The Pilgrims of the Rhine
Page 55
The tradition, dear Gertrude, proceeds to tell us that Otho, thoughoften menaced by the rude justice of the day for the death of theTemplar, defied and escaped the menace. On the very night of his revengea long and delirious illness seized him; the generous Warbeck forgave,forgot all, save that he had been once consecrated by Leoline's love.He tended him through his sickness, and when he recovered, Otho was analtered man. He forswore the comrades he had once courted, the revelshe had once led. The halls of Sternfels were desolate as those ofLiebenstein. The only companion Otho sought was Warbeck, and Warbeckbore with him. They had no topic in common, for on one subject Warbeckat least felt too deeply ever to trust himself to speak; yet did astrange and secret sympathy re-unite them. They had at least a commonsorrow; often they were seen wandering together by the solitary banks ofthe river, or amidst the woods, without apparently interchanging word orsign. Otho died first, and still in the prime of youth; and Warbeckwas now left companionless. In vain the imperial court wooed him to itspleasures; in vain the camp proffered him the oblivion of renown. Ah!could he tear himself from a spot where morning and night he could seeafar, amidst the valley, the roof that sheltered Leoline, and on whichevery copse, every turf, reminded him of former days? His solitary life,his midnight vigils, strange scrolls about his chamber, obtained himby degrees the repute of cultivating the darker arts; and shunning, hebecame shunned by all. But still it was sweet to hear from time to timeof the increasing sanctity of her in whom he had treasured up hislast thoughts of earth. She it was who healed the sick; she it was whorelieved the poor; and the superstition of that age brought pilgrimsfrom afar to the altars that she served.
Many years afterwards, a band of lawless robbers, who ever and anonbroke from their mountain fastnesses to pillage and to desolate thevalleys of the Rhine,--who spared neither sex nor age, neither towernor hut, nor even the houses of God Himself,--laid waste the territoriesround Bornhofen, and demanded treasure from the convent. The abbess,of the bold lineage of Rudesheim, refused the sacrilegious demand.The convent was stormed; its vassals resisted; the robbers, inured toslaughter, won the day; already the gates were forced, when a knight, atthe head of a small but hardy troop, rushed down from the mountain sideand turned the tide of the fray. Wherever his sword flashed fell a foe;wherever his war-cry sounded was a space of dead men in the thick ofthe battle. The fight was won, the convent saved; the abbess and thesisterhood came forth to bless their deliverer. Laid under an aged oak,he was bleeding fast to death; his head was bare and his locks weregray, but scarcely yet with years. One only of the sisterhood recognizedthat majestic face; one bathed his parched lips; one held his dyinghand; and in Leoline's presence passed away the faithful spirit of thelast lord of Liebenstein!
"Oh!" said Gertrude, through her tears; "surely you must have alteredthe facts,--surely--surely--it must have been impossible for Leoline,with a woman's heart, to have loved Otho more than Warbeck?"
"My child," said Vane, "so think women when they read a tale of love,and see _the whole heart_ bared before them; but not so act they in reallife, when they see only the surface of character, and pierce not itsdepths--until it is too late!"