Albrecht Part 4

Erna regarded him with a look in which amazement struggled with disapprobation. She could not comprehend his strange indifference at being discovered.

"And hast thou no shame," she demanded, "to be seen trifling with the girl?"

"Shame?" he echoed. "Why should I have?"

"Nor any fear of my displeasure?"

"Thy displeasure?" he repeated. "Why shouldst thou be displeased?"

She regarded him in silence a moment; and as she did not speak, he continued:

"Surely thou canst not be jealous of a serving-wench?"

She drew herself up proudly, all the blood of her ancestors aflame in her clear pale cheek.

"The Von Rittenbergs are jealous neither of serving-wenches nor on account of strangers," she returned haughtily.

Albrecht looked at her in a perplexity that it was impossible not to believe genuine.

"Then what is my offence?" he asked. "I did but kiss the maid. I meant her no harm. Why should not one kiss a smooth cheek if it likes him?"

He spoke humbly, yet with no air either of bravado or of conscious guilt. She felt that his ignorance was not feigned, yet could hardly bring herself to believe that he did not understand what her feeling must be at discovering him in the act she had seen. Moreover, she found herself strangely at a loss how to reply to his question, if it were in reality serious. If he did not perceive the impropriety of his conduct, it was not easy for her to explain it to him. She stood a moment in silence, regarding him with a penetrating glance under which he showed no sign of wavering, and then instead of turning away to leave him as had at first been her intention, she smiled faintly, and with an expression of doubt still in her eyes.

"One would think, Sir Knight," she said, "that thy father's house must needs be a rude place if it is there held proper to kiss the damsels that please one, without hindrance."

"In thy father's castle," he answered slowly, "we have perhaps lived in a fashion that would seem to thee rude, for that my mother died at my birth, and there has been no one but men to make the rules of the house; but why it is wrong to kiss a comely woman if she please thee, is one of the things that I have never been told there or here."

Erna's tender heart was at once touched by the thought of her companion's orphanage, her own motherless childhood being still too fresh in her mind not to render her susceptible to this plea. She took up her whip from the bench, and turned quickly, that he might not see the tears that sprang to her eyes whenever one mentioned the loss of a mother.

"Well," she said, "I will leave it to Father Christopher to deal with thy transgression."

The change in her tone did not escape his quick ears, and he hastened to follow her to the courtyard, where the horses were waiting.

Their way that morning led them over hill and dale, until they came at length to a wide meadow, where the knight was minded to fly his falcon.

A stream ran through the midst of the valley, and along its banks the gra.s.s was as vividly green as the emeralds which sparkled in the hilt of Albrecht's dagger; while all through it the golden b.u.t.tercups were set as thickly as the stars in the sky of a summer's night. Here and there grew cl.u.s.ters of tall reeds and water gra.s.ses gently swaying in the soft breeze; and as Albrecht took his falcon from the wrist of his squire, who carried the bird, a splendid white heron rose with smooth, steady flight from amid the rushes, and went soaring upward. The baron quickly and deftly pulled the hood from the falcon's head; but just as he was loosening the jess Erna leaned forward and laid her hand on his arm.

"Let the heron go unharmed," she said. "Why shouldst thou strike him down?"

"Because," he responded, "thou art to wear his plumes in thy cap after I am gone, in memory of me."

"After thou art gone?" she repeated softly, drawing back.

He smiled and shook off the hawk, which rose in graceful circles until it was far overhead, and hung dizzily above the meadow. It sailed to and fro a moment until its prey, which had discovered it and in dismay was straining every nerve to quicken its flight, was just beneath it; then suddenly, with the rapidity of a thunderbolt, it fell straight upon the beautiful heron. Erna uttered a cry of dismay, and covered her eyes with her hand.

"It is too cruel!" she exclaimed.

Albrecht struck his hands together in glee.

"It is a brave bird!" he cried. "I would rather lose a gold mine than that falcon. He is as sure of his quarry as the rain is to fall to the ground."

Erna did not answer, but she regarded him with the look of one who strove to understand his pleasure, and to understand is almost to share.

She said nothing while the squire rode off to bring in the game; and when the n.o.ble heron, its glistening throat stained with blood, was brought to them, she not only strove to restrain the involuntary shudder which seized her, but she did not remonstrate when her companion continued the praises of his bird.

"Did one ever see a more rich plumage?" Albrecht demanded. "It will set off thy cap bravely; and I have always been told that womenkind are fond of gay attire."

"It is indeed a beautiful bird," Erna responded; "but dost thou know that there is always something very amusing in the way thou speakest, as if thou hadst never seen human beings till now."

A faint flush crossed Albrecht's cheek. He looked at the dead heron.

"I never thought of it before," he said; "but it does seem hard that he should have to be killed just to please me."

Erna flushed in her turn. She thought she had offended him by her criticism of his manner of speech.

"I beg thy pardon," she began; but he interrupted her.

"Thou hast no need," he said. "Besides, thou art right. I know nothing of women. I do not even know, it seems, how they should be treated, or how to please them. Otherwise," he added with his warm smile, "I should not have offended thee this morning by kissing the damsel who sang so sweetly."

The countess smiled, and turned toward him with her face full of light.

They had not dismounted, but had halted their horses near the margin of the brook on the banks of which the heron had been feeding lower down.

"That," she said, "is not a thing to be taught. It is learned from the air and from the birds."

"Then why has it not been revealed to me? I have been much in the forest."

"To kill the birds! In good sooth, I know not that one may learn of the air and the woods who goes as thou goest, with falcon and boar-spear.

But at least," she added, regarding him with a smile, "thou must know that when one loves--"

She broke off suddenly, and turned away her face, with a flush creeping up into her cheek.

"Well," Albrecht demanded eagerly, "what then?"

"I was but thinking," she returned, in a voice lower than before, "that certainly every man knoweth that when one truly loveth another, he will care for the caress of none save only the loved one."

"I had never thought of that," the knight responded gravely.

"Then of a surety thou hast never known what it is to love."

"By that token, never," he answered, smiling; "albeit it were possible that the test would not hold; and in any case it were not difficult, perchance, for thee to teach me."

The Countess Erna looked into his face all flushed and radiant, and there was that in her eyes which no man could see and fail to understand; and although the squire waiting hard by might not note that aught had been said or done out of the ordinary course, none the less had their hearts spoken each to each from that moment. Erna wheeled her horse, and began to move toward the entrance of the valley; and as Albrecht rode beside her, he suddenly leaned forward and caught her palfrey's rein, so that the beast was almost thrown upon his haunches with the abruptness of his arrest.

"Do not ride toward the upper ford," he said; "the nix is in an evil mood to-day, and mayhap might do thee a mischief in her spitefulness."

Erna looked at him with astonishment and alarm.

"And how knowest thou of the moods of the nix?" she demanded.

His eyes fell, and a flush stained his swarthy cheek. Then he seemed to recover his self-possession.