CHAPTER XV.
We are all well aware that there are certain of man's infirmities which may be turned to serve his own purposes when the exercise of his faculties might be dangerous or inconvenient. It may sometimes be pleasant to have no eyes, sometimes to have no ears; and we have known instances where it was believed judicious in certain parties to have no legs, till they were found for them by other parties interested in the progress of the recusants. Now the lords of Eppenfeld occasionally judged it expedient to be extremely hard of hearing; and in order to favour this infirmity as far as possible, no bell was attached to their gates, though these tinkling instruments had long before been introduced into common use, as the means of summoning porters or warders to answer the inquiries of the stranger, or to open the doors to the visitor. It would seem that they were fond of the usages of antiquity, for the only means provided for making one's self heard before their castle, was the long disused one of a large horn, suspended under the arch of an outwork in advance of the drawbridge, the sound of which might be heard or not by those within, as they liked.
The Baron of Eppenfeld was seated at table on the evening of the day of which we have just been speaking, though the hour of dinner was long past, and that of supper not yet arrived. Human nature, however, is the same in all ages. We may smooth, and shape, and polish, and gild the stone, but the material remains unchanged, and the same propensities and habits become apparent whenever circumstances call them into action. Lightly won, and lightly spent, was as true a maxim in those days as in our own; and the predatory noble, or robber knight, was as sure to wind up any successful expedition with revelry and drunkenness, as the wrecker, the smuggler, or the footpad of modern times. The Baron of Eppenfeld had made a glorious sweep of the goods of the Venetian merchants; he had obtained more gold by an enterprise of little difficulty or danger, than, had ever warmed his coffers before; and, consequently, the choice vintages of his cellars--though I cannot say they were the produce of his own vineyards--were doomed to flow for himself and his soldiery, in honour of the happy event. He was revelling then with the wine cup in his hand, when the sound of the horn before the gates made itself heard in the hall. He and his companions had drunk for many an hour, and the eyes of several of the worthy gentlemen present were growing somewhat glassy and unmeaning. The Baron's own head, however, seemed made of the same cast-iron materials as his frame, and the quantity was infinite which he could absorb without any apparent effect.
"Ha!" he cried, as soon as the sound met his ear; "go and look through the loophole, Stephen, and see who that is blowing the horn."
The man to whom he spoke, rose, and carried his flushed countenance and watery eyes to a loophole in the neighbouring tower, and after an absence of about two minutes, returned to say, in not very distinct tones,--"It is a youth, on horseback."
"That young villain!--come for his share, I dare say," said the Baron. "Well, we'll give him his share, and take it from him afterwards. He has helped us to skin his lord, and so it is all fair for us to skin him."
A peal of laughter from his followers succeeded to this remarkably just and honourable observation of the Baron of Eppenfeld, in the midst of which the man Stephen grumbled forth, two or three times before he could make himself heard--"This is not he, my lord. This fellow's taller by a hand's breadth, and he has got a number of knechts after him; so you had better look to yourself. I could not count them, for they wavered about before my eyes as if they were dancing."
"That was because you are drunk, swine!" replied the Baron. "Knechts!--what brings he knechts here for? Go you out, Fritz, and look at them through the grate, and see how many there are, and what they seek, if you can divine by any token, without speaking to them. Don't let yourself be seen before you come and tell me. Heaven send it may be a party of rich pilgrims come to seek shelter at Eppenfeld! We will treat them hospitably, and send them lightly on their way."
"If they're pilgrims, they're pilgrims in steel coats," answered Stephen; while the man whom his lord called Fritz, hurried off to take a better survey.
These tidings did not seem to please his lord, for the Baron's brow knit, and after looking two or three times towards the door of the hall, he was in the act of rising to go out, when his second messenger returned, saying with a laugh, "It's Ferdinand of Altenburg, whom you have seen with the Count of Ehrenstein; and with him he's got ten men of the castle."
"Are you sure of the youth?" demanded the Baron. "We must have no mistakes, though we can manage ten men well enough; ay, or forty, if they send them."
"Oh, I am quite sure," answered Fritz; "for he has got his beaver up, and I can see his face as well as I can see yours."
"What can the Count want?" murmured Eppenfeld to himself. "Well, we are good friends enough, and he is not very particular as to what he does himself, so let them in, and bring the youth straight hither.--Take away these cups and tankards, and make the place look orderly. Then let every drunken man hie to his own sty, for if the good Count wants help with the strong hand, we may perchance have to mount before nightfall."
With a good deal of scrambling and confusion, the board was cleared, and laid edgeways at the side of the hall, the tressels, the cups, the flagons, and all the other implements which they had employed in the revel were hastily removed, and after the horn at the gates had been sounded loudly once or twice, Fritz, and two or three of the more sober of the soldiery, went out to give admission to the followers of the lord of Ehrenstein.
In the mean while the Baron walked up and down the hall, considering gravely the question of what the Count of Ehrenstein could want with him--for those were days when men were so much accustomed to plunder and wrong each other, that suspicion mingled with almost every transaction of life, and neither rogues nor honest men ever trusted each other without a doubt. Before his cogitations came to an end, Ferdinand--having left the horses, and several of his followers to take care of them, in the outer court--was ushered into the hall, with five stout men at his back; and advanced at once towards the Baron, through the different groups of somewhat wild and fierce looking retainers, who formed the favourite household of the good lord of Eppenfeld.
"Well, good youth, what do you want with me?" asked the Baron. "If I am not much mistaken, you are young Ferdinand of Altenburg, who was page some years since to my fair cousin the Count of Ehrenstein.--Whom do you follow now?"
"The same, my lord," replied Ferdinand, "and the Count has sent me to you with his friendly greeting; bidding me say, that he learns from the complaint of certain Venetian merchants, that some of your people, not knowing that they were journeying to the Castle of Ehrenstein, or that the treasure they carried was his, have stopped and plundered them on the highway from Zweibrücken. He bids me now tell you, however, that such is the case, and requires not only that the whole shall be instantly restored, but that compensation shall be made for the injury which your people have inflicted upon these merchants and their followers."
Here the Baron of Eppenfeld interrupted him by a loud laugh, "On my life," he cried, "thou art a bold youth to bring me such a message!"
"That message is not yet done, my lord," answered Ferdinand, coolly. "The Count bade me add, that the compensation to the merchants is to be awarded by himself and Count Frederick of Leiningen, now sojourning with him at Ehrenstein, and commanded me to require an answer at your hands without delay, that he may take measures accordingly."
The Baron gazed at him, as if in surprise at his audacity; but yet at the mention of the name of Count Frederick of Leiningen as a guest in the Castle of Ehrenstein, a shade of doubt seemed to come over his face; and when the youth had done, he turned abruptly from him, and paced up and down the hall for a minute. Then, stopping again as suddenly, he replied, "If I say bluntly, No, what have you to answer then?"
"My task then would be," answered Ferdinand, "to defy you in the name of my good lord and of Count Frederick, and to tell you that they will be before your gates in arms ere four-and-twenty hours are over."
The Baron bit his lip. "Tell them that Eppenfeld is high," he answered; "tell them that its lord wears a sword that has made braver men than they are skip--tell them--yet stay, I will consider this, and consult with my people. You shall lodge here to-night and sup with me, and perhaps ere to-morrow I shall consider my old friendship with your lord rather than my anger at his rash message."
"I fear that cannot be, my lord," answered Ferdinand; "I am neither to eat, to drink, to sleep, or spare the spur for more than half an hour, till I bear back your answer."
"By my faith! then, no other shall you have," cried the Baron, vehemently; "and if you seek more, you shall have it in a dungeon of the castle.--Ay, tell the Count what I have said; and you may add that he had better mind his own affairs, and meddle not with my booty, or he may find that I will not only have revenge in arms, but other retribution which will fall heavier still: tell him I know things which, though he thinks they have been buried deep for well nigh twenty years, may yet pull him down from where he stands, and give him to the emperor's headsman. So much for the Count of Ehrenstein."
"And what for Count Frederick of Leiningen," asked Ferdinand, not at all daunted by the fierce looks and tones of the Baron. "I was equally charged by him to defy you."
"Good faith! your impudence well nigh makes me laugh," exclaimed the Baron. "What for Count Frederick of Leiningen? Why, tell His Highness that I thank him gratefully for the good prize he put into my hands, and that he shall have the share stipulated by his lad, Martin of Dillberg. You may say, moreover, that I was very cautious," the Baron continued, with a bitter sneer, "and attended to all the warnings given me. I never meddled with the men till they were on my own land, without a pass from me. If they will do such things, they must bear the consequences. I have taken my toll of them, and I shall keep it, if all the counts in the empire said me Nay. So now begone, and remember that you tell both my loving cousins in each other's presence, what I have said in answer to their messages."
Ferdinand of Altenburg made no reply, but took a step back towards the door, very doubtful, to say the truth, whether he would be permitted to reach it. He was suffered to pass uninterrupted, however; but the moment he had quitted the hall, the man Fritz, who acted as the Baron's lieutenant, sprang to his lord's side, and murmured eagerly some words of advice. Those who were around did not hear all that he said, but some broken parts of sentences were audible, such as, "Let us have four-and-twenty hours at least--never stand a strict leaguer so badly provided--bring the beeves from the wood; and call in all the men.--We can do it in a minute--here are only ten with him."
The Baron nodded his head, and made a sign with his hand; and Fritz, beckoning to the rest of the men to follow, hurried out into the court-yard.
Ferdinand of Altenburg had one foot in the stirrup, when the Baron's lieutenant approached him; and the rest of the men of Ehrenstein were scattered about--some mounting their horses, others mounted. The gate was open and the drawbridge down, and not more than fourteen or fifteen of the soldiers of Eppenfeld were in the court when Fritz entered it. Proceeding cautiously, therefore, he touched Ferdinand's arm lightly, saying, "My good lord would fain speak with you for a moment farther, young Sir."
"I must not stay any longer," answered Ferdinand, and was in the act of springing into the saddle, when Fritz, seeing a number of others following from the hall, threw himself suddenly upon him, and endeavoured to pinion his arms. Ferdinand was younger and more active, though perhaps not so strong; and with a blow of his gauntlet struck the man down, freeing himself from his grasp. A scene of struggling confusion succeeded, in the course of which the young man and all his followers but two were overpowered by the superior numbers of their opponents, and carried back as captives into the castle. The other two were men who had already mounted, and who, at the first sign of this unequal strife pushed their horses towards the gates, dashed over the drawbridge, and took their way at full speed down the valley.
In the mean time, Ferdinand of Altenburg was dragged back into the castle, but instead of being taken to the hall, was hurried along the passages, and down a narrow flight of steps, to a small room or cell, which perhaps did not exactly deserve the name of a dungeon, for it was actually above the ground, but which was dim, damp, and inconvenient enough. In those days, however, the things which we are accustomed to look upon as absolute necessaries, were merely luxuries, and people of very high station fared hard and lay harder; so that a pallet bed, a narrow chamber, a little light, and a stone floor, were hardships not aggravated to the mind of Ferdinand by a contrast with any great delicacy of nurture.
He did not remonstrate with those who bore him along, for he was well aware that by so doing, he would only waste his breath; and indeed he said nothing, for threats he knew could only aggravate the rigours of his imprisonment, and he looked upon patience as a sovereign balm for all such misfortunes as those to which he was now subjected. Neither did he resist at all, from the moment it became evident that resistance would be in vain; and thus, though he was dragged along at first with some degree of violence, the men who held him soon slackened their speed, and relaxed their grasp. When they had pushed him into the cell, they stood leaning against the lintels of the door, gazing at him for a moment before they shut it; and the man Fritz, whose right cheek and eye displayed very remarkable evidence of the strength with which Ferdinand had struck him, seemed now not a little surprised at the calmness and good-humour with which the young gentleman bore his fate.
"Well you take it vastly quietly, Master Ferdinand of Altenburg," said the man; "you seem as if you rather liked it than otherwise."
"Oh, no," answered Ferdinand, laughing; "I don't like it; but, as I expected it from the very first, I am not taken by surprise. There would be no benefit either, my good friend, in my struggling with you after struggling is useless, or in railing at you when railing would have no effect, and, therefore, all I have to say on the subject is, that there can be little good in keeping me here, since some of the men have got off, for I saw them with my own eyes. They will carry the news just as well as I could, and before this time to-morrow you will have the two Counts under Eppenfeld."
"That's all very good," answered Fritz; "but I shall keep you here, notwithstanding."
"I hope not on account of the blow I gave you," said Ferdinand; "no good soldier ever resents a fair blow received in strife."
"No, no," replied the other; "if you knocked me down, I tripped you up, so that's all equal; but I have two good reasons for keeping you:--first, my good lord having more wine than wit in his head, I am thinking, sent messages to the two Counts which could do no good, and might do much harm; and secondly, you'll be a sort of hostage, young man. I know the Count loves you well, and would not like to see you dangling from the battlements, like a pear from the end of a branch."
"He would not much care, I fancy," answered Ferdinand, indifferently. "But in the mean time, I should like to have some supper, for if a man is to be hanged to-morrow, that is no reason why he should not eat and drink to-day."
"Well, supper you shall have, and good wine to boot," answered Fritz. "You seem to bear a light heart, and ought not to want wherewithal to keep it up.--It is lucky that hanging is soon over, and can't happen twice, so good night and God speed ye!"
With this peculiar topic of consolation the man left him to comfort himself as best he might, and closing the door behind him, swung up a ponderous wooden bar, and pushed the bolts into the staples.