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

passed the pang of his loss, and there is reason in what old Sorel says, that he must have been a rugged, untaught savage, with little in common with the gentle one, and that tender memory hath decked him out as he never could have been.  Nay, Friedel, it is but sense.  What could a man have been under the granddame’s breeding?”

“It becomes not thee to say so!” returned Friedel.  “Nay, he could learn to love our mother.”

“One sign of grace, but doubtless she loved him the better for their having been so little together.  Her heart is at peace, believing him in his grave; but let her imagine him in Schlangenwald’s dungeon, or some Moorish galley, if thou likest it better, and how will her mild spirit be rent!”

“It might be so,” said Friedel, thoughtfully.  “It may be best to keep this secret from her till we have fuller certainty.”

“Agreed then,” said Ebbo, “unless the Wildschloss fellow should again molest us, when his answer is ready.”

“Is this just towards my mother?” said Friedel.

“Just!  What mean’st thou?  Is it not our office and our dearest right to shield our mother from care?  And is not her chief wish to be rid of the Wildschloss suit?”

Nevertheless Ebbo was moody all the way home, but when there he devoted himself in his most eager and winning way to his mother, telling her of Master Gottfried’s woodcuts, and Hausfrau Johanna’s rheumatism, and of all the news of the country, in especial that the Kaisar was at Lintz, very ill with a gangrene in his leg, said to have been caused by his habit of always kicking doors open, and that his doctors thought of amputation, a horrible idea in the fifteenth century.  The young baron was evidently bent on proving that no one could make his mother so happy as he could; and he was not far wrong there.

Friedel, however, could not rest till he had followed Heinz to the stable, and speaking over the back of the old white mare, the only other survivor of the massacre, had asked him once more for the particulars, a tale he was never loth to tell; but when Friedel further demanded whether he was certain of having seen the death of his younger lord, he replied, as if hurt: “What, think you I would have quitted him while life was yet in him?”

“No, certainly, good Heinz; yet I would fain know by what tokens thou knewest his death.”

“Ah!  Sir Friedel; when you have seen a stricken field or two, you will not ask how I know death from life.”

“Is a swoon so utterly unlike death?”

“I say not but that an inexperienced youth might be mistaken,” said Heinz; “but for one who had learned the bloody trade, it were impossible.  Why ask, sir?”

“Because,” said Friedel, low and mysteriously—“my brother would not have my mother know it, but—Count Schlangenwald demanded whether we could prove my father’s death.”

“Prove!  He could not choose but die with three such wounds, as the old ruffian knows.  I shall bless the day, Sir Friedmund, when I see you or your brother give back those strokes!  A heavy reckoning be his.”

“We all deem that line only meant to cross our designs,” said Friedel.  “Yet, Heinz, I would I knew how to find out what passed when thou wast gone.  Is there no servant at the inn—no retainer of Schlangenwald that aught could be learnt from?”

“By St. Gertrude,” roughly answered the Schneiderlein, “if you cannot be satisfied with the oath of a man like me, who would have given his life to save your father, I know not what will please you.”

Friedel, with his wonted good-nature, set himself to pacify the warrior with assurances of his trust; yet while Ebbo plunged more eagerly into plans for the bridge-building, Friedel drew more and more into his old world of musings; and many a summer afternoon was spent by him at the Ptarmigan’s Mere, in deep communings with himself, as one revolving a purpose.

Christina could not but observe, with a strange sense of foreboding, that, while one son was more than ever in the lonely mountain heights, the other was far more at the base.  Master Moritz Schleiermacher was a constant guest at the castle, and Ebbo was much taken up with his companionship.  He was a strong, shrewd man, still young, but with much experience, and he knew how to adapt himself to intercourse with the proud nobility, preserving an independent bearing, while avoiding all that haughtiness could take umbrage at; and thus he was acquiring a greater influence over Ebbo than was perceived by any save the watchful mother, who began to fear lest her son was acquiring an infusion of worldly wisdom and eagerness for gain that would indeed be a severance between him and his brother.

If she had known the real difference that unconsciously kept her sons apart, her heart would have ached yet more.

CHAPTER XVIII
FRIEDMUND IN THE CLOUDS

The stone was quarried high on the mountain, and a direct road was made for bringing it down to the water-side.  The castle profited by the road in accessibility, but its impregnability was so far lessened.  However, as Ebbo said, it was to be a friendly harbour, instead of a robber crag, and in case of need the communication could easily be destroyed.  The blocks of stone were brought down, and wooden sheds were erected for the workmen in the meadow.

In August, however, came tidings that, after two amputations of his diseased limb, the Kaisar Friedrich III. had died—it was said from over free use of melons in the fever consequent on the operation.  His death was not likely to make much change in the government, which had of late been left to his son.  At this time the King of the Romans (for the title of Kaisar was conferred only by coronation by the Pope, and this Maximilian never received) was at Innspruck collecting troops for the deliverance of Styria and Carinthia from a horde of invading Turks.  The Markgraf of Wurtemburg sent an intimation to all the Swabian League that the new sovereign would be best pleased if their homage were paid to him in his camp at the head of their armed retainers.

Here was the way of enterprise and honour open at last, and the young barons of Adlerstein eagerly prepared for it, equipping their vassals and sending to Ulm to take three or four men-at-arms into their pay, so as to make up twenty lances as the contingent of Adlerstein.  It was decided that Christina should spend the time of their absence at Ulm, whither her sons would escort her on their way to the camp.  The last busy day was over, and in the summer evening Christina was sitting on the castle steps listening to Ebbo’s eager talk of his plans of interesting his hero, the King of the Romans, in his bridge, and obtaining full recognition of his claim to the Debateable Strand, where the busy workmen could be seen far below.

Presently Ebbo, as usual when left to himself, grew restless for want of Friedel, and exclaiming, “The musing fit is on him!—he will stay all night at the tarn if I fetch him not,” he set off in quest of him, passing through the hamlet to look for him in the chapel on his way.

Not finding Friedel there, he was, however, some way up towards the tarn, when he met his brother wearing the beamy yet awestruck look that he often brought from the mountain height, yet with a steadfast expression of resolute purpose on his face.

“Ah, dreamer!” said Ebbo, “I knew where to seek thee!  Ever in the clouds!”

“Yes, I have been to the tarn,” said Friedel, throwing his arm round his brother’s neck in their boyish fashion.  “It has been very dear to me, and I longed to see its gray depths once more.”

“Once!  Yea manifold times shalt thou see them,” said Ebbo.  “Schleiermacher tells me that these are no Janissaries, but a mere miscreant horde, even by whom glory can scarce be gained, and no peril at all.”

“I know not,” said Friedel, “but it is to me as if I were taking my leave of all these purple hollows and heaven-lighted peaks cleaving the sky.  All the more, Ebbo, since I have made up my mind to a resolution.”

“Nay, none of the old monkish fancies,” cried Ebbo, “against them thou art sworn, so long as I am true knight.”

“No, it is not the monkish fancy, but I am convinced that it is my duty to strive to ascertain my father’s fate.  Hold, I say not that it is thine.  Thou hast thy charge here—”

“Looking for a dead man,” growled Ebbo; “a proper quest!”

“Not so,” returned Friedel.  “At the camp it will surely be possible to learn, through either Schlangenwald or his men, how it went with my father.  Men say that his surviving son, the Teutonic knight, is of very different mould.  He might bring something to light.  Were it proved to be as the Schneiderlein avers, then would our conscience be at rest; but, if he were in Schlangenwald’s dungeon—”

“Folly!  Impossible!”

“Yet men have pined eighteen years in dark vaults,” said Friedel; “and, when I think that so may he have wasted for the whole of our lives that have been so free and joyous on his own mountain, it irks me to bound on the heather or gaze at the stars.”

“If the serpent hath dared,” cried Ebbo, “though it is mere folly to think of it, we would summon the League and have his castle about his ears!  Not that I believe it.”

“Scarce do I,” said Friedel; “but there haunts me evermore the description of the kindly German chained between the decks of the Corsair’s galley.  Once and again have I dreamt thereof.  And, Ebbo, recollect the prediction that so fretted thee.  Might not yon dark-cheeked woman have had some knowledge of the East and its captives?”

Ebbo started, but resumed his former tone.  “So thou wouldst begin thine errantry like Sir Hildebert and Sir Hildebrand in the ‘Rose garden’?  Have a care.  Such quests end in mortal conflict between the unknown father and son.”

“I should know him,” said Friedel, enthusiastically, “or, at least, he would know my mother’s son in me; and, could I no otherwise ransom him, I would ply the oar in his stead.”

“A fine exchange for my mother and me,” gloomily laughed Ebbo, “to lose thee, my sublimated self, for a rude, savage lord, who would straightway undo all our work, and rate and misuse our sweet mother for being more civilized than himself.”

“Shame, Ebbo!” cried Friedel, “or art thou but in jest?”

“So far in jest that thou wilt never go, puissant Sir Hildebert,” returned Ebbo, drawing him closer.  “Thou wilt learn—as I also trust to do—in what nameless hole the serpent hid his remains.  Then shall they be duly coffined and blazoned.  All the monks in the cloisters for twenty miles round shall sing requiems, and thou and I will walk bareheaded, with candles in our hands, by the bier, till we rest him in the Blessed Friedmund’s chapel; and there Lucas Handlein shall carve his tomb, and thou shalt sit for the likeness.”

“So may it end,” said Friedel, “but either I will know him dead, or endeavour somewhat in his behalf.  And that the need is real, as well as the purpose blessed, I have become the more certain, for, Ebbo, as I rose to descend the hill, I saw on the cloud our patron’s very form—I saw myself kneel before him and receive his blessing.”

Ebbo burst out laughing.  “Now know I that it is indeed as saith Schleiermacher,” he said, “and that these phantoms of the Blessed Friedmund are but shadows cast by the sun on the vapours of the ravine.  See, Friedel, I had gone to seek thee at the chapel, and meeting Father Norbert, I bent my knee, that I might take his farewell blessing.  I had the substance, thou the shadow, thou dreamer!”

Friedel was as much mortified for the moment as his gentle nature could be.  Then he resumed his sweet smile, saying, “Be it so!  I have oft read that men are too prone to take visions and special providences to themselves, and now I have proved the truth of the saying.”

“And,” said Ebbo, “thou seest thy purpose is as baseless as thy vision?”

“No, Ebbo.  It grieves me to differ from thee, but my resolve is older than the fancy, and may not be shaken because I was vain enough to believe that the Blessed Friedmund could stoop to bless me.”

“Ha!” shouted Ebbo, glad to see an object on which to vent his secret annoyance.  “Who goes there, skulking round the rocks?  Here, rogue, what art after here?”

“No harm,” sullenly replied a half-clad boy.

“Whence art thou?  From Schlangenwald, to spy what more we can be robbed of?  The lash—”

“Hold,” interposed Friedel.  “Perchance the poor lad had no evil purposes.  Didst lose thy way?”

“No, sir, my mother sent me.”

“I thought so,” cried Ebbo.  “This comes of sparing the nest of thankless adders!”

“Nay,” said Friedel, “mayhap it is