CHAPTER I.
Disturbed by the heavy fall of the young maiden the bats flew out of the dark cellar and whirred wildly around. Toads crept from out of the swampy rain-sodden ground and crawled up the damp wall towards the opening. The terrified mice ran hither and thither. The moon had reached its highest point, and cast its cold rays through the square aperture on the humid wall. A violent pain in her foot aroused Lydia from the faint, into which she had fallen, and in the which she knew not how long she had lain. When she endeavored to stand up, she became aware that her foot was broken. Only half conscious of her position, she looked up through the shaft of the cellar, at the starry heaven above. The Lord on whom she had called for aid had saved her from a hideous fate. "He will not suffer me to perish here," she said with the patience of a person afflicted with a serious illness. But the sight was terrible which the beams of the Moon now falling straight disclosed to her, as her eyes became more and more accustomed to the darkness. Dozens of bats flew noiselessly about in the dark. Horrible toads crawled along the wet walls. A rat ran across her face, so that she had to start up in spite of her pain to frighten the animal away. Overhead, all was still. Lydia reflected that her shouts would attract no one to her, except perhaps her pursuers. She therefore determined to husband her strength till dawn. She would then certainly succeed in making herself heard by some of the children picking berries, or by some of the numerous laborers. Anxiously did she gaze upwards towards the opening to see whether the cold light of the moon was not giving way to the warmer beams of the sun. Her back hurt her from having fallen against stones, the stinging pain in her foot caused her to sob, but she believed that she would be saved, and considered this as a punishment for the guilt which she had been induced to commit. How thankful she felt that her father was absent and therefore not anxious about her. Thus thinking she fell asleep.
She woke, aroused by a stone which fell from above on her wounded foot. "Nothing stirs," she heard a boy's voice say. "I am here," cried Lydia in terror lest her deliverers should depart. "God be praised, young lady," cried a man's voice, "we heard no sound and feared our search was vain. Have you strength enough, to let yourself be pulled up by a rope."
"I doubt it. My foot is broken and my back is wounded."
"Then must we see if the ladder is long enough."
"But you promise to do me no harm?"
"Don't you know me, young Maiden, the Miller Werner from the Kreuzgrund, behind Ziegelhausen."
"Ah, is it you Father Werner," said she crying for joy. "How did you find out where I was?"
"The wretches who hunted you down, said, you disappeared from them here as if the earth had swallowed you up, so we could easily imagine where you were. The scoundrels would have quietly let you perish."
"Yes, it was terrible," said Lydia, "but God punished me for my sins."
The ladder was now let down through the opening, and carefully did the brave old man avoid touching Lydia. Then he himself climbed down holding a burning rosin torch. "A filthy hole, this old cellar," he murmured. "How the bats fly the light. Yes, light is horrible to you, you children of darkness." Carefully did he raise Lydia, who like a child wound her arms round his neck. Cautiously did he climb the ladder to the world above, where he laid her down on the soft turf. The question now was how to carry the sick child, who lay pale and faint on the ground, to the high road beneath. The Miller thought at first of using the ladder as a stretcher, and carrying her down on that. But the ladder was small and hard. To fetch a stretcher would have taken too much time and attracted attention. Lydia also begged urgently that he would hurry. Nothing remained but for the old man to carry her down in his arms, for which purpose he bound her to himself with the boy's girdle. The latter ran down to the village to have a covered cart in readiness below, whilst the father climbed cautiously down the stony footpath leading to the road. Lydia lay still, on the back of the miller, with her arms around his neck, while he sought the most lonely path through wood and vineyard. "The lost sheep," he thought, "torn even to bleeding by thorns and its wool remained sticking to the hedges. But when the shepherd finds it again, he takes it on his back with joy." And he looked at the pretty white hands clasped so touchingly under his prickly chin. The sweet burden lay warm on his back, and the maiden's delicate cheek rested on his shoulder. Then the old gray-beard began to lose his head. It seemed to him whilst looking at those white hands, as if an evil voice close to him said: "Thy Martha never had such hands."
"What does that matter to thee, old sinner," he answered the tempter bravely. "Hast thou always lived among the purer brethren, thou would'st not care in thy older days to keep company with the coarser."
"To be waited upon by such hands, would nevertheless be pleasant," continued the first voice.
"Nevertheless thou hast still thy old wife," answered he gruffly.
"Have not Hetzer, Rottmann and other prophets taught, that when a brother felt, he had not found his suitable spiritual bride, he might loose himself from the older bond and enter into a new marriage."
"Let the disciples of Judas teach. Their end was like his. Old Martha entered the Baptist Communion with me and has ever been a true wife."
"Then take two wives, as permitted by the prophets of Munster. Had not the holy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Lamech, Gideon, and David more than one wife, why not thou also? It is true that the German princes forbade this to the brethren at Munster, but the Landgraf himself, who persecuted them with fire and sword, followed their example later on."
"Peace Satan," rejoined the old man. "Scripture is opposed to polygamy in spite of Abraham and Philip of Hessen. God gave Adam only one Eva. He created them male and female, not one male and two females. It is also said, 'and they two shall be one flesh,' and not three or four. But verily Martha is now nothing but skin and bones," he thought sadly and sighed.
"You must find me very heavy, good father?" said Lydia in a low tone.
"No," he answered shortly. Then he became conscious that he had better keep up a conversation with his protégée than with the wicked Satan who would tempt him from the right path, and he told her how his son had informed him of the appointment made by Laurenzano, and how the rest had come to pass. Lydia began to weep. "So you know everything, and will certainly consider me very wicked."
"We are all but flesh and blood," said the Miller good-naturedly. "Our souls will stumble so long as they go about on two legs, and each bears within himself a rock of offence."
"I thank you father, for not punishing me more severely."
"That is not my office," replied the Baptist. "I have enough to punish in myself."
"Ah, you are good, but I dare not think what others will think of me."
"People must be allowed to talk, as geese cannot," rejoined the Miller. "Make your peace with God and then be satisfied. Look there is George with the cart."
Joyfully cracking his whip, stood the little devil of the previous night close to his horse. "Now we shall lay you down gently in the waggon and then close the linen curtains." Getting her down was only managed with much pain and difficulty; then the well known Miller drove back unquestioned through the town to the portal of the Otto Heinrich building. The careful Barbara had seen the cart crossing the drawbridge and was immediately at hand. The Miller gave her no information. The young lady had hurt her foot falling was all he said, and carefully was she carried up the steps. Barbara by the Miller's advice wrapped the leg in wet cloths, till the father at his return at mid-day could apply a more surgically correct bandage. The brave Baptist had quietly withdrawn to escape being thanked. The father himself forbade his feverish child to talk, and appeared to be quite contented with the short account given by Klytia. It was sufficient for him that the cure proceeded satisfactorily, and the old Barbara scolded about the open turnip-pit in which more than one person had twisted his foot. When Erastus however asked later on for a more detailed account, he was surprised at his daughter's request to be allowed not to mention the cause of her accident. He shook his head, without however pressing his inquiries. "She must have come to grief through the fault of another," he thought, and was at last glad that she spared him any fresh troubles, as his own business began to demand more attention.
Nothing was heard of Magister Laurenzano in Heidelberg, except that he asked for leave of absence till the re-opening of the College, and wished especially to be relieved from his office of preacher at the Stift.
In the bright town of Speyer with its own independent Bishopric, the throng composing the parliament was so numerous that any individual man was soon lost to sight. Any person who however might have entered Speyer cathedral at the hour of Vespers on the day on which Lydia was rescued, might have seen a young man clothed in black kneeling in the most abject manner before one of the confessional boxes most concealed in the gloom. His confession was at an end and the priest was earnestly addressing him. A woman kneeling close by heard the words: "Only a long discipline, my Son, can restore the equilibrium and order of thy disturbed conscience." From that time onwards for several weeks the same stranger might be noticed entering the cathedral daily at daybreak and at sundown and going down to the dark crypt under the chancel. Thence he disappeared in a side chapel set aside for the use of the clergy of the chapter. "Where can Laurenzano be spending his holiday?" asked the philosopher Pithopöus at the round table in the Hirsch, who loved a rational audience.
"His brother says," replied Erastus, "that he is in Speyer, but I have not been able to hear a word about him from gentlemen who are there in the Kurfürst's suite, although I made all due inquiries."
"Very probably," answered Pithopöus, who liked Laurenzano for the interest he felt in scholastic discussions. "In the bustle which now goes on in that town, an individual is easily lost."