PART I.—“A STAR IN THE EAST.

Has not Herr Walther,[6] good-humouredly turning the laugh against himself, advised all those who suffer from earache to stay away from the Court of Thuringia? For my part I can never read his “Spruch”:—“Swer in den ôren siech von ungesûhte sî,” without feeling a most realistic discomfort at the din, made even in the poetry (and at 700 years’ distance!) by the alternating trains of “coming and parting guests,” for whom Landgraf Hermann’s undiscriminating hospitality had equal “welcome and speeding”; and without endorsing Herr Wolfram’s[7] regret that no Kaye, the boorish Seneschal of King Arthur’s Court, held office in the Wartburg, to keep the “good and bad” in their respective places.

How intolerable the ceaseless din could be, even to one who was born in the midst of it, a little boy was dolorously feeling on a certain summer’s evening of the year 1211. The noise seemed worse than usual from the impression he had (which nobody took the slightest trouble, alas! to remove), that he was hopelessly “out of it.” When, braving the dragon which kept terrible guard over King Ortnit, murdered in his sleep (a warning, in high relief over the tower gate, to watchmen too fond of sleep), he had climbed the rough spiral staircase to the keep, he had found no welcome from the warder, intent on scanning the horizon for an eagerly expected messenger. Shouts, that sounded not all too sober, from the House of the Muleteers, warned him off _their_ premises. As for the kitchen—with the roaring of fires, and the creaking of spits, and the cursing of cooks and scullions, and the wailing of imprisoned fowl, awaiting execution under the huge table—that was Inferno! As the little boy passed the great stone steps that led to the entrance of the Palas, he put his hands in his ears; for the door of the Saal stood open, and amidst the gambols of gleemen, and the notes of every musical instrument known to the period—flageolet, guitar, organistrum, bagpipe, psaltery, tabor, lute, sackbut, rebeck and gigue—Landgraf Hermann was reminding guests (who needed small reminder) that, if ever there was an excuse for emptying flagons, it was to-day, when the little Hungarian Princess, the betrothed of his son and heir, Hermann, was due to arrive at her German home.

In the Armourers’ House our little boy had been frankly snubbed; and big brother, Hermann, whom he found in it (made much of as the hero of the day), being measured, if you please, for a suit of armour (which he supposed he would need _very_ soon now), had given him the brutal advice to go back to Agnes, and Heinrich, and Conrad in the nursery—and not be forcing his company on his elders.

And then, suddenly, things had changed. As he turned out of the Armourers’ smithy, with Hermann’s mocking laugh in his ears, he heard his own name called once or twice. His mother had sent one of her women in search of him, and he was to come at once to the women’s apartments.

It certainly was a comfort to be wanted somewhere, and young Ludwig made about two steps of the staircase which led to the long open gallery on the side of the great courtyard. He lingered a little, though, on the gallery, for the sense of beauty and comfort which one had to starve somewhat in mediæval castles found satisfaction here. Sweet-scented flowers grew in boxes in the spaces between the charming double columns, which even to-day are the Wartburg’s chief architectural beauty. In gilded cages beneath the open arches were the little song-birds his mother loved. On the inside wall were painted tender domestic scenes from the Bible. He had a dim but very pleasant consciousness, as he passed them by, that the figures were smiling out on him the welcome of old friends. And as he paused for a moment at the door of his mother’s room, and looked back along the gallery, he noticed that the last rays of the sun were filling it, and the birds were singing, and some of the flowers, that had gone to sleep, had wakened up again.

But all this did not prepare him for what he found when he pushed open the door, and stood on the threshold of the great vaulted chamber, where his mother awaited him.

A feast of colour and light! Instead of the golden evening rays, here was the soft radiance of hundreds of waxen tapers. The hinged wooden shutters had been let down over the unglazed window spaces, and night was summoned hither before her time. From the quartered arches of the painted roof hung chandeliers of enamelled bronze, of the admirable workmanship of the period, and each of them was laden with lights. In long rows between the columns on which the roof rested stood tall candle-sticks with great “king-candles” burning in them. On the hearth flamed a fire of scented wood, and the light of candles and leaping fire made wonderful play with the glowing colours of the painted ceilings, and the splendid tapestry on the walls.

“Come hither, fair son.”

Young Ludwig came over the flower-strewn floor, between columns of coloured marble and “king-candles,” his handsome, fair head held high. In his page’s dress of crimson, he fitted in well with the rest of the scene. So did his mother, standing in the midst of her maidens, stately and beautiful in her mantle, with its shimmering embroideries, its long train, and breast fastening of regal pearls. She held out a little white hand to him, and he kissed it, kneeling on one knee. Then, with a sudden impulse, as if the mother claimed her rights as well as the princess, she stooped down to him, moved aside her wimple, and laid his firm young cheek against her own. She left her hand in his, while he rose from his knees, and led him with it to the top of the chamber.

“Look, fair son, and tell me what you see.”

For a moment Ludwig was so astonished at what he saw that he could not speak. Then he turned to his mother with a question: “Who worked the tapestry? And how do _I_ come to be standing in the Landgraf’s robes, high on the Wartburg, with the valley and the town of Eisenach far beneath me, and a great star hanging low from the sky above my head?”

His mother answered one part of his question: “The ‘Wise Nun’ in thy Father’s Convent of Eisenach has wrought it,” she said, and then stopped suddenly, and led him to the lateral wall.

“This, too, hath the wise nun wrought?” he asked in growing astonishment. For the tapestry on this wall depicted a scene which had occurred in the Wartburg four years previously, with a fidelity which seemed impossible to anyone but an eye-witness.

It was the celebrated “War of the Poets” on the Wartburg—the “Wartburgkrieg”—the memory of which is as fresh to-day as when young Ludwig looked on the “Wise Nun’s” tapestry, and saw it pictured in glowing colours and wealth of detail on the canvas.

There on the “Minstrels’ Gallery” were the seats of Duke Hermann and Duchess Sophia. The Landgräfin had risen from hers, and with the folds of her mantle was covering a terror-stricken suppliant. In the Minstrel’s Hall, a step or two beneath the Gallery, were the other contestants. Ludwig recognises each of the angry faces that are turned towards the fugitive—Wolfram von Eschenbach, Walther von der Vogelweide, Heinrich von Zweten, and Heinrich Schreiber. A man, with the instruments of the executioner in his hand to label him for the spectator, is starting forward, but the quick movement is arrested by someone he sees in the opening door—a white-haired, venerable man, with a long beard.

“It is Klingsohr, the Wise Man from Hungary, who has come just in time to save the life of Heinrich von Ofterdingen,” says Ludwig, while his mother nodded confirmation. Young Ludwig passed on.

Here was the white-haired man again—in a garden this time before one of the little tables which have been in German inn-gardens since first such things were, and will be, until they are no more. He has risen from the table and is scanning the skies—and, behold! very low in them is hanging the star which shines about Ludwig’s own head in the piece of tapestry opposite. From the other tables, men in the knightly garb of peace, have risen likewise, neglecting their chess, and draughts, and dice, and drinking flagons, to follow the direction of the old man’s pointing arm.

On the left wall another many-figured scene. A king and queen on their thrones in the midst of a full and splendid court. Between them, the wonderful star is poised; and at their feet are kneeling ambassadors, whom Ludwig recognises as those sent from his father’s court, to ask the hand of the little Hungarian Princess (whose birth had been announced to him by Klingsohr) for his eldest son, Hermann.

“How wonderful it is,” said Ludwig, “but why did the ‘Wise Nun,’ so exact in all else, make the mistake of clothing me in the Landgraf’s robes, instead of Hermann?”

Nobody answered, for a peal from the Berchfrid,[8] that rang through every corner of the huge enclosure on the Wartburg, made its way into the women’s apartments, and told those who waited there that they need wait no more. The serving women were busy with their lady’s mantle, and presently the hum of a merry little song, and the ring of a martial (and not quite steady) step was heard along the gallery, and Duke Hermann, somewhat flushed from his mighty potations, but excellently-humoured, came into the “kemenate.”

“Art ready to meet thy daughter-in-law, Frau Landgräfin?” he said, jocularly. “If so, there is no time to be lost. What, Ludwig, still at thy mother’s girdle? It fears me much that we shall never make a sturdy drinker and fighter of thee, to keep thy father in countenance.”

Over Duchess Sophia’s fine face a shadow fell. She loved this passionate Lord of hers, with all his faults and all his weaknesses. But it was the dearest prayer of her soul to preserve her sons from following the path he trod. As much as lay in her power, she strove to keep them away from the motley company which held revel in the hall of the main building. But Hermann had speedily emancipated himself. “The lust of the eyes, the delight of the flesh, and the pride of life,” had put their fascination on him as soon as he had got clear of the women’s apartments. Ludwig was different. A certain asceticism, answering her own, had early revealed itself in his character. A strength of purpose, a force of self-restraint, a natural attitude of noble aloofness from all that seemed unworthy, made her build high hopes on Ludwig. And as for Hermann, who knew what blessings might be brought him by this child-bride from Hungary, whose birth had been accompanied by such wonders, who had already won the gladness of peace for her own land?

Joyfully, then, she went forth to meet her. Outside on the gallery torches burned. The great courtyard was full of light and movement, the stamping of horses, the shouting of orders, snatches of laughter and song. She heard a whisper from Ludwig: “May I be your escort, Lady Mother?” and answered with a pressure of the hand. A groom brought her horse, and Ludwig lifted her from the mounting-stone at the bottom of the staircase, on to the bench-like seat, which, for the ladies of the thirteenth century, took the place of a saddle. Her husband and Hermann were already mounted; Ludwig, as his mother’s chosen squire, was at her horse’s head. So they rode, with a long train of knights, and ladies, and squires, and pages, behind them, out of the great court into the Vorburg, and then through the triple gates of the entrance tower, out over the lowered drawbridge, and so to the narrow and dangerous path which led to the plain below. So narrow was the path that they could but ride in single file with a torch-bearer beside each rider to light the way for them. In the depths below them, Eisenach lay, a great blazing jewel in the dark valley. All sorts of summer-night scents came to them from the sloping woods on either side. There was no darkness in the sky, only a deep blue, cut by exquisite star-forms. In the west was a thin curve of a very young moon. Landgraf Hermann began to hum a “Lied” of Walther’s, the “Praise of Summer”—“Swie wol der heide ir manicvaltiu varwe stât,” “How well the painted heath becomes its wealth of summer bloom”—and presently a boy’s soprano took it up, and to wood, and heath, and meadow were being revealed their own sweet loveliness, under the tender light of a poet’s longing, wistful yet passionless, like that of the thin young moon herself!

So those rode down from the Wartburg, who went forth from it to meet the King’s Daughter.

The gates of Eisenach opened to their trumpeter, and through the torch-lit streets they rode to the inn beside Saint George’s Gate, where Michael Hellgreff had had Klingsohr to guest, what time he saw the Star hang low in the mystic East. On their way, they passed groups of burghers and their dames, all in their Sunday best, sitting on benches under the overhanging stories of their gabled, wooden houses, who left off gossiping to cheer their Sovereigns and the handsome young bridegroom. Under the linden on the green, country lads and lasses, in the fine clothes which raised Neidhart’s bile, were dancing a merry “Springtanz,” to the infinite delight of the Court Pages and the dainty scorn of the Court Ladies. They shouted their “Heil” as the Ducal pair passed, but never lost a step. The market-place was almost impassable, so dense were the throngs that crowded round the roasting ox, and the fountain that played wine.

There were two people in the ducal procession who were not sorry to leave the uproar of the streets, and seek the quiet of Master Hellgreff’s garden. These were the Landgräfin and her second son. As for the Landgraf and Hermann, they and the Knights, and Squires, and Pages were out in the street again directly, and the ladies showed so evident a desire to follow them, and see all the gay doings, that the Landgräfin summoned back the Squires and put her ladies in their charge, and sent them forth.

But Ludwig and his mother had their own joy, sitting in the scented, dark garden, into which the gay noises of the streets came, robbed of their harshness, with the stars shining down on them, and the young moon over the woods, while they waited for the trumpet to sound at the gate.

It came at last, and Duchess Sophia hastened to the door of the inn, to be joined there by her Lord and Hermann, as had been agreed. As the Ducal tableau arranged itself, there was a moment’s silence, as if a whole people were holding its breath in expectation. It was broken by the noise of wheels, and a carriage passed through the towered gate, and stopped before the Hellgreff Inn. Two Knights, who rode on either side of it, dismounted, amid the frantic cheers of the by-standers, and knelt to kiss in turn the hand of the Landgraf and the Landgräfin. Then they turned to the carriage, wherein a lady was standing up, with a little sleeping girl in her arms. But the Landgräfin could wait no longer. Over the muddy street she went, in defiance of all etiquette, and took the little maid, warm and lovely with sleep, from the hands of Frau Bertha, and carried her to her Lord.

Then the joy of the people got beyond all bounds. And it was their shouts of welcome that made the little four-year-old bride open her eyes at last—on her German home.