The Dove in the Eagle's Nest by Charlotte M. Yonge (e novels for free .txt) 📖

let it be used would sever the renewed hope she scarcely yet durst entertain; and at the same moment Maximilian glanced at his own fingers, and muttered, “None but this!  Unlucky!”  For it was the very diamond which Mary of Burgundy had sent to assure him of her faith, and summon him to her aid after her father’s death.  Sir Kasimir had not retained the pledge of his own ill-omened wedlock; but, in the midst of the dilemma, the Emperor, producing his dagger, began to detach some of the massive gold links of the chain that supported his hunting-horn.  “There,” said he, “the little elf of a bride can get her finger into this lesser one and you—verily this largest will fit, and the goldsmith can beat it out when needed.  So on with you in St. Hubert’s name, Father Abbot!”

Slender-boned and thin as was Ebbo’s hand, it was a very tight fit, but the purpose was served.  The service commenced; and fortunately, thanks to Thekla’s conventual education, she was awed into silence and decorum by the sound of Latin and the sight of an abbot.  It was a strange marriage, if only in the contrast between the pale, expressive face and sad, dark eyes of the prostrate youth, and the frightened, bewildered little girl, standing upon a stool to reach up to him, with her blue eyes stretched with wonder, and her cheeks flushed and pouting with unshed tears, her rosy plump hand enclosed in the long white wasted one that was thus for ever united to it by the broken fragments of Kaisar Max’s chain.

The rite over, two attestations of the marriage of Eberhard, Freiherr von Adlerstein, and Thekla, Freiherrinn von Adlerstein Wildschloss and Felsenbach, were drawn up and signed by the abbot, the Emperor, Count Dankwart, and the father and mother of the two contracting parties; one to be committed to the care of the abbot, the other to be preserved by the house of Adlerstein.

Then the Emperor, as the concluding grace of the ceremonial, bent to kiss the bride; but, tired, terrified, and cross, Thekla, as if quite relieved to have some object for her resentment, returned his attempt with a vehement buffet, struck with all the force of her small arm, crying out, “Go away with you!  I know I’ve never married you!”

“The better for my eyes!” said the good-natured Emperor, laughing heartily.  “My Lady Bearess is like to prove the more courteous bride!  Fare thee well, Sir Bridegroom,” he added, stooping over Ebbo, and kissing his brow; “Heaven give thee joy of this day’s work, and of thy faithful little fury.  I’ll send her the bearskin as her meetest wedding-gift.”

And the next that was heard from the Kaisar was the arrival of a parcel of Italian books for the Freiherr Eberhard, and for the little Freiherrinn a large bundle, which proved to contain a softly-dressed bearskin, with the head on, the eyes being made of rubies, a gold muzzle and chain on the nose, and the claws tipped with gold.  The Emperor had made a point that it should be conveyed to the castle, snow or no snow, for a yule gift.

CHAPTER XXIV
OLD IRON AND NEW STEEL

The clear sunshine of early summer was becoming low on the hillsides.  Sparkling and dimpling, the clear amber-coloured stream of the Braunwasser rippled along its stony bed, winding in and out among the rocks so humbly that it seemed to be mocked by the wide span of the arch that crossed it in all the might of massive bulwarks, and dignified masonry of huge stones.

Some way above, a clearing of the wood below the mountain showed huts, and labourers apparently constructing a mill so as to take advantage of the leap of the water from the height above; and, on the left bank, an enclosure was traced out, within which were rising the walls of a small church, while the noise of the mallet and chisel echoed back from the mountain side, and masons, white with stone-dust, swarmed around.

Across the bridge came a pilgrim, marked out as such by hat, wallet, and long staff, on which he leant heavily, stumbling along as if both halting and footsore, and bending as one bowed down by past toil and present fatigue.  Pausing in the centre, he gazed round with a strange disconcerted air—at the castle on the terraced hillside, looking down with bright eyes of glass glittering in the sunshine, and lighting up even that grim old pile; at the banner hanging so lazily that the tinctures and bearings were hidden in the folds; then at the crags, rosy purple in evening glow, rising in broad step above step up to the Red Eyrie, bathed in sunset majesty of dark crimson; and above it the sweep of the descending eagle, discernible for a moment in the pearly light of the sky.  The pilgrim’s eye lighted up as he watched it; but then, looking down at bridge, and church, and trodden wheel-tracked path, he frowned with perplexity, and each painful step grew heavier and more uncertain.

Near the opposite side of the enclosure there waited a tall, rugged-looking, elderly man with two horses—one an aged mare, mane, tail, and all of the snowiest silvery white; the other a little shaggy dark mountain pony, with a pad-saddle.  And close to the bank of the stream might be seen its owner, a little girl of some seven years, whose tight round lace cap had slipped back, as well as her blue silk hood, and exposed a profusion of loose flaxen hair, and a plump, innocent face, intent upon some private little bit of building of her own with some pebbles from the brook, and some mortar filched from the operations above, to the great detriment of her soft pinky fingers.

The pilgrim looked at her unperceived, and for a moment was about to address her; but then, with a strange air of repulsion, dragged himself on to the porch of the rising church, where, seated on a block of stone, he could look into the interior.  All was unfinished, but the portion which had made the most progress was a chantry-chapel opposite to the porch, and containing what were evidently designed to be two monuments.  One was merely blocked out, but it showed the outline of a warrior, bearing a shield on which a coiled serpent was rudely sketched in red chalk.  The other, in a much more forward state, was actually under the hands of the sculptor, and represented a slender youth, almost a boy, though in the full armour of a knight, his hands clasped on his breast over a lute, an eagle on his shield, an eagle-crest on his helmet, and, under the arcade supporting the altar-tomb, shields alternately of eagles and doves.

But the strangest thing was that this young knight seemed to be sitting for his own effigy.  The very same face, under the very same helmet, only with the varied, warm hues of life, instead of in cold white marble, was to be seen on the shoulders of a young man in a gray cloth dress, with a black scarf passing from shoulder to waist, crossed by a sword-belt.  The hair was hidden by the helmet, whose raised visor showed keen, finely-cut features, and a pair of dark brown eyes, of somewhat grave and sad expression.

“Have a care, Lucas,” he presently said; “I fear me you are chiselling away too much.  It must be a softer, more rounded face than mine has become; and, above all, let it not catch any saddened look.  Keep that air of solemn waiting in glad hope, as though he saw the dawn through his closed eyelids, and were about to take up his song again!”

“Verily, Herr Freiherr, now the likeness is so far forward, the actual sight of you may lead me to mar it rather than mend.”

“So is it well that this should be the last sitting.  I am to set forth for Genoa in another week.  If I cannot get letters from the Kaisar, I shall go in search of him, that he may see that my lameness is no more an impediment.”

The pilgrim passed his hand over his face, as though to dissipate a bewildering dream; and just then the little girl, all flushed and dabbled, flew rushing up from the stream, but came to a sudden standstill at sight of the stranger, who at length addressed her.  “Little lady,” he said, “is this the Debateable Ford?”

“No; now it is the Friendly Bridge,” said the child.

The pilgrim started, as with a pang of recollection.  “And what is yonder castle?” he further asked.

“Schloss Adlerstein,” she said, proudly.

“And you are the little lady of Adlerstein Wildschloss?”

“Yes,” again she answered; and then, gathering courage—“You are a holy pilgrim!  Come up to the castle for supper and rest.”  And then, springing past him, she flew up to the knight, crying, “Herr Freiherr, here is a holy pilgrim, weary and hungry.  Let us take him home to the mother.”

“Did he take thee for a wild elf?” said the young man, with an elder-brotherly endeavour to right the little cap that had slidden under the chin, and to push back the unmanageable wealth of hair under it, ere he rose; and he came forward and spoke with kind courtesy, as he observed the wanderer’s worn air and feeble step.  “Dost need a night’s lodging, holy palmer?  My mother will make thee welcome, if thou canst climb as high as the castle yonder.”

The pilgrim made an obeisance, but, instead of answering, demanded hastily, “See I yonder the bearing of Schlangenwald?”

“Even so.  Schloss Schlangenwald is about a league further on, and thou wilt find a kind reception there, if thither thou art bent.”

“Is that Graff Wolfgang’s tomb?” still eagerly pursued the pilgrim; and receiving a sign in the affirmative, “What was his end?”

“He fell in a skirmish.”

“By whose hand?”

“By mine.”

“Ha!” and the pilgrim surveyed him with undisguised astonishment; then, without another word, took up his staff and limped out of the building, but not on the road to Schlangenwald.  It was nearly a quarter of an hour afterwards that he was overtaken by the young knight and the little lady on their horses, just where the new road to the castle parted from the old way by the Eagle’s Ladder.  The knight reined up as he saw the poor man’s slow, painful steps, and said, “So thou art not bound for Schlangenwald?”

“I would to the village, so please you—to the shrine of the Blessed Friedmund.”

“Nay, at this rate thou wilt not be there till midnight,” said the young knight, springing off his horse; “thou canst never brook our sharp stones!  See, Thekla, do thou ride on with Heinz to tell the mother I am bringing her a holy pilgrim to tend.  And thou, good man, mount my old gray.  Fear not; she is steady and sure-footed, and hath of late been used to a lame rider.  Ah! that is well.  Thou hast been in the saddle before.”

To go afoot for the sake of giving a lift to a holy wayfarer was one of the most esteemed acts of piety of the Middle Age, so that no one durst object to it, and the palmer did no more than utter a suppressed murmur of acknowledgment as he seated himself on horseback, the young knight walking by his rein.  “But what is this?” he exclaimed, almost with dismay.  “A road to the castle up here!”

“Yes, we find it a great convenience.  Thou art surely from these parts?” added the knight.

“I was a man-at-arms in the service of the Baron,” was the answer, in an odd, muffled tone.

“What!—of my grandfather!” was the exclamation.

“No!” gruffly.  “Of old Freiherr Eberhard.  Not of any of the Wildschloss crew.”

“But I am not a Wildschloss!  I am grandson to Freiherr Eberhard!  Oh, wast thou with him and my father when they were set upon in the hostel?” he cried, looking eagerly up to the pilgrim; but the man kept his broad-leaved hat slouched over his face, and only muttered, “The son of Christina!” the last word so low that Ebbo was not sure that he caught it, and the next moment the old warrior exclaimed exultingly, “And you have had vengeance on them!  When—how—where?”

“Last harvest-tide—at the Debateable Strand,” said Ebbo, never able to speak of the encounter without a weight at his heart, but drawn on by the earnestness of the old foe of Schlangenwald.  “It was a meeting in full career—lances broken, sword-stroke on either hand.  I was sore wounded, but my sword went through his collar-bone.”

“Well struck! good stroke!” cried the pilgrim, in rapture.  “And with that sword?”

“With this sword.  Didst know it?” said Ebbo, drawing the weapon, and giving it to the old man, who held it for a few moments, weighed it affectionately, and with a long low sigh restored it, saying, “It is well.  You and that blade have paid off the score.  I should be content.  Let me dismount.  I know my way to the hermitage.”

“Nay, what is this?” said Ebbo; “thou must have rest and food.  The hermitage is empty, scarce habitable.  My mother will