
their consequence at an end. The name of the Waldgrave Rupert made
them feel how small they were, despite their boasting, beside the
youngest member of the family. The very swish of my lady's robe as she
swept through the doorway flouted them, her departure was an offence;
and this, following on the scolding they had received, produced a
soreness and irritation in their minds, which ill-prepared them, I
think, for the sequel.
I have sometimes thought that had I remained with them, and paid them
some attentions, the end might have been different; but my duties
called me elsewhere. The house was in a ferment; I was wanted here and
there, both to give orders and to see them carried out. It was some
time before I was at liberty even to go to the hall whither my lady
had descended to receive her guest, and where I found the two standing
together on the hearth, under the great Red Hart which is the
cognizance of the family.
I had not seen the Waldgrave Rupert--a cadet of the noble house of
Weimar and my lady's cousin once removed--since his boyhood. I found
him grown into a splendid man, as tall and almost as wide as myself;
who used to be called in the old forest days before I entered my
lady's service 'the strong man of Pippel.' As he stood on the hearth,
fair-haired and ruddy-faced, with a noble carriage and a frank boyish
smile, I had seldom looked on a handsomer youth. He fell short of my
lady's age by two years; but as I looked from one to the other, they
seemed so fitting a pair, the disparity went for nothing. He was young
and strong, full of spirit and energy and fire. Surely, I thought, the
right man has come at last!
In this belief I was more than confirmed when he came forward and
greeted me pleasantly, vowing that he remembered me well. His voice
and laugh seemed to fill the room; the very ring of his spurs on the
stones gave assurance of power. I saw my lady look at him with an air
of affectionate pride--she had seen him more lately than I had--as if
his youth, and strength, and beauty already belonged to her. As for
his smile, it was infectious. We grew in a moment brighter, younger,
and more cheerful. The house which yesterday had seemed quiet and
lonesome--we were a small family for so great a dwelling--took on a
new air. The servants went about their tasks more quickly, the maids
laughed behind doors. The place seemed in an hour transformed, as I
have seen a valley in the mountains changed on a sudden by the rising
of the sun.
As a fact, when I had been in his presence five minutes, the
Burgomaster and the Minister upstairs seemed as common and mean and
insignificant a pair of fellows as any in Germany. I wondered that I
could ever have feared them. The Countess had told him the story, and
he asked me one or two questions about them, his tone high, and his
head in the air. I answered him, and was for accompanying him
upstairs, when he went to see them, with my lady by his side, and his
whip slapping his great thigh boots until the staircase rang again.
But my lady had an errand and sent me on it, and so I was not present
at the end of this interview which I had myself brought about.
But I suppose that the scolding my lady had given them was no more
than a flea-bite beside the rating the young Waldgrave inflicted! It
was notorious for a score of leagues round, and he told them so in
good round terms, that the Heritzburg land had been spared by friend
and foe for Count Tilly's sake; for his sake and his alone--a Papist.
How, then, he asked them, had they the face to do this dirty trick,
and threaten my lady besides? With much more of the same kind, and
hard words, not to say menaces; sparing neither Mayor nor Minister, so
that they went off at last like whipped dogs or thieves that have seen
the gallows.
Afterwards something was said; but at the time no one missed them.
Except by myself, scarce a thought was given to them after they went
out of the door. The house was all agog about the new-comer; the
still-room full of work and the chimneys smoking. The young lord was
everywhere, and the maids were mad about him. I had my hands full, and
every one in the house seemed to be in the same case. No one had time
to look abroad.
Except Fraulein Anna Max, my lady's companion. I found her about four
o'clock in the afternoon sitting alone in the hall. She had a book
before her as usual, but on my entrance she pushed it away from her,
and looked up at me, screwing up her eyes in the odd way peculiar to
her.
'Well, Master Steward,' she said--and her voice sounded ill-natured,
'so the fire has been lit--but not by you.'
'The fire?' I answered, utterly at a loss for the moment.
'Ay,' she rejoined, with a bitter smile, 'the fire. Don't you hear it
burning?'
'I hear nothing,' I said coldly.
'Go to the terrace, and perhaps you will!' she answered.
Her words filled me with a vague uneasiness, but I was too proud to go
then or seem to heed them. An hour or two later, however, when the sun
was half down, and the shadows of the chimneys lay far over the roofs,
and the eastern woods were aglow, I went to the wall which bounds the
terrace and looked down. The hum of the town came up to my ears as it
has come up to that wall any time these hundred years. But was I
mistaken, or did there mingle with it this evening a harsher note than
usual, a rancorous murmur, as of angry voices; and something sterner,
lower, and more menacing, the clamour of a great crowd?
CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRE ALIGHT.
I laughed at my own fears when the morning came, and showed no change
except that cheerful one, which our guest's presence had worked inside
the castle. Below, today was as yesterday. The sun shone as brightly
on the roofs, the smoke of the chimneys rose as peacefully in the air;
the swallows circling round the eaves swung this way and that as
swiftly and noiselessly as of old. The common sounds of everyday life,
the clank of the pump in the market-place as the old crones drew
water, and the cry of the wood-cutter hawking his stuff, alone broke
the stillness. I sniffed the air, and smiling at Fraulein Anna's
warning, went back into the house, where any fears which yet lingered
in my mind took instant flight at sound of the Waldgrave's voice, so
cheerful was it, so full of life and strength and confidence.
I do not know what it was in him, but something there was which
carried us all the way he wished us to go. Did he laugh at the thought
of danger; straightway we laughed too, and this though I knew
Heritzburg and he did not. Did he speak scornfully of the burghers;
forthwith they seemed to us a petty lot. When he strode up and down
the terrace, showing us how a single gun placed here or there, or in
the corner, would in an hour reduce the town; on the instant we deemed
him a Tilly. When he dubbed Hofman and Dietz, 'Old Fat and Lean,' the
groom-boys, who could not be kept from his heels, sniggered, and had
to be whipped back to the stables. In a word, he won us all. His
youth, his gaiety, his confidence, were irresistible.
He dared even to scold my lady, saying that she had cosseted the
townsfolk and brought this trouble on herself by pleasuring them; and
she, who seemed to us the proudest of the proud, took it meekly,
laughing in his face. It required no conjuror to perceive that he
admired her, and would fain shine in her presence. That was to be
expected. But about my mistress I was less certain, until after
breakfast nothing would suit her but an immediate excursion to the
White Maiden--the great grey spire which stands on the summit of the
Oberwald. Then I knew that she had it in her mind to make the best
figure she could; for though she talked of showing him game in that
direction, and there was a grand parade of taking dogs, all the world
knows that the other side of the valley is the better hunting-ground.
I was left to guess that the White Maiden was chosen because all the
wide Heritzburg land can be seen from its foot, and not corn and
woodland, pasture and meadow only, but the gem of all--the town
nestling babelike in the lap of the valley, with the grey towers
rising like the face of some harsh nurse above it.
My lord jumped at the plan. Doubtless he liked the prospect of a ride
through the forest by her side. When she raised some little demur,
stepping in the way of her own proposal, as I have noticed women will,
and said something about the safety of the castle, if so many left it,
he cried out eagerly that she need not fear.
'I will leave my people,' he said. 'Then you will feel quite sure that
the place is safe. I will answer for them that they will hold your
castle against Wallenstein himself.'
'But how many are with you?' my lady asked curiously; a little in
mischief too, perhaps, for I think she knew.
His handsome face reddened and he looked rather foolish for a moment.
'Well, only four, as a fact,' he said. 'But they are perfect paladins,
and as good as forty. In your defence, cousin, I would pit them
against a score of the hardiest Swedes that ever followed the King.'
My lady laughed gaily.
'Well, for this day, I will trust them,' she said. 'Martin, order the
grooms to saddle Pushka for me. And you, cousin, shall have the honour
of mounting me. It is an age since I have had a frolic.'
Sometimes I doubt if my lady ever had such a frolic again. Happier
days she saw, I think, and many and many of them, I hope; but such a
day of careless sunny gaiety, spent in the May greenwood, with joy and
youth riding by her, with old servants at her heels, and all the
beauties of her inheritance spread before her in light and shadow, she
never again enjoyed. We went by forest paths, which winding round the
valley, passed through woodlands, where the horses sank fetlock-deep
in moss, and the laughing voices of the riders died away among the
distant trunks. Here were fairy rings deep-plunged in bracken, and
chalky bottoms whence springs rose bright as crystal, and dim aisles
of beeches narrowing into darkness, where last year's leaves rustled
ghostlike under foot, and the shadow of a squirrel startled the
boldest. Once, emerging on the open down where the sun lay hot and
bright, my lady gave her horse the rein, and for a mile or more we
sped across the turf, with hoofs thundering on either hand, and bits
jingling, and horses pulling, only to fall into a walk again with
flushed cheeks and brighter eyes, on the edge of the farther wood.
Thence another mile, athwart the steep hillside through dwarf oaks and
huge blackthorn trees, brought us to the foot of the Maiden, and we
drew rein and dismounted, and stood looking down on the vale of
Heritzburg, while the grooms unpacked the dinner.
There is a niche in the great pillar, a man's height from the ground,
in which one person may conveniently sit. The young Waldgrave spied
it.
'Up to the throne, cousin!' he cried, and he helped her to it, sitting
himself on the ledge at her feet, with his legs dangling. 'Why, there
is the Werra!' he continued.
A large quantity of rain had fallen that spring, and the river which
commonly runs low between its banks, was plainly visible, a silver
streak crossing the distant mouth of the valley.
'Yes,' my lady answered. 'That is the Werra, and beyond it is, I
suppose, the world.'
'Whither I must go back this day week,' he said, between sighing and
smiling. 'Then, hey for the south and Nuremberg, the good cause and
the great King.'
'You have seen him?'
'Once only.'
'And is he so great a fighter?' my lady asked curiously.
'How can he fail to be when he and his men fight and pray
alternately,' the Waldgrave answered; 'when there is no license in the
camp, and a Swede thinks death the same as victory?'
'Where is he now?'
'At Munich, in Bavaria.'
'How it would have grieved my uncle,' my lady said, with a sigh.
'He died as he would have wished to die,' the Waldgrave answered
gently. 'He believed in his cause, as the King of Sweden believes in
his; and he died for it. What more can a man ask? But here is Franz
with all sorts of good things. And I am afraid a feast of beauty,
however perfect, does not prevent a man getting hungry.'
'That is a very pretty compliment to Heritzburg,' my lady said,
laughing.
'Or its chatelaine!' I heard him murmur, with a tender look. But my
lady only laughed again and called to me to come and name the hills,
and tell my lord what land went with each of the three hamlets between
which the lower valley is divided.
Doubtless that was but one of a hundred gallant things he said to her,
and whereat she laughed, during the pleasant hour they whiled away at
the foot of the pillar, basking in the warm sunshine, and telling the
valley farm by farm. For the day was perfect, the season spring. I lay
on my side and dreamed my own dream under the trees, with the hum of
insects in my ears. No one was in a hurry to rise, or set a term to
such a time.
Still we had plenty of daylight before us when my lady mounted and
turned her face homewards, thinking to reach the castle a little after
five. But a hare got up as we crossed the open down, and showing good
sport, as these long-legged mountain hares will, led us far out of our
way, and caused us to spend nearly an hour in the chase. Then my lady
spied a rare flower on the cliffside; and the young Waldgrave must
needs get it for her. And so it wanted little of sunset when we came
at last in sight of the bridge which spans the ravine at the back of
the castle. I saw in the distance a lad seated on the parapet,
apparently looking out for us, but I thought nothing of it. The
descent was steep and we rode down slowly, my lady and the Waldgrave
laughing and talking, and the rest of us sitting at our ease. Nor did
the least thought of ill occur to my mind until I saw that the lad had
jumped down from the wall and was running towards us waving his cap.
My lady, too, saw him.
'What is it, Martin?' she said, turning her head to speak to me.
I told her I would see, and trotted forward along the side of the path
until I came within call. Then I cried sharply to the lad to know what
it was. I saw something in his face which frightened me; and being
frightened and blaming myself, I was ready to fall on the first I met.
'The town!' he answered, panting up to my stirrup. 'There is fighting
going on, Master Martin. They are pulling down Klink's house.'
'So, so,' I answered, for at the first sight of his face I had feared
worse. 'Have you closed the gate at the head of the steps?'
'Yes,' he said, 'and my lord's men are guarding it.'
'Right!' I answered. And then my lady came up, and I had to break the
news to her. Of course the young Waldgrave heard also, and I saw his
eyes sparkle with pleasure.
'Ha! the rascals!' he cried. 'Now we will trounce them! Trust me,
cousin, we will teach these boors such a lesson as they shall long
remember. But what is it?' he continued, turning to my lady who had
not spoken. 'The Queen of Heritzburg is not afraid of her rebellious
subjects?'
My lady's eyes flashed. 'No, I am not afraid,' she said, with
contempt. 'But Klink's house? Do you mean the Red Hart, Martin?'
I said I did.
She plucked her horse by the head, and stopped short under the arch of
the gateway. I think I see her now bending from her saddle with the
light on the woods behind her, and her face in shadow. 'Then those
people are in danger!' she said, her voice quivering with excitement.
'Martin, take what men you have and go down into the town. Bring them
off at all risks! See to it yourself. If harm come to them, I shall
not forgive you easily.'
The Waldgrave sprang from his horse, and cried out that he would go.
But my lady called to him to stay with her.
'Martin knows the streets, and you do not,' she said, sliding
unassisted to the ground. 'But he shall take your men, if you do not
object.'
We dismounted, in a confused medley of men and horses, in the stable
court, which is small, and being surrounded by high buildings, was
almost dark. The grooms left at home had gone to the front of the
house to see the sight, and there was no one to receive us. I bade the
five men who had ridden with us get their arms, and leaving the horses
loose to be caught and cared for by the lad who had met us, I hastened
after my lady and the Waldgrave, who had already disappeared under the
arch which leads to the Terrace Court.
To pass through this was to pass from night to day, so startling was
the change. From one end to the other the terrace was aglow with red
light. The last level beams of the sun shone straight in our eyes as
we emerged, and so blinded us, that I advanced, seeing nothing before
me but a row of dark figures leaning over the parapet. If we could not
see, however, we could hear. A hoarse murmur, unlike anything I had
heard before, came up from the town, and rising and falling in waves
of sound, now a mere whisper, and now a dull savage roar, caused the
boldest to tremble. I heard my lady cry, 'Those poor people! Those
poor people!' and saw her clench her hands in impotent anger; and that
sight, or the sound--which seemed the more weirdly menacing as the
town lay in twilight below us, and we could make out no more than a
few knots of women standing in the market-place--or it may be some
memory of the helpless girl I had seen at Klink's, so worked upon me
that I had got the gate unbarred and was standing at the head of the
steps outside before I knew that I had stirred or given an order.
Some one thrust a half pike into my hand, and mechanically I counted
out the men--four of the Waldgrave's and five, six, seven of our own.
A strange voice--but it may have been my own--cried, 'Not by the High
Street. Through the lane by the wall!' and the next moment we were
down out of the sunlight and taking the rough steps three at a time.
The High Street reached, we swung round in a body to the right, and
plunging into Shoe Wynd, came to the locksmith's, and thence went on
by the way I had gone that other evening.
The noise was less down in the streets. The houses intervened and
deadened it. At some of the doors women were standing, listening and
looking out with grey faces, but one and all fled in at our approach,
which seemed to be the signal, wherever we came, for barring doors and
shooting bolts; once a man took to his heels before us, and again near
the locksmith's we encountered a woman bare-headed and carrying
something in her arms. She almost ran into the midst of us, and at the
last moment only avoided us by darting up the side-alley by the forge.
Whether these people knew us for what we were, and so fled from us, or
took us for a party of the rioters, it was impossible to say. The
narrow lanes were growing dark, night was falling on the town; only
the over-hanging eaves showed clear and black against a pale sky. The
way we had to go was short, but it seemed long to me; for a dozen
times between the castle steps and Klink's house I thought of the poor
girl at her prayers, and pictured what might be happening.
Yet we could not have been more than five minutes going from the steps
to the corner beyond the forge, whence we could see Klink's side
window. A red glare shone though it, and cleaving the dark mist which
filled the alley fell ruddily on the town wall. It seemed to say that
we were too late; and my heart sank at the sight. Nor at the sight
only, for as we turned the corner, the hoarse murmur we had heard on
the Terrace, and which even there had sounded ominous, swelled to an
angry roar, made up of cries and cursing, with bursts of reckless
cheering, and now and again a yell of pain. The street away before us,
where the lane ran into it, was full of smoky light and upturned
faces; but I took no heed of it, my business was with the window. I
cried to the men behind me and hurried on till I stood before it, and
clutching the bars--the glass was broken long ago--looked in.
The room was full of men. For a moment I could see nothing but heads
and shoulders and grim faces, all crowded together, and all alike
distorted by the lurid light shed by a couple of torches held close to
the ceiling. Some of the men standing in such groups as the constant
jostling permitted, were talking, or rather shouting to one another.
Others were savagely forcing back their fellows who wished to enter;
while a full third were gathered with their faces all one way round
the corner where I had seen the sick man. Here the light was
strongest, and in this direction I gazed most anxiously. But the
crowded figures intercepted all view; neither there nor anywhere else
could I detect any sign of the girl or child. The men in that corner
seemed to be gazing at something low down on the floor, something I
could not see. A few were silent, more were shouting and
gesticulating.
I stretched my hands through the bars, and grasping a man by the
shoulders, dragged him to me. 'What is it?' I cried in his ear,
heedless whether he knew me, or took me for one of the ruffians who
were everywhere battling to get into the house--at the window we had
anticipated some by a second only. 'What is it?' I repeated fiercely,
resisting all his efforts to get free.
'Nothing!' he answered, glaring at me. 'The man is dead; cannot you
see?'
'I can see nothing!' I retorted. 'Dead is he?'
'Ay, dead, and a good job too!' the rascal answered, making a fresh
attempt to get away. 'Dead when we came in.'
'And the girl?'
'Gone, the Papist witch, on a broomstick!' he answered. 'Through the
wall or the ceiling or the keyhole, or through this window; but only
on a broomstick. The bars would skin a cat!'
I let him go and looked at the bars. They were an inch thick, and a
very few inches apart. It seemed impossible that a child, much more a
grown woman, could pass between them. As the fellow said, there was
barely room for a cat to pass.
Yet my mind clung to the bars. Klink might have hidden the girl, for
without doubt he had neither foreseen nor meant anything like this.
But something told me that she had gone by the window, and I turned
from it with renewed hope.
It was time I did turn. The crowd had got wind of our presence and
resented it. All who could not get into the house to slake their
curiosity or anger, had pressed into the narrow alley where we stood,
while the air rang with cries of 'No Popery! Down with the Papists!'
When I turned I found my fellows hard put to it to keep their
position. To retreat, close pressed as we were, seemed as difficult as
to stand; but by making a resolute movement all together, we charged
to the front for a moment, and then taking advantage of the interval,
fell back as quickly as we could, facing round whenever it seemed that
our followers were coming on too boldly for safety.
In this way, the knaves with me being stout and some of them used to
the work, we retreated in good order and without hurt as far as the
end of Shoe Wynd. Then I discovered to my dismay that a portion of the
mob had made along the High Street and were waiting for us on the
steep ascent where the wynd runs into the street.
Hitherto no harm had been done on either side, but we now found
ourselves beset front and back, and to add to the confusion of the
scene night had set in. The narrow wynd was as dark as pitch, save
where the light of a chance torch showed crowded forms and snarling
faces, while the din and tumult were enough to daunt the boldest.
That moment, I confess, was one of the worst I have known. I felt my
men waver; a little more and they might break and the mob deal with us
as it would. On the other hand? I knew that to plunge, exposed to
attack as we were from behind, into the mass of men who blocked the
way to the steps, would be madness. We should be surrounded and
trodden down. There were not perhaps fifty really dangerous fellows in
the town; but a mob I have noticed is a strange thing. Men who join
it, intending merely to look on, are carried away by excitement, and
soon find themselves cursing and fighting, burning and raiding with
the foremost.
A brief pause and I gave the word to face about again. As I expected,
the gang in the alley gave way before us, and the pursued became the
pursuers. My men's blood was up now, their patience exhausted; and for
a few moments pike and staff played a merry tune. But quickly the mob
behind closed up on our heels. Stones began to be thrown, and
presently one, dropped I think from a window, struck a man beside me
and felled him to the ground.
That was our first loss. Drunken Steve, a great gross fellow, always
in trouble, but a giant in strength, picked him up--we could not leave
the man to be murdered--and plunged on with us bearing him under his
arm.
'Good man!' I cried between my teeth. And I swore it should save the
drunkard from many a scrape. But the next moment another was down, and
him I had to pick up myself. Then I saw that we were as good as
doomed. Against the stones we had no shield.
The men saw it too, and cried out, beside themselves with rage. We
were as rats, set in a pit to be worried--in the dark with a hundred
foes tearing at us. And the town seemed to have gone mad--mad! Above
the screams and wicked laughter, and all the din about us, I heard the
great church bell begin to ring, and hurling its notes, now sharp, now
dull, down upon the seething streets, swell and swell the tumult until
the very sky seemed one in the league against us!
Blind with fury--for what had we done?--we turned on the mob which
followed us and hurled it back--back almost to the High Street. But
that way was no exit for us; the crowd stood so close that they could
not even fly. Round we whirled again, wild and desperate now, and
charged down the alley towards the West Gate, thinking possibly
to win through and out by that way. We had almost reached the
locksmith's--then another man fell. He was of the Waldgrave's
following, and his comrade stooped to raise him; but only to fall over
him, wounded in his turn.
What happened after that I only knew in part, for from that moment all
was a medley of random blows and stragglings in the dark. The crowd
seeing half of us down, and the rest entangled, took heart of grace to
finish us. I remember a man dashing a torch in my face, and the blow
blinding me. Nevertheless I staggered forward to close with him. Then
something tripped me up, something or some one struck me from behind
as I fell. I went down like an ox, and for me the fight was over.
Drunken Steve and two of the Waldgrave's men fought across me, I am
told, for a minute or more. Then Steve fell and an odd thing happened.
The mob took fright at nothing--took fright at their own work, and
coming suddenly to their senses, poured pell-mell out of the alley
faster than they had come into it. The two strangers, knowing nothing
of the way or the town, knocked at the nearest door and were taken in,
and sheltered till morning.
CHAPTER V.
MARIE WORT.
There never was one of my forefathers could read, or knew so much as a
horn-book when he saw it; and therefore I, though a clerk, have a
brain pan that will stand as much as any scholar's and more than many
a simple man's. Otherwise the blow I got that night must have done me
some great mischief, instead of merely throwing me into a swoon, in
which I lay until the morning was well advanced.
When I came to myself with an aching head and a dry mouth, I was hard
put to it for a time to think what had happened to me. The place in
which I lay was dark, with spots of red lights like flaming eyes here
and there. An odour of fire and leather and iron filled my nostrils. A
hoarse soughing as of a winded horse came and went regularly, with a
dull rumbling and creaking that seemed to shake the place. Dizzy as I
was, I rose on my elbow with an effort, and looked round. But my eyes
swam, I could see nothing which enlightened me, and with a groan I
fell back. Then I found that I was lying on a straw-bed, with bandages
round my head, and gradually the events of the night came back to me.
My mind grew clearer. Yet it still failed to tell me where I was, or
whence came the hoarse choking sound, like the sighing of some giant
of the Harz, which I heard.
At last, while I lay wondering and fearing, a door opened and let into
the dark place a flood of ruddy light. Framed in this light a young
girl appeared, standing on the threshold. She held a tray in her hand,
and paused to close the door behind her. The bright glow which shone
round her, gave her a strange unearthly air, picking out gold in her
black locks and warming her pale cheeks; but for all that I recognised
her, and never was I more astonished. She was no other than the
daughter of the Papist Wort--the girl to rescue whom we had gone down
to the Red Hart.
I could not restrain an exclamation of surprise, and the girl started
and stopped, peering into the corner in which I lay.
'Master Martin,' she said in a low tone, 'was that you?'
I had never heard her speak before, and I found, perhaps by reason of
my low state, and a softness which pain induces in the roughest, a
peculiar sweetness in her voice. I would not answer for a moment. I
made her speak again.
'Master Martin,' she said, advancing timidly, 'are you yourself
again?'
'I don't know,' I muttered. In very fact I was so much puzzled that
this was nearly the truth. 'If you will tell me where I am, I may be
able to say,' I added, turning my head with an effort.
'You are in the kitchen behind the locksmith's forge,' she answered
plainly. 'He is a good man, and you are in no danger. The window is
shuttered to keep the light from your eyes.'
'And the noise I hear is the bellows at work?'
'Yes,' she answered, coming near. 'It is almost noon. If you will
drink this broth you will get your strength again.'
I seized the bowl and drank greedily. When I set it down, my eyes
seemed clearer and my mind stronger.
'You escaped?' I said. The more I grew able to think, the more
remarkable it seemed to me that the girl should be here--here in the
same house in which I lay.
'Through the window,' she answered, in a faint voice.
As she spoke she turned from me, and I knew that she was thinking of
her father and would fain hide her face.
'But the bars?' I said.
'I am very small,' she answered in the same low tone.
I do not know why, but perhaps because of the weakness and softness I
have mentioned, I found something very pitiful in the answer. It
stirred a sudden rush of anger in my heart. I pictured this, helpless
girl chased through the streets by the howling pack of cravens we had
encountered, and for a few seconds, bruised and battered as I was, I
felt the fighting spirit again. I half rose, then turned giddy, and
sank back again. It was a minute or more before I could ask another
question. At last I murmured--
'You have not told me how you came here?'
'I was coming up the alley,' she answered, shuddering, 'when at the
corner by this house I met men coming to meet me. I fled into the
passage to escape them, and finding no outlet, and seeing a light
here, I knocked. I thought that some woman might pity me and take me
in.'
'And Peter did?'
'Yes,' she answered simply. 'May Our Lady reward him.'
'We were the men you met,' I said drowsily. 'I remember now. You were
carrying your brother.'
'My brother?'
'Yes, the child.'
'Oh, yes,' she answered, in rather a strange fashion; but I was too
dull to do more than notice it. 'The child of course.'
I could ask no more, for my head was already splitting with pain. I
lay back, and I suppose went off into a swoon again, sleeping all that
day and until the morning of the next was far advanced.
Then I awoke to find the place in which I lay changed from a cave of
mystery to a low-roofed dingy room; the shutter of the window standing
half-open, admitted a ray of sunshine and a breath of pure air. A
small fire burned on the hearth, a black pot bubbled beside it.
For the room itself, a litter of old iron stood in every corner;
bunches of keys and rows of rusty locks--padlocks, fetter-locks, and
door-locks--hung on all the walls. One or two chests, worm-eaten and
rickety, but prized by their present possessor for the antiquity of
their fastenings, stood here and there; with a great open press full
of gun-locks, matchlocks, wheel-locks, spring-locks and the like. Half
a dozen arquebuses and pistols decorated the mantel-piece, giving the
room something of the air of an armoury.
In the midst of all this litter sat old Peter himself, working away,
with a pair of horn glasses on his forehead, at a small lock; which
seemed to be giving him a vast amount of trouble. A dozen times at
least I watched him fit a number of tiny parts together, only to
scatter them again in his leather apron, and begin to pare one or
other of them with a little file. At length he laid the work down, as
if he were tired, and looking up found my eyes fixed upon him.
He nodded cheerfully. 'Good,' he said. 'Now you look yourself, Martin.
No more need of febrifuges. Another night's sleep, and you may go
abroad.'
'What day is it?' I said, striving to collect my thoughts.
'Friday,' he answered, looking at me with his shrewd, pleasant eyes.
He was an old man, over sixty, a widower with two young children, and
clever at his trade. I never knew a better man. 'Wednesday night you
came here,' he continued, showing in his countenance the pleasure it
gave him to see me recovering.
'I must go to the castle,' I exclaimed, rising abruptly and sitting
up. 'Do you hear? I must go.'
'I do not see the necessity,' he answered, looking at me coolly, and
without budging an inch.
'My lady will need me.'
'Not at all,' he answered, in the same quiet tone. 'You may make your
mind easy about that. The Countess is safe and well. She is in the
castle, and the gates are shut.'
'But she has not----' Then I stopped. I was going to say too much.
'She has not half a dozen men with her, you would say,' he replied.
'Well, no. But one is a man, it seems. The young lord has turned a
couple of cannon on the town, and all our valiant scoundrels are
shaking in their shoes.'
'A couple of cannon! But there are no cannon in the castle!'
'You are mistaken,' Peter answered drily. He had a very dry way with
him at times. 'I have seen the muzzles of them, myself, and you can
see them, if you please, from the attic window. One is trained on the
market-place, and one to fire down the High Street. To-morrow morning
our Burgomaster and the Minister are to go up and make their peace.
And I can tell you some of our brisk boys feel the rope already round
their necks.'
'Is this true?' I said, hardly able to believe the tale.
'As true as you please,' he answered. 'If you will take my advice you
will lie quietly here until to-morrow morning, and then go up to the
castle. No one will molest you. The townsfolk will be only too glad to
find you alive, and that they have so much the less to pay for. I
should not wonder if you saved half a dozen necks,' Peter added
regretfully. 'For I hear the Countess is finely mad about you.'
At this mention of my lady's regard my eyes filled so that I had much
ado to hide my feelings. Affecting to find the light too strong I
turned my back on Peter, and then for the first time became aware that
I had a companion in misfortune. On a heap of straw behind me lay
another man, so bandaged about the head that I could see nothing of
his features.
'Hallo!' I exclaimed, raising myself that I might have a better view
of him. 'Who is this?'
'Your man Steve,' Peter said briefly. 'But for him and another, Master
Martin, I do not think that you would be here.'
'You do well to remind me,' I answered, feeling shame that I had not
yet thanked him, or asked how I came to be in safety. 'How was it?'
'Well,' he said, 'it began with the girl. The doings on Wednesday
night were not much to my mind, as you may suppose, and I shut up
early and kept myself close. About seven, when the racket had not yet
risen to its height, there came a knocking at my door. For a while I
took no notice of it, but presently, as it continued, I went to
listen, and heard such a sobbing on the step as the heart of man could
not resist. So I opened and found the Papist girl there with a child.
I do not know,' Peter continued, pushing forward his greasy old cap
and rubbing his head, 'that I should have opened it if I had been sure
who it was. But as the door was open, the girl had to come in.'
'I do not think you will repent it!' I said.
'I don't know that I shall,' he answered thoughtfully. 'However, she
had not been long inside and the bolts shot on us, when there began a
most tremendous skirmish in the lane, which lasted off and on for half
an hour. Then followed a sudden silence. I had given the girl some
food, and told her she might sleep with the children upstairs, and we
were sitting before the fire while she cried a bit--she was all over
of a shake, you understand--when on a sudden she stood up, and
listened.
'"What is it?" I said.
'She did not answer for a while, but still stood listening, looking
now at me and now towards the forge in a queer eager kind of way. I
told her to sit down, but she did not seem to hear, and presently she
cried, "There is some one there!"
'"Well," said I, "they will stop there then. I don't open that door
again to-night."
'She looked at me pitifully, but sat down for all the world as if I
had struck her. Not for long, however. In a minute she was up again,
and began to go to and fro between the kitchen and the forge door like
nothing else but a cat looking for her kittens. "Sit down, wench," I
said. But this time she took no heed, and at last the sight of her
going up and down like a dumb creature in pain was too much for me,
and I got up and undid the door. She was out in a minute, seeming not
a bit afraid for herself, and sure enough, there were you and Steve
lying one on the top of the other on the step, and so still that I
thought you gone. Heaven only knows how she heard you.'
'Peter,' I said abruptly, 'have you any water handy?'
'To be sure,' he replied, starting up. 'Are you thirsty?'
I nodded, and he went to get it, blaming himself for his
thoughtlessness. He need not have reproached himself, however. I was
not thirsty; but I could not bear that he should sit and look at me at
that moment. The story he had told had touched me--and I was still
weak; and I could not answer for it, I should not burst into tears
like a woman. The thought of this girl's persistence, who in
everything else was so weak, of her boldness who in her own defence
was a hare, of her strange instinct on our behalf who seemed made only
to be herself protected--the thought of these things touched me to the
heart and filled me with an odd mixture of pity and gratitude! I had
gone to save her, and she had saved me! I had gone to shield her from
harm, and heaven had led me to her door, not in strength but in
weakness. She had fled from me who came to help her; that when I
needed help, she might be at hand to give it!
'Where is she?' I muttered, when he came back and I had drunk.
'Who? Marie?' he asked.
'Yes, if that is her name,' I said, drinking again.
'She is lying down upstairs,' he answered. 'She is worn out, poor
child. Not that in one sense, Master Martin,' he continued, dropping
his voice and nodding with a mysterious air, 'she _is_ poor. Though
you might think it.'
'How do you mean?' I said, raising my head and meeting his eyes. He
nodded.
'It is between ourselves,' he said; 'but I am afraid there is a good
deal in what our rascals here say. I am afraid, to be plain, Master
Martin, that the father was like all his kind: plundered many an
honest citizen, and roasted many a poor farmer before his own fire. It
is the way of soldiers in that army; and God help the country they
march in, be it friend's or foe's!'
'Well?' I said impatiently; 'but what of that now?' The mention of
these things fretted me. I wanted to hear nothing about the father.
'The man is dead,' I said.
'Ay, he is,' Peter answered slowly and impressively. 'But the
daughter? She has got a necklace round her neck now, worth--worth I
dare say two hundred men at arms.'
'What, ducats?'
'Ay, ducats! Gold ducats. It is worth all that.'
'How do you know?' I said, staring at him. 'I have never seen such a
thing on her. And I have seen the girl two or three times.'
'Well, I will tell you,' he answered, glancing first at the window and
then at Steve to be sure that we were not overheard. 'I'll tell you.
When we had carried you into the house the other night she took off
her kerchief, to tear a piece from it to bind up your head. That
uncovered the necklace. She was quick to cover it up, when she
remembered herself, but not quick enough.'
'Is it of gold?' I asked.
He nodded. 'Fifteen or sixteen links I should say, and each as big as
a small walnut. Carved and shaped like a walnut too.'
'It may be silver-gilt.'
He laughed. 'I am a smith, though only a locksmith,' he said. 'Trust
me for knowing gold. I doubt it came from Magdeburg; I doubt it did.
Magdeburg, or Halle, which my Lord Tilly ravaged about that time. And
if so there is blood upon it. It will bring the girl no luck, depend
upon it.'
'If we talk about it, I'll be sworn it will not!' I answered savagely.
'There are plenty here who would twist her neck for so much as a link
of it.'
'You are right, Master Martin,' he answered meekly. 'Perhaps I should
not have mentioned it; but I know that you are safe. And after all the
girl has done nothing.'
That was true, but it did not content me. I wished he had not seen
what he had, or that he had not told me the tale. A minute before I
had been able to think of the girl with pure satisfaction; to picture
with a pleasant warmth about my heart her gentleness, her courage, her
dark mild beauty that belonged as much to childhood as womanhood, the
thought for others that made her flight a perpetual saving. But this
spoiled all. The mere possession of this necklace, much more the use
of it, seemed to sully her in my eyes, to taint her freshness, to
steal the perfume from her youth.
[Illustration: ... she came presently to me with a bowl of broth in
her hands and a timid smile on her lips....]
For I am peasant born, of those on whom the free-companions have
battened from the beginning; and spoil won in such a way seemed to me
to be accursed. Whether I would or no, horrid tales of the storming of
Magdeburg came into my mind: tales of streets awash with blood, of
churches blocked with slain, of women lying dead with living babes in
their arms. And I shuddered. I felt the necklace a blot on all. I
shrank from one, who, with the face of a saint, wore under her
kerchief gold dyed in such a fashion!
That was while I lay alone, tossing from side to side, and troubling
myself unreasonably about the matter; since the girl was nothing to
me, and a Papist. But when she came presently to me with a bowl of
broth in her hands and a timid smile on her lips--a smile which gave
the lie to the sadness of her eyes and the red rims that surrounded
them--I forgot all, necklace and creed. I took the bowl silently, as
she gave it. I gave it back with only one 'Thank you,' which sounded
hoarse and rustic in my ears; but I suppose my eyes were more
eloquent, for she blushed and trembled. And in the evening she did not
come. Instead one of the children brought my supper, and sitting down
on the straw beside me, twittered of Marie and 'Go' and other things.
'Who is Go?' I said.
'Go is Marie's brother,' the child answered, open-eyed at my
ignorance. 'You not know Go?'
'It is a strange name,' I said, striving to excuse myself.
'_He_ is a strange man,' the little one retorted, pointing to Steve.
'He does not speak. Now you speak. Marie says--'
'What does Marie say?' I asked.
'Marie says you saved his life.'
'Well, you can tell her it was the other way,' I exclaimed roughly.
Twice that night when I awoke I heard a light footstep, and turned to
see the girl, moving to and fro among the rusty locks and ancient
chests in attendance on Steve. He mended but slowly. She did not come
near me at these times, and after a glance I pretended to fall asleep
that I might listen unnoticed to her movements, and she be more free
to do her will. But whenever I heard her and opened my eyes to see her
slender figure moving in that dingy place, I felt the warmth about my
heart again. I forgot the gold necklace; I thought no more of the
rosary, only of the girl. For what is there which so well becomes a
woman as tending the sick; an office which in a lover's eyes should
set off his mistress beyond velvet and Flanders lace.
CHAPTER VI.
RUPERT THE GREAT.
I have known a man very strong and very confident, whom the muzzle of
a loaded pistol, set fairly against his head, has reduced to reason
marvellously. So it fared with Heritzburg on this occasion. My lady's
cannon, which I went up to the roof at daybreak to see--and did see,
to my great astonishment, trained one on the Market Square, and one
down the High Street--formed the pistol, under the cooling influence
of which the town had so far come to its senses, that the game was now
in my lady's hands. Peter assured me that the place was in a panic,
that the Countess could hardly ask any amends that would not be made,
and that as a preliminary the Burgomaster and Minister were to go to
the castle before noon to sue for pardon. He suggested that I and the
girl should accompany them.
'But does Hofman know that we are here?' I asked.
'Since yesterday morning,' the locksmith answered, with a grin. 'And
no one more pleased to hear it! If he had not you to present as a
peace-offering, I doubt he would have fled the town before he
would have gone up. As it is, they had fine work with him at the
town-council yesterday.'
'He is in a panic? Serve him right!' I said.
'I am told that his cheeks shake like jelly,' Peter answered.
'Two of the Waldgrave's men are dead, you know, and some say that the
Countess will hang him out of hand. But you will go up with him?'
'Yes,' I said. 'I see no objection.'
Some one else objected, however. When the plan was broached to the
girl, she looked troubled. For a moment she did not speak, but stood
before us silent and confused. Then she pointed to Steve.
'When is he going, if you please?' she asked, in a troubled voice.
'He must go in a litter by the road,' I answered. 'Peter here will see
to it this morning.'
'Could I not go with him?' she said.
I looked at Peter, and he at me. He nodded.
'I see no reason why you should not, if you prefer it,' I said.
'Either way you will be safe.'
'I should prefer it,' she muttered, in a low tone. And then she went
out to get something for Steve, and we saw her no more.
'Drunken Steve is in luck,' Peter said, looking after her with a
smile. 'She is wonderfully taken with him. She is a--she is a good
girl, Papist or no Papist,' he added thoughtfully.
I am not sure that he would have indorsed that later in the day. At
the last moment, when I was about to leave the house to go up to the
castle my way, and Steve and his party were on the point of starting
by the West Gate and the road, something happened which gave both of
us a kind of shock, though neither said a word to the other. Marie had
brought down the little boy, a brave-eyed, fair-haired child about
three years old, and she was standing with us in the forge waiting
with the child clinging to her skirt, when on a sudden she turned to
Peter and began to thank him. A word and she broke down.
'Pooh, child!' Peter said kindly, patting her on the shoulder. 'It was
little enough, and I am glad I did it. No thank's.'
She answered between her sobs that it was beyond thanks, and called on
Heaven to reward him.
'If I had anything,' she continued, looking at him timidly, 'if I had
anything I could give you to prove my gratitude, I would so gladly
give it. But I am alone, and I have nothing worth your acceptance. I
have nothing in the world, unless,' she added with an effort, 'you
would like my rosary.'
'No,' Peter said almost roughly. I noticed that he avoided my eye. 'I
do not want it. It is not a thing I use.'
She said she had nothing; and we knew she had that chain! Yet Heaven
knows her face as she said it was fair enough to convert a Beza! She
said she had nothing; we knew she had. Yet if ever genuine gratitude
and thankfulness seemed to shine out of wet human eyes, they shone out
of hers then.
What I could not stomach was the ingratitude. The fraud was too gross,
too gratuitous, since she need have offered nothing. I turned away and
went out of the forge without waiting for her to recover herself. I
dreaded lest she should thank me in the same way.
I knew Peter, and knew he could have no motive for traducing her. He
was old enough to be her grandfather, and a quiet good man. Therefore
I was sure that she had the chain, three or four links of which should
be worth his shop of old iron.
But besides I had the evidence of my own eyes. There was a crinkle, a
crease in her kerchief, for which the presence of the necklace would
account; it was such a crease as a necklace of that size would cause.
I had marked it when she brought the child into the room in her arms.
The boy's right arm had been round her neck, and I had seen him relax
his hold of her hair and steady himself by placing his little palm on
that wrinkle, as on a sure and certain and familiar stay. So I knew
that she had the necklace, and that she had lied about it.
But after all it was nothing to me. The girl was a Papist, a Bavarian,
the daughter of a roistering freebooting rider, versed in camp life.
If with a fair outside she proved to be at heart what every reasonable
man would expect to find her, what then? I had no need to trouble my
head. I had affairs enough of my own on my hands.
Yet the affair did trouble me. The false innocence of the child's face
haunted and perplexed me, and would not leave me, though I tried to
think of other things and had other things to think of. I was to meet
the Burgomaster in the market-place, and go thence with him, and I had
promised myself that I would make good use of my opportunities; that I
would lose no point of the town's behaviour, that not a lowering face
should escape me, nor a quarter whence danger might arise in the
future. But the girl's eyes made havoc of all my resolutions, and I
had fairly reached the market-place before I remembered what I was
doing.
There indeed a sight, which in a moment swept the cobwebs from my
brain, awaited me. The square was full of people, not closely packed,
but standing in loose groups, and all talking in voices so low as to
produce a dull sullen sound more striking than silence. The Mayor and
four or five Councillors occupied the steps of the market-house.
Raised a head and shoulders above the throng, and glancing at it
askance from time to time with scarcely disguised apprehension, they
wore an air of irresolution it was impossible to mistake. Hofman in
particular looked like a man with the rope already round his neck. His
face was pale, his fat cheeks hung pendulous, his eyes never rested on
anything for more than a second. They presently lit on me, and then if
farther proof of the state of his mind was needed, I found it in the
relief with which he hailed my appearance; relief, not the less
genuine because he hastened to veil it from the jealous eyes that from
every part of the square watched his proceedings.
The crowd made way for me silently. One in every two, perhaps, greeted
me, and some who did not greet me, smiled at me fatuously. On the
other hand, I was struck by the air of gloomy expectation which
prevailed. I discerned that a very little would turn it into
desperation, and saw, or thought I saw, that cannon, or no cannon,
this was a case for delicate and skilful handling. The town was
panic-stricken, partly at the thought of what it had done, partly
at the sight of the danger which threatened it. But panic is a
double-edged weapon. It takes little to turn it into fury.
I made for the opening into the High Street, and the Burgomaster,
coming down the steps, passed through the crowd and met me there.
'This is a bad business, Master Martin,' he said, facing me with an
odd mixture of shamefacedness and bravado. 'We must do our best to
patch it up.'
'You had your warning,' I answered coldly, turning with him up the
street, every window and doorway in which had its occupant. Dietz and
two or three Councillors followed us, the Minister's face looking
flushed and angry, and as spiteful as a cat's. 'Two lives have been
lost,' I continued, 'and some one must pay for them.'
Hofman mopped his face. 'Surely,' he said, 'the three lead on our
side, Master Martin----'
'I do not see what they have to do with it,' I answered, maintaining a
cold and uninterested air, which was torture to him. 'It is your
affair, however, not mine.'
'But, my dear friend--Martin,' he stammered, plucking my sleeve, 'you
are not revengeful. You will not make it worse? You won't do that?'
'Worse?' I retorted. 'It is bad enough already. And I am afraid you
will find it so.'
He winced and looked at me askance, his eyes rolling in a fever of
apprehension. For a moment I really thought that he would turn and go
back. But the crowd was behind; he was on the horns of a dilemma, and
with a groan of misery he moved on, looking from time to time at the
terrace above us. 'Those cursed cannon,' I heard him mutter, as he
wiped his brow.
'Ay,' I said, sharply, 'if it had not been for the cannon you would
have seen our throats cut before you would have moved. I quite
understand that. But you see it is our turn now.'
We were on the steps and he did not answer. I looked up, expecting to
see the wall by the wicket-gate well-manned; but I was mistaken. No
row of faces looked down from it. All was silent. A single man, on
guard at the wicket, alone appeared. He bade us stand, and passed the
word to another. He in his turn disappeared and presently old Jacob,
with a half-pike on his shoulder, and a couple of men at his back,
came stiffly out to receive us with all the formality and discipline
of a garrison in time of war. He acknowledged my presence by a wink,
but saluted my companions in the coldest manner possible, proceeding
at once to march us without a word spoken to the door of the house,
where we were again bidden to stand.
All this filled me with satisfaction. I knew what effect it would have
on Hofman, and how it would send his soul into his shoes. At the same
time my satisfaction was not unmixed. I felt a degree of strangeness
myself. The place seemed changed, the men, moving stiffly, had an
unfamiliar air. I missed the respect I had enjoyed in the house. For
the moment I was nobody; a prisoner, an alien person admitted
grudgingly, and on sufferance.
I comforted myself with the reflection that all would be well when I
reached the presence. But I was mistaken. I saw indeed my lady's
colour come and go when I entered, and her eyes fell. But she kept
her seat, she looked no more at me than at my companions, she uttered
no greeting or word of acknowledgment. It was the Waldgrave who
spoke--the Waldgrave who acted. In a second there came over me a
bitter feeling that all was changed; that the old state of things at
Heritzburg was past, and a rule to which I was a stranger set in its
place.
Three or four of my lady's women were grouped behind her, while Franz
and Ernst stood like statues at the farther door. Fraulein Anna sat on
a stool in the window-bay, and my lady's own presence was, as at all
times, marked by a stateliness and dignity which seemed to render it
impossible that she should pass for second in any company. But for all
that the Waldgrave, standing up straight and tall behind her, with his
comeliness, his youth, and his manhood and the red light from the coat
of arms in the stained window just touching his fair hair, did seem to
me to efface her. It was he who stood there to pardon or punish,
praise or blame, and not my lady. And I resented it.
Not that his first words to me were not words of kindness.
'Ha, Martin,' he cried, his face lighting up, 'I hear you fought like
an ancient Trojan, and broke as many heads as Hector. And that your
own proved too hard for them! Welcome back. In a moment I may want a
word with you; but you must wait.'
I stood aside, obeying his gesture; and he apologised, but with a very
stern aspect, to Hofman and his companions for addressing me first.
'The Countess Rotha, however, Master Burgomaster,' he continued, with
grim suavity, 'much as she desires to treat your office with respect,
cannot but discern between the innocent and the guilty.'
'The guilty, my lord?' Hofman cried, in such a hurry and trepidation,
I could have laughed. 'I trust that there are none here.'
'At any rate you represent them,' the Waldgrave retorted.
'I, my lord?' The Mayor's hair almost stood on end at the thought.
'Ay, you; or why are you here?' the Waldgrave answered. 'I understood
that you came to offer such amends as the town can make, and your lady
accept.'
Poor Hofman's jaw fell at this statement of his position, and he stood
the picture of dismay and misery. The Waldgrave's peremptory manner,
which shook him out of the rut of his slow wits, and upset his
balanced periods, left him prostrate without a word to say. He
gasped and remained silent. He was one of those people whose dull
self-importance is always thrusting them into positions which they are
not intended to fill.
'Well?' the Waldgrave said, after a pause, 'as you seem to have
nothing to say, and judgment must ultimately come from your lady, I
will proceed at once to declare it. And firstly, it is her will,
Master Burgomaster, that within forty-eight hours you present to her
on behalf of the town a humble petition and apology, acknowledging
your fault; and that the same be entered on the town records.'
'It shall be done,' Master Hofman cried. His eagerness to assent was
laughable.
'Secondly, that you pay a fine of a hundred gold ducats for the
benefit of the children of the men wantonly killed in the riot.'
'It shall be done,' Master Hofman said,--but this time not so readily.
'And lastly,' the Waldgrave continued in a very clear voice,' that you
deliver up for execution two in the marketplace, one at the foot of
the castle steps, and one at the West Gate, for a warning to all who
may be disposed to offend again--four of the principal offenders in
the late riot.'
'My lord!' the Mayor cried, aghast.
'My lord, if you please,' the Waldgrave answered coldly. 'But do you
consent?'
Hofman looked blanker than ever. 'Four?' he stammered.
'Precisely; four,' the young lord answered.
'But who? I do not know them,' the Mayor faltered.
The Waldgrave shook his head gently. 'That is your concern,
Burgomaster,' he said, with a smile. 'In forty-eight hours much may be
done.'
Hofman's hair stood fairly on end. Craven as he was, the thought of
the crowd in the market-place, the thought of the reception he would
have, if he assented to such terms, gave him courage.
'I will consult with my colleagues,' he said with a great gulp.
'I am afraid that you will not have the opportunity,' the Waldgrave
rejoined, in a peculiarly suave tone. 'Until the four are given up to
us, we prefer to take care of you and the learned Minister. I see that
you have brought two or three friends with you; they will serve to
convey what has passed to the town. And I doubt not that within a few
hours we shall be able to release you.'
Master Hofman fell a trembling.
'My lord,' he cried, between tears and rage, 'my privileges!'
'Master Mayor,' the Waldgrave answered, with a sudden snap and snarl,
which showed his strong white teeth, '_my dead servants_.'
After that there was no more to be said. The Burgomaster shrank back
with a white face, and though Dietz, with rage burning in his sallow
cheeks, cried 'woe to him' who separated the shepherd from the sheep,
and would have added half-a-dozen like texts, old Jacob cut him short
by dropping his halberd on his toes and promptly removed him and the
quavering Burgomaster to strong quarters in the tower. Meanwhile the
other members of the party were marched nothing loth to the steps, and
despatched through the gate with the same formality which had
surprised us on our arrival.
Then for a few moments I was happy, in spite of doubts and
forebodings; for the moment the room was cleared of servants, my lady
came down from her place, and with tears in her eyes, laid her hand on
my rough shoulder, and thanked me, saying such things to me, and so
sweetly, that though many a silken fool has laughed at me, as a clown
knowing no knee service, I knelt there and then before her, and rose
tenfold more her servant than before. For of this I am sure, that if
the great knew their power, we should hear no more of peasants' wars
and Rainbow banners. A smile buys for them what gold will not for
another. A word from their lips stands guerdon for a life, and a look
for the service of the heart.
However, few die of happiness, and almost before I was off my knees I
found a little bitter in the cup.
'Well, well,' the Waldgrave said, with a comical laugh, and I saw my
lady blush, 'these are fine doings. But next time you go to battle,
Martin, remember, more haste less speed. Where would you have been
now, I should like to know, without my cannon?'
'Perhaps still in Peter's forge,' I answered bluntly. 'But that
puzzles me less, my lord,' I continued, 'than where you found your
cannon.'
He laughed in high good humour. 'So you are bit, are you?' he said. 'I
warrant you thought we could do nothing without you. But the cannon,
where do you think we did find them? You should know your own house.'
'I know of none here,' I answered slowly, 'except the old cracked
pieces the Landgrave Philip left.'
'Well?' he retorted, smiling. 'And what if these be they?'
'But they are cracked and foundered!' I cried warmly. 'You could no
more fire powder in them, my lord, than in the Countess's comfit-box!'
'But if you do not want to burn powder?' he replied. 'If the sight of
the muzzles be enough? What then, Master Wiseacre?'
'Why, then, my lord,' I answered, drily, after a pause of
astonishment,' I think that the game is a risky one.'
'Chut, you are jealous!' he said, laughing.
'And should be played very moderately.'
'Chut,' he said again, 'you are jealous! Is he not, Rotha? He is
jealous.'
My lady looked at me laughing.
'I think he is a little,' she said. 'You must acknowledge, Martin,'
she continued, pleasantly, 'that the Waldgrave has managed very well?'
I must have assented, however loth; but he saved me the trouble. He
did not want to hear my opinion.
'Very well?' he exclaimed, with a laugh of pleasure; 'I should think I
have. Why, I have so brightened up your old serving-men that they make
quite a tolerable garrison--mount guard, relieve, give the word and
all, like so many Swedes. Oh, I can tell you a little briskness and a
few new fashions do no harm. But now,' he continued, complacently,
'since you are so clever, my friend, where is the risk?'
'If it becomes known in the town,' I said, 'that the cannon are
dummies----'
'It is not known,' he answered peremptorily.
'Still, under the circumstances,' I persisted, 'I should with
submission have imposed terms less stringent. Especially I should not
have detained Master Hofman, my lord, who is a timid man, making for
peace. He has influence. Shut up here he cannot use it.'
'But our terms will show that we are not afraid,' the Waldgrave
answered. 'And that is everything.'
I shrugged my shoulders.
'Chut!' he said, half in annoyance and half in good humour. 'Depend
upon it, there is nothing like putting a bold face on things. That is
my policy. But the truth is you are jealous, my friend--jealous of my
excellent generalship; but for which I verily believe you would be
decorating a gallows in the market-place at this moment. Come, fair
cousin,' he added, gleefully, turning from me and snatching up my
lady's gloves and handing them to her, 'let us out. Let us go and look
down at our conquest, and leave this green-eyed fellow to rub his
bruises.'
My lady looked at me kindly and laughed. Still she assented, and my
chance was gone. It was my place now to hold the door with lowered
head, not to argue. And I did so. After all I had been well treated; I
had spoken boldly and been heard.
For a time after the sound of their voices had died away on the
stairs, I stood still. The room was quiet and I felt blank and
purposeless. In the first moments of return every-day duties had an
air of dulness and staleness. I thought of one after another, but had
not yet brought myself to the point of moving, when a hand, raising
the latch of one of the inner doors, effectually roused me. I turned
and saw Fraulein Anna gliding in. She did not speak at once, but came
towards me as she had a way of coming--close up before she spoke. It
had more than once disturbed me. It did so now.
'Well, Master Martin,' she said at last, in her mild spiteful tone, 'I
hope you are satisfied with your work; I hope my lord's service may
suit you as well as my lady's.'
CHAPTER VII.
THE PRIDE OF YOUTH.
But I am not going to relate the talk we had on that, Fraulein Anna
and I. I learned one thing, and one only, and that I can put very
shortly. I saw my face as it were in a glass, and I was not pleased
with the reflection. Listening to Fraulein Anna's biting hints and
sidelong speeches--she did not spare them--I recognized that I was
jealous; that the ascendency the young lord had gained with my lady
and in the castle did not please me; and that if I would not make a
fool of myself and step out of my place, I must take myself roundly to
task. Much might be forgiven to Fraulein Anna, who saw the quiet realm
wherein she reigned invaded, and the friend she had gained won from
her in an hour. But her case differed from mine. I was a servant, and
woe to me if I forgot my place!
Perhaps, also, it gave me pleasure to find my uneasiness shared. At
any rate, I felt better afterwards, and a message from my lady,
bidding me rest my head and do nothing for the day, comforted me still
further. I went out, and finding the terrace quiet, and deserted by
all except the sentry at the wicket, I sat down on one of the stone
seats which overlook the town and there began to think. The sun was
behind a cloud and the air was fresh and cool, and I presently fell
asleep with my head on my arms.
While I slept my lady and the Waldgrave came and began to walk up and
down the terrace, and gradually little bits of their talk slid into my
dreams, until I found myself listening to them between sleeping and
waking. The Waldgrave was doing most of the speaking, in the boyish,
confident tone which became him so well. Presently I heard him say--
'The whole art of war is changed, fair cousin. I had it from one who
knows, Bernard of Weimar. The heavy battalions, the great masses, the
slow movements, the system invented by the great Captain of Cordova
are gone. Breitenfeld was their death-blow.'
'Yet my uncle was a great commander,' my lady said, with a little
touch of impatience in her tone.
'Of the old school.'
I heard her laugh. 'You speak as if you had been a soldier for a score
of years, Rupert,' she said.
'Age is not experience,' he answered hardily. 'That is the mistake.
How old was Alexander when he conquered Egypt? Twenty-three, cousin,
and I am twenty-three. How old was the Emperor Augustus when he became
Consul of Rome? Nineteen. How old was Henry of England when he
conquered France? Twenty-seven. And Charles the Fifth, at Pavia?
Twenty-five.'
'Sceptres are easy leading-staves,' my lady answered deftly. 'All
these were kings, or the like.'
'Then take Don John at Lepanto. He, too, was twenty-five.'
'A king's son,' my lady replied quickly.
'Then I will give you one to whom you can make no objection,' he
answered in a tone of triumph: 'Gaston de Foix, the Thunderbolt of
Italy. He who conquered at Como, at Milan, at Ravenna. How old was
he when he died, leaving a name never to be forgotten in arms?
Twenty-three, fair cousin. And I am twenty-three.'
'But then you are not Gaston de Foix,' my lady retorted, laughter
bubbling to her lips; 'nor a king's nephew.'
'But I may be.'
'What? A king's nephew?' the Countess answered, laughing outright.
'Pray where is the king's niece?'
'King's niece?' he exclaimed reproachfully--and I doubt not with a
kind look at her, and a movement as if he would have paid her for her
sauciness. 'You know I want no king's niece. There is no king's niece
in the world so sweet to my taste, so fair, or so gracious as the
cousin I have been fortunate enough to serve during the last few days;
and that I will maintain against the world.'
'So here is my glove!' my lady answered gaily, finishing the speech
for him. 'Very prettily said, Rupert. I make you a thousand curtsies.
But a truce to compliments. Tell me more.'
He needed no second bidding; though I think that she would have
listened without displeasure to another pretty speech, and an older
man would certainly have made one. But he was full of the future and
fame--and himself. He had never had such a listener before, and he
poured forth his hopes and aspirations, as he strode up and down, so
gallant of figure and frank of face that it was impossible not to feel
with him. He was going to do this; he was going to do that. He would
make the name of Rupert of Weimar stand with that of Bernard. Never
was such a time for enterprise. Gustavus Adolphus, with Sweden and
North Germany at his back, was at Munich; Bavaria, Franconia, and the
Rhine Bishoprics were at his feet. The hereditary dominions of the
Empire, Austria, Silesia, Moravia, with Bohemia, Hungary, and the
Tyrol, must soon be his; their conquest was certain. Then would come
the division of the spoil. The House of Weimar, which had suffered
more in the Protestant cause than any other princely house of Germany,
which had resigned for its sake the Electoral throne and the rights of
primogeniture, must stand foremost for reward.
'And which kingdom shall you choose?' my lady asked, with a twinkle in
her eye which belied her gravity. 'Bohemia or Hungary? or Bavaria?
Munich I am told is a pleasant capital.'
'You are laughing at me!' he said, a little hurt.
'Forgive me,' she said, changing her tone so prettily that he was
appeased on the instant. 'But, speaking soberly, are you not curing
the skin before the bear is dead? The great Wallenstein is said to be
collecting an army in Bohemia, and if the latest rumour is to be
believed, he has already driven out the Saxons and retaken Prague. The
tide of conquest seems already to be turning.'
'We shall see,' the Waldgrave answered.
'Very well,' my lady replied. 'But, besides, is there not a proverb
about the lion's share? Will the Lion of the North forego his?'
'We shall make him,' the young lord answered. 'He goes as far as we
wish and no farther. Without German allies he could not maintain his
footing for a month.'
'Germany should blush to need his help,' my lady said warmly.
'Never mind. Better times are coming,' he answered. 'And soon, I
hope.'
With that they moved out of hearing, crossing to the other side of the
court and beginning to walk up and down there; and I heard no more.
But I had heard enough to enable me to arrive at two or three
conclusions. For one thing, I felt jealous no longer. My lady's tone
when she spoke to the Waldgrave convinced me that whatever the future
might bring forth, she regarded him in the present with liking, and
some pride perhaps, but with no love worthy of the name. A woman, she
took pleasure in his handsome looks and gallant bearing; she was fond
of listening to his aspirations. But the former pleased her eye
without touching her heart, and the latter never for a moment carried
her away.
I was glad to be sure of this, because I discerned something lacking
on his side also. It was 'Rotha,' 'sweet cousin,' 'fair cousin,' too
soon with him. He felt no reverence, suffered no pangs, trembled under
no misgivings, sank under no sense of unworthiness. He thought that
all was to be had for pleasant words and the asking. Heritzburg seemed
a rustic place to him, and my lady's life so dull and uneventful, my
lady herself so little of a goddess, that he deemed himself above all
risk of refusal. A little difficulty, a little doubt, the appearance
of a rival, might awaken real love. But it was not in him now. He felt
only a passing fancy, the light offspring of propinquity and youth.
But how, it may be asked, was I so wise that, from a few sentences
heard between sleeping and waking, I could gather all this, and draw
as many inferences from a laugh as Fraulein Anna Max from a page of
crabbed Latin? The question put to me then, as I sat day-dreaming over
Heritzburg, might have posed me. I am clear enough about it now. I
could answer it if I chose. But a nod is as good as a wink to a blind
horse, and a horse with eyes needs neither one nor the other.
Presently I saw Fraulein Anna come out and go sliding along one side
of the court to gain another door. She had a great book under her arm
and blinked like an owl in the sunshine, and would have run against my
lady if the Waldgrave had not called out good-humouredly. She shot
away at that with a show of excessive haste, and was in the act of
disappearing like a near-sighted rabbit, when my lady called to her
pleasantly to come back.
She came slowly, hugging the great book, and with her lips pursed
tightly. I fancy she had been sitting at a window watching my lady and
her companion, and that every laugh which rose to her ears, every
merry word, nay the very sunshine in which they walked, while she sat
in the dull room with her unread book before her, wounded her.
'What have you been doing, Anna?' my lady asked kindly.
'I have been reading the "Praise of Folly,"' Fraulein Max answered
primly. 'I am going to my Voetius now.'
'It is such a fine day,' my lady pleaded.
'I never miss my Voetius,' Fraulein answered.
The Waldgrave looked at her quizzically, with scarcely veiled
contempt. 'Voetius?' he said. 'What is that? You excite my curiosity.'
Perhaps it was the contrast between them, between his strength and
comeliness and her weak figure and pale frowning face, that moved me;
but I know that as he said that, I felt a sudden pity for her. And
she, I think, for herself. She reddened and looked down and seemed to
go smaller. Scholarship is a fine thing; I have heard Fraulein Anna
herself say that knowledge is power. But I never yet saw a bookworm
that did not pale his fires before a soldier of fortune, nor a scholar
that did not follow the courtier and the ruffler with eyes of envy.
Perhaps my lady felt as I did, for she came to the rescue. 'You are
too bad,' she said. 'Anna is my friend, and I will not have her
teased. As for Voetius, he is a writer of learning, and you would know
more about many things, if you could read his works, sir.'
'Do you read them?' he asked.
'I do!' she answered.
'Good heavens!' he exclaimed, staring at her freely and affecting to
be astonished. 'Well, all I can say is that you do not look like it!'
My lady fired up at that. I think she felt for her friend. 'I do not
thank you,' she said sharply. 'A truce to such compliments, if you
please. Anna,' she continued, 'have you been to see this poor girl
from the town?'
'No,' Fraulein Max answered.
'She has come, has she not?'
'And gone--to the stables!' And Fraulein Anna laughed spitefully. 'She
is used to camp life, I suppose, and prefers them.'
'But that is not right,' my lady said, with a look of annoyance.
She turned and called to me. 'Martin,' she said, 'come here. This
girl--the papist from the town--why has she not been brought to the
women's quarters in the house?'
I answered that I did not know; that she should have been.
'We will go and see,' my lady answered, nodding her head in a way that
premised trouble should any one be found in fault. And without a
moment's hesitation she led the way to the inner court, the Waldgrave
walking beside her, and Fraulein Anna following a pace or two behind.
The latter still hugged her book, and her face wore a look of secret
anticipation. I took on myself to go too, and followed at a respectful
distance, my mind in a ferment.
The stable court at Heritzburg is small. The rays of the sun even at
noon scarcely warm it, and a shadow seemed to fall on our party as we
entered. Two grooms, not on guard, were going about their ordinary
duties. They started on seeing my lady, who seldom entered that part
without notice; and hastened to do reverence to her.
'Where is the girl who was brought here from the town?' she said, in a
peremptory tone.
The men looked at one another, scared by her presence, yet not knowing
what was amiss. Then one said, 'Please your excellency, she is in the
room over the granary.'
'She should be in the house, not here,' my lady answered harshly.
'Take me to her.'
The man stared, and the Waldgrave, seeing his look of astonishment,
interposed, murmuring that perhaps the place was scarcely fit.
'For me?' my lady said, cutting him short, with a high look which
reminded me of her uncle, Count Tilly. 'You forget, sir cousin, that I
am not a woman only, but mistress here. Ignorance, which may be seemly
in a woman, does not become me. Lead on, my man.'
The fellow led the way up a flight of outside steps which gave access
to the upper granary floor; and my lady followed, rejecting the
Waldgrave's hand and gazing with an unmoved eye at the unfenced edge
on her left; for the stairs had no rail. At the top the groom opened
the door and squeezed himself aside, and my lady entered. The
Waldgrave had given place to Fraulein Anna--whom desire to see what
would happen had blinded to the risks of the stairs--and she was not
slow to follow. The young lord and I pressed in a pace behind.
'This is not a fit place for a maiden!' I heard my lady say severely;
and then she stopped. That was before I could see inside, the sudden
pause coming as I entered. The loft was dark, the unglazed windows
being shuttered; but my eyes are good, and I knew the place, and saw
at once--what my lady had seen, I think, at a second glance only--that
the man beside whom the girl was kneeling--or had been kneeling, for
as I entered she rose to her feet with a word of alarm--was bandaged
from his chin to his crown, was helpless and maundering, talking
strange nonsense, and rolling his head restlessly from side to side.
'Why, you are a child!' my lady said; and this time her voice was soft
and low and full of surprise. 'Who is this?' she continued, pointing
to the man; who never ceased to babble and move.
'It is Steve, my lady,' I said. 'He was hurt below, in the town, and
the girl has been nursing him. I suppose she--I think no one told her
to go elsewhere,' I added by way of apology for her.
'Where could she be better?' my lady said in a low voice. 'Child,' she
continued gently,' come here. Do not be afraid.'
The girl had shrunk back at the sound of my lady's first words, or at
sight of so large a company, and had taken her stand on the farther
side of Steve, where she crouched trembling and looking at us with a
terrified face. Hearing herself summoned, she came slowly and timidly
forward, the little boy who had run to her holding her hand, and
hiding his face in her skirts.
'I am the countess,' my lady said, looking at her closely, but with
kindness, 'and I have come to see how you fare.'
It was a hard moment for the girl, but she did the very best thing she
could have done, and one that commended her to my lady's heart for
ever. For, bursting into tears--I doubt not the sound of a woman's
voice speaking mildly to her touched her heart--she dropped on her
knees before the countess and kissed her hand, sobbing piteous words
of thankfulness and appeal.
'Chut! chut!' my lady said, a little tremor in her own voice. 'You are
safe now. Be comforted. You shall be protected here, whatever betide.
But you have lost your father? Yes, I remember, child. Well, it is
over now. You are quite safe. See, this gentleman shall be your
champion. And Martin there. He is a match for any two. Tell me your
name.'
'Marie--Marie Wort.' The girl answered suppressing her tears with an
effort.
'How old are you?'
'Seventeen, please your excellency.'
'And where were you born, Marie?'
'At Munich, in Bavaria.'
'You are a Romanist, I hear?'
'If it please your excellency.'
'It does not please me at all,' my lady answered promptly; but she
said it with so much mildness that Marie's eyes filled again. 'I warn
you, we shall, try to convert you--by kindness. So you are nursing
this poor fellow?' And my lady went up to Steve, and touched his hand
and spoke to him. But he did not know her, and she stepped back,
looking grave.
'The fever is on him now,' Marie said timidly. 'He is at his worst;
but he will be better by-and-by, if your excellency pleases.'
'He is fortunate in his nurse,' my lady answered, gazing searchingly
at the other's pale face. 'Will you stay with him, child, or would you
rather come into the house, where my women could take care of you, and
you would be more comfortable?'
A look of distress flickered in the girl's eyes. She hesitated and
looked down, colouring painfully. I dare say that with feminine tact
she knew that my lady even now thought it scarcely proper for her to
be there--in a house where only the men about the stable lived. But
she found her answer.
'He was hurt trying to protect me,' she murmured, in a low voice.
My lady nodded. 'Very well,' she said; and I saw that she was not
displeased. 'You shall stay with him. I will see that you are taken
care of. Come, Rupert, I think we have seen enough.'
She signed to us to go before her, and we all went out, and she closed
the door. At the head of the steps, when the Waldgrave offered her his
hand, she waved it away, and stood.
'Bring me a hammer and a nail,' she cried.
Three or four men, nearly half our garrison, had collected below,
hearing where we were. One of these ran and fetched what she called
for; while we all waited and wondered what she meant. I took the
hammer and nail from the man and went up again with them.
[Illustration: ... with her own hands she drove the nail.... Then she
turned ...]
'Give me my glove,' she said, turning abruptly to the Waldgrave.
He had possessed himself of one in the course of the conversation I
have partly detailed; and no doubt he did not give it up very
willingly. But there was no refusing her under the circumstances.
'Hold it against the door!' she said.
He obeyed, and with her own hands she drove the nail through the
glove, pinning it to the middle of the door. Then she turned with a
little colour in her face.
'That is my room!' she said, with a ring of menace in her tone. 'Let
no one presume to enter it. And have a care, men! Whatever is wanted
inside, place at the threshold and begone.'
Then she came down, followed by the Waldgrave, and walked through the
middle of us and went back to the terrace, with Fraulein Anna at her
heels. The Waldgrave lingered a moment to look at a sick horse, and I
to give an order. When we reached the terrace court a few minutes
later, we found my lady walking up and down alone in the sunshine.
'Why, where is the learned Anna?' the Waldgrave said.
'She is gone to amuse herself,' my lady answered, laughing. 'Voetius
is put aside for the moment in favour of Master Dietz!'
'No?' the young lord exclaimed, in a tone of surprise. 'That
yellow-faced atomy? She is not in love with him?'
'No, sir, certainly not.'
'Then what is it?'
'Well, I think she is a little jealous,' my lady answered with a
smile. 'We have been so long colloguing with a papist, Anna thinks
some amends are due to the Church. And she is gone to make them. At
any rate, she asked me a few minutes ago if she might pay a visit to
Dietz. "For what purpose?" I said. "To discuss a point with him," she
answered. So I told her to go, if she liked, and by this time I don't
doubt that they are hard at it.'
'Over Voetius?'
'No, sir,' my lady answered gaily. 'Beza more probably, or Calvin. You
know little of either, I expect. I do not wonder that Anna is driven
to seek more improving company.'
CHAPTER VIII.
A CATASTROPHE.
All that day the town remained quiet, and all day the Waldgrave and my
lady walked to and fro in the sunshine; or my lady sat working on one
of the stone seats, while he built castles in the air, which she
knocked down with a sly word or a merry glance. Fraulein Anna, always
with the big book, flitted from door to door, like an unquiet spirit.
The sentries dozed at their posts, old Jacob in his chair in the
guard-room, the cannons under their breech-clouts. If this could be
said to be a state of siege, it was the most gentle and joyous one
paladin ever shared or mistress imagined.
But no message reached us from the town, and that disturbed me. Half a
dozen times I went to the wall and, leaning over it, listened. Each
time I came away satisfied. All seemed quiet; the market-place rather
fuller perhaps than on common days, the hum of life more steady and
persistent; but neither to any great extent. Despite this I could not
shake off a feeling of uneasiness. I remembered certain faces I had
seen in the town, grim faces lurking in corners, seen over men's
shoulders or through half-open doors; and a dog barking startled me,
the shadow of a crow flying over the court made me jump a yard.
Night only added to my nervousness. I doubled all the guards,
stationing two men at the town-wicket and two at the stable-gate,
which leads to the bridge. And not content with these precautions,
though the Waldgrave laughed at them and me, I got out of bed three
times in the night, and went the round to assure myself that the men
were at their posts.
When morning came without mishap, but also without bringing any
overture from the town, the Waldgrave laughed still more loudly.
But my lady looked grave. I did not dare to interfere or give
advice--having been once admitted to say my say--but I felt that it
would be a serious thing if the forty-eight hours elapsed and the town
refused to make amends. My lady felt this too, I think; and by-and-by
she held a council with the Waldgrave; and about midday my lord came
to me, and with a somewhat wry face bade me have the prisoners
conducted to the parlour.
He sent 'me at the same time on an errand to another part of the
castle, and so I cannot say what passed. I believe my lady dealt with
the two very firmly; reiterating her judgment of the day before, and
only adding that in clemency she had thought better of imprisoning
them, and would now suffer them to go to their homes, in the hope that
they would use their influence to save the town from worse trouble.
I met the two crossing the terrace on their way to the gate and was
struck by something peculiar in their aspect. Master Hofman was all of
a tremble with excitement and eagerness to be gone. His fat, half-moon
of a face shone with anxiety. He stuttered when he tried to give me
good day as I passed; and he seemed to have eyes only for the gate,
dragging his smaller companion along by the arm, and more than once
whispering in his ear as if to adjure him not to waste a moment.
The little Minister, on the other hand, hung back and marched slowly,
his face wearing a look of triumph which showed very plainly--or so I
construed it--that he regarded his release in the light of a victory.
His sallow cheeks were flushed, and his eyes gleamed spitefully as he
looked from side to side. He held himself bolt upright, with a square
Bible clasped to his breast, and as he passed me he could not refrain
from a characteristic outbreak. Doubtless to bridle himself before my
lady had almost choked him. He laughed in my face. 'Dry bones!' he
cackled. 'And mouths that speak not!'
'Speak plainly yourself, Master Dietz,' I answered, for I have never
thought ministers more than other men. 'Then perhaps I shall be able
to understand you.'
'Sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal!' he replied, cracking his
fingers in my face and laughing triumphantly.
He would have said more, I imagine; but at that moment the Burgomaster
fell bodily upon him, and drove him by main force through the gate
which had been opened. Outside even, he made some attempts to return
and defy us, crying out 'Whited sepulchres!' and the like. But the
steps were narrow and steep, and Hofman stood like a feather bed in
the way, and presently he desisted. The two stumbled down together and
we saw no more of them.
The men about me laughed; but I had reason for thinking it far from a
laughing matter, and I hastened into the house that I might tell my
lady. When I entered the parlour, however, where I found her with the
Waldgrave and Fraulein Anna, she held up her hand to check me. She and
the Waldgrave were laughing, and Fraulein Anna, half shy and half
sullen, was leaning against the table looking at the floor, with her
cheeks red.
'Come,' my lady was saying, 'you were with him half an hour, Anna. You
can surely tell us what you talked about. Don't be afraid of Martin.
He knows all our secrets.'
'Or perhaps we are indiscreet,' the Waldgrave said gravely, but with a
twinkle in his eye. 'When a young lady visits a gentleman in
captivity, the conversation should be of a tender nature.'
'Which shows, sir, that you know little about it,' Fraulein Anna
answered indignantly. 'We talked of Voetius.'
'Dear me!' my lord said. 'Then Master Dietz knows Voetius?'
'He does not. He said he considered such pagan learning useless,'
Fraulein Anna answered, warming with her subject. 'That it tended to
pride, and puffed up instead of giving grace. I said that he only saw
one side of the matter.'
'In that resembling me,' my lord murmured.
My lady repressed him with a look. 'Yes,' she said pleasantly. 'And
what then, Anna?'
'And that he might be wrong in this, as in other matters. He asked me
what other matters,' Fraulein Max continued, growing voluble, and
almost confident, as she reviewed the scene. 'I said, the inferiority
of women to men. He said, yes, he maintained that, following Peter
Martyr. Well, I said he was wrong, and so was Peter Martyr. "But you
do not convince me," he answered. "You say that I am wrong on this as
on other points. Cite a point, then, on which I am wrong." "You know
no Greek, you know no Oriental tongue, you know no Hebrew!" I
retorted. "All pagan learning," he said. "Cite a point on which I am
wrong. I am not often wrong. Cite a point on which I am confessedly
wrong." So'--Fraulein Anna laughed a little, excited laugh of
pleasure--'I thought I would take him at his word, and I said, "Will
you abide by that? If I show you that you have been wrong, that you
have been deceived only to-day, will you acknowledge that Peter Martyr
was wrong?" He said, oh yes, he would, if I could convince him. I
said, "Exemplum! You came here because you were afraid of our cannon.
Granted? Yes. Well, our cannon are cracked. They are _brutum
fulmen_--an empty threat. We could not fire them, if we would. So
there, you see, you were wrong." Well, on that----'
But what Master Dietz said on that, and what she answered, we never
knew, for the Waldgrave, bounding from the table, with a crash which
shook the room, swore a very pagan oath.
'Himmel!' he cried in a voice of passion. 'The woman has ruined us! Do
you understand, Countess? She has told them! And they have taken the
news to the town!'
'I do understand,' my lady said softly, but with a paling face. 'By
this time it is known.'
'Known! Yes; and our shutting up that poisonous little snake will only
make him the more bitter!' my lord answered, striking the table a
great blow in his wrath. 'We are undone! Oh, you idiot, you idiot!'
and breaking off suddenly he turned to Fraulein Max, who stood weeping
and trembling by the table. 'Why did you do it?'
'Hush!' my lady said nobly; and she put her arm round Fraulein Anna.
'She is so absent. It was my fault. I should not have let her see
them. Besides, she did not know that they were going to be released.
And it is done now, and cannot be undone. The question is, what ought
we to do?'
'Yes, what?' my lord cried bitterly, with a glance at the culprit,
which showed that he was very far from forgiving her. 'I am sure I do
not know, any more than the dog there!'
My lady looked at me anxiously.
'Well, Martin,' she said, 'what do you say?'
But I had nothing to say, I felt myself at a loss. I knew, better than
any of them, the Minister's sour nature, and I had seen with my own
eyes the state of resentment and rage in which he had left us. His
news would fall like a spark dropped on powder. The town, brooding in
gloom, foreboding, and terror, would in a moment blaze into fierce
wrath. Every ruffian who had felt his neck endangered by the
Countess's sentence, every family that had lost a member in the late
riot, every one who had an old grievance to avenge, or a new object to
gain, would in an hour be in arms; while those whose advantage lay
commonly on the side of order might stand aloof now--some at the
instance of Dietz, and others through timidity and that fear of a mob
which exists in the mind of every burgher. What, then, had we to
expect? My lady must look to have her authority flouted--that for
certain; but would the matter end with that? Would the disorder stop
at the foot of the steps?
'I think we are safe enough here, if your excellency asks me,' I said,
after a moment's thought. 'A dozen men could hold the wicket-gate
against a thousand.'
'Safe!' my lady cried in a tone of surprise. 'Yes, Martin, safe! But
what of those who look to me for protection? Am I to stand by and see
the law defied? Am I to----' She paused. 'What is that?' she said in a
different tone, raising her hand for silence.
She listened, and we listened, looking at one another with meaning
eyes; and in a moment she had her answer. Through the open windows,
with the air and sunshine, came a sound which rose and fell at
intervals. It was the noise of distant cheering. Full and deep,
leaping up again and again, in insolent mockery and defiance, it
reached us where we stood in the quiet room, and told us that all was
known. While we still listened, another sound, nearer at hand, broke
the inner stillness of the house--the tramp of a hurrying foot on the
stairs. Old Jacob thrust in his head and looked at me.
'You can speak,' I said.
'There is something wrong below,' he muttered, abashed at finding
himself in the presence.
'We know it, Jacob,' my lady said bravely. 'We are considering how to
right it. In the mean time, do you go to the gates, my friend, and see
that they are well guarded.'
'We could send to Hesse-Cassel,' the Waldgrave suggested, when we were
again alone.
'It would be useless,' my lady answered. 'The Landgrave is at Munich
with the King of Sweden; so is Leuchtenstein.'
'If Leuchtenstein were only at home----'
'Ah!' the Countess answered with a touch of impatience; 'but then he
is not. If he were--well, even he could scarcely make troops where
there are none.'
'There are generally some to be hired,' the Waldgrave answered. 'What
if we send to Halle, or Weimar, and inquire? A couple of hundred pikes
would settle the matter.'
'God forbid!' my lady answered with a shudder. 'I have heard enough of
the doings of such soldiers. The town has not deserved that.'
The Waldgrave looked at me, and slightly shrugged his shoulders; as
much as to say that my lady was impracticable. But I, agreeing with
every word she said, only loved her the more, and could make him no
answer, even if my duty had permitted it. I hastened to suggest that,
the castle being safe, the better plan was to wait, keeping on our
guard, and see what happened; which, indeed, seemed also to be the
only course open to us.
My lady saw this and agreed; I withdrew, to spend the rest of the day
in a feverish march between the one gate and the other. We could
muster no more than twelve effective men, including the Waldgrave; and
though these might suffice for the bare defence of the place, which
had only two assailable points, the paucity of our numbers kept me in
perpetual fear. I knew my lady's proud nature so well that I dreaded
humiliation for her as I might have feared death for another; with a
terror which made the possibility of her capture by the malcontents a
misery to me, a nightmare which would neither let me rest nor sleep.
My lord soon recovered his spirits. In an hour or two he was as
buoyant and cheerful as before, dividing the blame of the
_contretemps_ between Fraulein Anna and myself, and hinting that if he
had been left to manage the matter, the guilty would have suffered,
and Dietz not gone scot-free. But I trembled. I did not see how we
could be surprised; I thought it improbable that the townsfolk would
try to effect anything against us; impossible that they should
succeed. Yet, when the stern swell of one of Luther's hymns rose from
the town at sunset, and I remembered how easily men's hearts were
inflamed by those strains; and again, when a huge bonfire in the
market-place dispelled the night, and for hours kept the town restless
and waking, I shuddered, fearing I knew not what. I will answer for
it, my lady, who never ceased to wear a cheerful countenance, did not
sleep that night one half so ill as I.
And yet I was caught napping. A little before daybreak, when all was
quiet, I went to take an hour's rest. I had lain down, and, as far as
I could judge later, had just fallen into a doze, when a tremendous
shock, which made the very walls round me tremble, drew me to my feet
as if a giant hand had plucked me from the bed. A crashing sound,
mingled with the shiver of falling glass, filled the air. For a few
seconds I stood trembling and bewildered in the middle of the room--in
the state of disorder natural to a man rudely awakened. I could not on
the instant collect myself or comprehend what had happened. Then, in a
flash, the fears of the day returned to my mind, and springing to the
door, half-dressed as I was, I ran down to the courtyard.
Some of the servants were already there, a white-cheeked,
panic-stricken group of men and women intermixed; but, for a
moment, I could get no answer to my questions. All spoke at once, none
knew. Then--it was just growing light--from the direction of the
stable-gate a man came running out of the dusk with a half-pike on his
shoulder.
'Quick!' he cried. 'This way, give me a musket.'
'What is it?' I answered, seizing him by the arm.
'They have blown up the bridge--the bridge over the ravine!' he
replied, panting. 'Quick, a gun! A part is left, and they are hacking
it down!'
In a moment I saw all. 'To your posts!' I shouted. 'And the women into
the house! See to the wicket-gate, Jacob, and do not leave it!' Then I
sprang into the guardhouse and snatched down a carbine, three or four
of which hung loaded in the loops. The sentry who had brought the news
seized another, and we ran together through the stable court and to
the gate, four or five of the servants following us.
Elsewhere it was growing light. Here a thick cloud of smoke and dust
still hung in the air, with a stifling reek of powder. But looking
through one of the loopholes in the gate, I was able to discern that
the farther end of the bridge which spanned the ravine was gone--or
gone in part. The right-hand wall, with three or four feet of the
roadway, still hung in air, but half a dozen men, whose figures loomed
indistinctly through a haze of dust and gloom, were working at it
furiously, demolishing it with bars and pickaxes.
At that sight I fell into a rage. I saw in a flash what would happen
if the bridge sank and we were cut off from all exit except through
the town-gate. The dastardly nature of the surprise, too, and the
fiendish energy of the men combined to madden me. I gave no warning
and cried out no word, but thrusting my weapon through the loophole
aimed at the nearest worker, and fired.
The man dropped his tool and threw up his arms, staggered forward a
couple of paces, and fell sheer over the broken edge into the gulf.
His fellows stood a moment in terror, looking after him, but the
sentry who had warned me fired through the other loophole, and that
started them. They flung down their tools and bolted like so many
rabbits. The smoke of the carbine was scarce out of the muzzle, before
the bridge, or what remained of it, was clear.
I turned round and found the Waldgrave at my elbow. 'Well done!' he
said heartily. 'That will teach the rascals a lesson!'
I was trembling in every limb with excitement, but before I answered
him, I handed my gun to one of the men who had followed me. 'Load,' I
said,' and if a man comes near the bridge, shoot him down. Keep your
eye on the bridge, and do nothing else until I come back.'
Then I walked away through the stable-court with the Waldgrave; who
looked at me curiously. 'You were only just in time,' he said.
'Only just,' I muttered.
'There is enough left for a horse to cross.'
'Yes,' I answered, 'to-day.'
'Why to-day?' he asked, still looking at me. I think he was surprised
to see me so much moved.
'Because the rest will be blown up to-night,' I answered bluntly. 'Or
may be. How can we guard it in the dark? It is fifty paces from the
gate. We cannot risk men there--with our numbers.'
'Still it may not be,' he said. 'We must keep a sharp look-out.'
'But if it _is?_' I answered, halting suddenly, and looking him full
in the face. 'If it is, my lord?' I continued. 'We are provisioned for
a week only. It is not autumn, you see. Then the pickle tubs would be
full, the larder stocked, the rafters groaning, the still-room
supplied. But it is May, and there is little left. The last three days
we have been thinking of other things than provisions; and we have
thirty mouths to feed.'
The Waldgrave's face fell. 'I had not thought of that,' he said. 'The
bridge gone, they may starve us, you mean?'
'Into submission to whatever terms they please,' I answered. 'We are
too few to cut our way through the town, and there would be no other
way of escape.'
'What do you advise, then?' he asked, drawing me aside with a
flustered air. 'Flight?'
'A horse might cross the bridge to-day,' I said.
'But any terms would be better than that!' he replied with vehemence.
'What if they demand the expulsion of the Catholic girl, my lord, whom
the Countess has taken under her protection?'
'They will not!' he said.
'They may,' I persisted.
'Then we will not give her up.'
'But the alternative--starvation?'
'Pooh! It will not come to that!' he answered lightly. 'You leap
before you reach the stile.'
'Because, my lord, there will be no leaping if we do reach it.'
'Nonsense!' he cried masterfully. 'Something must be risked. To give
up a strong place like this to a parcel of clodhoppers--it is absurd!
At the worst we could parley.'
'I do not think my lady would consent to parley.'
'I shall say nothing to her about it,' he answered. 'She is no judge
of such things.'
I had been thinking all the while that he had that in his mind, and on
the spot I answered him squarely that I would not consent. 'My lady
must know all,' I said, 'and decide for herself.'
He started, looking at me with his face very red. 'Why, man,' he said,
'would you browbeat me?'
'No, my lord,' I said firmly, 'but my lady must know.'
'You are insolent!' he cried, in a passion. 'You forget yourself, man,
and that your mistress has placed me in command here!'
'I forget nothing, my lord,' I answered, waxing firmer. 'What I
remember is that she is my mistress.'
He glared at me a moment, his face dark with anger, and then with a
contemptuous gesture he left me and walked twice or thrice across the
court. Doubtless the air did him good, for presently he came back to
me. 'You are an ill-bred meddler!' he said with his head high, 'and I
shall remember it. But for the present have your way. I will tell the
Countess and take her opinion.'
He went into the house to do it, and I waited patiently in the
courtyard, watching the sun rise and all the roofs grow red; listening
to the twittering of the birds, and wondering what the answer would
be. I had not set myself against him without misgiving, for in a
little while all might be in his hands. But fear for my mistress
outweighed fears on my own account; and in the thought of her shame,
should she awake some morning and find herself trapped, I lost thought
of my own interest and advancement. I have heard it said that he
builds best for himself who builds for another. It was so on this
occasion.
He came back presently, looking thoughtful, as if my lady had talked
to him very freely, and shown him a side of her character that had
escaped him. The anger was clean gone from his face, and he spoke to
me without embarrassment; in apparent forgetfulness that there had
been any difference between us. Nor did I ever find him bear malice
long.
'The Countess decides to go,' he said, 'either to Cassel or Frankfort,
according to the state of the roads. She will take with her Fraulein
Max, her two women, and the Catholic girl, and as many men as you can
horse. She thinks she may safely leave the castle in charge of old
Jacob and Franz, with a letter directed to the Burgomaster and
council, throwing the responsibility for its custody on them. When do
you think we should start?'
'Soon after dark this evening,' I answered, 'if my lady pleases.'
'Then that decides it,' he replied carelessly, the dawn of a new plan
and new prospects lighting up his handsome face. 'See to it, will
you?'
CHAPTER IX.
WALNUTS OF GOLD.
Night is like a lady's riding-mask, which gives to the most
familiar features a strange and uncanny aspect. When to night
are added silence and alarm, and that worst burden of all,
responsibility--responsibility where a broken twig may mean a shot,
and a rolling stone capture, where in a moment the evil is done--then
you have a scene and a time to try the stoutest.
To walk boldly into a wall of darkness, relying on daylight knowledge,
which says there is no wall; to step over the precipice on the faith
of its depth being shadow--this demands nerve in those who are not
used to the vagaries of night. But when the darkness may at any
instant belch forth a sheet of flame; when every bush may hide a
cowardly foe and every turn a pitfall, and there are women in company
and helpless children, then a man had need to be an old soldier or
forest-born, if he would keep his head cool, and tell one horse from
another by the sound of its hoofs.
We started about eight, and started well. The Waldgrave and half a
dozen men crossed first on foot, and took post to protect the farther
end of the bridge. Then I led over the horses, beginning with the four
sumpter beasts. Satisfied after this that the arch remained uninjured,
and that there was room and to spare, I told my lady, and she rode
over by herself on Pushka. Marie Wort tripped after her with the child
in her arms. Fraulein Max I carried. My lady's women crossed hand in
hand. Then the rest. So like a troop of ghosts or shadows, with hardly
a word spoken or an order given, we flitted into the darkness, and met
under the trees, where those who had not yet mounted got to horse. Led
by young Jacob, who knew every path in the valley and could find his
way blindfold, we struck away from the road without delay, and taking
lanes and tracks which ran beside it, presently hit it again a league
or more beyond the town and far on the way.
That was a ride not to be forgotten. The night was dark. At a distance
the dim lights of the town did not show. The valley in which we rode,
and which grows straighter as it approaches the mouth and the river,
seemed like a black box without a lid. The wind, laden with mysterious
rustlings and the thousand sad noises of the night, blew in our faces.
Now and then an owl hooted, or a branch creaked, or a horse stumbled
and its rider railed at it. But for the most part we rode in silence,
the women trembling and crossing themselves--as most of our people do
to this day, when they are frightened--and the men riding warily, with
straining eyes and ears on the stretch.
Before we reached the ford, which lies nearly eight miles from the
castle, the Waldgrave, who had his place beside my lady, began to
talk; and then, if not before, I knew that _his_ love for her was
a poor thing. For, being in high spirits at the success of our
plan--which he had come to consider _his_ plan--and delighted to find
himself again in the saddle with an adventure before him, he forgot
that the matter must wear a different aspect in her eyes. She was
leaving her home--the old rooms, the old books, and presses and
stores, the duties, stately or simple, in which her life had been
passed. And leaving them, not in the daylight, and with a safe and
assured future before her, but by stealth and under cover of night,
with a mind full of anxious questionings!
To my lord it seemed a fine thing to have the world before him; to
know that all Germany beyond the Werra was convulsed by war, and a
theatre wherein a bold man might look to play his part. But to a
woman, however high-spirited, the knowledge was not reassuring. To one
who was exchanging her own demesne and peace and plenty for a
wandering life and dependence on the protection of men, it was the
reverse.
So, while my lord talked gaily, my lady, I think, wept; doing that
under cover of darkness and her mask, which she would never have done
in the light. He talked on, planning and proposing; and where a true
lover would have been quick to divine the woman's weakness, he felt no
misgiving, thrilled with no sympathy. Then I knew that he lacked the
subtle instinct which real love creates; which teaches the strong what
it is the feeble dread, and gives a woman the daring of a man.
As we drew near the ford, I dropped back to see that all crossed
safely. Pushka, I knew, would carry my lady over, but some of the
others were worse mounted. This brought me abreast of the Catholic
girl, though the darkness was such that I recognized her only by the
dark mass before her, which I knew to be the child. We had had some
difficulty in separating her from Steve, and persuading her that the
man ran no risk where he lay; otherwise she had behaved admirably. I
did not speak to her, but when I saw the gleam of water before us, and
heard the horses of the leaders begin to splash through the shallows,
I leant over and took hold of the boy.
'You had better give him to me,' I said gruffly. 'You will have both
hands free then. Keep your feet high, and hold by the pommel. If your
horse begins to swim leave its head loose.'
I expected her to make a to-do about giving up the child; but she did
not, and I lifted it to the withers of my horse. She muttered
something in a tone which sounded grateful, and then we splashed on in
silence, the horses putting one foot gingerly before the other; some
sniffing the air with loud snorts and outstretched necks, and some
stopping outright.
I rode on the upstream side of the girl, to break the force of the
water. Not that the ford is dangerous in the daytime (it has been
bridged these five years), but at night, and with so many horses, it
was possible one or another might stray from the track; for the ford
is not straight, but slants across the stream. However, we all passed
safely; and yet the crossing remains in my memory.
As I held the child before me--it was a gallant little thing, and
clung to me without cry or word--I felt something rough round its
neck. At the moment I was deep in the water, and I had no hand to
spare. But by-and-by, as we rode out and began to clamber up the
farther bank, I laid my hand on its neck, suspecting already what I
should find.
I was not mistaken. Under my fingers lay the very necklace which Peter
had described to me with so much care! I could trace the shape and
roughness of the walnuts. I could almost count them. Even of the
length of the chain I could fairly judge. It was long enough to go
twice round the child's neck.
As soon as I had made certain, I let it be, lest the child should cry
out; and I rode on, thinking hard. What, I wondered, had induced the
girl to put the chain round its neck at that juncture? She had hidden
it so carefully hitherto, that no eye but Peter's, so far as I could
judge, had seen it. Why this carelessness now, then? Certainly it was
dark, and, as far as eyes went, the chain was safe. But round her own
neck, under her kerchief, where it had lain before, it was still
safer. Why had she removed it?
We had topped the farther bank by this time, and were riding slowly
along the right-hand side of the river; but I was still turning this
over in my mind, when I heard her on a sudden give a little gasp. I
knew in a moment what it was. She had bethought her where the necklace
was. I was not a whit surprised when she asked me in a tremulous tone
to give her back the child.
'It is very well here,' I said, to try her.
'It will trouble you,' she muttered faintly.
'I will say when it does,' I answered.
She did not answer anything to that, but I heard her breathing hard,
and knew that she was racking her brains for some excuse to get the
child from me. For what if daylight came and I still rode with it, the
necklace in full view? Or what if we stopped at some house and lights
were brought? Or what, again, if I perceived the necklace and took
possession of it!
This last idea so charmed me--I was in a grim humour--that my hand was
on the necklace, and almost before I knew what I was doing, I was
feeling for the clasp which fastened it. Some fiend brought the thing
under my fingers in a twinkling. The necklace seemed to fall loose of
its own accord. In a moment it was swinging and swaying in my hand. In
another I had gathered it up and slid it into my pouch.
The trick was done so easily and so quickly that I think some devil
must have helped me; the child neither moving nor crying out, though
it was old enough to take notice, and could even speak, as children of
that age can speak--intelligibly to those who know them, gibberish to
strangers.
I need not say that I never meant to steal a link of the thing. The
temptation which moved me was the temptation to tease the girl. I
thought this a good way of punishing her. I thought, first to torment
her by making her think the necklace gone; and then to shame her by
producing it, and giving it back to her with a dry word that should
show her I understood her deceit.
So, even when the thing was done, and the chain snug in my pocket, I
did not for a while repent, but hugged myself on the jest and smiled
under cover of the darkness. I carried the child a mile farther, and
then handed it down to Marie, with an appearance of unconsciousness
which it was not very hard to assume, since she could not see my face.
But doubtless every yard of that mile had been a torture to her. I
heard her sigh with relief as her arms closed round the boy. Then, the
next moment I knew that she had discovered her loss. She uttered a
sobbing cry, and I heard her passing her hands through the child's
clothing, while her breath came and went in gasps.
She plucked at her bridle so suddenly that those who rode behind ran
into us. I made way for them to pass.
'What is it?' I said roughly. 'What is the matter?'
She muttered under her breath, with her hands still searching the
child, that she had lost something.
'If you have, it is gone,' I said bluntly. 'You would hardly find a
hayrick to-night. You must have dropped it coming through the ford?'
She did not answer, but I heard her begin to sob, and then for the
first time I felt uncomfortable. I repented of what I had done, and
wished with all my heart that the chain was round the child's neck
again. 'Come, come,' I said awkwardly, 'it was not of much value, I
suppose. At any rate, it is no good crying over it.'
She did not answer; she was still searching. I could hear what she was
doing, though I could not see; there were trees overhead, and it was
as much as I could do to make out her figure. At last I grew angry,
partly with myself, partly with her. 'Come,' I said roughly, 'we
cannot stay here all night. We must be moving.'
She assented meekly, and we rode on. But still I heard her crying; and
she seemed to be hugging the child to her, as if, now the necklace was
gone, she had nothing but the boy left. I tried to see the humour in
the joke as I had seen it a few minutes before, but the sparkle had
gone out of it, I felt that I had been a brute. I began to reflect
that this girl, a stranger and helpless, in a strange land, had
nothing upon which she could depend but these few links of gold. What
wonder, then, if she valued them; if, like all other women, she hid
them away and fibbed about them; if she wept over them now they were
gone?
Of course it was in my power in a moment to bring them back again; and
nothing had seemed easier, a few minutes before, than to hand them
back--with a little speech which should cover her with confusion and
leave me unmoved. Now, though I wished them round her neck again with
all the good-will in life, and though to effect my wish I had only to
do what I had planned--only to stretch out my hand with that word or
two--I sat in my saddle hot and tongue-tied, my fingers sticking to
the chain.
Her grief had somehow put a new face on the matter. I could not bear
to confess that I had caused it wantonly and for a jest. The right
words would not come, while every moment which prolonged the silence
between us made the attempt seem more hopeless, the task more
difficult; till, like the short-sighted craven I was, I thrust back
the chain into my pocket, and, determining to take some secret way of
restoring it, put off the crisis.
In a degree I was hurried to this decision by our arrival at the place
where we were to rest. This was an outlying farm belonging to
Heritzburg and long used by the family, when journeying to Cassel.
Alas! when we came to it, cold, shivering, and hungry, we found it
ruined and tenantless, with war's grim brand so deeply stamped upon
the face of everything that even the darkness of night failed to hide
the scars. I had not expected this, and for a while I forgot the
necklace in anxiety for my lady's comfort. I had to get lights and see
fires kindled, to order the disposal of the horses, to unpack the
food: for we found no scrap, even of fodder for the beasts, in the
grimy, smoke-stained barn, which I had known so well stored. Nor was
the house in better case. Bed and board were gone, and half the roof.
The door lay shattered on the threshold, the window-frames, smashed in
wanton fury, covered the floor. The wind moaned through the empty
rooms; here and there water stood in puddles. Round the hearth lay
broken flasks, and rotting _debris_, and pewter plates bent double--
the relics of the ravager's debauch.
We walked about, with lights held above our heads, and looked at all
this miserably enough. It was our first glimpse of war, and it
silenced even the Waldgrave. As for my mistress, I well remember the
look her face wore, when I left her standing with her women, who were
already in tears, in the middle of the small chamber assigned to her.
I had known her long enough to be able to read the look, and to be
sure that she was wondering whether it would always be so now. Had she
exchanged Heritzburg, its peace and comfort, for such nights as these,
divided between secret flittings and lodgings fit only for the
homeless and wretched?
But neither by word nor sign did she betray her fears; and in the
morning she showed a face that vied with the Waldgrave's in
cheerfulness. Our horses had had little exercise of late and were
in poor condition for travelling. We gave them, therefore, until
noon to rest, and a little after that hour got away; one and all, I
think--with the exception perhaps of Marie Wort--in better spirits.
The sun was high, the weather fine, the country on either side of us
woodland, with fine wild prospects. Hence we saw few signs of the
ravages which were sure to thrust themselves on the attention wherever
man's hand appeared. We could forget for the moment war, and even our
own troubles.
We proposed to reach the little village of Erbe by sunset, but
darkness overtook us on the road. The track, overgrown and narrowed by
spring shoots, was hard to follow in daylight; to attempt to pursue it
after nightfall seemed hopeless. We had halted, therefore, and the
Waldgrave and my lady were considering whether we should camp where we
were, or pick our way to a more sheltered spot, when young Jacob, who
was leading, cried out that he saw the glimmer of a camp-fire some way
off among the trees. The news threw our party into the greatest doubt.
My lady was for stopping where we were, the Waldgrave for going on. In
the end the latter had his way, and it was agreed that we should join
the company before us, or at any rate parley with them and learn their
intentions. Accordingly we shook up our tired horses and moved
cautiously forward.
The distant gleam which had first caught Jacob's eye soon widened into
a warm and ruddy glow, in which the polished beech-trunks stood up
like the pillars of some great building. Still drawing nearer, we saw
that there were two fires built a score of paces apart, in a slight
hollow. Round the one a number of men were moving, whose black figures
sometimes intervened between us and the blaze. Two or three dogs
sprang up and barked at us, and a horse neighed out of the darkness
beyond. The other fire seemed at first sight to be deserted; but as
the dogs ran towards us, still barking, first one man, then another,
rose beside it, and stood looking at us. The arrival of a second party
in such a spot was no doubt unexpected.
Judging that these two were the leaders of the party, I went forward
to announce my lady's rank. One of the men, the shorter and younger, a
man of middle height and middle age and dark, stern complexion, came a
few paces to meet me.
'Who are you?' he said bluntly, looking beyond me at those who
followed.
'The Countess Rotha of Heritzburg, travelling this way to Cassel,' I
answered; 'and with her, her excellency's kinsman, the noble Rupert,
Waldgrave of Weimar.'
The stranger's face lightened strangely, and he laughed. 'Take me to
her,' he said.
Properly I should have first asked him his name and condition; but he
had the air, beyond all things, of a man not to be trifled with, and I
turned with him.
My lady had halted with her company a score of paces from the fire. I
led him to her bridle.
'This,' I said, wondering much who he was, 'is her excellency the
Countess of Heritzburg.'
My lady looked at him. He had uncovered and stood before her, a smile
that was almost a laugh in his eyes. 'And I,' he said, 'have the
honour to be her excellency's humble and distant cousin, General John
Tzerclas, sometimes called, of Tilly.'
CHAPTER X.
THE CAMP IN THE FOREST.
As the stranger made his announcement, I chanced to turn my eyes on
the Waldgrave's face; and if there was one thing more noteworthy at
the moment than the speaker's air of perfect and assured composure, it
was my lord's look of chagrin. I could imagine that this sudden and
unexpected discovery of a kinsman was little to his mind; while the
stranger's manner was as little calculated to reconcile him to it. But
there was something more than this. I fancy that from the moment he
heard Tzerclas' name he scented a rival.
My lady, on the other hand, did not disguise her satisfaction. 'I am
pleased to make your acquaintance,' she exclaimed, looking at the
stranger with frank surprise. 'Your name, General Tzerclas, has long
been known to me. But I was under the impression that you were at
present in command of a body of Saxon troops in Bohemia.'
'My troops, such as they are, lie a little nearer,' he answered,
smiling; 'so near that they and their leader are equally at your
service, Countess.'
'For the present I shall be content to claim your hospitality only,'
my lady answered lightly. 'This is my cousin, the Waldgrave Rupert.'
'Of Weimar?' the general said, bowing.
'Of Weimar, sir,' the young lord answered.
The stranger said no more, but saluting him with a kind of careless
punctilio, took hold of my lady's rein and led her horse forward into
the firelight.
While he assisted her to dismount I had time to glance round; and the
cheerful glow of the fire, which disclosed arms and accoutrements and
camp equipments flung here and there in splendid profusion, did not
blind me to other appearances less pleasant. Indeed, that very
profusion did something to open my eyes to those appearances, and
thereby to the nature of the men amongst whom we had come. The
glittering hilts and battered plate, the gaudy cloaks and velvet
housings which I saw lying about the roots of the trees, seemed to
smack less of a travellers' camp than a robbers' bivouac; while the
fierce, swarthy faces which clustered round the farther fire, reminded
me of nothing so much as of the swash-buckling escort which had more
than once accompanied Count Tilly to Heritzburg. Then, indeed, under
the old tiger's paw Tilly's riders had been as lambs. But we were not
now at Heritzburg, nor was Count Tilly here. And whether these knaves
would be as amenable in the greenwood, whether the Waldgrave had not
done us all an ill service when he voted for moving on, were questions
I had a difficulty in answering to my satisfaction; the more as, even
before we were off our horses, the rude stare the men fixed on my lady
raised my choler.
On the other hand their leader's bearing left nothing to be desired.
He welcomed my mistress to the camp with perfect good breeding, the
Waldgrave with civility. He hastened the preparation of supper, and in
every way seemed bent on making us comfortable; sending his knaves to
and fro with a hearty good-will, which showed that whoever stood in
awe of them, he did not.
Meanwhile, I had a third fire kindled a score of paces away, where a
small thicket held out the hope of privacy, and here I placed our
women, bidding three or four of the steadier men remain with them. The
injunction was scarcely needed however. Our servants were simple
fellows born in Heritzburg. They eyed with shyness and awe the
swaggering airs and warlike demeanour of Tzerclas' followers, and
would not for a year's wages have intruded on their circle without
invitation.
The moment I had seen to this I returned to my lady, and then for the
first time I had an opportunity of examining our host. A man of middle
height, sinewy and well-formed, with an upright carriage, he looked
from head to foot the model of a soldier of fortune, and moved with a
careless grace, which spoke of years of manly exercise. His face was
handsome, cold, dark, stern; the nose prominent, the forehead high and
narrow. Trimly pointed moustachios and a small pointed beard, both
perfectly black, gave him a peculiar and somewhat cynical aspect; and
nothing I ever witnessed of his dealings with his troops led me to
suppose that this belied the man. He could be, as he was now,
courteous, polished, almost genial. I judged that he could be also the
reverse. He was richly, even splendidly, dressed, and seemed to be
about forty years of age.
My lady sent me for Fraulein Max, who had been overlooked, and was
found cowering beside the newly kindled fire in company with Marie
Wort and the women. Though I think she had only herself to thank for
her effacement, she was inclined to be offended. But I had no time to
waste on words, and disregarding her ill temper I brought her, feebly
sniffing, to my lady, who introduced her to her new-found kinsman.
'Pardon me,' he said, looking negligently round him. 'That reminds me.
I, too, have a presentation to make. Where is--oh yes, here is friend
Von Werder. I thought, my friend,' he continued, addressing the other
and older man whom we had seen by his fire, 'that you had disappeared
as mysteriously as you came. Herr von Werder, Countess, was my first
chance guest to-night. You are the second.'
He spoke in a tone of easy patronage, with his back half turned to the
person he mentioned. I looked at the man. He seemed to be over fifty
years old, tall, strong, and grey-moustachioed. And that was almost
all I could see, for, as if acknowledging an inferiority, and
admitting that the terms on which he had been with his host were now
altered, he had withdrawn himself a pace from the fire. Sitting on the
opposite side of it near the outer edge of light and wearing a heavy
cloak, he disclosed little of his appearance, even when he rose in
acknowledgment of my lady's salute.
'Herr von Werder is not travelling with you, then?' my lady said;
chiefly, I think, for the sake of saying something that should include
the man.
'No, he is not of my persuasion,' the general answered in the same
tone of good-natured contempt. 'Whither are you bound, my friend?' he
continued, glancing over his shoulder and throwing a note of command
into his voice. 'I did not ask you, and you did not tell me.'
'I am going north,' the stranger answered in a husky tone. 'It may be
as far as Magdeburg, general.'
'And you come from?'
'Last, sir? Frankfort.'
'Well, as you say last, whence before that?'
'The Rhine Bishoprics.'
'Ah! Then you have seen something of the war? If you were there before
it swept into Bavaria, that is. But a truce to this,' he continued.
'Here is supper. I beg you not to judge of my hospitality by this
night's performance, Countess. I hope to entertain you more fittingly
before we part.'
Though he made this apology, the supper needed none. Indeed, it was
such as made me stare--there in the forest--and was served in a style
and with accompaniments I little expected to find in a soldiers' camp.
Silver dishes and chased and curious flagons, flasks of old Rhenish
and Burgundy, glass from Nuremberg, a dozen things which made my
lady's road equipage seem poor and trifling, appeared on the board.
And the cooking was equal to the serving. The wine had not gone round
many times before the Waldgrave lost his air of reserve. He
complimented our host, expressed his surprise at the excellence of the
entertainment, asked with a laugh how it was done, and completely
resumed his usual manner. Perhaps he talked a little too freely, a
little too fast, and viewed by the other's side, he grew younger.
What my lady saw or thought as she sat between the two men it was
impossible to say, but she seemed in high spirits. She too talked
gaily and laughed often; and doubtless the novelty of the scene, the
great fires, the dark background, the burnished trunks of the beeches,
the bizarre splendour of the feast, the laughter and snatches of song
which came from the other fire, were well calculated to excite and
amuse her.
'These are not all your troops?' I heard her ask.
'Not quite,' the general answered drily. 'My men lie six hours south
of us. I hope that you will do me the honour of reviewing them
to-morrow.'
'You are marching south, then?'
'Yes. Everything and every one goes south this year.'
'To join the King of Sweden?'
'Yes,' the general answered, holding out his silver cup to be filled,
and for that reason perhaps speaking very deliberately, 'to join the
King of Sweden--at Nuremberg. But you have not yet told me, countess,'
he continued, 'why you are afield. This part is not in a very settled
state, and I should have thought that the present time was----'
'A bad one for travelling?' my lady answered. 'Yes. But, I regret to
say, Heritzburg is not in a very settled state either.' And thereon,
without dwelling much on the cause of her troubles, she told him the
main facts which had led to her departure.
I saw his lip curl and his eyes flicker with scorn. 'But had you no
gunpowder?' he said, turning to the Waldgrave.
'We had, but no cannon,' he answered confidently.
'What of that?' the general retorted icily. 'I would have made a bomb,
no matter of what, and fired it out of a leather boot hooped with
cask-irons! I would have had half a dozen of their houses burning
about their ears before they knew where they were, the insolents!'
The Waldgrave looked ashamed of himself. 'I did not think of that,' he
said; and he hastened to hide his confusion in his glass.
'Well, it is not too late,' General Tzerclas rejoined, showing his
teeth in a smile. 'If the Countess pleases, we will soon teach her
subjects a lesson. I am not pushed for time. I will detach four troops
of horse and return with you to-morrow, and settle the matter in a
trice.'
But my lady said that she would not have that, and persisted so firmly
in her refusal that though he pressed the offer upon her, and I could
see was keenly interested in its acceptance, he had to give way. The
reasons she put forward were the loss of his time and the injury to
his cause; the real one consisted, I knew, in her merciful reluctance
to give over the town to his troops, a reluctance for which I honoured
her. To appease him, however, for he seemed inclined to take her
refusal in bad part, she consented to go out of her way to visit his
camp.
At this point my lady sent me on an errand to her women, which caused
me to be away some minutes. When I came back I found that a change had
taken place. The Waldgrave was speaking, and, from his heated face and
the tone of his voice, it was evident that the old wine which had
begun by opening his heart had ended by rousing his pugnacity.
'Pooh! I protest _in toto!_' he said as I came up. 'I deny it
altogether. You will tell me next that the Germans are worse soldiers
than the Swedes!'
'Pardon me, I did not say so,' General Tzerclas answered. The wine had
taken no effect on him, or perhaps he had drunk less. He was as suave
and cold as ever.
'But you meant it!' the younger man retorted.
'No, I did not mean it,' the general answered, still unmoved. 'What I
said was that Germany had produced no great commander in this war,
which has now lasted thirteen years.'
'Prince Bernard of Weimar, my kinsman!' the Waldgrave cried.
'Pardon me,' Tzerclas replied politely. 'Pardon me again if I say that
I do not think he has earned that title. He is a soldier of merit. No
more.'
'Wallenstein, then?'
'You forget. He is a Bohemian.'
'Count Tilly, then?'
'A Walloon,' the general answered with a shrug. 'The King of Sweden? A
Swede, of course.'
'A German by the mother's side,' my lady said with a smile.
'As you, Countess, are a Walloon,' Tzerclas answered with a low bow.
'Yet doubtless you count yourself a German?'
'Yes,' she said, blushing. 'I am proud to do so.'
What courteous answer he would have made to this I do not know. She
had scarcely spoken before a deep voice on the farther side of the
fire was heard to ask 'What of Count Pappenheim?'
The speaker was Von Werder, who had long sat so modestly silent that I
had forgotten his presence. He seemed scarcely to belong to the party;
though Fraulein Max, who sat on the Waldgrave's left hand, formed a
sort of link stretched out towards him. Tzerclas had forgotten him
too, I think, for he started at the sound of his voice and gave him
but a curt answer.
'He is no general,' he said sharply. 'A great leader of horse he is;
great at fighting, great at burning, greatest at plundering. No more.'
'It seems that you allow no merit in a German!' the Waldgrave cried
with a sneer. He had drunk too much.
But Tzerclas was not to be moved. There was something fine in the
toleration he extended to the younger man. 'Not at all,' he said
quietly. 'Yet I am of opinion that, even apart from arms, Germany has
shown since the beginning of this war few men of merit.'
'The Duke of Bavaria,' the same deep voice beyond the fire suggested.
'Maximilian?' Tzerclas answered. This time he did not seem to resent
the stranger's interference. 'Yes, he is something of a statesman.
You are right, my friend. He and Leuchtenstein, the Landgrave's
minister--he too is a man. I will give you those two. But even they
play second parts. The fate of Germany lies in no German hands. It
lies in the hands of Gustavus Adolphus and Oxenstierna, Swedes; of
Wallenstein, a Bohemian; of--I know not who will be the next
foreigner.'
'That is all very well; but you are a foreigner yourself,' the
Waldgrave cried.
'Yes, I am a Walloon,' Tzerclas said, still quietly, though this time
I saw his eyes flicker. 'It is true; why should I deny it? You
represent the native, and I the foreign element. The Countess stands
between us, representing both.'
The Waldgrave rose with an oath and a flushed face, and for a moment I
thought that we were going to have trouble. But he remembered himself
in time, and sitting down again in silence, gazed sulkily at the fire.
The movement, however, was enough for my lady. She rose to her feet to
break up the party; and turning her shoulder to the offender, began to
thank General Tzerclas for his entertainment. This made the Waldgrave,
who was compelled to stand by and listen, look more sulky than ever;
but she continued to take no notice of him, and though he remained
awkwardly regarding her and waiting for a word, as long as she stood,
she went away without once turning her eyes on him. The general
snatched a torch from me and lighted her with his own hand to our part
of the camp, where he took a respectful leave of her; adding, as he
withdrew, that he would march at any hour in the morning that might
suit her, and that in all things she might command his servants and
himself.
He had sent over for her use a small tent, provided originally, no
doubt, for his own sleeping quarters; and we found that in a hundred
other ways he had shown himself thoughtful for her comfort. She stood
a moment looking about her with satisfaction; and when she turned to
dismiss me, there was, or I was mistaken, a gleam of amusement in her
eye. After all, she was a woman.
CHAPTER XI.
STOLEN!
The night was still young, and when I had seen my mistress and her
women comfortably settled, I sauntered back towards the middle of the
camp. The three fires stood here, and there, and there, among the
trees, like the feet of a three-legged stool; while between them lay a
middle space which partook of the light of all, and yet remained
shadowy and ill-defined. A single beech which stood in this space, and
served in some degree to screen our fire from observation, added to
the darkness of the borderland. At times the flames blazed up,
disclosing trunk and branches; again they waned, and only a shadowy
mass filled the middle space.
I went and stood under this tree and looked about me. The Waldgrave
had disappeared, probably to his couch. So had Von Werder. Only
General Tzerclas remained beside the fire at which we had supped, and
he no longer sat erect. Covered with a great cloak he lay at his ease
on a pile of furs, reading by the light of the fire in a small fat
book, which even at that distance I could see was thumbed and
dog's-eared. Such an employment in such a man--in huge contrast with
the noisy brawling and laughter of his following--struck me as
remarkable. I felt a great curiosity to know what he was studying, and
in particular whether it was the Bible. But the distance between us
was too great and the light too uncertain; and after straining my eyes
awhile I gave up the attempt, consoling myself with the thought that
had I been nearer I had perhaps been no wiser.
I was about to withdraw, tolerably satisfied, to seek my own rest,
when a stick snapped sharply behind me. Unwilling to be caught spying,
I turned quickly and found myself face to face with a tall figure,
which ha
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