The Dove in the Eagle's Nest, Charlotte M. Yonge [beach read book .txt] 📗

worse off than ever were my forefathers!"

"But how is it? I cannot understand," asked Friedel. "What has changed thy mind?"

"Thou, and the mother, and, more than all, the grandame. Listen, Friedel: when thou camest up, in all the whirl of eagerness and glad preparation, with thy grave face and murmur that Jobst had put forked stakes in the stream, it was past man's endurance to be baulked of the fray. Thou hast forgotten what I said to thee then, good Friedel?"

"Long since. No doubt I thrust in vexatiously."

"Not so," said Ebbo; "and I saw thou hadst reason, for the stakes were most maliciously planted, with long branches hid by the current; but the fellows were showing fight, and I could not stay to think then, or I should have seemed to fear them! I can tell you we made them run! But I never meant the grandmother to put yon poor fellow in the dungeon, and use him worse than a dog. I wot that he was my captive, and none of hers. And then came the mother; and oh, Friedel, she looked as if I were slaying her when she saw the spoil; and, ere I had made her see right and reason, the old lady came swooping down in full malice and spite, and actually came to blows. She struck the motherling--struck her on the face, Friedel!"

"I fear me it has so been before," said Friedel, sadly.

"Never will it be so again," said Ebbo, standing still. "I took the old hag by the hands, and told her she had ruled long enough! My father's wife is as good a lady of the castle as my grandfather's, and I myself am lord thereof; and, since my Lady Kunigunde chooses to cross me and beat my mother about this capture, why she has seen the last of it, and may learn who is master, and who is mistress!"

"Oh, Ebbo! I would I had seen it! But was not she outrageous? Was not the mother shrinking and ready to give back all her claims at once?"

"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 Wildschloss! 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