Part 3

Erna was conscious of the spell of the forest, and the tones of the song in the pine-tops rang in her ears with powerful appealing; but she was secure in the protecting presence of her companion, and she was more deeply still conscious of the earnestness of his gaze. So closely did Albrecht regard her that without comprehending her own feelings, she began to be embarrassed; and at last to cover her confusion she said:

"Didst thou know that where we see a lake there was once a noble convent, surrounded by beautiful gardens and even with fair pleasure-grounds?"

The knight looked from his companion to the blue tarn below them.

"But where?" he asked.

"Where the lake is. It was the richest and the most influential convent in all the Ober-Schwarzwald. All the nuns were of noble birth, and all had brought with them rich dowries to the convent. But they were wicked nuns; for Father Christopher says that even nuns and monks may be wicked. They feasted and sported and flew falcons, and there was only one in all the convent, a poor little novice whose betrothed had been killed, and whose heart was broken, that was not given over to sin."

"Is it a sin, then, to be happy?" asked Albrecht, smiling up at her from his station at her feet.

"Oh, no; not for us. But they were nuns, vowed to Heaven."

"I never could understand," he began with a puzzled face; then he broke off suddenly. "No matter!" he said. "Go on with thy story. What became of the convent?"

"The Lady Abbess," Erna continued, "was worst of all there; and on her birth-night she made a great feast for all the nuns. They sat and drank wine, and out of doors there was a bitter, bitter storm. And just at midnight there came a knocking at the gate. The Lady Abbess, flushed with wine, told the little novice, who would neither eat nor drink herself, to go and see who was there. So the little novice went, and found an old, old man, all drenched with the rain, and weak with hunger and cold. So she went to the Lady Abbess, and begged that she might be allowed to let the old man in, lest he perish with cold and hunger before morning."

"Why should she care?" the knight asked, as Erna paused and looked over the dark-blue lake as if she could see the scene she described.

"Oh, I told thee that she was not wicked like the rest."

"But would it be wicked not to care for a worthless, broken-down old man that one never saw before?"

The countess smiled upon him.

"When thou askest me questions like that," she responded, "I know that thou art laughing at me or trying to tease me."

A strange look flitted across the face of the baron, but he only replied by a smile.

"But the Lady Abbess," went on Erna, determined to finish the tale she had begun, "would not allow the gates to be opened. 'Thou mayest throw him down thy bread, if thou choosest,' she told the little novice; 'but thou wilt get no more in its place.' So the little novice wrapped the bread up in the only blanket she had for her bed, and threw it down to the old pilgrim, and then she had to shut the window and leave him there in the cold. That very hour the water began to roll into the valley, though where it came from no one could tell; and it rose, and rose, and rose. And the wicked nuns ran to the top of their towers, but it was of no use, for the water rose over those until they were all drowned, and there was this lake."

"And didn't even the little novice escape?"

"Oh, yes; there came a boat, shining all like gold, and took the little novice off of the top of the tower; but when the others tried to get into it, it glided away and left them."

She crossed herself as she finished. Albrecht raised his eyes from the blue lake to the blue sky above them, and sighed, a sign of sadness Erna had never seen in him before.

"Why dost thou sigh?" she asked him.

"Because thou hast taught me to," he answered, with the wistful look of a loving animal in his eyes.

Then he laughed gleefully.

"Should not one sigh for the poor drowned nuns?" he asked.

"Yes," Erna said gravely; "they lost their souls."

"Always their souls," her companion responded impulsively. "Why is it that it is always the soul of which one speaks?"

"Because," she answered, with the same air she would have worn had his question been a reasonable one, "the soul is all; it is this which makes us different from the animals."

"And the nixies," he added; "and the undines, and the kobolds."

"Yes," she said gravely. She was silent a moment, and then added: "I do not know if it is right, but Father Christopher thinks it is no harm; I have always pitied the nixies and the kobolds. They are not so bad; and it is not their fault that they have no souls, and that they cannot be saved."

"No," he assented soberly, "it is certainly not their fault. Hast thou never heard it said," he went on, "that if one of them marries a mortal, he would win a soul?"

"Yes," she replied; "but Father Christopher does not believe that that is true."

"But if it were," he began, "wouldst thou--"

He broke off suddenly, and sprang up.

"Come," he cried, with his infectious laugh, "thou art making me as solemn as an owl. Did I talk in this sombre fashion when I came to Rittenberg?"

She did not answer save by a smile. She was aware that the knight had changed since he had been at the castle, although she did not realize what the alteration might mean. She had herself changed too much in the same time to be able to appreciate the subtile difference between what he now was and what he had been on his arrival; and she was too well content with whatever he was to study deeply over the question of the effect of her influence upon him. She rose from the grassy mound on which she had been sitting, and soon they were on their homeward way through the forest.

The day was wasting as they neared the castle, and already in the shadows of the forest the tree-trunks were black and dim. The way wound through the solemn pine-wood, rising and falling as it crossed the hills. Far above them they could see the peaks reddened by the rays of the late sun, while they rode forward in the dimness of the bridle-path below. Now and then some sudden turn in the way brought them to the crest of an elevation from which they could look far over the wide range of the tree-clad country. Spread before them were the sweeping black forests of pine, broken here and there with patches of ling and heather, as the surface of the ocean may be mottled by lighter spaces that mark where the concealed currents run.

Suddenly, as they turned a corner where the path ran along a rocky hillside, becoming so narrow that they were close together, Erna laid her hand on the arm of her companion.

"Look!" she exclaimed, pointing with the other hand.

Far, far before them, bathed in the golden light of the dying sun, lay the peaks of the Alps. White and pure as crystal the snowy summits rose toward the sky, while lower the slopes were flushed to rosy pink, or dyed to strange and lovely hues of gold and crimson and purple. From a cloud of rainbow colors soared the rosy peaks, fairer than dreams.

Erna checked her horse, and her companion did the same, although he seemed not fully to comprehend her enthusiasm.

"It is like heaven," she sighed. "Only once before in my whole life have I seen the Alps like that; they are not often to be seen from here."

Albrecht did not answer, but gazed upon the distant mountains, as if he were trying to understand why their appearance should affect his companion so strongly. As they gazed, the hues on the sides of the hills deepened; the rose and gold of the peaks faded; the white of the summits seemed to become transparent, as if one could see through them into the sky beyond; and little by little the sharp outline blended with the quickly dimming heaven against which they had stood out in relief. The shadow of the lower world crept upward; and as they stood there the glorious vision vanished. Only an empty sky where the dimness of night was growing lay in the distance before them in place of the beauty they had seen.

"It was like heaven," Erna said again, as she started her palfrey.

"Then," responded her companion, in a tone of deep gravity, "one must have a soul to appreciate it."

She turned and looked at him questioningly; but with one of those quick changes of mood which always seemed to her so surprising in so manly a knight, he burst into a merry laugh, and began in his rich voice to sing a gay hunting-song.

V

HOW THEY DISCOURSED OF KISSES.

The damsel Elsa was a trim and comely maid, with a bright eye and a ready tongue, of which the men and youths of the castle had learned to have a wholesome fear. She went about her affairs singing pleasant ditties, and one morning she crossed the great hall where Baron Albrecht was waiting for the countess, with whom he was to ride out, as had become much their fashion now; and as she went, she sang in her sweet, clear voice a little love-song that ran in this wise:

"When winter howls across the wold, And all the gates are fast, Then is thine heart, shut from the cold, Safe from the blast, And safe from whomsoe'er goes past.

"When Spring makes lovely all the land, And casements open wide, Beware lest some gay wandering band Should slip inside, And steal thine heart, and thee deride!

"When once 'tis gone, to win it back Full vainly mayst thou try; Nor golden bribes nor tears, alack! Lost hearts can buy, Since who loves once, loves till he die."

Baron Albrecht listened to her singing with a smile on his face.

"Now, by my beard," he said, "a song like that is worth a reward."

And he put his great shapely hand beneath her white chin, and kissed her full upon her red lips. At that very moment the Countess Erna came into the hall. Her cheek flushed as the damsel uttered an exclamation and fled hastily, and she looked at the baron in the evident expectation of seeing him also covered with confusion. But Albrecht merely smiled, and smoothed his chestnut beard.

"The damsel sings passing sweetly," he said, unmoved by her glance.

"Is it for that that thou hast kissed her?" demanded Erna, scornfully.

"Truly," replied he.

Erna regarded him with a look in which amazement struggled with disapprobation. She could not comprehend his strange indifference at being discovered.

"And hast thou no shame," she demanded, "to be seen trifling with the girl?"

"Shame?" he echoed. "Why should I have?"

"Nor any fear of my displeasure?"

"Thy displeasure?" he repeated. "Why shouldst thou be displeased?"

She regarded him in silence a moment; and as she did not speak, he continued:

"Surely thou canst not be jealous of a serving-wench?"

She drew herself up proudly, all the blood of her ancestors aflame in her clear pale cheek.

"The Von Rittenbergs are jealous neither of serving-wenches nor on account of strangers," she returned haughtily.

Albrecht looked at her in a perplexity that it was impossible not to believe genuine.

"Then what is my offence?" he asked. "I did but kiss the maid. I meant her no harm. Why should not one kiss a smooth cheek if it likes him?"

He spoke humbly, yet with no air either of bravado or of conscious guilt. She felt that his ignorance was not feigned, yet could hardly bring herself to believe that he did not understand what her feeling must be at discovering him in the act she had seen. Moreover, she found herself strangely at a loss how to reply to his question, if it were in reality serious. If he did not perceive the impropriety of his conduct, it was not easy for her to explain it to him. She stood a moment in silence, regarding him with a penetrating glance under which he showed no sign of wavering, and then instead of turning away to leave him as had at first been her intention, she smiled faintly, and with an expression of doubt still in her eyes.

"One would think, Sir Knight," she said, "that thy father's house must needs be a rude place if it is there held proper to kiss the damsels that please one, without hindrance."

"In thy father's castle," he answered slowly, "we have perhaps lived in a fashion that would seem to thee rude, for that my mother died at my birth, and there has been no one but men to make the rules of the house; but why it is wrong to kiss a comely woman if she please thee, is one of the things that I have never been told there or here."

Erna's tender heart was at once touched by the thought of her companion's orphanage, her own motherless childhood being still too fresh in her mind not to render her susceptible to this plea. She took up her whip from the bench, and turned quickly, that he might not see the tears that sprang to her eyes whenever one mentioned the loss of a mother.

"Well," she said, "I will leave it to Father Christopher to deal with thy transgression."

The change in her tone did not escape his quick ears, and he hastened to follow her to the courtyard, where the horses were waiting.

Their way that morning led them over hill and dale, until they came at length to a wide meadow, where the knight was minded to fly his falcon. A stream ran through the midst of the valley, and along its banks the grass was as vividly green as the emeralds which sparkled in the hilt of Albrecht's dagger; while all through it the golden buttercups were set as thickly as the stars in the sky of a summer's night. Here and there grew clusters of tall reeds and water grasses gently swaying in the soft breeze; and as Albrecht took his falcon from the wrist of his squire, who carried the bird, a splendid white heron rose with smooth, steady flight from amid the rushes, and went soaring upward. The baron quickly and deftly pulled the hood from the falcon's head; but just as he was loosening the jess Erna leaned forward and laid her hand on his arm.

"Let the heron go unharmed," she said. "Why shouldst thou strike him down?"

"Because," he responded, "thou art to wear his plumes in thy cap after I am gone, in memory of me."

"After thou art gone?" she repeated softly, drawing back.

He smiled and shook off the hawk, which rose in graceful circles until it was far overhead, and hung dizzily above the meadow. It sailed to and fro a moment until its prey, which had discovered it and in dismay was straining every nerve to quicken its flight, was just beneath it; then suddenly, with the rapidity of a thunderbolt, it fell straight upon the beautiful heron. Erna uttered a cry of dismay, and covered her eyes with her hand.

"It is too cruel!" she exclaimed.

Albrecht struck his hands together in glee.

"It is a brave bird!" he cried. "I would rather lose a gold mine than that falcon. He is as sure of his quarry as the rain is to fall to the ground."

Erna did not answer, but she regarded him with the look of one who strove to understand his pleasure, and to understand is almost to share. She said nothing while the squire rode off to bring in the game; and when the noble heron, its glistening throat stained with blood, was brought to them, she not only strove to restrain the involuntary shudder which seized her, but she did not remonstrate when her companion continued the praises of his bird.

"Did one ever see a more rich plumage?" Albrecht demanded. "It will set off thy cap bravely; and I have always been told that womenkind are fond of gay attire."

"It is indeed a beautiful bird," Erna responded; "but dost thou know that there is always something very amusing in the way thou speakest, as if thou hadst never seen human beings till now."

A faint flush crossed Albrecht's cheek. He looked at the dead heron.

"I never thought of it before," he said; "but it does seem hard that he should have to be killed just to please me."

Erna flushed in her turn. She thought she had offended him by her criticism of his manner of speech.

"I beg thy pardon," she began; but he interrupted her.

"Thou hast no need," he said. "Besides, thou art right. I know nothing of women. I do not even know, it seems, how they should be treated, or how to please them. Otherwise," he added with his warm smile, "I should not have offended thee this morning by kissing the damsel who sang so sweetly."

The countess smiled, and turned toward him with her face full of light. They had not dismounted, but had halted their horses near the margin of the brook on the banks of which the heron had been feeding lower down.

"That," she said, "is not a thing to be taught. It is learned from the air and from the birds."

"Then why has it not been revealed to me? I have been much in the forest."

"To kill the birds! In good sooth, I know not that one may learn of the air and the woods who goes as thou goest, with falcon and boar-spear. But at least," she added, regarding him with a smile, "thou must know that when one loves--"

She broke off suddenly, and turned away her face, with a flush creeping up into her cheek.

"Well," Albrecht demanded eagerly, "what then?"

"I was but thinking," she returned, in a voice lower than before, "that certainly every man knoweth that when one truly loveth another, he will care for the caress of none save only the loved one."

"I had never thought of that," the knight responded gravely.

"Then of a surety thou hast never known what it is to love."

"By that token, never," he answered, smiling; "albeit it were possible that the test would not hold; and in any case it were not difficult, perchance, for thee to teach me."

The Countess Erna looked into his face all flushed and radiant, and there was that in her eyes which no man could see and fail to understand; and although the squire waiting hard by might not note that aught had been said or done out of the ordinary course, none the less had their hearts spoken each to each from that moment. Erna wheeled her horse, and began to move toward the entrance of the valley; and as Albrecht rode beside her, he suddenly leaned forward and caught her palfrey's rein, so that the beast was almost thrown upon his haunches with the abruptness of his arrest.

"Do not ride toward the upper ford," he said; "the nix is in an evil mood to-day, and mayhap might do thee a mischief in her spitefulness."

Erna looked at him with astonishment and alarm.

"And how knowest thou of the moods of the nix?" she demanded.

His eyes fell, and a flush stained his swarthy cheek. Then he seemed to recover his self-possession.

"It is a knowledge," he replied, "that is learned from the air and from the birds, but only by those who are in sympathy with the woodland creatures so that they may comprehend it."

Erna laughed merrily, and turned her palfrey toward the lower ford.

"In sober sooth, thou knowest no more of the nix than do I," she told him; "but I mind not if I please thy fancy."

But when alone in her chamber she thought of this, she crossed herself and shivered a little with a not unpleasing awe.

VI

HOW THEY CAME TO KISSES THEMSELVES.

From that day when they rode together to the slaying of the heron by the stream in the meadow, there was a new bond between the Countess Erna and the Baron Albrecht. There had been nothing further said between them of love, even in the impersonal way in which they had then begun to talk of it, but the revelation of the glance which had then passed from her eyes to his changed all the old relations. They knew that they loved each other, and although they were not yet come to the confession in word of their love, they understood well that they belonged each to the other.

One day the countess sat at her embroidery in the hall, with her guest near her, and Father Christopher not far away. Without, a wild tempest of wind and rain shook the castle towers, and swept over forest and hill. From the casements one looked out upon a sea of mist that rolled above the tree-tops, beaten and torn by the wind, and lashing the hills in angry, mimic waves. All the weird voices of the Schwarzwald, melancholy or fierce, raged and wailed in the troubled air. It was a day when the unholy powers of the forest held high festival, and it was with inward shudders that Erna heard afar their hoarse tones, calling and yelling to one another in the storm.

Sitting at her embroidery frame without her damsels, who were scattered about the castle upon one mission or another, Erna talked with the baron and the priest, now and then thinking with dread of the night which was not far away, and hearing in her fancy already the roaring of the blast about the towers, the shrill cry of the Wild Huntsman, and the shrieks of his elfin train. When she looked up at the splendid form of her guest, however, her fears vanished in a breath, and she smiled that she should have found it possible to fear while he was at her side. In the warmth of his glance the tempest and all the dread dwellers in the forest were forgotten, and she was conscious only of the joy of his presence.

The knight had been asking concerning the armor of Erna's father, which hung in the hall; and from this the talk easily drifted to the Great Emperor, his noble deeds, his splendid army, and the brilliant court which he had gathered about him.

"How much I should like to see it all," the maiden said dreamily, as she looked earnestly at Albrecht; "the tourneys, the feasts, the processions, and all the beautiful court life."

Father Christopher regarded her in some amazement.

"Is it thou," he asked, "who sayest this? Thou who hast always been so thankful that thou wert spared the temptations and the worldliness of the court? Didst thou not refuse to go to Mayence when Charlemagne was there with his train, because thou didst not wish to fill thy mind with frivolous images?"

"So I did, Father, but mayhap my aunt was not wholly in the wrong when she called me a fool for my refusal," Erna answered, smiling.

"The court would ill suit me," Albrecht remarked, while the good priest remained sunk in astonishment at the change which the words of Erna indicated. "My choice is for the forest, for the hunt and the chase. The only thing at court that would attract me would be the tourney."

"Would that I might see thee in the lists!" Erna half murmured, leaning a little toward him.

"Mayhap that thou shalt," he replied. "Stranger things than this have come to pass. If thou dost, thou wilt see me break a lance in thy behalf right gladly."

"And thou no longer thinkest," Father Christopher interposed gravely, "that it is wrong for knights to risk their lives in mere wanton pastime?"

"Oh, there may be some danger," she returned with a slight air of impatience, "but why must one be forever troubling to examine too closely? Is there to be no pleasure in life lest harm should come after it, forsooth?"

Father Christopher left his seat, to stand for a moment looking at the countess as if in bewilderment. He did not in truth know what to make of his mistress in such a mood as this, so different was it from all that she had ever been before. He seemed minded to speak, and then, as if reflecting that her words did not after all contain aught which he was called upon to regard with severity, and perhaps that in any case what he might wish to say to her would be delivered better privately, he sighed deeply, and moved away without further speech. Erna looked after him as he slowly passed down the hall, the edge of his robe here and there catching upon one of the rushes with which the floor was strewn.

"Poor Father Christopher!" she said with a low, sweet laugh, "I have grieved him. It is a pity to make him unhappy. I never used to do that."

She regarded her gay-colored embroidery a moment absently, as if she did not see it; then suddenly she dropped the hand which held her needle and leaned toward her companion.

"What hast thou done to me?" she demanded. "Hast thou bewitched me, that all the things that I loved have become dull to me, and all the things which I wished not for are now in my thoughts with longing?"