THE BISHOP’S SERMON.
The country round Bischofstein was swarming with robber-knights and pillagers of every degree, to such an extent, that the Archbishop Johann of Trèves sent out a strong band of knights, who took up their abode in the castle of Bischofstein.
The knights stayed the ravages, and soon the robbers found their occupation gone, and good living on plunder a thing of the past; so they took counsel together as to what should be done.
The robbers determined that Bischofstein must be taken and the knights in its garrison slain; therefore, with the utmost secrecy, a plan was concocted by which they succeeded in entering the castle by stealth: thus they were able to seize on the knights and their servants, and they slew every one.
A poor peasant who was in the fort contrived to escape, and he carried the tidings to the Archbishop, who sent out an army, which arrived at the fort and found all the robbers sleeping, quite drunk: these they quickly despatched, and the fort was regarrisoned.
Then the Bishop Johann caused a white line to be made round the wall of the tower, that all rogues should see, and by noting the fate of the robbers preserve themselves from the stern hand of justice. “Thus,” said the Bishop, “I preach them a sermon by which evildoers from sin may be saved; if they heed not this warning, the sword must preach in its turn.”
Hatzeport, which we pass on the way to the castle of Ehrenburg, is a well-built, well-to-do place, with a fine church. It stands at the entrance of one of the innumerable valleys that break the great ridges of mountain that shut in the course of our river.
Crossing from thence to the village of Brodenbach, we enter a gorge of the hills which conducts us to the beautiful valley, at the far end of which the castle of Ehrenburg seems hanging in air.
The contrast of the sweet smiling valley, with its brook murmuring along, makes the stern fortress more gloomy. Leaving the valley, we gradually ascend by a footpath, until at length we reach where the draw-bridge formerly stood; now there is but the stone pillar that used to sustain it.
Some rough steps lead up to the gate-tower, and a ring at the bell brought a chubby-faced child, that looked much out of place amid the ruins. We entered, and an old dreamy man took the place of the child; he led us through a ruined garden that surrounded a tower of immense thickness, entering which he slowly led us by a winding road, that would admit six men to mount abreast, up to the summit of the tower.
To our surprise we now were on a piece of level ground; this tower, which was the only entrance, having been built on a lower ledge of rock.
The garden we were in was neatly kept and full of vegetables; at its extremity stood the castle, from the centre of which, and on a still higher piece of rock, the donjon keep, with its twin towers, rose up: these towers are circular, and joined by a double wall.
All round outside the walls was air; the valley seemed far away: for hundreds of feet, a pebble that we dropped fell down, striking nothing till it came into the depths of the valley. Much of the ruin still remains, and the old man showed us how we might ascend to the top of the twin towers.
There we sat wrapped in solitude, the valleys far beneath us, and the hills spread out like a raised map, with here a tint of green where trees should be, and there a grey patch for rock, while over them shone out a bit of molten silver where our river flowed: so was the whole country charted out for us, and here for hours we sat, our senses drinking with delight from the pure well of fresh, sweet pleasure raised by our most novel situation.
The old man sat still beneath us; and the records in our hand told us what the old guide could not, the legends of the place.
The Knights of Ehrenburg were vassals of the great Counts of Sponheim, and very powerful in council and war; the last of the race was Count Frederick, who, according to the Chronicle of Limburg, burnt down a great part of Coblence: his reason for so doing appears in the following legend:—