Albrecht Part 11

Father Christopher said not a word, but he observed how a sudden look of malice darted through the eyes of Herr von Zimmern at the words of Lady Adelaide, and how he smiled at the reply of his master. The good priest was troubled in his mind at the sight of all this wealth of gems. He saw how Erna's eyes shone, and with what fondness she gazed upon the gleaming, glancing stones; and he saw, too, how the expression of the face of Albrecht, as he regarded the treasures and the delight of his bride, lost the look of reverence and earnestness which it had worn when he left the priest's chamber, and took on an expression of greed and pa.s.sion. The old man sighed, and looked away as still another casket, the third and last, was brought forward and opened at the feet of Erna.

If the third casket when it was opened did not shine with so great a splendor as did the others, its contents were none the less wonderful and beautiful. It was filled with pearls of the most clear and exquisite sheen, and with opals of fires as varied as the changing hues of the sunset, or of the foam-bubbles on a mountain-stream rocking in the sunlight with the swiftness of the current.

Words failed them all as they looked at the three caskets, and even Lady Adelaide was reduced to inarticulate e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of amazement and admiration. Erna still said nothing, save now and then to cry out in wonder at the glory of some jewel more magnificent than its fellows, but she paused now and then in her gloating over the treasure to take her husband's hand and press it in a sort of ecstasy of fond delight.

"That is all the _Morgengabe_ I have to offer thee," Albrecht said with a smile, as the last casket was opened. "I cannot pretend that it is worthy of thy beauty, but it will make me happy that thou shouldst accept it."

"That is, forsooth, but false modesty," Father Christopher broke in with a brusqueness quite unusual in him. "The gift is one which Charlemagne himself need not be ashamed of; and indeed it is of too great splendor for simple folk like those who are not sovereigns but subjects."

Albrecht turned toward him with a fleeting expression of disquiet which was instantly chased away by a jovial smile.

"But the countess is a sovereign, at least of me and mine," he retorted.

"Doubtless the baron thinks the price small to pay for the joys of his wedding night," broke in Herr Frederich with a laugh.

Erna flushed and bent lower over the pearls she was examining, while Albrecht turned haughtily upon Herr von Zimmern with a look of rebuke under which the other dropped his head. Bowing profoundly to the company, Herr Frederich made a sign to the musicians, and as they again took up their wild strain and led the way down the hall, he followed with the bearers who had accompanied him to bring in the caskets.

For the first time in his life Albrecht found himself penetrated with a sense of disgust and of distrust of his teacher as he looked after him.

He felt for the first time that the relations of himself and his wife were too sacred to be jested upon, and it seemed, moreover, as if his new powers gave him an insight into the true nature of Herr von Zimmern which he had never possessed before; so that one of the earliest results of his winning the quest to which he had been incited by his instructor was the springing of an instinctive repulsion from the latter as from an evil thing.

All this, however, was but the feeling of an instant as he stood in the hall and watched the delight of Erna over the jewels. He laughed at her childlike surprise and delight, and jested with the Lady Adelaide in his accustomed fashion. He even had a smile for Elsa when that forward maiden, behind the backs of the ladies, held a great carbuncle, as large as a pigeon's egg, up to her ear, and pretended to find the weight unbearable. But at last a chance word of Erna's changed again his mood.

"Look!" she said, holding up a rope of pearls, "they are as large again as those the emperor gave to the Madonna at Mayence."

And at the name of the Madonna Albrecht remembered his baptism, and the burden of his soul once more fell upon him.

XIII

HOW THE DAYS SPED AT RITTENBERG.

In the life of the late Count von Rittenberg it had fallen to the lot of Father Christopher to see not a few strange things. He had accompanied that warrior in several of his campaigns, and he had seen the fierce Huns and the gigantic Saxons, with their barbaric ornaments of beaten gold, their dress of skins, and their strange weapons. He had more than once pondered in his mind whether these hordes of the dark North had human souls, at least before the Church had set upon them the seal of baptism and thus forever marked them as separated from the beasts of the field or the forest which to the eye of the priest they so much resembled.

All that he had hitherto seen, however, faded into insignificance in his mind when compared with that which was now daily before his eyes. He seemed to himself sometimes involved in some strange dream from which he might at any moment awake with only a more or less confused remembrance of what it had been. His old vague questionings concerning the souls of the Huns recurred to his mind; but the perplexing thing was that they who really had souls should have so completely seemed to lack them, while Baron Albrecht, with his magnificent beauty, his manly bearing, his knightly skill and courtesy, should have in truth been without an immortal spirit. The secret of which the priest had been made the repository so absorbed his attention that he could scarcely give either thought or interest to anything else, and not infrequently did Erna laughingly a.s.sure him that his one occupation in life seemed to have become watching her husband.

It was noticeable how much Erna had changed since she had known Albrecht. Even Father Christopher, who so deeply loved her that he had secretly regarded her as perfection and therefore could conceive of no possible alteration in her, was not so blind that he failed to appreciate that she was a different creature from the white, calm maiden, with unstirred soul, who had welcomed the baron on the morning when he had ridden with call of bugle and gleam of jewelled armor out of the gloom of the pine forest below the castle. Whether this change was one for which to be glad Father Christopher could not determine. His love for Erna and his loyalty to the Von Rittenbergs rendered it impossible for him to feel that it was not an improvement that now Erna should be gay where she had hitherto been calm, that she should be jocund where she had before been only happy, that she should apparently have discovered the delights of the eye, of the body, and of the world, and exchanged her former innocence for a more worldly wisdom; and yet all this confused him. He could not think it wrong that now the countess adorned herself with the splendid gems of which her caskets were so well filled; especially as she had bestowed upon the Madonna in the castle chapel jewels that would have bought the entire holding as it had been before Baron von Waldstein's coming. He did not find it in his heart to reprove or indeed even to blame her newly developed fondness for hawking, a sport for which her husband had a strong inclination and in which he had also unusual skill. He could not condemn her gay raiment, her frequent laughter, her increased attention to the comforts and luxuries of the castle. There was nothing in all this which was sinful, there was not even anything which was not eminently fitting to the youth of the countess, her estate, and her condition.

And yet the mind of the priest was somehow strangely troubled. Perhaps his inner consciousness apprehended a change in Erna that was so subtile as not to be tangible to the outward sense. Certain it is that a doubt so vague that he could not have defined it even to himself, but so real that it filled him with a shadowy fear of coming evil, weighed upon the soul of Father Christopher whenever he thought of his mistress and of the effect which this marriage had wrought upon her character.

When it came, however, to attaching any blame to Baron Albrecht, the mind of Father Christopher drew back at once. Here he had no doubt in one way. He could not but feel that if any harm came to Erna through this marriage it would be from the fact that her husband had been born in the accursed, soulless race of kobolds; but his sentiment of love, of respect, almost of reverence for Albrecht was developing so rapidly that he could not even then attach any blame to the baron personally.

The possibilities of spiritual life, of high aspirations, which had been opened to Albrecht when upon the kobold had dawned the glorious light of a soul seemed at first to dazzle him. He walked as a man in a dream, or as a prophet who hears voices and sees visions. His joyous, sensuous, wild nature did not, it is true, at once lose its strength. He was the inciter of the countess to the sports of which under his guidance she began to be fond, her former dread of giving pain to the defenceless animals yielding to the delights of the excitement of the chase; he infused into her a new gayety, an animal zest in life, a sensuous eagerness to seize upon the joy of the moment and to forget past and future; he inoculated her, in a word, with the spirit of his being as he had existed hitherto, of the kobold not yet fully transformed into a man, although the process of this transformation had begun at the moment when he had been gifted with a human soul.

As for the Lady Adelaide, she was thoroughly delighted with the change which had come to Rittenberg. This, she declared, was like the gay times when Erna's father was still alive, and the castle was the rendezvous of many bold and merry knights and dames. She began to bring from the recesses of her memory numberless tales of the old time, and now she was pleased to find that her grand-niece would listen to histories and scandals which hitherto she had refused to hear. Lady Adelaide a.s.sured Elsa, in those confidential moments during which that damsel was engaged in a.s.sisting her at her toilet, that the baron had quite made the countess over, and that the transformation was little short of a miracle.

"Heaven knows what a prude she was," Lady Adelaide would say, long years of habitual freedom of intercourse with her damsel having brought her to a degree of intimacy in her speech with Elsa which was unusual with one of the latter's station; "she used to blush, G.o.d's blood! at the mere mention of a man; and as for having any witty talk with her, I might as well have gone to the chapel for a cosey chat with the Virgin on the altar, Heaven save the mark! Now it is all quite different, and I can have some real comfort in gossiping with her."

"Yes, doubtless marriage is a wonderful thing," demurely responded Elsa, who was betrothed to the steward of the castle, and was only waiting to a.s.sure herself that she could not possibly do better before she took the irrevocable step of marrying him. "It has changed the countess much; and her husband, too, meseems."

"That is to say, he does not chuck thee under the chin any more, or kiss thee in the corridors. Well, beshrew me, but 'tis quite as well. Little does it increase the peace of the family to have the lord of it too fond of the damsels. Baron Albrecht has improved quite as much as she, to my thinking. He is not so bold and reckless. I used continually to dread lest perchance he should do some outlandish thing. He seemed like a mad creature when the mood was on him, and his tricks frightened me wellnigh out of my five wits."

"But always was he good-humored," Elsa returned.

"Oh, of a truth; but lawless was he as the wild wind in the pine forest.

It made no difference against whose feelings he hurtled. Now he is so much more human. Meseems now that Erna is in sooth happily married, and with Baron Albrecht's wealth there seems to be nothing lacking."

It was certainly true that to all outward appearance the marriage of Erna and Albrecht was a fortunate one. Every day they seemed to be brought more and more closely together. The countess lost that reserve and unworldiness which her aunt had stigmatized as austerity; the baron gained those spiritual qualities the lack of which had been his only deficiency. Each found in the other new experiences, fresh fields, an unexplored region of pleasure. Life at Rittenberg was wellnigh ideal.

The accustomed occupations of the wife were full of novelty and of attractiveness to the husband. The pair read together in Erna's few but well-loved books, and when the wildness of the storm-sprites kept them within doors they found in these and the talk to which what they read gave rise the means of pa.s.sing many a happy hour. Here Erna took the lead, and Albrecht was like her pupil. In the more active, out-of-door sports and in-door revelry it was to Albrecht that the initiative fell.

Each had much to teach and much to learn, and in teaching and learning alike were both happy.

All this Father Christopher watched with eagerness born of his love for the young couple and his desire for their spiritual welfare. Could he have been sure that this state of things would continue, he would have been fully contented and happy in regard to them, and he was wholly unable to explain to himself what possible grounds there could be for doubting that Albrecht and Erna would still live together in mutual helpfulness and pleasure. Yet in his mind was the vague form of some doubt which he could not name but which he could not banish. It might be that he was accustomed to being confronted by the fact that all spiritual good is the price of hard struggle, and he unconsciously waited to see in what form would come the contest in which Albrecht must sooner or later fight with the powers of darkness for the soul which he seemed to have won and to enjoy without a battle. He felt, too, that the powers of the forest, the evil spirits of the waste and the night, would not yield up Albrecht without a struggle, and his was the att.i.tude of one who waits for coming conflict.

One summer morning the priest came into the great hall of the castle to find Albrecht and Erna standing together at the window looking out at the weather. It had been raining at intervals ever since daybreak, and great ma.s.ses of broken cloud were trailing their ragged edges over the far-spreading forests of pine that covered the mountain slopes. Now and then the sky would lighten as if the storm were ended, but again it would lower, and the rain come dashing down, swept by the wind against the castle windows.

"I am sure that the rain is over," Erna said persuasively, as Father Christopher came within hearing. "We can get to horse now, and by the time we are well under way the sun will be shining. Besides, what does it matter if it does not clear off? We shall not mind that if we can but get into the open."

"In the first place," returned Albrecht, smiling upon her and then turning to look out again over hill and valley and up at the stormy sky, "Meseemeth it is soon to rain very heavily; and in the second place, I am not sorry that we should be kept at home to-day that we may go on with those words in the scroll of Saint Cuthbert we were called away from yesterday."

"But the reading can always be done," was Erna's answer, "and who knows when we can ride? Besides," she added, a dazzling smile parting her beautiful lips, "we can read Saint Cuthbert when for very age we cannot ride."

The priest did not stay to hear how the matter was settled, but went on his way down the long hall; yet as he went he thought wonderingly of the strange fact that it should be Erna who urged for pleasure, and Albrecht who desired that the time be given to pious employment.

XIV

HOW THE PRIEST BECAME TROUBLED.

The days went by, until already the autumn crocuses began to star with their bright colors the glades among the hills. The time of year had come when the blood of the huntsman begins to tingle in his veins because the best sport of the whole twelvemonth is at hand. The sky mellowed like the winter pears which were showing the first shade of the tawny and russet hue that should cover their cheeks when the time came for their gathering.

Now of nights the Wild Huntsman was often heard riding with mad crew of wood-sprites through the forest; and as the days shortened and the dusk of twilight gathered earlier than before, it happened that not a few of the churls and serfs of the castle caught glimpses of vague forms stealing through the gathering darkness, now on earth and anon in the air, as if the wood-folk were watching what was in progress at Rittenberg with the most careful eagerness. Father Christopher, when these tales came to his hearing, sighed and shook his head. He could easily comprehend that all the wild soulless folk of the wood, whether in league with the powers of darkness or not, might well be interested in the fate of one of their band who from a wood-creature had become human, and, whether they were plotting to do him harm or no, would long to watch how he bore his new powers and his gift of immortality. But withal was Father Christopher troubled in his mind lest these strange sprites might be other than creatures who looked upon Albrecht with wonder and longing. He knew how p.r.o.ne are the wood-folk to do mischief; and as the wild herd will set upon a tame animal though he be of their kind, so it might well be that the unbaptized crew were eager to do harm to one who had deserted their ranks.

More than the doings of the creatures of the forest, however, did the ways at Rittenberg concern the priest. There was day by day a more and more jocund stir in the castle. The countess seemed to drink in animation from the air, which was now chill in the morning, and ever did she become more and more eager in the chase and in all merry-making. The hounds and the hawks were well looked to in these days; and old Rupert, the chief huntsman, whose office had become a mere idle name in the days before the coming of the Baron Albrecht, found himself so busy that he lay down at night on his hard pallet with all his aged bones an ache.

He was full of pride in the revival of his art, and he began to boast that the sport was as well followed now as in the days of his former master, the late count; but he sighed to himself now and then when he was alone, and shook his head, wondering whether he should be much longer able to keep up to the pace which was now the custom of the castle. He began to say to himself more and more frequently that he was, after all, an old man, and that it was getting to be time for him to make way for the young fellows he had trained. It made him melancholy enough to consider this possibility, but it was a great comfort to him that the revival of venery at Rittenberg gave him a chance to show those who were to take his place how things should be done, and to prove his own cunning in the chase before he resigned forever the boar-spear which was his badge of office.

For there were gay doings at Rittenberg in these autumn days. The doves that of old had sailed so smoothly and sleepily about the castle towers, had now no rest, so greatly were they excited by the sound of hunting-horn by day and of lute by night, the stir of huntsmen in the courtyard, and the laughter of Erna and her maidens ringing out through the windows of the great hall.

"All the castle," quoth the Lady Adelaide to Father Christopher, "seems to have caught the spirit of the baron. Everybody is full of life now, and Heaven knows we were dull enough before he came. Count Stephen told me that he felt as if he were in the tower of the Sleeping Beauty when he was here."

"The sleeper has awakened," the priest responded, with a smile that was not without some secret shadow. "In truth, the countess and her husband have become so truly one that it is not possible to say that either is gayer than the other. They think alike, and they feel in all things the same."

He spoke reflectively, and even as he spoke there came into his mind a doubt whether his words were exactly true. He had watched with the keenest interest and anxiety the growth of the spiritual in Albrecht, and the gradual humanizing that had been wrought in the kobold by his marriage. He felt profoundly his own responsibility in regard to both the baron and Erna, and the beads of his rosary were growing more and more smooth under his fingers in the days and nights that had sped since the wedding.

He had watched Erna no less carefully than Albrecht, and he was beginning to wonder with some sense of fear how far the influence of her husband was destined to lead her from the condition of innocent and spiritual calm in which the Baron von Waldstein had found her upon that spring day when she had first met him in the great hall. There was nothing in the life of Erna which the priest could look upon with blame, and yet he was vaguely uneasy when he thought of her. He said to himself that he was really only unduly affected by the changes which were natural under the circ.u.mstances, and that his charge had only developed; and yet the more he pondered the less was he satisfied. He found Albrecht every day more interested in things which concerned the soul which he had won. Continually he became a deeper student of things spiritual, and less wholly given up to the pursuit of pleasure. Erna, on the other hand, seemed each day more intoxicated with the joy of living, and more absorbed in the delights of the world which belongs to the senses.