The Dove in the Eagle's Nest, Charlotte M. Yonge [i want to read a book txt] 📗

“Perhaps she would have been, but just then she found thou wast not with me, and I found thou wast not with her, and we thought of nought else.  But thou must stand by me, Friedel, and help to keep the grandmother in her place, and the mother in hers.”

“If the mother will be kept,” said Friedel.  “I fear me she will only plead to be left to the grandame’s treatment, as before.”

“Never, Friedel!  I will never see her so used again.  I released this man solely to show that she is to rule here.—Yes, I know all about freebooting being a deadly sin, and moreover that it will bring the League about our ears; and it was a cowardly trick of Jobst to put those branches in the stream.  Did I not go over it last night till my brain was dizzy?  But still, it is but living and dying like our fathers, and I hate tameness or dullness, and it is like a fool to go back from what one has once begun.”

“No; it is like a brave man, when one has begun wrong,” said Friedel.

“But then I thought of the grandame triumphing over the gentle mother—and I know the mother wept over her beads half the night.  She shall find she has had her own way for once this morning.”

Friedel was silent for a few moments, then said, “Let me tell thee what I saw yesterday, Ebbo.”

“So,” answered the other brother.

“I liked not to vex my mother by my tidings, so I climbed up to the tarn.  There is something always healing in that spot, is it not so, Ebbo?  When the grandmother has been raving” (hitherto Friedel’s worst grievance) “it is like getting up nearer the quiet sky in the stillness there, when the sky seems to have come down into the deep blue water, and all is so still, so wondrous still and calm.  I wonder if, when we see the great Dome Kirk itself, it will give one’s spirit wings, as does the gazing up from the Ptarmigan’s Pool.”

“Thou minnesinger, was it the blue sky thou hadst to tell me of?”

“No, brother, it was ere I reached it that I saw this sight.  I had scaled the peak where grows the stunted rowan, and I sat down to look down on the other side of the gorge.  It was clear where I sat, but the ravine was filled with clouds, and upon them—”

“The shape of the blessed Friedmund, thy patron?”

“Our patron,” said Friedel; “I saw him, a giant form in gown and hood, traced in grey shadow upon the dazzling white cloud; and oh, Ebbo! he was struggling with a thinner, darker, wilder shape bearing a club.  He strove to withhold it; his gestures threatened and warned!  I watched like one spell-bound, for it was to me as the guardian spirit of our race striving for thee with the enemy.”

“How did it end?”

“The cloud darkened, and swallowed them; nor should I have known the issue, if suddenly, on the very cloud where the strife had been, there had not beamed forth a rainbow—not a common rainbow, Ebbo, but a perfect ring, a soft-glancing, many-tinted crown of victory.  Then I knew the saint had won, and that thou wouldst win.”

“I!  What, not thyself—his own namesake?”

“I thought, Ebbo, if the fight went very hard—nay, if for a time the grandame led thee her way—that belike I might serve thee best by giving up all, and praying for thee in the hermit’s cave, or as a monk.”

“Thou!—thou, my other self!  Aid me by burrowing in a hole like a rat!  What foolery wilt say next?  No, no, Friedel, strike by my side, and I will strike with thee; pray by my side, and I will pray with thee; but if thou takest none of the strokes, then will I none of the prayers!”

“Ebbo, thou knowest not what thou sayest.”

“No one knows better!  See, Friedel, wouldst thou have me all that the old Adlersteinen were, and worse too? then wilt thou leave me and hide thine head in some priestly cowl.  Maybe thou thinkest to pray my soul into safety at the last moment as a favour to thine own abundant sanctity; but I tell thee, Friedel, that’s no manly way to salvation.  If thou follow’st that track, I’ll take care to get past the border-line within which prayer can help.”

Friedel crossed himself, and uttered an imploring exclamation of horror at these wild words.

“Stay,” said Ebbo; “I said not I meant any such thing—so long as thou wilt be with me.  My purpose is to be a good man and true, a guard to the weak, a defence against the Turk, a good lord to my vassals, and, if it may not be otherwise, I will take my oath to the Kaiser, and keep it.  Is that enough for thee, Friedel, or wouldst thou see me a monk at once?”

“Oh, Ebbo, this is what we ever planned.  I only dreamed of the other when—when thou didst seem to be on the other track.”

“Well, what can I do more than turn back?  I’ll get absolution on Sunday, and tell Father Norbert that I will do any penance he pleases; and warn Jobst that, if he sets any more traps in the river, I will drown him there next!  Only get this priestly fancy away, Friedel, once and for ever!”

“Never, never could I think of what would sever us,” cried Friedel, “save—when—” he added, hesitating, unwilling to harp on the former string.  Ebbo broke in imperiously,

“Friedmund von Adlerstein, give me thy solemn word that I never again hear of this freak of turning priest or hermit.  What! art slow to speak?  Thinkest me too bad for thee?”

“No, Ebbo.  Heaven knows thou art stronger, more resolute than I.  I am more likely to be too bad for thee.  But so long as we can be true, faithful God-fearing Junkern together, Heaven forbid that we should part!”

“It is our bond!” said Ebbo; “nought shall part us.”

“Nought but death,” said Friedmund, solemnly.

“For my part,” said Ebbo, with perfect seriousness, “I do not believe that one of us can live or die without the other.  But, hark! there’s an outcry at the castle!  They have found out that they are locked in!  Ha! ho! hilloa, Hatto, how like you playing prisoner?”

Ebbo would have amused himself with the dismay of his garrison a little longer, had not Friedel reminded him that their mother might be suffering for their delay, and this suggestion made him march in hastily.  He found her standing drooping under the pitiless storm which Frau Kunigunde was pouring out at the highest pitch of her cracked, trembling voice, one hand uplifted and clenched, the other grasping the back of a chair, while her whole frame shook with rage too mighty for her strength.

“Grandame,” said Ebbo, striding up to the scene of action, “cease.  Remember my words yestereve.”

“She has stolen the keys!  She has tampered with the servants!  She has released the prisoner—thy prisoner, Ebbo!  She has cheated us as she did with p. 126Wildschloss!  False burgherinn!  I trow she wanted another suitor!  Bane—pest of Adlerstein!”

Friedmund threw a supporting arm round his mother, but Ebbo confronted the old lady.  “Grandmother,” he said, “I freed the captive.  I stole the keys—I and Friedel!  No one else knew my purpose.  He was my captive, and I released him because he was foully taken.  I have chosen my lot in life,” he added; and, standing in the middle of the hall, he took off his cap, and spoke gravely:—“I will not be a treacherous robber-outlaw, but, so help me God, a faithful, loyal, godly nobleman.”

His mother and Friedel breathed an “Amen” with all their hearts; and he continued,

“And thou, grandame, peace!  Such reverence shalt thou have as befits my father’s mother; but henceforth mine own lady-mother is the mistress of this castle, and whoever speaks a rude word to her offends the Freiherr von Adlerstein.”

That last day’s work had made a great step in Ebbo’s life, and there he stood, grave and firm, ready for the assault; for, in effect, he and all besides expected that the old lady would fly at him or at his mother like a wild cat, as she would assuredly have done in a like case a year earlier; but she took them all by surprise by collapsing into her chair and sobbing piteously.  Ebbo, much distressed, tried to make her understand that she was to have all care and honour; but she muttered something about ingratitude, and continued to exhaust herself with weeping, spurning away all who approached her; and thenceforth she lived in a gloomy, sullen acquiescence in her deposition.

Christina inclined to the opinion that she must have had some slight stroke in the night, for she was never the same woman again; her vigour had passed away, and she would sit spinning, or rocking herself in her chair, scarcely alive to what passed, or scolding and fretting like a shadow of her old violence.  Nothing pleased her but the attentions of her grandsons, and happily she soon ceased to know them apart, and gave Ebbo credit for all that was done for her by Friedel, whose separate existence she seemed to have forgotten.

As long as her old spirit remained she would not suffer the approach of her daughter-in-law, and Christina could only make suggestions for her comfort to be acted on by Ursel; and though the reins of government fast dropped from the aged hands, they were but gradually and cautiously assumed by the younger Baroness.

Only Elsie remained of the rude, demoralized girls whom she had found in the castle, and their successors, though dull and uncouth, were meek and manageable; the men of the castle had all, except Mätz, been always devoted to the Frau Christina; and Mätz, to her great relief, ran away so soon as he found that decency and honesty were to be the rule.  Old Hatto, humpbacked Hans, and Heinz the Schneiderlein, were the whole male establishment, and had at least the merit of attachment to herself and her sons; and in time there was a shade of greater civilization about the castle, though impeded both by dire poverty and the doggedness of the old retainers.  At least the court was cleared of the swine, and, within doors, the table was spread with dainty linen out of the parcels from Ulm, and the meals served with orderliness that annoyed the boys at first, but soon became a subject of pride and pleasure.

Frau Kunigunde lingered long, with increasing infirmities.  After the winter day, when, running down at a sudden noise, Friedel picked her up from the hearthstone, scorched, bruised, almost senseless, she accepted Christina’s care with nothing worse than a snarl, and gradually seemed to forget the identity of her nurse with the interloping burgher girl.  Thanks or courtesy had been no part of her nature, least of all towards her own sex, and she did little but grumble, fret, and revile her attendant; but she soon depended so much on Christina’s care, that it was hardly possible to leave her.  At her best and strongest, her talk was maundering abuse of her son’s low-born wife; but at times her wanderings showed black gulfs of iniquity and coarseness of soul that would make the gentle listener tremble, and be thankful that her sons were out of hearing.  And thus did Christina von Adlerstein requite fifteen years of persecution.

The old lady’s first failure had been in the summer of 1488; it was the Advent season of 1489, when the snow was at the deepest, and the frost at the hardest, that the two hardy mountaineer grandsons fetched over the pass Father Norbert, and a still sturdier, stronger monk, to the dying woman.

“Are we in time, mother?” asked Ebbo, from the door of the upper chamber, where the Adlersteins began and ended life, shaking the snow from his mufflings.  Ruddy with exertion in the sharp wind, what a contrast he was to all within the room!

“Who is that?” said a thin, feeble voice.

“It is Ebbo.  It is the Baron,” said Christina.  “Come in, Ebbo.  She is somewhat revived.”

“Will she be able to speak to the priest?” asked Ebbo.

“Priest!” feebly screamed the old woman.  “No priest for me!  My lord died unshriven, unassoilzied.  Where he is, there will I be.  Let a priest approach me at his peril!”

Stony insensibility ensued; nor did she speak again, though life lasted many hours longer.  The priests did their office; for, impenitent as the life and frantic as the words had been, the opinions of the time deemed that their rites might yet give the departing soul a chance, though the body was unconscious.

When all was over, snow was again falling, shifting and drifting, so that it was impossible to leave