"Certainly, my good master, quite close to you!"

"Why are you so quiet?" he asked.

"I have been thinking of a little song that says in rhyme just what you asked me to-day. Would you like to hear it?"

"Of course; are you skilled in such things?"

"A little," and in a low voice she sang as follows.

"The blind man to the maiden said: 'O thou of hearts the truest, Thy countenance is hid from me; Let not my questions anger thee!

Speak, though in words the fewest!

"'Tell me what kind of eyes are thine?

Dark eyes, or light ones rather?'

'My eyes are a decided brown So much, at least--by looking down-- From the brook's gla.s.s I gather.'

"'And is it red--thy little mouth?

That too the blind must care for!'

'Ah, I would tell that soon to thee, Only--none yet has told it me.

I cannot answer, therefore!'

"'But dost thou ask what heart I have There hesitate I never!

In thine own breast 'tis borne, and so 'Tis thine in weal and thine in woe, For life, for death,--thine ever!'"[4]

"Beata, who taught you that song?" cried Donatus, starting up from the soft moss. The tender words had gone to his head and heart like sweet wine. He pa.s.sed his hand across his brow as if to wipe away the spell which had been lightly woven over him.

"Who taught you that song?" he asked again.

"No one, who should? No one could have heard what we were talking of to-day."

"But who taught you to say what you felt in that sweet fashion?"

"My father," said the child, and a deep melancholy rang through the words.

"You have never told me about him, Beata, how is that?

"Because I never can help crying when I speak of him, and that will not make you happy."

"Beata," said Donatus gravely, "you share my sorrows, and shall I not share yours? Tell me who was the wonderful man that taught a wild wood-bird to sing with such sweet art?"

"He was a troubadour; it was his profession to turn thoughts into artistic verse, and so he taught me. Poor father! The song of his lips was most sweet, and whoever heard him and his beautiful lute-playing, was made thankful and merry of heart. And yet he had to wander from place to place like me, and hide his handsome face under hideous disguises. For he was an exile and an outcast, and every man's hand was against him."

"And what crime had he committed?" asked Donatus.

"I never knew--my mother said I was guilty of it all. It was because I had come into the world that things went so hardly with him--oh!--and how could I help it!" she hid her head in her hands and wept bitterly.

Donatus drew her hands away and took them consolingly in his own. "My child, my dear child!"

"That is just what my father always used to say when he came to see us and took me in his arms. You know he never could stay with us; he was obliged to go into the towns and sing to people for his daily bread.

And when he did come it was by stealth, and only when we were at Finstermunz, or the valleys of the Inn or the Lech, where no one from these parts was likely to see him. He used to bring us as much food and money as he could spare, and would stay a few weeks with us in the forest. There he taught me a number of little proverbs and sayings and pretty tunes, and the arts of rhyming as far as I could learn them, but I was still quite young when he died--I could not count more than twelve trees that I had marked."

"How did he die?" asked her companion.

The child's hand trembled as she answered.

"They fell upon him like a wild deer--some people out hunting who recognised him--and he dragged himself to us almost bleeding to death.

We nursed him as best we could, but it was too late to be of any use.

Oh! and he was so patient and gentle even when he was dying; he laid his hand upon my head and blessed me, and said, 'May G.o.d never visit the guilt of your parents on your head--expiate in faithfulness their sin against faithfulness.'"

Donatus took her hand solemnly in his. "Yes, you will be faithful and expiate the guilt of your parents whatever their sin was--a strange divination tells me this, and my soul is possessed with a deep sadness for your sake. What dark secret hangs over your birth, poor child--Who may you be? Did you never ask your mother Berntrudis?"

"No--why should I? What good could it do me? I am a poor, useless creature, I come and pa.s.s away like a wild heath-flower, no one asking whence came you or why do you bloom?"

"Poor heath-flower--lonely and sweet, how sacred you are to me. The perfume refreshes the weary pilgrim, and the dreaming spirit, like the dainty bee, gathers golden honey from the blossom of your lips. You grow firmly rooted in the dry rock, and humbly bend your head to the wind as it sweeps over the desert spot--and yet you stand firm and live on through sunshine and rain, through the fury of wind and weather! Oh!

heath-flower--I will not ask whence you came--I only rest my weary head in your shade and bless you!" And he threw himself on his knees before her, and bent his brow on her hands. Thus he rested for some time in silence; not a breath, not a sound roused him from his dreams.

In such a moment of exquisite rapture the girl almost held her breath--feeling herself like a holy vessel into whom the Lord was pouring out his mercies.

But suddenly he started up. "Great G.o.d!" exclaimed he, "time is flying and I am delaying and dreaming. Come, Beata, 'of hearts the truest,'

lead me onward."

And on they went again, on and on, these two who might not rest; but was it the intoxicating perfume of the heath-flower, or his rising fever that made his steps uncertain? He knew not which; but he felt that his strength was failing.

"Hold Thou me up, O Lord!--for this day only hold Thou me up, till I have brought succour to my brethren!" so he prayed fervently, as he put his arm round the girl's shoulders for a firmer support.

"Am I too heavy for you?"

"Oh no--never!" cried the child, though she could hardly hold herself up under the beloved burden, for her long walk through the night had by degrees crippled even her young limbs and made them feel like lead. But she would rather have died than he should know it.

"Poor little one, how much rather would I carry you!" he said, and he involuntarily dropped his head on to hers which reached just to his shoulder. He felt her silky hair like a soft pillow under his cheek, and the breath of her lips came up to him like incense. Then he whispered softly--and the words sounded like a sad caress--

"Is it your heart that I have to carry in my breast that is so heavy that my feet totter under the weight of it?"

"If love and truth can be weighed in an earthly scale, then, indeed, dear master, you could hardly carry it."

"I could almost believe that you are a witch, and that your little heart was an incubus that weighed on mine!"

"What you too! you say so?" cried Beata pitifully. "Then it must be true."

Suddenly they heard a distant rush through the wood on each side of them, like the tramp of hoofs, and the startled creatures of the wood scampered through the brushwood, or whirled across their path in hasty flight.

"G.o.d help us! it is the mounted soldiers!" exclaimed Beata. "But collect yourself--your dress disguises you perfectly. Do not betray yourself." And she hastily s.n.a.t.c.hed the bandage from his eyes and hid it in her bosom; then she pulled the hat low over his brow so that his eyes might not be seen under its broad brim.

"Do not say that you are blind," she whispered.

By this time the riders broke through the bushes; they were the followers of Count Reichenberg and the lord of Ramuss. They were heated and angry.