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

“Sir,” said the boy, coming nearer, “I will tell you—you I will tell—not him who threatens.  Mother said you spared our huts, and the lady gave us bread when we came to the castle gate in winter, and she would not see the reiters lay waste your folk’s doings down there without warning you.”

“My good lad!  What saidst thou?” cried Ebbo, but the boy seemed dumb before him, and Friedel repeated the question ere he answered: “All the lanzknechts and reiters are at the castle, and the Herr Graf has taken all my father’s young sheep for them, a plague upon him.  And our folk are warned to be at the muster rock to-morrow morn, each with a bundle of straw and a pine brand; and Black Berend heard the body squire say the Herr Graf had sworn not to go to the wars till every stick at the ford be burnt, every stone drowned, every workman hung.”

Ebbo, in a transport of indignation and gratitude, thrust his hand into his pouch, and threw the boy a handful of groschen, while Friedel gave warm thanks, in the utmost haste, ere both brothers sprang with headlong speed down the wild path, to take advantage of the timely intelligence.

The little council of war was speedily assembled, consisting of the barons, their mother, Master Moritz Schleiermacher, Heinz, and Hatto.  To bring up to the castle the workmen, their families, and the more valuable implements, was at once decided; and Christina asked whether there would be anything left worth defending, and whether the Schlangenwalden might not expend their fury on the scaffold, which could be newly supplied from the forest, the huts, which could be quickly restored, and the stones, which could hardly be damaged.  The enemy must proceed to the camp in a day or two, and the building would be less assailable by their return; and, besides, it was scarcely lawful to enter on a private war when the imperial banner was in the field.

“Craving your pardon, gracious lady,” said the architect, “that blame rests with him who provokes the war.  See, lord baron, there is time to send to Ulm, where the two guilds, our allies, will at once equip their trained bands and despatch them.  We meanwhile will hold the knaves in check, and, by the time our burghers come up, the snake brood will have had such a lesson as they will not soon forget.  Said I well, Herr Freiherr?”

“Right bravely,” said Ebbo.  “It consorts not with our honour or rights, with my pledges to Ulm, or the fame of my house, to shut ourselves up and see the rogues work their will scatheless.  My own score of men, besides the stouter masons, carpenters, and serfs, will be fully enough to make the old serpent of the wood rue the day, even without the aid of the burghers.  Not a word against it, dearest mother.  None is so wise as thou in matters of peace, but honour is here concerned.”

“My question is,” persevered the mother, “whether honour be not better served by obeying the summons of the king against the infidel, with the men thou hast called together at his behest?  Let the count do his worst; he gives thee legal ground of complaint to lay before the king and the League, and all may there be more firmly established.”

“That were admirable counsel, lady,” said Schleiermacher, “well suited to the honour-worthy guildmaster Sorel, and to our justice-loving city; but, in matters of baronial rights and aggressions, king and League are wont to help those that help themselves, and those that are over nice as to law and justice come by the worst.”

“Not the worst in the long run,” said Friedel.

“Thine unearthly code will not serve us here, Friedel mine,” returned his brother.  “Did I not defend the work I have begun, I should be branded as a weak fool.  Nor will I see the foes of my house insult me without striking a fair stroke.  Hap what hap, the Debateable Ford shall be debated!  Call in the serfs, Hatto, and arm them.  Mother, order a good supper for them.  Master Moritz, let us summon thy masons and carpenters, and see who is a good man with his hands among them.”

Christina saw that remonstrance was vain.  The days of peril and violence were coming back again; and all she could take comfort in was, that, if not wholly right, her son was far from wholly wrong, and that with a free heart she could pray for a blessing on him and on his arms.

By the early September sunrise the thicket beneath the pass was sheltering the twenty well-appointed reiters of Adlerstein, each standing, holding his horse by the bridle, ready to mount at the instant.  In their rear were the serfs and artisans, some with axes, scythes, or ploughshares, a few with cross-bows, and Jobst and his sons with the long blackened poles used for stirring their charcoal fires.  In advance were Master Moritz and the two barons, the former in a stout plain steel helmet, cuirass, and gauntlets, a sword, and those new-fashioned weapons, pistols; the latter in full knightly armour, exactly alike, from the gilt-spurred heel to the eagle-crested helm, and often moving restlessly forward to watch for the enemy, though taking care not to be betrayed by the glitter of their mail.  So long did they wait that there was even a doubt whether it might not have been a false alarm; the boy was vituperated, and it was proposed to despatch a spy to see whether anything were doing at Schlangenwald.

At length a rustling and rushing were heard; then a clank of armour.  Ebbo vaulted into the saddle, and gave the word to mount; Schleiermacher, who always fought on foot, stepped up to him.  “Keep back your men, Herr Freiherr.  Let his design be manifest.  We must not be said to have fallen on him on his way to the muster.”

“It would be but as he served my father!” muttered Ebbo, forced, however, to restrain himself, though with boiling blood, as the tramp of horses shook the ground, and bright armour became visible on the further side of the stream.

For the first time, the brothers beheld the foe of their line.  He was seated on a clumsy black horse, and sheathed in full armour, and was apparently a large heavy man, whose powerful proportions were becoming unwieldy as he advanced in life.  The dragon on his crest and shield would have made him known to the twins, even without the deadly curse that passed the Schneiderlein’s lips at the sight.  As the armed troop, out-numbering the Adlersteiners by about a dozen, and followed by a rabble with straw and pine brands, came forth on the meadow, the count halted and appeared to be giving orders.

“The ruffian!  He is calling them on!  Now—” began Ebbo.

“Nay, there is no sign yet that he is not peacefully on his journey to the camp,” responded Moritz; and, chafing with impatient fury, the knight waited while Schlangenwald rode towards the old channel of the Braunwasser, and there, drawing his rein, and sitting like a statue in his stirrups, he could hear him shout: “The lazy dogs are not astir yet.  We will give them a réveille.  Forward with your brands!”

“Now!” and Ebbo’s cream-coloured horse leapt forth, as the whole band flashed into the sunshine from the greenwood covert.

“Who troubles the workmen on my land?” shouted Ebbo.

“Who you may be I care not,” replied the count, “but when I find strangers unlicensed on my lands, I burn down their huts.  On, fellows!”

“Back, fellows!” called Ebbo.  “Whoso touches a stick on Adlerstein ground shall suffer.”

“So!” said the count, “this is the burgher-bred, burgher-fed varlet, that calls himself of Adlerstein!  Boy, thou had best be warned.  Wert thou true-blooded, it were worth my while to maintain my rights against thee.  Craven as thou art, not even with spirit to accept my feud, I would fain not have the trouble of sweeping thee from my path.”

“Herr Graf, as true Freiherr and belted knight, I defy thee!  I proclaim my right to this ground, and whoso damages those I place there must do battle with me.”

“Thou wilt have it then,” said the count, taking his heavy lance from his squire, closing his visor, and wheeling back his horse, so as to give space for his career.

Ebbo did the like, while Friedel on one side, and Hierom von Schlangenwald on the other, kept their men in array, awaiting the issue of the strife between their leaders—the fire of seventeen against the force of fifty-six.

They closed in full shock, with shivered lances and rearing, pawing horses, but without damage to either.  Each drew his sword, and they were pressing together, when Heinz, seeing a Schlangenwalder aiming with his cross-bow, rode at him furiously, and the mêlée became general; shots were fired, not only from cross-bows, but from arquebuses, and in the throng Friedel lost sight of the main combat between his brother and the count.

Suddenly however there was a crash, as of falling men and horses, with a shout of victory strangely mingled with a cry of agony, and both sides became aware that their leaders had fallen.  Each party rushed to its fallen head.  Friedel beheld Ebbo under his struggling horse, and an enemy dashing at his throat, and, flying to the rescue, he rode down the assailant, striking him with his sword; and, with the instinct of driving the foe as far as possible from his brother, he struck with a sort of frenzy, shouting fiercely to his men, and leaping over the dry bed of the river, rushing onward with an intoxication of ardour that would have seemed foreign to his gentle nature, but for the impetuous desire to protect his brother.  Their leaders down, the enemy had no one to rally them, and, in spite of their superiority in number, gave way in confusion before the furious onset of Adlerstein.  So soon, however, as Friedel perceived that he had forced the enemy far back from the scene of conflict, his anxiety for his brother returned, and, leaving the retainers to continue the pursuit, he turned his horse.  There, on the green meadow, lay on the one hand Ebbo’s cream-coloured charger, with his master under him, on the other the large figure of the count; and several other prostrate forms likewise struggled on the sand and pebbles of the strand, or on the turf.

“Ay,” said the architect, who had turned with Friedel, “’twas a gallant feat, Sir Friedel, and I trust there is no great harm done.  Were it the mere dint of the count’s sword, your brother will be little the worse.”

“Ebbo!  Ebbo mine, look up!” cried Friedel, leaping from his horse, and unclasping his brother’s helmet.

“Friedel!” groaned a half-suffocated voice.  “O take away the horse.”

One or two of the artisans were at hand, and with their help the dying steed was disengaged from the rider, who could not restrain his moans, though Friedel held him in his arms, and endeavoured to move him as gently as possible.  It was then seen that the deep gash from the count’s sword in the chest was not the most serious injury, but that an arquebus ball had pierced his thigh, before burying itself in the body of his horse; and that the limb had been further crushed and wrenched by the animal’s struggles.  He was nearly unconscious, and gasped with anguish, but, after Moritz had bathed his face and moistened his lips, as he lay in his brother’s arms, he looked up with clearer eyes, and said: “Have I slain him?  It was the shot, not he, that sent me down.  Lives he?  See—thou, Friedel—thou.  Make him yield.”

Transferring Ebbo to the arms of Schleiermacher, Friedel obeyed, and stepped towards the fallen foe.  The wrongs of Adlerstein were indeed avenged, for the blood was welling fast from a deep thrust above the collar-bone, and the failing, feeble hand was wandering uncertainly among the clasps of the gorget.

“Let me aid,” said Friedel, kneeling down, and in his pity for the dying man omitting the summons to yield, he threw back the helmet, and beheld a grizzled head and stern hard features, so embrowned by weather and inflamed by intemperance, that even approaching death failed to blanch them.  A scowl of malignant hate was in the eyes, and there was a thrill of angry wonder as they fell on the lad’s face.  “Thou again,—thou whelp!  I thought at least I had made an end of thee,” he muttered, unheard by Friedel, who, intent on the thought that had recurred to him with greater vividness than ever, was again filling Ebbo’s helmet with water.  He refreshed the dying man’s face with it, held it to his lips, and said: “Herr Graf, variance and strife are ended now.  For heaven’s sake, say where I may find my father!”

“So!  Wouldst find him?” replied Schlangenwald, fixing his look on the eager countenance of the youth, while his hand, with a dying man’s nervous agitation, was fumbling at his