The youth stood awhile as if spell-bound; he looked in his old friend'sface with a fixed and melancholy gaze, and his eyes became dim, likeexpiring watch-fires seen through a thick cloud of mist. At lengthhe sighed forth these words, almost inaudibly: "Good Rolf, good Rolf,depart from me! thy garden of heaven is no home for me; and if sometimesa light breeze blow open its golden gates, so that I can look in and seethe flowery meadow-land where the dear angels dwell, then straightwaybetween them and me come the cold north wind and the icy storm, and thesounding doors fly together, and I remain without, lonely, in endlesswinter."
"Beloved young knight, oh, listen to me--listen to the good angel withinyou! Do you not bear in your hand that very sword with which the purelady girded you? does not her scarf wave over your raging breast? Do younot recollect how you used to say, that no man could wish for more thanhad fallen to you?"
"Yes, Rolf, I have said that," replied Sintram, sinking on the mossyturf, bitterly weeping. Tears also ran over the old man's white beard.Before long the youth stood again erect, his tears ceased to flow, hislooks were fearful, cold, and grim; and he said, "You see, Rolf, I havepassed blessed peaceful days, and I thought that the powers of evilwould never again have dominion over me. So, perchance, it might havebeen, as day would ever be did the Sun ever stand in the sky. But askthe poor benighted Earth, wherefore she looks so dark! Bid her againsmile as she was wont to do! Old man, she cannot smile; and now thatthe gentle compassionate Moon has disappeared behind the clouds with heronly funeral veil, she cannot even weep. And in this hour of darknessall that is wild and mad wakes up. So, stop me not, I tell thee, stop menot! Hurra, behind, behind the pale Moon!" His voice changed to a hoarsemurmur at these last words, storm-like. He tore away from the tremblingold man, and rushed through the forest. Rolf knelt down and prayed, andwept silently.
CHAPTER 12
Where the sea-beach was wildest, and the cliffs most steep and rugged,and close by the remains of three shattered oaks, haply marking where,in heathen times, human victims had been sacrificed, now stood Sintram,leaning, as if exhausted, on his drawn sword, and gazing intently onthe dancing waves. The moon had again shone forth; and as her pale beamsfell on his motionless figure through the quivering branches of thetrees, he might have been taken for some fearful idol-image. Suddenlysome one on the left half raised himself out of the high witheredgrass, uttered a faint groan, and again lay down. Then between the twocompanions began this strange talk:
"Thou that movest thyself so strangely in the grass, dost thou belong tothe living or to the dead?"
"As one may take it. I am dead to heaven and joy--I live for hell andanguish."
"Methinks that I have heard thee before."
"Oh, yes."
"Art thou a troubled spirit? and was thy life-blood poured out here ofold in sacrifice to idols?"
"I am a troubled spirit; but no man ever has, or ever can, shed myblood. I have been cast down--oh, into a frightful abyss!"
"And didst thou break there thy neck?"
"I live,--and shall live longer than thou."
"Almost thou seemest to me the crazy pilgrim with the dead men's bones."
"I am not he, though often we are companions,--ay, walk together rightnear and friendly. But to you be it said, he thinks me mad. If sometimesI urge him, and say to him, 'Take!' then he hesitates and pointsupwards towards the stars. And again, if I say, 'Take not!' then, to acertainty, he seizes on it in some awkward manner, and so he spoilsmy best joys and pleasures. But, in spite of this, we remain in somemeasure brothers in arms, and, indeed, all but kinsmen."
"Give me hold of thy hand, and let me help thee to get up."
"Ho, ho! my active young sir, that might bring you no good. Yet, infact, you have already helped to raise me. Give heed awhile."
Wilder and ever wilder were the strugglings on the ground; thick cloudshurried over the moon and the stars, on a long unknown wild journey; andSintram's thoughts grew no less wild and stormy, while far and near anawful howling could be heard amidst the trees and the grass. At lengththe mysterious being arose from the ground. As if with a fearfulcuriosity, the moon, through a rent in the clouds, cast a beam uponSintram's companion, and made clear to the shuddering youth that thelittle Master stood, by him.
"Avaunt!" cried he, "I will listen no more to thy evil stories about theknight Paris: they would end by driving me quite mad."
"My stories about Paris are not needed for that!" grinned the littleMaster. "It is enough that the Helen of thy heart should be journeyingtowards Montfaucon. Believe me, madness has thee already, head andheart. Or wouldest thou that she should remain? For that, however, thoumust be more courteous to me than thou art now."
Therewith he raised his voice towards the sea, as if fiercely rebukingit, so that Sintram could not but shudder and tremble before the dwarf.But he checked himself, and grasping his sword-hilt with both hands, hesaid, contemptuously: "Thou and Gabrielle! what acquaintance hast thouwith Gabrielle?"
"Not much," was the reply. And the little Master might be seen to quakewith fear and rage as he continued: "I cannot well bear the name ofthy Helen; do not din it in my ears ten times in a breath. But if thetempest should increase? If the waves should swell, and roll on tillthey form a foaming ring round the whole coast of Norway? The voyage toMontfaucon must in that case be altogether given up, and thy Helen wouldremain here, at least through the long, long, dark winter."
"If! if!" replied Sintram, with scorn. "Is the sea thy bond-slave? Arethe storms thy fellow-workmen?"
"They are rebels, accursed rebels," muttered the little Master in hisred beard. "Thou must lend me thy aid, sir knight, if I am to subduethem; but thou hast not the heart for it."
"Boaster, evil boaster!" answered the youth; "what dost thou ask of me?"
"Not much, sir knight; nothing at all for one who has strength andardour of soul. Thou needest only look at the sea steadily and keenlyfor one half-hour, without ever ceasing to wish with all thy might thatit should foam and rage and swell, and never again rest till winter haslaid its icy hold upon your mountains. Then winter is enough to hinderDuke Menelaus from his voyage to Montfaucon. And now give me a lockof your black hair, which is blowing so wildly about your head, likeravens' or vultures' wings."
The youth drew his sharp dagger, madly cut off a lock of his hair,threw it to the strange being, and now gazed, as he desired, powerfullywishing, on the waves of the sea. And softly, quite softly, did thewaters stir themselves, as one whispers in troubled dreams who wouldgladly rest and cannot. Sintram was on the point of giving up, when inthe moonbeams a ship appeared, with white-swelling sails, towards thesouth. Anguish came over him, that Gabrielle would soon thus quicklysail away; he wished again with all his power, and fixed his eyesintently on the watery abyss. "Sintram," a voice might have said tohim--"ah, Sintram, art thou indeed the same who so lately wert gazing onthe moistened heaven of the eyes of Gabrielle?"
And now the waters heaved more mightily, and the howling tempest sweptover the ocean; the breakers, white with foam, became visible in themoonlight. Then the little Master threw the lock of Sintram's hair uptowards the clouds, and, as it was blown to and fro by the blast ofwind, the storm burst in all its fury, so that sea and sky were coveredwith one thick cloud, and far off might be heard the cries of distressfrom many a sinking vessel.
But the crazy pilgrim with the dead men's bones rose up in the midst ofthe waves, close to the shore, gigantic, tall, fearfully rocking; theboat in which he stood was hidden from sight, so mightily raged thewaves round about it.
"Thou must save him, little Master--thou must certainly save him," criedSintram's voice, angrily entreating, through the roaring of the windsand waves. But the dwarf replied, with a laugh: "Be quite at rest forhim; he will be able to save himself. The waves can do him no harm.Seest thou? They are only begging of him, and therefore they jump up soboldly round him; and he gives them bountiful alms--very bountiful, thatI can assure thee."
In fact, as it seemed,
the pilgrim threw some bones into the sea, andpassed scatheless on his way. Sintram felt his blood run cold withhorror, and he rushed wildly towards the castle. His companion hadeither fled or vanished away.
CHAPTER 13
In the castle, Biorn and Gabrielle and Folko of Montfaucon were sittinground the great stone table, from which, since the arrival of his nobleguests, those suits of armour had been removed, formerly the establishedcompanions of the lord of the castle, and placed all together in a heapin the adjoining room. At this time, while the storm was beating sofuriously against doors and windows, it seemed as if the ancient armourwere also stirring in the next room, and Gabrielle several times halfrose from her seat in great alarm, fixing her eyes on the small irondoor, as though she expected to see an armed spectre issue therefrom,bending with his mighty helmet through the low vaulted doorway.
The knight Biorn smiled grimly, and said, as if he had guessed herthoughts: "Oh, he will never again come out thence; I have put an end tothat for ever."
His guests stared at him doubtingly; and with a strange air ofunconcern, as though the storm had awakened all the fierceness of hissoul, he began the following history:
"I was once a happy man myself; I could smile, as you do, and I couldrejoice in the morning as you do; that was before the hypocriticalchaplain had so bewildered the wise mind of my lovely wife with hiscanting talk, that she went into a cloister, and left me alone with ourwild boy. That was not fair usage from the fair Verena. Well, so it was,that in the first days of her dawning beauty, before I knew her, manyknights sought her hand, amongst whom was Sir Weigand the Slender;and towards him the gentle maiden showed herself the most favourablyinclined. Her parents were well aware that Weigand's rank and stationwere little below their own, and that his early fame as a warriorwithout reproach stood high; so that before long Verena and he wereaccounted as affianced. It happened one day that they were walkingtogether in the orchard, when a shepherd was driving his flock up themountain beyond. The maiden saw a little snow-white lamb frolickinggaily, and longed for it. Weigand vaults over the railings, overtakesthe shepherd, and offers him two gold bracelets for the lamb. But theshepherd will not part with it, and scarcely listens to the knight,going quietly the while up the mountain-side, with Weigand close uponhim. At last Weigand loses patience. He threatens; and the shepherd,sturdy and proud like all of his race in our northern land, threatensin return. Suddenly Weigand's sword resounds upon his head,--the strokeshould have fallen flat, but who can control a fiery horse or a drawnsword? The bleeding shepherd, with a cloven skull, falls down theprecipice; his frightened flock bleats on the mountain. Only the littlelamb runs in its terror to the orchard, pushes itself through thegarden-rails, and lies at Verena's feet, as if asking for help, allred with its master's blood. She took it up in her arms, and from thatmoment never suffered Weigand the Slender to appear again before herface. She continued to cherish the little lamb, and seemed to takepleasure in nothing else in the world, and became pale and turnedtowards heaven, as the lilies are. She would soon have taken the veil,but just then I came to aid her father in a bloody war, and rescuedhim from his enemies. The old man represented this to her, and, softlysmiling, she gave me her lovely hand. His grief would not suffer theunhappy Weigand to remain in his own country. It drove him forth as apilgrim to Asia, whence our forefathers came, and there he did wonderfuldeeds, both of valour and self-abasement. Truly, my heart was strangelyweak when I heard him spoken of at that time. After some years hereturned, and wished to build a church or monastery on that mountaintowards the west, whence the walls of my castle are distinctly seen.It was said that he wished to become a priest there, but it fell outotherwise. For some pirates had sailed from the southern seas, and,hearing of the building of this monastery, their chief thought tofind much gold belonging to the lord of the castle and to the masterbuilders, or else, if he surprised and carried them off, to extort fromthem a mighty ransom. He did not yet know northern courage and northernweapons; but he soon gained that knowledge. Having landed in the creekunder the black rocks, he made his way through a by-path up to thebuilding, surrounded it, and thought in himself that the affair was nowended. Ha! then out rushed Weigand and his builders, and fell upon themwith swords and hatchets and hammers. The heathens fled away to theirships, with Weigand behind to take vengeance on them. In passing by ourcastle he caught a sight of Verena on the terrace, and, for the firsttime during so many years, she bestowed a courteous and kind salutationon the glowing victor. At that moment a dagger, hurled by one of thepirates in the midst of his hasty flight, struck Weigand's uncoveredhead, and he fell to the ground bleeding and insensible. We completedthe rout of the heathens: then I had the wounded knight brought into thecastle; and my pale Verena glowed as lilies in the light of the morningsun, and Weigand opened his eyes with a smile when he was brought nearher. He refused to be taken into any room but the small one close tothis where the armour is now placed; for he said that he felt as ifit were a cell like that which he hoped soon to inhabit in his quietcloister. All was done after his wish: my sweet Verena nursed him, andhe appeared at first to be on the straightest road to recovery; but hishead continued weak and liable to be confused by the slightest emotion,his walk was rather a falling than a walking, and his cheeks werecolourless. We could not let him go. When we were sitting here togetherin the evening, he used always to come tottering into the hall throughthe low doorway; and my heart was sad and wrathful too, when the softeyes of Verena beamed so sweetly on him, and a glow like that of theevening sky hovered over her lily cheeks. But I bore it, and I couldhave borne it to the end of our lives,--when, alas! Verena went into acloister!"
His head fell so heavily on his folded hands, that the stone tableseemed to groan beneath it, and he remained a long while motionless as acorpse. When he again raised himself up, his eyes glared fearfully as helooked round the hall, and he said to Folko: "Your beloved Hamburghers,Gotthard Lenz, and Rudlieb his son, they have much to answer for! Whobid them come and be shipwrecked so close to my castle?"
Folko cast a piercing look on him, and a fearful inquiry was on thepoint of escaping his lips, but another look at the trembling Gabriellemade him silent, at least for the present moment, and the knight Biorncontinued his narrative.
"Verena was with her nuns, I was left alone, and my despair had drivenme throughout the day through forest and brook and mountain. In thetwilight I returned to my deserted castle, and scarcely was I in thehall, when the little door creaked, and Weigand, who had slept throughall, crept towards me and asked: 'Where can Verena be?' Then I became asmad, and howled to him, 'She is gone mad, and so am I, and you also, andnow we are all mad!' Merciful Heaven, the wound on his head burst open,and a dark stream flowed over his face--ah! how different from theredness when Verena met him at the castle-gate; and he rushed forth,raving mad, into the wilderness without, and ever since has wandered allaround as a crazy pilgrim."
He was silent, and so were Folko and Gabrielle, all three pale and coldlike images of the dead. At length the fearful narrator added in a lowvoice, and as if he were quite exhausted: "He has visited me since thattime, but he will never again come through the little door. Have I notestablished peace and order in my castle?"
CHAPTER 14
Sintram had not returned home, when those of the castle betookthemselves to rest in deep bewilderment. No one thought of him, forevery heart was filled with strange forebodings, and with uncertaincares. Even the heroic breast of the Knight of Montfaucon heaved indoubt.
Old Rolf still remained without, weeping in the forest, heedless of thestorm which beat on his unprotected head, while he waited for his youngmaster. But he had gone a very different way; and when the morningdawned, he entered the castle from the opposite side.
Gabrielle's slumbers had been sweet during the whole night. It hadseemed to her that angels with golden wings had blown away the wildhistories of the evening before, and had wafted to her the brightflowers, the sparkling sea, and the green hills of her own home. She
smiled, and drew her breath calmly and softly, whilst the magicaltempest raged and howled through the forests, and continued to battlewith the troubled sea. But in truth when she awoke in the morning,and heard still the rattling of the windows, and saw the clouds, as ifdissolved in mist and steam, still hiding the face of the heavens, shecould have wept for anxiety and sadness, especially when she heard fromher maidens that Folko had already left their apartment clad in fullarmour as if prepared for a combat. At the same time she heard the soundof the heavy tread of armed men in the echoing halls, and, on inquiring,found that the Knight of Montfaucon had assembled all his retainers tobe in readiness to protect their lady.
Wrapped in a cloak of ermine, she stood trembling like a tender flowerjust sprung up out of the snow, tottering beneath a winter's storm. ThenSir Folko entered the room, in all his shining armour, and peacefullycarrying his golden helmet with the long shadowy plumes in his hand. Hesaluted Gabrielle with cheerful serenity, and at a sign from him, herattendants retired, while the men-at-arms without were heard quietlydispersing.
"Lady," said he, as he took his seat beside her, on a couch to whichhe led her, already re-assured by his presence: "lady, will you forgiveyour knight for having left you to endure some moments of anxiety; buthonour and stern justice called him. Now all is set in order, quietlyand peacefully; dismiss your fears and every thought that has troubledyou, as things which are no more."
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