The Castle of Ehrenstein / Its Lords Spiritual and Temporal; Its Inhabitants Earthly and Unearthly

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(the Bavarian State Library)

COLLECTION

OF

BRITISH AUTHORS.

VOL. CXV.

THE CASTLE OF EHRENSTEIN BY G. P. R. JAMES.

IN ONE VOLUME.

THE

CASTLE OF EHRENSTEIN;

ITS LORDS

SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL;

ITS INHABITANTS

EARTHLY AND UNEARTHLY.

BY

G. P. R. JAMES.

COPYRIGHT EDITION FOR CONTINENTAL CIRCULATION.

LEIPZIG

BERNH. TAUCHNITZ JUN.

1847.

EHRENSTEIN.

CHAPTER I.

It was an awfully dark and tempestuous night; the wind howled in fury through the trees, and round the towers; the large drops of rain dashed against the casements, the small lozenges of glass rattled and clattered in their leaden frames, and the thick boards of the oaken floor heaved and shivered under the force of the tempest. From time to time a keen blue streak of lightning crossed the descending deluge, and for an instant the great black masses of the forest, and the high and broken rocks around, appeared like spectres of a gone-by world, and sank into Egyptian darkness again, almost as soon as seen; and then the roar of the thunder was added to the scream of the blast, seeming to shake the whole building to its foundation.

In the midst of this storm, and towards one o'clock in the morning, a young man, of about one-and-twenty years of age, took his way silently, and with a stealthy step, through the large old halls and long passages of the castle of Ehrenstein. His dress was that of one moving in the higher ranks of society, but poor for his class; and though the times were unusually peaceful, he wore a heavy sword by his side, and a poniard hanging by a ring from his girdle. Gracefully yet powerfully formed, his frame afforded the promise of great future strength, and his face, frank and handsome without being strictly beautiful, owed perhaps more to the expression than to the features. He carried a small brazen lamp in his hand, and seemed bound upon some grave and important errand, for his countenance was serious and thoughtful, his eyes generally bent down, and his step quick, although, as we have said, light and cautious.

The room that he quitted was high up in the building, and, descending by a narrow and steep staircase, formed of large square blocks of oak, with nothing but a rope to steady the steps, he entered a long wide corridor below, flanked on one side by tall windows like those of a church, and on the other by numerous small doors. The darkness was so profound that, at first, the rays of the lamp only served to dissipate the obscurity immediately around it, while the rest of the corridor beyond looked like the mouth of a yawning interminable vault, filled with gloom and shadows. The next moment, however, as he advanced, a blazing sheet of electric flame glanced over the windows, displaying their long line upon the right, and the whole interior of the corridor. Here and there an old suit of armour caught the light, and the grotesque figures on two large antique stone benches seemed to grin and gibber in the flame. Still the young man walked on, pausing only for one moment at a door on the left, and looking up at it with a smile somewhat melancholy.

At the end of the corridor, on the left, he came to a larger staircase than that which he had before descended, and going cautiously down, and through some other passages, he found himself in a small vestibule, with two doors on either hand. They were of various dimensions, but all studded with large nails, and secured by thick bands of iron; and turning to the largest of the four, he quietly lifted the latch, and pushed it open. The wind, as he did so, had nearly blown out the lamp, and in suddenly shading it with his hand, he let slip the ponderous mass of woodwork, which was blown back against its lintels with a dull clang, which echoed far away through the vaulted passages of the castle.

The young man paused and listened, apparently fearful that his proceedings might be noticed; but then, as all was silent till a loud peal of thunder again shook the ear of night, he opened the door once more, carefully shading the lamp with his cloak. Then, closing the door gently behind him, he turned a large key that was in the lock, seemingly to ensure that he should not be followed. He was now in a vast old hall, which seemed to have been long unused, for there were manifold green stains upon the stone pavement, no customary rushes strewed the floor, no benches stood at the sides, and the table, at which many a merry meal had passed, was no longer to be seen. A number of torn and dusty banners and pennons, on the lances which had borne them to the field, waved overhead, as the wind, which found its way through many a broken lozenge in the casements, played amongst these shreds of departed glories. A whispering sound came from them likewise, and to an imaginative mind like that of the youth who walked on beneath them, some of the rustling banners seemed to ask, "Whither, whither?" and others to answer, "To dust, to dust."

In the middle of the hall he paused and thought. A degree of hesitation appeared to come over him; and then, murmuring "It must be all nonsense; but, true or not, I have promised, and I will go," he walked forward to another door at the far end of the hall, much smaller than that by which he had entered. Apparently, it had not been opened for a long time, as a pile of dust lay thick, against it. There was no key in the lock, and it seemed fastened from the other side. After pushing it, however, to see if it would give way, the young man drew forth a key, saying to himself, "Perhaps this opens all," and applying it, after some examination of the key-hole, he turned it, and threw back the door. Then holding up the lamp ere he entered, he gazed into the space before him. It was a low narrow passage in the stone-work, with no windows, or even loopholes, perceptible; but yet the damp found its way in, for the walls were glistening all over with unwholesome slime. The pavement, too, if pavement indeed there was at all, was covered thickly with a coating of black mould, from which, every here and there, sprang up a crop of pale sickly fungi covered with noxious dew, spreading a sort of faint, unpleasant, odour around.

So foul, and damp, and gloomy looked the place, that it evidently required an effort of resolution on the young man's part to enter; but after pausing for a moment he did so, and closed and locked the door behind him; then turning round, he looked on, still holding up the lamp, as if he expected to see some fearful object in the way: all was vacant, however, and as the faint rays of light dispersed the darkness, he could perceive another door at the end of the passage, some twenty yards in advance. It, when he reached it, was found unfastened, and on drawing it back--for it opened inwards--the top of a flight of stone steps was before him, descending, apparently, into a well.

It was no faint heart that beat within his bosom, but those were days in which existed a belief almost universal in things which our more material times reject as visionary; or which, at least, are only credited by a few, who can see no reason why, in the scheme of creation, there should not be means of communication between the spiritual and the corporeal, or why the bond of mortal life once dissolved, the immortal tenant of the fleshly body should not still feel some interest in the things of earth, amongst which it moved so long, and have the power and the permission to make its presence felt for warning and for guidance. It is very different to feel an awe and a dread in any undertaking, and to shrink from executing it. The young man did feel awe, for he was going in solitude and the midst of night into places where mortal foot rarely trod, where every association and every object was connected with dark and dreary memories, and with still more gloomy anticipations--the memorials of the dead, the mouldering ruins of fellow-men, the records of the tomb, the picture of all that warm existence comes to in the end. He stopped for a moment there, and gazed down into the dark void below, but the next instant, with a slow and careful foot upon the wet and slippery steps, he began the descent. The air, which was sultry above, felt cold and chilling as he descended, and the lamp burned dim, with a diminished flame, from the impure vapours that seemed congregated in the place. Each step, too, produced a hollow echo, ringing round, and decreasing gradually in sound, both above and below, till it seemed as if voices were whispering behind him and before him. Twice he paused to listen, scarcely able to persuade himself that he did not hear tongues speaking, but as he stopped the sound ceased, and again he proceeded on his way. The square cut stones forming the shaft in which the staircase turned, with the jointing only more clearly discernible from the mortar having dropped out, soon gave way to the more solid masonry of nature, and the rude rock, roughly hewn, was all that was left around him, with the stairs still descending in the midst. A hundred and seventeen steps, some of them perilous from decay, brought him, at length, to the termination, with a door ajar at the foot. All was darkness beyond, and though there seemed a freer air as he pulled the door back, and the lamp burned up somewhat more clearly, yet the vast gloomy expanse before him lost scarcely a particle of its gloom, as he advanced with a beating heart, bearing the light in his hand. He was unconscious of touching the door as he passed, but the moment he had entered it swung slowly to, and a solemn clang echoed through the vault.

Laying his left hand on his dagger, he turned suddenly, and looked behind him, but there was no one there, and he saw nothing but the heavy stone walls and low groined arches, which seemed spreading out interminably on either side. The next moment a bat fluttered across, and swept his face with its cold dewy wing, nearly extinguishing the lamp as it passed; and then, as he took a few steps forward, a low voice asked, "Who is he?"

"Who? who?" several other voices seemed to say; and then another cried, "Hush!"

The young man caught the lamp in his left hand, and half drew his sword with his right, demanding aloud, "Who spoke?" There was no reply but the echo of his own voice amidst the arches; and holding the lamp before him, he turned to the side from which the first question seemed to proceed, and thought he saw a figure standing in the dim obscurity, at a few paces distance. "Who are you?" he cried, stepping forward, but there the figure stood, grew more defined as the rays fell upon it, and the eyeless grinning head, and long mouldy bones of a skeleton appeared, bound with a rusty chain to a thick column. Instinctively he started back, when he first discovered what the object was, and as he did so, a low, wild, echoing laugh rang round through the arches on every side, as if mocking the horror which his countenance expressed. Nothing showed itself, however, and, ashamed of his own sensations, he drew his sword out of the sheath, and walked quickly on. His path soon became encumbered, and first he stumbled over a slimy skull, then trod upon some bones that cranched under his feet, while strange whisperings seemed to spread around him, till, with no light joy, he saw the farther wall of the vault, with an open arch leading out into some place beyond. When he had passed it, however, the scene was no less sad and gloomy, for he seemed now in a vast building like a chapel, where, ranged on either hand, were sepulchral monuments covered with dust, and between them long piles of mouldering coffins, with overhead a banner here and there, gauntlets, and swords, and tattered surcoats, the hues of which could scarcely be distinguished through the deep stains and mildew that covered them. Here frowned the figure of a warrior in black marble, there lay another hewn in plain stone; here stood a pile of coffins, with the velvet which once covered them, and the gold with which they were fringed, all mouldering in shreds, and offering a stern comment on the grossest of human vanities, that tries to deck the grave with splendour, and serves up the banquet of the worm in tinsel. When he had half passed along the solemn avenue, he thought he heard a sound behind, and turned to look, but there was nothing near except three small coffins and the marble effigy of a lady kneeling in the attitude of prayer. When he turned round again, a sudden light, blue and pale, like that of the unconfirmed dawn, shone through the long arcades, wavered and flickered round, as if moving from place to place, though whence it proceeded he could not see; but as he strode on, it served to show him a large snake, that darted from under the crumbling base of one of the monuments, and glided on along the path before him, as if guiding him on his way.

"By Heaven! this is all very strange and horrible," he exclaimed, and instantly there was a wild "whoop," coming from several parts of the chapel. The pale light that shone around was extinguished, and nought remained but the dim lamp in his own hand.

He would not be turned back, however, but hurried only the more quickly forward till he reached a door at the opposite side. It was bolted within, but not locked; and pulling back the iron bar from the staple, he rushed out, the strong gust of the night air and the pattering drops of rain instantly extinguishing the lamp. A shrill scream met his ear as the door swung to behind him; but nevertheless he paused, and put his hand to his brow, with sensations in his bosom which he had never felt before, and which he was ashamed to feel.

While he thus stood a fierce flash of lightning blazed around, dazzling his eyes for a moment, but serving to show him the exact point of the rocky hill which he had now reached, and a path winding on down the woody descent, narrow, rough, and stony, looking more as if it had been traced by some torrent pouring down the side of the slope, than by the foot of man. Along it he turned his steps, guided by the trees and bushes, which rendered it impossible that he should miss his way, till, nearly at the bottom of the hill, a faint light shone before him from the window of what appeared a little chapel.

"The good priest is watching for me," the young man said to himself; and hurrying on he gained a small projecting point of the rock which stood out clear from amongst the trees. Like many another jagged fragment of crag in that wild country, it towered up above the surrounding objects like a ruined outwork of the castle above, and when he had climbed to the summit, the young wanderer turned to gaze up at the building he had just left. All was dark and gloomy; not a ray broke from window or loophole, except at one spot where a blaze shone forth upon the night high up in the sky, shining red and hazy through the tempestuous air, like some star of evil omen. But the youth heeded not that light; he knew well that it was the beacon on the highest pinnacle of the donjon, beside which, under shelter of the watch-tower's roof, the weary sentinel was striving to keep himself awake, perhaps in vain. The rest was all as obscure as the world beyond the tomb, and satisfied that his going had not been marked, he hurried on to the little chapel or hermitage, and lifted the latch.

CHAPTER II.

The interior of the building into which the young man now entered, afforded a strange contrast to the wild and fearful scenes through which he had just passed. It was like life and death side by side--the world and the grave; and the change struck him as much, or perhaps more, than if the particulars had been reversed. It was a little cell, dependent upon the neighbouring monastery, with a chapel attached to it, dedicated to Our Lady; but the room into which the door immediately led was one of the two dwelling-chambers of the priests, who came up there in weekly turn to officiate at the chapel. It was low-roofed and small; but, nevertheless, it had an air of comfort and cheerfulness about it; and the large well-trimmed lamp showed the whole extent, and left not one corner in obscurity. A little table stood in the midst, with the good priest seated at it: a book open before him, and another closed at his side; but besides these objects of study or devotion, the table bore several things connected with our corporeal comfort, which showed that at all events the chapel was not a hermitage. There was a well-roasted capon, and two or three rolls or small loaves of white bread--a rarity in that part of the country, and at that time; and besides these, there appeared two or three neat glasses with twisted stalks, and a capacious green bottle, large in the bulb, flattened at the sides, and with a neck towering like a minaret. It was a very promising vessel indeed, for its peculiar shape, form, and thickness, were too expensive to be in general bestowed upon bad wine; and the monks were supposed in those days, as at present, to be very accurate judges of what was really good.

Amongst the most cheerful things in the place, however, was the countenance of the priest himself. He was a man of somewhat more than sixty years of age, but fresh, firm, and unbroken, with a complexion which, originally fair and smooth, seemed only to have grown fairer and more smooth with years; and though the untonsured part of his hair was as white as driven snow, his blue eye was as clear and bright as in youth. His features were high and somewhat aquiline; his eyebrows long and white; but that which denoted age more than aught else, was the falling in of the lips by the sad ravages of time upon those incessant plagues of life--the teeth. His countenance was a cheerful and contented one; not without lines of thought, and perhaps of care; but to the eye of one accustomed to read the character upon the face, the expression would have indicated a temperament and disposition naturally easy and good-humoured, without any want of mental energy and activity.

"Ah! Ferdinand," he said, as soon as he beheld his visitor, "you have kept me long, my son, but that matters not--it is a terrible night, and the way somewhat troublesome to find. But, all good angels! what makes you look so pale, boy? Yours is not a cheek to turn white at a flash of lightning. Sit down, sit down, my son, and refresh yourself. See, I have provided for your entertainment."

"The way is a terrible one, good Father," replied the young man, seating himself, and resting his arm upon the table, "and it is one I will never tread willingly again, unless it be to return home this night, though that I would not do, if there were any way of avoiding it."

"Why, how now, how now?" asked the priest. "Never let it be said that you have been frightened by a score of old monuments, and a few dry bones."

"That's not all, good Father, that's not all," answered the young man; and he proceeded to relate, in a low voice, all that he had heard and seen as he came thither.

"Phantasms of the imagination!" exclaimed the priest. "Voices in the serfs burying-place! lights in the chapel vaults! No, no, good youth, such things are quite impossible; these are but tales of the castle hall, told in the winter's evening round the fire, which have so filled your imagination that you realize them to yourself in a dark, stormy night, and a gloomy place. I have gone up there a hundred times, by night and day, and never yet saw aught but old crumbling stones and mouldy arches, and fleshless bones here and there; things fitted, surely, to produce solemn thoughts of the mortality of man's frame, of the vanity of all his works, and the emptiness of his glory, but not to fill your head with fancies such as these."

"But, Father, I tell you I heard the voices as distinctly as I hear you speak," the youth rejoined, in a half angry tone; "that I saw the light as plainly as I see this before me."

"A flash of lightning," replied the priest.

"No, no," answered his companion, "I never saw a flash of lightning that lasted uninterrupted, calm, and quiet, for five minutes, nor you either, Father; nor did I ever hear the thunder ask, 'Who is he?' nor laugh and hoot like a devil. I would not have believed it myself, had I not had eyes and ears to witness; and so I cannot blame you for doubting it. I never was a believer in ghosts or phantoms, or spirits visiting the earth, till now. I thought them but old women's tales, as you do."

"Nay, nay," exclaimed the priest, eagerly, "I did not say that;" and he fell into a deep fit of thought before he proceeded farther. At length he continued, in a grave tone, saying, "You must not suppose, Ferdinand, that I doubt, in any degree, that spirits are at times permitted to visit or revisit this world. We have the warrant of Scripture for it, and many facts of the kind are testified by fathers of the church, and holy men, whom it would be a sin to suspect of falsehood, and a presumption to accuse of foolishness. But I do think that in thousands of instances where such apparitions are supposed to have taken place, especially in the present day, there is much more either of folly or deception than of truth. In this case, although I have heard the women, and some of the boors, declare that they have seen strange sights about the castle, I have always fancied the report mere nonsense, as I never beheld anything of the kind myself; but there certainly was something odd and unaccountable in the Graf suddenly shutting up the great hall where his brother used always to feast with his retainers; and people did say that he had seen a sight there which had made him dread to enter it again; yet I have passed through the vaults and the hall, many a time since, without ever beholding aught to scare me.

"But take some food, my son, aye, and some wine too,--it will refresh and revive you."

The young man did not object, for, to say truth, he much needed refreshment, the agitation of the mind being always much more exhausting than mere corporeal fatigue. The good priest joined in his supper with moderation, but with evident satisfaction; for, alas that it should be so! yet, nevertheless, it is a fact, that as we advance in life, losing pleasure after pleasure, discovering the delusions of the imagination, which are mixed up with so many of our joys, and the deceitful character of not a few even of our intellectual delights, there is a strong tendency to repose upon the scanty remnant of mere material gratifications that are left to us by the infirmities of the body. He helped himself and his guest to a glass of the good wine, took another without hesitation, and then insisted upon Ferdinand replenishing his glass, and, encouraging him to do so, bore him company. The young man's spirits rose; the scenes he had just passed through were partially forgotten, and the feelings and impressions which he had felt before he set out, and which, indeed, had brought him thither, once more became predominant. Finishing his meal, he wiped his dagger, and thrust it back into the sheath; and then turning to the monk, he said, "Well, good Father George, I have come at your bidding, and would come further to please you, though I know not well what you want, even if I suspect a little. There was nothing very wrong, though I saw you gave me a frown."

"I never thought there was anything wrong, my son," replied the priest, gravely. "I saw the lady's hand in yours, it is true. I saw her eyes turned up to yours, with a very beaming look. I saw yours bent down on her, as if your knee would have soon bent also, but I never thought there was anything wrong--of course not."

His tone was perfectly serious; but whether it was conscience, or a knowledge that Father George did not altogether dislike a jest, even upon grave matters, Ferdinand could not help suspecting that his companion spoke ironically. He did not feel quite sure of it, however, and after considering for a moment, he replied, "Well, whatever you may think, Father, it was all very simple. Her horse had fallen with her in the morning; I had not seen her since I had aided to raise her, and I was only asking how she had fared after the accident."

"Nothing more, I doubt not," replied the priest, in the same tone.

"On my life, on my honour!" exclaimed the young man.

"And yet you love her, and she loves you, Ferdinand," rejoined Father George, with a quiet smile. "Deny it not, my boy, for it is a fact."

"Well," answered the youth, with a glowing cheek, "it may be true that I love her, but I love without hope, and I do trust--though perhaps you may not believe me when I say so--I do trust that she does not love me, for I would not, for my right hand, that she should ever know the bitterness of such hopeless passion."

"But why hopeless?" demanded the priest, and paused for an answer.

The young man gazed upon him in surprise, almost amounting to irritation; for deep feeling, except when it is so intense as to lose all sense of external things, will not bear to be trifled with, and he thought the old man was jesting with his passion.

"Why hopeless!" he exclaimed at length. "By difference of station, by difference of wealth, by all the cold respects and icy mandates of the world. Who am I, Father, that I should dare to lift my eyes to the daughter of a high and mighty lord like this! Noble I may be--you have told me so--but--"

"As noble as herself," replied the priest. "Nay, if blood be all, higher in station. True, fortune has not befriended you, but that same goddess was ever a fickle and capricious dame, and those she raises high one day she sinks low the next, to lift up others in their stead. How many a mighty lord has been pulled from his chair of state, to end his days in dungeons. We have heard of emperors confined to a poor cell, and of princes and heroes begging their bread. The time may come, boy, when upon your arm may hang the fortunes of that lady's house, when to you she may cling for protection and support; and the sun that now shines for her father, may shine for you."

Ferdinand shook his head with a desponding smile, as if it were nigh a mockery to talk of such things. "Whence should those golden days come, Father?" he asked. "Even opportunity, the great touchstone of the heart and mind, the gate of all success, the pathway of ambition, love, and hope, is closed and barred to me. But yesterday--it seems but yesterday I was her father's page; and a day earlier, a boy running through the abbey grounds, under your kind care and good instruction--the object of your bounty, of your charity, I do believe--"

"Nay, not so," exclaimed the priest, quickly; "you had your little store of wealth when you fell to my charge, Ferdinand. I have doled it out as I thought best in your nurture and education, but I have still some remaining, which I have invested for you in land near the abbey, and am ready to account for all. But still, even if all were as you say, I see not why you should be in so hopeless a mood; all ladies may be won, all difficulties overcome. There is a chance given to every man in life, his be the fault if he do not seize it."

"The distance is too far, Father," answered the young man. "I have often, when I was a boy, stood and looked at the sun rising through the clouds, and when a bright, broad ray has travelled forth like a pall laid for some emperor's tread, stretching from the golden canopy hung over the ascending monarch of the day, and reaching well nigh to my feet, I have almost thought that I could tread upon it, and wend my way to heaven. But such fancies have passed now, Father; such suns no longer shine for me; and in the broad, harsh noonday of manhood, I dream such dreams no more."

"But you dream others no less bright, Ferdinand," replied the priest. "Visions of triumph in the field, and mighty deeds, and great renown, and service to the State, and beauty's smile; fame, happiness, and joy, float even now before your eyes, and those visions may prove true. Did I want proof that such things still are busy in your heart, your very gay and flowery words would show them to me. I am the last to bid you banish them, my son; when well directed and kept within reasonable bounds, they are often the harbingers of great success."

"But who shall direct them for me?" asked his young companion, who had heard encouragement so little expected with evident marks of surprise; "who shall fix the bounds to be called reasonable? To me most of those dreams seem foolish, especially that which is sweetest."

"I will direct, if you will let me," answered the priest. "I will fix the bounds; and to begin, I tell you that the hope you fancy the most visionary is the least so. But leave the matter to me, my dear Ferdinand; follow my counsel, and Adelaide shall be yours, and that speedily."

"Oh, Father!" exclaimed the young man, stretching forth his hand, and grasping that of the priest, "do not--do not, I beseech, you, raise in me such hopes, if there be a probability of their failure."

"There is none," replied Father George. "Pursue the course before you boldly; seek her resolutely, though calmly and secretly; tell her of your love; win her confidence, gain whatever ascendency you can over her mind, and leave all the rest to me."

"But, Father, what will be said of my honour, when all is discovered, as it must be?" rejoined the young man. "What torrents of reproach will fall upon me,--what disgrace, what indignity, will not be heaped upon me! Danger I do not fear, death itself I would encounter, but for the chance of possessing her; but shame--I cannot bear shame, Father."

"Think you, my son," asked the priest, somewhat sternly, "that I would counsel you to anything that is disgraceful? I only advise you to caution and secrecy, because you would meet with opposition in the outset. Have no fear, however, as to the result. I will justify you fully. I have told you that you are her equal in birth, if not at present in wealth; that you have a right to seek her hand; nay, more, that if your heart goes with it, it is expedient both for you and her that you should do so."

"This is all a mystery to me," replied the young man, thoughtfully.

"Ay," answered the priest; "but there are many mysteries in this life, which it is well not to scan. However, if there be blame, your blame be upon me. Still, it is right that you should be able to show that you have not yielded to mere passion; and before you go, I will give you, under my hand, authority for what you do, for you must neither doubt nor hesitate."

"I do not hesitate, Father," said Ferdinand, with a smile. "Heaven knows that my heart prompts me only too eagerly to follow such pleasant counsel. I will go on, then; but you must be ever ready to advise and assist me; for, remember, I am working in the dark, and may need aid and direction in a thousand difficult circumstances, which neither I nor you foresee."

"Advice shall be ever at your command," answered Father George, "and aid, stronger and better than perhaps you expect; only pursue implicitly the course I point out, and I will be answerable for the end. Now let us talk of other things. How goes the party at the castle--well and cheerfully?"

"Nay," replied the young man, "never very cheerful, good Father. The Count,[^[1]] you know, is not of a merry disposition."

"No, indeed," said the priest, "he never was so, even from a youth; a dark, stern heart throws its shadow far around, as a bright and benevolent one casts light on everything. He's a very different man from his brother, the last Count, who was cheerfulness itself, full of gay jest and merry happiness, looking lightly and mirthfully upon all indifferent things, yet not without due reverence and feeling for the essential duties of a Catholic Christian and a man. Ah, those were merry days at the old castle, then. The board was always well filled in the great hall; good meat, good wine, gay guests, and pleasant talk--in which the noble lord himself still led others on to enjoy, and seemed to find a pleasure in their pleasure--those were things always to be found where there is now nothing but gloom, and state, and cold service. There were no ghosts then, Ferdinand; no spirits but cheerful ones haunted hall or bower;"--and the old man fell into a fit of thought, seeming to ponder pleasantly upon the times past, though they might contrast themselves in his mind with the darker aspect of the present.

Ferdinand also remained thoughtful for several minutes, but then rose, saying, "I must be wending my way homeward, Father, though I doubt I shall hardly find it, as I have now no lamp, and those vaults are intricate."

"Stay a while, stay a while," answered Father George, "the storm will not last long, and I will go with you. No spirits will show themselves in my presence, I am sure."

"Oh, I fear them not now," replied Ferdinand; "such hopes as you have given me to-night, Father, will be a spell to lay them."

The old man smiled, well knowing that, notwithstanding the boast, his young companion would not at all object to his company; but he merely replied, "I will take my lantern, youth; for without a light you might lose yourself in the caves, as some have done before you. Look out, and see how the sky appears. The thunder has ceased, I think."

The young man opened the door, and took a step forth, and then returning, said, "It lightens still, but faintly; and it rains a little. It will soon be over though, I think;" and seating himself again, he spent about half an hour more in conversation with the priest. At the end of that time, the rain having ceased, they set out together for the castle, while the faint flashes of the electric fluid, with which the air was still loaded, gleamed over the sky from time to time, and a distant roar to the westward told that the storm was visiting other lands. It was a toilsome journey up the steep ascent, rendered slippery by the wet, for a man of Father George's years, but he bore up stoutly, and at length they reached the entrance of the crypt below the chapel. Pushing the door open boldly, the old man went in, and advancing some twenty or thirty steps, held up the lantern and looked round. Nothing was to be seen, however, and no sound but the fall of their own footsteps reached the ear of either of the two wanderers, as they pursued their way through the chapel-vaults and the excavations in the rock against which the building was raised. In the midst of what was called the Serfs' Burying-place, however, close by the spot where the skeleton was chained to the column, Father George paused, and gazed for an instant at the sad sight which it presented. "Ah, poor fellow!" he said, "they bound him there, and strangled him against the pillar, for murdering his master, the last Count, when fighting far away; but to the last he declared, that whatever hand had done it, it was not his act--and I believed him, for he loved the Count well, and the Count loved him. 'Tis twenty years ago, and yet see how the bones hold together. Come on, my son; I will see you to the hall door, and then leave you."

Ferdinand, who was not at all partial to a prolonged stay in the vaults, readily followed, and when they reached the little door that led into the hall, the good priest remarked, with a quiet smile, "We have seen no ghosts, my son, nor heard them either."

"True, Father, true," replied the young man; "but those who have heard and seen must believe. I trust that you may pass back as unmolested as we came."

"I fear not, Ferdinand," answered Father George; "and what is more, you must also shake off all apprehensions; for in order to win her you love, you may have often to tread these same paths."

"If there were a devil in every niche, Father," replied Ferdinand, "I would face them all for her sake."

"Well, well, good night," said the priest, shaking his head: "love is the religion of a young man, and if it lead him not to wrong, it may lead him to things higher than itself. Keep the key as a treasure, good youth, for it may prove one to you in case of need."

Thus saying, the old man suffered him to light his lamp at the lantern, which was not done without difficulty, as the drops of rain had somewhat wetted the wick; and ere Ferdinand had reached the opposite end of the hall, after leaving the priest, his light was extinguished again, and he had to feel his way to his own chamber, along the dark corridors and staircases of the building. He was wet and tired, but he felt no inclination to sleep, even though darkness continued for more than one hour after he had returned to the castle. There was a brighter light in his heart than that of morning, and in it the new-born hopes sported like gay children at their play. The hour passed away; and having cast off his wet garments, the youth lay down for a few minutes on the bed, but half dressed, thinking--"I will sleep if I can; for it is better they should accuse me of late rising than see from my pillow that it has not been pressed all night." But sleep, like all the pleasant things of life, will not come for much seeking. In vain he shut his eyes; the grey light of dawn found its way between the lashes, sounds were heard in the castle, showing that some of the inferior attendants had risen; and the night watch was relieved under the window of the tower in which he slept. A moment after, however, came another noise; a distant horn sounded, there was a cry of dogs borne from a distance on the air; and with all the quick temerity of aristocratic blood in regard to the sports of the field, the youth started up on his couch and listened. Again the deep melodious music of hound and horn was heard, and bounding from his bed, he threw open the casement and called to the guard, asking--"Is the Count abroad?"

The answer was in the negative, and throwing on hastily the rest of his dry clothes, the youth rushed out as if to combat an enemy.

CHAPTER III.

The morning rose bright and beautiful after the storm, shining down the valley, glittering on the stream, and illuminating the castle. High on its rock, from the base of which, steep and rugged as it was, stretched forth about a mile of more gradual descent, broken and undulating, thickly covered with trees, and here and there presenting a large mass of fallen stone, looking like the wall of some outwork, decayed by time, and garmented with moss. The whole surface on the summit of the hill was crowned with walls and towers, and such was the commanding situation which they occupied, that in days when the science of warfare, though often practised, was but little known, it might well seem a hopeless task to attempt to take that castle by any means but famine. On a lower point, or what may be called a step in the rock, appeared a very beautiful and graceful building, the lower part of which displayed strong masonry, and manifold round arches filled up with stone; while in the upper, the lighter architecture of a later period was seen, in thin buttresses and tall pointed windows, pinnacles, and mouldings, and fretwork. Built against the steep side of the cliff below the castle, there seemed at first sight no path to this chapel but from the fortress above, with which it was connected by a few steps, flanked by a low square tower; but to the eye of a traveller, riding or walking along the ridge of hills on the opposite side of the valley, glimpses of a path displayed themselves, winding in and out amongst the wood; and somewhat more than half-way down the hill appeared a small edifice, in the same style of architecture as the upper story of the castle-chapel.

On that opposite ridge of hills was another stronghold, or rather what had been so, for at the time I speak of, it was already in ruins;--and down below, on either hand, swept an ocean of green boughs, covering the declivities of the hills, and leaving a narrow track of little more than half a mile in breadth for verdant meadows, hamlets, and a small but beautiful stream. Following the course of the little river, the eye rested, at about two miles distance, upon the towers and pinnacles of a large building, half concealed in wood; and from the walls thereof, at the hours appointed for the various services of the Roman Catholic Church, might be heard the great bell of the abbey, swinging slow upon the breeze the call to prayer.

Beyond the abbey and the woods that surrounded it, a world of hill and valley was descried, with rocks tossed in wild confusion here and there, taking every different variety of form--now like a giant sitting on the side of a hill, now like the ruined wall of some old fortress, now like a column raised to commemorate some great event, now like the crest of a warrior's helmet, plumed with feathery trees; they offered to imagination infinite materials for the sport of fancy. All the hollows, too, except those directly facing the east, were filled with mists and shadows, while the tops of the mountains, the higher crags, the old ruins, and the steeple of a distant church, rose as if from the bosom of a dim and gloomy ocean.

"He!" exclaimed the young man; "who is he, boor--do you know him? Who is it dares to hunt in our lord's lands? If I caught him, he should pay dearly."

"Ah, Master Ferdinand of Altenburg, he is one who would make you pay more likely; but, luckily for you, you can neither cross nor catch him--it was the Black Huntsman and his train. We saw him with our own eyes, and you may go back and tell the Count to prepare for war. Twelve months will not pass from this day before there are armies warring here. Tell him that old Werner says so; and I have lived years enough to know what I am talking about."

"The Black Huntsman!" exclaimed Ferdinand, holding in his horse, which was struggling forward. "And did you see him, say you--both of you?"

"Ay, both of us," answered the old man. "And he shook his fist at Wettstein here, just because he looked at him a little too sharply."

"The Black Huntsman!" cried Ferdinand, again. "I never before knew any one who saw him. What was he like, Werner?"

"He seemed to me ten foot high!" exclaimed Wettstein, joining in; "and his horse big enough to bear him."

"Nay, nay, not ten foot," cried Werner; "eight he might be, or eight and a half--and all in black from head to heel. I did not see a white spot about him, or his horse either. Did yon, Wettstein?"

"Not a freckle as big as a pea," replied his comrade.

"Here's a mighty great horse's footmark, to be sure," said one of the soldiers, who had dismounted, and was examining the ground. "I think, Sir, you had better go back and tell our lord, for he'll be glad to know of this."

The young man mused without reply for a moment or two, and then turning his horse, rode back towards the castle, halting from time to time to listen for the sounds of the hunt. All had now ceased, however; the valley had returned to its stillness, and nothing but the breeze sighing through the trees was heard, as Ferdinand and his followers rode up the opposite hill.

A number of men were collected under the arched gateway of the castle, and several horses stood ready saddled near, but before them all appeared a tall, dark-looking personage, somewhat past the middle age, but still in full vigour, with a stern and somewhat forbidding countenance. The expression was sharp, but not lofty, morose rather than firm, and as Ferdinand rode up and sprang to the ground, he exclaimed, "Ha, who are they, boy? Or have you turned back from laziness or fear, without having found them?"

Ferdinand's cheek grew red, and he replied, "If I had been fearful or lazy, my lord, I should have waited for orders ere I went to seek them; but when we reached the road leading to Lindenau, the sounds were scarcely to be heard, and we met Werner and Wettstein in the wood, who told us that it was the Black Huntsman."

"Ay, ay," exclaimed the Count, moodily; "doubtless the Black Huntsman. There is never a cry of hounds across the land, but, if you believe the peasants, it is the Black Huntsman. They are in league with the robbers of my deer and boars. The swine-fed rascals have their share, no doubt."

"But, my lord Count," replied one of the soldiers who had accompanied Ferdinand, "this time the men saw him, and he shook his fist at Wettstein for daring to look at him too close. Besides, old Werner is not a man to lie about it."

"Werner and Wettstein!" said the Count, "who are they? We have a hundred of such hogs in the valley."

"They are men of the abbey, my good lord," replied Ferdinand; "and at all events, they were both in the same story, and told it at once. One of our men, too,--it was you, Karl, was it not?--saw the hoof-marks much larger than the common size."

"Ay, that I did," replied the man; "as big as any two in the stable. My lord can see them too, if he doubts it."

"I will," replied the Count, sternly; and without more ado he turned into the castle, leaving the rest to follow to the morning meal.

Contrary to a very common practice of the day, when most of those who were qualified to bear arms were considered fit to sit at the table of their lords, the Count of Ehrenstein usually admitted none but two or three of his chosen followers to take part in the meal at the same board with himself and his daughter. The large hall, of which we have already spoken, had been long disused, and a smaller one, fully large enough, indeed, for the diminished number of retainers which the castle now contained, was divided into two unequal parts by a step, which raised the table of the lord above that of his vassals. It was to this hall he now took his way, moving slowly onward with a heavy step and eyes fixed upon the ground, till, opening the door, he gazed round it for a moment, and his face lighted up with the first look of pleasure it had displayed that day, as his eyes rested on a group at the farther end of the chamber. From the midst of that group, with a light bounding step, was even then coming forward to meet him, as beautiful a form as was ever beheld, even by a father's eyes; and what father in his heart has never said, when gazing on his child--

"Du nun als ein Engel schön?"

Young she was, very young--in the first early bloom of youth, and wonderfully fair--for no marble that was ever hewn by the most fastidious sculptor's hands, was whiter, clearer, softer, than her skin; and yet there was a glow of health therein, not seeming in the skin itself, but shining through it, like the rosy light of morning pouring into the pale sky. Her eyes could hardly be called blue, for there was a shade of some other colour in them; but the long black lashes, together with the strong contrast afforded by the fairness of her face, made them look dark, though soft, till one approached her very near. Her dark brown hair, too, full to profusion, looked almost black where it fell upon her neck, notwithstanding the bright golden gleams that shone upon the wavy clusters. Round, yet tapering, every limb was moulded in the most beautiful symmetry, which even the long line of floating garments from the hip to the heel shadowed without concealing; and, as almost always happens, perfection of form produced grace of movement, though that grace is in some degree dependent also upon the spirit within, where it is natural and not acquired. Even in the light, quick, bounding step with which she sprang to meet her father, there was a world of beauty, though it was simply the unstudied impulse of filial affection; and for an instant, as I have said, the very sight of her bright countenance dispelled the gloom upon her father's face, and brought a momentary gleam of sunshine over it; but the grave, hard look soon returned, and taking her hand in his, he led her on to the upper table, calling to him two of his old ritters or knights, and seated them beside himself and his child.

Ferdinand of Altenburg was about to take his place as usual at the other board, not judging that he stood at all high in the graces of his lord; but after a moment's consideration, the Count beckoned him up, saying, "Sit there, Ferdinand," and then commenced the meal in silence. Adelaide of Ehrenstein looked down, but yet a momentary light shone in her eyes, and a well-pleased smile, before she could check it, played round her lip; and then, as if afraid that the pleasure she felt should be marked by too watchful eyes, the colour glowed warm in her cheek, and even tinged her fair brow. Oh, those traitorous blushes, how often they hang out the flag of surrender, when the garrison would fain hold firm. The young lover saw the look, and judged it rightly; but no one else seemed to remark it; and while he was thinking what could be the Count's motive in thus honouring him, his lord raised his eyes heavily, saying, "And do you really believe this story of the Wild Huntsman, Ferdinand?"

"Nay, my lord, I know not what to think," replied the youth. "The men seemed so frightened themselves, and spoke so naturally, that I could not doubt that they believed it. Nevertheless, if I could have heard the sounds any more, I should have followed to see this Black Huntsman with my own eyes, but the noise was by that time done."

"Would you not have feared to meet him?" asked the Count, with a smile.

"Not I, Sir," answered Ferdinand. "If I find any one hunting on my lord's lands, I will stop him and ask his right, be he black or white. But we could never catch the noise again and there was another reason, too, that made me think it best to return; the old man, Werner, bade me tell you there would be war within a year."

"And so there will," replied the Count, "if it be truly the Black Huntsman."

"I am glad to hear it," replied Ferdinand; "there will be some chance of honour and distinction then."

The Count's brow grew dark. "Ay, foolish youth," he answered, "and what sums of gold will have to be spent, what fair fields ruined, what crops swept away!"

"And what bloodshed!" said Adelaide, in a low tone. "Oh, my father, I hope it will not be!"

"Bloodshed, that's but a small matter," replied her father, with a grim smile. "It does good to these hot youths to bleed them. Is it not so, Seckendorf?"

"Ay, my lord," answered the old knight to whom he spoke; "and as to the gold and the crops, that's no great matter either. Money must be spent, soldiers must live; and it's a pleasant sight to see a troop of bold fellows in a vineyard swilling the fat boor's grapes. I don't let them burn the houses, unless there's resistance; for there's no good in that, if the knaves give up their money and their food."

Adelaide was silent, but as she gazed down, with her beautiful eyes full of deep thought, many a dark image of spoliation and cruelty presented itself to fancy as approaching in the train of war. Her father was silent too; for he knew that his somewhat unknightly love of gold was not likely to raise him in the opinion of his followers; but at length he said, "Well, then, we must prepare, at all events, Seckendorf, if this be the Black Huntsman."

"Ay, that we must, my good lord," replied the old man. "He never comes out without being sure of what he's about. I remember when I was in the Odenwalde, with the lord of Erlach, looking at the book in which is written down each time he has gone forth for these two hundred years--"

"And you couldn't read it if you did look," said the other knight, who was at the same table.

"Ay, I know that," replied Seckendorf; "no one better; so I made the sacristan read to me, and it never failed once, when that Black Horseman went forth, or when the cry of his dogs was heard, that there was war within a twelvemonth. But it is right to be sure that this was he; for it would not do to sit here with the place cooped full of men, fretting ourselves for a year, with the thought of a brave war coming, and then for none to come after all. We should be obliged to have a feud with some friend, just to give the men something to do."

"True, true," answered the Count, with a quick assent; "that would not do at all, Seckendorf. I will go after meat, and inquire more into the affair."

"You had better see the two men, my Lord Count," said Ferdinand. "I will fetch them up from the abbey in an hour, and you can question them yourself."

"No, you will stay where you are, Sir," replied his lord, sharply; "I can question them myself without your help. I will see these hoof-marks too. But tell me more; from the sounds I heard as I hurried from my bed, there must have been a whole host of followers with this Black Huntsman. What said the man?"

In return, Ferdinand gave as good an account as he could of all that had occurred, though he had little to add to what he had told before. He neither exaggerated nor coloured his narrative, but with the vice of youth he indulged in many a figure to express his meaning, as was indeed somewhat customary with him; drawing freely upon imagination for the language, though not for the facts. This mode, however, of telling his tale, did not altogether please his lord, upon whose brow an impatient frown gathered fast. But Adelaide paid his flights of fancy with a smile, and her father's anger was averted by a man coming in hastily from the walls to announce that some one who seemed a messenger was riding up at full speed towards the castle.

"Let him be brought in," replied the Count; and he added, with a laugh, "perhaps this may be news of the Black Huntsman."

Expectation is ever a silent mood; and the meal continued; even the wine circulated without anything more being said, till at length a man dirty with hard riding through a country still wet with the storm of the preceding night, was brought in, with formal ceremony, by two of the Count's attendants, and led to the table at which he sat. The stranger seemed a simple messenger in the garb of peace, and in his hand he bore one of the large folded letters of the day, inscribed with innumerable titles then and still given to every German nobleman of rank, and sealed with a broad seal of yellow wax.

"Who come you from?" demanded the Count, before he opened the letter which the messenger presented.

"From the high and mighty prince, Count Frederick of Leiningen," replied the man; "who bade me bear this letter to the noble and excellent lord, the Count of Ehrenstein, his old and valued friend, and bring him back an answer speedily."

"Ah! where is the Count?" exclaimed the lord of Ehrenstein; "when came he back? 'Tis many a year since we have met."

"He stopped last night, noble Sir, at an abbey some ten miles beyond Zweibrücken, and he will reach that place this day," replied the messenger, answering only one of the Count's questions. "I pray you read the letter and let me have my answer."

The Count cut the silk, and, unfolding the paper, read, while Seckendorf commented in a low tone, with words of admiration, but with something like a sneer upon his lip, at his lord's learning, which enabled him to gather easily the contents of what seemed a somewhat lengthy epistle.

"Ah, this is good news indeed!" exclaimed the Count, at length. "First, that I should see again and embrace my old friend and comrade, Count Frederick;" and he bowed his head, not ungracefully, to the messenger. "Next, that your lord has, after so many years, collected together some of my poor brother's wealth, which he went to cast away with his life upon a foreign shore. It will come well, Seckendorf, if the Black Huntsman make his promise of war good.--You, Sir, take some refreshment, while I go to write the safe-conduct which your lord requires. Then you shall spur on, as hastily as may be; for, if not, I shall overtake you on the road. Tell the mighty Count, that I will not answer his letter till I've held my old friend in my arms, and that he shall see me at once at Zweibrücken ere two hours past noon." Thus saying, he rose and left the hall, and while Seckendorf and the other knight made the messenger sit down at the lower table, furnished him with food and wine, and questioned him eagerly as to Count Frederick's journey, and when he had returned from eastern lands, Ferdinand of Altenburg leaned across the table, and spoke a few low words to Adelaide of Ehrenstein, which made the colour come and go in her cheek, as if some strong emotions were busy in her heart. Whatever he said, indeed, was very brief, for he feared to draw the notice of those around upon them both; and in a moment after he had ceased, the Count returned, with a paper in his hand. The messenger would not wait to finish his meal, but retired from the hall, remounted his horse, and spurred on his way back.

As soon as he was gone, the tables were cleared, and orders given for instant preparation, that the Count might set out to meet his friend, with all the state and display that befitted his station. Before he went, he whispered to Seckendorf to bring up during his absence, all the vassals from the neighbouring estates, to swell the number of retainers in the castle, against the following day; to sweep the country round of its poultry, eggs, and fruit--a pleasant mark of paternal affection which the peasantry of that day not unfrequently received from their lords; and to prepare everything for one of those scenes of festivity which occasionally chequered the monotony of feudal life in peaceful times.

Ferdinand of Altenburg stood ready to accompany his lord, with his horse saddled, and his gayest garment displayed, never doubting for a moment that he was to form one of the train. No sooner, however, had the Count done speaking to the old knight, than he turned towards the youth, saying, sharply, "Did I not tell you that you were not to go? You will stay and guard the castle while Seckendorf is absent, and go no farther from it, till I return, than the stream on one side, or the hamlet on the other."

The tone was haughty and imperious; and Ferdinand felt his heart burn, but he merely bowed, and took a step back; the Count, fancying that he had mortified him by leaving him behind, and feeling that sort of bitter pleasure which harsh men find in giving pain, though, in truth, if he had sought to consult the youth's most anxious wishes, he would have acted just as he did act. What was to Ferdinand, Count Frederick of Leiningen? What cared he for the meeting of two haughty lords? In the castle of Ehrenstein remained Adelaide; and where she was, even though he might not see her, there was festival for him.

Adelaide had left the hall while the preparations for her father's journey were being made, and was not present when he departed. Old Seckendorf bustled about for nearly half an hour after the Count was gone, choosing out men, from those left in the castle, to accompany him upon what was neither more nor less than a marauding expedition; and he then set out with right good will to perform a part of his duty which he loved the best. Ferdinand of Altenburg watched from the battlements of one of the towers the train of his lord, as it crossed the valley and mounted the opposite hill, and then fixing his eyes on the spot where the road, emerging from the wood again, wound on through the distant country, continued to gaze till the last horseman disappeared on the road to Zweibrücken. He then paced up and down till Seckendorf and his people also were gone, and then paused, leaning thoughtfully against the wall, as if considering what was next to be done.

The world is full of thin partitions, moral and physical, so slight, so feeble in appearance, that one would think they would fall with a touch, but often more strong than doors of brass or iron; and like the airy limits of two hostile countries, they are full of dangers to those who pass them. There, in the same dwelling, with nought between him and her but a door that would at once yield to his hand, was she whom he loved. His heart beat to go and join her; hers he fondly hoped would flutter gladly to have him near; but yet he dared not go. Surrounded by her women, as he believed she was, he knew that the risk of such a step would be great to all his future hopes; and yet he asked himself again and again, if he must lose so bright an opportunity. It might never return; all the manifold chances of human fate presented themselves to his mind, and he would have been less than a lover, if he had not resolved to find some means of drawing sweet advantage from the golden present. How? was the only question; and after long thought, he descended slowly by the steps that led to the battlements beneath the lady's window, and there seating himself, with his eyes turned over the distant country, as if simply whiling away an idle hour, he sat and sang:--

SONG.

Wander with me, loved one, loved one,

Wander with me where none can see;

Through the wood,
By the flood,

Under the greenwood tree.

Wander with me, loved one, loved one,

Wander with me where none can hear;

Where none is nigh,
But the birds that fly,

And the timid and silent deer.

Wander with me, loved one, loved one.

Wander with me where none can mark;

Where the leaves green,
Our love shall screen,

In their bower 'twixt light and dark.

Wander with me, loved one, loved one,

And a tale to thee I'll tell,

Which, if thy heart
With mine takes part,

Shall please thine ear right well.

As he ended, the casement, which was partly open, was drawn fully back, and the head of a gay, light-hearted girl, one of Adelaide's attendants, was thrust forth with a laughing countenance, exclaiming, "Get ye gone, you vile singer! no one can rest in peace for your harsh voice. Methought it was a raven or a daw cawing on the battlements, and our lady cannot read her missal for hearing thee talk of thy 'loved one, loved one.'"

"Nay, let him alone," said Adelaide, advancing to the window; "I love music, Bertha; 'tis that thou canst not sing a note thyself that makes thee jealous. Sing on, if thou wilt, Ferdinand; I would listen to you with right good will, but that I promised Father George to come down to the shrine to-day; and I must read before I go."

She said no more, and did not even look at him while she spoke, but the gay girl Bertha's eyes twinkled with an arch smile upon her lips, as if she guessed more than either the lady or her lover suspected. Ferdinand replied little, but slowly moved away: and in about ten minutes after he might be seen going forth from the castle gates, and taking the road which led away in a different direction from the chapel in the wood.

The reader need not be told that in every portion of life, in all life's doings, in everything moral and physical, there are circuitous paths; nor that nine times out of ten, when a man seems to be doing one thing, he is doing another. It is a sad truth, a bitter dark reality; so much so, indeed, that those who have watched man's ways most closely, will best understand the force and beauty of the words which the inspired writer uses,--"a man without a shadow of turning"--to express all that we should be, and are not. However, in that deep wood that cloaked the side of the hills, there were nearly as many crooked paths and tortuous roads as in human life. Ferdinand took his path to the north, the chapel lay to the south. The watchman saw him go, and thought no more of it; but the keen eye of the gay girl Bertha marked him also, and she smiled. Some half hour after, when her young mistress went out alone, and bent her steps towards the chapel, Bertha laughed.

CHAPTER IV.

About an hour and a half after Ferdinand's song had ceased, the door of the chapel, which had been closed, opened, and two figures came forth under the green shadow of the forest leaves. The first was that of Adelaide of Ehrenstein, and her face bore tokens of recent agitation. By her side appeared good Father George, with his head uncovered, and no staff in his hand. He was speaking with the lady, earnestly but gently, and he still continued to walk on with her for some yards up the hill. More than once, as they went, Adelaide's eyes were turned to either side of the path, as if she feared or expected some interruption, and though she said not a word to indicate what was passing in her heart, the good Father marked the sort of anxiety she seemed to feel, and at length paused, saying, "Well, my child, I will go with you no farther. You will be quite safe on your way back; and if you attend to my voice, and follow my counsel, you might be happy yourself, and save others worlds of pain."

He did not pause for a reply, but turned, and re-entered the chapel, leaving Adelaide to pursue her way through the wood, with almost every path of which she had been familiar from infancy. Nevertheless, as she went, she still continued to look timidly round. She did not go far alone, however, for just as she passed the first turning, which hid the chapel from the eye, there was a step near, and Ferdinand was by her side.

"Oh, Ferdinand!" she said, "I am terrified. What is it you want to say? If any one were to find me here with you alone, what would they think?--and my father, if he heard it, it would bring destruction on your head too."

"Fear not, fear not," replied her lover; "turn into this path with me, dear Adelaide, it will bring you as quickly to the castle as the other, and we can speak there more freely."

His fair companion hesitated; but taking her hand in his, he led her gently forward, though not without a glowing cheek and eyes cast down. It was a small footway, which horses could not travel, and wound with many a turn up to the top of the high hill on which the castle stood. The short green mountain turf, the broken masses of rock here and there, the straggling boughs reaching across, and the wild flowers springing uncrushed, even in the midst of the path, showed that it was trodden by no very frequent feet. The green branches crossing on high shaded it from the sun; except when, about the hour of noon, his searching rays poured down, slept on a mossy bank here and there, or chequered the grass with dancing light and shade. The dove and the wood-pigeon murmured overhead, the breeze sighed faintly through the leaves, and the nightingale--still in song--trilled his rich notes upon many a bough above. There was a tenderness and yet a freshness in the air; there was a calming and softening light upon the way; there was a loveliness and a promise, and a wooing gentleness in the whole scene, that fitted it well for lovers and for love. The voice of nature seemed counselling affection; the aspect of all things harmonized with the passion in each of those two young hearts; and though Ferdinand was not skilled enough in the mystery of association to have chosen that scene as one likely to melt and touch the heart he sought to make his own, yet he could not have found one on the whole earth better adapted for the tale he had to tell. He lost no time ere he told it; and though his words were ardent--ay, and even impassioned--yet there was a gentleness in his whole tone, a soft and deprecating look upon his countenance, a tenderness as well as a warmth in all he said, which prevented the young and timid woman's heart from feeling much of that sort of apprehension with which it often shrinks from the first touch of love. Brought up with him almost from her childhood, unlearned in the ways of the world, left nearly to solitude since her mother's death, with no other companion in her girlhood but him who walked beside her, and loving him with a love that had still increased, Adelaide felt it less strange to listen to such words from him, than she would have done with any other human being. She felt it less difficult, too, to reply to him, timidly, yet frankly, not concealing what she felt, even when she did not speak it.

He told her how long he had loved,--for a few short years, or even months, were long in their short lives. He told her how the affection of the boy had grown into the passion of the man; how the fraternal tenderness of early life had warmed into the ardent affection of maturity. He told her, too, how hope had been first illumined in his heart by light that seemed to shine forth from hers; how words that she had spoken without feeling their full import, had bid him not despair; how smiles from her lips, and rays from her eyes, had nourished and expanded the flower of love in his bosom. He went on to relate how he had trembled, and feared, and doubted, and hesitated, when he first became conscious of the full strength of all his sensations; how he had put a guard upon himself; how he had refrained from seeing her alone; how he had resisted many a temptation; but how the power of the passion within had overcome all prudent care, and had made him more than once speak words of tenderness, in spite of every effort to restrain them. With the rich, wild imagery of a warm and glowing imagination, and of a heart full of eager affection, he depicted the pangs he had endured, the struggles he had undergone, the cares and anxieties which had been his companions during the day, the bitter and despairing thoughts which had haunted him through the night. But at length he explained how hope had dawned upon him; how assurance and comfort had been given him the night before; and how one, upon whom they could both depend, had encouraged him to persevere, and held out mysterious hopes of fortune and success.

He did not, indeed, pursue his tale evenly to the close; for more than once his fair companion murmured a few words of compassion for what he had suffered, of anxiety for his safety, of doubt regarding the future; all of which were very sweet, for all showed him too happily, too brightly, that he was loved in return; and when at length he referred to his conversation with the priest, and to the expectations which had been held out, she looked eagerly up in his face, replying without disguise, "So he said to me, Ferdinand. He spoke of strange and mysterious things; of my fate and that of my house being linked to yours by an unseen tie; which, if it were broken, would bring ruin on us all. I could not understand him. I doubted, for I could scarcely believe such happy tidings true."

She paused and coloured, as soon as the words were spoken; and blushed more deeply still when he asked, "Then they were happy, dear Adelaide?"

"You do not doubt it," she murmured, after a moment's silence. "But at all events," she continued--suddenly turning from the question--"my mother told me, the very last time she held me in her arms, to trust to what he might say; and now he bids me give myself to you, without fear or doubt. I know not what to think."

"Think that he directs you right, dear Adelaide," replied her lover eagerly; "and oh! follow his guidance, and the guidance of your own heart."

She was silent for some minutes, walking on by his side, till at length he asked, "Will you not promise, Adelaide, will you not promise to be mine?"

"How can I--how dare I?" she answered. "Without my father's will, what good were my promise, Ferdinand?"

"All, everything to me," answered her lover; "for that promise once given you would not break it, dear one. Who can tell what your father may design? Who can tell that he may not some day seek to drive you to a marriage with one you hate; or, at best, can never love? But that promise once given to me, would be strength to you, my beloved, as well as comfort and assurance to myself. It would be the rainbow of my life; a pledge that there would be no more destruction of all hopes. Oh! dear girl, do not refuse me; give me back comfort and joy; give me back light and sunshine; give me that security against all I dread; give we that support in danger, that consolation in affliction, that object of endeavour and of hope. Were it but the voice of a lover, Adelaide, you might well hesitate, you might well doubt; but one who has no passion to serve, who is calmer, alas! than I can be; who knows more than we know, and judges more wisely than we can judge--one for whom your dear mother bespoke your confidence; one whom you promised her to trust and to rely on he urges you as strongly even as I do, and bids you follow the course in which love would lead, not for my sake alone, but for your own also."

They had reached a spot, by this time, where the wood fell back a little from the path on one side, and a low, rocky bank appeared on the other, crowned with old beeches. A spring of bright, clear water welled from the stone, filling a basin that some careful hand had carved below; while above, in a little niche, was placed a figure of the Virgin, with the infant Saviour in her arms; and Ferdinand, extending his hand towards the well, added earnestly, "Here I, at least, Adelaide, saw that dear lady for the last time; here she taught us to kneel down and pray together, not many days before she laid that injunction upon you. And now, dear Adelaide, now you will not refuse me now you will follow the counsel to which she pointed--and promise to be mine."

There was love in her heart, there was a voice in her own bosom spoke more eloquently than his; she wavered--she yielded. He saw the colour come and go; he saw the bright eyes full of tears; he saw the lip quiver, and he cried, "Oh! promise, promise, Adelaide!"

"Well, I do," she murmured; and at the same instant a voice near seemed to say, "Promised, promised!"

Both started and looked round, but nothing was to be seen. The clear light streamed through the trees on the top of the bank, suffering the eye to see for some way between their trunks; the open space behind was considerable, and no place of concealment appeared to be near.

"It was but the echo, dearest," said Ferdinand; and pronouncing a word or two sharply, there was a slight return of the sound. Adelaide was not satisfied, however, and laying her hand upon his arm, she said in a low tone, "Come away, come away. Oh, Heaven! if any one should have discovered us!"

"No fear, no fear, dearest," replied her lover, walking on by her side. "But to guard against discovery for the future, Adelaide, we must devise some means of communication. Is there any one near you, whom you can trust, my beloved?"

"No one but Bertha," answered the lady: "I can trust her, I am sure, for she is good and true; but yet I do not think I could ever make up my mind to speak to her on the subject first."

Ferdinand mused for a moment or two, with a smile upon his lips; and then replied, "I almost suspect, Adelaide, that Bertha will not require much information. If I might judge by her look to-day, she's already aware of more than you suspect."

"Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Adelaide, "do not say so. If she is, my conduct must have been very imprudent."

"Her eye may have been very keen," replied her companion; "but if you think you can trust her, I will speak to her upon the subject myself--cautiously and carefully, you know, dear one, so as not to tell her more than is necessary at once; but, indeed, I can foresee many circumstances in which we shall have absolute need of some one to aid us--of some one who can give tidings of each to the other, when all opportunity of private intercourse may be denied us."

"You must judge, Ferdinand, you must judge," answered Adelaide; "but, indeed, I fear I have done wrong already, and tremble to look forward to the coming time. And now, leave me, dear Ferdinand. We are near the castle, and you ought not to go with me further. Every step agitates and terrifies me, and I would fain seek my own chamber, and think."

Still Ferdinand lingered, however, for some time longer; still he detained his fair companion; nor would he part with her till love's first caress was given, and the bond between them sealed upon her lips. But at length Adelaide withdrew her hand, half smiling, half chiding, and hurried away, leaving him to follow some time after. When she reached the castle, she passed the room where she had before been sitting, catching with a glowing cheek a gay, arch look that Bertha directed towards her; and entering her bed-room, cast herself upon her knees and prayed, while tears of agitation and alarm, both at her own sensations, and at what she had promised, rolled over the dark lashes of her eyes, and trickled down her cheek. Young love is ever timid; but in her case there were other feelings which moved her strongly and painfully. She was not satisfied with her own conduct; she feared she had done wrong; and for that one day she acted the part of a severe censor on herself. True, her father's demeanour little invited confidence; true, he was often harsh and severe, even to her; true, from him she could expect no consideration for her wishes or for her feelings; but yet he was her father, the one whom she was bound to love and to obey; and her own heart would not altogether acquit her, even though love pleaded eloquently on her behalf. I have said that she thus felt and suffered for that one day; for, as will be seen hereafter, a strange and sudden change came over her, and with no apparent reason, she soon gave herself up unboundedly to the full influence of, her attachment. The human heart is a strange thing; but very often, for visible effects which seem unaccountable, there are secret causes sufficient for all. In our dealings with the world, and with each of our fellow-men, we are too often unjust, not so much from judging wrongly, as from judging at all. "Man can but judge from what he knows," is the common cry of those who find themselves fearfully wrong when all is explained; but the question which each should ask himself is, "Am I called upon to judge at all?" and too often the reply would be, "Judge not, and thou shalt not be judged; condemn not, and thou shalt not be condemned." Sufficient, surely, is the awful responsibility of judging, when duty or self-defence forces it upon us; how terrible, then, the weight when we undertake to decide unnecessarily upon the conduct of others, without seeing the circumstances, without hearing the evidence, without knowing the motives,--and yet we do it every day, and every hour, in our deeds, in our words, and in our thoughts, lacking that true charity of the heart that thinketh no evil. But man has become a beast of prey: the laws prevent him from tearing his fellows with his teeth, and the human tiger preys upon them in his thoughts.

CHAPTER V.

There are men who rise from a low station to a throne; and it certainly must be a grand and triumphant sensation which they experience when first they sit in the seat of sovereignty, and feel their brows pressed by the golden circlet of command, with the great objects of ambition all attained, the struggle up the steep ascent to power accomplished, and the end reached for which they have fought, and laboured, and watched through many a weary day and night. But the exultation of that moment, great as it may be, is nothing to that which fills the heart of youth in the first moment of successful love. The new-throned usurper must be well-nigh weary of repeated triumphs; for the step to the throne is but the last of many a fatiguing footfall in the path of ambition. He, too, must foresee innumerable dangers and difficulties round; for the experience of the past must teach him that in his race there is no goal, that the prize is never really won, that he may have distanced all others, but that he must still run on. Not so with the lover in the early hours of his success; his is the first step in the course of joy, and the brightest, because the first. Fresh from all the dreams of youth, it is to him the sweetest of realities; unwearied with the bitter task of experience, he has the capability of enjoyment as well as the expectation of repose. The brightness of the present spreads a veil of misty light over all that is threatening in the future; and the well of sweet waters in the heart seems inexhaustible.

With what a different step Ferdinand of Altenburg trod the halls of the castle on his return; with what a different view he looked on all things round him! The gloomy towers, the shadowy chambers, the long, cheerless corridors, seemed full of light; and there was a gay and laughing spirit in his heart which had not been there since love first became its tenant. He could have jested, he could have sported like a child; but, alas! there was no one to jest or sport with, for not more than five or six men were left in the castle after the train of the Count and the little band of Seckendorf had departed. Adelaide, too, remained in her own apartments, whither he dared not venture; and none of the two or three girls who attended upon her, and who, with an elderly dame, whose principal function appeared to be to quarrel with the chief butler, formed all the female inmates of Ehrenstein, ventured forth for nearly two hours after his return. Bertha, indeed, looked at him once, as he paced the battlements below the windows of the room in which she sat, but maliciously kept the casement closed, suspecting, perhaps, that he had had enough enjoyment for one day. Anxious to speak with her, and to carry out his plan for making her the means of communicating with her mistress, Ferdinand, as he turned back again, ventured to make her a sign to join him; but Bertha took no notice, and plied her busy hands on the embroidery frame where she sat, without seeming even to see him.

The poor lover's first happy day promised but a dull passing. Those were not days of many books; and perhaps, in the whole extent of the castle, not more than four or five were to be found. But Ferdinand could not have read, even had they been to be procured, for his whole thoughts were in that busy and excited state, in which it was impossible to fix his mind with attention upon anything but his own fate and projects. He went the whole round of the castle; then he saw that everything was in order; he spoke to the men who were in the execution of their daily duties; and often as he went, he fell into a fit of thought, where fancy rapt him far away, wandering in bright sunny lands, side by side with her he loved. At length, returning to the corridor above, through which he knew that both Adelaide and Bertha must pass, if either came forth from the ladies' apartments, he stationed himself at one of the windows, and continued to gaze out over the wide extent of forest, and hill, and dale, which the prospect presented. All was silent and quiet. A dreamy stillness hung over the whole place; the sunshine itself seemed to sleep quietly over the motionless masses of the trees, and never was there an hour or a scene in which a young lover might indulge the glittering visions of imagination, with less to distract or interrupt his thoughts.

The last four-and-twenty hours had been busy ones in Ferdinand's life--busy in emotions, if not in action; and they had been varied too by many a change of sensation, by much despondency, by awe and by fear, and by hope and joy. But if the truth must be told, it was only on the hope and joy that his mind dwelt. The strange and fearful scenes through which he had passed the night before were forgotten, or at least not thought of; the sorrows that were past gave but a sort of shadowy relief to the bright aspect of the present; difficulties, impediments, dangers, were unheeded or unseen.

For not more than half an hour, however, was he suffered thus to dream; for, at the end of that time, the door at which he had looked up as he passed on the preceding night was opened and closed; and turning quickly round he saw Bertha gliding down the corridor towards the top of the staircase. She laid her finger on her lips as she passed him; and, without speaking, he followed were she led.

The gay girl took her way to the battlements on the shady side of the castle, to which few of the rooms of the building were turned; there she paused, and looked gaily at Ferdinand, with her dark eyes sparkling, and her pretty little lip curling with fun and malice. "Impudent young man," she said, as he joined her, "how can you do such things? first singing a love song under my window, and then making me a sign to come and join you. I'm a great deal too good-natured, and too tender thus to indulge you. If our lady were to find out that we were lovers, she would tell her father and then we should soon both be sent out of the castle."

She spoke as gravely as she could; and though her gay look might eye some indication of what was passing within, yet Bertha's eyes were always such merry ones, that Ferdinand felt not a little embarrassed how to answer what perhaps might be a jest, but which might yet be serious also. She enjoyed his perplexity for a moment or two, and then asked in a sharp tone, "Well, Sir, why don't you speak if you have anything to say? If you don't, I must give you something to talk about. Tell me, Sir, what is it has made my mistress so sad since she went out and met you in the wood?"

"Sad is she?" exclaimed Ferdinand, alarmed; "I know nought that should make her sad."

"Well, she is," replied Bertha; "for she's shut up in her own room, and Theresa compassionately looked through the keyhole, and told us she was weeping."

"Good Heaven!" exclaimed Ferdinand, still hesitating whether he should acknowledge that he had met Adelaide or not. "Nothing I have ever done could give her pain."

"Well, don't look so terrified, Sir lover," answered Bertha; "there are a thousand other things beside pain that make women weep; sometimes joy, sometimes fright; and perhaps it is the last in this case."

"But why should she fear?" asked Ferdinand.

"Nay, that you know best," replied Bertha. "You've neither of you thought fit to tell me anything about it; but you had a great deal better; for, if you don't, depend upon it you'll get yourselves into all manner of difficulties and dangers. You are both of you as imprudent and as ignorant of such matters as if you were twelve years old; and I should not wonder if you were to have yourself strangled for making love to your lord's daughter, and to get her either shut up in a convent, or married in haste to some fierce old baron, who may maltreat her, as my good and noble lord, the Count, used his poor wife."

"Nay, now you are trying to tease me, pretty Bertha," replied Ferdinand of Altenburg. "As I see you know a great deal, I may as well tell you all; and I will, if you can be serious; but if you go on in jest with me, I will jest with you, and may find means to tease you too."

"Nay, am not jesting at all," answered Bertha, more gravely; "all I have said is true enough: and I can tell you I have been in a great fright for you both for some time. For during the last month I have been terrified every day lest others should see what was plain enough to my eyes. Do you consider what it is you are doing, and what sort of a man our lord is--that he would no more hesitate to put you to death in the castle-ditch than to eat his breakfast?"

"He dare not," answered Ferdinand, boldly. "He may do that with a serf or a vassal, perhaps; but I am neither the one nor the other, and as noble as he is."

All women love daring, and the youth's answer pleased his companion well; yet she could not help jesting him a little upon what she called his pride. "Oh, yes, you're a gentleman born!" she said; "you have made us all know that. But now, Ferdinand, talk a little reason, and don't pretend to say what our lord dare do, or dare not do. He dare do many a thing, and has before now, which perhaps neither I nor you dream of. But in a word, young gentleman--for I must not stop long--I have seen for some time all that is going on here, and would have given a great deal to stop it, but I did not know how; and now it is too late. The only thing to be thought of at present is, what is to come of all this? On my life! my knees shake when I think of it; and I am not apt to be afraid of a little adventure either. What is it that you two propose to do?"

To say the truth, this was a question for which Ferdinand was not at all prepared with an answer. He had laid out, indeed, no distinct plan of action. Youth and love are strange reliers upon circumstances, and he replied simply, "To go on loving, I suppose."

"Oh, that plan will never do," answered Bertha, laughing. "You can't stop there. In the first place, you would neither of you be content to go on loving like a couple of turtles in two separate cages all your lives; and besides, things would soon happen to drive you out of such idleness of love. Any day of the week, any lord may think fit to marry his daughter; and what would she and you do then? I must think of some plan for you, poor things; for I see you are not fit to devise any for yourselves."

"The only plan, my pretty Bertha; to be followed at present," answered Ferdinand, after a moment's thought, "is for you to befriend us, and give us help as far as you can, in whatever circumstances may occur; to let me know everything that happens to your lady that I do not see; and I will take care that you shall know everything that occurs to me, in order that it may be communicated to her. I am sure it is your wish to serve her, Bertha; she loves you dearly, and has such confidence in you that she told me I might confide in you implicitly."

"I would serve her with my heart's blood," replied the girl, warmly; "though Heaven forbid that I should have to do so," she added, laughing; "for I would a great deal rather have that heart's blood where it is, and see her happy too, poor girl. But, heigho! I don't know how that's to be done, and if I am to be the messenger between you, Master Ferdinand, there will be nothing for it but for you to make love to me; or, at least, to get the people of the castle to think you are so doing."

"Oh, that won't be a very difficult task, Bertha," replied the young man, with a gallant look. "And all we can do is to watch events, and to take advantage of them as they arise--at least till we have further counsel from Father George as to how we ought to act."

"Oh, is Father George in the secret?" cried Bertha, clapping her hands joyfully; "then there is hope. The lord of the abbey against the lord of the castle will always beat in the end. But what says the good Father?"

"He says everything to encourage us," answered Ferdinand, "and, unlike you, fair Bertha, nothing to discourage."

"He knows more than I do," replied Bertha, "more than any of us; and he has some reason, I'll warrant. I wish to Heaven I could see him; but I dare not go down so far, for fear I should be missed. He was with our poor lady in her last hours, and doubtless could tell a tale if he would--well, well, men are strange creatures. I wonder women are such fools as to make themselves their slaves--I'll never marry--not I; for I never yet saw the man that was not as soft as a dormouse while he was courting, and as hard as a hyena when he was married. But there comes old Seckendorf riding up through the wood--I must away, for he's the greatest old tell-tale in the world, with the gossiping tongue of a grandmother, the spite of a monkey, and the heart of a wolf."

"Stay, stay, Bertha," cried the young gentleman. "If we are to seem lovers, you know, it is as well that the old man should see us; and if he catches sight of you walking here with me, without perceiving who it is distinctly, he may fancy it is Adelaide, and make mischief there."

"Ah, you treacherous boy!" cried the gay girl, "that is a true specimen of all men. To shield yourself and your love of the hour you would have all the risk and the blame fall upon me, though Heaven knows I am hazarding enough to serve you. The more faith and truth we poor things have, the more ready are you to sacrifice us. It seems quite natural and right, does it not, that I should, just as an honour and a pleasure, fall into blame with my lord, and seem your light of love to blind him to your mad passion for his daughter."

"But you yourself proposed, I should make the people think that you, Bertha, are the object I am seeking," replied Ferdinand; "and now when I propose to follow that very plan you accuse me of ingratitude, wavering to and fro like an aspen leaf."

"Am I not a woman?" cried Bertha, laughing; "have I not a right to waver? If you are to make love to me, I tell you, I will change fifty times a day; when I pout, you shall call my lips budding roses; when I smile, you shall call my brow, heaven; when I cry, you shall say my eyes are like the April sky. Now, I am not in the humour for being made love to, so I have more than a mind to run away and leave you as a morsel for old Seckendorf's grinders--at least, those he has left."

"Nay, nay, dear Bertha," cried Ferdinand, pressing to her side as he saw the horsemen coming near; "if not for mine, for your sweet mistress's sake, play out the part you have undertaken."

"The mystery must not be a long one, then, Master Ferdinand," answered Bertha; "and, for modesty, keep a little farther off, for although I do not very much mind that people should say I listened to a love story--there being no great harm in that--I would rather they did not think it too warm a one, for women have a character to lose, though men have none worth keeping."

"But then, dear Bertha, it is understood that you will befriend us," said her companion, "and will keep our secret, and give us all sorts of information and advice."

"Aye, aye," answered Bertha, "I must risk putting my hand into the bee-hive and being stung to death, to get you to the honey. I am older than either of you, and ought to know better, but you are two such poor imprudent things, that if I did not help you, one would die of a broken heart, and the other of a broken neck, very soon, so I must even run the risk. But I will have some talk with Father George, very soon, for if he does not give me some assurance and comfort, I shall dream of nothing but being strangled every night. Here they come, here they come; Seckendorf and his gang. Heaven and earth! what have they got all those horses loaded with? they must have been plundering Neustadt. Now, cannot you make me a fine speech, Master Ferdinand, swearing love and eternal constancy, such as you men tickle poor girls' ears with, just to let old Seckendorf see you in the act of protestation?"

"I would give you a kiss, pretty Bertha," replied Ferdinand, gaily, "and that would do better, only you told me not to come near."

"Oh, that would be too close, a great deal," answered Bertha, laughing. "There, he sees us--hark! he is calling out to us I will run away as if in a fright, and let him see my face as I go."

She did as she proposed, and in a moment after the old knight came riding along under the battlements calling up to Ferdinand with a loud laugh, "Ha, ha, you young dog, that's what you staid at home for, to chat with pretty Bertha on the walls!"

"No great harm in that, Seckendorf," replied Ferdinand, leaning over to speak to him. "I dare say you have done such a thing before now, yourself; and will do it again many a time. Both she and I like a walk in the free air, better than being stifled in the castle all day long. And why shouldn't we take it together?"

"If that were all, why didn't you go on the side, where folks could see you?" replied the old man, still merry. "No, no, youngster, I am too old a campaigner for that. However, it's no business of mine. We've made a glorious forage. The rogues did not expect to be called upon in such a hurry, so that all the capons were strutting before the door; aye, and geese too. How many geese have we got, Martin?"

"Nineteen, Sir," answered the man; and the old knight was riding on, when Ferdinand called after him, laughing, "Why, that's the number of your troop, Seckendorf!"

The other shook his fist at him good-humouredly enough; for his heart was expanded by the success of his expedition, and to say the truth, Bertha had done him but scanty justice. He was a thorough old German knight of the times--a character which had generally more or less of the reiter in it--as ignorant as a boor of everything but war, brave as a lion, superstitious in a high degree, bloody when enraged or opposed, rapacious as any beast of prey, and holding fast by the old maxim, that anything is justifiable in love or war. Far from thinking the worse, therefore, of Ferdinand, if he had made love to all Adelaide's maids together, he would only have considered it a very laudable method of employing his idle hours, and would never have thought of reporting it to the Count as a matter of blame. He looked upon deceiving a poor girl with tales of love, or beating a boor nearly to death who resisted any unjust demand, as one of the privileges of a soldier and a gentleman, which it was not only just but expedient to exercise from time to time, to keep such rights from falling into desuetude; and after he entered the castle, turning his thoughts to other affairs, he gave no more attention to the proceedings of Bertha and Ferdinand, only jesting the young man for a moment upon his love-making; and declaring that he had shown bad taste, for that Theresa was by far the prettier girl of the two.

"That's because you are as black yourself as one of the andirons," answered Ferdinand, "and therefore you think every fair-faced girl with flaxen hair a perfect beauty. I dare say you've said sweet things enough to Theresa, and, therefore, I wouldn't for the world try to spoil your game, if you won't spoil mine."

"Pooh, nonsense; I've given up love these twenty years," said Seckendorf, "but I won't meddle with your affairs. I wouldn't mar a nice little plot of love for half the lands of Ehrenstein--so go on your own way, I'll not interfere."

"Upon your honour?" asked Ferdinand.

"Upon my knighthood," replied the old man. "So long as you do your duty as a soldier, I not meddle with your love affairs. But on my life, I'm mighty hungry, for I've had nothing but a flagon of wine since I went, and I can never wait till supper-time."

"Do not be afraid," answered Ferdinand, "I made the cook put by for you at dinner, the whole of a roast chine of roebuck, though Metzler and Herman looked at it as if their very eyes would have eaten it. I knew you would come home like a wolf."

"That's a good boy, that's a good boy," answered the old knight, "I won't forget you for that. You shall have the skinning of a fat village some day all to yourself; but I'll go and get the Reh-braten, for I could eat my fingers." And away he went, to satisfy his appetite, which was at all times one of the best.

CHAPTER VI.

An hour or two went by, and it was drawing towards night, when Seckendorf, after having appeased the cravings of hunger, was walking up and down the ordinary hall, for want of anything else to do. Indeed, the piping time of peace to a soldier of his stamp was a very dull period, especially at that season of the year, when many of the sports of the field are forbidden; and any little incident that broke the monotony of the castle life was a great relief. There was nobody in the hall but himself; and he was cursing the slow flight of time, and thinking the Count very long upon the road home, when the lifting of the door latch made him turn his head, and he instantly exclaimed, with a hoarse laugh, "Ha! who are you looking for, Mrs. Bertha? Ferdinand is not here."

"I was looking for you, Sir," answered Bertha, with perfect composure, at the same time walking up to him. "I do not think my lady is at all well," she continued, "she has been moping by herself all day, and says her head aches."

"Ah! that's bad, that's bad," answered Seckendorf: "no one should have a headache but a boy of sixteen who has been drunk overnight. But what can I do, pretty Bertha; I'm no leech, and am more accustomed to bleeding men than bleeding women?"

"Ay, but Sir Knight, you can send down to the chapel, where one of the monks will be found. They all know something of leechcraft; and if Father George is there, he knows a great deal."

"But it's growing dark," said Seckendorf. "The gates must be shut in ten minutes, and we want all the men we have about the place. Better wait till the Count comes back, and if she should be very bad, I'll tell you what you must do; mull half a pint of Zeller wine; put plenty of spice in, and a spoonful or two of honey. Let her drink that down at one draught,--that will cure her. It is just what cured me the only time I ever had a headache."

"Ay, but what would cure you might kill our lady," replied Bertha, who did not at all approve of the prescription. "I pray you, Herr von Seckendorf, send down one of the men to the good Father. What would you say if this were to turn out a fever after you refused to send for help?"

"A fever!" cried Seckendorf, "what has she done to get a fever? She has neither ridden fifty or sixty miles in a hot sun, nor lain out all night in a damp marsh; nor drunk three or four quarts of wine to heat her blood--Well, if I must send, I must; but mind, I do it with no good will, for I don't like to send any of the men out after gates closing."

Thus saying, he put his head out of the door, calling till the whole building echoed again: "Martin, Martin--Martin, I say;" and then returning to Bertha's side, he continued, "I don't think much of the monks. They can't be such holy men as people say, else they'd keep the wood clear of spirits and devils, and things of that kind. Why one of the men, who was looking out from the turret during the storm last night, vows he saw some kind of apparition just down below the chapel, fencing with the lightning, and playing at pitch and toss with balls of fire. Then all in a minute he vanished away.--Ah! Martin, you must go down to the chapel in the wood, and tell the priest to come up and see the lady Adelaide, who is ill; so let him bring his lancet with him."

"Nonsense," cried Bertha, "she will need no bleeding; you soldiers think of nothing but blood."

The man Martin dropped his bead, and did not at all seem to like the task; but then gave a look through the window to the sky and walked away, grumbling something which was neither heard by the old knight nor the young damsel. Bertha having performed her errand, was then tripping away; but Seckendorf caught her hand, saying, in a honied tone, "Stay a bit, my pretty maid, and chat with me, as you did with young Ferdinand this morning."

"No, indeed," cried Bertha, trying to withdraw her hand; "that was in the free air and sunshine, not in a dark hall--let me go, Sir." But the next moment her eyes fixed upon something at the further end of the long room, and giving a loud scream she started back.

Seckendorf let go her hand, and turned round to look in the same direction, where two doors opened into the opposite sides of the hall. Both apparently were closed, but yet, from the one to the other he distinctly perceived a tall shadowy form, clothed in long garments, stalk slowly across, and disappear. The old man who would willingly have confronted a whole host of mortal enemies, and plunged his horse into a forest of spikes, now stood rooted to the ground, with his teeth chattering and his knees shaking, a thousand-fold more terrified than the young girl beside him. Bertha seized the opportunity to hasten away to her mistress's apartments; and Seckendorf, who called after her in vain, thought the line of her retreat by the door behind them so excellent, that he followed as soon as he could regain strength to go.

Never in Seckendorf's life had he so eagerly desired companionship as when he quitted the hall; but companionship he could not find, of the kind and quality that befitted his rank and station. The old ritter would have felt himself degraded by associating with the common soldiers, or anybody who had not von before his name; but Ferdinand he could not find; his companion, old Karl von Mosbach, had accompanied the Count, with all the other persons of gentle birth who filled the various anomalous offices which then existed in the household of a high nobleman; and not even a crossbow-man, who, as was generally admitted, had a right to sit down to table with a knight, could be discovered by our worthy friend, as he went grumbling through the castle.

"Hundert Schwerin!" he exclaimed; "to think of my seeing the ghost! Santa Maria! who'd have ever fancied it would have come into the hall? It looked to me, mighty like our poor dear lady that's gone, only it had a long beard, and was six foot high. I wonder if our good lord did put her out of the way, as some people think!--What could it want in the hall? Very saucy of an apparition to show itself there, unless it were at meal times, when, poor thing! it might want something to eat and drink. It must be cold and hungry work to go shivering about all night in vaults and passages, and to sneak back to its hiding-hole at daylight. I'd rather stand sentry on the northern'st tower in the middle of January. I wonder if I shall ever be a ghost! I should not like it at all. I'll have this one laid, however, if it costs me five crowns out of my own pocket; for we shan't be safe in our rooms, if it goes on in this way, unless we huddle up five or six together, like young pigs in a sty. Donner! where can that young dog, Ferdinand, be? I won't tell him what I've seen, for he'll only laugh; but I'll call him to talk about the Lady Adelaide; he's very fond of her, and will like to hear about her being ill;" and, raising his voice, with these friendly intentions, he called up the stairs which led to the young gentleman's room,--"Ferdinand! Ferdinand!--I want you, scapegrace!"

"What is it, ritter?" answered the voice of Ferdinand from above; "I'm busy, just now; I'll come in a minute."

"But I want you now," answered Seckendorf, who was determined not to be left longer without society than was necessary;--"Come hither and speak to me, or I will come to you."

Ferdinand said a word or two to some one above, and then came unwillingly down the stairs.

"Ah, wild one!" said the old knight, "what would you have given to be in my place just now? I've had a chat with pretty mistress Bertha, just between light and dark, in the hall."

"Indeed!" answered Ferdinand. "I dare say it was very innocent, Seckendorf; and so was my chat with her on the battlements. But what might she want with you?"

"Why, the Lady Adelaide is very ill," replied Seckendorf.

"Ill!" exclaimed Ferdinand, in a tone of much alarm. "What, the Lady Adelaide! She seemed quite well this morning."

"Ay, but women change like the wind," said Seckendorf; "and she's ill now, however; so I've sent down to the chapel for the priest to come up and say what's to be done for her."

"Why, Father George is in my room now," replied Ferdinand, "giving me good counsel and advice."

"Send him down, then,--send him down, quick," said Seckendorf; "and then come and talk with me: I've a good deal to say."

Ferdinand sped away with a much more rapid step than that which had brought him thither, and returned in a few seconds with the good priest, whose face, as far as Seckendorf could see it, in the increasing darkness, expressed much less alarm than that which the lover's countenance had displayed.

"'Tis nothing,--'tis nothing," he said, after speaking with the old knight for a moment, on the lady's illness; "some trifle that will soon pass. But I will go and see;" and, accompanied by Ferdinand and the old soldier as far as the door of Adelaide's apartments, he went in without ceremony.

While he remained,--and he staid for more than an hour, Ferdinand and Seckendorf continued walking up and down the corridor, and only went beyond it to order the hall and the passages to be lighted. Their conversation was entirely of the Lady Adelaide and her illness; for though, with the invariable garrulity of one who had seen a marvel, Seckendorf more than a dozen times approached the subject of the apparition, ready to pour the whole tale into Ferdinand's ear, notwithstanding all his resolutions to the contrary, the young man was still more occupied with the thoughts of his fair lady's state, than the old knight with the memory of the ghost, and he ever turned back to that topic just when the whole history was about to be related. Then Seckendorf would discourse learnedly upon calentures and fevers, hot and cold, describe the humours that ferment in man's blood, and tell what are the vapours that rise from their fermentation; shake his head and declare that it was a wondrous pity young girls should be so given phthisick, which often carried them off in the flower of their age, and the lustre of their beauty; and, shaking his head when he pronounced Adelaide's name, would declare that she looked sadly frail of late, doubting whether she would last another winter. But as all this--though it served to torment in a terrible manner the heart of the young lover--would probably not prove very entertaining to the reader, we will pass over the further particulars till the good father's return. By this time, to Seckendorf's great comfort and consolation, there was as much light shed through the corridor, from a great crescet at one end and a lantern at the other, as the passages of the castle ever displayed. It was not very brilliant, indeed, but sufficiently so to show that Father George's countenance was perfectly cheerful and calm; and in answer to the eager questions of Ferdinand, and the less anxious inquiries of the old knight, he said,--"Oh, the lady is better; 'tis but a little passing cloud, and she will be as well as ever ere the morning."

"Have you let her blood?" asked Seckendorf.

"Nay, no need of that," answered Father George. "Her illness came but from some melancholy fumes, rising from the heart to the head. That I have remedied, and she is better already,--but I must hasten back, for I may be needed at the chapel."

"Stay, stay, good father," cried the old knight; "I have something to ask of you. I will go with you to the gate;" and walking on with Father George, he entertained him with an account of the apparition he had seen in the hall, and besought him to take the most canonical means of laying the unwelcome visitant, by the heels, in the Red Sea; or if that could not be done for a matter of five or ten crowns, at least to put up such prayers on his behalf, as would secure him against any farther personal acquaintance with it.

Father George smiled quietly at the old knight's tale, and assured him he would do his best in the case, after due consideration. Then, hastening away, he passed down the hill, and just reached the door of his temporary dwelling, when the sound of many horses' feet, coming up from below, announced the return of the Count to Ehrenstein. Father George, however, did not wait to salute the nobleman as he passed, or to communicate to him the fact of his daughter's illness, but entered his little cell, and closing the door listened for a moment or two as the long train passed by, and then lighted his lamp.

In the mean time the Count rode on, with somewhat jaded horses, and at a slow pace, looking to the right and left, through the dim obscurity of the night, as if he, too, were not altogether without apprehensions of some terrible sight presenting itself. More than once he struck his horse suddenly with the spur, and not one word did he interchange with any of his followers, from the time he crossed the bridge till he arrived at the Castle gates. He was met under the archway by Seckendorf and Ferdinand, the Schlossvogt, or castle bailiff, and two or three of the guard. But he noticed no one except the old knight, whom he took by the arm, and walked on with him into the hall.

"What news, Seckendorf?" he said. "Has anything happened since I went?"

"Ay, two or three things, my lord," replied Seckendorf. "In the first place, the lady Adelaide has been ill, headachy, and drooping, like a sick falcon."

"Pooh! some woman's ailment, that will be gone to-morrow," replied the Count.

"Ay, so says Father George, whom I sent for, to see her," answered Seckendorf. And finding that his lord paid very little attention to the state of his daughter's health, he went on to give him an account of his foraging expedition in the morning, dwelling long and minutely upon the number of ducks, capons, geese, sheep, and lambs, which he had obtained, and dilating somewhat at large upon his conversation with sundry retainers and vassals of the Count whom he had summoned in the course of his ride to present themselves at the castle on the following day.

Such details of all that was said by the peasantry were usually very much desired by the Count, whose jealous and suspicious disposition made him eager to glean every little indication of the feelings and sentiments of the people towards him, but on the present occasion Seckendorf's long-winded narrative seemed to weary and irritate him, and after many not very complimentary interjections, he stopped him, saying, "There, there, that will do; there will be enough, doubtless, both of geese and asses, capons and boors;" and he remained standing with his eyes fixed upon the ground, in thought.

"I fear, my good lord," said the bluff old soldier, who generally took the liberty of saying what he liked, "that you have not been very successful in your expedition; for you seem to have come home in a mighty ill humour--I suppose the money isn't so much as you expected."

"No, no; it is not that," answered the Count, "I never expected any till this morning, so it is all pure gain, and a good large sum too, when it arrives. Heaven send it come safe! for Count Frederick has not brought it with him, but trusted it to some of the lazy merchants of Pisa.--No, no, it isn't that, Seckendorf. But there are things I love not about this place. By Heaven! I have a great mind to take a torch, set fire to yon old rafters, and burn the whole of it to the ground."

"Better do that to your enemy's mansion than your own," answered Seckendorf, drily, and a good deal surprised at his lord's vehemence.

"Ay, but my enemy has a house that won't burn," answered the Count. "You can't burn the grave, Seckendorf,--that's a vain effort. What I mean is, that these stories of spirits and unearthly beings wandering here and there around us, oppress me, Seckendorf. Why should I call them stories? Have I not seen? Do I not know?"

"Ay, and I have seen, too," answered Seckendorf; "but I never knew you had, my good lord."

"Why, this very night," continued the Count, grasping his arm tight, and speaking in a low tone, "as I came through the woods, wherever I turned my eyes, I saw nought but dim figures, flitting about amongst the trees; none distinct enough to trace either form or feature, but still sufficiently clear to show that the tale of the peasants and the women is but too true--."

"Peasants and women, Sir!" cried Seckendorf. "Knights and soldiers, too, if you please. Why, within the last two months, ghosts have been as plenty in the castle as holly berries on the hills. 'Tis but this very night, that, as I stood talking to Bertha about her lady's illness, here where we now stand--just in the twilight, between day and night--a tall, lank figure, in long, thin, flowing robes,--it might be in a shroud, for ought I know--crossed from that door to that, and disappeared. We both of us saw it, for her scream made me turn round. So you see the very hall itself is not safe. There should always be a tankard of red wine standing here--for I've heard that spirits will not come near red wine."

"Methinks we should soon find plenty of ghosts to drink it," answered the Count, with a bitter laugh. "But it is very strange. I have done nought to merit this visitation."

"Something must be done to remedy it, my good lord," replied Seckendorf, "that is clear, or they will drive us out of this hall as they drove us out of the old one--That's to say, I suppose it was the ghosts drove us out of that; for though you did not say why you left it, all men suspected you had seen something."

The Count took a step or two backwards and forwards in the room, and then pausing opposite to Seckendorf, he replied, "No, my good friend, I saw nought there but in fancy. Yet was the fancy very strong! Each time I stood in that hall alone, it seemed as if my brother came and stood beside me; walked as I walked; and when I sat, placed himself opposite, glaring at me with the cold glassy eyes of death. It was fancy--I know it was fancy; for once I chased the phantom back against the bare cold wall, and there it disappeared; but yet the next night it was there again.--Why should it thus torment me," he continued vehemently. "I slew him not; I ordered no one to slay him; I have done him no wrong." And he walked quickly up and down the room again, while Seckendorf followed more slowly, repeating,

"Well, my good lord, it's clear something must be tried to stop this, or we shan't get soldiers to stay in the castle. The rascals don't mind fighting anything of flesh and blood, but they are not fond of meeting with a thing when they don't know what it is. So I thought it the best way to speak with Father George about it, and ask him to lay my ghost--I've had enough of it, and don't wish to see such a thing any more."

"You did wrong--you did wrong, Seckendorf," answered his lord. "I do not wish these monks to meddle, they will soon be fancying that some great crime has been committed, and putting us all to penance, if not worse. We must find means to lay the ghost ourselves--spirit or devil, or whatever it may be."

"Well, then, my good lord, the only way is to laugh at it," answered Seckendorf. "I dare say one may become familiar with it in time, though it's ugly enough at first. One gets accustomed to everything, and why not to a ghost? We'll jest at him; and if he comes near me, I'll throw the stool at his head, and see if that will lay him--I am very sorry I spoke to Father George, if it displeases you; but, however, there's not much harm done, for the grey gowns of the abbey know everything that goes on; and the devil himself can't conceal his game from them."

"Too much, too much," answered the Count; "they're the pests of the land, prying and spying, and holding their betters in subjection. We are but the vassals of these monks, Seckendorf; and if I had my will, I'd burn their rookery about their ears."

"Ah, here comes Karl von Mosbach," cried Seckendorf, glad to escape giving an answer to his lord's diatribe against the monks, for whom he retained all the superstitious veneration of an earlier period. "Ay, and the Lady Adelaide, too! Why, bless your beautiful eyes, yon girl there told me you were ill, fair lady!"

"I have been somewhat indisposed, but I am well again now," answered Adelaide, advancing to her father. The Count, however, took little notice of her, calling Bertha to him, and making her give an account of what she and Seckendorf had seen.

"Fancy, fancy, my dear father," cried Adelaide, when the girl had done, laughing much more joyously than was her wont. "These tales are told and listened to, till the eyes become accomplices of the imagination, and both combine to cheat us. Bertha came down in the grey twilight, to say that I was ill; and I will warrant, went trembling along the dark passages, and taking every suit of armour, and every shadow through the window, of soldier or of warder passing without, for a grim spirit in a shroud."

"Nay, nay, dear lady," cried Bertha, and was about to defend herself, but the Count cut her short, turning to his daughter with a smile, and saying, "So these tales have not infected your fancy, Adelaide. You have no fears of ghosts or spirits?"

"Not I, indeed," answered the lady. "First, because I have never seen them, and next, because I know they would not hurt me, if I did. If they be unsubstantial they cannot harm me; and if I be innocent, they would not seek to do so, if they could. I fear them not, my father, and I only pray, if any are seen more, I may be called to behold them too."

The fair girl spoke more boldly and more lightly than she usually did, and through the rest of the evening the same cheerful spirit did not leave her. Seated with her father at the last meal of the day, she cheered him with conversation, and asked many a question regarding Count Frederick of Leiningen, and those he brought in his train.

"There is none that will fit thee for a husband, I fear, my child," replied the Count who for the time had caught a portion of his daughter's gaiety. "They are all bluff old soldiers, like Seckendorf or Mosbach there. Even his very jester is white-headed, and his dwarf like a withered pippin."

"Methinks it would not be easy to jest if one were old," said Adelaide. "Gravity and age, I have always thought twin sisters."