Albrecht

As for the Lady Adelaide, she was thoroughly delighted with the change which had come to Rittenberg. This, she declared, was like the gay times when Erna's father was still alive, and the castle was the rendezvous of many bold and merry knights and dames. She began to bring from the recesses of her memory numberless tales of the old time, and now she was pleased to find that her grand-niece would listen to histories and scandals which hitherto she had refused to hear. Lady Adelaide assured Elsa, in those confidential moments during which that damsel was engaged in assisting her at her toilet, that the baron had quite made the countess over, and that the transformation was little short of a miracle.

"Heaven knows what a prude she was," Lady Adelaide would say, long years of habitual freedom of intercourse with her damsel having brought her to a degree of intimacy in her speech with Elsa which was unusual with one of the latter's station; "she used to blush, God's blood! at the mere mention of a man; and as for having any witty talk with her, I might as well have gone to the chapel for a cosey chat with the Virgin on the altar, Heaven save the mark! Now it is all quite different, and I can have some real comfort in gossiping with her."

"Yes, doubtless marriage is a wonderful thing," demurely responded Elsa, who was betrothed to the steward of the castle, and was only waiting to assure herself that she could not possibly do better before she took the irrevocable step of marrying him. "It has changed the countess much; and her husband, too, meseems."

"That is to say, he does not chuck thee under the chin any more, or kiss thee in the corridors. Well, beshrew me, but 'tis quite as well. Little does it increase the peace of the family to have the lord of it too fond of the damsels. Baron Albrecht has improved quite as much as she, to my thinking. He is not so bold and reckless. I used continually to dread lest perchance he should do some outlandish thing. He seemed like a mad creature when the mood was on him, and his tricks frightened me wellnigh out of my five wits."

"But always was he good-humored," Elsa returned.

"Oh, of a truth; but lawless was he as the wild wind in the pine forest. It made no difference against whose feelings he hurtled. Now he is so much more human. Meseems now that Erna is in sooth happily married, and with Baron Albrecht's wealth there seems to be nothing lacking."

It was certainly true that to all outward appearance the marriage of Erna and Albrecht was a fortunate one. Every day they seemed to be brought more and more closely together. The countess lost that reserve and unworldiness which her aunt had stigmatized as austerity; the baron gained those spiritual qualities the lack of which had been his only deficiency. Each found in the other new experiences, fresh fields, an unexplored region of pleasure. Life at Rittenberg was wellnigh ideal. The accustomed occupations of the wife were full of novelty and of attractiveness to the husband. The pair read together in Erna's few but well-loved books, and when the wildness of the storm-sprites kept them within doors they found in these and the talk to which what they read gave rise the means of passing many a happy hour. Here Erna took the lead, and Albrecht was like her pupil. In the more active, out-of-door sports and in-door revelry it was to Albrecht that the initiative fell. Each had much to teach and much to learn, and in teaching and learning alike were both happy.

All this Father Christopher watched with eagerness born of his love for the young couple and his desire for their spiritual welfare. Could he have been sure that this state of things would continue, he would have been fully contented and happy in regard to them, and he was wholly unable to explain to himself what possible grounds there could be for doubting that Albrecht and Erna would still live together in mutual helpfulness and pleasure. Yet in his mind was the vague form of some doubt which he could not name but which he could not banish. It might be that he was accustomed to being confronted by the fact that all spiritual good is the price of hard struggle, and he unconsciously waited to see in what form would come the contest in which Albrecht must sooner or later fight with the powers of darkness for the soul which he seemed to have won and to enjoy without a battle. He felt, too, that the powers of the forest, the evil spirits of the waste and the night, would not yield up Albrecht without a struggle, and his was the attitude of one who waits for coming conflict.

One summer morning the priest came into the great hall of the castle to find Albrecht and Erna standing together at the window looking out at the weather. It had been raining at intervals ever since daybreak, and great masses of broken cloud were trailing their ragged edges over the far-spreading forests of pine that covered the mountain slopes. Now and then the sky would lighten as if the storm were ended, but again it would lower, and the rain come dashing down, swept by the wind against the castle windows.

"I am sure that the rain is over," Erna said persuasively, as Father Christopher came within hearing. "We can get to horse now, and by the time we are well under way the sun will be shining. Besides, what does it matter if it does not clear off? We shall not mind that if we can but get into the open."

"In the first place," returned Albrecht, smiling upon her and then turning to look out again over hill and valley and up at the stormy sky, "Meseemeth it is soon to rain very heavily; and in the second place, I am not sorry that we should be kept at home to-day that we may go on with those words in the scroll of Saint Cuthbert we were called away from yesterday."

"But the reading can always be done," was Erna's answer, "and who knows when we can ride? Besides," she added, a dazzling smile parting her beautiful lips, "we can read Saint Cuthbert when for very age we cannot ride."

The priest did not stay to hear how the matter was settled, but went on his way down the long hall; yet as he went he thought wonderingly of the strange fact that it should be Erna who urged for pleasure, and Albrecht who desired that the time be given to pious employment.

XIV

HOW THE PRIEST BECAME TROUBLED

The days went by, until already the autumn crocuses began to star with their bright colors the glades among the hills. The time of year had come when the blood of the huntsman begins to tingle in his veins because the best sport of the whole twelvemonth is at hand. The sky mellowed like the winter pears which were showing the first shade of the tawny and russet hue that should cover their cheeks when the time came for their gathering.

Now of nights the Wild Huntsman was often heard riding with mad crew of wood-sprites through the forest; and as the days shortened and the dusk of twilight gathered earlier than before, it happened that not a few of the churls and serfs of the castle caught glimpses of vague forms stealing through the gathering darkness, now on earth and anon in the air, as if the wood-folk were watching what was in progress at Rittenberg with the most careful eagerness. Father Christopher, when these tales came to his hearing, sighed and shook his head. He could easily comprehend that all the wild soulless folk of the wood, whether in league with the powers of darkness or not, might well be interested in the fate of one of their band who from a wood-creature had become human, and, whether they were plotting to do him harm or no, would long to watch how he bore his new powers and his gift of immortality. But withal was Father Christopher troubled in his mind lest these strange sprites might be other than creatures who looked upon Albrecht with wonder and longing. He knew how prone are the wood-folk to do mischief; and as the wild herd will set upon a tame animal though he be of their kind, so it might well be that the unbaptized crew were eager to do harm to one who had deserted their ranks.

More than the doings of the creatures of the forest, however, did the ways at Rittenberg concern the priest. There was day by day a more and more jocund stir in the castle. The countess seemed to drink in animation from the air, which was now chill in the morning, and ever did she become more and more eager in the chase and in all merry-making. The hounds and the hawks were well looked to in these days; and old Rupert, the chief huntsman, whose office had become a mere idle name in the days before the coming of the Baron Albrecht, found himself so busy that he lay down at night on his hard pallet with all his aged bones an ache. He was full of pride in the revival of his art, and he began to boast that the sport was as well followed now as in the days of his former master, the late count; but he sighed to himself now and then when he was alone, and shook his head, wondering whether he should be much longer able to keep up to the pace which was now the custom of the castle. He began to say to himself more and more frequently that he was, after all, an old man, and that it was getting to be time for him to make way for the young fellows he had trained. It made him melancholy enough to consider this possibility, but it was a great comfort to him that the revival of venery at Rittenberg gave him a chance to show those who were to take his place how things should be done, and to prove his own cunning in the chase before he resigned forever the boar-spear which was his badge of office.

For there were gay doings at Rittenberg in these autumn days. The doves that of old had sailed so smoothly and sleepily about the castle towers, had now no rest, so greatly were they excited by the sound of hunting-horn by day and of lute by night, the stir of huntsmen in the courtyard, and the laughter of Erna and her maidens ringing out through the windows of the great hall.

"All the castle," quoth the Lady Adelaide to Father Christopher, "seems to have caught the spirit of the baron. Everybody is full of life now, and Heaven knows we were dull enough before he came. Count Stephen told me that he felt as if he were in the tower of the Sleeping Beauty when he was here."

"The sleeper has awakened," the priest responded, with a smile that was not without some secret shadow. "In truth, the countess and her husband have become so truly one that it is not possible to say that either is gayer than the other. They think alike, and they feel in all things the same."

He spoke reflectively, and even as he spoke there came into his mind a doubt whether his words were exactly true. He had watched with the keenest interest and anxiety the growth of the spiritual in Albrecht, and the gradual humanizing that had been wrought in the kobold by his marriage. He felt profoundly his own responsibility in regard to both the baron and Erna, and the beads of his rosary were growing more and more smooth under his fingers in the days and nights that had sped since the wedding.

He had watched Erna no less carefully than Albrecht, and he was beginning to wonder with some sense of fear how far the influence of her husband was destined to lead her from the condition of innocent and spiritual calm in which the Baron von Waldstein had found her upon that spring day when she had first met him in the great hall. There was nothing in the life of Erna which the priest could look upon with blame, and yet he was vaguely uneasy when he thought of her. He said to himself that he was really only unduly affected by the changes which were natural under the circumstances, and that his charge had only developed; and yet the more he pondered the less was he satisfied. He found Albrecht every day more interested in things which concerned the soul which he had won. Continually he became a deeper student of things spiritual, and less wholly given up to the pursuit of pleasure. Erna, on the other hand, seemed each day more intoxicated with the joy of living, and more absorbed in the delights of the world which belongs to the senses.

"It is natural that husband and wife should become alike," Lady Adelaide answered the last remark of Father Christopher's with an air of the greatest wisdom; "that is, if they are at all in accord. He hath waked her, and she hath toned him down, and it is an improvement on both sides. I must say that taking into account the magnificence of the Morgengabe, I do not see that the countess could possibly have done better. The baron was always delightful, but thou must remember that he was as wild as a hawk when he came to Rittenberg."

"He has certainly changed much, and that for the better," answered her companion.

The priest was thinking of how he had stopped a moment to chat with Rupert, the huntsman, as he crossed the courtyard that morning, and how Rupert had praised the kindness of the baron to the dogs, telling how in the boar-hunt yesterday Baron Albrecht had been as tender with Gelert, the hound that was so badly hurt, as could have been Rupert's own wife, who was used to tending and nursing hurt dogs. Father Christopher remembered how in the early days of his coming to the castle Albrecht had laughed at the bare idea of one's caring for the suffering of an animal, and that even when his man-at-arms had been ill he had shown not the slightest comprehension of any reason why one should be affected by the pain of another.

The priest stood by the window in the hall where he had been talking with Lady Adelaide for a long time after she had gone, thinking of the problems which her words suggested. It was too evident that Erna and Albrecht had greatly influenced each other for even the most careless observer to overlook it, and no one could tell where this change of character would end. Out in the courtyard he could see the workmen who were finishing the preparations for a show of the mummers which was to take place that morning. Directly after the wedding day Herr von Zimmern had announced his intention of going to visit his family, and since then they had had no word from him directly. He had however given them proof that he did not forget his former lord, since from time to time troupes of dancers, jugglers, or of mummers arrived at Rittenberg, sent by the cripple or directed by some hint which had evidently come from him. Father Christopher was secretly troubled by these evidences of the continued remembrance of Herr Frederich. The priest had distrusted him from the first, and since he had been acquainted with Herr von Zimmern's history he had dreaded him, feeling sure that the time would come when he would seek revenge for his long captivity and the cruel maiming inflicted upon him by the kobold king.

Erna welcomed these wandering bands of players with more and more eagerness, while the priest was confident that in Albrecht he perceived signs of a growing weariness of their dances, their tricks, and their clumsy mumming. The present troupe was more numerous than any of its predecessors, and the preparations were of far more than usual elaborateness. As the priest looked down into the courtyard the last touches were being put to the stage; and presently the players, already in their dresses, began to appear from the quarters which had been assigned to them upon the side of the court opposite to that from which the windows of the great hall looked. The household was gathering, and the Lady Adelaide, with Elsa behind her chair, had taken her seat, although those of the lord and lady of the castle were still vacant.

Divided in his mind whether to go down and join the company of spectators or not, the priest was standing irresolutely at the casement when Albrecht and Erna came together into the hall.

"Come, Father," the countess said gayly, "they say these are the best mummers that have ever been seen in all the Schwarzwald. They are to give a wonderful play of the life of Helen of Troy, and after that there are to be dances."

She was as joyous as a child, her cheeks flushed with eagerness and her lips parted with laughter. She was a being as far removed as could well be imagined from the serene, pensive maiden who had watched the Baron von Waldstein ride out of the pine forest below the castle slope so few short weeks ago. Her mouth had shaped itself to a new seductiveness, her eyes had kindled with a new and less heavenly lustre, and her bosom had swelled into a new fulness. She was more beautiful, and yet the priest could not repress a sigh as he looked at her, so far from her old state of innocence and of spirituality did she seem in her rich beauty.

Before the priest had time to answer her invitation to the mummers' show, the countess's woman, Fastrade, appeared and came down the hall toward the group.

"I beg pardon, gracious lady," she said, with a little hesitation, "but the charcoal-burner is below."

"Well?" demanded Erna, a shadow flitting across her bright face.

"He says," Fastrade continued with evident unwillingness, "that his little daughter is dying, and that she prays the gracious countess to come with the priest to see her before she dies."

There was a moment's silence in the hall. Both Albrecht and the priest looked at Erna in evident solicitude in regard to her answer. She herself seemed to feel their looks as a sort of challenge, and she threw back her head with an almost defiant gesture as she replied:

"Father Christopher will go, of course, but I could do no good, and just now I am engaged."

Her husband laid his hand lightly upon her arm, and bent toward her beseechingly.

"But surely," he said, "since the little maid is dying, thou wilt go. The mummers can wait. There is time for that afterward, and for this it would be too late."

The priest did not speak, but he waited with the deepest anxiety for her answer, since it seemed to him that it would be so significant of whatever change might really have taken place in her who once would have let nothing stand between her and a call of mercy. He saw her lips harden, and a cold light come into her eyes.

"What is the charcoal-burner's daughter," she asked slowly, "that I should give up my pleasure for her whim, even if she be dying?"

The waiting-woman stared at the countess in amazement, the priest regarded her with a look of deep sorrow, but in the eyes of Albrecht Father Christopher saw an expression in which were both remorse and terror.

XV

HOW COUNT STEPHEN RETURNED

The bright-hued harvest-crocus had faded in the meadows, and over the blackly green pine forests had come a colder hue; the ferns in the beech wood were beginning to look wan and yellow, as if the thought that autumn was at hand had already dismayed them. The heather was tinged with russet, and all the skies upon which Erna looked, as one morning she gazed discontentedly from the casement of her chamber, were filmed with soft hazes whose faint purple was as intangible as the first shadow of coming twilight, which one feels rather than sees.

Erna sighed as she leaned half over the stone ledge upon which the sun lay warmly. The doves were preening themselves almost within reach of her touch, and she waved her hand impatiently to frighten them away, since in her untoward mood their soft reiterated coo vexed her ears. She had learned in these days, during which she had been seeking pleasure as she had never sought it before, the meaning of ennui. She was restless with the awakened stir of a hundred desires which demanded continual gratification. She longed for excitement, for the movement of crowds, for the delights of the eye and the lusts of the flesh which once would not have awakened in her heart a throb of interest. She wanted continually fresh diversions, new sports, strange revels, rich viands, all the alluring joys of the senses to which she had of old in her innocence and ignorance been so indifferent.

This morning she had been urging her husband to take her to court. Charlemagne was at Mayence, and there were echoes of the gay doings there forward which reached even as far as Rittenberg. The countess longed to see the brave shows, the rich pageants, the gorgeous raiment; to sit at the banquets, and to dazzle the eyes of the gallants with her beauty and her jewels, finer than the queen's own. She had urged upon Albrecht the propriety of paying his respects in person to his sovereign; but her entreaties, her arguments, and her protestations had been alike unavailing. Albrecht was kind in the manner of his refusal, but he was still persistent in it, and in the end Erna had found herself utterly powerless to change his determination not to leave Rittenberg.

"They tell strange tales of the court," he said in reply to her pleading. "There is more license there than it becomes a modest woman to see, and over-much worldliness as well. Surely it were not well to put one's self in a place like this needlessly, beloved."

Erna had answered nothing, but she had left him with a feeling almost like anger in her heart. She knew why he wished to stay at Rittenberg. It was that he might go on with his tiresome studies with Father Christopher, to which Albrecht gave more and more time every day. As for the wickedness of the court, she was a married woman, and with a husband to protect her, and one moreover of a bearing so knightly as that of Von Waldstein, it was not to be supposed that she could come to any harm. She sighed with fresh impatience as she reflected how deeply immersed in the study of spiritual things her husband had become since their marriage. She was not, she assured herself, less fond of him than of old, but it was to the last degree provoking that just as she had learned to appreciate the delight of life, Albrecht should devote so much thought to things which she had laid aside as dull.

As she mused in this fashion, looking out of the window as she had looked when Albrecht rode gallantly out of the pine forest at the foot of the castle hill on that day when Erna first saw him, once more she heard the note of a bugle-horn in the valley, and once more a knight rode out of the covert into sight, followed by his men-at-arms. With eager curiosity Erna peered out at the new-comer, and almost instantly her eye caught sight of the pennon of the Von Rittenbergs of Schaffhausen, and understood that the visitor was her cousin, Count Stephen, who was probably on his return from Strasburg, and who had accepted her invitation to repeat his visit to Rittenberg.

For an instant her cheek flushed with vexation, her old dislike of the count reawakening, but instantly her changed taste asserted itself, and she smiled. She watched the train as it rode up to the gate, and then she turned back into her chamber with joyous haste. It came into her mind that she could make an impression upon her guest, and she began straightway to consider how she should array herself to go to meet him. She chose from her jewel-case a string of rubies, and quickly bound it upon her head like a fillet; and as she did so her woman, Fastrade, came to announce to her the arrival of Count von Rittenberg.

The Lady Adelaide reached the great hall before her, and Count Stephen was speaking with the old dame with his back to the stairway by which Erna descended. The countess was already close to him before he perceived her. Then he wheeled suddenly, almost turning his back upon Lady Adelaide in his astonishment at the beauty of the woman before him. Erna did not lose one shade of the look of amazement and admiration which came into his face as he looked at her.

"God's blood!" he cried. "What has come to thee, Cousin? Indeed, this marriage of which they told me at Mayence has made a new creature of thee. I greet thy ladyship, and that I did not send congratulations on thy marriage is no fault of mine, since it was all over before I knew of it."

"It is no matter," replied Erna, giving him her hand and smiling upon him with a pleased sense of companionship which she had never experienced in his presence before; "since thou hast come in person to bring them, we consent to overlook the fact that thou art somewhat tardy. But hast thou been at Mayence as well as to Strasburg? I did not know that was in thy mind."

"It was not when I left here," he answered, regarding her with so undisguised a look of admiration that she blushed under it and turned aside her eyes; "but being in the way of travelling I pushed on to Mayence, and there I saw the court, and there I heard of thy marriage."

"Fain would we hear of the court," Lady Adelaide said, leading the way to a seat in the broad recess of a window. "Sit thee down here, and tell us what thou canst of the doings and the braveries there, while the page brings thee a cup of wine. I hope too, on my soul, that thou hast more wit in speech of woman's apparel than have most of the knights I have known, for we would know of the raiment of the queen and her damsels, and in good sooth it is seldom that a knight is cunning enough to tell anything of that sort rightly, albeit so simple is it that the most foolish kitchen wench that had but seen the royal train ride past could describe it all."