The Dove in the Eagle's Nest Part 15

For in truth there was in the soul of the boy, who had never had any but women to look up to, a strange yearning towards reverence, which was called into action with inexpressible force by the very aspect and tone of such a sage elder and counsellor as Master Gottfried Sorel, and he took advantage of the first opening permitted by his brother. And the sympathy always so strong between the two quickened the like feeling in Ebbo, so that the same movement drew him on his knee beside Friedel in oblivion or renunciation of all lordly pride towards a kinsman such as he had here encountered.

"Truly and heartily, my fair youths," said Master Gottfried, with the same kind dignity, "do I pray the good G.o.d to bless you, and render you faithful and loving sons, not only to your mother, but to your fatherland."

He was unable to distinguish between the two exactly similar forms that knelt before him, yet there was something in the quivering of Friedel's head, which made him press it with a shade more of tenderness than the other. And in truth tears were welling into the eyes veiled by the fingers that Friedel clasped over his face, for such a blessing was strange and sweet to him.

Their mother was ready to weep for joy. There was now no drawback to her bliss, since her son and her uncle had accepted one another; and she repaired to her own beloved old chamber a happier being than she had been since she had left its wainscoted walls.

Nay, as she gazed out at the familiar outlines of roof and tower, and felt herself truly at home, then knelt by the little undisturbed altar of her devotions, with the cross above and her own patron saint below in carved wood, and the flowers which the good aunt had ever kept as a freshly renewed offering, she felt that she was happier, more fully thankful and blissful than even in the girlish calm of her untroubled life. Her prayer that she might come again in peace had been more than fulfilled; nay, when she had seen her boys kneel meekly to receive her uncle's blessing, it was in some sort to her as if the work was done, as if the millstone had been borne up for her, and had borne her and her dear ones with it.

But there was much to come. She knew full well that, even though her sons' first step had been in the right direction, it was in a path beset with difficulties; and how would her proud Ebbo meet them?

CHAPTER XIII: THE EAGLETS IN THE CITY

After having once accepted Master Gottfried, Ebbo froze towards him and Dame Johanna no more, save that a naturally imperious temper now and then led to fitful stiffnesses and momentary haughtiness, which were easily excused in one so new to the world and afraid of compromising his rank. In general he could afford to enjoy himself with a zest as hearty as that of the simpler-minded Friedel.

They were early afoot, but not before the heads of the household were coming forth for the morning devotions at the cathedral; and the streets were stirring into activity, and becoming so peopled that the boys supposed that it was a great fair day. They had never seen so many people together even at the Friedmund Wake, and it was several days before they ceased to exclaim at every pa.s.senger as a new curiosity.

The Dome Kirk awed and hushed them. They had looked to it so long that perhaps no sublunary thing could have realized their expectations, and Friedel avowed that he did not know what he thought of it. It was not such as he had dreamt, and, like a German as he was, he added that he could not think, he could only feel, that there was something ineffable in it; yet he was almost disappointed to find his visions unfulfilled, and the hues of the painted gla.s.s less pure and translucent than those of the ice crystals on the mountains. However after his eye had become trained, the deep influence of its dim solemn majesty, and of the echoes of its organ tones, and chants of high praise or earnest prayer, began to enchain his spirit; and, if ever he were missing, he was sure to be found among the mysteries of the cathedral aisles, generally with Ebbo, who felt the spell of the same grave fascination, since whatever was true of the one brother was generally true of the other. They were essentially alike, though some phases of character and taste were more developed in the one or the other.

Master Gottfried was much edified by their perfect knowledge of the names and numbers of his books. They instantly, almost resentfully, missed the Cicero's Offices that he had parted with, and joyfully hailed his new acquisitions, often sitting with heads together over the same book, reading like active-minded youths who were used to out-of-door life and exercise in superabundant measure, and to study as a valued recreation, with only food enough for the intellect to awaken instead of satisfying it.

They were delighted to obtain instruction from a travelling student, then attending the schools of Ulm-a meek, timid lad who, for love of learning and desire of the priesthood, had endured frightful tyranny from the Bacchanten or elder scholars, and, having at length attained that rank, had so little heart to retaliate on the juniors that his contemporaries despised him, and led him a cruel life until he obtained food and shelter from Master Gottfried at the pleasant cost of lessons to the young Barons. Poor Bastien! this land of quiet, civility, and books was a foretaste of Paradise to him after the hard living, barbarity, and coa.r.s.e vices of his comrades, of whom he now and then disclosed traits that made his present pupils long to give battle to the big s.h.a.ggy youths who used to send out the lesser lads to beg and steal for them, and cruelly maltreated such as failed in the quest.

Lessons in music and singing were gladly accepted by both lads, and from their uncle's carving they could not keep their hands. Ebbo had begun by enjoining Friedel to remember that the work that had been sport in the mountains would be basely mechanical in the city, and Friedel as usual yielded his private tastes; but on the second day Ebbo himself was discovered in the workshop, watching the magic touch of the deft workman, and he was soon so enticed by the perfect appliances as to take tool in hand and prove himself not unadroit in the craft. Friedel however excelled in delicacy of touch and grace and originality of conception, and produced such workmans.h.i.+p that Master Gottfried could not help stroking his hair and telling him it was a pity he was not born to belong to the guild.

"I cannot spare him, sir," cried Ebbo; "priest, scholar, minstrel, artist-all want him."

"What, Hans of all streets, Ebbo?" interrupted Friedel.

"And guildmaster of none," said Ebbo, "save as a warrior; the rest only enough for a gentleman! For what I am thou must be!"

But Ebbo did not find fault with the skill Friedel was bestowing on his work-a carving in wood of a dove brooding over two young eagles- -the device that both were resolved to a.s.sume. When their mother asked what their lady-loves would say to this, Ebbo looked up, and with the fullest conviction in his l.u.s.trous eyes declared that no love should ever rival his motherling in his heart. For truly her tender sweetness had given her sons' affection a touch of romance, for which Master Gottfried liked them the better, though his wife thought their familiarity with her hardly accordant with the patriarchal discipline of the citizens.

The youths held aloof from these burghers, for Master Gottfried wisely desired to give them time to be tamed before running risk of offence, either to, or by, their wild shy pride; and their mother contrived to time her meetings with her old companions when her sons were otherwise occupied. Master Gottfried made it known that the marriage portion he had designed for his niece had been intrusted to a merchant trading in peltry to Muscovy, and the sum thus realized was larger than any bride had yet brought to Adlerstein. Master Gottfried would have liked to continue the same profitable speculations with it; but this would have been beyond the young Baron's endurance, and his eyes sparkled when his mother spoke of repairing the castle, refitting the chapel, having a resident chaplain, cultivating more land, increasing the scanty stock of cattle, and attempting the improvements. .h.i.therto prevented by lack of means. He fervently declared that the motherling was more than equal to the wise spinning Queen Bertha of legend and lay; and the first pleasant sense of wealth came in the acquisition of horses, weapons, and braveries. In his original mood, Ebbo would rather have stood before the Diet in his home-spun blue than have figured in cloth of gold at a burgher's expense; but he had learned to love his uncle, he regarded the marriage portion as family property, and moreover he sorely longed to feel himself and his brother well mounted, and scarcely less to see his mother in a velvet gown.

Here was his chief point of sympathy with the housemother, who, herself precluded from wearing miniver, velvet, or pearls, longed to deck her niece therewith, in time to receive Sir Kasimir of Adlerstein Wildschloss, as he had promised to meet his G.o.dsons at Ulm. The knight's marriage had lasted only a few years, and had left him no surviving children except one little daughter, whom he had placed in a nunnery at Ulm, under the care of her mother's sister. His lands lay higher up the Danube, and he was expected at Ulm shortly before the Emperor's arrival. He had been chiefly in Flanders with the King of the Romans, and had only returned to Germany when the Netherlanders had refused the regency of Maximilian, and driven him out of their country, depriving him of the custody of his children.

Pfingsttag, or Pentecost-day, was the occasion of Christina's first full toilet, and never was bride more solicitously or exultingly arrayed than she, while one boy held the mirror and the other criticized and admired as the aunt adjusted the pearl-bordered coif, and long white veil floating over the long-desired black velvet dress. How the two lads admired and gazed, caring far less for their own new and n.o.ble attire! Friedel was indeed somewhat concerned that the sword by his side was so much handsomer than that which Ebbo wore, and which, for all its dinted scabbard and battered hilt, he was resolved never to discard.

It was a festival of brilliant joy. Wreaths of flowers hung from the windows; rich tapestries decked the Dome Kirk, and the relics were displayed in shrines of wonderful costliness of material and beauty of workmans.h.i.+p; little birds, with thin cakes fastened to their feet, were let loose to fly about the church, in strange allusion to the event of the day; the clergy wore their most gorgeous robes; and the exulting music of the ma.s.s echoed from the vaults of the long-drawn aisles, and brought a rapt look of deep calm ecstasy over Friedel's sensitive features. The beggars evidently considered a festival as a harvest-day, and crowded round the doors of the cathedral. As the Lady of Adlerstein came out leaning on Ebbo's arm, with Friedel on her other side, they evidently attracted the notice of a woman whose thin brown face looked the darker for the striped red and yellow silk kerchief that bound the dark locks round her brow, as, holding out a beringed hand, she fastened her glittering jet black eyes on them, and exclaimed, "Alms! if the fair dame and knightly Junkern would hear what fate has in store for them."

"We meddle not with the future, I thank thee," said Christina, seeing that her sons, to whom gipsies were an amazing novelty, were in extreme surprise at the fortune-telling proposal.

"Yet could I tell much, lady," said the woman, still standing in the way. "What would some here present give to know that the locks that were shrouded by the widow's veil ere ever they wore the matron's coif shall yet return to the coif once more?"

Ebbo gave a sudden start of dismay and pa.s.sion; his mother held him fast. "Push on, Ebbo, mine; heed her not; she is a mere Bohemian."

"But how knew she your history, mother?" asked Friedel, eagerly.

"That might be easily learnt at our Wake," began Christina; but her steps were checked by a call from Master Gottfried just behind. "Frau Freiherrinn, Junkern, not so fast. Here is your n.o.ble kinsman."

A tall, fine-looking person, in the long rich robe worn on peaceful occasions, stood forth, doffing his eagle-plumed bonnet, and, as the lady turned and curtsied low, he put his knee to the ground and kissed her hand, saying, "Well met, n.o.ble dame; I felt certain that I knew you when I beheld you in the Dome."

"He was gazing at her all the time," whispered Ebbo to his brother; while their mother, blus.h.i.+ng, replied, "You do me too much honour, Herr Freiherr."

"Once seen, never to be forgotten," was the courteous answer: "and truly, but for the stately height of these my G.o.dsons I would not believe how long since our meeting was."

Thereupon, in true German fas.h.i.+on, Sir Kasimir embraced each youth in the open street, and then, removing his long, embroidered Spanish glove, he offered his hand, or rather the tips of his fingers, to lead the Frau Christina home.

Master Sorel had invited him to become his guest at a very elaborate ornamental festival meal in honour of the great holiday, at which were to be present several wealthy citizens with their wives and families, old connections of the Sorel family. Ebbo had resolved upon treating them with courteous reserve and distance; but he was surprised to find his cousin of Wildschloss comporting himself among the burgomasters and their dames as freely as though they had been his equals, and to see that they took such demeanour as perfectly natural. Quick to perceive, the boy gathered that the gulf between n.o.ble and burgher was so great that no intimacy could bridge it over, no reserve widen it, and that his own bashful hauteur was almost a sign that he knew that the gulf had been pa.s.sed by his own parents; but shame and consciousness did not enable him to alter his manner but rather added to its stiffness.

"The Junker is like an Englishman," said Sir Kasimir, who had met many of the exiles of the Roses at the court of Mary of Burgundy; and then he turned to discuss with the guildmasters the interruption to trade caused by Flemish jealousies.

After the lengthy meal, the tables were removed, the long gallery was occupied by musicians, and Master Gottfried crossed the hall to tell his eldest grandnephew that to him he should depute the opening of the dance with the handsome bride of the Rathsherr, Ulrich Burger. Ebbo blushed up to the eyes, and muttered that he prayed his uncle to excuse him.

"So!" said the old citizen, really displeased; "thy kinsman might have proved to thee that it is no derogation of thy lordly dignity. I have been patient with thee, but thy pride pa.s.ses-"

"Sir," interposed Friedel hastily, raising his sweet candid face with a look between shame and merriment, "it is not that; but you forget what poor mountaineers we are. Never did we tread a measure save now and then with our mother on a winter evening, and we know no more than a chamois of your intricate measures."

Master Gottfried looked perplexed, for these dances were matters of great punctilio. It was but seven years since the Lord of Praunstein had defied the whole city of Frankfort because a damsel of that place had refused to dance with one of his Cousins; and, though "Fistright" and letters of challenge had been made illegal, yet the whole city of Ulm would have resented the affront put on it by the young lord of Adlerstein. Happily the Freiherr of Adlerstein Wildschloss was at hand. "Herr Burgomaster," he said, "let me commence the dance with your fair lady niece. By your testimony," he added, smiling to the youths, "she can tread a measure. And, after marking us, you may try your success with the Rathsherrinn."

Christina would gladly have transferred her n.o.ble partner to the Rathsherrinn, but she feared to mortify her good uncle and aunt further, and consented to figure alone with Sir Kasimir in one of the majestic, graceful dances performed by a single couple before a gazing a.s.sembly. So she let him lead her to her place, and they bowed and bent, swept past one another, and moved in interlacing lines and curves, with a grand slow movement that displayed her quiet grace and his stately port and courtly air.

"Is it not beautiful to see the motherling?" said Friedel to his brother; "she sails like a white cloud in a soft wind. And he stands grand as a stag at gaze."

"Like a malapert peac.o.c.k, say I," returned Ebbo; "didst not see, Friedel, how he kept his eyes on her in church? My uncle says the Bohemians are mere deceivers. Depend on it the woman had spied his insolent looks when she made her ribald prediction."

"See," said Friedel, who had been watching the steps rather than attending, "it will be easy to dance it now. It is a figure my mother once tried to teach us. I remember it now."

"Then go and do it, since better may not be."

"Nay, but it should be thou."

"Who will know which of us it is? I hated his presumption too much to mark his antics."

Friedel came forward, and the subst.i.tution was undetected by all save their mother and uncle; by the latter only because, addressing Ebbo, he received a reply in a tone such as Friedel never used.

Natural grace, quickness of ear and eye, and a skilful partner, rendered Friedel's so fair a performance that he ventured on sending his brother to attend the councilloress with wine and comfits; while he in his own person performed another dance with the city dame next in pretension, and their mother was amused by Sir Kasimir's remark, that her second son danced better than the elder, but both must learn.

The remark displeased Ebbo. In his isolated castle he knew no superior, and his nature might yield willingly, but rebelled at being put down. His brother was his perfect equal in all mental and bodily attributes, but it was the absence of all self-a.s.sertion that made Ebbo so often give him the preference; it was his mother's tender meekness in which lay her power with him; and if he yielded to Gottfried Sorel's wisdom and experience, it was with the inward consciousness of voluntary deference to one of lower rank. But here was Wildschloss, of the same n.o.ble blood with himself, his elder, his sponsor, his protector, with every right to direct him, so that there was no choice between grateful docility and headstrong folly. If the fellow had been old, weak, or in any way inferior, it would have been more bearable; but he was a tried warrior, a sage counsellor, in the prime vigour of manhood, and with a kindly reasonable authority to which only a fool could fail to attend, and which for that very reason chafed Ebbo excessively.

Moreover there was the gipsy prophecy ever rankling in the lad's heart, and embittering to him the sight of every civility from his kinsman to his mother. Sir Kasimir lodged at a neighbouring hostel; but he spent much time with his cousins, and tried to make them friends with his squire, Count Rudiger. A great offence to Ebbo was however the criticisms of both knight and squire on the bearing of the young Barons in military exercises. Truly, with no instructor but the rough lanzknecht Heinz, they must, as Friedel said, have been born paladins to have equalled youths whose life had been spent in chivalrous training.

"See us in a downright fight," said Ebbo; "we could strike as hard as any courtly minion."

"As hard, but scarce as dexterously," said Friedel, "and be called for our pains the wild mountaineers. I heard the men-at-arms saying I sat my horse as though it were always going up or down a precipice; and Master Schmidt went into his shop the other day shrugging his shoulders, and saying we hailed one another across the market-place as if we thought Ulm was a mountain full of gemsbocks."