"There is to be a tournament to-morrow," the youth faltered out.

"And you would take part, in spite of my discourse," said the duke, with a smile.

Gilbert's reddening cheeks answered for him.

"I must forbid you to couch lance to-morrow," said Rodolph, tenderly; "you shall receive your spurs at my hands when I am king, but let me be the judge of the time. And remember, my son," he added, detaining Gilbert as the latter was about to retire, "remember what you have seen this night. When men shall question my motives, and extol or condemn me, you may say that Rodolph of Suabia was inspired by ambition to seek the crown, but that when it was within his grasp, he would have turned from it in disgust, had not conscience and patriotism compelled him to wear it."

As Gilbert, deeply moved, kissed his hand and withdrew, Rodolph retired to an oratory into which his apartments opened. He had been there engaged in prayer for more than an hour, when the Archbishop of Mayence appeared, and, after a brief adoration, entered the confessional. There, in the silent hour of midnight, the king knelt before the priest, in obedience to the voice of that G.o.d who bequeathed us a Church to administer the Sacraments which He appointed for our salvation, and through which we can only attain it. When Rodolph sat again in his chamber, his brow was calmer and his eye softer and brighter.

The morning of the twenty-sixth of March dawned calm and bright. A warm sun suddenly interrupted a long-protracted spell of cold weather, the snow rapidly disappeared from the fields and streets, and the credulous saw a happy omen in the genial spring day that broke through the icy fetters of winter to greet the coronation. A splendid procession moved to the cathedral, and during the celebration of Solemn High Ma.s.s, Sigefroy, Archbishop of Mayence, crowned and consecrated Rodolph rightful king and defender of the kingdom of the Franks.

After the ceremony, the n.o.bles a.s.sembled to witness the tournament, where the newly crowned monarch presided with a crowd of barons at his side. Gilbert stood at some distance from the royal person, and watched the tilting with all-absorbing interest. Henry of Stramen displayed so much address and managed his horse with so much skill that Gilbert could scarce forbear to join in the applause rendered by those around him. So intent was he upon the lists that a citizen by his side had, un.o.bserved by him, severed the links of a ma.s.sive gold chain which he wore around his neck, and had concealed it in his gown. But a page who had perceived the theft, throttled the culprit and drew the chain from its hiding-place. The man was ordered to prison, and Gilbert had forgotten the occurrence, when the a.s.sembly was disturbed by loud cries and imprecations from without. Gilbert quick as thought pa.s.sed through the doorway and stood in the street. The bourgeois of Mayence were zealous partisans of Henry, and had already scowled upon the honors paid to his rival. The maltreatment of their townsman had kindled the spark of discontent to flame. They had attacked the soldiers of Rodolph, who, as was customary, attended the joust unarmed, and had rescued the thief. As Gilbert stood watching the tumult, he was singled out as the object of attack, probably at the direction of the citizen who had suffered in the attempt to steal his chain. The situation of the young n.o.ble, clad only in a velvet doublet and armed only with a light sword, was extremely precarious. Yet he did not dream of flight, but for a time kept his a.s.sailants at bay, slowly falling back upon the arena. A number of soldiers issuing from the pavilion gathered around him, but, shorn of their weapons, they could only parry without returning the blows of their adversaries, who were well supplied with stones and clubs.

Gilbert had not left the lists un.o.bserved by Rodolph, who immediately despatched a page to watch his movements. When informed of his young friend's danger, he arose and cried in a loud voice:

"Gentlemen, we would not have you meddle in this affray: a party of my men have gone for their arms, and it will speedily be terminated. But the son of Albert de Hers is now overpowered by these boors. Let some one hasten to his rescue!"

Three young knights at once dismounted and pa.s.sed out: the foremost bore in his crest a long dark plume.

The generous soldiers, who had hitherto received upon their defenceless bodies the blows aimed at Gilbert, were almost all beaten down, and in a few minutes more he would have been exposed comparatively unaided to the fury of the populace. His sword was shivered to the hilt, and though he drove back a giant who attempted to close with him, by dashing the guard in his face, he must have fallen beneath a club that swung over his head, had not a tall knight, completely clad in armor, striding before him, intercepted the blow, and dashed the a.s.sailant to the earth. A shower of blows saluted the youth's deliverer, but he bore them unflinching, and, vigorously plying his two-handed sword, cleared a s.p.a.ce around the exhausted Gilbert. The two other knights arriving at this moment, the contest became more equal. But the mob were now displaying deadlier weapons, and Rodolph reluctantly resolved to command his chivalry to disperse the rabble, when his soldiers arrived with their arms. Inflamed by the loss of their comrades, the now formidable troops threw themselves upon the citizens, and pursued them with great slaughter to their homes. When the knights were left without an enemy, Gilbert advanced to embrace his deliverer. But the knight of the black plume stepped back a pace, and raising his visor, disclosed the features of Henry of Stramen, cold, haughty, and showing just the traces of a smile of disdain.

Gladly at that moment would Gilbert have fallen into his arms and entreated him to forget the past; but there were too many eyes to witness a repulse. He contented himself by saying:

"Sir, you have preserved my life, and with the grace of G.o.d you shall not repent it."

Henry made no reply, and they parted.

Gilbert was far too generous to regret an incident which laid him under such deep obligations to Henry of Stramen. He rejoiced that it had occurred, for it might remove the mortification produced by their late encounter, and diminish the mortal hatred with which he was regarded. He was also well disposed to welcome any accident that might give him a pretext for conciliating the house of Stramen. Henry perhaps secretly exulted that he had conferred a favor upon Gilbert that would gall his heart, while it poured a balm upon his own. Still he did not hold the youth in the same utter detestation as before.

On the next day, Rodolph, following an ancient custom, began a tour through his dominions.

Germany now presented the spectacle of a country claimed by two kings.

To Gregory the party of the old king was heretical and odious--that of the new king pure and orthodox. Though all his sympathies were with the latter, he still openly blamed and deplored the conduct of his legates, and refused to acknowledge Rodolph as king. The Pope well knew what a delicate undertaking it was to depose a sovereign whom he had consecrated, and how fraught with danger such a precedent must be. His interest evidently called him to receive Rodolph at once into his arms, and had he done this, the result of the contest would have been very different. In the behavior of Gregory we discover, in addition to an insuperable aversion to countenance civil war, a disposition to endure the last extremity rather than dethrone a legitimate monarch, and perhaps a preference of Henry, for his parents' sake, to his rival.

Both kings prepared vigorously for the struggle which could not be long postponed. Henry's measures were admirably calculated to increase his power. He scattered rich benefices lavishly among the clergy, lured on the soldiers of fortune with tempting bribes, and granted enviable privileges to the seaboard towns. The citizens of Augsburg, after tasting his bounty, braved the menaces of his antagonist. Hordes of brigands from Bohemia were attracted to his camp by brilliant largesses and the prospect of an easy booty. The German cities, and particularly those along the Rhine, had always, pursuant to the policy of his ancestors, been the object of his peculiar favor, and the merchants of Worms were relieved from all imposts. The population of these cities was soon ranged under the banner of Henry, whose ranks increased so long as gold could buy, and the promise of license and plunder attracted.

Rodolph's policy served to diminish instead of swelling his numbers. He devoted himself, at the sacrifice of everything else, to gain the Pope to acknowledge him as king. He appeared the inflexible chastiser of simony and ecclesiastical corruption. The very day of his coronation he had obtained the dismissal of a simoniacal deacon. Everywhere he compelled the nominees of Henry to fly, and filled their places with zealous champions of the canonical discipline. At Constance and Zurich he drove the irregularly appointed bishops from their sees: he placed Lutold, a zealous champion of the Pope, over the monastery of St. Gall, which had been devoted to his rival. Many, frightened by these severities, deserted his standards, and others recoiled from the presence of so rigorous an enforcer of spiritual purity.

Thus, while the cause of Henry was flourishing under his criminal artifices, Rodolph was weakened by his honest severity. Yet there was this difference between the parties. The minions of Henry were goaded on by individual interests--the partisans of Rodolph by a common resolution to die in defence of a sublime principle; the first were incited by the hope of plunder, the l.u.s.t of empire, ambition, avarice, or a lawless appet.i.te for war--the last were animated by a love of liberty, and fought for future security from oppression; the one prepared to preserve unrighteous license and ill-gotten gains--the other were inspired by the hope of regaining the freedom of which they had been unjustly deprived, and by the resolve to regain their ancestral rights and to protect the outraged Church of G.o.d.

Albert of Hers with all his energy and address had not succeeded in extracting from Suabia more than two thousand men. With this small force he joined Rodolph, who was then encamped at the little village of Sommeringen, with scarce three thousand Suabians. Here they learned that Henry, at the head of twelve thousand effective troops, was advancing upon Suabia through Ratisbon. Rodolph soon heard of the atrocities of his rival, who abandoned the country to fire, sword, and rapine. Old men and women, pale with fear, came crowding into camp with thrilling tales of the brutality of the Bohemians and their a.s.sociates. The war had begun; and Henry was devastating the region bordering on the Danube and the Rhine, from Esslingen to Ulm.

Though his force did not amount to half that of his opponent, Rodolph, enraged by the crimes he could not prevent, would have gone to meet his compet.i.tor, but for the unanimous opposition of his n.o.bles. While the Suabian party were deliberating upon the best course to pursue, Henry, by a forced march, fell unexpectedly upon their rear. Taken by surprise and overpowered by numbers, they fled in all directions, and Rodolph, accompanied only by a remnant of his army, escaped with difficulty into Saxony. Suabia was now at the mercy of the victor.

Tidings of this disastrous defeat had not yet reached the Lady Margaret.

The scanty intelligence she could occasionally glean was not such as to brighten the melancholy caused by the absence of her father and brother. Her fears thickened daily, as rumor, for once unable to exaggerate, divulged the ma.s.sacres and impieties of the old imperialists. Her only relief was in the Sacraments, administered by the saintly Herman, and in prayer. The wives of the yeomen, not knowing when to expect the enemy, sought shelter in the castle with their parents and children. There were gathered the innocent, the aged, the young, the beautiful, and the Lady Margaret experienced some relief in administering to their wants and calming their anxiety. She did not rely much upon the few faithful soldiers who were left to guard the castle; but though womanly apprehension would often blanch her cheek, and her frame quiver as some recent deed of shame was unfolded, her confidence in G.o.d continued unabated.

One afternoon, as the Lady Margaret, surrounded by the inmates of the castle, was seated in the hall, Bertha, clad in a black mantle, stole silently into the room, and glancing wildly around, began to traverse the apartment with rapid strides. Her excited manner attracted much attention, and many anxious conjectures were made as to the cause of her meaning gestures. At length, stopping before the Lady Margaret, who watched her movements with a troubled eye, she sang, almost in a whisper:

The sunbeam was bright on their shields as they came, But dim on their blood-rusted spears; They gave up the hamlet to pillage and flame, And scoffed at the kneeling one's tears!

"Perhaps the enemy are upon us," said a graycoated palmer, who for some days had shared the bounty of the Lady Margaret.

At these words, a general murmur ran round the group, and then all was still as death.

Bertha resumed, in a louder tone:

They come--they come--the groan, the shout Of death and life ring wildly out!

The sky is clouding at their cry, As they toss their reeking blades on high; Arm, gallants all! and watch ye well, Or to-morrow's chime will be your knell.

As she concluded the rough fragment, she extended her arm to the south, and shaking her finger menacingly, muttered, "They come!"

This thrilling announcement called forth more than one cry from the lips of the trembling listeners. To increase the panic, a groom burst into the room, and whispered something into the Lady Margaret's ear that made her start and turn pale as marble. Awhile she sat motionless and apparently sinking. But it was not long before her weakness disappeared, and her face a.s.sumed a serene, undaunted expression that imparted new hope to those who were sobbing about her. The wailing was hushed as she rose and said, calmly and without faltering:

"We shall probably be attacked in a few hours by an inferior force. Let us pray to G.o.d that we may be able to defeat their malice."

In uttering this she had fallen upon her knees, and the rest of the group, imitating her example, knelt beside her. When that solemn and fervent prayer was over, the voice of the gray palmer was again heard, as he cried:

"If any man here can still hurl stone, or thrust spear, let him follow me to the walls!"

About six, in whom age had not quenched the fire or strength of youth, and as many beardless youths, sprang up at the call, and accompanied the speaker out of the room.

Exclusive of this new force, the defenders of the castle were not more than twenty, yet so admirable were its defences that they might hold in check an attacking party of more than a hundred. The warder and his men were grouped together at the main gate, straining their eyes against the horizon, where the smoke of some cottages indicated the presence of the foe, when the palmer advanced and asked permission to a.s.sist them. This was readily granted, and the recruits were soon supplied with defensive armor and the usual weapons. The palmer wore his headpiece over his hood, and, with his breast-plate over his gown, which, tucked up with more than John Chandos' prudence, but half revealed the thigh-pieces beneath it, he was equally conspicuous and grotesque.

A body of mounted men could now be plainly seen rapidly advancing. They no longer stayed to desolate the humble dwellings in their path, but swept on against the stately castle which seemed to bid them defiance.

The Lady Margaret was now among the soldiers, animating them to resistance. Guided by the palmer, to whom the command had been tacitly yielded, the men were busily engaged in carrying large stones up to the battlements over the archway.

"Who are our a.s.sailants?" asked the maiden, as with a firm step she mounted the wall.

The advancing troops rode up to the raised drawbridge, displaying as they came the picturesque costume and swarthy face of the Bohemian marauder. The Lady Margaret's cheek was now deeply flushed, and the haughty spirit of her race flashed within her eyes and curled her lip in scorn.

"They are not a hundred," she said to the palmer, who stood at her side.

In reply, the palmer pointed to a body of men-at-arms, then emerging from a clump of trees in which they had been hitherto concealed. Her color fell at the sight of this new force--yet only for a moment: the next instant her cheek resumed its glow. This column, about a hundred strong, approached slowly and cautiously, as if expecting a sally, until they too had reached the moat.

"We call upon you to open your gates!" exclaimed a knight, who rode a little in advance.

"To whom?" replied the Lady Margaret, in a loud voice.

"To your rightful king and master, Henry of Austria!"

"We do not own a monarch," she returned, "who has forfeited the crown, and our gates shall be closed against all who come in his name."

"You refuse to surrender?"

"Yes!"

"Prepare then, for we will force a pa.s.sage!"