Chapter 4

"My horizon grows more and more cloudy," sighed Althea. "I fear there will be no staying for me much longer in the old Schweidnitz, for the hatred of these Friends is terrible, from their wealth and their enormous power."

"Oh, if they ill-treat you," cried the little one warmly, "only call Tausdorf to your help, he'll soon send them about their business! And I too am a nobleman: let me once be capable of bearing arms, and I'll maul this rabble of citizens that it shall do your heart good to see it."

Althea hastily set down the little nettle which began to sting thus early, and asked in anger, "Did you ever hear such words from me or from the knight Tausdorf, whose name is always in your mouth?"

"No," stammered the terrified child, already struggling with his tears; "but uncle Netz, and the rest of the knights, call the Schweidnitzers by no other name when they talk of them."

"Have these then so suddenly become your models? Formerly you were of a different opinion; but shame upon you for so soon forgetting the lessons of your mother. What have I told you of the different classes in the world?"

"They are all established by God," repeated the boy, amidst a flood of tears, "and therefore the high should never despise the low, for he is his brother."

"And what did I say to you of the citizens and peasants?"

"They are for the whole more useful and indispensable than the noble, who in reviling them disgraces himself."

"You, then, have disgraced the nobility which you are so proud of. Go to your own room, and reflect with yourself seriously upon your injustice, and pray to God to forgive you such want of charity. That you may have leisure for this, you shall neither play nor eat till the evening."

"Dear mother!" said the little one imploringly, and raised his folded hands.

"I am fixed," she replied with great earnestness; and the poor boy left the room slowly and with loud sobbings.

"God grant me strength to banish this evil spirit, the last in the pure mind of my child," prayed Althea fervently, as her brother-in-law, Netz, rushed into the room with wild unceasing laughter. Vexed at this interruption of her better thoughts, she exclaimed, "What have you been about now?"

"Oh, I have been enjoying a fine piece of sport. Since we were here with the bishop, your cits have had a little respect for us, because they see that we hang together manfully. So we touch them up now and then, till they are ready to run against the walls from terror."

"Alas! I have already heard much of this kind of exploits, but in truth they do you little honour."

Netz, passing over the remark, continued: "Just now I amused myself with riding on my war-horse into a publican's house, and even into the tap-room on the ground floor. The old witch of a hostess crept forward immediately, and, quaking and trembling, begged of me to dismount; but I cut as furious a grimace as I could, and roared out, 'Pity on the noble blood that has been spilt! let any one of the Schweidnitzers come abroad, be he who he may, and he shall have a warm reception; ten of us have sworn to avenge the murder.' Zounds! you should have seen how the old one's knees tottered, and three citizens, who had been sitting behind the table, crept into a corner with their cups. Then turning round my horse, I dashed out, while the windows clattered again."

"And you would palm off this adventure upon me for a chivalrous achievement?" said Althea with cold mockery.

"How perverse you are," replied Netz; "it was only a little joke of mine with the rabble. They'll tell it again in the city, which will be in a proper fright; and, whenever a chuff creeps out of his hole from necessity, it will be with fear and trembling."

"What would you say, brother, if one of the people were to ride into your hall, as you did with those honest men, who had in nowise offended you?"

"God confound him! I would hang him up by the legs."

"Would it have been wrong, then, if the citizens had taken courage, and done as much to you?"

"Zounds! that's a different thing," said Netz, stroking his whiskers.

"How, different? Perhaps the citizens of Schweidnitz are your serfs, without any rights against their master?"

"You catechize me too closely," replied Netz, confused, "tell me rather--to come to something else--what is the matter between you and Christopher Friend? As I was riding up the streets to your house, he met me, tricked out wonderfully, but with a face more horrible even than that I made in the tap-room. What did the money-bag want with you?"

"He asked my hand," returned Althea, going on calmly with her embroidery.

"And you sent him off with the willow? By my word as a knight, that does you honour, for the pitiful scoundrel has gold enough to buy half the principality; and there is many an honest woman, before this, has made herself over to the devil, for the sake of wretched mammon. You have not only acted like a noble lady, but like a prudent woman, who well weighs every thing. It was not out of love that he sought your hand, but to make peace between his kin and the nobility through you, and afterwards you would have found his house a hell."

"What evil thoughts does hatred put into the minds of men! I did not dream a syllable of any such secondary objects, but refused him simply because I felt no inclination for him."

"Nay, that of itself is a poor reason, with which you have already put off many honourable men, and even lusty knights too. Don't you intend to marry again at all?"

Althea turned away in silence to get another ball of silk from her work-basket, and at the same time to hide the colour which this question had brought upon her cheek. Netz, having long listened for a reply, exclaimed, "I understand! no answer is often a very decided one. Now I am at home. You intend sure enough to marry, and I already know the bridegroom. Shall I name him to you?"

"Spare me your thoughtless gossiping," said Althea, with anger, that did not seem to be too seriously intended.

"You defy me? Well, then, I should be a fool to spare you any longer. The lucky chosen one is called--"

At this moment Tausdorf entered the room.

"When one talks of the wolf," added Netz, laughing, "he is already looking over the hedge. That is my man."

"Oh, you are the most intolerable tattler that I know of!" said Althea, rising, and offering her hand to Tausdorf with a confused smile.

"Intolerable!" muttered Netz; "that again is somewhat strong, as indeed your phrases towards me generally are. You think I don't understand without rough language; yet in truth you ought to handle me quite tenderly, and thank God that I look at the matter on the merry side: were I disposed to take it up seriously, and quarrel with my fortunate rival, you might sooner be a widow than a bride, or else have to cry your bright eyes red over the corpse of your poor brother-in-law. But compose yourself; it shall not be so bad as that I have at last learnt to see that you are in the right with your negative. Every creature of the field would be mated with its like. Now you are as tender as the sensitive plant in the park green-house; you would be touched only lightly with the finger-tips; while I love to grasp with my whole hand, and don't always even draw the gauntlet off first. In any case, we should make a strange couple. It is better, therefore, that the whole business should be let alone, and, if I can yield you to any one without grudging, it is to Tausdorf, who seems to have been made by Heaven expressly for your wilfulness; and who, moreover, is such a lusty knight. Your hands, then, my dear friends:--In the name and in the spirit of my good brother Henry, I give and pledge you to each other, and you shall exchange the troth-rings before my eyes."

"I pray you at length be silent," said Althea, whose confusion was at its height; and with unfeigned emotion she added, "it has not yet entered into Herr von Tausdorf's head to be a suitor for my hand."

"So, then, I have again missed my aim! That you will never make me believe. It is only a sort of feint, that your womanly affectation would yet use as a parting farewell. Strike at the very core of it with your good sword, Tausdorf; I will be your faithful brother in arms."

"I could only accuse myself, if I had not understood this noble heart," said the knight tenderly, kissing Althea's hand. "But this letter of my father's will show you that I have understood it, my dear friend; still, I owed it to your repose and my honour to shut up the ardent longing in my own breast, until every barrier was forced that lay in the path of my happiness. That is done. The weightiest obstacle was the difference of our creeds: but rational arguments and filial entreaties have subdued my father's strictness of belief, and he now participates in my wishes, and sends us his paternal blessing."

With trembling hand Althea took the letter and read it, while her eyes sparkled with joy.

"Strange that the old gentleman should make objections for a little difference in religion!" said Netz: "Why, if Althea cared about priestly feuds, she might with better reason object to your Utraquism. But I see it well, it is in this case just as if a fair maiden were smitten with a Moor. Love levels all, and before him there is neither creed nor complexion."

"The Moor returns his thanks," replied Tausdorf laughing, and followed Althea to the window, where she stood with folded hands in deep thought.

"Have I understood your heart?" he asked gently and tenderly.

"Only too well," she murmured; "and yet in this decisive moment an anxious doubt falls on me, whether I do right in listening to it, and whether it is compatible with my duties towards my child."

"Fire and fury, sister!" shouted Netz, impatiently, "I believe you are still coquetting it: by my faith! even the best women can't leave that alone. I fancy when you one day come to the gates of heaven, you'll stand courtesying to St. Peter, and protesting that you don't think it polite to enter, till he hales you in by force. What new difficulty have you been spinning and weaving on the instant?"

"My little Henry," lisped Althea, with downcast eyes.

"Whose interest, you think, is against this marriage?" said Netz, laughing: "Now that, in good truth, is a little out of reason, for to me it seems as if it would exactly tend to his advantage. But I'll do as though I believed you in it. Where is the boy?"

"A prisoner in his room till bed-time."

"The devil! Yours is a strict government! But wherefore?"

"He spoke contemptuously of the respectable state of citizenship."

"Death and hell! By that I see the blood of our family flows in him--And 'tis therefore you have imprisoned the noble fellow! Zounds! I can fancy, then, how you would have managed me, if you had given me your fair hand in marriage: I should never again have got out of the cellar into daylight. No, that won't do; I'll not stand it. I am the boy's uncle, and have also a word to say in his education."

He rushed out, but at the door was met by the old Herr von Schindel, to whom he exclaimed, "Your niece has grown restive, and positively won't enter the stall of matrimony; do you teach her better--I go for help:"

With two springs he was up the stairs and at Henry's door, while Schindel entered to the lovers.

"Do you then doubt my having a father's feeling for Althea's child?" said Tausdorf to the widow, deeply mortified.

"It is not that alone," she stammered; "it seems to me as if a second marriage would be a treachery to my first husband; and that one day, in a better world, I should not be able to come before his eyes, if I contracted a fresh union here below."

"Fie! fie! niece," cried Schindel, gravely; "so good a Christian, and so little versed in the Bible? Have you not read in the holy scriptures, what sort of answer was given to a similar doubt, and who gave that answer? 'there will no one marry, nor be given in marriage?' and your departed lord will thank Tausdorf, with a brother's love, for having made his Althea happy in the time of her earthly pilgrimage, when he himself was no longer able."

"Heaven reward you for these words, my dear uncle," exclaimed Tausdorf joyfully, grasping the old knight's hand, when Netz burst in, the little Henry in his arms, and setting him between the lovers, on the ground, cried, "Stand here, boy, and decide: your mother is going to marry again; whom would you like to have for your father-in-law?"

With a loud cry of joy the child sprang up to Tausdorf, and clasped his knees, looking up to him with a sweet smile of affection.

"My son!" exclaimed Tausdorf, in emotion; and he lifted up the little one in his arms, and kissed him warmly.

"Then join your mother's hand with his," continued Netz.--The boy stretched out his hand after Althea's, and said, in a sweet soothing tone, "Dear mother!"--She remained, however, timidly at the window, and did not move; upon this Tausdorf carried to her the little Henry, who seized her arm with gentle violence, and joined the feebly-resisting hand with the extended right-hand of the lover, at the same time exclaiming, "Always so! always so!" and covering the two hands with kisses.

"My Henry!" stammered Althea, and inclined her face to his.

"Is he not _our_ Henry?" asked Tausdorf, hastily putting down the child, and with his arms clasping the tender body of Althea.

"In the name of Heaven!" she replied, scarcely audible, while his lips sank upon hers.

"What Heaven does is well done!" said the old Schindel, with folded hands.

Netz shouted out aloud, "_Victoria!_"--In the next moment he passed his mailed hand across his eyes, and, unmanned by keen and sudden agony, rushed out of the apartment.

* * * * *

Eight days after the Whitsuntide of the same year, the morning twilight lit up the horizon with a dusky red, and painted with blood the walls of the Hildebrand, in which Francis was still quietly slumbering on his couch. Before him stood the old Heidenreich, who seized his hand, and called upon his name to wake him. At the call he started up wildly, and inquired peevishly and sleepily why the old man disturbed him at such an hour? "Sleep is precisely the best thing that one can enjoy in a dungeon."

"I bring you weighty, and in some sort pleasant, news. That I come with it thus early is to prepare you for the events of the morning. Yesterday arrived the emperor's final sentence--your life is saved. The imprisonment which you have already suffered will be reckoned in part of your incurred penance; and, _mense Septembris anni currentis_, you may expect your freedom."

"Am I to rot then so long in a dungeon? That is an unjust severity, as I neither confessed the fact, nor have been convicted of it; and one may easily see that the emperor deems himself the first nobleman in the principality, by his siding thus with the lordlings."

"Not yet contented? Thank God, on the contrary, that the sentence has turned out so exceedingly mild. I can assure you, when the sentence was read in the sessions-room, the impertinent alderman, Treutler, observed, _Dat veniam corvis vexat censura columbas!_ You were heavily accused: had not Onophrius been silent on the rack, had not your father subdued his old pride, and made most suppliant petitions to the emperor himself, and, lastly, had I not managed your cause in a veritable masterpiece of defence, you would have had a serious business of it to-day."

"And how has it gone with the old Goldmann?" asked Francis anxiously.

"Faith," replied Heidenreich, shrugging his shoulders, "his head will be off in an hour."

"Gracious heavens!" cried Francis, starting up from his couch, "it is not possible! The old man acted only in his office; and if he did kill Bieler, his life cannot be touched for it."

"The imperial council have seen the affair in a different light," replied Heidenreich coldly. "They think his office had been to separate and arrest both parties, you as well as Rasselwitz; and not, out of partiality to the burgomaster's son, to kill his adversary."

"But I entreated you for the poor man!--and you, too, promised."

"I did to the utmost of my power whatever could be done, and as far as it could be done without your injury: your father, too, the same. Thrice did the council apply to the emperor in Goldmann's behalf, and the last time was dismissed ignominiously for their pains, and forbidden farther interference. Defendant was not to be saved. Some one must have killed Bieler: Goldmann confessed upon the rack that he had struck at the young man's head; about you he was honestly silent, and thus, therefore, devoted himself for an atonement."

"Horrible!" cried Francis, and paced about the room, wringing his hands. On a sudden the clang of the funeral bells vibrated hollowly and slowly from the tower of the guildhall; when, in obedience to the signal, from every turret throughout the city, the metal heralds lifted up their solemn voices, producing a singularly sad and awful echo in the silence of the morning twilight.

"What means this tolling of the bells so early?" asked Francis, with a fearful foreboding.

"It is the funeral toll of the poor Goldmann," replied Heidenreich, leaning himself against the window. "To show publicly that the council deems the imperial sentence too severe, it has allowed this last honour to the condemned; the body, too, will be followed by the whole college to the burial-ground of our Lady _im Walde_."

"A melancholy kindness!" exclaimed Francis, shuddering; and after awhile he added, "first the hand, then the rack, and at last the head. Oh, it is horrible!"

"See, there comes the procession!" cried Heidenreich from the window; and in spite of the horror that seized him at the news, Francis yet felt himself irresistibly attracted to look on that which he dreaded. Just then the old Onophrius was passing before the window. Free and unfettered, he walked with calm confidence between the city soldiers who accompanied him, while no marks of the fear of death were to be seen upon his venerable, pale, cheerful countenance; and a garland of white roses adorned his silver locks, which were fluttered by the morning breeze.

Loud weeping was heard from the assembled people; even the iron Francis sobbed bitterly. At this moment the old man lifted up his eyes and maimed arm to him, and cried out with a strong voice, "I have forgiven you all! Only make good as much as you are yet able, and you shall not find me amongst your accusers before the judgment-seat of God." With this he went on cheerfully to the place of execution, while Francis howled and pressed his face against the iron grating of the window.

The sufferer's head had fallen. The noise of the people returning from the burial, and the sudden silence of the bells, awoke Francis from his mental lethargy. He looked up, and found himself alone.

"It was an evil hour!" he cried, rousing himself; "God be praised that it is over.--How! not yet torture enough?" he added the instant after, seeing Agatha, who just then closed the prison door behind her.

In deep mourning, with hollow eyes staring out of a pale, meagre face;--in her hand the garland of white roses which her father had worn on his last travel, she stood for a long time at the door, a threatening Nemesis. She then glided nearer with a light step, and planted herself close before the terrified Francis, whose hair began to stand on end.

"My father is no more," she murmured in the tones of death. "I have even now seen him to his final place of rest, and am come hither to execute his last commission. He has been silent: he has died to save you; and he has saved you that you may restore to his only child the honour of which you robbed her by crafty seduction. In his last farewell he said, 'I will believe that, with the best inclination, Francis had it not in his power to rescue me; but let him take you home as his wedded wife, which is his duty, and which he has promised me with deep oaths: thus he will at least have made good as much as he was able, and my shadow is reconciled.' Now, then, I am here to remind you of your oath."

With infinite confusion Francis stammered out, "Yes,--that,--dearest Agatha--for the present, at least, that cannot be done. I do not depend upon myself alone."

"You are a widower, and childless," said Agatha, with great composure.

"But my proud stern father will never consent to such an alliance," objected Francis.

"You have long been of age and wealthy, and therefore independent," said Agatha, in the former unimpassioned tone; "give me better reasons for your perjury."

"I suppose I can't be married to you in the Hildebrand!" cried Francis, with the angry impatience of mental agony.

"Oh father! what you have asked of me is hard," sighed Agatha, struggling with her feelings; "but I must obey." And, as in that dreadful night, she flung herself before Francis, and embracing his knees, besought him--"Give me your hand, and with it give me back my honour."

"Let go of me, woman!" he cried, tearing himself with violence from the kneeling Agatha. "By heavens, I cannot do what you desire!"

"You cannot?" she returned in a terrible tone, and rose up; "You swear by Heaven that you cannot?--You are right. What does a perjury, more or less, signify to you? It is quite well so, perhaps better than if I had softened you for the moment. Now then I may confess it to you: it was only obedience to the martyr that compelled me to this measure. I had other intentions with you; but my father's command tied up my hands, which your utter unworthiness has again unfettered. Think of what I told you in the night of torture. My father has now really died for you--you have rejected the atonement which he offered you through me, and vengeance can now take her course, softly, slowly, and securely. May this thought scare sleep from your bed and drop wormwood into the cup of your joy, till you one day see me again adorned with this blood-besprinkled garland, as your bride for the life yonder in the torments that have no end."

She glided out of the room; Francis stood there for a long time as if petrified, when, collecting himself, he called out for the guard.

"Goldmann's daughter," he said to the city servitor, who then entered, "has been uttering dangerous threats out of rage for the execution of her father. Every thing is to be feared from her malice,--fire and murder, poison and uproar! for who knows what abettors she may have already gained by her strumpet artifices? Arrest her, therefore, immediately, and announce it to the council. I take upon myself all responsibility with my father."

The servitor ran off; but in a little time returned with information that Agatha, after quitting the Hildebrand, had disappeared so quickly, that no one knew which way to follow her; her dwelling was quite deserted, and it was probable she had turned her back upon the city.

"That's bad," said Francis thoughtfully; but his old, daring recklessness soon returned, and he exclaimed, "What does it signify? the malicious wench will take good care, I should hope, not to come back to a city in which my father governs: no one yet ever died of mere threats, and I doubt not to reconcile to my conscience the not having allowed the daughter of the beheaded city messenger to talk herself into the honourable family of the Friends."

* * * * *

It was in the beginning of the July 1572, that Althea sate at a splendid dinner-table with her uncle Schindel, her brother-in-law Netz, and a few ladies of distinction; but the rich dishes seemed to be there merely for show, for the sun was already low in the west, and still the meal had not yet begun.

"Your betrothed stays long," said Netz, gaping, and tapping with his knife upon the silver goblet before him. "He was to have been with us about the middle of the day, and now the evening will soon be here. You must break him in better for the holy state of matrimony."