"It indeed waxes late," Father Christopher answered, "and it is well on toward an hour since the countess left me here. I have pa.s.sed the time in prayers for her and thee, and perchance thou hast not so long a list of sins to confess that there will be lack of time, although it draweth toward noon and the hour of marriage."

As he spoke he moved toward the confessional, and with an expression of gravity which was new to him, the knight followed; but just at the moment when Albrecht kneeled to begin the recital of whatever transgressions might lie on his conscience, there arose without a horrid din, which penetrated the sacred place, rudely breaking up the stillness of the consecrated shrine. The leathern curtains which hung before the entrance were flung rudely aside, and with piercing cries a half-naked figure rushed forward, waving its arms and calling for help most piteously.

Albrecht and the priest both sprang to their feet, startled and amazed at this unexpected interruption; and the fleeing figure rushed down the nave to fling itself at the feet of the baron, where it knelt, clasping his knees and revealing in the dull light the disordered features of the fever-stricken man-at-arms.

"The wolves, Master!" he shrieked in accents of terror. "Save me! Save me!"

Down the aisle of the chapel came limping the sinister figure of Herr von Zimmern, who seemed to be in pursuit of the sick man.

"I tried to stop him," he said, with a singular smile which brought a sudden frown to Albrecht's brow, "but he escaped from me, and because of my infirmity I could not keep pace with him. He is stark mad till this fit pa.s.ses, but after, he will perchance be as well-witted as ever he has been."

He stooped over the sick man, and endeavored to persuade him to allow himself to be led away; but the man-at-arms could not be torn from his hold upon the knees of Albrecht, to whom he clung with the desperate clutch of a wretch who clings for life to some last hope.

"It is useless," Father Christopher said, after they had for some moments united their efforts in a vain endeavor to bring the sick man to reason. "He is too fully possessed by his fears and the madness of his sickness to be within the reach of our words. He will yield to no one save to the baron, and unless thou art willing, Sir Knight, to lead him back to his chamber, I know not if he may not remain here till the very hour set for thy marriage. It would but ill accord with the place to use violence, and he is not minded to quit his hold on thee."

The madman had by this time thrown himself upon the pavement, as with heart-rending cries he called upon his master to rescue him in his peril, and not to leave him to be devoured alive. His yells had called half the servants of the castle to the spot, and the more superst.i.tious of them crossed themselves in fear at sight of an omen so doubtful and fearful on the morn of their mistress' wedding day. They whispered together of their fears, and some of them recalled the signs which had attended the coming of the baron to the castle.

"The wood-folk are wroth," one old crone whispered to her favorite gossip. "They have smitten the churl, and who knows what power they may have over the master? Holy Wood of the Cross, but I fear me for the well-born countess!"

The confusion every moment waxed greater. The sick man had torn off his clothing until he grovelled upon the cold stone floor wellnigh as naked as he had been born, while his powerful hands, as yet all unwasted by his sickness, were clasped about the legs of Albrecht with a grip like that of the mountain bear in its fury when the huntsmen have reft away its cubs and it clutches the dogs in a last desperate struggle.

Herr von Zimmern stooped down and took the man-at-arms strongly by the shoulder.

"Come!" he cried in a deep, penetrating voice; "we must get away. The gracious baron will save thee, only thou must go with him away from this place of danger."

The sick man seemed to comprehend, for he loosed his hold and sprang to his feet.

"Go with him, my son," Father Christopher said. "Mercy comes before even a sacrament, and none save thee can lead this madman to his chamber."

"But my shrift?" demanded Albrecht, half under his breath.

"Thou must needs be married without it," the priest responded. "But I charge thee," he added solemnly, speaking so that his words reached the ears of the baron only, "if thou hast aught of crime on thy conscience, that thou do not betray the Lady Erna into a union with thy sin."

The young man looked straightforwardly into the eyes of the old priest, as in the same tone he answered:

"If it be not a sin to desire her love and to long more than for life to be lifted toward heaven by her, I have no sin on my conscience, Father."

The priest raised his hand in blessing, and the bystanders, although they knew nothing of the import of the words which had hastily pa.s.sed between him and the knight, understood the motion, and bowed their heads in reverence. Albrecht as if struck with sudden awe fell upon his knees, and so received the benediction which served him instead of shrift on his wedding day. Then rising he took the arm of the demented man-at-arms, who for the moment seemed somewhat more quiet, perhaps through exhaustion, and so led him away, all the bystanders following until the chapel, with its stony knights in eternal rest, its fragrance of pine boughs and of forest flowers, was left for a little deserted.

X

HOW THEY WERE WED.

It seemed to the Lady Adelaide as a matter not unlike a scandal and almost savoring of impiety for the last of the Von Rittenbergs to be wed without the sanction of the emperor, and with none of that pomp and circ.u.mstance which had accompanied the bridals of the members of the house from time immemorial. She pleaded that at least the neighboring n.o.bles might be summoned, but in even this she was overruled, her niece declaring that if they summoned one of the friends of the family they must needs bid them all, and that this she would not do. She was content, so she might but be united to the knight whom she loved, that none but those of the castle stand by, and that she be married with no more pomp than would attend the coupling of a kitchen-wench with the keeper of the swine.

"Body of Saint Fridolin!" Lady Adelaide cried in scandalized horror.

"Thou art a changeling. Thou wert never born of our blood; the elf-folk in the forest changed thee in thy cradle. And yet thou art enough of a Von Rittenberg to have thine own way," she muttered under her breath, giving up the vain discussion.

So far as the emperor was concerned, Lady Adelaide was really not much disquieted at heart, since with feminine wit she reasoned that when once the thing was done, there was little likelihood that Charlemagne, busy with his wars and the cares of state, would take the trouble of breaking it. She took it upon herself to order that a messenger be ready to set out for Aix-la-Chapelle, where the emperor might perhaps be found at this season, to bear to his Majesty the announcement of the alliance and to tender the homage of Baron Albrecht. It had been suggested that Herr von Zimmern be entrusted with this mission, but he refused it.

"I have had you on my hands from your cradle," he said to Albrecht with that strange mingling of respect and scorn with which he was wont to address his master, "and now that you are disposed of I am to be free.

Was not that our bargain?"

"Truly," the baron returned, smiling; "I promised thee thy freedom on my wedding day."

Greatly did Herr von Zimmern seem interested in this marriage, perhaps from this reason, albeit his service did not appear to be so irksome that he had great reason to complain of it. He set himself to do whatever might come within the compa.s.s of his station to hasten it onward; and yet it came into the mind of Lady Adelaide, who had not lived the better part of a century without learning something, and who whatever her natural short-comings was still a woman, and thus understood many things which do not appear upon the surface,--it being the kind provision of Nature that women, who cannot compa.s.s reason, shall be gifted with intuition,--that he was not in his secret heart so pleased as he took pains to seem. She pondered somewhat upon this contradiction, but she could come to no conclusion in regard to it, and so in the end she ceased troubling herself about it, the rather as she had just at this time many other things with which to c.u.mber her head.

There was not long delay in the setting out of the bridal train when the hour had come. At high noon the sound of rebecs and pipes and tambours made merry all the castle as the bridal train moved toward the chapel.

Even as far as the solemn, moaning pine-tops that murmured ever the strange secrets of the wood, the blithe strains sounded; and if indeed the wood-folk concerned themselves with the doings of the people in the castle they must this day have understood that the mood of the dwellers at Rittenberg was a jocund one.

And after the musicians came the pages, all in brave attire; and after the pages walked the damsels, shining and glowing in raiment bright and gay, and decked with many a gaud of gold and jewel; and behind the damsels came the bride herself in all her state and all her fairness.

The Countess Erna was clad all in white, her long robe, which was trimmed with the snowy down from the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of swans, borne behind her by a pair of pretty pages, scarce large enough for even that weight.

About her neck were wound strings of pearls, so large and so many that the ivory throat was scarcely to be seen because of them. In her hair was the tuft of white heron's feathers which marked her rank as head of the Von Rittenbergs, held in place by a single pearl so large and so round and of so silvery l.u.s.tre that it was a wonder to see. The gem had been given to her father by a Greek whose life he had saved long ago in one of the emperor's campaigns in Italy, and never before had Erna worn it.

After the countess followed Lady Adelaide and those of the damsels of the castle who pertained rather to her than to her niece, although, to say sooth, so little state had Erna kept hitherto that all the maidens had seemed to belong to her aunt more than to her; and behind, at a proper distance, came those of the household who were not of consequence to walk with the bridal train itself.

The Baron Albrecht, for his part, was on this day clad in green velvet of the color of a beech-leaf in the shade, slashed with samite of the hue of the same foliage when the sun shines upon it. Richly was his raiment wrought in gold with curious devices of leaf and blossom, and set thickly with gems which made the eyes blink to look at them, so bright was their radiance. The clasps of his mantle, and even those of his sandals were of precious stones, while about his neck was a collar of jewels such as had never before been seen at Rittenberg. On his cap of marten's fur was fastened a carbuncle as large as the egg of the wood-pigeon and as red as the heart's blood of a rock-dove when it is spilled upon the bird's white breast.

All of the retainers of the castle were there to witness the marriage, and even some of the serfs crept unrebuked to the doors of the chapel, where they could hear most of the service and haply see a little, albeit it was not to be expected that they could understand if they did hear, although under the pious rule of Countess Erna they were commanded to attend Ma.s.s.

The solemn words were said at last, and with an emotion which was unusual, Father Christopher united the maid whose guardian he had been from her earliest infancy to the knight. Even at the altar there came upon the priest a dim and nameless fear what might be the results of this marriage. In the elevation of that hallowed moment he seemed to catch some faint glimpse of startling possibilities which were to depend upon the union, of momentous consequences which transcended the bounds of ordinary experiences, and of some mystery that thrilled him without his being able to grasp or to understand it. He felt for the instant a wonderful uplifting, as of one called to take part in some mighty conflict, of which the outcome was doubtful, but in which the cause was glorious. It was as if he were seized upon by some mystic power such as thrills the heart of a seer in the moment of his ecstasy; as if his hand almost touched some profound and mighty secret upon which depended the fate of mankind. As if in a vision he felt about him the might of the forest and the terror of its witchery; the powers of night and of h.e.l.l seemed to surge around him in awful conflict with those of light; he was as if for the moment rapt away from the holy place in which he stood, and encompa.s.sed by the blackness in which the wild and dread beings of the wilderness worked their sinful spells against mankind.

Only an instant did the vision, if vision it were, hold him, and then the candles upon the altar shone again upon him; but the soul of Father Christopher was filled with wild surmise and strange questionings what this might mean. He p.r.o.nounced the nuptial benediction with lips that hardly knew what they said, and with eyes which scarcely saw the pair kneeling before him in all the glory of youth and beauty and the bravery of their splendid attire.

It was to be expected that Erna should be deeply affected by the rite which bound her for life and death to the knight by her side. Her religious nature was keenly susceptible to all the offices of the Church, and although she might at this moment be strongly swayed by pa.s.sion and by personal sentiment, the occasion was one of too much solemnity to fail of touching her profoundly. What most impressed the good priest was the reverential bearing of the groom during the rite.

There was in the mien of Albrecht a gravity and a respect which was to Father Christopher surprising, accustomed as he was to the levity and joyousness of the knight. The baron seemed even more serious and religious in his att.i.tude than the bride, so that the priest could not but wonder at this reversal of their usual att.i.tudes.

After the ceremony there was a feast in the great hall of the castle, and not a little wine was drunk, albeit the most of it was consumed below the salt. Never had Albrecht been so gay. The seriousness which Father Christopher had noted in the chapel had vanished, and he was like a roistering, jocund woodland G.o.d, overflowing with merriment. His mirth was contagious, and as he jested and sang, and in gleeful wise teased the Lady Adelaide, even the priest was constrained to laugh until the tears ran down upon his wrinkled cheeks.

It was after the feast was over, and the torches had been lighted, that Herr von Zimmern approached Erna.

"Gracious lady," he said, "I have ventured to provide a pastime for your wedding day. As we came hither through the forest the other day, we met a band of wandering gypsies from the South. They are skilful in the song and the dance, and I ventured to bid them to be here to-night. They are in the courtyard, and await your presence to begin their sports."

Erna hesitated a little, even while she thanked him; but Albrecht sprang up joyously.

"Oh, the gypsies!" he cried. "They are almost as good as the wood-folk themselves, for they live in the open air and love the forest."

Seeing that her husband was pleased, Erna yielded despite whatever secret disinclination she may have felt, and the company went out upon a balcony that overlooked the courtyard. There in a gay and picturesque group under the flaring torches were the wandering band, their tawdry finery showing in the wavering and uncertain light like real bravery of attire. The jugglers tossed the glittering b.a.l.l.s; the dancers twined themselves lightly through the measures of their strange dances, and the poor tame bear was made to go clumsily through his uncouth antics. The serfs were cl.u.s.tered in wondering knots in the shadows; the torches flamed, and the quaint instruments of the vagrant musicians sounded weirdly on the night air in the plaintive tunes of the wild folk. Erna felt an unknown feeling stealing over her, as if some incantation were being performed which was to transform her into a new creature. She fancied that secretly Herr von Zimmern watched her steadily; and half in pleasure and half in fear she shrank close to her husband's side, as if in him were strength and reliance.

At length a gypsy girl came forward into the ring which her fellows made for her, and after a short prelude on the instruments of the musicians, began to sing. Her voice was of pa.s.sionate sweetness, full of the languor of the South, the luxurious sensuousness which is as sweet as love and as enervating. Erna's whole body trembled with a sensation such as she had never known, and she seemed to herself at once to cling closer to Albrecht and to desire to flee from him. The song was one of the gypsy's life and love.

"When day is breaking, The gypsy, waking, His way is taking Through thicket and thorn.

No bird upward sailing On glad wing prevailing, More jocund is hailing The gay, laughing morn.