Specimens of German Romance Volume I Part 7

"Nay, that of itself is a poor reason, with which you have already put off many honourable men, and even l.u.s.ty knights too. Don't you intend to marry again at all?"

Althea turned away in silence to get another ball of silk from her work-basket, and at the same time to hide the colour which this question had brought upon her cheek. Netz, having long listened for a reply, exclaimed, "I understand! no answer is often a very decided one.

Now I am at home. You intend sure enough to marry, and I already know the bridegroom. Shall I name him to you?"

"Spare me your thoughtless gossiping," said Althea, with anger, that did not seem to be too seriously intended.

"You defy me? Well, then, I should be a fool to spare you any longer.

The lucky chosen one is called--"

At this moment Tausdorf entered the room.

"When one talks of the wolf," added Netz, laughing, "he is already looking over the hedge. That is my man."

"Oh, you are the most intolerable tattler that I know of!" said Althea, rising, and offering her hand to Tausdorf with a confused smile.

"Intolerable!" muttered Netz; "that again is somewhat strong, as indeed your phrases towards me generally are. You think I don't understand without rough language; yet in truth you ought to handle me quite tenderly, and thank G.o.d that I look at the matter on the merry side: were I disposed to take it up seriously, and quarrel with my fortunate rival, you might sooner be a widow than a bride, or else have to cry your bright eyes red over the corpse of your poor brother-in-law. But compose yourself; it shall not be so bad as that I have at last learnt to see that you are in the right with your negative. Every creature of the field would be mated with its like. Now you are as tender as the sensitive plant in the park green-house; you would be touched only lightly with the finger-tips; while I love to grasp with my whole hand, and don't always even draw the gauntlet off first. In any case, we should make a strange couple. It is better, therefore, that the whole business should be let alone, and, if I can yield you to any one without grudging, it is to Tausdorf, who seems to have been made by Heaven expressly for your wilfulness; and who, moreover, is such a l.u.s.ty knight. Your hands, then, my dear friends:--In the name and in the spirit of my good brother Henry, I give and pledge you to each other, and you shall exchange the troth-rings before my eyes."

"I pray you at length be silent," said Althea, whose confusion was at its height; and with unfeigned emotion she added, "it has not yet entered into Herr von Tausdorf's head to be a suitor for my hand."

"So, then, I have again missed my aim! That you will never make me believe. It is only a sort of feint, that your womanly affectation would yet use as a parting farewell. Strike at the very core of it with your good sword, Tausdorf; I will be your faithful brother in arms."

"I could only accuse myself, if I had not understood this n.o.ble heart,"

said the knight tenderly, kissing Althea's hand. "But this letter of my father's will show you that I have understood it, my dear friend; still, I owed it to your repose and my honour to shut up the ardent longing in my own breast, until every barrier was forced that lay in the path of my happiness. That is done. The weightiest obstacle was the difference of our creeds: but rational arguments and filial entreaties have subdued my father's strictness of belief, and he now partic.i.p.ates in my wishes, and sends us his paternal blessing."

With trembling hand Althea took the letter and read it, while her eyes sparkled with joy.

"Strange that the old gentleman should make objections for a little difference in religion!" said Netz: "Why, if Althea cared about priestly feuds, she might with better reason object to your Utraquism.

But I see it well, it is in this case just as if a fair maiden were smitten with a Moor. Love levels all, and before him there is neither creed nor complexion."

"The Moor returns his thanks," replied Tausdorf laughing, and followed Althea to the window, where she stood with folded hands in deep thought.

"Have I understood your heart?" he asked gently and tenderly.

"Only too well," she murmured; "and yet in this decisive moment an anxious doubt falls on me, whether I do right in listening to it, and whether it is compatible with my duties towards my child."

"Fire and fury, sister!" shouted Netz, impatiently, "I believe you are still coquetting it: by my faith! even the best women can't leave that alone. I fancy when you one day come to the gates of heaven, you'll stand courtesying to St. Peter, and protesting that you don't think it polite to enter, till he hales you in by force. What new difficulty have you been spinning and weaving on the instant?"

"My little Henry," lisped Althea, with downcast eyes.

"Whose interest, you think, is against this marriage?" said Netz, laughing: "Now that, in good truth, is a little out of reason, for to me it seems as if it would exactly tend to his advantage. But I'll do as though I believed you in it. Where is the boy?"

"A prisoner in his room till bed-time."

"The devil! Yours is a strict government! But wherefore?"

"He spoke contemptuously of the respectable state of citizenship."

"Death and h.e.l.l! By that I see the blood of our family flows in him--And 'tis therefore you have imprisoned the n.o.ble fellow! Zounds! I can fancy, then, how you would have managed me, if you had given me your fair hand in marriage: I should never again have got out of the cellar into daylight. No, that won't do; I'll not stand it. I am the boy's uncle, and have also a word to say in his education."

He rushed out, but at the door was met by the old Herr von Schindel, to whom he exclaimed, "Your niece has grown restive, and positively won't enter the stall of matrimony; do you teach her better--I go for help:"

With two springs he was up the stairs and at Henry's door, while Schindel entered to the lovers.

"Do you then doubt my having a father's feeling for Althea's child?"

said Tausdorf to the widow, deeply mortified.

"It is not that alone," she stammered; "it seems to me as if a second marriage would be a treachery to my first husband; and that one day, in a better world, I should not be able to come before his eyes, if I contracted a fresh union here below."

"Fie! fie! niece," cried Schindel, gravely; "so good a Christian, and so little versed in the Bible? Have you not read in the holy scriptures, what sort of answer was given to a similar doubt, and who gave that answer? 'there will no one marry, nor be given in marriage?'

and your departed lord will thank Tausdorf, with a brother's love, for having made his Althea happy in the time of her earthly pilgrimage, when he himself was no longer able."

"Heaven reward you for these words, my dear uncle," exclaimed Tausdorf joyfully, grasping the old knight's hand, when Netz burst in, the little Henry in his arms, and setting him between the lovers, on the ground, cried, "Stand here, boy, and decide: your mother is going to marry again; whom would you like to have for your father-in-law?"

With a loud cry of joy the child sprang up to Tausdorf, and clasped his knees, looking up to him with a sweet smile of affection.

"My son!" exclaimed Tausdorf, in emotion; and he lifted up the little one in his arms, and kissed him warmly.

"Then join your mother's hand with his," continued Netz.--The boy stretched out his hand after Althea's, and said, in a sweet soothing tone, "Dear mother!"--She remained, however, timidly at the window, and did not move; upon this Tausdorf carried to her the little Henry, who seized her arm with gentle violence, and joined the feebly-resisting hand with the extended right-hand of the lover, at the same time exclaiming, "Always so! always so!" and covering the two hands with kisses.

"My Henry!" stammered Althea, and inclined her face to his.

"Is he not _our_ Henry?" asked Tausdorf, hastily putting down the child, and with his arms clasping the tender body of Althea.

"In the name of Heaven!" she replied, scarcely audible, while his lips sank upon hers.

"What Heaven does is well done!" said the old Schindel, with folded hands.

Netz shouted out aloud, "_Victoria!_"--In the next moment he pa.s.sed his mailed hand across his eyes, and, unmanned by keen and sudden agony, rushed out of the apartment.

Eight days after the Whitsuntide of the same year, the morning twilight lit up the horizon with a dusky red, and painted with blood the walls of the Hildebrand, in which Francis was still quietly slumbering on his couch. Before him stood the old Heidenreich, who seized his hand, and called upon his name to wake him. At the call he started up wildly, and inquired peevishly and sleepily why the old man disturbed him at such an hour? "Sleep is precisely the best thing that one can enjoy in a dungeon."

"I bring you weighty, and in some sort pleasant, news. That I come with it thus early is to prepare you for the events of the morning.

Yesterday arrived the emperor's final sentence--your life is saved. The imprisonment which you have already suffered will be reckoned in part of your incurred penance; and, _mense Septembris anni currentis_, you may expect your freedom."

"Am I to rot then so long in a dungeon? That is an unjust severity, as I neither confessed the fact, nor have been convicted of it; and one may easily see that the emperor deems himself the first n.o.bleman in the princ.i.p.ality, by his siding thus with the lordlings."

"Not yet contented? Thank G.o.d, on the contrary, that the sentence has turned out so exceedingly mild. I can a.s.sure you, when the sentence was read in the sessions-room, the impertinent alderman, Treutler, observed, _Dat veniam corvis vexat censura columbas!_ You were heavily accused: had not Onophrius been silent on the rack, had not your father subdued his old pride, and made most suppliant pet.i.tions to the emperor himself, and, lastly, had I not managed your cause in a veritable masterpiece of defence, you would have had a serious business of it to-day."

"And how has it gone with the old Goldmann?" asked Francis anxiously.

"Faith," replied Heidenreich, shrugging his shoulders, "his head will be off in an hour."

"Gracious heavens!" cried Francis, starting up from his couch, "it is not possible! The old man acted only in his office; and if he did kill Bieler, his life cannot be touched for it."

"The imperial council have seen the affair in a different light,"

replied Heidenreich coldly. "They think his office had been to separate and arrest both parties, you as well as Ra.s.selwitz; and not, out of partiality to the burgomaster's son, to kill his adversary."